When I first read Johnson’s book, Darwin on Trial, it was a revelation of a sort, my background being steeped in simple (“there’s oil because all the dead dinos sank to the bottom of the one-earth ocean”), succinct (“6,000 year old earth, ten thou at the max is all you’re going to be allowed if you’re a good Christian”), and not so sweet (YEC is rife with strident and harsh polemicists). Johnson launched me on an intellectual search that explored with great interest and curiosity Australopithecus-es and other past creatures. I proudly claim, by DNA mind you, about 4% Neanderthal. Those hairy, thick-brow Dred, muscular northern Europeans were plenty human enough.
I think I’ve lived long enough to see YEC diminish to a noisy tertiary teaching with its own theme park and energetic cottage industry which is where it belongs. Believe what thou wilt about the age of the earth, I’m long past arguments about the matter.
See Christianity Today’s nice piece on Johnson, here.
You know where I stand: https://sbcvoices.com/admonitions-to-a-disappointed-young-earther-by-ken-hamrick/
While I might not have lived as long as Brother Thornton, I have lived long enough to see a major change in how the world relates to Christianity. It used to be that the world (at least in America) seemed to tolerate the Church. While sinners disagreed with our faith, they had in general a certain grudging respect for the strength of our worldview—not that they admired it, but that they could not disprove it (not even in their own consciences). Hatred for Christianity was hampered by a lack of legitimacy—there was no foothold in reason strong enough for a legitimate claim that the Bible was not true and divinely authoritative. This was the level ground of reason, to which was added the conscience, by which God pricks the hearts of men with the knowledge that He does exist, the Bible is true, and they are sinners. Together, reason and conscience served as the high ground of the Church in her battle to be a witness to the world. The large numbers of those who attended a Christian church of some kind, together with the possibility that the Book on which our worldview is based might actually be true, served as a kind of collective conscience of our society. But something changed. The collective conscience has been seared. The respect is gone, and the world’s tolerance for the true Christian faith is fast disappearing.
What happened? More is at work here than merely the continuous, gradual moral decline of the sinful world. We lost the high ground : the truth claims of Christianity—the authority of an inerrant and inspired Bible—were delegitimized (in the eyes of the world) as the world accepted as legitimate the truth claims of evolutionary science. The truth claims of evolution, including the billions-of-years chronology, gained legitimacy in the eyes of the world only gradually. But the sinful anti-supernatural bias of “science” fueled the over-confidence by which they dressed their claims in such an overwhelming certainty. That deceptive certainty made Biblical creationism ever more worthy of scorn and disgust—now even in the eyes of many Christians, who have been swayed by the certainty with which evolutionists present their view. And while multiple methods of hermeneutical gymnastics are being presented to accommodate this certainty of science and still claim an inerrant Bible, the world knows full well that the authority of Scripture has been undermined and the anti-Christian worldview has gained a new legitimacy.
The ultimate, most pervasive human bias is the bias against the truths of God and His Word. That is where the battle is engaged… and we are losing. This is not only about origins. If the Bible cannot be trusted in the first chapter, it cannot be trusted in any other.
If we allow ourselves to be bowled over by supposed evidence that contradicts a literal six-day, supernatural creation, then we unknowingly surrender to the “irrefutable evidence” against any man physically rising from the dead after three days. Every battle that the Church is currently losing results from the delegitimization of our truth claims. By losing our reasonable ground of legitimacy, we lose all moral high ground, and the nation loses its collective conscience. What hampered hatred and persecution of Christianity is disappearing, and the world itself is “long past arguments about the matter.” Can we afford to take the same attitude?
Ken,
Science cant show how a man can walk on water, or how the sick can be healed with a word, or how thousands can be fed with a boys lunch with much left over.
Science cant show that people have souls or whether or not God exists.
Science is a wondeful tool that does amazing things and explains complicated worldly material truths both microscopic and universal in scope.
Science relies on its tools and methods to learn about this world but can only SPECULATE on past events they cant repeat.
Was there really a flood that killed all humans but those in the Ark?
Did Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt after plagues came over the land?
Which OT stories are true?
Which are just made up to make a point?
How do we determine what is true as written and what isnt really history?
How much should we rely on secular theory to determine how we understand the historical stories as true or not?
Are we being consistent in howwe do that?
And what are the consequences if we are not?
The “old testament law” was clear; the woman caught in adultery must die. The men with stones in hand were supported by the “truth”. When confronted by the “Truth”, they all had to walk away. The rich young ruler was well acquainted with the same “truth”. When confronted by the demands of the “Truth”, he walked away sad. When Jesus came on the scene, many religious leaders faithfully taught and adhered to “truth” claims. These claims were codified in their hearts, minds, and the public square. These men were blind to Jesus.
For now we see in a mirror dimly. Knowledge and knowing are not the same. The whole is more than the sum of it’s parts. Though Jesus could have clearly articulated truth claims, he spoke in parables. Knowledge will pass away, but Knowing will last an eternity. Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.
Ken, I never understood how someone could hold to John 3:16 and not Gen 1:1. That just doesn’t make sense to me.
woody
Do any of you remember the Perry Mason Tv shows?
Some may not.
To my recollectionthey followed a pattern which went something like this:
Perry Mason, a lawyer represented the accused and believed in his clinent’s innocence…
And the evidence all seemed to be against Mason and his client. The more evidence that came in, the more it looked like the client was guilty.
So it looked like Perry would lose the case.
But then another piece of evidence came in that changed the whole perspective of the case.
And then the older evidence was seen in a new light, and Perry would win the case.
Not only is the evidence of origins incomplete, we do not even know how much evidence is yet to come in.
And the evidence we do have is viewed with a secular point of view.
Not only that but often new evidence brings scientists to revise older views and discard once sure thought theories.
There are many good reasons to hold to a literal 6 day creation.
But consider this truth if hold strongly to the secular version:
Science, as wonderful as it is [and it is, and it is amazing] does not, nor can it, nor is it capable of discerning the supernatural, the miraculous, and the things of the Spirit of God.
And which one of you would even think that the creation of the world and the universe was not supernatural, miraculous, and of the Spirit? Of course, none of you.
Blessings to all.
Johnson addressed matters that ken hamrick raises. The YEC always plays the trump card first – if you’re not with us all of biblical truth is demolished.
But, it’s not worth another discussion. I respect most who adopt YEC dogma but am not much interested in going down that road. It’s a tertiary issue.
William,
When you hit a tennis ball over the net, sometimes it gets hit back across.
I’m sure you are not surprised.
William,
Most well constructed things take a while to demolish.
And in the realm of ideas, it usually isn’t your understanding of truth , or Dave’s or Bill’s, or any well established believer who is affected by what Ken is referring to.
Rather, it is those new to the faith, the unestablished, the future believers.
They ask the questions you wouldn’t ask.
It is to them the Enemy whispers in the ear.
And as our society worsens morally, the Church, as a whole is also getting worse.
Where does the downgrade begin?
It begins when the Word of God is questioned, even if ever so slightly, and like a wedge over time, denominations and congregations fall away from the truth. Some quickly. Some slowly.
If a YECer says you’re apostate for not towing their line, they are just wrong.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a real danger, and history both in America and abroad has shown us that over time wherever Christianity once thrived, it is now in decline.
How many short years ago would conservative churches and denominations never even think of reckoning with the question of gay ministers and marriages? There was not a reason to even discuss it -it was a settled issue. Yet today we have Revoice. Among others.
Who knows, in a few short years, arguing against gays in the ministry may be to many, even the majority, a tertiary teaching that most ignore and consider those that don’t just clanging symbols.
Such is the nature of a downgrade.
Am reading your book now…
I have lot’s of atheist relatives on my wife’s side of the family and lot’s of liberals on my mom’s side of the family. My dad argues the same as Ken, that because of the rejection of YEC the world doesn’t believe us. Trouble is, I have never heard any of my friends and relatives say this. What they say is that while the liberal left is trying to feed the poor and love their neighbor the Christian right is trying to build a wall and take away health care. I remind them of the truth of my life- the fact that I have taken Southern Baptist money for over twenty years and served the poor both with food, shelter, water and Gospel. They think that I’m an aberration. But in this Ken is right, because we are perceived to not believe the Bible they don’t believe it either. But, instead of focusing on Genesis which they don’t care about we need to be focused on loving one another. The decline of the church in the West did not start with the Scopes trial, it began in the 1960’s with Civil rights and the Great Society. We opposed those then but we have utterly failed to offer anything better. Rather than have a discussion of how best to care for the poor and needy – which we should be championing- we appear to oppose any help and only offer condemnation to anyone who tries to help. The truth is that the Church has done much to serve the poor and needy but that is not the card we play. We have collectively backed a Republican party who have wanted to dismantle Obama Care and replace it with nothing. We look like a bunch of middle class white guys crying out, ‘I’ve got mine, too bad about you’ and when we look why the world hates us we wring our hands and say, ‘if only we proclaimed a six day creation more forcefully’. We have never been so out of touch.
There was a time, perhaps 10 years ago, when I was convinced that non-Calvinism, YEC, abstentionism, and dispensationalism were going to be added to the next iteration of the BFM. Or perhaps at least a movement to include them.
I thank God for Phillip Johnson and the intelligent design movement that he helped to launch. This movement has done a good job of showing the scientific side to the evidence for God that is seen in creation. Sadly, Christians who have “deconstructed” as well as many atheists, view science as a reason to reject the Bible and Christianity. The truth is that science provides strong evidence for a mighty, wise, super-intelligent Creator of the universe, our planet, and life.
I’m not a scientist, but before the Lord called me to full time ministry I worked as a nuclear engineer. I’ve always loved science and I’m “science-minded.” I enjoy reading geeky scientific stuff. I’ve also had a type of intellectual hobby for over 20 years now of studying scientific evidence for God. There is a lot of such evidence and it keeps growing! I’ve written a number of blog posts on this topic myself, trying to make the science accessible to people who are interested but have less of a science background. It’s not merely intellectual and apologetic, seeing God’s glory in nature through science leads me to worship!
Two of the top lines of scientific evidence for God include:
1. The fine-tuning of the physical laws and constants of nature which make life possible in our universe.
2. The incredible information content and amazingly complex molecular machines found in even the simplest living cells.
Of course, you don’t have to be a scientist or study scientific evidence to see evidence for God in nature. But the science does support such evidence!
Pardon my ignorance on this issue…. So, when people are talking literal days, are they meaning actual 24 hour time periods like we have now? Is that it? Or are they arguing for the specifically delineated time periods where the specific things stated in the bible occurred in a particular order/day?
They’re not arguing 24 hour days were a must, right? Tell me that’s right. Because if our 24 hour days are based off the rotation of the earth on its axis as it orbits the sun.. The one that wasn’t created until the 4th day…..
I just want to make sure I’m wrapping my mind around the actual issue… I actually encountered my first flat-earther from a church about 3 years ago, so I’m trying not to make assumptions.
Kimberly,
Why would the creation of the sun suddenly speed up the earth’s rotation? That’s been answered here: https://kenhamrick.com/2015/02/06/shedding-light-on-the-length-of-pre-sun-creation-days-a-text-based-approach/
Will try to read it after work if I get a chance. But I didn’t say not and I don’t believe the bible addresses when or how the Earth started rotating and orbiting or when it settled into the pattern that we are accustomed to etc. Was it orbiting and rotating around a light prior to the creation of the sun? I don’t know. It doesn’t say how the light exactly caused day and night to happen. Just that God created it and it was good. I do know from the genesis account that great changes were made in those days that helped direct the earth to be as it is now. The sun and moon were created. Animals and plants. People. Waters separated from dry ground, etc. So we do know that in the creation God was making sweeping changes to bring for the life on earth as he desired. There is no reason for me to believe that the length of time of day couldn’t have been among those sweeping changes. If there were 6 literal days and not eras or time periods.
Secondly, I need to make a correction. If day was only the light part (1:5) then it’s not a 24 hour period, right? We already use day to mean 2 things ourselves. We use it for the lighted portion of our 24 hour rotation and we use it for the 24 hours itself.
I am a Christian because of my faith in Jesus Christ and not because of some assumptions about the mechanics of origins. Consider the question of which came first – the chicken or the egg. If the chicken, then it must have been created with characteristics of age, and it would also be true of sticks and stones. If the egg came first, then an equally profound series of miracles would have occurred. Arguing over the specific mechanics of the creative act is little more than contemplating your navel and a total distraction from the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All you need to know is the Creator. Strangely, that idea seems to constitute a heresy for some of those among the YEC crowd.