"Creation, Compromise, and Contention " by Link2Eternity

Creation, Compromise, and Contention

Blog: Link2Eternity

February 11, 2011

Any swimmer who has taken-on the beach knows that the visible waves aren't the most dangerous obstacles to his efforts. The greater danger lies in the undercurrents that can sweep the most avid swimmer to his death.

So it is with the underlying belief system behind some Christian’s teachings on origins. I realize that most evangelicals dismiss the strict atheism of naturalistic evolutionists, but their attempts to appear scientifically credible at the expense of a sound and certain theology is troubling. The following scriptural issues, however, will help mark the dangers, the undercurrents if you will, of accommodating atheistic interpretations of reality.

Theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists are those who have married two very incompatible views of the world. One is atheistic evolution and the other is a biblical creationism that is foundational to everything we believe as Christians.

In this unholy matrimony, many Christians have adopted concepts that aren't only consistent with a purely atheistic view of the world but absolutely contrary to a biblical one. These guys and/or gals, as the case may be, believe that God used evolution as the means of creating the universe. Sounds harmless enough at first, doesn’t it?

First, In accordance with popular thinking, many Christians have sacrificed the 24-hour days of Genesis 1 in favor of the millions of years required by the evolutionary model. Evolution requires great amounts of time, they tell us; so to accommodate the “science” of the day, Christians jumped on the bandwagon without understanding the philosophical and theological pitfalls connected to that one compromise.

The argument goes something like this, “Oh, God created the material universe, but he used evolution, millions of years of it, to accomplish the task.” G.K. Chesterton addressed this idea; noting that from an evolutionary perspective, the atheistic or the “Christian” type, a concept is not more intelligible simply because more time is involved. "… Slowness,” he said, “has really nothing to do with the question. An event is not more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves."

Second, consider the other compromises that logically follow the first concession. Since you’ve sacrificed the “time” element, you may be hard-pressed, for consistencies sake, to sacrifice the order of events in the Creation account as well.

Note the reference to light on the first day for example (Genesis 1:11-19) and reconcile that fact with the creation of the sun and moon on day four. According to the text, there were no heavenly bodies of light on day one, so what was the light source? You can say God was the light, like a good Christian might, but that is as unacceptable to the passionate evolutionist as a six-literal-day creation.

Then consider another little problem associated with your first concession. According to the text, the earth's vegetation was also created (day 3) before the sun. (Day 4) How did that happen? Is there a natural explanation or did God create and then sustain the vegetation for millions of years until the sun was made. Such a miracle would be no problem for the God of the Bible; but my point is that such a miracle is just as preposterous to the evolutionist as a six-literal-day creation. "For a man who does not believe in a miracle," says Chesterton again, "a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one." Why not just accept the miraculous up front; because eventually, you’re going to have to insert it in the equation somewhere.

I’m no betting man, but I bet the moment you introduce any miracle of any length or size to the discussion, you will loose the intellectual acceptance by those whom you’ve tried so hard to impress in the first place. The miraculous is unacceptable in any form to the pure naturalist but central to the Christian system of thought. How then can they marry?

Can you see the problem? When you concede the supernatural in one area, before long you concede another. Compromise, like the unseen undercurrent, drags you down and threatens your entire worldview. You begin to think more like the atheist who excludes the supernatural entirely. I like what Norman Geisler said. “Belief in miracles, do not destroy the integrity of the scientific methodology, only its sovereignty.”

Tony Watts can be reached at Tony@link2eternity.com

Darkwing 2 years, 3 months ago

Back in the 80's I had to take a class on the OT and NT at Hardin-Simmons University. The professor said "The bible does not tell you HOW the universe was created, only WHY and BY WHOM". Naturally, the seminary students were upset. Ironically, they were more upset by that by-product of logic than the facts presented in the class that: 1. Genesis up to Joseph was Sumerian mythology predating the Hebrews and cribbed from them to pad out the book, 2. Joseph was a composite of the story of many different Hebrews over the years. 3. The KJV was the most innaccurate translation, based on 14 previous translations, none of which were from the original Aramaic (OT) or Koine Greek (NT and Septuagint). Of course, being inaccurate is utterly incompatible with INERRANT. Among other interesting things, the verse about suffering a witch to live was actually a POISONER, as in someone who poisoned or fouled the well or oasis that desert communities depended on. Such a person could wipe out a town or even a small region, so it made excellent sense for the Hebrews to sanction such individuals with extreme prejudice. Most of the rules in the OT had a survival value then that no longer applies, such as eating pork. Today, due to far better and cleaner methods of butchering, storing, and preparing the meat, trichinosis isn't an issue. IOW, most of the rules fundamentalists cite are ignored today because they are irrelevant.

Oh, and just to stir things up a little bit more, the prohibition on taking the Lord's name in vain IS NOT and NEVER WAS a restriction on certain cuss words. It refers to taking a vow in God's name. If you say "By God, I will____", you'd better keep your word.

I can far more easily accept the idea that God set off the Big Bang than that He cheats at solitaire (AlaKazot theory of creationism) and lies to us about it (dinosaur bones, homo erectus, etc). If He is willing to take shortcuts and then cover it up, He's not a worthy god to worship. OTOH, if He had nothing to do with the Big Bang or evolution, and yet they happened, then He's a minor diety taking credit for more than he really deserves (unless, say, He's an alien scientist who modified Cro-Magnon dna to create Adam and Eve and the story got garbled...). I'll stick with the idea of God kicking off the Big Bang and then sitting back to see where His creation goes. William

Darkwing 2 years, 3 months ago

Another issue: The Hebrews were a primitive people at the time, just like everyone else. Their creation myth had to be comprehensible to them at the time, and they had NO scientific background - the scientific method hadn't been invented yet - on which to base their ideas. So the order of creation in Genesis, and the time element are really nothing more than window-dressing for the tale, which really has only one important element - naming the creator. William

link2eternity 2 years, 3 months ago

Hello William, We’d best take care not to be too nice to each other here. We may give people the impression that we can continue to disagree without calling each other names.

First, let me say that you address many issues in the one post, and while some have no bearing on the issue they are still important. I will first address the info you use to link biblical accounts of historical characters and events to Sumerian works. “Genesis up to Joseph (as) Sumerian mythology predating the Hebrews and cribbed from them to pad out the book.”

The whole idea is part of “higher critical thinking,” in which those involved attempt to “demythologize,” or eliminate the miraculous. It emerged due to the same Darwinian influence about which we debate here. In other words, those who accepted the naturalistic worldview also consider religion, as in belief in God in general, and Christianity in particular, as the mere constructs of human imagination. With that being said, the idea that God had any part in the origin of the universe must be rejected as must any part of the Bible that seems the least bit supernatural.

That is also why such thinkers reject the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. His authorship implies belief in “revelation” and, of course, that idea is contingent upon the supernatural, the very component under attack by the system of thought.

Of course, there is another recourse for the believer, the creationist in fact, which appeals to the testimony of Jesus. He attributed the Pentateuch to Moses and unless I’m ready to claim some sort of superiority to his claims and actions, including the physical resurrection, I won’t spar with his knowledge of neither God nor the world he made.

With his knowledge of the Divine, as God incarnate according to the t ext, I will side with him. Of course, this isn't your average appeal to authority because Jesus confirmed his claims to deity with the physical resurrection, an event, I might add, that has the weight of history behind it.

Another popular misconception, which, by the way, is often used in conjunction with the demythologization of scripture, declares is that popular stories of similar kind ipso facto disqualifies all of them from historical actuality. Just because, for example, that the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible offer flood accounts doesn’t make both accounts ipso facto false. In fact, with the number of accounts from various peoples separated geographically and culturally gives strong indication, even apart from the resurrection of Jesus and the authority he confirmed as a result and the geological evidence, that something on a universal scale took place.

Neither does the idea of Joseph’s popularity among other groups nullify his actual existence as a part of the Hebrew history. The creation accounts are no different. Just because all are somewhat different doesn’t ipso facto nullify them all.

Darkwing 2 years, 3 months ago

We're too civil? OK. SNARL, GROWL! Is that enough?

My point is that, since the creation account is cribbed from a previous peoples' mythology, and it answered people's questions in a manner they could understand with their limited knowledge (academically - they knew a lot more than you or I do about living in a stone age desert), it should not be relied on for factual information about the process.

Joseph being a composite simply means they condensed the stories of many individuals into one representative in order to keep it simple, comprehensible, and easy to tell. Moses is considered the author of the pentateuch, yes, but scholars believe that he only recorded oral history from previous generations for Genesis. The next four books were written as they happened, and so are far more useful as fact and history. That doesn't mean that a deluge didn't happen, only that Moses had to take the stories from however many storytellers he could find, and combine them into one account, edited as he saw fit to create one written account, so details cannot be counted on for strict as-written accuracy.

next, add in the differences in translation of various versions of the bible, and the demostrated historical discrepancies, and the doctrine of inerrancy is shown to be false. That means the bible can be seen more as a guide to faith than a history or science text, which is more in keeping with it's authors' intent. Inerrancy is a modern attempt to justify creationism, based on rejecting Darwin.

People forget that Darwin was a theologian who sought to find evidence for the biblical account, and ended up changing his mind when he saw first-hand the results of evolution (then a radical hypothesis), and became one of the most famous proponents. He did not turn his back on his faith, he simply realized that god's canvas was a lot bigger than he'd thought.

This is why I do not agree that religion and science are incompatible, or that theistic evolution cannot work.

link2eternity 2 years, 3 months ago

Hello William, “Growl” back at ya!

First, I would like to hear the particular inaccuracies about which you spoke.

Sorry it took so long to get back with you, but been job hunting and writing my weekly column.

The biblical truth concerning “inspiration” is often misunderstood. In fact, it is often confused with “revelation” when, in fact, revelation is the direct communication by God to human beings, and it takes several forms. Natural revelation consists of both an external and internal means of divine communiqué, as in the objective cosmos itself and its correspondence with the mind of man, and then the human conscience, which makes us inherently and indubitably moral creatures. This moral consciousness declares a higher moral standard and given the law of first cause with the cause necessarily greater than the effect.

Natural Revelation is the direct manifestation of God’s existence and nature to men. It is divine and direct intervention, generally speaking, into the thoughts and affairs of men. Man, despite his attempts to do so, cannot rid himself of this nagging sense of his divine origin.

I would contend, however, that SPECIAL revelation informed Moses of the creation, flood, and Babel accounts. It is possible, however, that some of his information concerning their heritage as the people of God emerged via oral tradition, but the doctrine of “inspiration” would insure that only a historically accurate version emerged.

The assumption that all orally transmitted information is ipso facto erroneous is a stretch though. It is logical and practically conceivable that one particular version, if such info was used in the first place, does not condemn the biblical account to the abyss of mythology and historical error. Even if, as you say, “scholars believe that he only recorded oral history from previous generations for Genesis,” does no harm to the historicity.

In fact, the biblical and logical argument would be that “inspiration” guaranteed that only the correct version emerged. The Gospel of Luke, for example, states forthrightly that the famed contemporary doctor of the apostles gathered much of his information from other sources. Luke 1:1-3

Here, I would say that inspiration guaranteed that only the sound versions of the life of Christ emerged and this is consistent with the doctrine of inspiration.

Concerning the idea that Darwin was a theologian, I understand the basis of the argument and it may have it place. The only problem, however, is that every worldview has its trophies. I have two books written by former preachers who are now atheists. I could also, for example, tout the move of Antony Flew, the atheists that all other atheists have quoted, from atheism to theism as one of our greatest. Other factors are important in such “gains.” The issue I want to stress here is that such trophies do not an argument make.

Keep it coming, I am enjoyuing the interaction.

Tony

Darkwing 2 years, 3 months ago

http://www.coppit.org/god/contradictions.php http://www.thoughttheater.com/2008/08/more_on_the_historical_inaccuracy_of_the_bible.php http://www.thoughttheater.com/2008/07/hector_avalos_how_archaeology_killed_biblical_hist.php http://www.provethebible.net/T2-Verac/C-0503.htm http://www.provethebible.net/T2-Verac/C-0503.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_co... http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13695-evolution-myths-the-theory-is-wrong-because-the-bible-is-inerrant.html http://www.provethebible.net/T1/History.htm I don’t recall everything off the top of my head, but here’s a few links to some of it. I recall the poison reference I made above, and the Nativity differs in the Gospels. Aside from that, there are varying interpretations of prophecies, differening accounts and lists of ancestry, and a lack of Roman records for persons mentioned in the NT.

On the Darwin thing, I just wanted to make the point that he wasn't trying to disprove the bible or rain on church doctrine, as too many creationists today believe. I've been told, in utter sincerity, that on his deathbed he repented a life of atheism and ask forgiveness for the sin of inventing his pernicious lies.

As you say, neither that fable, nor his own views of religion carry any weight in the facts of the method of creation, yet I often see them used to 'zing' opponents.

ndtorrey 2 years, 3 months ago

It is a shame that all discussions of the Bible, mostly the story of Genesis, devolve into a discussion of historic context. I do not believe that the Bible or many other great books for that matter were meant to be taken as sterile journalistic documents of the beginning of the world. Imagine if the criterion for the truth of a written document was if it corresponded point for point with some actual event. Don't we often read books and stories that tell us something true about mankind, God, and the whole of creation without being based on literal events?

Poetry and literature are especially good at revealing truth without being histories. Despite not being based on historic events, they are able to give us great insights into the world and they are not merely subjective observations either. The historicity of Don Quxiote fighting windmills, Gulliver going to Lilliput or Lucifer tempting Eve in Milton's Paradise Lost are never up for debate but they are still recognized as books containing truths about the human condition worthy of understanding.

This is why I think discussions from both the conservative and liberal Christian perspectives on the historic truth of stories like Genesis miss the point. Instead of asking the technical details of when, where, and how we should ask what stories like Genesis are telling about humanity, God, and the world we live. Are we fallen? What does it mean to be created in the likeness of God? If we are, what does that say about God? Was man created free or not? What does it mean that possessing the knowledge of good and evil is something we were not originally created for? These more philosophical questions and the implications from our answers to them are what interest me, not the technicalities. Historicity should only be important for one story: The Resurrection of Christ. But that is a comment for a different time.

link2eternity 2 years, 3 months ago

Hello Again William,

Sorry it took so long to get back but between beings sick and job hunting, I’ve had to prioritize my life a bit.

Let me begin by addressing the “links” you posted. As far as I can tell, every “contradiction” listed by the skeptical sites you listed were a compilation of those that have been resolved by biblical scholars for quite some time.

The problem with many of them is that they don’t even qualify as possible “contradictions” at all, but are, rather, variant views of the same events; particularly in the Gospels involving the Resurrection accounts. A contradiction is claiming that A is non-A at the same time and the same relationship. For example, when one account of the resurrection says that 2 angels were present and one account says that 1 was present, neither text says that the appearances took place at the same time and in the same relationship. In fact, the Gospel of John notes that the there were 3 trips on 3 different occasions to the empty tomb of Jesus. It is perfectly reasonable to conclude that on one occasion 1 angel appeared and that on a different occasion 2 angels appeared. Many of the “contradictions” are easily reconciled with a closer look at the text and the context and then putting the pieces together. (This is just one example)

Other “contradictions,” so called, are easily reconciled via a sound theology. Understanding God’s sovereign role as the architectural cause of all events combined with the personal, i.e. satanic or human, involvement of free moral agents as the direct cause of certain events solves many more of them.

Your assertion that so many versions somehow discredit inerrancy isn't a fair treatment of the inerrancy issue. Inerrancy applies to the original text while translations, any of them, have those issues typical of any translational process. The way that the NIV, KJV, ASV, etc, translate a passage may translate certain words differently but that does no harm to the inerrancy issue.

Second, much textual work has yielded a textual accuracy to 99.9% with no particular doctrinal issue in question. I suggest reading Josh McDowell in regard to these issues.

Nor do “interpretive” issues apply to the inerrancy issue. We are not promised error free interpretive skills. We only defend the inerrancy of the text as “God Breathed.”

Also, I do understand what you were saying in regard to Darwin.

Tony

link2eternity 2 years, 3 months ago

Hello ndtorrey,

Good to have you on board.

Before we begin the discussion, I must ask why you consider the historicity of the resurrection vital to the Christian faith and then downplay the historicity of the historical narrative of Genesis? I see no hermeneutic consistency in doing so.

While we read many books without ascribing actual historical interpretations to them, I have no reason to think that Genesis was written for any other purpose than a historical one. In fact, it records not only the history of our origins, a literal ex nihilo creation by the word of God and then the literal salvific history of mankind but God’s actual historical and gracious intervention into the affairs of man in order to bring salvation in space and time in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

It is the historicity of Adam’s fall that haunts us to this day. In fact, as one apologist put it, “human depravity, while one of the most contested of Christian doctrines, is one of the easiest to prove.” It records the cause of the obvious effect, sin.

Paul’s reference to the “first Adam” is the logical historical reference to the sufficiency of the actual death of the Savior himself. It is the Genesis account, the historical account, of Adam and his fall that gives credence to the propositional truths he gives us. (1Corinthians 15:45)

Creation of the universe is one thing but the existence of pain, suffering, and our ultimate nemesis, apart from Christ of course, death, are explained in the literal historical fall of Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22). The contrast makes sense only if the account of the fall is as literal, historically, as the life wrought in Jesus.

Even in regard to marriage, Jesus takes the original couple and their joining to each other as the divine paradigm for marriage as literal. His words to the religious intelligentsia in regard to divorce maintained a historical referent or it would have been useless (Matthew 19:8).

These are just a few because there are many other reasons for accepting Genesis as historical narrative. While much of it may have been revelatory, it does not annul the fact that it was true history.

Tony