Recently, I came across a paper in the Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry, written by Dr. Kenneth Keathley in 2013, entitled, “Confessions of a Disappointed Young-Earther.”[1] The piece is well done and gives an informative summary of the various arguments and supposed problems of the Young-Earth Creationism movement. After reading it, I must say that I’m just as disappointed as Dr. Keathley, but for different reasons. I’m disappointed that the enemy, who is delegitimizing the truth-claims of Christianity by undermining the authority of Scripture, is often met with so little resistance and so much well-meant, reasonable-sounding cooperation. I’m disappointed that not even the best among us are immune from a skeptical evidentialism. And I’m disappointed that one so capable of competent reason would falter in thinking that evidence has bearing on the question of a recent miraculous creation.
I’m no scientist, and I do not claim to be able to present all the scientific intricacies of the various arguments. To be fair, there do seem to be some valid points brought against Young-Earth “creation science” and even a few points in support of it. Nevertheless, I do not argue for a “young” earth, but for an old earth recently created—what Dr. Keathley presents as Philip Henry Gosse’s “Omphalos argument” or the mature earth view. The Bible clearly and explicitly reveals a recent creation by divine fiat. Miracles being what they are, we should not expect to find proof in physical evidences for this recent miraculous act. But, neither should we expect the secular scientific view to be free from error, overconfidence, and overreaching. Ultimately, though, the scientific argument is irrelevant to the vital question at hand—and that fact is sadly missed by Young-Earthers and Old-Earthers alike.
Some of the criticisms of the Young-Earth view presented in Dr. Keathley’s paper seem born of overconfidence,[2] but much of what he argues seems very reasonable. However, the cracks in his foundation come into view in some of his remarks, such as this criticism in response to Andrew Snelling’s position that God changed the natural laws during the Flood:
Appealing to a change in the laws of nature marks a remarkable change in YEC strategy, and in many ways it also makes a significant admission. As a strategy, it indicates an end to any real attempts to empirically establish the historicity of a global flood. Miracles, by definition, cannot be scientifically examined.[…]
This is a startling admission! It is indeed true that miracles, by definition, cannot be scientifically examined. But why then does Dr. Keathley not apply the same restrictions to attempts to empirically establish when the world was created? Creation either happened as a recent miracle or it did not. If it did, then it cannot be scientifically examined, which removes all the weight from any empirical evidence brought in support of an old earth.
The miraculous creative acts of God leave no trace of scientific physical evidence. If we still had samples of the wine that Jesus had miraculously made from the water, or the bread that He had miraculously multiplied to feed the five thousand, we would not find under a microscope any “miracle particles” among the molecules to prove the miraculous nature of the origin. We would simply find it to be what it is, with nothing to point to the miracle. That is God’s way in performing miracles. Even those who drank the wine were mistaken regarding its origin. Every supernatural miracle of God is deceptive to those who do not believe or know the truth of it.
The supernatural acts of God transcend the natural world. The nature of creation ex nihilo (“out of nothing”) leaves nothing of the supernatural in the nature of what is created. Nothing of the nature of nonexistence, or of the nature of supernatural creation, is brought forward into the nature of what is brought into existence in such a way as to identify what is created with creation ex nihilo. A supernatural origin transcends the nature of the thing created and leaves no mark on its nature to identify it with supernatural origin. How old something is in its nature does not depend on when it was supernaturally created. How long something has existed and how old it is by nature do not have to correlate—not when supernatural acts are involved. The Hebrews’ clothes and shoes never experienced wear and tear when they wandered for forty years in the wilderness because God supernaturally preserved them from getting old (see Deut. 29:5).
After raising Lazarus from the dead, what scientist, upon examining him while alive for the second time, would conclude, based on the evidence, that he was once dead for four days? None would. For that matter, what scientist, if he could examine Adam on the day of his creation, would not declare with absolute scientific authority that Adam’s age must be measured in years and not hours? They would all declare it so, since it is “a scientific fact” that adulthood takes years to develop. The prospect that an adult man is only one day old is scientifically absurd—and so also the raising of a dead and decomposing man, the turning of water into wine in an instant, and the feeding of five thousand with only a few loaves.
This question cannot be denied its place at the head of the line in the logical priority. Before any physical evidence can be admitted as relevant, the question of a recent miraculous creation by fiat must be answered. Only if such a recent miraculous creation is denied from the start can the evidence have any relevance and be given weight. It is a fundamental error in logic to allow physical evidences to weigh against the question of a recent fiat creation—to reject such a recent creation based on the supposed weight of the physical evidence. It is to give up the argument from the start, and accept as evidence-based a conclusion that is actually no less fideistic, since it is as impossible to prove that a miracle did not happen as to prove that it did!
In other words, the truth of a miraculous act must be revealed by God and cannot be established by empirical evidence. Revealed truth is either believed or disbelieved—it is never proven or disproved. However well-intentioned, allowing physical evidence to influence the way one approaches the Biblical text and the prospect of a miraculous act is an inherently skeptical method, skewed from the start toward a naturalistic conclusion. Dr. Keathley states, “[…] I concede that I allow the findings of science to influence the way I approach the creation account in Genesis. I allow experience and evidence to have a significant role in the formation of my position.” Undoubtedly, evidence has a significant role in the formation of his position—but can Dr. Keathley establish that evidence has a proper role in the formation of such a position? He can certainly present evidence for an old earth. But strangely absent is any evidence confirming that a recent miraculous creation would result in a world any different than what we now find.
This utterly sweeps away all justification for allowing the findings of science to influence the way one approaches the creation account in Genesis! And it lays bare a preconceived skepticism that would presume to weigh the revelation of Scripture against the evidences of the world. And don’t be fooled: this question cannot be dismissed—accepting the weight of natural evidence is itself an unsupported affirmation that no instantaneous miracle occurred. Therefore, those who accept the scientific evidence that the earth has existed for billions of years do so without any proof that such evidence can validly be applied to the question! To prove that the evidence has bearing on the question would require proof that no miraculous creation by fiat occurred. Thus, the whole Old-Earth view is founded on mere preconceived skepticism against instantaneous miracles as explanations for the origin of the world.
Dr. Keathley objects that the mature creation argument cannot be proven:
[…] the mature creation argument is unfalsifiable. This means it can be neither proven nor disproven. As Bertrand Russell observed, “We may all have come into existence five minutes ago, provided with ready-made memories, with holes in our socks and hair that needed cutting.” Since there is no way to prove the theory, we have moved from the realm of science into the realm of metaphysics. The mature creation argument truly is a fideistic position, since it places creation beyond investigation.
Rather than the realm of metaphysics, we have moved into the realm of the supernaturally-revealed, taken-on-faith miraculous. Since Dr. Keathley is a Professor of Theology, I’m sure he is familiar with many such things in this realm that are given to us in Scripture as matters of faith that are unfalsifiable and beyond scientific investigation. As for Russell’s concern, it is true that God could have created this world five minutes ago; however, Scripture reveals a chronology that we accept on faith, and Russell’s hypothetical chronology has no basis in Scripture. His implied criticism that we are left without an anchor of truth is false.
Dr. Keathley objects that the mature creation argument “seems almost to embrace a denial of physical reality. Certain advocates of the argument do not hesitate to describe the universe as an illusion. […] At this point the arguments for the appearance of age seem uncomfortably Gnostic.” I’m not really arguing for a universe that was created looking old, but for a universe that was already old when first created. In other words, God didn’t merely add certain qualities to the universe to make it appear old; but rather, He created a world in which all natural processes were already “in progress.” Instead of creating the world at the starting point for all these natural processes, He created the whole thing out of nothing about six thousand years ago, effectively stepping into the middle of a trillions-of-years chronology, with the past only virtually existent and everything from creation onward actually existent. This would include a full record of random natural events, without which these natural processes would be less than natural.
Actual existence begins when God creates. Reality is substantial. Think about the wine made from water. As wine, it did not exist until Jesus created it. Yet, there was a virtual past of grapes growing, being harvested, being crushed and the juice being fermented. The results of that virtual past could have been seen under a microscope or chemical analysis, and were tasted by the guests. As we peer into the night sky, we see the virtual past still “in action,” as we see the results in most of the starry sky. Science can never detect that God stepped into this natural chronology at some recent point and created it all out of nothing, since the supernatural transcends the natural. They may extrapolate back into the past, based on the natural processes at present; but they can, in fact, only speak to what condition the world was in when God created it.
As an illustration, think of God having created a ball at some point on a long incline. The ball is created, and rolls down the incline. People at the bottom of the incline can measure the speed of the ball, and calculate from the inertia, etc., when it was that the ball was stationary and began to roll, and thus conclude when God created it. But they have assumed that God created it stationary. If God created not a stationary ball but a ball already rolling, then the calculations as to when the ball was stationary would conclude a starting point preceding the creation point—a virtual past. God created a world in motion—”in motu.”
God could easily have left physical evidence to prove His existence and His creating, but He chose to only be found by faith. Unbelief is spiritual rebellion—a willful denial of the spiritual truth that God reveals to every man, and a self-reliance on physical senses to the enshrinement of natural evidence as ultimate determiner of truth. God will not be found by such rebels. A man must be willing to drop his rebellion and embrace what God has spiritually revealed. The prospect of God and his miraculous working is not determinable by scientific inquiry.
When it comes to a recently created earth versus an old earth, it’s not really a matter of one Biblical interpretation over another, as if all were equal. It’s a matter of an interpretation versus an incorporation. The former relies on revealed truth alone, while the latter incorporates both the revealed truth and the supposed discovered truth of [a particular interpretation of] physical evidences. Can we be honest here? It’s not like the Bible is vague and mysterious regarding how long it took God to create the world or how long ago it happened. No, the fog didn’t roll in for most of the Church until “science” insisted that the earth was far older than is indicated by the plain reading of the Biblical account. The insistence of science fueled the drive to come up with alternative interpretations—ones that wouldn’t contradict the science, and so various compromises have been proposed.
To those who believe in a recent, miraculous creation, it is a matter of whether or not the intended meaning of the author is held in such importance that the text be allowed to speak for itself—with every effort made to not read into the text ideas that were not intended—and to get our clues as to what was intended only from the text itself, rather than permitting ideas, claims, evidences and authorities from outside of the text to tell us what the text means. This is why we go by the axiom, If the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense. When it tells us that Christ physically rose from the dead and left the tomb, we don’t allow science to weigh in and tell us that He must not have actually died, but only “swooned,” since dead bodies do not reanimate. Science must be ignored in this matter, since it is a supernatural matter outside of their ability to explain, detect, or prove. For us today, it is a matter of pure revelation. The eyewitnesses are dead and unavailable for examination. But we believe the Bible’s testimony because our faith lets Scripture speak for itself and we refuse to look for an alternative interpretation regardless of how ridiculous or absurd our belief might seem to skeptics.
The creation account is one of the clearest, most straightforward chronological-historical accounts in Scripture. As if in anticipation of end-times skepticism, God specified, “and evening and morning were the [first, second, etc.] day.” And now, not even that is enough, as Christians—jaded by the scientific overconfidence—read such a sentence and wonder how the text might plausibly be construed to mean something else. The Old-Earth interpretations only appear to be justified in their rejection of the plain, straightforward reading when backed up by the supposed weight of the physical evidence. However, since God is fully capable of creating a world that is “old” from the first moment of existence, then the solid ground of physical evidence that justified resorting to Old-Earth interpretations vanishes.
When the straightforward, plain-sense reading is that of an historical account, we ought to give Scripture the benefit of the doubt and assume that the plain reading is the correct understanding unless Scripture itself gives us warrant to look for an alternative meaning. Anything less than this standard of Scriptural authority yields a hermeneutic by which anyone can make the Bible say anything he wants it to. The Bible should be allowed to speak for itself… and we should believe what it says!
[1] Kenneth Keathley, “Confessions of a Disappointed Young-Earther,” Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry, (The Baptist Center for Theology and Ministry), Fall 2013, Volume 10, Number 2, pp. 3-17; at http://www.baptistcenter.net/journals/JBTM_10-2_Fall_2013.pdf
[2] For example, the Canopy Theory is said to be impossible due to a supposed runaway greenhouse effect that would “boil the earth.” Since the Canopy does not currently exist for analysis, such objections are mere stabs in the dark—guesswork that proves nothing. If God controlled the earth to bring about the Great Flood (whether mediately or immediately), then could He not also cause things to happen in such a way that ideal temperature ranges were maintained both before and after?
. . . While the water vapor canopy may or may not have existed, the fact that death did not enter the world until the first couple sinned is a fact of revealed truth. In criticizing the idea that the law of entropy did not exist until man sinned, Dr. Keathley again shows the unjustified confidence with which Old-Earthers dismiss that which they do not completely understand. We have no solid idea of how extensive the differences in a pre-sin world might have been. Dr. Keathley claims that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is necessary for digestion; but how can he know that digestion itself (as we know it) was needed in a world without entropy or death? It is not inappropriate to assume that immortal physical bodies would likely be very different in nature and internal operation than their mortal counterparts. But it is inappropriate to assume that science today has enough knowledge of what such a world would be like to validly dismiss it as impossible.
Thanks for the article. I too get “disappointed” about this topic and others like it. As Christians I feel we spend to much time jumping on the hobby horse of our choosing. Young in my Christian life my wife and I were looking for a new church. After a few months it became apparent that it was “just not going to work”, when I told the pastor he asked why and I said doctrinal differences. (that was me trying to use my new Christian big boy words) He at the point said “Golly. If we are out of line doctrinally then we need to get that fixed so can we sit and you can show me in the bible were we are wrong”. so we did. And after about 3 hours of finding no CONCLUSIVE effidence on my postions the pastor said this. “There are gray areas in the bible and black and white ones at that’s ok, there are somethings we are just not going to know until that glorious day, but in the mean time wouldn’t it be terrible if all Gods people were being divided day after day because of personal belief and not biblical truth. Now if we flounder on a black and white issue. Obviously a truth from the bible then you should leave but if not then Lets join in fellowship hoping to strengthen each other in our faith.” He was right. In a world where there are some 38,000 Christian demononations we need to start seeing our hobby horses for what they are, tools the devil uses to divide God’s people.
TM,
Thanks for your comment. I can appreciate your point. Unnecessary division is to be avoided. The devil does use mere “hobby horses,” as you put it, to divide God’s people. But we cannot afford to characterize all divisive issues in this way, either. The devil can just as easily achieve his destructive ends through ill-advised unity and ungodly acceptance of error.
As for the creationism issue, it is one that Southern Baptists can disagree on while remaining in the same denomination. Like eschatology, we are known for our ability to tolerate the views of the other side while working together for the furtherance of the gospel. But that tolerance does not require that we remain silent and cannot contend for our position.
Interesting. There is no basis on which Keithley and Hamrick can even have a discussion. I suppose the good Prof will have to endure admonitions as best he can.
I for one am glad our seminary students aren’t intellectually ghettoized on the issue of the age of the earth and all the attendant polemicism. Might as well go with Russell and declare it all done five minutes ago.
Of course, there’s a basis on which Dr. Keathley and I can have a discussion. There are certain foundational presuppositions that must be agreed upon in order to engage one another’s arguments, such as the belief in inerrancy of Scripture. But the article above shows no disagreement in such foundational presuppositions.
Russell’s proposal is not Scriptural.
Keithley is not an inerrantist?
I think Ken just said that Keithley is a believer in inerrancy.
Right. I said that the above article shows no disagreement on such foundational presuppositions as inerrancy.
Cannot myth be inerrant?
Depends on your definitions of “myth” and of “inerrant,” doesn’t it?
John
John,
Yes. And if one decides that Genesis 1-11 is “inerrant myth” then the actual meaning can be interpreted to be pretty much anything at all.
Articles like this always leave me scratching my head. YEC as a position of large acceptance in evangelical circles is a relatively new phenomenon. OEC was the accepted position for centuries. I don’t understand why YEC has to be the new orthodoxy. It’s no more or less essential to the Gospel than OEC.
Does it really matter if God created the world 6 billion, 6 thousand, or 6 minutes ago? What matters is He is its Creator and Sustainer. OEC does not deny this.
May I suggest another way of looking at the issue?
The Creation of the heavens and the earth is, by far, the most glorious and majestic thing the Creator has done, so far as we know. The glory and majesty of a six day creation is more than 880 billiion times greater the the glory and majesty of a 14.5 billion years old creation.
Or expressed in the opposite way, believing (and teaching) that the heavens are 14.5 billion years old reduces the glory and majesty of God by 880 billion times.
Further, if I consider passover, pentecost, and the feast of trumpets to be worthy of honor, then why not the 6 day creation, which God wants us to remeber 52 times a year (the Sabbath)?
And if we were to consdider the eternal gospel, for every language, people and tribe, delivered perfectly by a holy angel, then creation is again an issue (Revelation 14:6, 7).
There are many, many reasons why it is an issue. I am just scratching the surface.
Is anyone scratching their head that a mathematical equation has been introduced measuring glory? What does this even look like?
I would love to see the work here
14.5 billion old earth = x(glory) < 6 day creation = x(glory).
No reason not to ignore me entirely.
Multiply the times 6 days appear in a year, multiply the years times the 14.5 billion big bang cosmology. Round down. The math is not difficult.
Reducing one’s achievements by that magnitude does not ever please the achiever.
Make that “multiply the sum”, thanks.
Let me try again, since I am being so inexact with terms of math.
How many times does 6 days go into one year? 60.83 times.
How many times does 6 days go into 14.5 billion years? That is 14.5 billion times 60.83, or 882.03 times. Round down. Therefore 880 billion times.
Can Jesus Christ create the heavens and the earth in six days? If so, why claim or teach that He took 880 billion times longer? Will that please Him?
Who will it please?
Jerry, you placed a numerical value on glory. I quote,
“The glory and majesty of a six day creation is more than 880 billiion times greater the the glory and majesty of a 14.5 billion years old creation.”
You used numerical assignment to measure glory. I don’t think you can prove anything is numerically more glorious than something else. Your measurements are actually of time, not glory.
Further I reject if something is created in less time it is more glorious. If God took a trillion years to place every leaf, limb and bark on a tree the end result would not be any less glorious than if He spoke it into being in an instant, which by the way I believe He did.
Glory is honor and fame, is it not?
If you see no greater honor and fame in creating in six days as opposed to 880 billions times longer, then I just don’t know how to discuss the issue with you.
I don’t understand the argument. God gets greatest glory for what he actually does, regardless of how long he takes to do it. So yes, God gets glory for a 6 day creation if a 6 day creation is what he did. If he took 14 billion, then acknowledging that gives him greater glory.
Jerry, I looked past my dismay with your assigning numerical value to glory like you were counting beans and conversed with you, please return the favor and try be patient with me and answer a couple questions, if God were to save 100 people the first night of a revival would that bring Him greater glory than if He saved 25 on Sunday, 25 on Monday, 25 on Tuesday and 25 on Wednesday?
While not interested in debating the age of the earth, I would debate vehemently your position is logically flawed and not substantiated in Scripture. God is brought glory many times in Scripture through His patience. According to your logic Jesus received more glory when He healed instantly than when He chose to place His hands on the blind man at Bethsaida twice to heal him in Mark 8. He did the others in maybe 20 seconds and He did the healing at Bethsaida in maybe 40 seconds. Therefore the other healings were twice as glorious?
Jerry, why not more glory in a creation ex nihilo that happened this morning and took six seconds? Creation attests to the glory of God adequately as is. God needs no algorithm to maximize His glory.
Dean, I have lifted 700 pounds within a minute. An Olympian does it all at once. I can run 100 meters. An Olympian does it much faster. I can hit a clay pigeon with a shotgun. Glorious shooters can hit 5 in the same amount of time. One who could do all of these things at the same time gets more honor and fame still. Using your illustrations of miraculous healing that contrast instant healings with healings that take many seconds: Since God is involved in all healing, including normal body functions; then I say yes, God gets more glory by miraculous healings than by normal healings. In healing, the time element definitely impacts the amount of fame and glory involved. Perhaps it shouldn’t be that way, though. By the way, using your words, your “dismay”, and “debate vehemently” were believed. Your initial incredulity at the mathematical equation for “glory” was also not taken as objective or reasonable. Your words “like I was counting beans,” seemed condescending. In this context, your assertion of just wanting a conversation seemed less than candid. Did I err?
Bill Mac, God also gets glory for telling us what He has done, and those who believe Him are given glory.
William and Dean, Do you two really believe that I was composing some spiritual formula for computing the glory of God in all circumstances? Really? The math in this case is simple. He says He created in six days. Big Bang cosmology says 14.5 billion years. In this case, and in only this case, the difference is 880 billion times.
Ryan, I appreciate your commitment to the glory of Jesus Christ, who died for our sins. I share it, I think. But the glory of the Infinite God must be far, far more in significance than all the spirits created and events that have unfolded in this little universe during the insignificant amount of time it has been called into being.
Jerry, your analogy falls woefully short. You have not lifted seven hundred pounds within a minute. You may have lifted one pound seven hundred times but you have never lifted seven hundred pounds.
When God does something He alone can do then if it takes 5 minutes or 100 years He gets equal glory. This argument for YE is weak.
Not just “short” but “woefully short”?
Woe
1. grief, sorrow, misery, heavy calamity.
2. A curse; a malediction.
I’ve been out of college a long time, but isn’t this what they used to call an “a posteriori argument”?
John
Are you talking about my posteriori?
Woeful
1. full of woe; wretched; unhappy
2. affected with, characterized by, or indicating woe
3. of wretched quality; sorry; poor
I will be using woefully in the sense of #3.
Sense – that would be used in accordance to one’s explanation or view.
No sir. The most glorious thing God has ever done was to sacrifice His Son for the sins of the world. All of creation will one day bow at His feet as a result of His work on our behalf. Philippians 2 contradicts your assertion.
Ryan,
Dr. Al Mohler disagrees with you (as do I). In a video from his conference with R.C. Sproul, he said this:
Ken,
First, I don’t give two hoots what Al Mohler says.
Second, I guess Augustine and Origen both existed after the 19th century? Both were OEC.
Third, YEC dominated the time period from 1500-1800. Not exactly the best time in society’s long storied intellectual history. It did not resurge again until the late 1800’s under the leadership of heretical mystic connected to the Adventists.
Fourth, and finally, there are two creation narratives in Genesis. They do not follow the same chronology. Which one am I to accept as the literal order? What am I to do with the other one?
I assert once again. This is not a hill on which to die and only one side is making it that way. The YEC. You can believe whatever you want but let’s stop vilifying the OEC position as some type of compromised theological position. It’s an accepted frame of reference for orthodox Christianity.
I think your argument that the YEC position is of relatively recent origin will find its challengers. This is the same arguments used against various eschatological views with about the same results.
In regard to the two creation accounts, I am not sure why you are so confused. I’m sure God did not write it that way to confuse you.
Consider perhaps that they are not two versions of the same creation. That might help you with your confusion.
Consider that perhaps chapter 2 may not be about the course of creation at all, as is chapter 1. Chapter 2 is about the “crown” of creation.
I see not conflict in these two chapters nor do I see a contradiction that proves science must be right in the age of the cosmos.
Therein lies the problem: begin with science and try to reason to God, or begin with God and make reason of science. I choose the latter.
If it were not for what modern, secular, humanistic education has done, the ancient story would still stand.
Also, I don’t think it is accurate to suggest that nothing good came out of the 1500’s to 1800’s. God has never been silent in His creation (though we have 400 years of silence in His record of it).
This is not to vilify anyone who chooses to believe the creation is 15 billion plus years old, but simply to point out that this is a statement of faith, not science.
Ken,
I find a great and eternal basis on which Christians can have a meaningful discussion. Is Genesis an inerrant narrative statement of God-breathed words, or an inerrant myth, exactly as God intended it to be told in the original autograph(s), althought the 14.5 billion year cosmology cannot possibly be discerned from the text?
It is easy to get bogged down in nuance. But I believe that God’s points of view on the Genesis creation account is that the entire creation is young in his eyes, about 6,000 years old.
I cannot fathom the possibility of being rebuked by the Almighty for believing His Words about His glory in His creation of the heavens and the earth.
It is a matter of believing what He has said, or not. All other philosophic approaches to the questions are secondary.
Amen, Jerry!
JC on “God’s points of view on the Genesis creation account”: “about 6,000 years old”
JC on not accepting the non-stated approximate number: “It is a matter of believing what He said or not.”
Alas, Keithley is not believing, nor I…which accounts for the unprofitability of any discussion, since the starting place is YEC=believing, OE=unbelieving.
I appreciate that SBC seminary students have exposure to Keithley et al. God knows YEC is a pretty thriving industry on its own.
My hope is that my most faithful days are in the future. There is always hope, and not just for me.
I believe my religious opinion on the age of the earth can be tried by the text of Genesis One.
The Baptist Faith and Message, since 1925, had included the phrase (of Scripture) that it is the supreme standard by which all religious opinions should be tried.
One who can make a case for a 14.5 billion years cosmology from Scripture would be welcome into visionary leadership in the old earth creation industry.
We have moved from “God’s points of view” to Jerry’s “religious opinion,” thus, we’re talking interpretive matters. Keithley/Wm and Corbaley/Hamrick differ. That’s fine. And what no BFM has ever included is the age of the earth.
Article One of the BF&M has always stated that religious opinons should be tried by the Scripture; the supreme standard. We can all give it a try. What can it hurt?
It appears you are just changing the subject.
Age of earth has never been stated in the BFM (isn’t explicitly stated in scripture either). You’ve already invoked “God’s points of view” and your “religious opinion.” Which is it?
And should all other religious opinions, Keithley’s was targeted here, not apply?
Before most YEC adherents all devolved into polemicists, discussions used to be centered around ‘yom’ and gaps, and such. Now the lead-off pitch is that non-YECers are guilty of “unbelief” and don’t have “God’s opinion” of the matter. Yawn.
Why isn’t YEC stuff enshrined in the BFM? Adrian, Mohler et al put that together and we voted on it.
You seem to repeat the phrase “God’s points of view”. Is there a problem with it?
Regarding “religious opinions”, it is a quote from the BF&M, and every written word on this blog is a “religious opinion”. Why is that irrelevant? On the one hand you espouse the writing on the BF&M, and on the other hand you seem to consider it irrelevant. Could you clarify?
That’s your wording Jerry. You chose it. I’m certainly OK with Jerry’s opinion of God’s opinion because no BFM considered the age of the earth critical enough to be included and Jerry’s opinion isn’t gospel. The BFM says your opinion on the subject is neither right nor wrong, same as mine.
William, you state that the Word never says anything about the age of the earth. That could be a true statement or a false statement but it suffers from being an incomplete statement.
In other words, an argument from silence.
What IS a clear statement is that the old age theory comes from a naturalistic presupposition in science and is completely incompatible with the Bible record.
The issue with the age of the earth is much more than the “age” of the earth. It is a matter of naturalistic presuppositions versus supernatural ones. Don’t just focus on young versus old. Focus on the entire system.
The old age is an “evolutionary presupposition.” You can’t have an “old age view” without all the naturalistic presuppositions that support it like evolution, the geological column, etc. etc.
The matter is not as simple as the chronological age of the earth.
If the simple, literal reading of Genesis had not been the default position of the church, then why is that where the “old agers” went to fire their first salvos in the age war? For example, recall the Broadman controversy in regard to the first offering of the Book of Genesis.
It is not possible to limit the discussion to simply “dating the dirt.” There are huge theological and philosophical underpinnings for each view and they are mutually exclusive as systems.
PS–I began my career in life as a scientist (chemist) and continued that quest right up through my master’s degree in which I investigated the theological implications of new developments in quantum physics.
We must be careful to not pit a young earth straw man against an old age straw man. We must see the entire systems and compare them.
Stephen Hawking, commonly referred to as the smartest man alive, suffers from the same philosophical “blinders” in his position as do some Christian theologians. His present theory on the beginning of the cosmos is brilliant–as long as you ignore its self-contradictory foundation.
Jack…(enjoyed your postings) I was going to say, unless you didn’t know that Hawking’s stuff has never been proven, you would think he is the smartest man alive. He is famous for disproving now, what he thought he had conjectured as mathematically possible some time back. Oh, to be so famous. 🙂
Jack, what I said was that the age of the earth “isn’t explicitly stated in scripture”.
YE adherents, rather than have to deal with a continual stream of unfavorable evidence learned long ago to (a) dismiss all evidence under the miraculous or such, and (b) create an atmosphere where non-YE believers are demonized (“you can’t accept an old earth and…” ad absurdum).
Given the chance many would purge any who even hint at an earth older than 6-10k.
This is an area for latitude which is why BFMs don’t address it.
William,
I guess what is confusing to me is the idea one could rule out the miraculous when speaking of God’s creative work. I mean, do you honestly feel like the work of God in creation can be thoroughly investigated by naturalistic means?
John: This is the way I think about it: The work of creation can be investigated by naturalistic methods in so far as God used natural means in His work of creation, which we know he did. OECs do not deny the miraculous, and YECs do not deny the natural, they just disagree where one left off and the other began.
I’m not ashamed to say that I find the scientific evidence for the age of the earth compelling and the insistence that I interpret Genesis 1 a certain way far less compelling. I did the whole Ken Ham, AIG thing for quite awhile, but eventually I just found it not to be credible.
Someone says they are YEC, and I don’t usually get involved. Someone says if you aren’t YEC then you aren’t a Christian, or you may be a Christian but just not a very good one, or you don’t believe the bible etc, then I have to object.
Bill Mac,
Thanks for the answer, and I agree with what you said. I think that the thing that drives me crazy is the marginalization of people who differ on this issue. I don’t think it’s a test of Christianity at all. To of my heroes were OEC guys, Dr. W.A. Criswell and Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
I mean “two of my heroes”. Also, I am not even sure that I am a YEC any longer. Perhaps I am defensive out of reflex. 😉
I may retain Bill Mac to do all of my commenting on this subject. He mirrors my experience and excels far beyond me in stating it.
I am certainly willing to consider all interpretations of Genesis One that actually attempts to interpret the text. But assertions that other interpretations are rejected seems less than straight forward. Alternate interpretations ignore the time-frame and sequence of events. The text is “interpreted away”.
To totally discredit my point of view, merely write an interpretation of Genesis One that does not ignore the time-frame and sequence of events.
Bill, you said:
Can you expand on this for me? How do we know that God used natural means in His work of creation?
Bill, you also said:
In order for you to find the scientific evidence compelling, you had to first find something else compelling—something to give that evidence validity in the face of the possibility that God could have recently created the world with all that evidence as it is. So what was that prior thing that gave all this compelling evidence its validity for you? —Or, was the validity of this evidence merely assumed without justification?
Interesting. I’ve got Keathley’s article bookmarked because I find it so compelling and reasonable. I too am glad that our seminary professors aren’t forced into some lock-step position on issues the the end-times and the age of the earth and aren’t afraid to let students see both sides.
Bill,
I hope the Seminaries do show the students “both sides” of the issue. But I would hope that the side of recent miraculous creation would be presented in its strongest form, and not in a more common but weaker form. Take the article by Dr. Keathley, for example. If this is what he teaches his students, then the recent creation side is not being presented to his students in its strongest form.
“I hope the Seminaries do show the students “both sides” of the issue.”
I know one that has…http://multimedia.sebts.edu/?paged=29
A very interesting and respectful dialogue
Adam,
Did any of the speakers present the Omphalos argument as I’ve presented it here? Maybe we should call this the third side… I think it warrants serious consideration.
I can’t remember, it’s been a while since I watched all of these videos. I do recall that they had two OE and two YE with slightly different views among each group. It’s moderated by Keathley.
Say what you will about my article, but an honest assessment will admit that I have not simply criticized Dr. Keathley, or characterized his position with this or that adjective, but rather, I’ve sought to substantively engage his reasoning with an argument from reason.
I suppose that many will comment here and criticize those of one side or the other—or me—and will characterize my position with this or that adjective. —But what I really hope for is someone who will substantively engage my reasoning with a reasonable argument of their own.
It’s called marginalization Ken. We have some commenters who immediately try to silence with ridicule when someone reveals that they are YEC. You notice that no one is willing to have a conversation with you on the basis of what you wrote.
In case they haven’t noticed, I’m not really presenting the YEC arguments, but the Omphalos argument. Unlike YEC, I’m not debating the old-earth evidence, but arguing that it has no bearing on how recent God created. Still, they have just as much reason to avoid the argument.
“If your eye causes you to stumble pluck it out.” Well, thats the plain reading of the Text sooooo…….
Thanks for demonstrating my comment above.
Your welcome.
Kind of hard to have a Christian conversation when people are being jerks.
I agree!
Now maybe you can allow the adults to talk.
And God bless you too!
By the way, I’m not necessarily an OEC. I just think the “plain reading of the text” argument is a fallacy (as shown above). We interpret Scripture through the context (the language its written in, its use in other parts of the Bible, the historical context, the exegetical context.)
Maybe that’s the way you should have worded it in the first place, ya think?
No, sometimes we need a straightforward example. It always helps me. And it helps me to be open minded and not as offended when I’m shown that I might be in error.
It wasn’t the straightforward example that I take issue with…it’s the blatant sarcasm in your ending. Like I said it’s just a way to marginalize people. I see it used all the time on this issue. And BTW I am not necessarily a YEC
Yea your right it was sarcasm and I apologize. But your “adult” comment was sarcasm as well, brother. But your right, so lets move on because I would like someone to respond to my comment 🙂
You’re right brother I apologize.
I think that your comment has merit. I guess to the more nonliteral folks, I would ask where does the literal end and the nonliteral begin insofar as interpreting the creation narrative is concerned? Was there a literal Adam and Eve? Fall? All of these things are involved in the question of the creation narrative.
Miracles are beyond the scope of science.
God’s creation of the universe is miraculous.
Thus the creation is beyond science.
So why then do we look to science to help us understand the Bible?
Help me Science, how Jesus rose from the dead?
Help me Science, where His body is now?
Help me Science, do people have souls [and/or spirits]?
Science has a role in life: to help us understand as much as possible the created world in which we live, to magnify the glory of God. But like every other thing, science has been coopted by the enemy, and is sought by him to NOT magnify the glory of God.
When, as Jerry has mentioned, you can go to your Bible and show a better argument for an OEC, please do. But if your only grounds for believing an OEC are because of something outside the Bible, it seems to me you are judging the Bible by the world and by the things of the world.
Muslims do that as well.
So do Mormons.
So do many mainline ‘Christian’ denominations, who no longer accept Jesus as the only way.
One guy just cut his Bible up, taking out the parts he didn’t think were true. [Jefferson?]
Science can’t figure out miracles.
Trust science for what it can do.
But it can’t determine the age of the earth.
It’s method doesn’t work.
It speculates and recalculates, and repeats.
That is not the scientific method.
Reminds me of those fools who predicted the world would end in July of whatever year, er no, uh, September, oh, er no, next year in May…
If you have no Biblical proof of an OEC, but aren’t sold on a YEC [its grasped by faith like every miracle is], just say “I don’t know.”
Ken, Keithley is easily contacted. Why not ask him to engage since he is in your bullseye? I’d be interested in his response.
An email has now been sent.
I’ll be back around 6…
Interestingly, the incarnation is the exact opposite of creation as you have described it. Maybe we could refine the wording but in creation that which is new was created with age while in the incarnation He who is ancient was begotten as one who new.
Tim,
That IS interesting!
I think Dave Miller is one clever dude to find and put up the one issue that devolves faster than Calvinism. I can’t even think of a way to turn this around to Calvinism but I’m not giving up yet.
Distracts us from the IMB’s Black Thursday missionary reduction plan.
Not to detract from Dave’s cleverness, but the last time this was discussed here, it went to over 300 comments without “devolving.” We CAN talk about this reasonably.
I know you have given this a lot of thought and I’ve read this and similar on your site. Would be good if Keithley addresses the piece.
Thanks, William. Would it be too much to ask Old-Earthers to put some more thought into it as well, and actually address my argument? As yet, no one has. Can God create a world that is already aged? If so, then why do Old-Earthers proceed as if He could not? And if they claim that He could but DID NOT, then it was not evidence that told them that. Thus, they lose the weight of an argument based on evidence.
Bill,
You said,
“I’m not ashamed to say that I find the scientific evidence for the age of the earth compelling and the insistence that I interpret Genesis 1 a certain way far less compelling.”
Assuming you are not an evolutionist, if Adam was scientifically examined week or two after he was created, would he show evidence of being only alive a week or two?
I would assume that Adam was a full grown man.
And that Adam had language skills and a vocabulary.
Would you also assume those things?
In other words, no matter how long God took to create the earth and the universe, the ‘evidence’, which is mostly speculation: unproven and unprovable theories, is rather distorting the truth.
Does embracing the scientific view make you less a believer in Jesus or in the inerrancy of the world.
Basically no.
Basically, as opposed to an unqualified no, is because there is no evidence that is scientifically proven to ‘prove’ its theories, and so the question is why do you disbelieve what the Word of God is saying?
And the answer seems to be because of unproven theories of science backed up by ‘evidence’ that is mostly speculation.
Now what if this speculative evidence is a wedge the enemy has inserted into the framework of truth to divide the church and to cloud the truth of creation?
Maybe each day or yom is a thousand years. Still doesn’t match the scientific evidence. 10,000 years. Still doesn’t match.100,000 years- still no match. A million years? Still doesn’t match.
In other words, you have to [or so it seems to me]simply ASSUME that the Genesis account of each day has no real basis in the reality of creation in that its not telling us the order of creation or the time span of creation, even metaphorically.
So why did God break it down day by day as He did?
That question was does believing in OEC make you less a believer in Jesus or in the errancy of the Word?
basically no.
Mike, that is a unique interpretation I had not read, and I’ve read a lot.
I agree with William above that the secular humanist would like to exterminate anyone suggesting a young age for the earth.
What I don’t agree with is 1) So many Christians who are willing to assist in this extermination; and 2) that science has offered any proof whatsoever to prove how the cosmos was created, or when.
John Lennox, a contemporary of Stephen Hawking at Cambridge said, “Nonsense is nonsense even if it is said by a scientist.”
No theories are ever proven. Scientists either find support for them, or they don’t, but no real scientist will ever say a theory is proven, only supported. No biblical interpretations are ever proven either.
I think biblical revelation and general revelation are compatible, so when there are verses that seem to indicate the world is flat or square, or that the sun moves around the earth, I don’t dismiss them as untrue, but I know from science that they aren’t literally true.
…And yet, scientists will tell you that Evolution is FACT.
Bill,
You said,
What does the general revelation tell you about the possibility that Jesus and Lazarus were raised from the dead? or the virgin birth? or Jesus walking on the water? Are the two revelations compatible then?
Certainly. General revelation allows us to study and know the natural world. Miracles are the realm of the supernatural. Raising the dead, walking on water, etc. are impossible. Scripture doesn’t tell us that, science does. That’s what makes them miracles. We only know what miracles are because of science.
Bill,
You say that we only know what miracles are because of science. I’d say that common sense alone tells us that the dead do not rise, and the living cannot walk on water, etc. Nevertheless, I have to ask you, can the science that tells us what miracles are also tell us when miracles have happened? Can science confirm, for example, that Jesus did walk on the water or that God did recently create out of nothing (if given that he did)?
Dr. Keathley said that experience and evidence had a significant role in the formation of his position? Was that also true for you? And can you establish that evidence has a proper role in forming such a position? Can science tell us, for example, that a recent, miraculous creation would have resulted in a world any different from the one we have?
Bill,
Right: Theories aren’t proven fact.
The Cals have a theory, the Trads have another one.
Both theories go to the Bible and declare that from the Bible they have formed their theories.
These theories, and others like them, are seeking to explain God’s ways from God’s Word.
They don’t rely on secular theories to show spiritual truth.
Now I think you believe in the inerrancy of the Word and that you are a born again believer.
Before there was material substances, there was God.
Then God created material substances.
I think you would agree to that.
It wasn’t a naturalistic event for there was no nature.
What was it then but a spiritual event [which signifies that the spiritual has preeminence over the natural].
But it seems that you desire to look at science to explain to you HOW and WHEN this spiritual event took place.
Now unbelieving science rejects a creator God, and thus they think that there MUST be a natural cause. Their minds are closed to a supernatural event. CLOSED!
So even if they found evidence that might point away from a naturalistic origin, they would dismiss it as faulty, as an abnormality, as a false reading or whatever.
But how would even a Christian scientist investigate earth’s beginnings?
Science can not, by both its own nature, and by the nature of the supernatural, determine supernatural events, like creation.
All it can do is investigate the outcome of the event.
For example: Jesus feeding the 5 thousand. Scientists could have showed up on the scene and examined all the many baskets of food left over. Could they by scientific means determine where all that food came from? No. All they could explain is what they can see and record and witness to. They could not ascertain that all that food came from so little. It would be, in their opinion, impossible. But it would also be unprovable.
Same with the wine at Cana. The same with the oil pot that never ran dry. The same with the Red Sea parting.
The same with any supernatural event and every miracle of God.
Including creation.
Bill and any OEC,
Respectfully I ask,
God’s Word tells us a few things:
God created Adam fully grown.
Took a rib from Him, and created Eve, fully grown.
He created animals fully grown.
He created trees fully grown and with ripe fruit already on them.
He created stars in the sky, already shining.
So says God in His Word to us.
Science says: IMPOSSIBLE.
Of course they do. They assume everything had natural origins and thus rule out supernatural events. They then proceed to examine and theorize what they now observe and can test to seek to get closer to the truth, the when and how of a naturalistic origin.
But there was NO **naturalistic** origin.
On this YEC and OEC agree.
So science puts forth its theories on how the world came about **naturalistically** and for whatever reason, OEC [at least all I have read, or discussed with] uses their findings to support their own idea that the earth must be old.
BUT the Bible is telling us that God created the earth with age. That He created the earth older than what it would appear **naturalistically* [see above].
God, who knows all things, would have known that the secular world would seek to learn of its own origin in a secular scientific way. So why does God create the world **aged**? OR why does he tells us he created the world **aged** if He did not?
My answer is that God created the world aged and told us in His Word and wants us to accept by faith that what He told us is true.
What is your answer Bill [or any OEC]?
Respectfully yours in the Lord,
mike
After a whole day and 85 comments, NOT ONE Old-Earther has engaged my argument. Here it is, in four simple sentences:
Can God create a world that is already aged?
If so, then why do Old-Earthers proceed as if He could not?
And if they claim that He could but DID NOT, then it was not evidence that told them that.
Thus, they lose the weight of an argument based on evidence.
Ken is not saying nor am I that any OEC is any less a Christian because they believe in OEC.
But brothers, since your argument is nit from the Word of God [or if it is please show me], then why do you desire to believe secular science over supernatural Word?
Now maybe you once thought [or still do] that the origin of the world is not a subject addressed by the Bible. There are many subjects that science delivers truth on that the Bible is silent on. So maybe your thinking is that the origin of the world is one such subject.
But maybe you have not really spent a lot of time on it one way or the other. So when science says this or that, and they in the past have delivered up some quite astonishing discoveries and unveiled wonderful truths, and they continue to do so, that the origins of the earth was best left to the scientists.
Many YEC organizations seek to go head to head with the prevalent science, offering up their understanding and seeking to replace the popular public understanding with their own.
And so in comparing these two scientific interpretations, you stuck with an OEC theory. Choices, choices and you went with what seemed the strongest and the best.
I get all that.
But what Ken is asking of you is something DIFFERENT.
Ken is not ‘competing’ mano y mano YEC science versus OEC science and asking you to choose which one seems right to you.
What Ken is asking is SINCE the Bible tells us God SUPERNATURALLY created the earth AGED, how can science find out a NATURAL origin for earth when it was young and born young, WHEN it was never just born or created young?
So science it seems is chasing a ghost that never was. The earth, according the Bible was never not old in appearance. It was NEVER OLD in appearance.
Now if you want to interpret the Bible differently than that by declaring that the creation accounts in Genesis and elsewhere scattered in the Word, mean not what the seem to mean from a plain reading, then show exegetically what they do mean.
But don’t rely on the natural to explain the supernatural.
Keep up the good work Mike—someone might see the light eventually.
If I may indulge you all one more time…
No one looks at Dave Miller today and thinks he is six years old. Rather they think, “that guy is old!” he talks like n old guy, he even dresses in a lime suit, like an old guy, man Dave Miller is ancient.
And of course they are right. It would be ludicrous to think he is only six years old.
And that is because everything we see, and everything we know of, and everything that has been documented *ages*. From the pyramids in Egypt to the house we live in to our own bodies, everything starts out new and young and grows old and gives evidence of *aging*.
And so when we and the scientists look at the earth, and gather from investigating it, we see an earth that is old. Old just like the pyramids are old but older, the house great grandma was born in is old but older, and just like Dave Miller is old but older, we see old. And seeing old means it has aged.
So an OEC sees old. The scientist sees old.
If I wanted to find out how old Dave Miller is, I wouldn’t start with on file birth certificates from 6 years ago. I’d think that was a waste of time. Rather I would theorize that he is much older than 6 and conform my investigation accordingly.
Kind of like seeing an old truck that had only 50K on the odometer. You look at the seats, are they worn? Are the pedals worn? Engine mounts? and so on. If all these things give the appearance of great usage, you would theorize that the odometer wasn’t reflecting the true age of the truck.
So you look at the earth. The grand canyon, how long does it take to eventually make that? Ice formations? Stars millions upon millions of miles apart, and so forth. You look at all the evidence available and you can easily come to the conclusion that this old earth is old. Even older than Dave Miller. In fact, this whole universe is really really old.
The evidence points to the old age of the earth and universe and then someone tells you that its not so old and its no wonder you find that proclamation incredible. Everything you see with your eye and science tells you and just the way everything around you ages as it grows older tells you that the earth can not be young.
But therein lies the problem.
You have to admit as a Bible believing Christian, the Bible tells us that God created the earth already aged.
[Or show exegetically why this is not true]
While your eyes tell you one thing, the Word of God is telling you something else.
And in 2nd Cor. 5, we read:
For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. 4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.
Now the world and our eyes can only see the body and not the soul/spirit. But we know by faith that there is more than the mortal. And I know all of you are waiting eagerly for that day when your earthly will be swallowed up by the heavenly. For you are a people not of this world. And the Lord continues to tell us in the next verses:
Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight—
So here is what I am hoping you will give great thought and prayer to: When it comes to the supernatural creation the world, to NOT walk by sight, but to walk by faith. Unless you have an exegetical argument from the Scriptures that show that the plain understanding of Genesis means something else altogether different, than accept by faith what God is telling you.
And maybe that is too much to ask because you are unsure of what God is telling you there. Then at least don’t come against the plain reading of the relevant passages until you have exegetical substance that refutes it. Instead of saying I’m an OEC, simply say, I have no idea.
Because if all you have against the Biblical account is what you see and hear and what others see and hear, and none of them actually were there to see and hear, then it sure seems to me that you are standing against the Bible.
May God bless you all, and thanks for indulging me, [especially that old guy Dave Miller]
mike
I will have to figure this comment out in the morning.
I have no idea. Or as I would I say I have not formed a rock solid idea either way.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
“the Bible tells us God SUPERNATURALLY created the earth AGED,”
“show exegetically”
What do you mean by AGED?
Dinosaurs never existed just the fossils? Fossils in rocks are aged creation? You see where I am going.
You ask OEC to show you their exegetical cards to beat yours. Don’t you have show your cards first?
I have no cards. When I read the article I knew I had to review it latter. I still do have to review and ponder the article and most of all the bible. Mike your comments make me ask these formalization questions. It is not that I have never thought over this issue, I just have not formed a dogmatic position yet.
Just don’t ask me to read a bunch of books, show your exegetical cards. Is that fair? Let me know if it’s not.
John,
Why do I say God created the earth aged?
Stars form and live and die. In the beginning stars were already bored and shining light.
Vegetation doesn’t start out [today] as an already mature plant. It starts from a seed and grows.
Fish in the sea and animals on the land all grow.
Humans start as babies. They have to learn to walk and talk.
But Adam started as an adult.
Eve started as an adult.
The trees were already ripe with fruit.
The animals already grown and moving about.
Birds and bugs flying from the start.
Isn’t this the picture Genesis paint for us?
Does it not paint for us a functioning world?
or what?
Did the world only function AFTER the fall?
So which part of the creation story should we say doesn’t reflect the actual event?
or if we are going to say it didn’t happen that way, then why should we accept any part of it as reflecting reality?
Now obviously Genesis did not tell us about dinos and fossils. But it does tell us about a great flood.
How that affected the world, I can’t say.
But lets look at fossils. Science says they are millions upon millions of years old. They didn’t reach that conclusion using the scientific method. Now I am not up on all the scientific ways, so I can not explain them or explain against them. But in carbon 14 dating, they use an assumption. But what if when God created the world, He created many things already showing a longer life [aged] -like a tree that has ripe fruit- then it actually is [trees must grow over time and even then fruit also must grow]?
Now why would God create an aged earth?
Because He wanted us to trust Him by faith and not by sight.
Because he wanted a finished product for man to live in.
Do you know anything about ecology and ecosystems? Like every or at least most created things, the environment is a system that works together, whether globally, regionally or down at the pond. And when you change one thing, it changes the ecosystem, and possibly destroys it.
Like the simple cell ora functioning eye or an ecosystem, there are a myriad of related and interrelated functioning parts that must work together to make its existence and allow it to function.
So lets look at God as creator but he created over a vast amount of time. Do you use genesis as a blueprint as to when things were created? It wouldn’t work. Each part of creation needs the other parts to function.
So lets look at God as a creator who created a long time ago.
If we decide that the earth is old but that Genesis tells us that God created in 6 days, then why can’t we just say that man has been on the earth for millions of years?
But no one is saying that.
What is being said though is that man is fairly new as compared to the age of the earth. If that is true or what you think, you must reinterpret the creation account in the Bible to conform it to secular evidence.
And then the Biblical account becomes subjective to whatever one wants it to say. Which from what I gather is NOT the usual way most evangelical OEC approach the Bible.
John,
Exodus 20 tells us:
8 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
This matches the creation story in Genesis.
It is plain and straightforward.
If someone wants to say Biblically that creation happened in more than 6 days, I have not yet read any sound work not riddled with holes and assumptions.
One may say those 6 days took place millions of years ago, but no one is saying that.
One may say that each day was a million years long, but then they have to explain how that would work, and no one has done that.
What they do is modify the story so much so that it no longer reflects what God’s Word is saying. Oh but they keep the part of man the way it is. In other words they take a cohesive unit and break it down and pick and choose which parts they want to believe. And why? because they use secular evidence to judge the supernatural work God.
The secular evidence is NOT that man was first an adult. But in accepting all the other secular evidence, they can’t bring themselves to reject the Bible on this one part.
So I think it is those that reject a 6 day creation, a literal 6 days as we know them, that needs to show Biblically why they reject it.
Thanks Mike for your reply. I am just starting to look into the Omphalos hypothesis view of a YEC. Here is the major issue I see so far.
God created a deceptive world. Trees have rings at creation. Fossils are not real. God must have known this would mislead observers.
Yet Romans 1:20 says:
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.
I’ll add this hypothesis to the things I shall consider.
Is your view:
“Omphalos hypothesis would argue that dinosaur fossils are not actually evidence of any creature which ever lived – dinosaur bones are just some weird sculptures created a few thousand years ago, along with Adam’s navel and the rest of the universe?”
I have not filled in all the blanks in creation from the Bible. I do believe in 6 day creation and a basic 24 hour clock window. God can do anything he chooses. Currently I just don’t perceive from scripture he would have used creation in a deceptive manner.
Thanks in advance for any exchange you may have on where I have a misrepresentation of this view.
I have heard the idea that “God created a deceptive world” and it seems rather over-stated.
The very first thing God did was tell people when and how he created the world. The very first thing!
In view of this, those who would accuse God (not you!) should quench their rash words.
John,
Okay I know you are not accusing God of deception, but rather saying since God is not deceptive how should tree rings be explained.
here is a problem that I see: Science has to assume many things in order to reach an hypothesis. Ithaca to assume things about the evidence and it has to assume things about how the evidence even came about.
It also has to assume that the world was ‘worked’ the same way both at creation, before the flood, and after the flood [since it acknowledges neither the flood or the creation event]. So science assumes that there has been no changes in the world that could have affected aging. Things start out new and young and develop.
And that the sky and atmosphere are they same today as ever. But those are assumptions. If things have changed, say because of the fall and because of the flood, the way the evidence came to be would or at least might be much different than the way things work now.
Of course I can’t prove that.
But then of course science can’t prove things haven’t changed.
They can’t hit the replay button.
They can’t duplicate the creation event or the fall or the flood. They can’t measure the effects.
Now the scientific evidence and the the experience of man tell us that no one has risen from the dead. But we believe Jesus did. We believe Lazarus did. We believe it by faith despite the death and stay-deadness of plants and peoples and animals and stars and everything around us. Despite all the evidence of the stay-deadness of death, we believe that Jesus is alive and that we too will some day rise from the dead.
In other words despite what we see, and what nature and science tells us, we believe in life after death, a supernatural event at the end of the world as we know it now. And we believe it because we believe the Bible is God’s Word to us and God in His Word tells us it is true.
So i ask, why is it wrong to also believe that since the end of the world as we know it now will be radically different than the worldly evidence is telling us, to believe that the beginning of the world was also radically different than what the world is telling us?
For He who will end life as we now know it, is also He who began life as we now know it!
And since we believe the unexperienced future based on His Word, why should we also not believe the inexperienced past based on His Word?
Isaiah 46tells us:
“Remember this, and be assured;
Recall it to mind, you transgressors.
9 “Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;
God wants us to believe in His Word by faith.
Not by evidence.
He said He made the world in 6 days.
Just believe Him.
Mike, As I said previously “I do believe in 6 day creation and a basic 24 hour clock window.”
What I am asking you is do you conclude your YEC conclusions on Omphalos hypothesis. Ken says his article is based on this hypothesis.
“Ken Hamrick says
September 2, 2015 at 9:24 pm
In case they haven’t noticed, I’m not really presenting the YEC arguments, but the Omphalos argument. Unlike YEC, I’m not debating the old-earth evidence, but arguing that it has no bearing on how recent God created. Still, they have just as much reason to avoid the argument.”
I am just trying to understand this argument better. You have been supportive of Ken’s argument in this thread. So I responded to your exegetical challenge as you asked. By asking ?’s.
Ken is probably busy today and I look forward to insight as well, when he has time.
Just trying to understand the argument better.
John,
As to tree rings and fossils, and to other physical evidence:
Evidence is not proof.
Evidence needs to be evaluated in the light of other evidence and known facts and offered testimonies.
In this case, all the evidence is not yet in. Not even all the physical evidence.
But we do have an offered testimony that we should give great weight to: God’s.
Mike,
“But we do have an offered testimony that we should give great weight to: God’s.”
I knew that before the article was written. I knew that before I read the comments. I just tried to engage with you on your points, the way you thought one should and tried to understand the hypothesis better.
Always enjoy reading your comments Mike, you bring a lot to the table at Voices.
John,
Thanks for your compliments.
I knew you knew that about His testimony.
I wasn’t trying to offend.
In fact, i was writing past you in a way to some of the others, who ALSO know God’s great testimony, not to inform them of it, but to simply bring it to their emembrance, and to emphasis its preeminence.
“”Fossils in rocks are aged creation?””
How do fossils translate to a long time? Fossils are created relatively quickly, other wise there would be nothing to fossilize.
Some fossils are recent. All fossils–at least that I have studied–occur because of some catastrophic event.
I’m not sure how fossils help with the date of rocks. Also, some fossils, such as of animals known to the Native Americans, exist in rock some geologists (the majority opinion) say is millions of years old.
I know people say dinosaurs existed millions of years before man, but based upon what evidence? What is the counter evidence? Which is weightier?
I struggle with issues like dinosaurs, but probably, at least in part, due to my indoctrination in the secular-humanist church–sometimes called public school.
John,
I am glad you are trying to understand the argument better.
Even if you disagreed, you would not be my enemy but my brother.
The YEC argument seeks to go toe to toe with the OEC argument on how to evaluate the physical evidence.
The view i am putting forth, and that Ken seems to be as well, is that the physical evidence is skewed because God created the earth aged.
And i am also putting forth the idea that the evidence is skewed because of the fall [and thus the curse on the earth], and the flood [and all the immense pressure all that water entails as well as other physical changes to the earth due to various accompanying possible phenomena like a change in the atmosphere and the water runoff, to name a few.]
Bottom line is I can’t explain how the evidence works together in a scientific or natural way, and neither can anyone else *IF* they start with an created aged earth, a fall and a world wide flood.
But what I am saying is that the physical evidence is moot since we have the testimony of the creator.
So i ask anyone to give me a Biblical reason NOT to believe in the 6 day creation, even as God has testified to in Genesis.
I can’t believe I’m using valuable time to respond to this line of debate except to say that if you cannot believe what God says, then you need to get out of the ministry! Our denomination is decreasing in influence and size while my brothers spend time fussing about which one sounds the most “seminarian!” My brothers, there are men and women, boys and girls within a stone’s throw of most of your churches that have not had a face to face witness by a down to earth christian believer! You and I are the ones to be that witness! When we get to that heavenly city; well, then I’ll sit down and talk about the long and short of it, but until then, we’ve gotten bigger fish to fry!
David,
I’m glad to hear that you desire to be a witness to the lost.
What if one of them asks you about creation and the 6 days?
What if one asks you about other topics like Mormonism and Islam?
What if they say they are a Catholic and they follow Christ’s vicar, the pope?
Sometimes a witness has to earn a wearing before they are listened to.
Oh by the way David, have you read Paul’s epistles in the New Testament? Or Peter’s? Or what James had to say? They didn’t sound at all like what you had to say. They talked about issues and problems and how to solve them. They talked about the various roles in the church and how God appoints people to do each task.
They talked about false teachers and teachings and the need to learn to evaluate them.
So quit wasting your time and go do what you have been called to do.
David Copeland,
You are right to be concerned for the lost. But consider that in war, there is more to be concerned with than personal combat between soldiers. Strategic interaction between armies is a necessary consideration. What if MacArthur in the Korean War had abandoned strategic considerations and said, “Forget this Inchon landing idea and just give me a rifle so I can shoot the enemies beside my fellow soldiers”? Today, the enemy has already accomplished his own Inchon landing by defeating in its own eyes the legitimacy of the Bible with its self-assured certainty that evolution and billions of years are true. And now the Church’s campaign to win souls has been devastated as our truth-claims are increasingly rendered ineffective. In this, the Church has been somewhat complicit as many have cooperated in this disarmament—seeking to regain effectiveness by adopting the enlightenment that comes from the wisdom of the world, we have instead surrendered our own legitimacy and are now met with scorn far more than before. So, no, Sir, I do not accept your rebuke, but I do understand and appreciate it.
Be blessed.
It’s amazing how someone can bring up the fact that issues like these cause division among Gods people and then so many of god’s people can prove that statement 100% true. If I’m not mistaken I’m pretty sure I just read that someone said that God’s word, by it self, is not sufficient for witnessing to the lost. It may not have been worded that way but that is what was said. It’s not our job to know everything that could ever be known. It is our job to hear the word, know the word, do the word, share the word, then let the holy spirit take it from there. The Bible tells us that God’s wisdom is not man’s wisdom, so why do we keep trying to explain the world in terms of man’s wisdom. Embracing the idea that we must know everything about anything to effectively share the gospel is exactly the kind of thinking that scares the everyday church goers out of witnessing to the lost. God tells us that his word is sufficient for us so why doing we believe that God’s word isn’t sufficient for the world. The position that we need to be experts about so many things just shows a misunderstanding in the area of the holy spirit or a lacking in the holy spirits ability to to his job.
Ken, always an interesting discussion, and an important one that I am finding especially interesting to the younger generation.
In light of the OEC theory, what is the most profound way that “death” is handled in your opinion. With billions of years of non-death related time relative to Adam and Eve’s appearance as one adheres to the fundamentals of OEC theory, are there any implications discussed as those accumulated years of non-death were in existence?
I was wondering if you found any research on the impact of non-death.
Chris,
I’m not sure I understand your question. OEC tends to see death in Rom. 5:12 as human death and not the start of death in general. Of course, this is inconsistent with the fact that Christ will in the end redeem creation itself and death in general will be vanquished.
Biblically, death in all its forms entered the world when man sinned. This requires the Omphalos argument to be modified, such that God brought parts of the chronology of the natural processes (as we know them) into existence separately—suspending the bringing of the principle of death and entropy into the world (with all of its attendant history) until man’s first sin. At that point, man and the world around him continued down a path of death, decay and destruction with a trillion virtual years behind him.
Chris,
As far as dinosaurs, fossils and evolution go, my argument is that it doesn’t really matter. I used to be staunchly YEC. But recently, as I considered the falling away of most of the Evangelical youth when they go to college, and looked into the strength (not necessarily the validity) of the evolutionary arguments, I pondered the question of what I would do if evolution were eventually proven as true. Looking to Scripture, I realized that what God has said in His word must be absolutely affirmed; but what He has not specified must be reasoned from the Scripture. God specified that He created all in six literal days. Even if Evolution were proven to be true, which it never will be, there is no reason for the believer to surrender belief in a recent supernatural creation by a supernatural God. There are some believers in whose minds evolution has been proven as true—and in some believers minds billions of years have been proven as true. But this is no excuse for abandoning belief in a recent creation.
I know I dropped out of the conversation and I’m not sure I want to jump back in except to say this: If you read the article Ken is responding to, that pretty much sums up my position, even to his experiences as a former staunch YECer.
Sometime I’d like to see a conversation on the consequences of the Omphalos argument, like dismantling the entire scientific creationism industry and, I would assume, making certain areas of science off limits for Christians.
Bill,
I don’t know that creation science is an industry. Nonetheless, it need not be dismantled. While I do think they go to far in some things, they also serve a purpose in showing some places where secular science has over reached and been over confident. Creation science has made some valid points against the other side. But as Dr. Keathley’s article points out, there have been failures as well. I think those failures directly result from trying to prove a young earth when it was actually an old earth that God recently created.
No areas of science would be off limits to Christians.
“””they go to far””” I think the “they” might be misleading. The Creation-Science movement is not monolithic. There are varying views expressed across a number of scientific issues.
There is no “they” who speak for all YEC.
Bill,
Science off limits to Christians?
if it is, it is not because of the Christian position they hold.
It would be because the ‘open’ minded scientific community would make their lives miserable in doing their jobs or research.
Science learns incredible things about life and its discoveries have aided mankind in countless ways. There is much truth to be learned by scientists.
But when science steps out of its role, as an explorer of what it can test and discern, and steps into a metaphysical role to explain things about which it has no ability to grasp or fathom, it becomes no longer a discoverer of truth but a confuser of reality. It becomes a tool of the enemy.
As to the consequences to the YEC scientific community, I am not sure what you mean. But maybe they too are chasing a ghost: a world created un-aged. And if so, then why should they survive? I’m not saying they wouldn’t, but rather if their foundation is built on sand, then of course it will be washed away.
Let’s settle this deception charge once and for all. Show me one situation where the supernatural (or the results thereof) can be looked at (or into) while assuming the natural and deception not be the result. Can any of you show me a single one? You cannot! If you stood outside the tomb of Christ Himself on the third day, and saw Him alive with your own eyes— while assuming the natural—you would have assumed that He must not have actually been dead and He’s now recovered. Can’t you see? The difference between being deceived and seeing the truth is the difference between unbelief and faith. Is God so obligated to display truth that He should not require faith to see it? Ought He, in your eyes, to display in the world the fact of His supernatural creating to such an extent that even those who assume only the natural will have no choice but to conclude that God supernatural created it— and when? Romans 1 tells us that every man can see from God’s creation that He exists—and even “His eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse.” Indeed, men can see the supernatural God in nature. But not by holding on to naturalistic assumptions; but rather, because nature inspires men to apprehend the supernatural and the supernatural Creator. That inspired and revealed truth can either be embraced or suppressed and replaced by mere naturalistic assumptions. If the latter is the chosen method, then who is really the deceiver—God or the unbeliever himself?
Every man knows enough from creation to recognize a supernatural Creator-God. So then, what excuse have they for investigating that creation using naturalistic presuppositions? Knowing a supernatural God created it all, what excuse have they for searching out natural causes to find the supposed age of the world?
—And what excuse have we, who believe in and intimately know that supernatural God—for being convinced that those natural causes can indeed tell us the age of the world?
Ken, I believe that these “naturalistic assumptions” seem popular today, and probably influence some of our favorite theologians. I believe as you have intimated that faith is stronger when moored around the creator, not the natural. “Jesus said to them, “He wrote this commandment for you because of your hard hearts. But from the beginning of creation he made them male and female.” The creator speaks in much different terms than some of the theologians that agree with naturalistic assumptions. God has always been concerned with time, created time (Genesis), the right time (Hebrews), and the final time (Revelation).
Our younger generation needs to be taught that faith is real, and not formed by the natural, but given by God. A faith that is evidenced in His miraculous. Something of substance and evidence (Hebrews 11)… not something that is formed as the world forms new opinions and theological fancy.
Thanks for the article!
I don’t much like long, LONG replies but here is one anyway. Both YE and OE theories require certain presuppositions. YE is a theistic position, while OE is scientific; but that is not the entirety of the basis for either. YE requires a certain criteria of interpretation, more specifically that the Genesis account of creation (1) was meant to address a scientific interpretation which was thousands of years in the future from when it was written, (2) that it was meant to be taken literally, (3) that the English word “day” (meaning 24 hours) is precisely what was meant by the Hebrew “yom,” and further (4) that there were no intervening periods between the named “days” or “yoms” of creation. There may be others, but these are what occur to me at the present. OE too has presuppositions: (1) that the laws of the universe (physics, astrophysics, optics, etc.) which are observable today have been the same since creation. This would include geology, especially in matters involving radioactive decay, magnetic fields, etc. It further assumes (2) that our understanding of such scientific fields is correct, or is at least a close approximation of correct. If one assumes the four presuppositions of YE, then there is definitely a conflict between the theistic and scientific accounts of creation. However, these are not the only possible theistic assumptions regarding creation. I begin with the presupposition that God inspired the creation accounts in response to what was going on at the time, not what debates would take place thousands of years later. Creation accounts (in Genesis especially) were meant as a counter to the prevailing Babylonian/Mesopotamian belief that the world died every winter and was in danger of falling back into the chaos that existed before God ordered the universe. So understood, the purpose of the creation accounts are to say that God (unlike the pagan idols of Mesopotamia) only needed to bring order out of the primeval chaos once, and that what He has ordered, will remain in order–consequently the fertility rites practiced in the ancient Middle East to bribe “the gods” to bring order and fertility again are unnecessary, and in fact are useless as well as an abomination to God. In other words, Genesis does not directly address the date of creation, but was inspired for another set of reasons altogether. Furthermore, if one rejects presuppositions 2, 3, and 4, (which does not negate the theistic, even Christian content) then you can interpret “yom” as an age or aeon rather then seven consecutive 24 hour days, such that there is little or no conflict between the scientific and theistic understandings.
John
BTW, I have to reject the idea that God recently created an old earth. Taken to what I see as its logical conclusion, it makes God into some being who at least facilitates error and fallacy, and that is only one thin step removed from Him lying. We all know that cannot happen.
John
John,
If you examined the cooked fish left over from the feeding of the 5000, would you , by that examination be able to determine that the history of that food was supernatural? I don’t think you could.
If you drank the wine late at the party at Cana that moments ago was just water, would have your reaction been the same as the others -that the wine served late was better than the wine served earlier? I think so. Would you, like them be fooled as to the origin of the wine? Yes I think you would.
Inherent in the supernatural is the inability of the natural to comprehend. Whether it is feeding the multitude or at a party or creating the earth, the natural can not comprehend the supernatural.
So the perspective that God is a “being who at least facilitates error and fallacy, and that is only one thin step removed from Him lying” to describe how one looks naturally at supernatural events is quite unfair.
What does the world say? Peter didn’t know where the rocks were and thats why he started to drown. The world says that there must be natural explanations for every miracle. You know, like that the Israelis crossed the Reed Sea not the Red Sea, for the Reed Sea is a very shallow marsh land.
Why do they do that? It is because the natural can not comprehend the supernatural and seeks a natural explanation.
But to say that because they fail to comprehend the supernatural, God is a “being who at least facilitates error and fallacy, and that is only one thin step removed from Him lying” is a very poor position to take.
John,
You said:
Evidently, this bears repeating:
Let’s settle this deception charge once and for all. Show me one situation where the supernatural (or the results thereof) can be looked at (or into) while assuming the natural and deception not be the result. Can any of you show me a single one? You cannot! If you stood outside the tomb of Christ Himself on the third day, and saw Him alive with your own eyes— while assuming the natural—you would have assumed that He must not have actually been dead and He’s now recovered. Can’t you see? The difference between being deceived and seeing the truth is the difference between unbelief and faith. Is God so obligated to display truth that He should not require faith to see it? Ought He, in your eyes, to display in the world the fact of His supernatural creating to such an extent that even those who assume only the natural will have no choice but to conclude that God supernatural created it— and when? Romans 1 tells us that every man can see from God’s creation that He exists—and even “His eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse.” Indeed, men can see the supernatural God in nature. But not by holding on to naturalistic assumptions; but rather, because nature inspires men to apprehend the supernatural and the supernatural Creator. That inspired and revealed truth can either be embraced or suppressed and replaced by mere naturalistic assumptions. If the latter is the chosen method, then who is really the deceiver—God or the unbeliever himself? Every man knows enough from creation to recognize a supernatural Creator-God. So then, what excuse have they for investigating that creation using naturalistic presuppositions? Knowing a supernatural God created it all, what excuse have they for searching out natural causes to find the supposed age of the world? —And what excuse have we, who believe in and intimately know that supernatural God—for being convinced that those natural causes can indeed tell us the age of the world?
Seems to me there is a lot of difference between Jesus’ Resurrection (which is witnessed to throughout the New Testament, as well as prophesied in the Old) and the presuppositions necessary to conclude that the earth and entire universe is about 6000 years old, and even more than are necessary to conclude that God created an “old earth” 6000+/- years ago. Consequently, I do not accept that your analogy is valid. And if God did create an “old earth” some 6000 years ago–why? Actually, it sounds straight out of “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe”.
I find it disappointing that no one has responded to my post immediately before this one. Context is important after all, so the context in which God inspired Genesis has to be.
John
John,
Three points you raised.
As to the last point: the last post you made before was answered by both Ken and I. Do you mean the one before that?
Next point: the 6000 year old earth and also one created aged.
Actually John, my position doesn’t say exactly when the earth was created, although I lean to 6-10,000 years. But my position is that it was created in 6 regular days.The 6000 years is arrived at from looking at the genealogies the Bible gives us. In that God gave us those years with a purpose.
And certainly a possible purpose was to help us know when He created the world.
As to the idea of a mature earth:
Well John, it has been discussed in many different posts on this thread.
Let me give you a quick rundown.
Adam was created mature with language.
Eve as well.
Trees mature with ripened fruit.
Animals were also created aged.
Stars were created already shining.
Sea and land already separated.
As to your first point:
The difference in the presupps between the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus and the creation of the world.
Two things.
One,
I see that both events are told to us in the Bible and that is our only witness as to their truth.
In other words we accept them by faith alone because God witnesses to them.
Now certainly in addition to the Word, the Spirit especially witnesses to us the truth of the Gospel.
So in that way they are different.
But what about all the other miracles in the Bible?
Are you going to apply the same criteria to them as you do to creation?
Are you going to insist that the rest of them conform to known science as well?
Or will you insist that we need to modify what the Word says about them to fit it into what science says?
For example, the Israelis must have crossed the Reed Sea [not the Red Sea] because the waters there are shallow.
Or maybe Jesus knew where the rocks where when he walked on the water?
First off, we may be talking past each other. Consequently, let me put it this way:
1) Do you agree or disagree that to have an opinion about either YE or OE requires certain presuppositions? Why or why not?
2) Do you agree or disagree that to hold to YE requires the four (theological) presuppositions I named (and this may not be exhaustive)? Why or why not?
3) Do you agree or disagree that to hold to OE requires the two (scientific) presuppositions I named (and this may not be exhaustive)? Why or why not?
4) Do you agree or disagree that a Christian can have a different set of (theological) presuppositions than the four I named and come to a different conclusion than YE? Why or why not?
BTW, with regard to crossing the Reed Sea, why do you think God make sure the part was included about a strong east (I think it was) wind blowing all night before the crossing? And if there was not a towering wall of water like Cecil B. deMille and Disney showed us, does that make the crossing any less miraculous?
John
Bill Mac asked about the implications of the Omphalos view. He also said that he more or less was in agreement with what Dr. Keathley wrote in his paper.
So I thought I would respond to Dr. Keathley.
Re: the Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry, written by Dr. Kenneth Keathley in 2013, entitled, “Confessions of a Disappointed Young-Earther.”
Under his subsection titled: Implications of the Omphalos Argument, Dr Keathley writes:
“First, an appearance of age is an appearance of a non-actual history. Gosse demonstrated this with a litany of examples. Fish scales, tortoise plates, bird feathers, deer antlers, elephant tusks and many more—all grow in successive stages that tell the story of that particular creature’s life.55 Biologists regularly use these features to determine age of the respective animals. Gosse declares, “I have indeed written the preceding pages in vain, if I have not demonstrated, in a multitude of examples, the absolute necessity of retrospective phenomena in newly-created organisms.”56 If the original creatures were created fully grown, then they were created with an apparent history. By extension, a universe created fully mature will, by necessity, give signs of a history that did not actually happen.” [end quote]
Likewise the fish left over from the feeding of the 5000 looked like fish with a history. Maybe they had already been cooked and prepared to eat, so it would seem. Thus they looked like fish that had been caught, deboned, cooked and prepared, or in other words, they looked like fish with a history of human preparation. Who has a problem with that? My guess, not a single brother or sister. So why should they have a problem with God creating aged fish?
“Second, the mature creation argument is unfalsifiable. This means it can be neither proven nor disproven. As Bertrand Russell observed, “We may all have come into existence five minutes ago, provided with ready-made memories, with holes in our socks and hair that needed cutting.”57 Since there is no way to prove the theory, we have moved from the realm of science into the realm of metaphysics. The mature creation argument truly is a fideistic position, since it places creation beyond investigation.”
[end quote]
Yes. Correct. The Belly Button view is fideistic. It is faith based. God said it. Now if any one can show exegetically from the Scripture that the 6 day view of a created aged earth is not the best way to understand the Bible, please do. Sans that, that the view is fideistic is no reason to not hold it. Will it win us friends in the world? Most likely not. But faith is not gained by reason.
“Third, the appeal to an appearance of age is an admission that the evidence is against the young earth view. Gosse conceded this over 150 years ago.58 If the overwhelming preponderance of empirical data pointed to a recent creation, then YEC advocates would not bother with such a difficult hypothesis as the omphalos argument. The very fact that YEC proponents find it necessary to appeal to the mature creation argument is a concession.” [end quote]
Certainly. Although since many YEC do not appeal to a aged or mature creation view, so lumping them altogether is a bit unfair.
But The aged earth view is saying that the physical evidence shouldn’t be part of our understanding. The natural can’t illuminate the supernatural.
“Fourth, the mature creation argument seems almost to embrace a denial of physical reality. Certain advocates of the argument do not hesitate to describe the universe as an illusion. Gary North declares, “The Bible’s account of the chronology of creation points to an illusion…The seeming age of the stars is an illusion…Either the constancy of the speed of light is an illusion, or the size of the universe is an illusion, or else the physical events that we hypothesize to explain the visible changes in light or radiation are false inferences.”59 At this point the arguments for the appearance of age seem uncomfortably Gnostic.” [end quote]
This is simply the first point revisited. And more pointed. But completely wrong. The mature creation view does not deny physical reality,it posits its [physical reality] origin in God via His Word, and His Word alone. Before creation there ws no nature or natural processes. Then God spoke and material came into existence. As to the North quote, it assumes against exactly what Keathley has already explained about the mature earth view: that even the light between the distant stars was created in route. So why does he put it here and use it as a pointed attack? Maybe its his best shot?
“Fifth, a consistent application of the mature creation argument will conclude that there are no evidences of a young earth. The universe has been coherently, uniformly created with the appearance of age. With the exception of Poythress, almost all young-earth proponents and flood geologists seem to overlook this portion of Gosse’s argument. But this was not a minor point to him. It was, in fact, a main part of his thesis.60 Gosse would have considered the efforts of Answers in Genesis, The Institute for Creation Research, and other YEC organizations quixotic at best and detrimental at worst. The appearance of age argument seems to imply that the movement launched by Whitcomb and Morris is misguided.” [end quote]
Well, yes. Any dependence on physical evidence to determine a supernatural event is misguided.
Two parts to the next quote, first:
“Sixth, Gosse arrived at the conclusion that we should study the earth as if it were old. He argued:
Finally, the acceptance of the principles presented in this volume, even in their fullest extent, would not, in the least degree, affect the study of scientific geology. The character and order of the strata; their disruptions and displacements and injections; the successive floras and faunas; and all the other phenomena, would be facts still. They would still be, as now, legitimate subjects of examination and inquiry. I do not know that a single conclusion, now accepted, would need to be given up, except that of actual chronology. And even in respect of this, it would be rather
a modification than a relinquishment of what is at present held; we might still speak of the inconceivably long duration of the processes in question, provided we understand ideal instead of actual time;—that the duration was projected in the mind of God, and not really existent.61” [end quote]
All I can say is that is one man’s [Gosse] opinion. Maybe he is right, and maybe not. But scientifically, we cannot prove what has happened in the past. But much has happened in the past that has gone on SINCE creation. And these things can be investigated and learned about. But what scientists do is make metaphysical leaps beyond the evidence to declare what they think happened. And there they overstep their bounds.
Part two:
“This is a surprising, even stunning, conclusion. Yet it is entirely consistent with the logic of the mature creation argument. And, at present, the mature creation hypothesis appears to be the best argument that young-earth creationism has. The hypothesis may be true, but it will remain unproven and unprovable. The conclusion must be that, though a cursory reading of Scripture would seem to indicate a recent creation, the preponderance of empirical evidence seems to indicate otherwise. YEC advocates, by and large, do not use the term “scientific creationism” anymore. Despite 50 years of effort, the scientific endeavors of the YEC movement have borne little fruit.”[end quote]
This quote is telling: “The conclusion must be that, though a cursory reading of Scripture would seem to indicate a recent creation, the preponderance of empirical evidence seems to indicate otherwise”
I would say that both a cursory reading and a thorough reading would indicate a recent creation.But my point is that if you seek validation for your view for a supernatural creation through the physical evidence then you should look to the empirical evidence ,and if you look to a supernatural explanation of creation you by faith look to God’s Word.
No disrespect intended to Dr. Keathley or Bill Mac.
So which is it guys? YEC, or Omphalos (which is just a modified YEC). Are the scientific dating techniques wrong, ala YEC, or are they right, but just reflect a change in reality from the mind of God to actual reality, ala Omphalos? I suspect you’re going to want to say both, because if you choose Omphalos, you still have a problem because scientists have found remnants of human civilizations over 10000 years old. (if you follow what Gosse is saying).
And if no scientific endeavor is out of bounds for a young earth Christian, what does he or she report when examining a dinosaur fossil that dates back 20 million years? Do they explain that it is only 6000 years old in actual time but 20M-6K in ideal time? They can’t, since ideal time is miracle time, and cannot enter the realm of science. It would seem that Christian geologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and astronomers have similar problems. It seems that omphalos (if true) eliminates a lot of scientific inquiry. (more so if as some YEC suggest, the laws of nature are subject to change.
Bill Mac, maybe it was over 65 million years in the ground–the dinosaur fossil?
Possibly, but that’s not an option open to YECers.
But neither is 20M.
Bill,
Good questions.
Q1 answer: I’m a belly button guy. [short BB]
The exact age of the earth is only a calculated guess.
So anything ‘young’ as compared to millions of years seems right.
And here is the problem with millions of years:
1] No one advocating that position is advocating that man has been alive that long, thus negating the 6 day creation story.
2] What is the point of creating a mature earth if you are going to let it age?
Bill’s Q2: “Are the scientific dating techniques wrong, ala YEC, or are they right, but just reflect a change in reality from the mind of God to actual reality, ala Omphalos?”
Well that is a loaded question. If they are right, they wouldn’t reflect a change in reality from the mind of God to the actual reality.
The mind of God corresponds to the actual reality.
What they would reflect is the difference between the naturalistic assumptions of reality and actual reality.
So let me use the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 to answer the question. What if the scientific tests of age could have been applied to the leftover fish and loaves that were in reality just ‘created’? Would they show a longer life history than the actual reality of their existence?
If we answer yes. Then we know that the ability of the age tests do not reflect reality. And in fact, if my memory serves me right that these tests fail to properly discern age at times.
Could the answer be no? No in the sense that the tests show that the food is indeed recently created? Could be, but that is not a death blow to the BB theory.
In that case the measurement was recent, in the same period.
But the way I figure it things have changed physically in the world since the creation: 1] the fall with the curse and 2] the flood. Thus these events [judgments due to sin] have skewed the available data.
So my answer is two fold:
1] I don’t trust the scientist’s ability to test how old something is, especially ancient objects.
2] I do think that data is skewed by the aged creation, the curse of the fall, and the flood.
Q3] “And if no scientific endeavor is out of bounds for a young earth Christian, what does he or she report when examining a dinosaur fossil that dates back 20 million years? Do they explain that it is only 6000 years old in actual time but 20M-6K in ideal time?”
Again, a slightly slanted question… “ideal time”?
So I will reword the question: And if no scientific endeavor is out of bounds for a young earth Christian, what does he or she report when examining a dinosaur fossil that dates back 20 million years according to a possibly flawed testing procedure?
A: According to this possibly flawed testing procedure this fossil is 20 million years old.
The question raised IS:
Was the creation accomplished in 6 days?
And by faith in the Word of God, my answer is Yes.
If you start with that, you may not be able to explain the physical evidence, but you have placed your trust not in what the world says, but in what God says.
But what is the other side?
The other side says that the physical evidence can lead us to grasp and understand in a better way a supernatural event.
Oh, not in every case, just in the creation-of-the-world’s case.
So why the inconsistency?
My answer for that inconsistency?
Because while many of these faithful brothers would never judge the Bible by the world, they have bought into one theory or another of the origin of the universe that does indeed judge the Bible by the world.
The term “ideal time” was used in Keathley’s article (attributed to Gosse, I believe).
Bill,
I’m sorry.
I missed that.
Bill,
Obviously, I’m going more with the Omphalos argument. There are evidences of an old world, even if we just look to the stars that are millions of light-years away. But that doesn’t mean that I trust the dating methods of secular science. It simply becomes a non-issue with me. If anyone insists that something is older than 6 to 10 thousand years, then I insist that it was created out of nothing as part of the aged world that God created. I do seriously doubt that any “human civilizations” have been discovered that are rightly dated as older than the Biblical creation. But even if there are, the same rule would apply.
I do not say that Christians ought not to be engaged in the sciences of the world. Although we do not believe anything of the universe existed longer than 10000 years ago, we are free to investigate as if it did, knowing that the world was already ancient when God created it, according to the natural processes already in progress at creation—as long as we do so in accord with our faith, keeping in mind that we are not searching out the date of creation or actual duration of existence, but only extrapolating back into a virtual past for the purpose of understanding those natural processes.
What you/we believe does not matter in the least. Therefore, you should pick a belief that you like and move on. There are people that need your help–and as I understand it, that does matter.
In 1970 I was employed as an instructor in history at South Carolina State College (now a university), and I begin joining professional societies, i.e.,The Organization of American Historians, The Association for The Study of Negro Life and History (now the African American Historians Association, and others. I also chose to join the Creation Research Society, having taken well over a 100 5×8 notecards on Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb’s The Genesis Flood. That research made quite an impression on me. I already had some awareness of the fact that the biblical account does not square at all with the modern evolutionary scientific view, and, having been an Atheist before my conversion, I really did not care much for the argument. But, like everything else, you only have so much time allotted for things, e.g., making a living, getting an education, etc. Then in 1962-63 during my first pastorate, I had a student attending the University of Missouri (back then that was Columbia, Missouri). He was beginning his studies to become a Veterinarian. One of the classes he was taken was Evolutionary Genetics. The fellow who was teaching them told the class, “The University asked me to teach this class, and I said, ‘Why? I don’t believe it, and I will tear it to pieces.'” Then he went on to say, “The University said that was alright. Go ahead teach it.” In other words, he could criticize the viewpoint. It would be hard to imagine that being done today.
In any case, I have come to the conclusion that the Bible is meant to be taken as presenting concrete facts in whatever it teaches. The 24 hr., 6 days of creation, with the seventh reserved for rest, is a fact of plain statement. A friend of mine who had been raised an Orthodox Jew (which meant he was taught Hebrew from the time he was old enough to learn) and had become a Christian and a Baptist minister (a fellow student in seminary and a friend for life) told me that the period meant was the standard 24 hour day. I learned enough Hebrew to realize that the arguments of the later references in the Old and New Testaments are predicated on that very idea. If Adam and Eve are literal, real, having been created in the beginning, then it follows that the days spoken of in the same passage must be of the same nature.
One of our big problems today is that we are suffering from two very real issues, namely, a well-financed and all-encompassing (as far as the world and our education system is concerned) conspiracy that knows how to manage things to get the results they desire (and evolution is one of the things which serves as a tool for their objectives) and a scientific method that is too analytical. Our problem with all of our studies, even from those who believe the Bible is the world of God is the methodology of analysis. We have the thesis or hypothesis or the revealed fact. Then we have the experiment or observation for confirmation. Third, we have the null hypothesis which obviously must be at fault, if the first part of the equation is backed up by the observation/experiment. Hence, the conclusion is along very narrow logical ways. But the problem is what does on do, when the null hypothesis is also true (I can almost hear someone saying that the thesis is not well-stated or something to that effect). However, there is another theory coming to the fore, one more synthetical, namely, “If the rule is true and the exceptions are true, then the truth is both the rule and the exceptions.” The Bible actually presents both methods. You will find a one-shot scientific experiment exhibited in Daniel one, and the null hypothesis is stated as a failure on the part of the food which we eat and therefore the King’s is the right way. You all know how that turned out. A study of subjects like Divine Sovereignty and human responsibility (This is not human free will after the fall. After all a drunk is not in control when he hits another car and kills some one, but our courts will hold him responsible.) will soon demand a synthetical rule and the exceptions as the truth. Actually, it might be put like this: both/and are true, and they are not meant to be reconciled. Their purpose is to create a tension in the mind of believers so they can be balanced, flexible, creative, constant, and magnetic.
What we want to do is to persuade men by experiments and other means of the truthfulness of the Bible. One of the facts about the Bible that has made an impression on me comes from some old Puritan whose name I have forgotten, and that is, that our biggest problem with the Bible is its perspicuity or, in our language, clarity. Because the word of God is given in even more simple terms than science (which always calls for such clarity and brevity), we tend to think we really understand it, when the truth is really too deep for us.
I wish I could continue, but it is late and I am a heart patient. The word of God is true. As to the appearance of age, I would think a full grown man would look like a young superman for health and strength, and his mind would be a wonder to behold. But the signs of aging would began to become evident sometime after the Fall, and even more so after the world wide flood. And if you don’t think the establishment will get bent out of shape, just remind them of what happened to the fellow who gave testimony at the Arkansas Creation Trial in 1980. He was the world’s expert on haloes in basaltic rocks. Even the Soviet Scientists recognized him as such. Lo and behold, he invited the scientists to falsify his findings (the ultimate and final test). The response was the cancellation of all of his contracts with Oak Ridge and the ruin of his career as a scientist. Seems that Ben Stein’s Expelled missed one of the earlier heroes of standing for the truth. And then there is that pesky fellow who offered up a quantum algebra theory, proving that the earth and the universe are only six thousand years old. The sound of silence is deafening.
correction above, I began joining
Ken,
It is late at night where I am, and I am just now reading and processing your OP as well as some of the comments. The following might not be totally coherent but some thoughts concerning this discussion.
1. Concerning my position: I believe scripture clearly affirms creation ex nihilio. Anyone who denies such is out of bounds with orthodoxy. I also believe evolution that results in different species is incompatible with scripture. Concerning the age of the earth I characterize myself as agnostic (I don’t know). If pushed I would probably indicate the earth as being thousands of years old created as a mature earth, but older than YECers want to allow. I believe dinosaurs did walk the earth and the scientific discoveries of fossils indicate living organisms that at one time lived on the earth and died. I do not know how long ago or the processes that happened in the extinction.
2. Concerning science: I am enjoyed science. If I had not been called into the ministry I would probably have had career in a scientific/engineering field. I believe all truth is God’s truth and that in the end God will be vindicated. There is a valid theological view that exists (even though we might not know of it or had someone espouse it yet) that adequately explains all scientific observations and scriptural affirmations. That does mean that along the way our interpretations of scientific observations and scriptural affirmations will be challenged, and we will discover our interpretations of one, the other, or both to be inadequate. That being said I reject interpretations from both sides that call upon me to discard or ignore the evidence of the other side as invalid.
3. Concerning time: I think Einsteinian physics has rendered our understanding of time to be problematic. I do not believe that one can develop a theory using relativity to account for six billion years in six days. I do think that relativity has indicated we need to rethink how we talk about time in terms of absolutes, especially upon a cosmological scale. What I mean is that time is a dimension that is a part of this creation, and is not as easily definable as we want to make it be. When the transcendent which exists outside of time interacts with the created and especially in very earliest stages of the creation of this cosmos of which time is a part of that creation I am cautious to say I scientifically know the manner in which time passed and in which six days can be described. (Note: This question in no way validates day-age theory as relativity is not an explanation that applies to such theory.)
4. Concerning Genesis: Your assumption in the OP is that OEC primary objection to a literal reading of Genesis is due to supposed scientific evidence of the age of the earth (which interpretation I find problematic as they keep pushing the date back). However, many of us also take issue with the manner in which Genesis 1 describes the creation. What I mean is that the account is definitely from a geocentric worldview. I think our problem is in trying to read Genesis 1 as a scientific description of creation. It defies such depiction. When Genesis describes the creation of light, what scientifically is actually being created. Energy, photons, the laws of nature, what? When the heavens are separated from the waters beneath what was being separated. A geocentric understood it as the sky from the ocean, but what is the sky. Is this the atmosphere, the universe as separate from earth? What is meant by evening and morning since scientifically that describes the rising and setting of the sun which did not exist until day 4? Hence the reason one of the previous comments describes the passage as inerrant myth (myth not meaning fairy tale)? I don’t know from a scientific standpoint what happened in those first moments of creation, but I’m not sure we can press Genesis 1 to fit into a scientific model either.
5. Concerning a mature earth: I am sympathetic to view of God creating a mature earth/universe in the sense that I believe when he created it, he created it intact and all elements in mature states. However, what you argue for is not only a mature creation, but one with a previous history. To use your examples, you don’t just argue for Adam to have been created only as a fully-grown adult male, but as one who had a contrived childhood and life previously. Likewise when Jesus turned the water into wine, you don’t just argue that he created mature fully fermented and well-aged wine. You argue for that wine to have a contrived history of coming from grapes (that did not exist), which were harvested and squeezed (although they weren’t). Your argument for the earth is not that God created a mature earth, but that he created one with a previous history which did not really happen. Thus animals that did not actually exist walked the earth in its non-existent history and died (although they were never actually alive) to deposit bones which were then fossilized. Nowhere else in Scripture do we see such a depiction of things being made with contrived histories. Things created fully mature, yes; with contrived histories, no.
William,
Thanks or your output.
I can’t answer for Ken, but the idea that recent created things are also created with a contrived history really misses the mark.
The wine would look and taste and chemically be consistent with any other wine. That’s not a contrived history, its a hidden history. Not hidden to all, of course, for some knew its history, and we by faith also know it.
Neither does the creation of Adam mean a contrived childhood.
Certainly some advocates do believe Adam had a belly button. I do not.
And if God created both adult birds and baby birds, neither do I believe he created their shells the babies just DIDNT hatch from. Neither did God create any contrived explanation for all the left over food.
So its the assumption by those ignorant of the miracle that assign to the wine -grapes that never were, -a harvesting that never happened, -and a squeezing that never took place and so forth.
Likewise it certainly isn’t my understanding, and I doubt if it is Ken’s that God made fossils of creatures that never really were.
In other words, some mature earth believers might believe in contrived histories but not all.
William Carpenter,
We mostly agree on this, I think. Evolution could be compatible with Scripture if everything prior to creation was fossilized and God created every kind of animal, etc., by His own hand. In other words, each newly created species could have had an ancient history of evolutionary progress in the fossil layers, and yet still have been miraculously created by God in an instant. I’m not dogmatic about this, though. A world-wide, catastrophic flood seems to me to be a pretty good explanation for the fossil layer. I have no problem with Dinosaurs walking in Eden with Adam and Eve, either. And now, even science has found dino’s with some traces of soft tissues in the bones still present (and they don’t know what to do about it).
Continued in the next comment…
William Carpenter,
We should be careful with saying, “All truth is God’s truth,” as some truth is natural truth and some truth is revealed truth—and the two will not necessarily accord. Natural truth rightly tells us that all living things and human beings eventually die and decompose, and once they’re completely dead, it is impossible for them to be brought back to life. Revealed truth tells us that Christ, Lazarus and many others have been completely dead and were raised to life again (with Christ raised to immortality). The valid theological view that “adequately explains all scientific observations and scriptural affirmations” in this case is the view that revealed truth trumps natural truth, as the supernatural transcends the natural. That is all that is needed to adequately explain all scientific observations concerning the death and mortality of biological beings. Does believing in the resurrection of Jesus or Lazarus call on you to discard the scientific evidence about mortality and death of human beings? I reject any view that would presume to combine science and revelation in order to come up with an explanation for the resurrection that would be more palatable to the world. I see no difference in the miracle of creation.
“We should be careful with saying, ‘All truth is God’s truth,’ as some truth is natural truth and some truth is revealed truth—and the two will not necessarily accord.”
I am not careful in saying such. God is Truth, and we as Christian’s bear witness to the truth. Some truth is revealed by general revelation and some truth is revealed by special revelation. Both are God’s truth and they will ALWAYS accord.
Now then to my biggest problem with your depictions. You consistently conflate scientific OBSERVATION (general revelation of observing of the truth of what exists and how it interacts) with scientific EXPLANATION. Science is about observing the natural world, hypothesizing an explanation for how something happened, testing that hypothesis, and adjusting the explanation based on further observations. What I observe through general revelation will ALWAYS accord with special revelation, even if I can not posit naturalistic explanation for why it happened. In other words the condition of Lazarus on day 3 was scientifically observable. One could measure his heart rate (0 bpm), measure his O2 stats (below the threshold for life), smell the decay in his flesh (“he stinketh”). The condition of Lazarus after Jesus interacted was scientifically observable. What happened in between was not scientifically explainable, but there is a valid theological explanation for the scientific observations: The laws of nature have been trumped by a supernatural power (God in human form) so that what once dead is now alive. This is exactly what special revelation in the Gospel of John likewise tells us. So that the two are in accord (although special revelation goes further to reveal more detail of the truth).
William,
You are correct that scientific observation and scientific explanation are not the same thing. As you’ve explained it, I would agree with you, in that IF Lazarus could have been observed while dead, that scientific observation would have agreed with the truth of supernatural event. However, NO ONE but God observed creation; therefore, any who want to leverage OE ideas by claiming that scientific observation and revealed truth must accord may be confusing observation of the supernatural event with observation of the evidences remaining after the event. If our scientist sent into the past to observe Lazarus arrived late and missed his resurrection, that would be analogous to the current scientific situation: the event has passed without observation. Observing only the evidence of a man fully alive, our time-traveling scientist could only tell us that the general revelation contains no scientific evidence whatsoever that a resurrection had taken place. How in that case could special revelation and general revelation coincide? It could not—not when the general revelation is incomplete in that matter. In the matter of creation, general revelation has the same inadequacies. But men in their false confidence think they can fill in the incomplete observational evidence by merely extrapolating into the past from what is present—and attributing to that “contrived” observation the same weight as actual, present observation. THEREIN lies the danger in saying that all truth is God’s truth: because science tells men what is true when in fact it is only what they think is true, and many look for ways to reconcile the revealed truth of Scripture with this scientific revelation. IF this method were adopted in our Lazarus illustration, then the scientist would have to extrapolate, based on Lazarus’s good health, that he had never really died.
So then, I find great reason to disagree with your claim, “What I observe through general revelation will ALWAYS accord with special revelation, even if I can not posit naturalistic explanation for why it happened,” since you cannot observe any miracle of God through general revelation—much less creation—because they are events already past. Because the general revelation is incomplete, it will at times conflict (according to our ability to understand it) with the special revelation, and in such cases, the special revelation must always trump the general. If Scripture tells us that God created around 6000 years ago, in six literal days, then it does not matter what the incomplete general revelation leads imperfect men to conclude through their naturalistic extrapolations from the present into the past. We must believe the special revelation without compromise or dilution.
I only have two replies to this comment that essentially sums up our differences in opinion on this matter.
1. You state: “THEREIN lies the danger in saying that all truth is God’s truth: because science tells men what is true when in fact it is only what they think is true…” If it is in fact only what they think is true then it is not TRUTH. My claim is not that the opinions of men as informed by science is truth. Men can readily be deceived. My claim is that what general revelation reveals is truth.
2. You state: “Since you cannot observe any miracle of God through general revelation…” Exactly right. There is nothing to scientifically observe; therefore, there is no general revelation, therefore general revelation does not disagree with special revelation. The two are still in accord.
Again your problem is that you are conflating scientific observation with scientific explanation. What we observe when properly interpreted will not disagree with special revelation when properly interpreted. The problem is not in special or general revelation, but in the interpreter.
William Carpenter,
According to the book, Time and Eternity, by William Lane Craig, Einstein’s overriding philosophy in his special theory of relativity was Verificationism (only statements which can be verified have any meaning), and so he sought to eliminate the Newtonian ideas of Absolute Space and Absolute Time—the one correct standard of time by which all other time can be referenced (at least by God). But as Craig explains, Verificationism “has proved to be completely untenable and is now outmoded.” Craig states that the illusive universal frame of reference for absolute time and space, which wasn’t discovered in Einstein’s day, has been discovered in ours:
But personally, I think you’re putting too much thought into it. The God who plainly and explicitly conveyed to us His creative activities on the first day, the second day, etc., does not require us to be Einstein in order to understand His real meaning. He communicates with us on our terms in ways that we can understand what truly happened. The truth was simply stated. I see no reason to complicate it with Einsteinian relativity.
William Carpenter,
I don’t read Gen. 1 as a scientific description, but as an accurate, historical account. When it describes the creation of light, it is simply light. Any child can picture a dark world suddenly becoming illuminated. Who really needs to know the quantum physics of what God did? As for how God separated the sky from the waters and the dry earth from the waters, what difference does it really make? God recounts it to us, and we may or may not understand it all—but we know the basic idea of what He did, exactly how long He took to do it, and that He did it about 6 to 10000 years ago. As for the length of day prior to the sun, see my explanation here: Shedding Light on the Length of Pre-Sun Creation Days: A Text-Based Approach .
Generally speaking we are in agreement here with how the text reads. The main difference in our approach is that you describe it as a historical account. Regardless of your attempts to neatly pull science into an isolated category where don’t have to deal with it on the issue, history is just as much a description of natural occurrences in the world. It operates under the same principles. I observe the natural evidence (general revelation) of events that occurred and use that evidence to describe what happened.
Concerning Genesis 1 again, as you state “Who really needs to know the quantum physics of what God did?” Exactly right. Genesis 1 defies scientific explanation of exactly what happened at the moment of creation. Thus it becomes a theological problem of reconciling the scientific or historical observations of the history of the earth with the special revelation scriptural affirmations concerning God’s creation. The result is various theories of YEC, OEC, Ophmalos, and who knows what else. Thus we also have disappointed young earth theologians who like all of us find that God, his creation, and his interaction with it are far greater than our limited minds can fathom.
William, Ken can surely answer for himself,…but when you state Thus it becomes a theological problem of reconciling the scientific or historical observations of the history of the earth with the special revelation scriptural affirmations concerning God’s creation.” I don’t really think it is a theological problem at all. There is absolutely no evidence that science has postured that is difficult for the Genesis account to absorb. The problem, I believe, is the faithfulness of preaching to the miraculous works of God…..not the reconciliation to the natural. That is a discovery channel endeavor.
Young folks (and older young folks 🙂 ) need to be encourage to not fear the natural observations, but to assess them carefully. They are not all their cracked up to be much of the time.
We are living in an age of uber scientific over-dramatization. The weather channel is a great example. You would think we have had at least 200 end of earth events already this year if that was all you watched.
We are in agreement Chris. When I say it becomes a theological problem, I do not mean it is problematic for theology to figure out, but that it is a question that theology has to solve. Much the same as 2 + 2 is a math problem for math to reconcile. It’s not problematic but it is a question that centers in the realm of math.
In the end, as I stated above, God will be vindicated as there is a theological explanation that accounts what scripture affirms in Genesis 1 and what scientific evidence can be observed in the world. I’m sure when we get to heaven and finally see how it is reconciled we will all, YEC, OEC, Ophmalos, and everything in between, stand in amazement at the wonder of a God who could do such a thing. Hopefully we all do so already.
BTW, I agree with the comment on uber scientific over dramatization. Such are examples of bad science not that science is bad.
I see your point William…thx!
William,
As I see it, there are two kinds of attacks on the authority of Scripture. There is the kind that calls into question the inerrancy, as if we cannot trust the Bible to accurately convey the truth that God wants to communicate. Then there is also the kind that affirms an inerrant text, but calls into question our ability to understand it, as if God does not have the ability, when using human language, to accurately convey to our limited minds the truth that He wants to communicate. I reject both. Our limited minds can never comprehend the whole of the truth of God, but we are able to sufficiently understand what God wanted us to understand. With that much, you might agree; but I wanted to be clear.
I don’t understand you objection here:
Like most of the Bible, the creation text is an historical account of the facts. Such an historical account does NOT have any scientific problems. If it says that God created light, then that’s what He did and when He did it. If the scientists have a problem with that, then it is they, and not Scripture (or theologians) who ought to have a problem. Scientists will have serious problems with any miracle in Scripture—how much of a problem does the Virgin Conception have, scientifically speaking? We don’t know exactly what happened there, either—did God make Jesus a sort of clone of Mary, by changing only the X/Y chromosome, or did God “contrive” a physical father by creating a sperm cell? Should our lack of knowing exactly what happened scientifically cause any theological problems in reconciling the scientific observations with the Scriptural affirmations? Not at all. As far as the Scriptural affirmations of the creation are concerned, there are only three options, of which the various theories fall into one of these three: 1, reject the text; 2, believe the text as it stands (miraculous creation in six literal days, approx. 6000 years ago); or, 3, deny the text the authority to trump what natural observation tells science, and find ways to incorporate the scientific view into the understanding of the text. The fact that options 1 & 3 exist and are preferred by many is NOT due to any inadequacies in the text itself.
In fact much of scripture is not historical account. There are psalms, proverbs, wisdom, law and letters. Each are inerrant in what they affirm, and although they sometimes talk about historical events, their aim is not to give a historical account of events as opposed to historical books such as Samuel and Kings.
The claim of whether Genesis 1 is an inspired inerrant historical account or an inspired inerrant literary account is what is debated here. My claim is that Moses and his immediate audience (the Israelites leaving Egypt) did not have the scientific knowledge (hence the reason Gen. 1 written from a geocentric perspective) to understand a scientific depiction of the creation of the universe. Truth is we don’t either. Therefore God inspired Moses to write an account that focuses not on scientifically how the world was created, but theologically who created it and what type creation he created. The degree to which it is historically accurate, I don’t know, because I don’t know how much it tries to be historically accurate. God is quite capable of revealing what he wants to us (although we as sinners often have our minds clouded), but sometimes we find ourselves asking for more than he chose to reveal to us.
William,
You said,
“Therefore God inspired Moses to write an account that focuses not on scientifically how the world was created, but theologically who created it and what type creation he created.”
First I wish to thank all in this discussion,especially those that disagree with me that it is civil and respectful both of others and of our Lord.
Second, I agree with you William as far as you went.
The world was not scientifically created. So therefore why would Genesis focus on that?
But it seems that many people including scientists [understandably] and even Christians [scratch head] are trying to figure out how the world was created scientifically. The Bible tells us that God created the world and the universe by Him speaking, “Let there be…!”
And the Word tells us plainly who created it and how and what and in what order.
So if you disagree with what I think He says, or rather what it means, then please by all means exegete the Word for us and tells us what God means when He says He created this on one day, and that on another day, and what reason for His using the word day, and so forth.
Many OEC [maybe you, maybe not] want a scientific explanation for the origin of the earth and reject what others, like me, call the plain reading of the creation account, BUT they don’t use the Scriptures to show why a scientific account should be found for a supernatural event.
So William, do you believe creation was a supernatural event?
And if so, what makes you think science has the ability to investigate it?
William,
you said,
“God is quite capable of revealing what he wants to us (although we as sinners often have our minds clouded), but sometimes we find ourselves asking for more than he chose to reveal to us.”
Quite true.
And what has God revealed to us about the origin of the earth?
That He created by the word of His mouth and that,
He created it in six days, and telling us what he created each day.
And He inspired Moses as well to refer to these six days in explaining the Sabbath rest in Exodus 20:
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
If there is another BIBLICAL way to understand the passage then explain.
But what I see is that most Christians start with earthly ways, scientific ways, human ways to seek to understand the supernatural creation and the Word of God.
But they don’t do that with other supernatural events.
Thus, i agree with you William when you say minds are clouded.
The good thing is that our God is gracious, so whether He tells some, “I plainly told you,” or he tells others,”I gave you much evidence,” He will not hold our clouded understanding against us, thanks be to the cross of our Lord Jesus.
Ken: I must disagree with you about the idea of God’s use of simple language and our ability to understand it. First, it fails to recognize that the simple also involves the profound, and it is here that we encounter our difficulties in grasping what God has to say. In part, this is due, perhaps, to the fact that what He is speaking is reserved for a later time and a later people. A friend of mine thought a clear mountain stream was only 2-3 feet deep, because he could see the grains of sand rolling along the bottom. What he failed to do was to realize that he was looking into another medium, one that magnified what was happening in the depth. In any case, my friend stepped off into that stream and nearly drowned as it was 18-20 feet deep. Likewise, the Bible in its simple language is still a work that requires much study and reflection to unlock the secrets that are often in plain sight. Our Lord said search the scriptures, meaning like a hard rock miner seeks gold, a most laborious work. I hold to verbal inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility, a six day creation, the world wide flood, etc., but I also recognize that a part of our problem is as the Puritans put it, namely, the Bible’s perspicuity or as we would say, its clarity. I should be very careful, if I were you, in your desire to maintain the truths of Holy Scripture, lest you utterly miss the profundity bound up in the simplicity. I shall never forget, when I came to realize that God uses a therapeutic paradox, as in the case of Jonah 3, to effect His purposes. An unconditional prophecy was not fulfilled as it literally stated, because God’s purpose was to bring repentance to those people by that statement. There is more, but I must desist due to the lateness of the hour. God bless
William Carpenter,
I reject your juxtaposition of a scientific explanation of creation and a theological one, as if those were the only choices. Gen. 1 is clearly a chronological-historical account to anyone who gets their clues only from the text and does not import any ideas or data from outside the text. An historical account tells us what happened, and not merely the why or the who of a supposedly theological account. You may dismiss the historical accuracy as unreliable due to your claim that we do not know how reliable the text was meant to be, but that excuse will not work for any other part of Scripture. Unless we find indications within the text itself that we ought not to count on the historical reliability, then we have no justification for not doubting its reliability.
I’m aware that many parts of Scripture are not historical. But many parts are. And anyone reading Genesis 1 whose mind is not weighed down with concerns about natural evidence will quickly see which category it belongs in.
Who cares whether or not Moses and his audience had scientific knowledge? You’re making problems where there are none. How much scientific knowledge does it take for God to convey that He made light on the first day, the expanse of heaven on the second day, the dry land on the third day, etc.? What you’re doing is begging the question of whether or not God really had a much more complex and scientific explanation but was unable to convey it to such limited people. But you’re begging the question because it’s an unproven assumption that does not come from the text. Instead, you read your assumption into the text as an argument from silence—assuming that such basic simplicity in the creation account (when compared to your understanding of some of the complexity involved in the scientific data of the general revelation) simply cannot be the way that God did it, and it must indicate that God had much more to reveal but human limitations demanded a child-like simplicity in His explanation. But what you seem to overlook is the possibility (the one most supported by the text) that God actually did create things in the very simple way that He conveyed in Gen. 1, and that no further complexity or science was needed in His historical account of it all.
Someone once said that our problem is not the inability to understand Scripture, but the refusal to follow what we do understand. You said, “sometimes we find ourselves asking for more than he chose to reveal to us,” but I think the real problem is that we find ourselves asking for a more complex revelation because we don’t like what Scripture has plainly revealed.
Dr. Willingham,
The text may contain deeper truths to mine, but never at the expense of nullifying the simplicity. When God said that He created light “and evening and morning were the first day,” there may indeed be some deep truths hidden in there—but nothing that would change the fact that God created light on the first 24-hour day.
Ken: I was not contending for an old earth view point, but, rather, the depth in SIMPLICITY. I hold to a six day creation, etc., as you do. Sometimes the text is transparent as in the case of the creation account and the days involved, resulting in a young age which while mature, I think, did not show the signs of aging until after the fall, when the second law of thermodynamics kicked in. Even so a simple text, like the simple formulas of science that the scientists strive for, make have a great depth that will not yield except to the most intensive study. Eschatology, the place of women in the ministry, etc., are a few examples which are indicative of what I am talking about. If the rule is true, and the exceptions are true, it follows that the truth is the rule and the exceptions, a different method of science instead of the old analytical, paralysis of analysis that will skew the results.
Mike, here is how I exegete the text. This is a brief exegesis, but it should suffice for the discussion here.
Any exegesis needs to consider the context. The context Moses is confronting is ancient near east creation myths that tend to center around the gods battling with one another, and accidentally or as a form of animosity towards one another creating various elements of this universe. The elements themselves often are either the gods themselves or byproducts of the gods actions. One of the major concerns of such myths and the culture at large is that of chaos, as illustrated by darkness and the sea among other things, taking over. Moses account in Genesis 1 challenges every assumption of other creation accounts.
Moses starts by demonstrating God, as opposed to the gods, created the heavens and the earth by fiat. It was an ex nihilio creation as opposed to gods interacting with one another and the elements being byproducts of their interaction. God speaking shows his authority over creation, his power to create by spoken word alone, and his intentionality (it was not by accident).
Days 1-3 show God separating different things. God brings order out of chaos. Note that what God is separating are tied to the cultural illustrations of chaos: light separated from darkness, the seas separated from each other, and land from the sea. The purpose of such revelation is to tell us that chaos is not a concern. God has authority over such things, and God is a God of order who will maintain stability in His creation.
Days 4-6 show God filling the elements he separated in days 1-3. Day 4, God filled the light he separated from by creating the lights of the heavens, a greater light and a lesser light (sun and moon) as well as the other lights of heaven to guide the seasons. Day 5, God fills the firmament above with the birds of the air, and the waters of the deep with the creatures of the sea. Each according to their kind demonstrating order, intentionality, and that each is distinct not morphing into the others. Day 6, God fills the earth with living beings culminating in man as the pinnacle of his creation which he gives dominion over his creation. The purpose of these days is to demonstrate God blessing, that He is a good God willing to fill his creation with an abundance of marvelous and living beings.
Now then whether it is also an historical account giving a timeline and chronological depiction of precisely what happened when, I do not know. As stated earlier, I am agnostic about such things. However, to me the nature of the text carries a literary framework confronting the creation myths of the day. Note in this exegesis it is informed from within the text not from science being brought in from outside, and that it honors what I previously stated, that Moses was giving a theological depiction of creation not scientific one. God’s revelation according this exegesis is reveal who He is and what he created, not to reveal in scientific terms what was being created and how.
William,
Thank you for your answer.
I will read it again and answer in a new comment stream.
William Carpenter,
If we surrender the historical certainty of the creation account and instead understand the text as merely a literary response to some local myths, then we must in the process cast doubt on the historicity of the Adam and Eve story as well. And if sin and death did not enter the world by one man than what is the likelihood that redemption and immortality can come through one man? Treating the Bible as merely literature of a certain time and place is a method suited well to removing the authority of anything it declares that might have relevance in our age. The prospect of the verbally inspiring, timeless God communicating to all men in every time and place falls into the shadow of a bright emphasis on Moses’ provincial intentions to rebut locally competitive myths. I don’t buy it. And how many other miracles of Scripture can be demythologized remains to be seen.
William Carpenter,
I’m sorry for any lack of clarity, but I did not argue for Adam to have any history prior to God making him. Maybe the Omphalos argument presented by Gosse does, but I don’t adopt it in every detail. Scripture is my standard of truth, and it tells us Adam was created by the hand of God. Now, humanity’s evolutionary progress may or may not have been recorded in the ground below Adam’s feet ( I tend to think it was not, as Evolution has serious problems of its own), but nonetheless, Adam and Eve were the only two human beings on earth when God made them Himself. As for the water turned to wine, I did not describe a contrived history, but an evident history. Water does not normally just turn into wine, does it? Do you know of any way for wine to be made without the growing of grapes, the crushing of grapes, and the aged fermenting of the grape juice? If not, then the wine displayed a virtual history to anyone looking from the natural perspective. I don’t know how you can seriously claim that the wine was “well-aged” and still complain that I attribute to the wine a “contrived history.” Was Adam’s maturity an indication of a contrived past—of growing from an infant to adulthood? I don’t see the basis for complaint. You say that something created fully mature is ok, but something created with a history that never really happened is not ok. I say that anything created fully mature is by that very maturity testifying to a history that never really happened. As such, your objection is mere semantics. You seem to have a problem with things that never really died looking in the fossil record as if they did die—and, yet, I’d bet that you have no problem with the resurrected Lazarus looking as if he never died when he in fact DID die!Death for animals is just as natural a thing as death for plants—or grapes. How many grapes die to make wine? How many kernels of wheat die to make enough bread to feed 5000 people? How many stars die in the night sky that are so far away as to never have existed?
There is a difference between something maturely formed and something maturely formed with evidence of a history that did not exist. Take Adam as an example. When he was created he was a fully formed adult male. He had all the physical characteristics of a full grown male. Granted if one saw him shortly after creation he would assume that man had gone through the normal development of a human being. However, if he looked for evidence of that childhood, it would not exist. There would be no scars from the time he cut himself as a child. No wear and tear on his body. No broken bones that had reset. (Granted this is before fall, but these examples are for illustrative purposes). There would be no parents to talk to. Now waste products on the earth around him. There would only be a fully mature human being that upon scientific observation has no evidence of his existing moments prior.
What you posit for the earth is quite different. You don’t just posit the existence of a mature earth, but one with the “scars, waste, and parents” of previous generations of life cycles prior to its creation. Hence the evidence of animals that were not alive merely created evidence. You even allow in a previous comment, “Evolution could be compatible with Scripture if everything prior to creation was fossilized and God created every kind of animal, etc., by His own hand. In other words, each newly created species could have had an ancient history of evolutionary progress in the fossil layers…” Hence they have a contrived history that did not actually happen but left evidence of its occurrence. Completely different from a mature being created without evidence of a previous history.
William,
There is a difference in how I see Adam being created and how I see the earth and universe. You are right that I see the universe as created with the marks and scars of an actual history. But as for Adam, as for Adam, as you say, there is no need for scars and such, only the need for maturity. But contrary to your argument, that maturity is itself a testimony to a history of growth and maturing. As I said before, I don’t see Adam as having any parentage or previous life. God could create an ancient universe in a moment, without any living things in it, and then create those living things—each one mature. He could create a world with a history of living things in it but without any living things present. He could create a world with a history of death but still suspend that principle of death on the sin of the first man He created. Whatever else may be objected against this view, it is not unreasonable. And as has been solidly a argued above, many objections against this view could consistently be applied to the resurrection of Christ (and other miracles) as well. How many people were deceived by the implied history involved in Mary’s pregnancy?
Was that not “a contrived history that never actually happened but left evidence of its occurrence?”
You seem to be arguing that creating a world with a virtual past would somehow involve God in setting an artificial stage—of fooling us with a false, unnatural record of events. First, you’re assuming the legitimacy of searching out the geological past by means of naturalistic methods. Knowing that a supernatural God created this world—as all men do (Rom. 1:18-20)—no man has a legitimate right to assume God did not create much later than what naturalistic extrapolations will arrive at. If one finds evidence of a supposed event that happened millions of years ago, the proper response is to keep in mind that God may have created the world with such evidence already present. God’s reasons for doing so can be argued when we meet Him, but for now, we accept the revelation as He has written it. Even those without Scripture know that a supernatural God created the world supernaturally, so on what grounds can they legitimately object to being deceived?
Secondly, God is the Author of nature. Creating a history of natural events would anything but artificial. The Creator knows exactly what events would have happened if He had chosen to bring the world into existence through natural means over billions of years. God controls the present and the future to the same extent as He controlled such a virtual past.
I do not see one of Gods attributes to be one of deception.
The fulfillment on the virgin birth was fulfillment of prophesy, not deception. Along with the appearance of an angel to Joseph. With the addition of many biblical pre and post announcements of Christ virgin birth. This is not deception, it is fulfillment of Gods word.
I believe you have Biblical reasons Ken for YEC. Not so much for supporting the Omphalos argument.
Enjoyed reading your article and comments Ken, I just won’t be promoting the Omphalos argument. Although you did give me lots of information so I am informed of this hypothesis.
We do agree that God can do anything. But God would never go against His Holy nature to create the world.
William Carpenter,
In conclusion, as I said to Chris earlier, as far as dinosaurs, fossils and evolution go, my argument is that it doesn’t really matter. I used to be staunchly YEC. But recently, as I considered the falling away of most of the Evangelical youth when they go to college, and looked into the strength (not necessarily the validity) of the evolutionary arguments, I pondered the question of what I would do if evolution were eventually proven as true. Looking to Scripture, I realized that what God has said in His word must be absolutely affirmed; but what He has not specified must be reasoned from the Scripture. God specified that He created all in six literal days. Even if Evolution were proven to be true, which it never will be, there is no reason for the believer to surrender belief in a recent supernatural creation by a supernatural God. There are some believers in whose minds evolution has been proven as true—and in some believers minds billions of years have been proven as true. But this is no excuse for abandoning belief in a recent creation.
Ken, I agree with you once again.
My professor of geology at the University of Texas was the guy that surfaced the theory of the meteor in the gulf, a theory that is still a hallmark of the program at least since the early late 70s. I actually liked the professor. He was very opened minded, and at one point in my challenge to him about the origin of the jurassic layer, he admitted that a flood theory would better explain his view of what happened. But, since he could not find enough evidence of a flood (much like Keathley concludes), he thought his meteor in the gulf worked better. (Don’t take me wrong on Keathley…I like his work a lot). But, when I pressed the UT prof for evidence of the meteor, …he said “they were still working on it”. His line is the answer to many of the “scientific” endeavors. Maybe believers shouldn’t cave on the miraculous being feasible after all.
What I have found over the years, is a pressing need for theologians to appear relevant. Much like my discussion, in days past, with Daniel Vestal about “women” pastors. Daniel is a friend and mentor, but I could not understand his change until he told me that he had a friend in Waco explain the scriptures in another way to him. He did admit that he changed his hermeneutic to reach his new conclusion. Daniel is a great man, but just got that one wrong.
I would love…. I mean love to see more rigorous debate on these types of issue by the now sitting theologians. The younger generation is looking for “many somethings” to hang their hats on. I hope a floundering hermeneutic, longing to be relevant, is not one of them.
Chris,
Just as an FYI: Here in North Dakota the Oil is under a large layer of Salt. This in and of itself does not prove the flood happened it just is another pointer to the story of the flood in the bible. Do you know if the Texas oil is under a layer of salt?
John K,…been away from the petroleum industry for some time now…. but in Texas there are amazing differences in the depth of wells in production,…from very shallow (could almost kick the ground and get some) to many thousands of feet.
I’m not really sure about how the salt layer exists within….. interesting though.
In my research while in the UT class, there are loads of data that show fossils just below the Jurassic layer were escaping something. In other words…many critters moving in the same direction….which as my professor suggested is a strong pointer toward a flood mechanism, where it is more prolonged than a meteor impact and fits in nicely with a more gradual disaster requiring water.
Along the present Gulf Coast, there are several salt domes (rather than layers of salt). The traditional easy place to find oil was near the top of a salt dome. Presently, oil and chemicals are often stored in some of the domes. The Government’s Strategic Oil Reserve is stored in caverns that have been washed out of the domes. Bryan Mound is the local storage site. Oil is found in other places too, not just in salt domes.
After 3 days and 167 comments, NOT ONE Old-Earther has engaged the following argument:
Can God create a world that is already aged?
If so, then why do Old-Earthers proceed as if He could not?
And if they claim that He could but DID NOT, then it was not evidence that told them that.
Thus, they lose the weight of an argument based on evidence.
At least we all have shown, once again, that we can have a vigorous debate without rancor. Thanks to all involved…
Most of us think that God is not a deceiver. Thus he did not create a lie for us to fall into or follow after. What you see is what God created.
Any time that one does not believe what God has said, he falls into his own lie.
Bennett, [and anyone else]
Enough already with this deceiving stuff.
The PLAIN reading of Genesis is being rejected, and by those rejecting God’s plain words [most if not all give no Biblical cause], they want to slander those who do accept God’s plain words as having a God that is a deceiver!
The truth is the natural CANNOT grasp the supernatural and from the natural’s perspective, the claims of the supernatural seems deceptive.
So be rebuked you raisers of deception, for you show yourselves as putting more stock and credence in the natural’s perspective over and above the plain testimony of God.
Mike, how is constructing a world complete with a history that is intended to fool any observer anything but deception?
It seemed to me that this was a popular thesis of many of the comments on this thread.
You have failed to engage then arguments already given. Read the article. How is raising a man from the dead, reconstructing his body with a healthy condition that is intended to fool any observer (who did not witness the resurrection) into thinking that he’d never died anything but deception? The same charge can be made against any miracle.
Bennett,
You must be late to the discussion and have not yet had the time to read what has been written.
Evidence isn’t proof. And yet you take the evidence the world offers as proof, even though there is three major mitigating factors against that.
1] The world’s evidence is changing, Their understanding is changing. And they are not yet done gathering evidence. And yet despite those uncertainties, you render judgment against God.
2] The natural only sees from a natural perspective. Science can not grasp the miraculous and the supernatural. So as they gather evidence and render opinion on it, they seek to fit it into a naturalistic framework. They by nature ignore any supernatural phenomena and instead seek to explain the results of the supernatural in natural terms. Despite that, you render judgment against God.
3] You have the plain and clear testimony of God Himself in His Word. This testimony stands against the incomplete and biased evidence the world gathers and renders judgment on. EVEN when given the opportunity to exegete God’s Word to show from the Bible a better understanding, you fail to do so, and reject His testimony in favor of the incomplete and biased testimony of the world.
We read in Romans 1:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Bennett, do you believe God’s testimony here?
Assuming you do, then you know the world has blinded themselves to God and His glory and has done so by their sin and rebellion. But you want to say the world is telling the truth about creation and God is a deciever?
We read in 1st Corinthians 2:
2 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
Bennett, why do you accept the testimony of natural man as it relates to the supernatural creation of the world?
We read in John 1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The truth of God, His testimony in the creation story and throughout His Word is rejected by sinful rebellious men, who being under judgment of God for their evil choices are blind to the truth and unable to grasp the Light. And you want to listen to these explain how and when the very One they reject caused all things to come into being?
Finally Bennett,do you own a dog? My dog is devoted to me. But I am sure she doesn’t have the foggiest clue why I do most of what I do because they are beyond her understanding. So just because you can’t see or understand how God is doing things doesn’t mean He is doing things improperly.
So start with His own testimony. Not with science. And tell us just what Genesis means according to God’s Word.
And then after you have done that feel free to call my take on God’s actions as deceptive.
Until then you are but an empty clanging cymbal.
You are right that I see the universe as created with the marks and scars of an actual history.
Bennett,
you said,
“You are right that I see the universe as created with the marks and scars of an actual history.”
So do I.
But the difference is I start with God’s testimony and believe it.
And you start with man’s testimony and believe it
And Bennett,
When challenged to show that you do start with God’s testimony you so far have taken a pass.
I would mention again that the creation might appear mature, in our terms, but it would also look new. The aging factor does not come into play until after the fall. The second law of thermodynamics apparently works only after sin enters the world.
James,
It looked new THEN,. But we are now looking at it 6-10000 years or so later. If we had Adam’s body we would see no belly button. But we would see a grown man.
So from a casual glance or perspective we would see an aging or mature world.
But for those who believe God’s testimony, as you do, they are not deceived, for they use His testimony as the grounds to evaluate the rest of the evidence.
Sadly many are using the less sure evidence to evaluate God’s testimony.
Bennett and John,
Put up or cease.
Either show Biblically how the creation account of 6 days is the wrong exegete, OR
Show how the natural’s perspective can grasp supernatural acts.
Mike, I have shown that in order to reach the literal six twenty-four hour day creation period, as well as creation occurring some 6000 years ago (I believe Archbishop Ussher said it was in 4004 BC, in the early autumn) requires one to make certain presuppositions about the text which are not themselves part of the text. I named the four I see. Remove those presuppositions, and/or make different ones, and the whole young earth exegesis falls like a house of cards. You may not like that exegesis, but how can you help but agree that with different presuppositions, the exegesis will be different?
For reasons such as those Bennett Willis and others have mentioned, the “ancient earth created recently created” falls flat on its face in addition to these.
BTW, I know you were addressing a different “John.”
Funny! I was introduced to the Hebrew Alphabet by a friend who had been raised an Orthodox Jew and had been saved and called to be a Baptist minister. He said the Hebrew is indicative of a 24 hour day, and there is no basis for anything else. He was a graduate of the Univ. of Md, cum laud, John’s College, M.A.L.S., magnum cum laud, M.Div.; D. Min. SEBTS, both cum laud. While Hebrew is not my forte, I do have the required six hours for the M.Div. with languages (which the libs of SEBTS would not give me, because they would not recognize an Honors course as Greek, even though I wrote a 50 page term paper on I Cors.12:31b-14:1a with 305 foot notes under the Dean of the Seminary. I also hold the D. Min. from the same seminary, plus three other degrees with 18 hrs. toward a Ph.D. One has to know the extreme pressure to conform on the age date and how all evidence to the contrary is suppressed as Roms.1:18, ESV indicates, but like Jn.1:5 the truth will out. Having attended 10 colleges and universities beyond the secondary level and taught in three, I am well aware that Ben Stein in his Expelled was barely scratching the surface of the establishment’s wall against yec and catastrophism. However, like every paradigm that dominates, the old earth view is coming to its determined end, and the evidence is mounting for it to be swept away one day. There is a money trail and a vicious movement behind the present understanding of earth, time, etc. You should try intellectual history to see the atmosphere from which this stuff is really generated. Just remember T. H. Huxley and others who said that they did not like the creation view, because it interfered with their life styles. Consider how the scholar from National Geographic refused to even look at the human tracks along side a dinosaur tracks in stone in Texas or how they explained away the small figurines of humans and dinosaurs from Mexico, but failed to say anything about the same kind of figures found in South America. Or look at my remarks about the Arkansas Creation Trial and what happened to Dr. Gentry for challenging the scientists to falsify his findings. They did not. They just punched his ticket by basically refusing to give him anymore contracts from Oak Ridge. Or consider who of the two men in the Scopes trial were the most educated, Bryan or Darrow. The man with three earned degrees was William Jennings Bryan (B.A., M.A., LL.B.) Darrow. Nada, Or consider how Bryan answered, “For all, I know it is a pig’s truth.” Good guess: Later found to be a peccary’s tooth (early pig).
Mike,
Ken is the one who states he uses Omphalos hypothesis in this article. You support his arguments. If anyone needs to be rebuked and needs to put up or cease it is you and Ken. You both write with an omniscient point of view on this subject. You turn out to be the empty clanging cymbal putting forth this Omphalos argument and whenever someone challenges you, you act offended that they don’t understand scripture.
So be rebuked you raisers of deception, for you show yourselves as putting more stock and credence in your perspective over and above the plain testimony of God.
Mike you went one step to far with these statements above, and you owe an a apology.
Everything I have read that you and Ken have written tells me you love God, and fear God.
So if you are going to support an Omphalos view you need to first come up with scriptural answers for this, before you can expect others to engage you with scripture.
If God is up to making things appear to be what they are not, that habit may not be confined to things like stars, rocks, and fossils. How about making the Bible appear to be saying things that aren’t so?
Perhaps God wished to create the Earth complete with a past, much like a writer would create his own literary setting. Still, if God willfully created the universe looking older than it is, as an omniscient being he must have known this would mislead rational observers. Why would God mislead us?
If you can’t address the foundational points of your reasoned argument, you don’t have an argument except only with yourself.
John,
That’s quite a feat of spin-doctoring. I have found that the Omphalos argument fits my view precisely because its starting point is Scripture. God said He created it all in six literal days, we begin there, and there’s no reason to change our interpretation of that text.
Evidently, this bears repeating:
Let’s settle this deception charge once and for all. Show me one situation where the supernatural (or the results thereof) can be looked at (or into) while assuming the natural and deception not be the result. Can any of you show me a single one? You cannot! If you stood outside the tomb of Christ Himself on the third day, and saw Him alive with your own eyes— while assuming the natural—you would have assumed that He must not have actually been dead and He’s now recovered. Can’t you see? The difference between being deceived and seeing the truth is the difference between unbelief and faith. Is God so obligated to display truth that He should not require faith to see it? Ought He, in your eyes, to display in the world the fact of His supernatural creating to such an extent that even those who assume only the natural will have no choice but to conclude that God supernatural created it— and when? Romans 1 tells us that every man can see from God’s creation that He exists—and even “His eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse.” Indeed, men can see the supernatural God in nature. But not by holding on to naturalistic assumptions; but rather, because nature inspires men to apprehend the supernatural and the supernatural Creator. That inspired and revealed truth can either be embraced or suppressed and replaced by mere naturalistic assumptions. If the latter is the chosen method, then who is really the deceiver—God or the unbeliever himself? Every man knows enough from creation to recognize a supernatural Creator-God. So then, what excuse have they for investigating that creation using naturalistic presuppositions? Knowing a supernatural God created it all, what excuse have they for searching out natural causes to find the supposed age of the world? —And what excuse have we, who believe in and intimately know that supernatural God—for being convinced that those natural causes can indeed tell us the age of the world?
God did not directly make things appear to be what they are not. Rather, He made things that really were old in nature from the first moment of existence. It’s not that they merely appeared to be old in nature—they really were old in nature. Men who look into this nature with the naturalistic assumption that how old something is in nature must correlate to length of existence deceive themselves. Such an assumption is skeptical toward the possibility of supernatural creation. These are not merely “rational” observers, as you put it, but skeptical observers who begin at their unbelief. There is precedence in Scripture for God sending strong delusion to those who do not love the truth.
You seem to bounce between Aged Earth Omphalos hypothesis. And Mature Earth creationist views.
Omphalos argument has been debunked in Christian circles even in its day.Tress had rings and fossils were created at time of creation showing a false history, Jesus created wine that was aged.
And Mature Earth creationist views. Mature earth creation is one of the accepted view points. Trees had no rings, Adam had no navel, and Jesus created wine that was mature.
I am surprised you do not see the difference, and do not acknowledge the differences.
Errata: Line 8 in reply to Ken, should be might, not make.
William,
Thanks again for taking the time to exegete the creation passage.
You said:
“Days 1-3 show God separating different things. God brings order out of chaos. Note that what God is separating are tied to the cultural illustrations of chaos: light separated from darkness, the seas separated from each other, and land from the sea. The purpose of such revelation is to tell us that chaos is not a concern. God has authority over such things, and God is a God of order who will maintain stability in His creation.”
Here is my question for you, William, if God was wanting to tell us just what you describe, why not say, “In the beginning days of creation…”?
Why does God do all the first day, morning and night details?
Now as to the context of the time when Moses wrote. It would be spot on if we were to say that God was writing in a way so as to convey truth to Moses and the people of that day. God would want them to the true God’s ways as opposed to all the false god’s myths. BUT, Moses himself seems to get a slightly different take than you because Moses seems to think that God is indeed telling him and the people that God did indeed take 6 days to create the eath and the universe and all that is contained therein when God through Moses tells the people in Exodus 20:
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
It sure seems like Moses is under the impression that God created everything in just 6 days.
So I see two things working against your interp:
1] God took the time and space [in words] to include all that individual detail in His creation account, and
2] Moses seems to agree of that mentioned detail there in Exodus 20.`
You continued:
“Days 4-6 show God filling the elements he separated in days 1-3… The purpose of these days is to demonstrate God blessing, that He is a good God willing to fill his creation with an abundance of marvelous and living beings.”
Again, the same objections. To just convey the message you are outlining, it seems superfluous to put all the detail about morning and evening and such. And again, Moses seems to think that God took just 6 days.
You went on:
“Now then whether it is also an historical account giving a timeline and chronological depiction of precisely what happened when, I do not know. As stated earlier, I am agnostic about such things. However, to me the nature of the text carries a literary framework confronting the creation myths of the day.”
I’m a little confused as to the “However”. I assume you are saying that you have no belief as to it is a historical timeline or not but you do believe in the framework confronting creation myths. Correct my confusion if that isn’t it.
But if that it is then you are neither a YEC or an OEC and could be either or even a variation of a mature earth creation person like myself. For God could certainly do what you are sure He did and still create a mature earth in a historical 6 day timeline.
But if you are a OEC, you still need to explain why God bothered to include the day detail in the account and why Moses considered it as a 6 day creation.
Appreciating the dialogue,
mike
If anyone here disagrees with the position explained in the above article, then please, engage the argument in that article. If you disagree, but don’t really have an argument to bring, then there’s nothing wrong with admitting that, either.
The miracles of Jesus do not fall into the same category (subject to the charge of deception) because they were witnessed first hand, and were not related to us in a poetic, call and response type of literature. The disciples saw the few fish, and then saw the many. Jesus was verified dead, and then verified alive (even the wounds had not healed). The water was seen before the wine.
…and yet the guests thought the best wine had been saved for last! You really seem to have a mental block on this, Bill.
When the insults come out, I think we’ve taken this as far as we can. You’ve declared your interpretation of Gen 1 virtually inerrant, clamped on to an argument that allows you to claim a young/old earth and much of the sciences valid and invalid at the same time, and declared victory.
You started with a particular interpretation of Gen 1 that you think is inviolate, and have constructed a theory around it. That’s fine, people do it all the time. There are lots of theories of why Gen 1 is literal but looks like it isn’t. Any one of them might be right. You might be right.
But what I’m seeing is that you are desperate to convince everyone that the only possible interpretation for faithful Christians is yours, and that’s just not true. Are you willing to petition to have Keathley removed from his post?
I’ve read Ken’s stuff on his site and likely had more exposure to strident YE promotion than is healthy. I have no problem living in harmony with and working with YEarthers, even those who are most intense on the subject.
It appears to me that the indispensible element in many YE polemicists approach is that any departure from YE dogma and accepted interpretations of Scripture is tantamount to slow heresy if not actual, fully formed heresy. YE equals believing Scripture. OE equals not believing Scripture.
I’m back to the question of the other day: Why Is it that our common statement, BFM, does not make YE dogma a test of Southern Baptist orthodoxy?
William,
I can’t speak for kKn or any YEC other than myself.
Since God created in 6 days [your exegesis is agnostic on that], how old is the earth?
Well, 6 days is 6 days whether 6000 years ago or 60 million years ago.
I hold to a 6 day creation as a YEC not because of the creation story itself but the genealogies in the Bible. But I recognize that these may not be complete and cover every year or even decade or even century.
But the problem is that no OEC or no secular scientist is holding to the 6 day creation with man being any older than say 40000 years ago. But they all hold to the earth being much older than that. Much older.
And in doing that, they disregard the 6 day creation as fact.
So I ask them to exegete the Bible to show why it should be taken any other way.
Now you took it agnostically, which means to you it could be a six day creation or not. You took it as not being written to explain that. But you failed to explain why the day detail was included if all God was doing was as you did, and seeking to summarize first one set of creation acts ]days 1-3] and then summarizing another set of acts [days 4-6]. Nor did you explain why Moses, who being in the very context you base your exegesis on, writes in Exodus 20 as if he, Moses, took it as a 6 day creation event.
AS TO OEC NOT BELIEVING SCRIPTURE:
Most every OEC I have read denies the 6 day creation event.
Why?
Most of them, if not all, do so because of the scientific evidence.
Not because the Scripture itself warrants such disbelief in that theory but because in seeking to reconcile Scripture with science, they start with science and seek to make the Scriptures fit.
And what is their argument against the 6 day creation Scripture theory: It doesn’t fit the science.
Now the science has two strikes against it:
1] It can never, by its nature, measure and grasp and explain the supernatural: that’s above its pay grade.
2] The evidence it gathers is both incomplete [they are still gathering evidence] and needs to be evaluated by the very ones who reject the actual Creator [they don’t start with God’s own testimony].
Now you would think that given the vast and majestic nature of the universe that these men would be humbled before God, but instead what is written of them is true:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools…
Thus they outright dismiss a supernatural creation. After all the godless men that fund them do not want that kind of answer. And we also know this: That they are dead in their trespasses and sins, in which they walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in these sons of disobedience. So we also have to be on guard for our enemy, who seeks to use these men to disrupt truth and understanding.
But brothers, you no longer are of the world, and no longer pawns of the enemy. Is it not true that in every other place you would START with the Word of God and its testimony as a base and foundation and into that fit secular reasoning or if need be reject secular reasoning?
So i urge you to start with God’s Word, with what He is saying, and if it conflicts with what the world is saying, choose God’s testimony over the world’s.
It seems that this discussion is reaching that point where it’s getting increasingly personal and people seem to be saying the same things over and over.
Let’s be careful not to let the discussion evolve into something bad (see what I did there?)
Dave, what it’s your view on this?
I’m not sure the point of the Omphalos argument. If science is useless in determining the age of the earth; if scientists are just a big bunch of God-hating atheists with an agenda and no scruples, integrity, or conscience, then why try to reconcile Gen. 1 with science (which is what Omphalos does)? Why not just write off science completely?
Look, the Omphalos argument allows you to keep a literal reading of Gen. 1 and still look like you believe in science, and that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean a literal reading of Gen. 1 is right. Just because you’ve found a way that you think reconciles them doesn’t mean you’re right. YECs have done this for decades, claiming the science was on their side (which Omphalos acknowledges it isn’t).
Omphalos is plausible, but just because it is plausible doesn’t force OECers to abandon what they think is plausible. A literal reading of Gen. 1 is not the gold standard to be achieved.
Bill,
The gold standard is always to understand what God’s meaning is in the text. That’s why we ought to go with the pain sense reading of any passage first, and only look for some other possibilities if that plain sense reading doesn’t make sense or doesn’t accord with the whole of Scripture. In this case, the only problem that the plain sense encounters is the supposed evidence of an old earth. This is the only reason anyone looks to alternative understandings on this. YEC simply denies the evidence. But if God could create an old earth, then the evidence cannot tell us how long the world has been around—only how old it was when God might have created it. Therefore, this Omphalos view undermines the very reason for departing from the plain sense understanding. But now, it seems that these other alternative understandings have been around do long that p people have forgotten the reason they were reported to, and now think they were simply equal options to the plain sense reading. In that trend, I think Scripture has lost its authority to declare its own meaning, as now all exegeses are on level ground with the plain sense meaning.
As for why we don’t just deny the evidence of an old earth, it is because some of it is reasonable, and because many believers are embracing it.
Correction: “…people have forgotten the reason they were reported to…” should read, “….people have forgotten the reason they were resorted to…”
Bill, dear brother,
I thank God you care for His Word.
May you continue to walk in His blessings.
But I think you are confused.
You wrote:
“I’m not sure the point of the Omphalos argument. If science is useless in determining the age of the earth; if scientists are just a big bunch of God-hating atheists with an agenda and no scruples, integrity, or conscience, then why try to reconcile Gen. 1 with science (which is what Omphalos does)? Why not just write off science completely?”
Can scientists determine the age of the earth?
I don’t thinks so. The creation of the earth was a supernatural act which can not be detected by science, AND
It was not created new, but mature. Scientists, even Christian ones, can only seek to find evidence that might aid them in determining how old the earth is. They couldn’t prove it EVEN if the earth came about by natural means. Science can evaluate the evidence they find but they cannot replicate the event, thus the evidence they find will always be incomplete.
Are scientists all God hating atheists?
Of course not. But the overarching agenda of the community is anti-supernatural, even as it should be. The supernatural is unmeasurable.
The supernatural can only be grasped by faith and that faith through the Word. The REALM of science cannot measure the supernatural and thus no matter how hard and long they try, they can never figure out the origin of the universe by science.
Then why try to reconcile Gen. 1 with science, which is what Omphalos does?
Maybe some do. I don’t think Ken is trying to do that. And I am not either.
Some time in the past God created the world and the universe in 6 days.
And science will never figure out how or when, because God created supernaturally a mature earth.
It is hard enough to figure out, without current information what happened 30 years ago, if there are no eyewitnesses. Even then, many times their stories contradict each other. Science is seeking to go back thousands of years, maybe millions, unable to even know if the conditions on the earth at times past were then what they are now. Thus they make a lot of assumptions. If you shoot at a target a 1000 feet away and your gun barrel is a hair off, you will miss the target wildly. The greater the distance, the greater the need for precision. The greater the need to calculate atmospheric conditions like wind and humidity. Science is seeking to go back myriads of years and there is much needed data they cannot only not know, there may be much data they don’t even know they need to know.
Bill, you continued:
“Look, the Omphalos argument allows you to keep a literal reading of Gen. 1 and still look like you believe in science, and that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean a literal reading of Gen. 1 is right.”
That is correct. It may not be right. But again let me repeat myself. It certainly seems that every one who thinks that the literal meaning of Gen1 is not correct does so because they are seeking to reconcile the Bible To the physical evidence. So they reject the literal meaning.
So Bill, I challenge you to show a BETTER Biblical meaning for Gen1 based NOT on outside evidence but based in the Word of God itself.
For example:
OEC people might say that according to science the earth is a billion years old, but man has been around only 40K. Therefore the idea of a literal reading of Gen1 can noT be true.
That is an example of interpreting the Bible based on what natural unspiritual man declares as true.
Opposed to that, I am asking that you interp the Bible disregarding any physical evidence of science, and give me a proper grasp of Gen1 fro the Word alone.
And that Bill, as far as I can tell has not been done.
“Omphalos is plausible, but just because it is plausible doesn’t force OECers to abandon what they think is plausible. A literal reading of Gen. 1 is not the gold standard to be achieved.”
The gold standard is a Bible based exegesis of Gen1 and relevant passages.
That is what is missing in the OEC position.
What if one adopts the 6 day creation event but maintains an OEC position? I would have no beef with them on Gen1. They, though, would certainly be assailed by the very scientists they rely on for OEC reasoning because that form of OEC [with man created only 6 days after the beginning] is inconsistent with OEC positions.
So Bill, what is your exegesis of Gen1?
Dear Parsonsmike: The gold standard is persuasion by the facts of revelation, whatever they are. However, just because we find a clear statement of something in a text that does not automatically make it the gold standard. What we have forgotten is if the rule is true and the exceptions, if the latter are true, constitute the truth. Take for example the idea of the appearance of age. Seeing a man at full maturity is not altogether a meaningful argument, if one has no standard by which to judge the situation. Now consider the age of a man or the universe after the fall and the second law of thermodynamics kicks in. Then for good measure throw in the matter of God stretching out the universe (about 11 references or so), When He did that, it would, certainly, from our narrow perspectives give the impression of age, even great age. Scientists, as the presently work, are rather bound by their analytical methods, lacking a good synthetical method or one that can handle two seemingly disparate ideas at the same time. Funny, in a way that the fellow who helped to prepare the way for the introduction of the so-called modern scientific method (it really is biblical, exemplified in a one-shot example of hypothesis, experiment, null hypothesis and conclusion as to the truthfulness of the hypothesis), Petrus Ramus, also, so I understand, suggested the idea of the rule and the exceptions as constituting the truth, when both the rule and the exceptions are true. Since we have both/and presentation in many parts of Holy Scripture, it does suggest that we need to improve our method of scientific study with reference to the book as least a little bit. And who has to follow science as it presently is, when even the scientists are beginning to question the method they use and are trying in various ways to make up for its short-comings, etc., i.e., control groups, as if only an analytical approach can determine the truth. This does not mean I am an OE. I still hold with ever increasing confidence, backed by fifty plus years of mulling over the matter while looking at the evidence and explanations.
In my view (I didn’t come up with it on my own) Gen 1 is an ancient call and response taught from generation to generation, meant to convey, in juxtaposition to the pagan beliefs of the era, that God in fact created all the things that the people of the lands about worshiped. I think it is poetry, not chronology. We know that the Gospels differ in chronology so it’s not without precedent. I don’t think “morning and evening” have a lot of historical significance without sun, moon and stars for example. Without the sun and moon, how can we be so certain the first day is 24 hours long? (the first 3 days, really). I think it is pretty clear Gen. 1 is written from a geocentric perspective and there are still people today who believe in geocentrism and believe the bible backs them up on this. We do not get a whiff of heliocentrism from the bible, only science.
The waters above and below the sky doesn’t sound historical, especially now that the vapor canopy idea has been debunked.
The chapter also relates how plants grow and reproduce, in contrast with pagan beliefs that sacrifices and prayers were necessary for their gods to make the crops grow. This chapter’s purpose, in my opinion, is to introduce a single sovereign and almighty creator, completely other than His creation and responsible for the existence of all that is. I do not think it is meant to be a historical and scientifically accurate description of a literal 144 hour creation process, especially when the first three days don’t even have a sun, making the concept of 24 hours without meaning.
I could be wrong, I’m not willing to die on this hill. I think Gen. 1 is beautiful, and important, just not for quite the same reason you guys do.
Dear Bill: The only problem that your view really has is the Bible’s devotion to getting the facts right, setting forth the truth, even if the language is simple and poetic. There was a multivolume work written by a Father Schmidt at the University of Vienna, Austria on the flood legends of the world. While his work has been criticized, there can be no doubt that mankind seems to have in common a consciousness of a deluge in its early history.
Bill,
You may not have come up with that view, but whoever did come up with it did so only because of the supposed weight of the physical evidence against a literal, recent-creation understanding. Since God is able to create an old world, then the evidence no longer weighs against the plain sense understanding, so the very reason for resorting to something other exegesis is removed. Not only this, but the OEC view is now shown to be just as fideistic as the Omphalos, since it is just as impossible to prove that a recent creation did NOT happen as to prove that it did.
Bill,
I know you love the Bible.
All of you do.
I never meant to discredit that in anyone.
But sometimes we stray away somewhat from the Word.
You said,
“In my view (I didn’t come up with it on my own) Gen 1 is an ancient call and response taught from generation to generation, meant to convey, in juxtaposition to the pagan beliefs of the era, that God in fact created all the things that the people of the lands about worshiped.”
This is very similar to what William said.
But why just “that era”?
A beginning step in moving away from “what was clearly shown” [Rom 1] is to deny the ownership of the world by the creator God.
If there is no Supreme Being to bow down to, man is free to have his own gods or even install himself as the god of the universe.So while in the ancient pagan world, man invented myths, but in the modern world, man rises to the top of the heap. But the problem is still the same: the denial of the true God and His ownership [by way of being the Creator] of the world.
But if what you are saying is true, why did Moses not know that?
It sure seems that Moses thought God meant 6 days. In Exodus 20. There the writing s decidedly not poetry but matter-of-fact.
And again we read in Exodus 31:
12 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 13 “But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. 14 Therefore you are to observe the sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. 15 For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death. 16 So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.’ 17 It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.”
So if we were to ask a young jewish lad why they didn’t work on the 7th day, would he not respond because God made the Heavens and the earth in 6 days and on the 7th, He rested; so we work for 6 days and on the 7th we rest as a sabbath day, holy to the Lord? Of course he would.
So I think it a strange thing that those contemporaneous to the writing took the story as literal, but exegetes 5000 or so years later disregard that testimony. And I think it goes back, Bill Mac to your word, “plausible”. If one looks at the scientific evidence, its not plausible to interp Gen1 as a literal 6 day creation.
BUT, if we look at both your take and William’s, it depends on OUTSIDE sources n order to understand the reason for the writing and what it means, BUT DOUBLE BUT, neither interp rules out a literal 6 day creation. IN other words neither you nor William have actually given an exegesis that shows anyone why they should not, as it seems Moses does, take the 6 days as literal.
Mike,
You may not have meant to discredit anyone but you sure have tried to MOCK us, and REBUKE us. Both you and Ken. What you will not to do is defend the Omphalos hypothesis and that was what Kens article was about, with the intent to discredit Dr. Kenneth Keathley article. Instead you demand exegesis from commenters about Genesis.
As I have stated I have not formed an OEC position or a YEC position. I have formed a biblical position and that is “The Bible is infallible and holds only truths relieved by God. And not All Truths are in the bible.”
Here is one reason I do not find 6 day 24 hour a perfect literal reading correct to apply to Genesis.
Job 21:3
Bear with me, and I will speak,
and after I have spoken, mock on.
The 6th day.
Adam was created.
1:27
So God created man in his own image,
God put Adam to work in the fields tending them.
2:15
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
God had Adam name every living creature:
2:19-20
Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.
God creates Eve.
2:21-22
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Busy day for Adam to say the least.
It is time you address what this article was originally about. Using the Omphalos hypothesis to prove a YEC view.
Job 11:3
Should your babble silence men,
and when you mock, shall no one shame you?
Mike: Exodus 20 isn’t a problem if the word day is taken in its broader meaning and not locked into a 24 hour period. Are God’s days 24 hours long? Norm Geisler puts it this way “Numbered days need not be solar. Neither is there a rule of Hebrew language demanding that all numbered days in a series refer to twenty-four hour days. Even if there were no exceptions in the Old Testament, it would not mean that ‘day’ in Genesis 1 could not refer to more than one twenty-four-hour period”
John K.,
There are many who see Gen2, which is what you speak of above, as not on day 6, but rather a summary type of recounting of Adam’s stay in the Garden.
But even if each day in GEN 1 is more than 24 hours long, that idea does not work in conjunction with science. Lets say they are each 10000 years long. How does an eco system work if parts of it are missing for 10k or 20k or more? Still with 10k long days we are talking an earth only 60k old.
So lets bump it up to each day being 100k long which makes an earth age of 600k. That not only won’t satisfy science, but then you have ecosystems incomplete for 100k or 200k or more, and you expect them to survive. Not only that, but you have man on the earth 100k when science puts him, at the most, 40k.
So that scenario you suggest is incompatible with science. Which of course is not your goal in the first place. Your goal, is it not, is to fit the Bible into science?
For despite Geisler’s proclamation, the Bible always, I believe, uses numbered days to refer to a 24 hour period [or to one regular day of daylight]. Even as we might say back in the day, we do not mean a specific 24 H day, neither does the Bible. [Also> those were the days my friend, >in my day, >in the days of Noah, etc.]
But when we use a number, especially in a sequence we mean a certain 24H day. [the 14th day of Feb, is Valentines Day. >the first day I did this, the second day Idid that, and so on,] Not just with days, but with any time frame: the 30th year of our Lord, i was born in the summer of my 22nd year, December is the 12th month of the year.
As to Moses, besides your own desire to make Gen 1 days longer than 24H days, what in the text gives you the idea that Moses agrees? For even as the Lord created for 6 days so should you labor for 6 days: Moses used the same word for both the Lord and for the people. The only ones who want it to mean more than 1 24H day are those trying to fit the Bible into science instead of the other way around.
So why can’t day in Gen1 mean more than a 24 H period?
1. It doesn’t get you where you want to go, because in order to make the Bible compatible with science, you not only have to do that, but also render what happened in each time period, as the Bible states, into something altogether different. Why? Because science itself recognizes that life on earth has to develop together for it to exist. The wonder of the world is that the various parts need each other to survive and bring forth life. Which of course speaks not to happenstance or chance but to a creator who put them altogether in a short time period.
2. The testimony of Moses speaks against it.
Mike,
I pointed out a simple, sequential, and literal plain reading of the text using scripture. With simple exegesis. It is what you have been requesting.
Why can’t you except scriptures truth? You obfuscate on to other text rather than addressing the text that is presented clearly in scripture. Moses lays down the foundation point and then expands upon it like it is done 100’s if not 1000’s of times in scripture.
Remember context of scripture is important, so as you explain your view Moses expands previously in the text on day 1 through 5. So those also need to apply to your explanation.
I am not speaking of science I am only looking at the truth of scripture. Can you stick with scripture, or do you need to do another straw man argument?
John K.,
i don’t think you did what you are claiming.
But I can’t get into fully until later, so until then brother, have a blessed day.
John,
Chapter 2 opens this way:
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
Now of course Moses nor God wrote in chapters or verses. So we see from vs.1-3 that God is done telling how He created the earth. Now will God contradict Himself, we both believe that He will not. Both we also know that either or both of us may fail to understand what God is saying.
Gen2:
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. 5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
If we take v.4 literally, then we see a problem. God just got done saying in Gen1 and implying in Gen2:2 that He took 6days to create the earth. But in v.4, God uses the phrase, “in that day” to speak of creation. God is not giving a day by day account at this time [why should He, He just gave it in Gen1] but in a sense [for His listeners] reflecting back on those days.
So when was the Garden planted? In Gen1 He planted the garden with fully grown trees with fruit on them on day 3 in Gen1. But here in Gen2 he is speaking of the garden in v.8 after the creation of man in v.7, but only to put the man in it, which means it was already there. So in this passage, God is not talking about any single day. He is not talking about the day He created man, notr the day he planted the Garden. To get this from another angle, in Gen1 we read:
11 Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. 13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
The earth did indeed sprout vegetation in day 3 with reproductive fruit on/in them. But in Gen2, we are told:
5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.
Is God contradicting Himself? I don’t think so. However he did it, it is obvious that He watered the shrubs and vegetation with mists that sprung from there ground. Just on day 3? of course not, He did this until the flood when the first rain fell. So Gen 2 is not telling us the creation story over again, but telling us of the world after creation, both in the Garden [where man could cultivate] and outside the garden, where there was no man yet.
So Gen 2 verse 4-9 are not about any single day, but a general summary. So we have God bringing forth vegetation and mist-watering them, and then man appearing,, and the vegetation or trees growing from out of the ground good for food.
So then a short passage about the rivers, and the we read in Gen2:
15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
From the text, how many days are involved? Answer: unknown. It could be the same day, it could be days or weeks later.
Gen2 continues:
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
Again, why does this have to be the same 6th day of creation? There is nothing in the text here that leads one to make that pronouncement. Nothing.
And then God puts Adam to sleep and from his rib creates Eve. Not ex nihlio. Not out of nothing. He used already created material to form Eve. Jesus, used already created fish and bread to feed the 5000.
So as far as I can see, nothing in Gen 2 speaks against the idea that God created in literal days, and that He created a mature earth. In fact it seems to support both wholeheartedly.
John,
i do have a question for you, something you wrote that I don’t understand:
you said:
“Why can’t you except scriptures truth? You obfuscate on to other text rather than addressing the text that is presented clearly in scripture. Moses lays down the foundation point and then expands upon it like it is done 100’s if not 1000’s of times in scripture.”
What do you mean by “Moses lays down the foundation point and then expands upon it like it is done 100’s if not 1000’s of times in scripture.”?
Do you mean that… No I’ll let you tell me.
Thanks
Mike,
I did exactly what I am claiming.
My only exegesis was:
“Busy day for Adam to say the least.”
The rest is sequential copying of the text placing it in a pertinent sequential order for easy reading for a literal manner interpretation.
As you know Moses did not write chapters he wrote sequential inspired text.
Mike you know exactly what I mean by:
“What do you mean by ““Moses lays down the foundation point and then expands upon it like it is done 100’s if not 1000’s of times in scripture.””
Common now you have studied and are familiar enough with ancient writings of these times not even to be able to get away with that response.
I know you have a view of YEC you have made that clear. I have no issue with that.
I will give you my viewpoint clearly as I can:
“God gave us limited information regarding creation so that we would not think we are gods.”
We can start with:
Job 38
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?……………….
This should be clear of my view. Who are we Mike to tell God how he formed Creation and be wise counsels of man. I am just a fool as I exegesis creation. That is what I try to keep in mind. I stay away from the analogy of the wind up toy of a monkey clanging cymbals together. Because in Gods eyes that would be a complement greater than we deserve.
John,
you said,
“I did exactly what I am claiming.
My only exegesis was:
“Busy day for Adam to say the least.”
So you assumed it was all one day.
That’s your exegesis?
Okay John, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.
Job 38- 42 is my answer:
“Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
He who argues with God, let him answer it.”
Then Job answered the Lord and said:
“Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
twice, but I will proceed no further.”
Then Job answered the Lord and said:
“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
Amen, Bill Mac. Many of those who hold to YEC and/or omphalos seem determined to either imply or outright state that those of us with a different opinion and/or who question their presuppositions are at a minimum discarding Scripture, and are perhaps agnostic or heretical, or not Christian. I would ask them, “Is this not one of those ‘debatable doctrines’ the New Testament speaks of?”
John
John F,
No one here has said you are agnostic or a heretic or an unbeliever. And I have stated a couple of times at least that you guys are my brothers who love the Lord and His Word. And that would include you John.
But I have also challenged you to show me Biblically why Gen1 is not referring to 24H days, by asking you to show Biblically what it does mean.
For my contention is that many have let the world creep in, in this matter, and seek to fit the Bible into the world, whereas in every other play they would never do such a thing.
So show me I am wrong.
Mike, I said, “Many,” not “all,” and I appreciate that you have never done so. Even when we disagree (and it is not always so) I appreciate both your comments and the spirit in which you make them.
You ask me to show “Biblically” why the days of creation are not 24 hour days. I and others have done so. On one hand, the Hebrew word translated as “day” is not as definitive as the English one. Probably that is because there were only one, perhaps two hundred thousand words in Hebrew (whereas English has several million, I forget the exact number). Consequently, words had to do double, sometimes even triple duty, that is, have multiple possible meanings. We even see that in the Greek of the New Testament, and Greek had a wider vocabulary than Hebrew: the word “pneuma,” for instance, which could mean wind or spirit, or the word in John chapter 3 usually translated as “again” (as in “ye must be born again”), which could also mean “from above.” Here, of course, they are somewhat related, but it is not always so.
Second, and more to the heart of the discussion is the matter of presuppositions. If one presupposes that in the Genesis passage a “yom” means a 24 hour day rather than an age or aeon, and that it was meant to be understood literally, and that one can calculate the exact span of years from creation to now by adding the English translation of the ages of various patriarchs and other relevant Bible persons, and that it was written as either a “scientific account” or an exact historical one (ignoring the situation at hand, namely the competing Babylonian, Mesopotamian and Egyptian creation myths current in the ancient Middle East) then yes, you inescapably arrive at a young earth. However: these are all presuppositions one brings to the text. Apply a different set of presuppositions, and you reach a different conclusion.
John
John,
or maybe God has done both. He has both answered the surrounding cultures and presented us with exactly what He did. The truth has a way of cutting through the muck.
So because one holds the position that there was a need to address the surrounding cultures and their myths doesn’t mean that one can’t also hold to a literal 6 day creation or vice versa.
As to ‘yom’, when it is used with a number like 1st or 2nd, it is considered a regular 24H day throughout the Old Testament. Certainly there are times when yom is ysed to refer to a group of days, but when it is used that way, there is no number associated with it. So as we might say, back in the day, we mean an unspecified amount of time, or as in the days of Noah, again we mean a time not limited to a single day.
Certainly one could say, “take away these presupps” and you have no case, but you could say that about every doctrine, every one.
The question is why should we not read the Bible literally unless there is an over-riding reason not to. Simply saying a doctrine would fall if you take away its presuppose, is not a real objection unless you can show why they should be taken away.
And the only thing I have read is that they should be take away so as to allow the Bible to be conformed to scientists opinions. Thats bad.
O as to the stretching out the Heavens, I think we shall find the answers in quantum algebra or whatever lies beyond it that can take in all of the facts and anomalies and put them in some semblance of an adequate interpretation which will survive the falsification efforts that will be made to discredit it. One and perhaps at least two people have offered quantum algebraic theories which consider the earth as only 6-10,000 years. Catastrophism, that is, the flood of Noah, along with other concomitants from space, has yet to be understood. The Montana flood from the glacier dam break that produced the scablands in the State of Washington had yet to be assessed as to what effects it will have on other anomalies that might indicate a flood, even a world-wide flood. Morris and Whitcomb writ better than most people imagine, not that I agree with all they wrote.
I cannot support an old Earth, recently created. I believe Genesis 1:1. I believe “In the beginning,” means the absolute beginning. This makes the Earth a very old Earth, possible billions of years old, maybe trillions of years old. I believe the early Jewish translators knew what “In the beginning,” meant.
This view allows me to combat science and explain the Genesis account a lot easier. If we will allow it, by faith, the Bible will explain itself and will become quite clear.
Sometimes, I think we can become too scholarly and let faith slip out the door. This is an old country boy’s story and I’m sticking to it. I’m not tossing this at anyone, I just like the KISS approach.
If you’re “combatting science a whole lot easier” then how is it by faith.
Seems your keeping cake and eating it too.
If it’s by faith – it may not always be easily explained by science, right?
Tarheel,
Science says we have an old Earth. So does Genesis 1:1. That gives me ammunition to support the creation account instead of evolution which science supports. An old Earth stands a better chance of combating science than an Earth 8,000 years old.
The Bible is full of science. I believe it was Job that said the Earth hangs on nothing, that’s science, We read in the Bible about ocean currents, that’s science. I believe one can embrace science and faith together. I think one can believe in science and be a devout Christian. I also believe one can believe in God and be a devout scientist, because many do.
I personally love science, I don’t believe all the things science supports. I love Christianity, I don’t support all things Christians support. For me, science and faith work together in many ways. Just because one loves science doesn’t mean they don’t love God. As a Christian, science is merely a study of God’s creation, even though science gets it wrong sometimes.
Tarheel, I think you are absolutely right. Faith is substance and evidence,….unlike science, which are merely proofs about creation that are subject to change moored by a few sets of laws as we understand them to exist. Science is simply a ways and means (and I like science at lot,…I use it everyday to assist in the invention of stuff), yet it fall grossly short of the same perfection that is demonstrated by Faith. Faith is never subject to change.
We should not confuse our students by pretending that science is proving faith. This stage of science seems detailed, especially if you view if from the standpoint of Aristotle…but may look silly in another 100 years. Science still has its training wheels on.
Faith, on the other hand, is perfect and the author is the creator.
After actually reading Keathley’s paper more carefully, it does appear he is begging a little for some support of his move from YEC to OEC. I find it interesting that nearing his conclusion he posits “an appearance of age is an appearance of a non-actual history”. That is not really true, unless one leaves out the history of miracles (Discovery Channel). That is kind of Ken’s point it seems. There are numerous biblical accounts that are historical that must contain miracles, or we don’t have a Savior. I’m yet to be convinced that miracles are not historical when they occur in the course of history.
OECists have much work to do in order to harmonize Genesis when depending upon the know scientific approaches. I am still waiting to see if the data is “dry to the touch”….since it was only a few years back that science had the ages at 1-2 Trillion, and are continually revising down (University of Arizona).
As for now,…I’ll stick with God’s creation as miraculous history.
Chris,
That is true, not all the evidence is in yet.
Judgment should take in all the evidence.
Would you judge on a murder trial while still waiting on the DNA?
Or in twisting the words of the most important witness?
I As for now will stick with God’s creation as miraculous history, as well.
John F.,
You said,
“Mike, I have shown that in order to reach the literal six twenty-four hour day creation period, as well as creation occurring some 6000 years ago (I believe Archbishop Ussher said it was in 4004 BC, in the early autumn) requires one to make certain presuppositions about the text which are not themselves part of the text. I named the four I see. Remove those presuppositions, and/or make different ones, and the whole young earth exegesis falls like a house of cards. You may not like that exegesis, but how can you help but agree that with different presuppositions, the exegesis will be different?”
I missed the post where you put forth these 4 presupps. Could you either direct me to it, or repeaet it?
Thanks
I posted this on 9/3 at 7;06 PM, “YE requires a certain criteria of interpretation, more specifically that the Genesis account of creation (1) was meant to address a scientific interpretation which was thousands of years in the future from when it was written, (2) that it was meant to be taken literally, (3) that the English word “day” (meaning 24 hours) is precisely what was meant by the Hebrew “yom,” and further (4) that there were no intervening periods between the named “days” or “yoms” of creation. There may be others, but these are what occur to me at the present. OE too has presuppositions: (1) that the laws of the universe (physics, astrophysics, optics, etc.) which are observable today have been the same since creation. This would include geology, especially in matters involving radioactive decay, magnetic fields, etc. It further assumes (2) that our understanding of such scientific fields is correct, or is at least a close approximation of correct. If one assumes the four presuppositions of YE, then there is definitely a conflict between the theistic and scientific accounts of creation.”
Let me say that I concede the possibility of a YE; however, from the arguments above, it is not the only possibility. Another possibility is OE, which is where I am at. I do however appreciate your spirit and tone.
John
Here’s the bottom line: Science says the earth is old, Omphalos says the earth is old. I am convinced to be an old-earther.
Bill Mac, I’d be interested to know how “science” says anything. Science is a way of interacting with the natural world. It is not an entity that speaks “ex cathedra” on all matters pertaining to phenomena.
What you might be referring to is a particular philosophical position within the broad category called science. That would be “scientific naturalism.” Science can make observations about the present phenomena, but any conclusions related to something that cannot be tested directly is not strictly science.
Science has NOT declared the age of the earth to be old. That is one conclusion some scientists make after looking at the data. That conclusion is skewed however because most of those making that conclusion start with that conclusion in mind.
I was a scientist, though I am not at this time. I have never concluded the earth is billions of years old and that evolution can account for the diversity of life we now see on our planet. I share this view with many scientists.
Bill Mac,
It seems to me that God made the earth mature. Mature looks old.
The wine from water gave the appearance of being matured through a normal process, for who would think it was but water a few moments ago?
The fish and bread looked like it had been caught and scaled and cooked or grown and kneaded and baked and brought to the hillside. Who knew it was all from a boy’s small lunch?
Mike: This is what Ken is saying:
Bill Mac,
Okay.
I am arguing for a recently created mature earth.
And because it was created mature, science runs or will run into a wall in seeking its age.
And they do that because they can’t measure from an unknown starting point. It skewers the data. And the fall by the curse ruins the data. And the flood ruins the data.
Can’t you see how those things can ruin the data?
Skewer the results?
Mike: It seems to me that you are arguing for a mature looking earth.
I’ve been in many street markets in Asia, and they often sell a number of items that are brand new but look antique. Old material, a bit weatherworn looking, scuffed, etc.
I will admit for God to create something fully formed in an instant it will have an appearance of age. But frankly I don’t see why he would give Adam and Eve navels or trees growth rings. Would their teeth be worn? Any plaque build up on the teeth or in the bloodstream? Would they have any pre-creation memory? I’m betting scientists or health professionals would be able to tell the difference between an actual 18 year old and one created ex nihlio, unless God deliberately wanted to hide the fact.
By the way, I don’t know that you have argued this, but the idea that the 2nd law of thermodynamics didn’t come into effect until after the fall has been thoroughly and easily refuted. Digestion isn’t possible without the 2nd law. Neither is friction, or erosion. Sound wound’t fade over distance and waves on the sea would never lessen. Even Morris had to finally admit he was wrong about that.
Mike,
You are arguing for an “aged” earth. You substitute with the word “mature” because you may think it sounds better and conforms to mainstream YEC and to Christianity. Ken did this in his second paragraph when he introduced Omphalos. At that time he substituted “hypothesis” with the word “argument.” Maybe he thinks that sounds better for his purpose.
Mike, You and Ken are my brothers in Christ. You have chosen not to address Omphalos directly yet hide it behind your arguments with some deception. I don’t pretend to know your motives. I will be praying for you, that all your Omphalos views can be shown clearly and in the light, so that you glorify Gods kingdom with Gods message.
Jack: You’re nitpicking. You know what I mean.
Bill Mac, the fact that you accuse me of nitpicking supports my view that your statement is inadequate.
It is precisely this inadequate definition of “science” that allows the status quo of scientific naturalism to prevail. You use the word “science” as a synonym for “true.” This is common even in advertising such as the phrase “scientifically proven.”
I’m quite sure that my post is not nitpicking sense volumes have been written on the very subject of “scientific conclusions.”
What you appear to say is that a “majority of scientists” have concluded the age of the earth is old. That is quite a different statement. Even if THAT statement were true, the conclusion would not be valid. 10,000 copies of a mistake is still a mistake.
Science has made no such conclusion as you state, nor could it. Science makes observations–scientists make conclusions. They are two separate categories altogether.
All daters of the earth suffer from the same problem scientifically. No observation of the initial event is possible. This is why two great scientists, like John Lennox and Stephen Hawking for example, arrive at different conclusions from the same data.
Again, it is dismissive to simply label my question as nitpicking, but it is a question that the scientific literature addresses many times in many ways.
And, yes, I did have a sense I knew what you meant, but was unclear as to whether you realized an alternative way that it could be viewed.
No intent to “nitpick.”
PS–Scientific conclusions have often been shown to be inadequate or false because the presuppositions imposed upon the scientific data was false.
Einstein, for example, changed his theory of relativity by adding a “cosmological constant” because his scientific investigation indicated an expanding universe.
This went against the prevailing scientific “conclusion” that the universe was static (a steady state). This is a case of a scientific conclusion ignoring the science.
Folks,
Other more pressing things have come at home here. Thank you all for proving once again that such an intense topic can be discussed here at SBC Voices without devolving into rancor and ad hominem. It is no secret that those on the side of a literal interpretation of the creation account see the abandoning of that interpretation as firmly linked to a doctrinal slide into liberalism and eventual organizational apostasy. For us, this can never be only a conversation about exegetical preferences of minor importance—and neither can we ever acknowledge that there’s not enough textual grounds for certainty. That will offend some, but it is unavoidable. However, it does not help to add to that an offensive tone or unnecessarily offensive words. If you have found anything that I have written here to be in this unnecessarily offensive category, please forgive me.
At nearly 300 comments, I still feel that no Old-Earther has engaged my argument as presented in the article above. None have squarey faced what should be the standard hermeneutic principle, that the plain sense reading should be the one adopted unless the is a clear need to look for an alternative exegesis. Also. Since it is very possible that God created an old earth, then the OEC view is just as fideistic and unfalsifiable as the Omphalos view. NEITHER is based on the evidence. Therefore there is no justification for allowing the evidence to influence one’s approach to Genesis.
God bless you all!
Bill Mac,
How do you interrupt “In the beginning?” I have to ask, the beginning of what? I think in the beginning means “In the beginning of the beginning.” This is back when God created the heavens and the earth. This is back when the earth was nothing but a chaotic mixture of water and matter. This would make the earth a very old earth with a number in front of too many zeros for me to count.
In verse two of Genesis chapter one God began making something out of this old earth. God began to give the earth movement and life. Before verse two everything was still and dead.
Bill Mac, I was just wondering what your thoughts are about an old earth. Why is the earth old? I think my thoughts are pretty accurate scripturally.
Jess: I think the earth is old because as we explore the heavens and the earth, we are finding just too much history to fit into 6000 years. There are too many layers, too much oil, too many lost civilizations, the stars are too far away to fit into 6000 years. YECers are saying we’ve deliberately misinterpreted the data because scientists hate God, but their claims are increasingly being found insupportable. The omphalos argument being posited here is an attempt to accept an old earth (or an old-looking earth) recently created, but like Keathley I still think this smacks of deception. Plus it is being modified to still accept some tenets of YEC such as the sudden appearance of entropy after the fall, which is also simply insupportable in my opinion.
Bill Mac,
I notice that you continue to make the same objections without addressing any rebuttal made to those objections.
Not only that, but you are also mischaracterizing the position.
No one, as far as I know, says that you or even an atheistic scientist has “deliberately misinterpreted the data because scientists hate God.”
From what you have written on various subjects I know you have a fine mind.
So then what can I conclude when reading what you are writing as to the above problems I see?
Your objections are not because I am interpreting the Bible wrong as much as it is I can’t be right because some or many or most scientists interpret the data in a way that makes what I am saying wrong or impossible.
And it is right there at that point where you are choosing against the Word for for the world.
For it seems your viewpoint is that it is just impossible to fathom a young earth or an older earth created in 6 days, because you accept that the world declares it impossible. So therefore the testimony of God MUST mean otherwise than what it is saying.
Since you are not willing to actually engage in discussing my rebuttals to your objections, what is the point of discussion?
For the record then:
Here are three things I see as to why a conscientious scientist will never find the answer they are looking for as to the age of the earth:
1] They are looking for an earth that was born immature that had to develop and grow, but God made an earth that was mature, that had already set up ecosystems.
2] Because of the Fall, God cursed the earth, and it changed many physical and material ways.
3] The flood event both changed on and in the ground physicality, as well as the atmosphere.
There may be many more. For example, volcanic eruptions can cause sizable changes, some throughout the globe.
In other words there are many unknown possible events and factors that mitigate every so called proof science has against a young earth.
That you fail to take these into account reveals quite a bias.
I am biased?
Oh yes i am.
I can’t prove what I believe.
But I stand on the testimony of God.
I hold it against the testimony of the world as my base and foundation.
You want the discussion to be over the evidence produced by science.
I want the discussion to be over the Word of God.
You have a different foundation for your world origin beliefs than I do.
Mike,
Then why do YECers discuss science at all? Since science is useless when discussing the age of the earth, why do so many YECers keep invoking fringe scientific theories to support their claims? Why not just say science has no part in exploring earth’s origins? I’m sorry but if people are going to say things like entropy didn’t exist until after the fall, or the speed of light used to be infinite (I’ve heard both) it is difficult to take that view seriously.
Couldn’t a flat earther or a geocentrist make exactly the same claims you are, and for the same reasons? Could he not accuse you of forsaking the plain reading of scripture in favor of worldly science? In fact, flat-earthers and geocentrists do precisely that.
I am not ashamed of and do not apologize for trying to reconcile one method of God’s revelation with another. The reasons given for considering the days of Gen. 1 as sequential 24 hour days are not compelling to me. I don’t find the omphalos argument persuasive because I am not seeking to reconcile the apparent age of the earth with a 144 hr creation 6000 years ago.
I’m not sure what kind of rebuttal you are looking for. Ken seems to think that because there is a theory that seems to reconcile an old earth with a recent creation, then that is what we must do. But the logic doesn’t follow. YECers of the Ken Ham variety have long had theories that seem to reconcile them, and people don’t seem to be compelled to read Gen. 1 as they demand.
Bill Mac,
“Then why do YECers discuss science at all?”
Some YECers think the science is or will be in their favor.
Everyone doesn’t fit into a neat little package.
I have the same words for them as for you: science can’t figure it out because the origin of the earth was a supernatural event.
“Couldn’t a flat earther or a geocentrist make exactly the same claims you are, and for the same reasons?”
I don’t know what those positions are. I will check them out and get back with you.
“Could he not accuse you of forsaking the plain reading of scripture in favor of worldly science?”
No. But someone, maybe them since I know not them yet, could certainly dispute my understanding of Scripture. Since my position does not rest on science at all, then how can I be properly accused of taking science over Scripture?
“I am not ashamed of and do not apologize for trying to reconcile one method of God’s revelation with another.”
I see. It seems to me that you place the opinions of scientists whose data may be considerably flawed on an equal stance with the Word of God.
The opinions of scientists are not the revelation of God.
The conclusions of scientists are not the revelation of God.
The formulas and testing procedures are not the revelations of God.
The revelations of God, like the sun in the sky, the diversity of life, the shining stars and so forth are only known by you as His revelations because His Word tells you they are. Thus they are subordinate to His Word.
Romans 1 tells us:
8 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
And you, like myself, and like all thinking adults suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. But now through His Word and by faith in that Word, we know that we were wrong to suppress the truth. And some of the truth we suppressed were that which we could clearly see, namely that He is the creator God.
Likewise no one comes to God because of physical created revelation. God may use those things but only in conjunction with His Word.
So for those two reasons, it is quite wrong to elevate the one to the level of the other.
But you aren’t even doing that.
You are elevating man’s opinions and conclusions about creation.
You are elevating men’s words to the level of God’s Word.
So yes, you should be ashamed of that.
“I am not sure what kind of rebuttal you are looking for.”
I am not looking for rebuttal, but for you to interact with my rebuttal of your position.
For example, I say the earth was created in 6 days in a mature way.
You say the scientific evidence speaks against that.
I then said that the evidence is skewed, and gave reasons for that.
You… no reply.
Now you did reply, and I thank you, in a way by what you posted above to some of what I have put forth.
I made some points, that are pointedly against your position in this post. Not your scientific position, but your position on revelation.
Your reply is awaited.
Mike, this is why these discussions are mostly fruitless exercises. BillM is more than capable of a proper response, but I’d ask if you have considered your statement to him, “It seems to me that you place the opinions of scientists whose data may be considerably flawed on an equal stance with the Word of God” might be a cheap shot?
Ken has already said: “It is no secret that those on the side of a literal interpretation of the creation account see the abandoning of that interpretation as firmly linked to a doctrinal slide into liberalism and eventual organizational apostasy. For us, this can never be only a conversation about exegetical preferences of minor importance—and neither can we ever acknowledge that there’s not enough textual grounds for certainty.”
The account has to be literally taken and not doing so leads to apostasy and nothing in the text is up for discussion. It’s all settled.
Add the mature earth creation where there is no basis to discuss any evidence and there’s nothing to talk about.
Wonder why Mohler, Rogers et al didn’t see this and incorporate it into the BFM?
William,
You ask:
““It seems to me that you place the opinions of scientists whose data may be considerably flawed on an equal stance with the Word of God” might be a cheap shot?”
I said that because he said:
“I am not ashamed of and do not apologize for trying to reconcile one method of God’s revelation with another.”
One method is of course the Word of God.
And the other method: well if you read his statements throughout this discussion, it is the conclusions and opinions of scientists which he labels science.
As to this:
“The account has to be literally taken and not doing so leads to apostasy and nothing in the text is up for discussion. It’s all settled.”
If that is so then why have I been seeking for exegesis of the account from those who do not hold to a literal 6 day creation event?
And in the rare case where someone did offer something, I sought to discuss [and not simply dismiss] our differences.
So maybe William why the discussion doesn’t get far is because many do just as Bill Mac is doing: not seeking to reconcile the words of scientists with the Words of God and in fact trying to fit God’s Word into the scientists’ box.
Mike, It is not my admonishment to anyone, it is Gods admonishment to ALL OF US! Job 38-42 directly related to creation.
Are we really arguing for Christ, or are we expressing our need to always be right? This is a question I have to ask myself. When it comes to Creation Theory I know I am wrong, because God told me so in the book of Job.
John,
I can only answer for myself.
I see many brothers who are putting the word of scientists ahead of the Word of God.
I gain nothing by winning this discussion.
I gain everything by being a good witness to His Word.
Mike: William has responded in like manner as I would. You say I have elevated man’s opinions over the word of God. See what you did there? To you, Genesis 1 is not the word of God, but your particular interpretation of Genesis 1 is the word of God. This is nothing new. This has been a YEC tactic for decades. Your theory (omphalos or whatever) matches your interpretation, and my theory matches my interpretation. Mine also happens to work with the current available science. You don’t see that as a plus, but I do.
Bill Mac,
I have been seeking to just what your theory is.
And what I have been getting is talk of scientific evidence and one revelation of God need not be reconciled with another revelation of God.
So I welcome your input.
Please exegete Gen1.
I was to lazy to meet your demands Mike. But it seems to be bothering you a lot that no one would exegesis Genesis 1, so here you go.
You see Mike others can have other views on Creation that are biblical. As I previously referenced Job 38-42 God gives us strong admonishment through Job for a Know It All Attitude to us.
I doubt this will change your view, only the Holy Spirit can do that.
The Literal Interpretation of the Genesis One Creation Account
by Rich Deem
http://godandscience.org/youngearth/genesis1.html
This is well referenced but you have to go to their website to get them.
Introduction
Get out your Bible and be prepared for a shock. You are about to read the Genesis creation account and see (probably) for the first time what the text really says. My only request is that you pray for spiritual guidance, since the Holy Spirit can teach us what our pride usually rejects.
Holy Spirit, teach us what you told Moses about what you were doing1 during the creation of the earth and life upon it. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Volumes have been written about the first verse of Genesis. There are a two main interpretations of what this verse really means. Some say that the verse is a summary of the rest of the Genesis creation account. Others say that the verse represents the first creative act of God. How can we tell which interpretation is correct?
Day 1
The answer is really quite simple – keep reading! Reading Genesis 1:1 or any other Bible verse outside its context is one of the worst things that a person can do.2 When we look at Genesis 1:2,3 we see that it begins with the conjunction “and.” This fact immediately tells us that Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 are part of one continuous thought. Remove the period at the end of Genesis 1:1 and read it as originally intended:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was formless and void…
Holman QuickSource Guide to Understanding Creation The conjunction at the beginning of Genesis 1:2 tells us that Genesis 1:1 is not a summary of the creation account! This verse is a factual statement of what God did at the beginning of the first day. There are other context clues that tell us that this is not a summary statement. If we continue reading the Genesis creation account, we come to the real summary at the end (Genesis 2:1).4 It would be superfluous to have a second summary at the beginning. As we continue to read Genesis one, we will notice how succinct the creation account really is.
So, we conclude that the text claims that God created the heavens and earth on the first day. What do the heavens consist of? Stars, galaxies, etc. So, we know that God created, at minimum, the stars and the earth. Actually, the Hebrew phrase translated “heaven and earth” refer to the entire created universe. Some people claim that God created the earth first and that the rest of the heavenly bodies were created later. However, we are led to contemplate why God said that He created the “heavens and the earth.” To accept this interpretation, we would have to say that God created “nothing” and the earth. If God had only created the earth, the Genesis 1:1 would have said, “In the beginning God created the earth.” So, we can safely say that God created the entire heavens and earth at the beginning of the first creation day.
Genesis 1:2 – the early earth
Keep your Bible open as we zoom on to Genesis 1:2. Those interpretations that claim Genesis 1:1 is just a summary have a problem in this next verse. If Genesis 1:1 is just a summary, then there is no mention in Genesis of God creating matter – it is just suddenly mentioned as if it had existed all along. Such a model is compatible with the LDS (Mormon) theology, but not Christianity.
It is important in Genesis 1:2 to examine the context and the perspective to determine where the action is happening. Let’s read the text:
And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)
Where is God? In heaven? In outer space? NO! God, our personal Creator and Savior, is on the surface of the waters of the earth doing His creating “up close and personal.” Imagine that – God personally came to earth to create and shape it for habitation! The important thing about this verse is that it defines the conditions as they appeared from God’s perspective on the surface of the earth. What are the conditions? “…the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep…” Why was the earth dark? Genesis one does not say, but other creation accounts in the Bible do say. In fact, in the book of Job, God Himself tells us the answer:
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? …When I made a cloud its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band” (Job 38:4-9)5
How long is day 1?
Many Christians assume that all the Genesis creation days are exactly 24-hours long. Neither the Genesis 1 text nor other Bible verses directly address how long the first day was. However, there were a lot of things that happened on the first day. God created the entire universe. There are other Bible verses that address at least part of how God created the universe. No fewer than 11 verses from five different inspired authors claim that God stretches out the heavens.6 Many of these verses use present tense, indicating that God is still stretching out the heavens. How long did it take to stretch out the trillions and trillions of stars. The Bible doesn’t say, but if we measure the current rate that the universe is being stretched, it would suggest a very long time.
So, we know that when God created the earth it was dark because it was covered with thick clouds. This fact will be important to understand the next few verses.
“Let there be light”
Genesis 1:3 begins with another conjunction, so we know it is part of the continuing action. God is still on the surface of the earth. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Where is the light? It’s on the surface of the earth for the first time. Where does the light come from. The text does not say directly, but it gives a lot of clues. Did God create the light? No! If God had created the light, the text would have said so, like it does in the rest of Genesis one. It says that God “let it be.” Let’s read the rest of the first day to get the clues.
“And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” (Genesis 1:4-5)
Notice that every thought is begun with a conjunction, so we know that all of this is part of the continuing action. The text says that there was day and night on the earth on the first day. This tells us that the light that was shining on the earth was directional (from one source). Let’s put it all together. God created the earth with a thick layer of clouds around it that caused it to be dark. When God said “Let there be light” it is most logical to conclude that God removed at least some of those thick clouds so that light would fall on the surface of the earth. Where did the light come from? The Sun shining on a rotating earth. You might protest, “But the text never said God created the Sun.” It actually does. As stated previously, the Hebrew term “the heavens and the earth” in Genesis 1:1 refers to the entire created universe. So, the Sun, stars, and earth were all created at the beginning of day 1.
Day 2
How long is day 2?
It is difficult to say how long the second day was. Part of the verse indicates that God “let the separation be” (suggesting natural process), but then the text goes on to explain that God “made” the separation. The Hebrew word asah10 translated “made” suggests that God formed the separation from materials that already existed, rather than creating it brand new. As such, the formation could involve both supernatural and natural processes. If the separation was allowed to form on its own, it would be expected that the second day could be a very long period of time.
On the second day, God allows a separation of the waters above from the waters below (Genesis 1:6-7).7 The text seems to be describing the setting up of a water cycle on the earth. The waters above (i.e., clouds) are separated from the waters below (the “deep” or seas mentioned in verse 2). The separation is called “heaven”8 (also translated “skies”).9
Day 3
God did a couple things on the third day. God’s first action was the formation of dry land:
Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:9-10)
Similar to the first two days, God “let” the dry land appear. The land already existed, although it was underneath the original seas. Psalm 104 (the “creation Psalm”) tells us how God accomplished the appearance of the land. According to the Psalm, “The mountains rose; the valleys sank down To the place which Thou didst establish for them.”11 The description suggests that God used some form of tectonic activity to form the dry land. If tectonic activity were used by God to form the dry land, it would suggest that the beginning of the third day would be a very long period of time.
How long is day 3?
There is no plant in the world that can germinate and produce seeds within a 24-hour period of time. It gets worse for the 24-hour interpretation. Not only do we have plants, we have trees that grow and produce fruit with seed in it. It takes fruit trees several years of growth before they produce any fruit. You might say that God could have caused everything to happen super-quick. However, God says, “Let the earth sprout vegetation…” and the text says, “And the earth brought forth vegetation…” In order to claim that God miraculously created all the plants, seed, etc. in 24-hours, one would have to claim God was a liar. Not a good accusation to make! So we know that the second part of the third day was at least several years long.
Creation of plants
Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with seed in them, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:11-12)
On the third day God allows the earth to produce plants through germination (sprouting) and growth until seeds are produced. The Hebrew word dasha refers to a plant that sprouts from a seed until the seedling turns green.12 This verb tells us that God used processes identical to what we see on the earth today. Plants spouted, grew to maturity, and produced seeds. Several kinds of plants are described. The Hebrew word deshe13 refers primarily to grasses; the word eseb14 refers primarily to herbs and the words peri15 ets16 refer to fruit trees.
Day 4
Many people believe that the text about day 4 says that God created the Sun, moon and stars on the fourth day. This is not what the text actually says, so let’s read it again.
Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; (Genesis 1:14)
and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. (Genesis 1:15)
And God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. (Genesis 1:16)
And God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, (Genesis 1:17)
and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:18)
How can a day be longer than 24-hours?
Even though the Genesis text clearly indicates that the days are longer than 24-hours, some Christians insist that any interpretation of Genesis 1 that deviates from 24-hour days is not literal. The problem is that the Hebrew word yom17 has three literal definitions – 12 hour daylight period, 24 period of time, or a long, but indefinite period of time. A careful reading of the Genesis creation account reveals that the 24-hour interpretation is ruled out by the actual Genesis text. The first definitive example of a day that is longer than 24-hours can be found in the beginning of the Genesis 2 creation account, which says that the entire six days of creation are one day.18
In verse 14 we have that unusual construction again of “let there be.” It is not a statement of creation, but a statement of appearance. At this point, the clouds present at the initial creation of the earth were completely removed so that the bodies themselves appeared for the first time on the surface of the earth. The passage tells us that the lights were allowed “to be” so that they could be signs of the seasons, days, and years. It was necessary for the creatures of day 5 that the heavenly bodies be visible. We know that many of the migratory birds (created on day 5) require visible stars to navigate, hence the need to actually see these bodies. Verse 18 gives us another hint. The lights were placed in the sky to “separate the light from the darkness.” Does this sound familiar? It is the exact Hebrew phrase used for God’s work on the first day when, “God separated the light from the darkness” (Genesis 1:4) By using this phrase, the text is recounting the formation of the Sun, moon and stars from the first day. If we accept that God created the Sun, moon and stars on the fourth day, then He didn’t really create the heavens in verse one. So, the 24-hour day interpretation suffers a contradiction between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:16.
Day 5
On the fifth day, God created the animals described by the Hebrew word nephesh.
Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures [nephesh], and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” (Genesis 1:20)
And God created the great sea monsters, and every living creature [nephesh] that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:21)
And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” (Genesis 1:22)
The word nephesh is used of both animals and human beings, and primarily has the meaning “soul.”19 The term encompasses the ideas of mind, will, and emotion. These characteristics apply to the higher animals, such as the birds and mammals. The kinds of creature created includes many different kinds of birds (Genesis 1:21) and the “great sea monsters,” probably referring to the whales (also referred to as nephesh beings). These creatures were created in great abundance, as indicated by the verbs sharats20 and ramas.21 The fossil record confirms that there was a massive introduction of bird and mammal species at the beginning of the tertiary age.22
Day 6
The sixth days describes the creation of animals that impact mankind and the creation of mankind himself.
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures [nephesh] after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. (Genesis 1:24)
God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:25)
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27)
The sixth day begins with the creation of more nephesh creatures. These include the cattle (behemah23), creeping (remes24) nephesh (probably rodents), and “beasts (chay25) of the earth” (translated “wild animals” in the NIV, usually referring to the wild carnivores).
The ultimate nephesh creation is mankind, created at the end of the sixth day. Genesis 1:27 tells us that God created mankind as males and females. However, Genesis 2 tells us more about the sixth day. From Genesis 1:27, we know that the sixth day extended at least through the creation of Eve, since the text indicates that God created both males and females on the sixth day. The following events took place after the creation of Adam
God planted a garden in Eden (Genesis 2:8)26
God caused the garden to sprout and grow (Genesis 2:9)27
God brought all the birds, cattle and wild animals to Adam to name (Genesis 2:19-20)28
God put Adam to sleep, took a part of him and formed Eve (Genesis 2:21-22)29
The events of the sixth day seem to require longer than 24 hours also. The text indicates that God planted a garden. This garden was not planted full-grown, since the text says that the trees were caused to sprout or grow (Hebrew tsamach30). The amount of time allowed for the garden to grow is not stated, but would presumably take longer than 24-hours. After the garden had grown sufficiently, the man was placed into the garden to cultivate it.31 By this time, the trees were producing fruit so that Adam could eat.32 This process takes a period of time greater than 24 hours. Next, Adam was given the assignment of naming the birds, cattle and wild animals. The list includes only birds and mammals and does not mention fish or other lower life forms. Even so, it would require that Adam name at least 14,600 species (8,600 species of birds and 4,000 species of mammals). This would require Adam to name more than 10 species per minute (assuming he had the entire 24 hours). For those who believe in a young earth, it would require that Adam name not only all of the existing birds and mammals but all the ones in the fossil record also (since they would all have to be alive on day 6 – no animal death before the fall). Such a task would probably double the number of species to be named. However, Adam did not have the entire 24 hours, since part of it was required for the planting and growing of the garden, Adam tending the garden, and God putting Adam to sleep to create Eve. Realistically, Adam would have to name at least 20 species per minute, including all the species found in the fossil record. Following this naming of the animals, no suitable helper was found for Adam. So, God put Adam to sleep, took at piece of Adam’s side, and created Eve. Adam’s response to Eve’s creation is also telling. Upon seeing Eve for the first time, Adam says “at last.”33 This is not exactly the response one would expect from a person who had waited for less than one day. So, we must conclude that the sixth day was most certainly longer than 24 hours, and probably took at least several years from Adam’s response.
Conclusion
We are left with only one internally consistent interpretation for the days of Genesis one. The literal, clearly indicated, meaning of yom for Genesis one must be an unspecified, long period of time. Since the Genesis text says that the third day must be at least several years long, none of the other days would be expected to be limited to 24-hours. All or nearly all of the other creation days would seem to require long periods of time, although the text does not clearly indicate the specific amount of time required.
one revelation of God need not be reconciled with another revelation of God.
On the contrary, I said just the opposite.
John K:
Yeah, that one works. Thanks.
Just one little addition of my own. It has long been a staple of YEC that all living creatures were immortal when created. Then when pressed they admit that only animal life was immortal. But if that was the case, why was God concerned that Adam and Eve would eat from the tree of life?
Don’t know Bill, my standard for biblical scripture answers on creation is the questions God ask Job. He speaks pretty direct and clearly.
I guess we have to wait for the answers.
I was not there, neither was Adam for most of it.
I am sure Mike and Ken were not there either.
Neither was the Rich Deem but he does what Mike was demanding for so many days.
I hope Mike can rest now, he really seemed concerned.
John,
Thanks for posting this.
I will read it and go over it.
My initial perusal of it prompted many questions.
John,
So this is your exegesis [or one you hold to]?
And you start out with an admonishment about a know it all attitude.
Do you think that is my attitude because I asked, from the first, for others exegesis and they instead gave me scientific ‘facts’ which were only opinions?
Your exegesis, John, starts out by telling us to be ready to be shocked.
And you write against know it all attitudes?
It then mentions how much has been written about Gen1:1 but then you say the answer is simple.
And you write about know it all attitudes?
You also say that God created the heavens and the earth on the first day. All of it!
Everything that is in them, the stars and moons and planets which compose the heavens, and by extension, wouldn’t that include everything on the earth?
For, John, if you say that the term heavens and earth includes everything in them, and you say that the term heavens must include everything in it, like the stars and moons and planets, wouldn’t it be consistent that the term earth include everything in it? Like the plants, the animals, the waters, the mountains and valleys, the fish, the people and so forth? Yes it would.
But the terms could also refer to the places that hold the things in them, isn’t that correct? So on day 1 when God created the Heavens, He created space [outer space] and Earth, the planet, but NOT all the things in space or on earth.
Why is that reading better? Because God tells us that on other days He creates the things in space and the things on earth. Context John.
Okay now let me address a major difference between your exegesis and mine: the length of a day.
You said:
“Many Christians assume that all the Genesis creation days are exactly 24-hours long. Neither the Genesis 1 text nor other Bible verses directly address how long the first day was. However, there were a lot of things that happened on the first day. God created the entire universe. There are other Bible verses that address at least part of how God created the universe. No fewer than 11 verses from five different inspired authors claim that God stretches out the heavens.6 Many of these verses use present tense, indicating that God is still stretching out the heavens. How long did it take to stretch out the trillions and trillions of stars. The Bible doesn’t say, but if we measure the current rate that the universe is being stretched, it would suggest a very long time.”
So which is it John?
Is God still creating the Heavens because he is still stretching them out?
We know from the summary in Gen2 [which we agree is the summary] that God is finished already creating. So why this point about the stretching of the Heavens? Is it because God had so much to do that day that it had to be more than 24 hours? That’s neither exegesis or good logic. Are you saying God COULDN’T do all that in 24 hours? Are you?
Your next point of your take on exegesis builds on a former assumption already noted: that God had already populated the heavens on day 1. Remember you were inconsistent there because you only had God populating the heavens and not the earth. But your reason for Him populating the heavens that the term used, “heavens and earth”, includes all that is in them. Yet God tells us that He populated both the heavens and earth on other days. You certainly seem to be ignoring the testimony of God and just inventing it up as you go along. But because you are, you assume the Sun is already created and so when God says Let there be light, you assume that must mean He is just opening the clouds toilet the light shine in.
But John, if you look at the many Hebrew meanings for hayah, to be, it doesn’t look good for you, especially since God’s testimony is that He hasn’t yet created the sun or the stars.
Moving on. You ask and answer:
“How long is day 2?? It is difficult to say how long the second day was. Part of the verse indicates that God “let the separation be” (suggesting natural process), but then the text goes on to explain that God “made” the separation. The Hebrew word asah10 translated “made” suggests that God formed the separation from materials that already existed, rather than creating it brand new. As such, the formation could involve both supernatural and natural processes. If the separation was allowed to form on its own, it would be expected that the second day could be a very long period of time.?On the second day, God allows a separation of the waters above from the waters below (Genesis 1:6-7).7 The text seems to be describing the setting up of a water cycle on the earth. The waters above (i.e., clouds) are separated from the waters below (the “deep” or sea”
Despite knowing that asah means ‘made’ you conjecture that maybe there were natural processes involved that would take longer than a day. Why did you do that? There is nothing in the text that leads you to that, for the phrase “to be” used by a Creator God speaking creation into being does not indicate natural processes as you falsely claim. What it looks like is an attempt to FIT the Bible into an already decided upon million or billion year creation, and John, that is not exegesis, thats eisegesis.
Your bias shows as you continue:
“Day 3 ?God did a couple things on the third day. God’s first action was the formation of dry land:?Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:9-10)?Similar to the first two days, God “let” the dry land appear. The land already existed, although it was underneath the original seas. Psalm 104 (the “creation Psalm”) tells us how God accomplished the appearance of the land. According to the Psalm, “The mountains rose; the valleys sank down To the place which Thou didst establish for them.”11 The description suggests that God used some form of tectonic activity to form the dry land. If tectonic activity were used by God to form the dry land, it would suggest that the beginning of the third day would be a very long period of time.?How long is day 3?”
Again nothing in the text tells us God used natural processes to create. Nothing. Nada. Nil. But you inserted them in there in order to say that it must mean God took along time to do it. [More eisgesis] First, don’t you believe God could do it without using natural processes? Do you?
And second, aren’t natural processes still occurring today? Is God STILL creating the earth? His summary in Gen2, which we agree is the summary says: “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”
C’mon John. You aren’t using your head. You are simply throwing mud at the wall and hoping something sticks.
I’ll pick up where I left off later tonight. You just copied and pasted. i have to type.
John K.,
Finally, a substantive argument. Thank you. Here is my summarized rebuttal of Rich Deem’s exegesis…
It is true that NOW, the heavens are filled with stars, etc., but it was not so until God filled the heavens with such things. In order for the earth to exist as “formless and void,” it had to first exist by God creating it. In order for God to created the sun, moon and stars (and the earth), there first had to exist space in which to place them, and that space was the heavens of which God is said to have created the “heavens and the earth.” If one approaches Scripture with the attitude of belief and a preference for giving Scripture the benefit of the doubt, so to speak, instead of always looking for wild, unexpected possibilities, one will not have such problems.
Really?? “SAFELY??” With such a weak and speculative exegesis thus far, for Deem to use such a term as this strips him of all credibility.
If God is on the surface, then He could not possibly also be in space apart from the earth? Is not God omnipresent and Triune? Does the Spirit hovering over the waters preclude God’s manifest presence from being in space? NO! And God knows every perspective.
Since the earth was dark prior to God creating the light, then Genesis does indeed tell us the reason for the darkness: ABSENCE OF LIGHT.
On the contrary, the text very clearly and repetitively tells us that in each day, there was an evening and a morning. Using “evening and morning” together with “yom” for day ALWAYS means a literal day, throughout the Old Testament. Also, using an ordinal number (first, second, etc.) with “day” (over 350 occurrences outside of Gen. 1) ALWAYS means a literal day. The claim that the Bible doesn’t say how long these days were is outrageous. As for how long it naturally takes to accomplish something through a natural process, that has NOTHING whatsoever to do with how long God would need to supernaturally create or cause something to be.
Deem speculates that the earth was dark at first only due to a thick cloud. But where in Job does it say that the earth was dark BECAUSE of the cloud? It is so tenuous a theory as to not be taken seriously, and yet, Deem acknowledges not even the least uncertainty that this is what the text says, as he claims, “So we know that when God created the earth it was dark because it was covered with thick clouds. This fact…” Such a method is not worthy of consideration.
Really? If God said, “Let there be light,” then we have no reason to think that God created that light, but rather, He only LET IT BE?! This is so bad, I have nothing more to say at this point. Deem was right—I was shocked by what he wrote; but I was shocked at how the Word of God can be so mishandled in ways that are so universally agreed upon as substandard exegesis, and yet be so confidently sold as the certain declarations of Scripture. I doubt the majority of Old-Earthers would stand behind such junk. Many OEC proponents have done far better than this. So why is it proffered here?
Ken, Where is Aged Earth in the text? Omphalos hypothesis has always been considered questionable since 1857 when Philip Henry Gosse first put this hypothesis forward. It has never been embraced by the YEC mainstream.
As you know when you examine Grosse’s hypothesis you can also conclude Last Thursdayism or Solipsism from his arguments.
You have stayed away from defending this hypothesis yet use it and support it in your article arguments.
Have you found something in the Genesis text that few/if any have to support Omphalos hypothesis. Or could you also be trying to conform text to science?
We know we are all wrong because God says clearly so in Job. We have finite minds and abilities. God is infinite in mind and abilities.
God could do anything I agree, within his Holy attributes. Lets stop with being dogmatic about how God did something, and instead praise God.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Glad you are back commenting on your article, hope all is going well for you.
Continues review of John’s submitted exegesis.
I was in the middle of day 3.
John was making a point that day 3 must have been long because of the length of tectonic activity needed to raise mountains and do other earth moving.
Basically, it seems, John is saying God couldn’t either [a] create the world He wanted without using natural processes, or [b] couldn’t ‘speed’ up the processes to get what He wanted done in just 24 hours.
This is just another example of seeking to fit what God is saying in His testimony into conclusions scientists are making. There is nothing in the Bible itself that lends us to exegete this conclusion. Nothing. But if one starts with a conclusion it becomes mush easier to use the Bible to justify it.
Here is the problem. Lets say the days were really long, say a million years each. Even that conflicts with science. Just making the days long doesn’t harmonize the two [6 day creation and scientific opinion]. To harmonize the two, you must start changing the order of what was created when, subjectively. You must also subjectively decide the days were not uniform in length. What you need to do is basically rewrite the whole story.
So it seems that one might be saying the story is basically wrong in most ways.
meanwhile scientists have just discovered another ancestor of humans albeit with a much smaller brain in a cave in Africa. Another link in the evolutionary process, so they say.
Are we then to pick and choose which science we like as well? But that is exactly what many OEC brothers are doing. They are picking and choosing which parts of science they accept as well as which parts of the Bible they accept.
From where I left off, I quote what John put in next:
“How long is day 3?
There is no plant in the world that can germinate and produce seeds within a 24-hour period of time. It gets worse for the 24-hour interpretation. Not only do we have plants, we have trees that grow and produce fruit with seed in it. It takes fruit trees several years of growth before they produce any fruit. You might say that God could have caused everything to happen super-quick. However, God says, “Let the earth sprout vegetation…” and the text says, “And the earth brought forth vegetation…” In order to claim that God miraculously created all the plants, seed, etc. in 24-hours, one would have to claim God was a liar. Not a good accusation to make! So we know that the second part of the third day was at least several years long.”
Again bad logic with assumption.
God made mature trees and plants that were living. Whether he made them whole and made ecosystems that were also midst the life cycle or He sped up the systems is beyond what the Word is telling us. The Bible doesn’t tell us HOW God did it one day. The Bible just says He did it. And in Gen1 as well as other places, that He spoke the world into existence. The assumption that He had to use natural processes is an assumption based on a desired outcome, not an exegesis of the text.
John’s exegesis continues:
“Many people believe that the text about day 4 says that God created the Sun, moon and stars on the fourth day. This is not what the text actually says, so let’s read it again.”
If you remember John said the Sun, moon and stars were made in day 1. Because, he reasoned, the text said the heavens and the earth, and thus it means all that were in the heavens, because that is what the Bible normally means by that phrase. BUT he forgot to be consistent, for if that phrase includes all that is in the heavens, it also includes all that is in the earth. But John leaves that part out- it doesn’t fit the narrative he is making.
So he wants us to read the text again because, he says, the text is not saying God created the Sun, the moon, and the starts on day 4.
Strangely the text not only says God says, “Let there be lights…” -it also says God MADE the two great lights.. and He MADE the stars also; …and God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
John doesn’t explain this at all but says:
“By using this phrase, the text is recounting the formation of the Sun, moon and stars from the first day. If we accept that God created the Sun, moon and stars on the fourth day, then He didn’t really create the heavens in verse one. So, the 24-hour day interpretation suffers a contradiction between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:16.”
Now this is a fallacy made up by his misunderstanding on day 1.
Simply, just as God made the earth mass on day 1 but had not yet populated it, He also made space and had not yet populated it.
John, your idea is simply internally inconsistent and is also inconsistent with the text. The Bible says God MADE the Sun, the moon, and the stars on Day 4, but you say it was on Day1.
In that section, John, you also wrote:
“The first definitive example of a day that is longer than 24-hours can be found in the beginning of the Genesis 2 creation account, which says that the entire six days of creation are one day.”
Really? What does it say:
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven.
As noted before, but worth noting again, when the Hebrew word ‘yom’ or day is used in conjunction with a number life first or second, it always speaks of a 24 hour period, throughout the Bible. In fact we also do that in English: the FIRST day of school. Saturday is the SEVENTH day of the week. And like English, the Hebrew language also uses the word ‘yom’ or day with the ordinal and can use it to refer to a single dau or multiple days, like: back in the day, every dog has its day, and so forth. So in Gen9:29 we read “all the days of Noah were 950 years.,” and the word for daySS in ‘yom’ or day. Context [at least] allows the translators to turn yom or day into daySS. Even more so the context when it is SPECIFICALLY referred to in this way:
“19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.”
What constitutes a day but evening and morning.
In this section, John says:
“In verse 14 we have that unusual construction again of “let there be.” It is not a statement of creation, but a statement of appearance.”
Just like before, no exegesis on why it couldn’t be a statement of creation. For it could be, and in fact would be BOTH if it is a statement of creation. Strongs definition for ‘to be” as follows:
“to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out”
Did not God SPEAK the world into existence. He said let it be and it was.
day 5 next post.
John,
You asked where the aged earth is in the text. You’ll find it—if you’re looking—in the adulthood of Adam and Eve, in the fruit already hanging on the trees, and in the stars already visible. It is also inferred from the nature of every miracle in the Bible. However, the Omphalos argument as I use it is more of an apologetic than a theory of creation. I arrived at this apologetic argument through my own studies of the issue, only to find that Gosse had arrived there first. But I don’t try to adopt every detail that Gosse put forth.
As an apologetic argument, I don’t need to figure out every detail of creation. I only need to show how belief in a recent miraculous creation is reasonable. Does someone I encounter hold to a young earth? No problem, as God could have created a young earth. If I encounter someone who holds to an old earth, there’s still no problem, since God could have created a mature world already ancient from the first moment of existence. And if I encounter an evolutionist, there’s still no problem, since God could have created the world out of nothing somewhere in the middle of a virtual trillions of years of all the natural processes. The result of this apologetic is that belief in a recent creation is shown to be reasonable after all, and therefore, men are confronted with the question in age-old, Biblical terms: to believe the plainly revealed truth or reject it. Scientific evidence changes nothing regarding this question—it is only a matter of hermeneutics. And those who value not just the authority of Scripture, but the authority of Scripture to declare its own meaning, will believe the plain-sense understanding unless Scripture itself indicates that another meaning is to be looked for.
You’ve said that we’re all wrong because God said so in Job. We’re not all wrong about all things. On the question of whether God created 6000 years ago or much, much further back, some of us are wrong and some are right. You say we shouldn’t be dogmatic, but should just praise God. I do praise God, as He is worthy of praise forever! But that doesn’t keep me from arguing for the truth. And your aversion to being dogmatic doesn’t seem to keep you from dogmatically asserting that I’m wrong.
WOW. Is it really over? After a display like that I don’t understand why churches are having a hard time filling their pews. We argue just like the world does. So It must be the pride that seeps out of us that keeps them away. Even though we try to cover it up by starting all our sentences with brother, I love you and respect you but you an idiot. I just hope God is “smart enough” to explain this to everyone that struggles hear. Better yet, exposes it for the “weight” that it is.
Bill Mac,
As to the two ideologies you asked me about.
Go to the website below and ask the following questions;
Does the Bible teach geocentrism?
Does the Bible teach the earth is flat?
@ http://www.gotquestions.org/flat-earth-Bible.html
The answer is to each question is no.
If they were to challenge my belief on geocentrism or if the earth is flat [which is what I now think you were asking], I would take them to the Word and discuss it with them.
If they still didn’t believe, so what? The world is not pushing against the Christian faith in these areas.
Nevermind! I didn’t see this morning’s posts. Continue the spectacle.
I think the article was more about why Keathley has made to choice to follow OEC….even after reading his reasoning, I’m not sure he has said anymore than what Morris wrote about others that have made that same claim. A bigger question is did Keathley have to change his hermeneutic to come to his new conclusion?
“But science has proved the earth is old,” they still insist, “and we dare not alienate the academic community by insisting on a literal Genesis.” No, “science” has not proved the earth is old! The oldest written records we have, apart from the Bible, are in Egypt and Sumeria, and these only go back a few thousand years. The great fossil “record,” instead of displaying vast ages of evolution, really shows the remains of a worldwide hydraulic cataclysm. Nowhere in the fossil record are there any genuine evolutionary transitional forms between kinds, and certainly no one has ever observed true evolution taking place in all recorded history. Furthermore, many geologists now recognize that all formations were laid down very rapidly. Uniformitarian speculation applied to a few radiometric decay systems may suggest great ages, but other more reasonable assumptions applied to scores of other global processes indicate much younger ages.”
Maybe Morris just has his head in the sand and is trying to protect his legacy….or can he be right?
I’m genuinely looking for the top three reason OEC is more cogent than YEC. Is OEC simply a more common sense use of science relative to the scriptures? Or does OEC have some scientific reason for determining the earth’s seemingly 4.5B age at this point in science’s quest?
Bill Mac,
Yes you did say the opposite, I just typed that wrong.
It was because you think they should be reconciled, that I said what I did.
Guys, please read up on the 2nd law of thermodynamics before you speculate on whether it “kicked in” after the fall. Ken speculates digestion is not necessary before the fall, but there was food before the fall, right? If we are assuming they had belly buttons I think we are safe in assuming that they had teeth, esophagus, stomach and intestines. Without the second law, the sun doesn’t heat the earth, fire doesn’t burn, ice doesn’t melt, there is no friction. You’ve bought into the idea that entropy is a kind of evil and therefore a product of the fall, but that’s nonsense. Entropy is necessary in this universe, no matter when it was created.
Bill Mac,
2nd Law of Thermodynamics has nothing to do with what I am saying.
What I am saying is Creation was a supernatural event and science can’t and won’t figure it out.
That all the evidence science has and is gathering is flawed by three to four things at least: 1] The earth didn’t start from zero. 2]God cursed the earth at the Fall. 3]There was a worldwide flood that included, more than likely atmospheric changes, as well as most probably geographic and 4] there have been numerous known and unknown volcanic and other seismic activities that even the known ones aren’t not fully grasped by science as to their ramifications.
And finally and preeminently, the testimony of God is that He created the World and universe in 6 days.
Every other creation scenario seems to start with trying to fit the Bible into science. Every One.
Did Adam have a belly button?
I doubt it.
Mike,
You’re right, I wasn’t responding to you. It was more of a general comment after I looked through the comments and saw the theory that the 2nd law didn’t begin until after the fall, which is standard YEC theory although some of them are backing away from it now.
Bill Mac,
YEC, from my viewpoint, will have the same problem with the scientific evidence as OEC. The evidence will not be enough to determine what happened. Their fight against OEC scientific evidence is as much wrong headed as the OEC fight for it.
The actual age of the earth does not find a reference in GEN1 or 2. I lean towards a younger earth because of indirect Biblical evidence like the genealogies. I think they preclude an earth with Adam on it from being more than 10k old and I would guess 6k.
OK, I’ve avoided getting involved in all of this, because I thought someone surely would be adventurous enough to mention the Biologos organization, which brings together faith and science, rather than assuming those two subjects must always be at odds. Snice no one seems aware of their site, it is entitled simply “Biologos”. The beauty of the site is that it assumes a healthy respect for scripture, faith, and scientific process and discovery. If we are going to engender some of the theories I’ve seen here concerning creation and earth’s age, it would seem we would want to be better informed. Explore the site…see what it’s possibilities are.
Richard,
Thanks for the info.
I’ve been there, not recently though.
I read a book by one of its authors or a sponsored author.
If i remember right, instead of scientific evidence of age they sought a cultural type argument.
It was similar to what William was saying.
if my memory is correct, and I’ll check it out again and get back, but they sought to fit the Bible into an ancient culture [whats the word?] method [for a lack of a better word] or myth-dom which again they do not and can not even know for sure and of course God wrote Gen1 and 2 to set the truth against error.
BUT… But not just unsophisticated pagan error THEN, but also a more sophisticated error NOW!
“God wrote?”, or “God led men to write?”
It’s an age-old argument, which I think will forever infuse discussions like these.
I was brought up on the same point that one of my seminary OT profs made: “The Bible is not intended to be a book of science. It is the record of God’s revelation to mankind, including the story of God’s redemptive plan…we should not try to make the Bible into something God never meant it to be.
I won’t say more….I don’t want to hijack the stream into one that fusses about theories of inspiration.
There is much more at Biologos than myth-based theories. Check it out.
Richard,
As you know, Biologos believes in Evolutionary Creationism:
“The view that all life on earth came about by the God-ordained process of evolution with common descent. Evolution is a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes in creation.”
Despite this claim:
“BioLogos is committed to the authority of the Bible as the inspired word of God, and believes it is compatible with new scientific discoveries.”
They do not actually put the Bible first. They interpret the Bible through both a mythic and evolutionary lens.
I did a short study on John Walton’s book, “The Lost World”, and found numerous errors of logic and reasoning in the first few chapters, not to mention how they twisted the Scriptures [while, like above, praising them].
I’m not going to get into evolutionary creationism. My position remains the same.
And its God’s Word that He had men write.
[This comment supersedes and corrects all previous comments where I might have short-handedly said “God wrote.”]
So then is the theory of inspiration to which you subscribe verbal plenary, i.e., that God dictated each and every word to the human writers? If so, then how do you deal with things such as Psalm 137: 8-9 (blessing for killing a Babylonian baby) and Mark 1:2 (where a quotation from Malachi 3:1 is attributed to Isaiah)? How central (if at all) to YEC do you see such a theory of inspiration?
John
John,
I didn’t go to seminary.
I haven’t studied the different ways God inspired His Word.
I have heard of them, but its been awhile.
So, I just don’t know.
What I do know is that the Bible is God’s Word, and is profitable for understanding what God wants to communicate to me and to you and to all who listen both about Himself and ourselves and the world we live in.
Mike, I think everyone here would agree, “that the Bible is God’s Word, and is profitable for understanding what God wants to communicate to me and to you and to all who listen both about Himself and ourselves and the world we live in.” But the nature of that inspiration is another of those presuppositions behind the interpretation of the text, one that I failed to mention specifically. If you assume that God dictated every word that is in the Bible, and the human writers had absolutely no freedom to choose, then it is difficult (not impossible, I think) to not come to a YEC conclusion. However, if inspiration came in any other way, it is easy to arrive at a different one. I would challenge you to research what the various theories of inspiration actually are, and how each one is defended. Then, before you make a leap to something like, “verbal plenary supports YEC, therefore that must be how God inspired the Bible,” or “Verbal plenary sounds like the most God-honoring theory,” test the spirits to see how each theory does at explaining other “difficult texts” (such as those I mentioned earlier). Explore how each theory handles various forms of found in the Bible text, viz., historical passages, prophetic ones, wisdom literature, apocalyptic literature, poetry, prose, and differing perspectives between passages describing the same event in different books (i.e., Samuel verses Kings verses Chronicles, and John’s Gospel verses the three other gospels). I think that may at least give you a greater appreciation for how some of us read the same things you read and yet arrive at a conclusion other than YEC.
John
Don’t worry Parsonsmike. Some of us did go and study the theories as well as the written word of God, too. John is wasting time by citing the old liberal saw that the verbal inspiration doctrine is merely mechanical dictation. Not so. Even Bob Jones University’s faculty got after Ev. John R. Rice for that little failure on his part. True that Gaussen (L.) used the term in Theopneustia, but he also had sections on the various authors, like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Hardly what a mere dictationist would discuss, but one who was informed about the real teaching of the issue would. Doubt John ever read Packer, Young, Lindsell, and a whole host of others, probably numbering in the hundreds, some very noted scholars like Montgomery and Packer and Young and Warfield.
Dr. W., I do not believe I am repeating some “old liberal saw” and in fact I am rather insulted by that. I am challenging Mike to research an issue which he admits he is not up on and make up his own mind about it. It is important, and yes, there are many nuances about various theories of inspiration which I did not mention or try to bring up because of space. They are all important. What you seem to be doing is to discount the importance of having a theology of inspiration as a presupposition in interpretation. I think Mike is smart enough to see how one’s understanding of inspiration bears on one’s interpretation of Scripture.
Dr. John Fariss
Dear Dr. John Fariss: I hope you were insulted. After all, you were speaking in condemnation of the very view which is set forth in the Bible and which the many representatives of biblical orthodoxy have discussed in their writings on the subject. Verbal inspiration has reference to “word inspired.” Perhaps a more biblical idea would be biblical expiration, having reference to the fact that God breathed out the writings of Holy Writ. Take our Lord for an example. He builds his doctrine of His deity upon the meaning of a single word in Mt.22, citing Ps.110:1, “the Lord said unto my Lord.” How does David call his offspring his Lord? And then there is the doctrine of the resurrection set forth in the very words from the burning bush by implication, words actually spoken not only to Moses but also to the people of our Lord’s day and by inference to us in our day. The “I am the God of…” suggests that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were very much alive, and from the statement and the meaning of the words our Lord deduced the doctrine of the resurrection. there are many such instances of verbal inspiration being clearly indicated by the writers of scripture. This does not necessarily mean a wooden kind of literalism; it means of and according to the principles of literature. There is a dynamic aspect to it, and the work requires the illumination of the Holy Spirit in order for the reader to truly grasp and understand what was written. That “Old Liberal Saw” was what I heard during my four years in the most liberal seminary (at that time, not so now) in the SBC. However, the failure to recognize that verbal inspiration did not mean mechanical dictation per se was even set forth in a work by a liberal who admitted that they were doing such thing and failing to acknowledge the reality that the conservatives were not saying what they were saying. However, I should like to point out what a fellow minister who had been raised an Orthodox Jew stated to me one day, “Well, some of the Bible was actually written by the Lord Himself. After all, the fiery finger writing the ten commandments was His finger,” or something to that effect.
James,
Thanks.
Its always nice to have a John Wayne type guy ride in with the calvary when you need it.
Hello Mike: I hardly look on my self as a John Wayne type, although I am the descendant of a real cowboy and gunman (My great grandfather went up the Chisholm trail about 5-6 times and could do a fast draw and blow the head off of a guinea hen). He use to go visit a cousin, the marshal of Tascosa, Tx, Cape Willingham, who is mentioned in one or two of Louis L’Amour’s novels.
Well, thanks for being so Christ-like with me. (Not)
No wonder the world thinks we are all a bunch of jerks, when we cannot even be civil with one another,
John
My Dear Brother, contrary to what you think, I could be considered as being more Christ-like with you than you think. Remember our Lord did deal with people with some acerbity and even sharpness of tone, when they were in error. You, my dear sir, were treating inspiration as if it were merely a question of theory developed by scholars and subject to all of the ramifications of that area of life. Inspiration is not question of theory; it is a question about what the Bible actually teaches concerning its origins and, more specifically, what it reported of our Lord’s views on the subject – about which we are not left in doubt.
Consider the references I made in previous comments to Mt. 22:23-33, specifically, vs. 32: I am the God Abraham,…God is not the God of the dead but of the living.” You will note the present tense in the second word of two which stress the importance of the person speaking, I, I am, would be a literal rendering, I suppose, as the first I is Ego, Ist person pronoun, and the second I, eimi, is the ist, oerson, singular, present, indicative.. The present tense of the second word, perhaps not as notable in the Hebrew or the Aramaic, does in the Greek which the Holy Spirit as well as Matthew chose to express our Lord’s intent express the ongoing process, the action that was taking past in the past, taking present now, and will continue to take place in the future. Though the Patriarchs had been dead for years, yet God is still in covenantal relationship with them which indicates that they are alive and that therefore there must be a resurrection. IN Mt. 22:31 our Lord treats it as God actually saying the same thing to the people of His day, “spoken unto you by God.” And by implication the same is being spoken to us. Mark, 12:26, simply reports on God as speaking to Moses which they had read. And in Lk.20:37 we find the reference to Moses as showed at the bush, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham…. Note the freedom of verbal inspiration clearly taught and yet at the same time there is that freedom of expression which writing requires for covering different aspects of an event or a subject, all of which must be considered by taking in the whole of it (remember this: If the rule is true and the exceptions are true, then the truth is both the rule and the exceptions. In addition, there are various literary techniques used in the Bible such as, for example, spotlighting which allows for a focus on a central figure while ignoring others who were present, etc. I might note that I heard my Hebrew Professor (who was a liberal with a D. Phil from Oxford, no less) translating Gen.22, the offering up of Isaac. The literal rendering was some of the leanest prose I ever heard in my life. I could see that God had out done Hemingway at his best in the Old Man and The Sea.
John Robinson, the pastor of the Pilgrims made it evident that there was yet more truth to come forth from God’s word. One of the most exciting and engaging for me was to find that God had outdone our modern counselors, providing for reframing matters (e.g., with the Cross, which is more than reframing. In fact, I am not sure we can correctly identify a term to describe what the effect of the cross on the heart in regeneration really is, but it is more than reframing), and there is the therapeutic paradoxes as is evident in Jonah 3. Again, I call attention to the nature of the doctrines, that they all seem to have two poles which are designed to produce a desirable tension in the human mind, a tension which enables a believer to be balanced, flexible, creative, constant, and magnetic or, in short, a mature believer, God’s best subliminal seduction technique for winning souls, when united with free persuasion with the most difficult truths.
Dr. W,
Some would have us think that because there are many theories about everything, then everything is equally in doubt.
Ken: Once a person starts down the road of being doubtful, there is no stopping without the grace of God intervening. My prayer since 1973 has been for a Third Great Awakening, one that wins the whole earth to Christ in one generation and continues to do so for a 1000 generations, reaching also to the ends of the starry heaven. I Chron.16:15; Mt. 24:31; Rev.7:9 which would explain the promises to Abraham and the other patriarchs of the success of the Gospel, of a seed as innumerable as the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea. Like John Robinson declared or so they say, “there is still light to come from God’s word.”
What a hoot, John. I don’t whether anyone has answered you or not on the issue of scripture and dictation (I tuned in late, being otherwise occupied), but, just in case they haven’t, I will seek to do so. Surely, you have not read all of the writings on the subject of verbal inspiration, including B.B. Warfield, Ed. J. Young, Clark Pinnock’s work, before he went off the deep end, J.I. Packer, etc. I have about 30-40 volumes on the subject (actually I might have double that number). In any case, I had occasion to consult them and to write papers on the subject. Yes, God inspired the men who wrote Holy Scripture even down to the very words they used, and He did it in such a way that the men retained their personalities and the atmosphere of the times in which they wrote. I remember my liberal professors saying much the same thing in seminary, and they always got indigestion when I called attention to the exact quotes. I even wrote a paper which called attention to the fact that Emil Brunner had quoted B.B. Warfield out of context. The humanity of the writings are evident as well as the assertions that they were word-inspired (our Lord Himself, the Living Word of God, called Ps.82:6 the word of God (Jn.10:34). There are several terms used to describe the phenomenon of such a two-sided doctrine. Packer, I think, uses confluence or something to that effect. Others use a variety of terms. I developed one to suit myself, crisontological (Christ attached to the word dissonance or crisonant, the term used prior to the parenthesis is a development on the world logical, logos, etc.) Most people fail to recognize the two-sidedness of the doctrines of the word of God and why they are such as to their practical effect, namely, to make the believer balanced, flexible, creative, constant, and magnetic. One professor became enraged over what I had written (all because I mentioned some German scholar that he did not like in a footnote, the proper place to put such references (I taught Senior papers at Morehead State Univ. in Ky, and then taught history as an Instructor at South Carolina State College). Another professor wrote a letter of critique, accusing me of logical errors, and he made a big boo boo himself in the process. Suggest you go do some research, even among the Lutheran theologians as well as the Calvinists and the Episcopalians, etc. One of the great scholars among the Missouri Synod, Dr. John Warwick Montgomery has written many works. He has 11 degrees and knows the Lutherans from their classical period. Well I must close. Wish I had time to find that paper and pull it out and cite chapter and verse, but nature calls for sleep. God bless.
Mike: John’s note has summed up the issue. Not all of us are going to agree on every part of the Bible. In my 72-plus years, two of the numerous books subject to variant interpretations are Genesis and Revelation. A rigid verbal interpretation of such passages can cause conflicts with history, science, etc. Other inspiration theories allow us to utilize additional contexts to work through these factors.
It is fruitless to claim a conflict between the Bible and science. I mentioned the Biologos site as one example of ways Christians deal with scientific verification without challenging faith. There are other studies, and other sites. I have enjoyed fellowship with numbers of Christian scientists who understand and accept scientific discovery, including Old Earth issues and evolution, without allowing it to challenge their faith. The point is that we all have the right to divide the scriptures, seek new understandings, and confirm truth. Blessings to you, Mike, as we learn together.
Richard,
BIOLOGOS’ solution sounds good, except for one thing. If you begin by believing that God created the world and inspired the Bible, and you find evolutionary theory and evidence compelling, whatever made you think you had the right to surrender the plain-sense understanding of a recent, supernatural creation? Nothing that science has discovered requires such a surrender. That is what this article above is about, and it provides an argument from reason that is unassailable to the BIOLOGOS worldview. When the Christians who founded BIOLOGOS first decided that evolution was too compelling to deny, instead of adopting the view that God created through evolution, they should have stood firm on the revealed truth of a recent creation by affirming that God can create a world that is already ancient. Your only possible defense for that is the specious complaint of divine deception, which has been fully refuted in the article and in these comments. Please engage these things in a substantive way. Thank you.
Richard,
Blessings to you as well.
Here is the problem I see with what you are saying: Whether it is Biologos or whoever, they start with a preconceived notion of what the Scriptures end argument should be.
They don’t start with the Scriptures and ask what do they say.
They are seeking a way to find a way to make the Bible fit whatever theory they think sounds good to them.
Look at Biologos and John Walton.
Walton has some good creds. He is a very learned man who has assisted in his area of expertise in translating some Modern Bibles.
But what he did was elevate his own personal understanding and expertise to level of Scripture [or close] when writing the book. When he was part of a team working on translating the Bible, there were checks and balances so no one man’s opinion skewered the work.
But in his own book he had free reign to write just as he pleased. He promoted his ideas of ancient culture and made the Bible fit his narrative.
Is the Bible anti-science? No, they are not at odds. What is at odds is the conclusions of scientists taken as truth when they are yet incomplete since in investigating the past the possibility that are unknown factors that could skewer the data makes any conclusions just theories and guesses.
When all the data is in, if it comes in after judgment day, then we will see the truth.
Richard: The issue is “disagrees with the present views of science” which are subject to change. And besides, if present day science will not allow any teaching or research on creation and catastrophism that hints of God, then there is something decidedly unscientific about such science which, according to Alfred North Whitehead (noted Mathematician at Cambridge U and Philosopher at Harvard) owes its origin to a doctrine of the Christian faith.
Granted, natural science is imperfect, but so is hermeneutical science. The problem we are having here is the idea that we have the perfect hermeneutic.
Bill,
Trads see the Bible one way.
C’s another.
But they both start with the Bible.
The problem I am seeing is that some don’t start with the Bible.
That’s not a hermeneutical difference.
Challenging someone to do some additional research isn’t properly answered by “don’t worry, I’ve done it for you”. Just like I challenged people to do some research on basic physics before asserting the sudden appearance of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. If you are going to simply dismiss science, that’s fine. But then don’t talk about science unless you know some science. And as we have also seen, verbal inspiration doesn’t require Genesis 1 to be read in only one way. If that was the case, we’d all be in agreement on every doctrine.
No we would not all be in agreement, Bill, mankind being fallen and having eyes that see not.
Bill Mac,
Nothing wrong with challenging a brother to grow in understanding.
In fact there are a lot of areas of Christian understanding that I could investigate and learn about and grow in.
The question is, it seems, is there a hermeneutic or way of interpretation that STARTS with the Scriptures,and that is true to the Scriptures, that allows room for another interpretation of Gen1 and the other relevant passages, that allows for a viewpoint different than mine.
I’m not saying there ISN”T one, rather I am asking those who hold to one to supply it, so that it can be discussed, even as am I willing to discuss why I believe Gen1 as I do.
And later today I will finish interacting with the last one supplied.
I mean, I will finish going through it. if those that hold to it wish to interact with my thoughts on it, they are quite welcome to do so. Where I come from we call that Bible study. If they don’t, they don’t. And that’s okay as well.
Mike, you ask, “The question is, it seems, is there a hermeneutic or way of interpretation that STARTS with the Scriptures.” Of course, you go from there to one that remains true to the Scriptures and allows for a different interpretation, which is fine, but just to go with the first part of your question, my answer is, “No, no hermeneutic that starts there–none.” None of then really start in the Scriptures, no matter how much an adherent may say otherwise. All, every one of them begins in understanding language; I don’t mean Greek or Hebrew, but simply understanding a language in which Scripture is presented. That is never a matter of simply reading, but always involves interpretation. That initial understanding is based in the presuppositions one makes, which are usually unspoken and may not even be recognized. Once a person becomes conscious of those they may adjust their interpretation, they may discard it completely, or they may retain it, but it all begins with examining them. That is why I challenge you to both become aware of and examine yours, and to understand what the major theories of inspiration are, and how they deal with various passages. Dr. Willingham may call that being a liberal, but I call it being a Berean.
John
John,
Thanks for your reply.
Actually i think that it starts with the Spirit. certainly we bring presups with us that may cloud our understanding.
One way to gain an understanding of one’s own possible clouded eyes is to study the Scriptures with another who may not [hopefully not] be clouded in the same way.
For example if I studied baptism with all my SBC brothers we would mostly agree. But if we studied with Les, a Presbyterian, he would bring a different viewpoint and understanding. By being exposed, we might reconsider our own understanding. It doesn’t always happen and besides our own sin and sinfulness that gets in the way, I think, in the end, it is the Spirit who brings us to a closer walk with truth.
But what i am asking is for you to explain why you believe the way you do. Honestly my take is that you seek to fit the Bible into scientists opinions, but if you do read it another way -from the text itself- i see no reason to berate you for any differences. We can agree to disagree. But IF you are trying to FIT the Bible in to the world, then you are wrong. Not just wrong like i think an Arminianist is wrong or a Traditionalist is wrong because we disagree on soteriological issues, but wrong but that FITTING INTO is an improper way to seek truth.
Bill,
I don’t have to know anything of science to know that the Bible tells us that the world was “very good” to God when He created it—without death, without disease, without deterioration, without growing old… until the man whom God created sinned and brought all that into the world. I don’t have to figure out the details as long as God has already done so—I just have to believe.
SBC Voices Readers & Participants, take note: After 315 comments, NOT ONE Old-Earther has taken up the challenge and defended the propriety of allowing scientific evidence to influence the way they approach the first chapter of Genesis! Notice also that most of the OEC crowd has been silent in this discussion. That alone is evidence worth considering…
We haven’t discussed the propriety of letting what God reveals in the natural world inform our interpretation of what God reveals in the scriptures because we have no magisterium that tells us we have to. The bible speaks in multiple places of God’s revelation through the natural world and for many people it is the first encounter with God’s revelation that they experience.
You demanded exegesis, and John provided one. I’m not sure I buy all of it, but I thought it was quite good. You and Mike didn’t, no surprise. You demand that a literal reading of Genesis 1 is the only way to interpret the text in light of the Omphalos argument but I’m sorry, we don’t find that compelling because we don’t see your particular interpretation of Genesis 1 as a goal to be striven for.
You haven’t started with scripture, you have started with a particular interpretation of scripture, and you have said essentially, we must consider only those theories of origin that allow us to keep this interpretation, because that is inviolate. Fine, but we don’t agree.
On the contrary, Bill, the”magisterium” from which I argued that the evidence has no proper role in forming one’s view was that of reason alone.
Premise 1: God is capable of creating the world that is already ancient in nature from the first moment of existence.
Premise 2. How old something is in nature and how long it has existed do not necessarily correlate, when supernatural acts are involved.
Premise 3: It is the nature of miracles to provide no scientific proof, and to cause those who assume a natural cause to be deceived.
Conclusion: Scientific evidence of a very old world cannot indicate whether or not God recently created the world; therefore, to allow such evidence to influence how one approaches the Biblical revelation is an error in logic.
Just because something is possible is not reason to think that something happened. In examples like Adam and the loaves and fishes, the appearance of age is acknowledged and unavoidable. But, however, if Adam had a navel, I would consider that deceptive, because it portrays a false history.
I acknowledge God can do whatever he wants. I just don’t think he did it the way you suggest.
Bill,
God designed us with navels. If He didn’t want us to look that way, then the cut umbilical would heal in such a way as to leave no navel. God isn’t forced by pragmatic concerns to accept less than an ideal appearance.
You are correct that the possibility that something happened does not prove that it did. But it does prove that no reasonable position can be built on the assumption that it did NOT happen.
The navel is a scar, a healed wound.
God has no practical constraints. That God would create the scarring/healing process in such a way as to leave the navel as He intended in in His original design is far more likely than that the navel was an unavoidable result of the umbilical.
But what about the point of real importance? The possibility that something happened proves that no reasonable position can be built on the assumption that it did NOT happen. Therefore, my conclusion stands: Scientific evidence of a very old world cannot indicate whether or not God recently created the world; therefore, to allow such evidence to influence how one approaches the Biblical revelation is an error in logic.
Sorry Ken, but I think we’ve probably exhausted this subject. I just can’t accept that God would by your own admission, create an ancient earth, with physical laws that give every indication that the earth is in fact ancient, and then not expect us to believe that it really is ancient. I know you think the text demands it. I don’t.
Bill,
You must mean, “…give every indication to those who assume only natural causes (dismissing creation by fiat) that the earth has in fact an ancient past…” Of course, the earth is ancient in its nature. The question is, when was it created? Anyone who looks for an age without also holding in their minds the possibility of a recent creation by fiat has chosen to be deceived if in fact that recent creation actually happened. Since is when is disbelief and anti-supernatural bias a valid complaint of deception? The topic may be exhausted in your mind, but it may be just beginning for others.
I don’t believe Adam had a belly button.
Bill Mac,
You keep bringing up your trust in scientist’ conclusions as if
[a] they never change,
[b] they are actually scientific [since they don’t use the scientific method],
[c] and since scientist assume that the earth is the same now as in the past, their results are skewered.
And skewered by:
1] an earth that was not made from scratch [are you descended from a non-human single cell?]
2] the Fall which brought God’s curses upon the earth, and
3] the flood which also changed both the atmosphere and geography, and
4] many other numerous, both known and unknown, catastrophic events that have befallen the planet, like volcanic eruptions.
Let me ask you again:
Do you really think that science can discover a supernatural miraculous event through its limited and impossibly incomplete investigation?
Ken, if Keithley responds to you, even if it’s a month from now, id like to see it.
William,
If he replies, I will let you all know.
Well, that was a good man centered hermeneutic of Genesis. Fantastic exegete from a man centered view. How would God score this article and comment stream. Who says God does not have a sense of humor. So I’ll add one final comment to this thread, and God can have the punch line when we see Him.
God created the heavens and the earth, for His glory. He has revealed what we need to know, so we focus on His glory. God is the focal point of Genesis creation account, not the created.
What does Genesis 1 & 2 focus on?
God created the heavens and the earth.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,”
And God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
And God made the expanse
And God called the expanse Heaven.
And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.”
And God saw that it was good.
And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.”
And God saw that it was good.
And God said, “Let there be lights……….
And God made the two great lights
And God set them in the expanse of the heavens
And God saw that it was good.
And God said, “Let the waters swarm …….
God created the great sea creatures
And God saw that it was good.
And God blessed them,
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth …….
And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds
And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image ……
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
And God blessed them.
And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply……
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding …..
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
The Lord God had not caused it to rain
The Lord God formed the man
The Lord God planted a garden
The Lord God made to spring up every tree
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden
The Lord God commanded the man
The Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone;
The Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens
The Lord God caused a qdeep sleep to fall upon the man
The rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman
John,
You say that God is the focus of the creation account, not the creation. Yet, every line speaks of God creating! God AND His creative acts are clearly the focus. There can be no God-centered hermeneutic that does not allow Scripture to declare its own meaning—resorting to alternatives to the plain-sense understanding only when Scripture itself leads us to do so.
Some exegetical points: On the Gap Theory
Some propose a gap between God’s original creation (of Gen. 1:1) and the state described in the second verse (“The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep”). Gap theorists maintain that God is not the Author of disorder and could not create the earth in such a state. They object that such disorder and darkness are incongruent with the Creator, and must have resulted from unmentioned catastrophe. They offer that satan’s fall from heaven to earth must have been the cause, ruining God’s previous creation and bringing chaos and darkness. They claim that the Hebrew text supports their view by the meaning of to become, such that “the earth became without form and void…” However, the Hebrew word here can also mean to come into a state of being. The text tells us that the earth came into the state of being of formlessness and disorder; but as for the prior state out of which it came into being, we have only the previous sentence to inform us. Therefore, the proper conclusion is that the earth came out of state of nonexistence and into a state of formlessness and disorder.
Gap theorists hold that God did not begin His [second] creative work until after the earth was present, but Gen. 1:1 clearly puts the creating of the earth at the beginning of that creative work: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The Bible also clearly affirms, in Ex. 20:11, that the creating of the heavens and the earth were acts that occurred within the single, contiguous period of six days: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” The earth was originally without form because that is how God wanted to created it initially, so that He could spend a full six days finishing His creating (for our benefit of learning, of course, since He could have done it all in a single moment).
There is no indication in the text that this is anything other than a contiguous, uniform chronology. Regardless of the condition of the earth when God brought it into existence, the text does not interject any pause into the chronology. An earth without form or in a state of disorder would not indicate a pause in chronology. If God can create an earth of any kind in a moment, then He can certainly create an earth without form.
The chronology is clearly uniform and contiguous. The remainder of the account after the first verse begins with “and…” There is nothing here to indicate a pause, a “gap,” or a beginning that was separated from the uniform, daily chronology of the remainder of the historical account. There is nothing ambiguous here from the beginning to the end of the sixth day. The question of how the earth got into the condition described in v. 2 (“without form and void”) is plainly and obviously answered in v. 1: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” Obviously, whatever condition it was in as described in v. 2 was the condition into which God created it. There is no need to seek out any mysterious complexity.
Gap theorists object that Isa. 45: 18 contradicts the idea of God creating the earth “without form:”
Notice that “created it not in vain [without form]” is contrasted with “formed it to be inhabited.” This is not a denial that the earth was initially without form. Rather, it is a praise to God that He did not create the earth for the purpose of being without form (and thus, permanently so), but for the purpose of being inhabited. According to the plain, literal reading of the creation account in Gen. 1, God did indeed create the earth to be inhabited—He just took six days to do it.
The chaotic state of the earth in Gen 1:2 was a kind of disorder that is the simple lack of complexity, in the sense that a lump of clay has not been ordered into a jar—the clay is yet without form.
The supposed gap that is theorized by many does not fit into some gaping lack of continuity in the text. Instead, it is shoehorned into a space so small as to be made merely of conjecture. It is not as if the text does not flow from v.1 into v.2 smoothly and without discontinuity—the language used works well on its own as a self-contained narrative of contiguous events. There is nothing in the text to indicate a previous order that was destroyed and turned into disorder—except when such an idea is read into the text. It is not enough to propose an alternative reading that is plausible—it must fit better than the plain reading that it is supposed to replace. This the Gap Theory fails to do.
Some exegetical points: On the Meaning of “Day”
The claim that the word “day” means only a measurement of time is not an accurate claim. The Hebrew word used is yom, and it is used just as our English word, day, is used. We use the word day as opposed to night, in the sense of “daytime;” we use the word day to mean a full 24-hour period, consisting of one period of daylight and one period of nighttime; and, we use the word day to indicate an age or era, such as, “in the day of the Roman Empire,” or, “back in the day,” etc. Even though we use the word day for all of these uses, we are never confused as to which meaning is intended—why is that?
Note this vital fact: anytime that a number is used with “day,” whether in English or in Hebrew, a literal day is meant. Look outside of the disputed chapter of Genesis 1, and you will find that the Old Testament uses yom together with a number 359 times, and every single use is undeniably a literal day. This only makes sense — just look at the English: If I say, “back in my father’s day,” we all understand it to be figurative of an age; but if I say, “in my father’s third day,” you would immediately want to know, “Third day of what — third day of existence?”
There is no ambiguity in how these words are used or what their meaning is.
Some exegetical points: On the Length of Pre-Sun Creation Days
In the ongoing debate over the Genesis creation account, one supposed problem that seems particularly troublesome for many is the question of the length of a day prior to the creation of the sun (on Day 4). Since the sun is the means by which a day is usually measured, then it is objected by Old-Earthers that we are left without any sure understanding of what God might possibly mean by the term, “day,” when it is used to describe the first three days of creation. Here’s the text:
Notice in verses 4-5 that God defined the idea of a day before there was a sun: “…And God 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.” God “separated” the light from the darkness. The introduction of light into a dark room does not separate the light from darkness but rather, it dispels the darkness. How then was the darkness separated from the light when God created the light? As it continues, the text informs us of the nature of this separation: “God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.” The separation of light from darkness refers to the separation of day from night, “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”
It is that separation of light from darkness—of day from night—that marks off one day from the next. Thus, the account of God’s creating follows the pattern of creative activity during the period of light, followed by the period of darkness, which is followed by the dawning of the next day, which marks the completion of the previous day. The sentence, “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day,” does not mean that the morning was included in the first day; but rather, that the advent of morning ended the period of the first day. Each day is a chronological account of what happened on that day, with God’s creative activity happening during the daylight, followed by evening, and the full day ending with the appearance of the morning light.
In this way, what the text clearly displays for us is the repeating of day and night (together making one full day) as the earth rotates. In the description of the fourth day, we come to understand more precisely how light is separated from darkness in such a way as to separate day from night: “And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night…’ …And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night… to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.” It is by these lights that the day is separated from the night—in particular, it is by the sun (whose light is reflected by the much-less-luminous moon) that the light and dark sides of the earth are separated, and because of which the rotating earth experiences both day and night. Without the sun, we would have no period of daylight—all would be the continual darkness of night; but with the sun shining on the earth from its place in space, the darkness of the dark side of the earth is separated from the daylight of the light side of the earth (and the rotation spins off one day after the next).
But does this really mean that before God created the sun to rule the day and separate the light from darkness, that there is no reasonable way for us to conclude that the length (or definition or nature) of “day” was the same as it was after the creation of the sun? In order to have a day of the same nature and definition, God would have needed only a light in space to shine on the earth, separating the light from the darkness on the earth—separating day from night—and of course, a rotating earth to move through the separated daylight and darkness to the dawning morning, repetitively. But, did God have this? What did God use to separate the light from the darkness prior to creating the sun? Look at verses 3 and 4: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.” “And GOD separated the light from the darkness!” The text unequivocally puts GOD in the physical role that it later puts the sun in, that of separating the light from the darkness in such a way as to separate daytime from nighttime on the rotating earth. And the text goes on to declare that because God was separating the light from the darkness, then “there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” God Himself was the Source of light shining on the earth prior to the sun, enabling days to be experienced and incremented three times before there was any sun.
God as a light so great as to provide daylight? What other Biblical support is there for such an idea? Look at Rev. 21, describing the New Jerusalem:
There will be no night there because the glory of God gives it light—no need of a sun to shine on it. This text affirms that God can indeed (and will one day) provide a great enough light to provide daylight itself. It describes the light of God providing daylight continually, without any period of darkness, because the source of the light—God—is present on the earth (in the New Jerusalem). In order for there to be daytime and nighttime, the earth would need to rotate in the face of the light standing apart from it in space and shining on it, like the sun. And if God is capable of the former, He certainly is capable of the latter!
Yom can mean, as has been pointed out, day, daylight, or indeterminate period of time. But that’s not the whole story. It is also translated as year, time, ever, and always, among others. In fact, the word Yom is used in conjunction with a number in both 2 Chronicles 21 (two years) and Amos 4 (three years) and is not translated as day, but rather year.
Evening and morning, in the plain, literal reading which is being demanded here mean sunset and sunrise, and we know that isn’t possible according to a plain, literal reading of the text since there’s no sun until day 4.
So then, what you’re saying is that context determines meaning. And in what other context does”evening and morning” mean anything other than a literal day? As mentioned in Revelation, God is quite capable of providing daylight with the brightness of His glory. In this case, evening and morning need not require a Sun, but only a light strong enough to be daylight. There is no way around it. You can come up with whatever theory you want, but the most you can accomplish is to say why the text does not mean what it says—or why we should not pay much to what it says.
What I’m saying is that YECers are making up rules (number with yom = 24 hrs) that don’t really exist.
Bill Mac,
Anytime Yom is used with a proper number it is always the Hebrew definition associated to the meaning of “morning and evening”, or day.
“Day of the Lord” is an indefinite usage (non-number)
The better question is what do you gain from a long day? (besides association to science, evolution, or natural law)
Chris,
I gave two verses where that is not the case.
Bill Mac, …Are those the only two you think prove your hermeneutic for Yom?
The only thing I was seeking to prove is that there isn’t a rule that number+yom=24hr day. It doesn’t prove my interpretation of Gen 1 nor disprove yours.
Bill Mac,
You’re right.
The fact that isn’t a rule doesn’t disprove or prove anything.
The context of Gen1 sure does though.
As a scientist I’m reluctant to use the word “prove”. 😉
Bill Mac,
That’s a good one. (-:
Bill Mac,
The problem you are having with the 24 hour day doesn’t solve your desire to start with science and fit the Bible into it.
Scientists would reject the Bible’s narration of creation even if you assigned a million years to each day or even if you assigned random numbers to each days length, like a million years to one day, 400,000 years to another and so forth.
In order to satisfy the scientific narrative, you would also have to re-write the whole Biblical creation story. or simply render the Biblical story, including its division of creation into days with mornings and evenings and with specific creation acts on each of those days, as meaningless to the reality of what actually happened.
All you would be left with is arguing with science over whether or not creation was by chance or by God.
In looking at the idea that God had Moses write the creation story to counteract other ancient culture’s creation myths, which is true as far as it goes, I think. Only I would take off the “ancient culture’s creation myths” and say God had Moses write the creation story to counteract every culture’s creation myths including those of the present scientific culture. But still, would God have Moses write it the way he did if it wasn’t true on its face?
What is gained by God by making it +seem+ as if God created in 6 regular days? And not just by using term ‘yom’ but also the terms morning and evening? What is gained by such detail if indeed this detail is not reflective of the reality of creation?
Such a question combined with the accusation that God was being a deceiver if He created an aged earth BUT NOT a deceiver for straight out saying He created in six morning and evening days when they were in actuality not 24 hour days certainly deserves ire.
Bill Mac,
Thanks for the info.
I was under the impression that yom with a number always meant a 24 hour day.
So throw that rule out.
How then does one determine what the word yom means except by the context?
And by the context in Gen1 it is easy to see, that as USUAL, yom with a numeral means a 24 hour day, since we have the phrase “morning and evening” along with it.
But notice on your two exceptions:The amount of time was not inordinate but specified. It was two years or four years.
So if you are consistent, but ignoring the morning and evening them, you could say that God took 6 YEARS to create.
No matter how you do it, Bill Mac, you can’t rectify the passage with the scientists opinions. The scientists reject the order of creation NO MATTER how long you make the days last.
Dear Parsonsmike: The trouble with science is the trouble with the present. Today it is one thing, tomorrow something else, and the biggest problem is the analytical method presently in use. What science needs is a more synthetical method, one that can comprehend the rule as well as the exceptions. Dr. H.C. Leupold in his Commentary on Genesis pointed out back in the early to the middle of the 19th century that the term yom in Genesis meant 24 hour day, because it is marked by the expression, morning and evening were the first day. Again, the references to the week of creation are viewed from the perspective of the 7th day in later comments in the Bible. What Dr. Leupold, a Lutheran scholar, stated was confirmed by my friend who had been raised an Orthodox Jew and who taught me my Hebrew alphabet before I began the course. Dr. Isaac Block, a veteran from World War II, was my friend of 40 years, a cum laud graduate in all of his four degrees from the Univ. of Maryland, SEBTS (M.Div.; D. Min.) and the M.A.L.S (Master of Arts in Liberal Studies) from St. John’s College, one of the noted liberal institutions of America. He stated that yom with morning and evening could only mean a 24 hour day; it could mean more under other conditions or usages of grammar like our day. Science is not quite the tour de force as it is pictured to be any more than religion was when it dominated the earthly scene in Europe and America.
James,
You are right.
And without the improper starting point of scientific conclusions, there isn’t any valid exegesis that would render ‘yom’ in Gen1 as anything other than a regular 24 hour day.
Gen 1 stands not only against the cultural myths put forth in the days of Moses, it also stands against the cultural myths put forth by todays cultures, including evolution and the idea that God didn’t supernaturally create even as He says He did.
Personally, I have no doubt that the person who recorded Genesis intended that the days be regular, 24 hour, days.
Bennet, you are in the same class with all the world class biblical and hebraic scholars with that confession. The interesting thing is why would Keathley publish an opinion (probably more of a personal leaning) against your scholarly confession,….. and then Ken brought the subject back up for discussion. I’m glad he did.
The interesting thing is why would Keathley publish an opinion (probably more of a personal leaning) against your scholarly confession,
I don’t understand this statement.
Bill Mac, the reason for the statement about Keathley is that he is a professor. I ,as an example, have a lot of opinions that may not have sound biblical hermeneutics to back them up, so…it is better for me as a Pastor/Teacher to keep those in my head, and not on paper, or in suggestions to those that I am teaching or to paying students.
Now if I am convinced that my biblical hermeneutic is sound, I should publish my thoughts and hopefully have something of benefit to add to the discussion.
It just appears to me, that Keathley has added nothing to the discussion of OEC than to restate well worked opinions that do not meet up with Hebraic scholarship. In other words, his confession is more political/personal in scope, than scholarly in pursuit. If scholars can show that the Law and Prophets expressions in Hebrew mean something different than what they have been found to mean…I’m listening.
OK. Well, it appears that Keathley’s scholarly credentials are sufficient enough for me to take his opinions seriously. His publication record and the office he holds and the ones he has held show me he has the respect of his peers. That doesn’t make him right but it also doesn’t encourage me to dismiss his ideas because they might clash with my notions of approved biblical hermeneutics.
Again, I think I understand your logic, but I would also would like to hear more from Keathley about how he values Hebrew scholarship relative to how the bible reads, not how the culture changes the language of the bible to accommodate feelings. I have great respect for Keathley and his work has been of great value to me and hopefully will continue to be…. that is the reason for my concern that he is simply attaching his anchor to an increasing popular cultural bias, not a biblical one.
Chris: That I can agree with.
Bill Mac, I appreciate the feedback on the two cases you sight, which are not really interpretive passage errors, but more commonly translation issues….where Septuigent writings help us understand the intent and our current day translations. Translations seem to hurt the science behind the meaning of the Chronicles and Amos passages. But you know as well as I, that those two instances are highly disputable, yet the overwhelming science in interpreting the passages is squarely in the court of 24 hr days when you base the interpretation against the many thousands of occurrences of the term and meaning.
This is obviously not a new discussion…. back in 1984 a prominent Hebrew scholar (grossly liberal) stated it this way…. “Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the ‘days’ of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.”
I guess he (Dr. James Barr, Vanderbilt) just didn’t live long enough to see culture and culture’s science try to discredit what God has clearly written thousands of times in the Law and Prophets, as if those writing in Hebrew didn’t know what they were writing.
I don’t begrudge you thinking that God is changing his timing, but I do have a bit of an issue with Keathley simply printing an opinion piece, a sorta confession, wanting some sympathy to his new found position on interpreting Yom. Again, this is an old argument, and the more science around “how we got the scriptures” is solidifying the fact that God meant what he said, in the way that the Hebrew language records it. Unfortunately, the manuscripts that solidify this Hebrew hermeneutic are falling prey to the sweeping action by the naturalistic culture of the day (that is really not much of a surprise in and of itself). But, excuses only last so long….