A while back, I was in the crew’s mess for a meeting on board my ship. I looked over at the magazine rack and saw a copy of the February 2007 edition of Discover Magazine. Always interested in things scientific and since the magazine was free for the taking, how could I refuse? After the meeting was over I found an article in the magazine written by Bruno Maddox on the soon to open Creation Museum being built by the creation evangelism ministry, Answers in Genesis.
Usually, when I read articles published by the mainstream media concerning the creation-evolution debate, I end up shaking my head in frustration at the fact that most evolutionists miss the point of scientific creationists completely. However, this article was different. In fact, I probably would not have read the article had the following quote not been highlighted in the text:
Two hours into my tour of the creation museum, I have yet to disagree with anything I see.
I thought, “Surely Discovery Magazine didn’t publish an article by a recent creationist convert!” That would have been almost a miracle and as a reading of the article proved; it was too much to hope for. What I did read was almost as surprising… A fair assessment of what creationists believe. An even more startling admission on the part of Mr. Maddox was that he lost several debates with creationists while touring the museum.
He noted something that detractors of Creationism have failed or refused to see. Rather than creationists rejecting science, creationists have a deep respect for science. Towards the conclusion of the article Maddox states:
I thought I was going to meet people who love God and therefore hate science. What I found instead were people who love God but who have at least a pretty serious crush on science as well.
Although, as I said before, his article was fairly written, I must qualify that by saying the main body of the article is fair. Unfortunately, he summarizes his article by giving his opinion on what he thinks creationists really believe. He begins the closing section by quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald in “The Crack Up”:
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to believe two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
He credits the scientists at AIG by the standard of the above quote by saying they are truly intelligent, because they believe in Creationism which is patently false and they believe in Science which proves Creationism is patently false. This is in direct contradiction to one of his earlier statements. After saying, “Two hours into my tour and I see nothing that I disagree with,” he points out one of the things he agrees with:
…the message being, as it will be explained to me many times before I leave, that everyone’s view of reality is inescapably colored and distorted by that person’s “starting assumptions.”
His opinion of creationists is colored by his starting assumption. In fact earlier in the article, he claims there is no God. This claim, this starting assumption “colors” the rest of what he says. He admits that scientists will come up with different results based on their starting assumptions, but seems to believe that scientists who start with the assumption that there is no God are somehow more superior to those that do believe in God.
The fact is that creationists have the same science, the same evidence and the same respect for both as the evolutionists do. The difference is that the creationists start with a belief in God and the Bible and interpret the evidence in that light while evolutionists usually do not believe in either and the ones that do, don’t usually interpret scripture in a traditional way. Evolutionists are saying that creationists are trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Creationists understand the limitations of the theory of creation and are honest enough to point these limitations out in creationist scientific journals, studies and even in publications written on the layman’s level. Evolutionists on the other hand tend to only admit the weaknesses of their theory in technical journals and among their peers. It is widely known in the scientific community that there are many scientists who are not for creationism or intelligent design, who are calling for a new theory of origins and speciation because, as any evolutionist will tell you, evolution does not account for the origins of life, it only postulates the cause of speciation by mutation and natural selection. Additionally, honest evolutionists will say there are immense problems with the current theory of evolution in adequately explaining speciation.
Some Christian may be reading this and thinking, is a literal view of the account of Genesis really that important. To a person who is open to Christianity, probably not, there are many more important subjects that I think a person who is considering converting to Christianity should be aware of. But eventually, all Christians will come face to face with the question of creation versus evolution and how we answer the question may have a big impact on whether that person comes to a saving knowledge of Christ or if they are already a Christian, then it will affect how or if they will continue to live for Christ.
Some argue that there are good Christians who believe in evolution or at least intelligent design. I agree, but what I am arguing is that there are many good Christians who leave Christianity because they feel that there is a disparity between what the Bible teaches, what Bible teachers teach and what Science teaches. In some cases this may be true. So I think a quick discussion of what the different views of creation are is in order.
First is the literalist view. This view holds that the book of Genesis is an accurate account of how God actually created all of creation. The six days of creation are six literal 24 hour days and all that was accomplished in them was literally accomplished. While no one could possibly prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that either creation or evolution, there is evidence that points in the direction that one or the other is likely. The creationist defense is based primarily, but not solely on the Flood of Noah described in Genesis chapters five through seven.
The theory is that when God said in Genesis 1 that everything he had made was very good, that meant without flaw, error, ability to mutate, in short without sin, sin being imperfection of any kind. When Adam ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, this brought sin into the world and this is when decay of all sort began – genetic, radioisotope, biological, chemical, physical etc. There was in our atmosphere, some layer of ice, water or, more than likely, vapor that protected the earth from the more rapid decay that we experience today. When God sent the flood, all the water that was in the atmosphere came down to earth as well as water that was subterranean. Many people who have a basic understanding of the story think it was something like a monsoon or a worldwide hurricane, but the Bible describes a major cataclysmic event that destroyed all life on planet earth as it existed until that point. It includes rain, volcanoes, and earthquakes and while the rain lasted for forty days and nights, the whole event lasted more than a year. The layer of atmospheric vapor never returned and now we witness the rapid decay that we do.
One of the many things that geologists have learned over the years is that when you have great deals of water moving sediment, when the water dries you will find that the sediment has formed layers and of course if there were any forms of life prior to the flood, they will be buried in those layers. Additionally, most people think that it takes thousands of years for fossils to form. The reality is that in order for an animal fossil to form, it must be buried quickly in sediment or be in an extremely dry, sediment-rich, microbe/biotic free environment. Ken Ham, one of the founders of AIG is fond of saying:
If there was a world-wide flood, what would you expect to find? Millions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water all over the earth. What do we find? Millions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water all over the earth.
While this is hardly the only scientific reason why scientific creationists believe in creationism, it is one of the hardest hitting for Christians struggling with this issue. But there are theological issues as well. For instance: the issue of sin.
For those who believe something other than creationism, they have to reconcile the fact that there was death before sin. The Bible says:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
– Romans 5:12
If evolution is true, then there was death before Adam and the sin that Adam committed is meaningless. Most people don’t seem to get this. It is not the individual sins that we commit - the bad things that we do that we need salvation from, it is the sin nature that we are born with – the sin nature that we inherited from our common ancestor Adam that gives us the propensity to sin – the ability to do wrong things that we need salvation from. The Bible says:
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all made alive.
– I Corinthians 15:22
Christ brings salvation from the death that Adam brought on all men. This death is physical and it is spiritual. The Bible tells us that “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment,” (Hebrews 9:27). So death is physical, but after our physical death, we will be judged and some of us will go into everlasting punishment (hell) and some of us will go into life eternal (heaven) (Matthew 25:46).
Many Christians have left Christianity because of the supposed contradictions of Science and Scripture, my mother, a Lutheran, being one of them. Her pastor taught theistic evolution and was ultimately removed from the pastorate by the synod overseeing his particular church for teaching theistic evolution. There are several churches and ministries that still teach theistic evolution, but my mother like so many who have left orthodox Christianity will not return, because bringing doubt to the first part of the Bible allowed doubt to creep in about the rest of the Bible. I believe that those who teach an evolution infused creation story, while well meaning are ultimately doing great harm to the faith because, it wasn’t until many years after Darwin popularized evolution that Christians began creating a new creation story that reinterpreted the creation story and brought into serious question, among Christians, the first eleven chapters of the Bible and some beyond that as well. Until this time, orthodox Christians and Jews together believed almost unanimously that God created the earth in six literal days, because even a study of the original Hebrew indicates six literal days with a sunrise, a sunset and consisting of 24 hours.
Now I have said two things that other literal creationists, like myself may find intriguing or even upsetting. One, that there are good Christians who believe in some sort of theistic evolution and Two, that those Christians that do believe it and teach it fall under the pale of orthodoxy.
Many creationists will then ask, “If teaching evolution brings doubt to God’s Word, then how can they be good and how can they fall under the pale of orthodoxy?”
Well I said this was going to be a discussion of the different views and so far I have discussed only one and that is the view that I hold. So, let me discuss some of the other ones and then hopefully you will understand why.
First, is the day-age theory. Now I honestly can’t accept this at all as falling under the pale of orthodoxy, because it just doesn’t make sense. The proponents of this idea teach that each day reflects the major biomes that were evolving in each evolutionary era. Unfortunately, this theory flies in the face of what both the Bible teaches and what evolution teaches. Creation teaches that on each day, the things described were fully formed. Evolution teaches that all things were equally evolving through the different eras and epochs.
Second is the Gap theory. Proponents of this theory look to Genesis 1:2 for their hypothesis. Genesis 1:2a reads, “And the earth was without form and void.” The proponents of the Gap theory go to the original language and say that an alternate translation here is, “the earth was made without form and void.” They say that there was another creation before Genesis 1:3 with another race of people and accounts for all the evidence for evolution. Then, in Genesis 1:2 God brought divine judgment on creation and essentially started from scratch on the earth. Then Genesis 1:3 to 1:29 are to be taken literally. This falls into the pale of orthodoxy, because it answers the question of how there could have been sin before Adam. I think it is a clumsy explanation and there aren’t many well recognized Hebrew scholars who allow for this reading . In fact, the only ones who do (that I know of) are the Christians who fall into this category.
Another view is Long Age Creationism. This is a semi-literalist view of Creation. I am not that familiar with it and I should probably do some more study before I say what they believe. From what I have read, they believe, that the creation story is to be taken literally, but I am not sure how they reconcile the old age of the earth with the Bible.
Amongst Jews, there are really only two views. The first is the literal rendering and the second is the allegorical rendering which will be discussed next.
I reject the second view, because of the fact that there are no Jewish Hebrew scholars and only a minority of Christian Hebrew scholars that accept the Gap theory’s rendering of Genesis 1:2. Also, as with all the Christian-evolutionary views, they came into being relatively recently. I also think that if God left any trace of the previous creation that was under his wrath, then there was sin in the world. Some Gap theorists have said that this is why Adam was familiar with the concept of death. I believe and most creationists believe that Adam and Eve were both created with full knowledge of a great deal of things and for this reason, Adam would not have had to witness death in order to understand the concept. I also don’t believe that the evidence necessitates a belief in evolution.
Gap theorists tend to be of the Reformed or Calvinist mindset. I do not agree with Sovereign Grace, TULIP Soteriology of the Reformed or Calvinist view, but that is really as far as my disagreements with their theology goes. I believe that Soteriology seeks to understand the mystery of Salvation and I am for anyone who believes that a Christian cannot lose their salvation.
Third is the allegorical approach. This is that the first eleven chapters of the Bible tell a story to lay a foundation for faith, but because the mind of the early Jew could not comprehend modern science, God gave them an allegory – a parable if you will – of how creation came to be. He used the myth and superstition of the region to help tell His parable so that it would be more palatable to the ancient Middle Eastern mind.
The allegory view says that the story of creation tells us first about the realms that were formed (heaven, earth, sea, sky, land, and planetary bodies) and then it tells us about the dominions over those realms (sea animals, flying animals and land animals). Then it goes on to tell us that we were brought about to have dominion over it all. The meaning of the allegory is true, but I do not believe that God would use a myth that people would believe was true (as the majority of Jews and Christians did until the 19th century) without telling us that it was an allegory or myth.
God uses parables and allegories throughout the Bible, but each time He does, He tells us that He is, either by saying something to the effect of “this is a parable,” or He uses the language of simile – “the kingdom of heaven is like…” He does this without exception and if the creation account - in fact the whole of the first 11 chapters of the Bible are a myth or a parable, then they are an exception to a rule that God seems to have put in place. Furthermore, if He let people go on believing a myth when He knew it wasn’t true, then God deceived the entire human race, that would make Him a liar and God, the Bible says, cannot lie.
This view also sidesteps the issue of the sin of Adam completely. The obvious deduction of the allegory view is that Adam’s sin is not real and therefore, we are not really born sinful. Most of the proponents of this view are of the Arminian belief that you can lose your salvation (which I whole heartedly disagree with) which makes sense. If there is no original sin, then what must you be saved from? The individual bad things you do. The Roman Catholic Church fell into this view while still believing in a literal interpretation of the creation story and divided sin into cardinal (deadly) and venial sins. Cardinal sins will put you in hell without acts of contrition and repentance, but venial sins, while also forgiven by acts of contrition and repentance will not send you to hell. However, there is a problem. If you can’t get into heaven with unconfessed sin, then there must be a place to have venial sins removed, so they created the doctrine of purgatory. I find that many of the former Protestants that convert to Catholicism were of the Arminian background.
Although soteriology is a subject that would need to be delved into deeper in another discussion, it bears pointing out that the basic premise of the theory of origins will color your theology.
I used to really enjoy debating the issue of creation versus evolution, but realized that without a real moderator, any chance of an intelligent debate quickly melts into an argument and arguments are not productive nor have any of my arguments resulted in a person accepting Christ… Not one. They also haven’t resulted in my winning someone from theistic evolution to creationism. I hope that my brethren in Christ and I can agree to disagree and still have fellowship in the other essentials of the faith.
So what do I do when people ask me what I believe about the creation/evolution debate? I honestly try to defuse and redirect the question. Most of the time people just want to argue or mock me. A typical conversation might go like this:
Unbeliever: What do you believe about creation?
Me: Why do you ask?
U: I have a hard time believing the Bible because I believe in evolution.”
M: Well, if I were to offer you some evidence that evolution is false, and creation is true, would you consider becoming a Christian?
At this point, the unbeliever is going to have to give me an answer that will tell me if it is really worth my time to get into the conversation at all. If the person says, “No,” then I reply, “Then there’s no real reason for me to answer, is there?” But it the person says, “Yes,” Then my reply may go something like this.
M: Many people want to understand the whys and the hows, but they miss the message. The question shouldn’t be whether God created or evolved but, why did He take so long? The answer is that He took His time to show that He loved us enough to take care in creating a world for us to live in. Unfortunately, the world we live in has been tainted by sin and we all have a sin nature which gives us the ability to sin. Which leads to another question – most people that believe that heaven exists, also believe that they are going there, but my question for you is are you good enough.
If the person is truly seeking, usually this is a good enough answer for the time being and allows me to really have a conversation about Christ and salvation. If the person is not really seeking, then I can determine that fairly quickly as well. If a person really wants an answer, I give the explanation I have given above and I try to give them some references for further study as well.
Ultimately the debate arises from the fact that most Christians tend to disassociate science and Scripture. The typical belief is that since the Bible is a book about faith and not science, it only need be accurate when detailing matters of faith, worship and theology. The problem is this: II Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” If all scripture is inspired by God and inerrant, then when God speaks of things scientific, He knows what He is talking about, because he created the laws that nature follows and that science tries to uncover. If God lets any scientific inaccuracy get into His Word, then it is not inerrant and not to be trusted. But if it is accurate, then the evidence can support the science of the Bible.
The Bible has been subject to ridicule for having scientific inaccuracies for centuries. Isaiah said that the earth was round (Isaiah 40:22) two to three centuries before the Greeks took credit for discovering this.
When the Bible speaks of circumcision, it says to wait eight days after birth. Eight days was not a religious requirement; this was for the safety of the newborn. Science has shown that it takes at least a week for the body to have the natural ability to produce blood coagulants. While this practice doesn’t make any scientific claims it does show that God has scientific knowledge. If this practice had been formulated by trial and error, the tragedy would have been immense.
Another example of the Bible’s scientific accuracy is found in Psalm 8:8. Here it reads, “The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.” A naval officer by the name of Matthew Maury read this verse and said if the Bible says there are paths in the sea, then there must be. He then went to work to figure out how to find them. It was from this research that he discovered currents flowing through the ocean like paths through the sea. This was also the birth of Oceanography.
So it is not necessary to separate science from faith. In fact, Sir Isaac Newton referred to science as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”
I do not claim to have all the answers. In fact, I may have misrepresented someone's beliefs in this article. No one but God has all the answers. But I have some very strong evidence to support what I believe and while I struggle with my faith from time to time, it is not from believing “two opposing ideas simultaneously.”
