We did not touch very much on creationist theories regarding God’s work in creation. I mentioned briefly the intelligent design movement and demonstrated a few (in a very elementary fashion) of their arguments. If anyone has any ideas they want to toss around, now would be the time.
As I mentioned, I am a young earth guy who believes in a literal six day creation. I believe one can hold this position and still be in harmony with true science. I reject all scientific opining on origins that deal only with naturalistic assumptions. I believe that this is not science. Science must deal with things that are observable and testable. This is why my view of creation is biased towards the authority of Scripture on the matter. Now, others will say that Scripture says something quite different than a literal six day creation. I am fine with that, although I don’t agree. The cultural battle of origins will never be won if Christians are committed to fighting one another. We need to inject reasonable and rationale arguments for intelligent creation into the public sphere that demonstrate the fallacies of naturalism as a worldview and force the naturalist academy to admit their own religious beliefs that cloud their scientific judgement.
April 16, 2007 at 3:07 pm
I’m waiting for Doctor Wakefield to show up so this can get serious.
April 17, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Well, here I am.
Although, since Frank and I and Tad and I have already had this discussion I’m not sure that I can really add anything more.
But since it is possible that all of HABC will eventually read these comments, let me just say that I thought Tad did a great job with his message on the Creation. I didn’t have any problem with anything that he said, not even his comments about a literal 6 day creation!!! Why? Because he prefaced it by saying that it was his opinion, and he also clarified, that within the “Body” there are a vast continuum of ideas concerning the creation event.
With that being said let me give my reasons why, even though I can have love and fellowship with 6 day literalists, I think they are incorrect in their interpretation of the Genesis account.
Psalm 19 says that the heavens declare the glories of God, and Rom. 1:20 states that from the beginning His invisible attributes, power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made… Both of these verses testify about the General Revelation of God through the creation. Ancient and pagan cultures reflect this because they generated a multitude of Myths and legends to explain why the creation was like it was. They knew there was something outside of themselves that was big enough and powerful enough to control the creation. Thus, our need for God’s Special Revelation in the scripture. The primary purpose of the Genesis account is not to give us a specific “recipe” for exactly how the creation came into being. Instead, it was given to clarify and testify to the truth concerning WHO the creator was. Not the multitude of Egyptian dieties; not the Greek Pantheon; not the Norse gods of Valhalla, but the one true, living God.
God also gave us the ability to understand what He had made and ordained the process of scientific discovery. (The first act of science was when God called the animals before Adam so that he could name them. This is the science of Taxonomy, and it occurred before “the Fall”, thus, God ordained science before sin entered the world!!!)
Through science, we have been able to clearly see and understand more about God’s creation. Science is a way of knowing. (It is not the only way, as some would claim, but it certainly is A WAY of knowing.) All of the advancements in technology that make our lives comfortable were made through science. We know that if our kids get a streptococcus infection and we give them an antibiotic they will get well(modern medicine=science). We know that if we apply nitrates and phosphates to our garden plants we can get a better crop of vegetables (modern agriculture=science). We know that if we aim a tube filled with explosive chemicals, and people and ignite it at just the right time, we can land those people on the moon (modern physics=science). These are all things that we can know and show to be true. We can also look at light that is coming from the nearest galaxy (the Andromeda) and measure how long that light has been traveling and show that it has been traveling for approximately 2 million years. That means that the universe is at least that old. But there are much much more distant objects than this in the universe. Admitedly the farther out we go the more the level of accuracy in measurements becomes less and less, but our best estimates are that the universe is around 14.5 billion years old. There are also other types of measurements that can be made right here on earth that indicate that the earth is around 4.6 billion years old. These are also based on sound scientific principles.
So, if “the heavens really do declare God’s handiwork” and the earth truly displays God’s splendor (Psalm 8), then I have to believe that the earth and the universe is really old.
Now, some people might comment, well God could just make things look really old. (In fact, this is inherent in a Young Earth creationist idea. The creation would have to be made with an “appearance” of age. Adam and Eve would have been adults, not babies only one day old. The garden would have to have had mature fruit trees and animals were adults not cubs and ponies, goslings, etc.) My primary disagreement with the appearance of age idea, is I can’t believe that God would try and fool me. By purposely making the light look really old, He gives the appearance that the universe has been around for a really long time. Why would God want to fool people into believing this if in fact the universe is only 10,000 years old?
Some have suggested that it might be done to test our faith. But my question would be, to what end? Faith is given by God for salvation. Not to support one particular idea of creation over another. There will not be an angel standing at the entrance to heaven, checking everyones creation theory cards to see who gets in and who is excluded. This kind of thinking is actually a barrier to the salvation of many scientifically minded people.
Some have also said that a really old universe somehow detracts from the “glory of God.” That if the origin of the universe and the earth is explainable in any other way than the literalist reading of Genesis, this somehow diminishes God’s power. My comment is that 14 billion years seems like a long time to us, but what is it to an infinte God? If it took Him 1000 billion years, that is still just a blink of an eye to a God who is outside of time and space. And this argument could also be turned around…if God is really all powerful, why didn’t he create everything in a single moment? Why did it take him 6 whole days to do it? This is of course a ridiculous argument. God does what He does because He wills it to be so. This same sentiment would then also apply to a creation that is very old.
Well, I guess I’ll shut-up now and see if this has generated any feedback.
April 17, 2007 at 10:13 pm
For me, I believe in the six day Creation, because that’s what the inspired Word of God says. I don’t try to interpret if Jesus was in the tomb for a literal three days – I know that there’s nothing in the Scripture that God has not allowed to be there and take that as a part of faith. I wasn’t there, so there’s trust on my part, too!
God knows every hair on my head and the grains of sand on earth – I have a hard time believing that He would say six days, but mean something else. Like Tad mentioned in Sunday’s sermon, there were no witnesses to Creation – God’s the authority and spoke it to Moses.
Genesis 1:1-2:3
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
April 17, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Dr. Wakefield,
Just as a point of clarification, which position is it that you espouse? It sounds like Theistic Evolution, but I just wanted to make sure that I understood your point of view before I discussed it further.
Thanks in advance for providing clarification and insight.
April 18, 2007 at 10:23 am
Dr. Wakefield,
To be honest, I thought your primary argument against a mature earth was rather weak. God wasn’t trying to fool us by making the creation look old, but he just created it mature. If none of the plants in the garden were mature, could Adam have survived?
Why would God try to fool us by inspiring Moses to write that God created the universe in six days if he really did it in 600 billion years? I agree that God could have done it in as much or little time as He wanted. That is not the point. The point is that the Scripture says He did it in six days.
Good hermeneutics is to interpret Scripture literally. This was the second principle of interpretation during the reformation known as Luther’s sensus literalis. This means to interpret something literally is to pay attention to the litera or to the letters and words which are being used. To interpret the bible literally is to interpret its words and sentences accroding to their natural, normal, and usual sense instead of allegorizing and so forth. Of course some passages are symbolic by nature by nature such as passages in the book of Revelation. But even these passages, although written in symbolic language – describe somethin that will literally happen.
April 18, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I want to make just one point concerning the age of the earth then I am going on to another topic concerning creation in another post. Here is a quote from Tim:
“These are all things that we can know and show to be true. We can also look at light that is coming from the nearest galaxy (the Andromeda) and measure how long that light has been traveling and show that it has been traveling for approximately 2 million years. That means that the universe is at least that old. But there are much much more distant objects than this in the universe. Admitedly the farther out we go the more the level of accuracy in measurements becomes less and less, but our best estimates are that the universe is around 14.5 billion years old. There are also other types of measurements that can be made right here on earth that indicate that the earth is around 4.6 billion years old. These are also based on sound scientific principles.”
All I would say is that we don’t know that measuring light means anything about the age of the earth. Just because I can measure something now, does not mean that that one can automatically deduce how that light arrived and how long it took to arrive. This idea is based on assumptions on how the light was created. The measurements may be accurate, but the assumption that one can deduce that the earth is that old is only an assumption.
The same is true for radiometric dating techniques that geologists use. Those techniquest are based on a series of assumptions that include a concept called uniformitarianism that is required for Darwinism to be true. Thus, this type of dating is tied to ‘belief’ not scientific fact. It leaves no room for objectivity in measuring age because it assumes the constancy of conditions over that supposed very long period of time. It also eliminates the idea of a global flood and forces a localized context to the biblical account. Which makes the covenant with Noah senseless because he has allowed locales to be flooded such as New Orleans, but he has never again allowed the earth to be flooded.
It makes perfect sense to me that God created the earth with the special intention of showing his glory and providing a place to house those created in his image. This world came complete with all that was necessary for life to flourish. When we analyze creation within this framework there is no problem that God created the entire universe as we see it, except that it was even better before the fall.
As for six days and a seventh day of rest. Certainly – God did not need a nanosecond to create 1 billion universes. But he gave us a record through the prophet Moses that tells us something about himself. He gave us a framework in which to order our lives with the gift of time. This was not to confuse us, it was to bless us with a means to work, rest, and glorify God with every sustained moment of existence.
My last point is that there are many scientific minded people who come to Christ and who believe in a literal six day creation. The key truth that is a stubling block for salvation is not six day creation, it is the gospel. All of humanity screams that we do not need the gospel, it is foolishness. If the Holy Spirit draws men to embrace the gospel, then six day creationism can be no stumbling stone. God is much more effective at saving people than that.
I will stop there and hope that people understand that dialogue is important and we should not fear ideas and thoughts about such important things. The items discussed on Sunday, I believe are the absolute essentials concerning creation.
Nancy Pearcy writes in her book, Total Truth,
“The Christian message does not begin with “accept Christ as your Savior”; it begins with “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” TheBible teaches that God is the sole source of the entire created order. Not other gods compete with Him; no natural forces exist on their own; nothing recieves its nature of existence from another source. Thus His word, or laws, or creation ordinances give the world its order and structure. God’s creative word is the source of the laws of phyisical nature. which we study in natural sciences. It is also teh source of the laws of human nature–the principles of morality (ethics), of justice (politics, fo creative enterprise (economics), and aesthetics (the arts). and even of clear thinking (logic). That’s why Psalm 119:91 says, “all things are your servants.” There is no philosophically or spiritually nuetral subject matter.”
I think this is a great statement of essentials to think about. We all have passionate views on this topic, and we should! The key is to rally around the essentials while challenging each other in areas of lesser concern.
April 23, 2007 at 9:29 pm
An Evangelical Christian who is also scientifically minded has to reconcile themselves to a very difficult reality. They are trained, through their study of science, to be skeptical; to look for the answers to things that seem to have no answer, for this is at the heart of the scientific endeaver.
However, as a Christian, they also believe in things like “prayer”. That talking to an unseen, unheard, unfelt, uncomprehensible being can actually DO something. They believe that a person can actually be raised from the dead, (not just a near death experience mind you, but the full-blown “He’s been dead for 3 whole days” kind of DEAD.” They also must believe in a creator God, because as Nancy Pearcy so aptly puts it, this is where the message of the Gospel begins. However, unlike “prayer” and a “resurrection” the creation does reveal something about how it works. It even says something about how it came into existence.
As I said in my previous post, science does tell us something about this. And what science tells us does not support a literal 6 day, 10,000 year old creation. It simply doesn’t. So, what is a scientifically-minded Christian to do? Well, what every one of them does is basically make a choice. Some will choose to accept a literal interpretation even though it is not supported by our current scientific understanding of the world and how it works. Others, however, have made a different choice by saying, “perhaps my (and other’s) interpretation of what the creation story is saying is what is incorrect.”
Notice that I said “my interpretation of the creation story…” God’s word is not flawed. It says exactly what God meant to say. But even still there are different ways to interpret the story, ways that are much more consistent with what science tells us about the world and how it came into being.
I personally subscribe to a Progressive Creationist view that says that the earth and the universe are very old. And God used a combination of natural and supernatural process in the formation of the universe, earth and life. Others would take the Evolutionary Creationist viewpoint, which states that the line between “natural” and “supernatural” is not real. That simply because we can understand the process, doesn’t mean that it isn’t still a “supernatural” act, because God upholds all of His creation through His sovereign will.
Some people get very uncomfortable about “interpreting” the Genesis story in any other way than a literal way. But the fact is that in the history of Christianity there has never been a strong consensus on exactly how the Genesis story should be interpreted. Many of the early church fathers had a lot of varying opinions, and there was never a strong consensus that it was meant to be taken literally.
In fact, even young-earth creationists have to “fudge” on the “literal” interpretation because of the “fall”: (in Gen. 2:17 God says, “…for in the DAY that you eat from it you shall surely die.” Well, both Adam and Eve ate from the tree and they didn’t die that day!! So, is it really a 24 hour day or not? Some say, “Well this verse is talking about spiritual death,” which makes my point about “fudging” on the literal interpretation.)
So, EVERYONE has to interpret the story. Some prefer to interpret it in as literal way as possible, in spite of the fact that it disagrees with scientific evidence. That’s okay. Who knows it could even be right!!! It sure doesn’t look like it’s right to a person who understands science, but God is God and He can do whatever He wants. However, there are ways of reconciling the scriptures to what we understand about science in ways that do not compromise either God’s word or our understanding of science. Until God reveals more information, I’m going to choose to believe that he created in a way that is both accurate for scripture and science.
April 24, 2007 at 6:08 am
Thanks Tim! This has been a fun discussion.