The Bible has in the opening
sentence one of the most critical sentence ever written. There it is, as bold
and as gripping as anything. In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth. What we see in this
statement is an explanation of the origin of all things. Whether you believe it
or not, there it is; making the incredible claim — God is our creator.
Not a popular thought. Even with
all the drama that this statement holds, we see that it is an idea that faces
quite a bit of challenges in our day. The predominant notion in our society is
the theory of evolution. It is very rarely treated as a theory, but rather as
fact, which it is not.
You’ll find that much of the
media treats evolution as an unquestionable fact. Not too long ago I was
watching a children’s show about lions. In a 45 second blurb in the program the
statement was made that the lion evolved
from a house-cat-sized cat. If you ever tune into The Discovery Channel, you’ll
find that it promotes nothing other than the idea of evolution.
The education system is not too
different. Dr. Ralph Girard, professor of biology and dean of the graduate
division at the University of California at Davis was reported to have said
that teaching the theory of creation
makes about as much sense as teaching about the stork. He asked if a course on
reproduction should include the stork theory. Even in your public schools the
evolution theory is treated as fact rather than speculation. In most science
classrooms they have posted on the wall the evolution of man from ape.
When dealing with this subject,
the origin of the universe, it is important to understand that there are only 2
possible explanations. Either life rose out of non-life, or it was created. D.J
Futuyma said, “Creation and evolution,
between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living
things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not.
If they did not, they must have developed from preexisting species by some
process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they
must have been created by some omnipotent intelligence.” Those are the only
two possibilities.
The reality is that evolution is
not a sure fire as it is trumped up to be. The evolutionist theory of the
origin of the world has become so intrusive that a person is considered to be
foolish if they think otherwise.
Chuck Smith likes to compare the
idea of evolution to The Emperor’s New Cloths. It’s the story of the Emperor
that had been tricked by some con artists that sold the emperor a new set of
cloths that were made of a very special fabric that only the wise could see.
Not wanting to be found a fool, the king then marveled at the beauty of the
fabric that was being presented to him. The Emperor’s officials also saw no
fabric, but were afraid to admit it for fear of being labeled a fool. So they
too marveled at the beauty of the invisible fabric. Eventually the Emperor was
fitted with his new apparel and was paraded through the streets of his kingdom.
Everyone had heard that only fools were blind to the cloth of the outfit, so
the people oo’ed and aw’ed at the beauty of the Emperor’s attire. Everyone that
is except a young child. She pointed and declared aloud, “The Emperor has no
cloths!”
The first question that rises
when we read this verse is How long ago
was this? or, How old is the earth?
The creationist, or biblical perspective would say that the earth is rather
quit young, perhaps around 10,000 years old. The evolutionist must, through
necessity, have a very old earth, millions or billions of years old, in order
to give enough time for the evolutionary process to take place.
Dr. Barn of the University of
East Texas did a study on the
electromagnetic field (EMF) around
the earth. Over a 150 years ago a Dutch scientist measured the level of the EMF around the earth. Then every year
since that time the level of EMF has
been measured. It was discovered that in that time the field has been
deteriorating on a very constant rate, without variance. So we know exactly how
much the field will measure next year or the next or the next.
He then turned the figures around
and went back in time, assuming that the measurement has been a constant, which
it has been for over 150 years, to see how strong the EMF would be at 25,000 years ago. He found that the EMF would have raised the earth’s
temperature to 240 degrees, so that there could be no moisture on it. If we go
back to 100,000 years the temperature would have been so hot that the earth
would be a great mass of molten lava.
The evolutionist’s time frame
does not line up.
Then there is the issue of
dinosaurs. According to evolution, dinosaurs were roaming the earth some
100,000,000 years ago, while man didn’t arrive on the scene until some
3,000,000 years ago. But have you heard of the Puluxy River footprints?
In the Puluxy river in Texas
there are hundreds of human footprints in the river alongside dinosaur
footprints. These footprints weave in and out of the dinosaur footprints.
Amazingly there are actual human footprints in the very same fossilized
footprint as a dinosaur! How else do you have dinosaurs and man footprints
together if they did not co-exist at the same time?
Have you ever seen pictures of
the first moon landing? The spacecraft that NASA made was fitted with large
landing pads. The engineers put those large landing pads on the craft based
upon the idea that the moon was many millions and millions of years old. Having
been that old, the moon had had innumerable amount of asteroids hitting its surface
and would in turn have this thick layer of moon dust on its surface. The
official estimation was that it could be up to 30 feet thick. Therefore, the
designers of the Apollo went to great lengths to insure that the landing
spacecraft would not be swallowed up in this moon dust. Thus the big landing
pads.
But when the Apollo actually
landed on the surface of the moon, do you know what they found? They found that
the surface of the moon only had about 2 or 3 inches of dust on its surface.
That works out to be about 10,000 years worth of dust build up. Many
evolutionary scientists were very silent on this matter. It looks as though the
king is naked.
The theory of evolution is not a
slam-dunk idea. It has many weaknesses, and should be consider a belief system,
rather than fact. The scientist Dr. Henry Morris points out that, “If one
wishes to believe in evolution, it is a free country, but he must believe it
strictly as a matter of faith; there is no scientific evidence for
evolution that cannot be explained at least as well, and usually better, by
creation.”
The Swedish botanist, Dr.
Heribert Nilsson, who is also an evolutionist said, “My attempts to demonstrate
evolution by experiment carried on for more than forty years, have completely
failed. …It may be firmly maintained that it is not even possible to make a
caricature out of paleobilogy al facts. The fossil material is now so complete
that it is now possible to construct new classes, and the lack of transitional
series cannot be explained… Deficiencies are real. The idea of an evolution
rest on pure belief.”
Dr. Henry Morris does say though,
“The absence of evidence for evolution does not, by itself prove creation, of
course; nevertheless, special creation is clearly the only alternative to
evolution.”
What this all means is that God
had a plan for us and that we belong to him. We are not just an accident, but a
lovingly planned creation of God. For, In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
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I find it interesting that throughout history, even prior to Darwin, numerous Christians and Jews have considered allegorical interpretations of Genesis to be as valid or even more likely than literal interpretations. Yet, today, hardly any evangelicals know about the discussions that have gone on about how literally Genesis should be interpreted. Personally, I attribute this suppression of Christian and Jewish history to efforts by people like Henry Morris to paint as unBiblical any interpretation of Genesis other than their own. This is unfortunate, since the vast majority of scientific evidence points to a very old earth and the cherry picked theories put forth by the young earth crowd are quite tenuous.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to interpreting Genesis, I'm with Augustine and Maimonides that non-literal ways are quite Biblical.
Douglas, thanks for your thoughtful comment. There are many great Christians that believe as you do. Augustine and Maimonides are indeed an august group to align oneself with. Once could do much worse.
ReplyDeleteBut I do think there are some people of heftier credentials that are well worth listening to. For example, it was Moses that wrote, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” Exodus 20:11. Moses was not speaking figuratively, nor was he writing in a way that suggests allegorical intent. Nor was this sentence found in Genesis, but rather Exodus. This is in fact Moses’ interpretation of Genesis. He saw the 7 days as literal 24-hour days.
The next I would lean on for an accurate interpretation of Genesis is Jesus. It was Jesus who said in Mark 10:6, “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’” The idea is that Jesus saw the creation of man and woman as being very near the beginning of creation, after billions of years after creation was put into motion. Furthermore, it is obvious that Jesus saw Adam and Eve as historical people, not an allegory.
I think I’ll stick with Moses and Jesus.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'm believing Augustine and Maimonides over Moses and Jesus. I think I'm believing that their interpretations of Moses and Jesus are probably superior to folks with a literal 6-day interpretation of those passages.
For instance, I assume you base your ideas on Moses believing in a literal interpretation on the idea that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Assuming Moses did write the Pentateuch(though how he wrote about his own death is a mystery to me), he also wrote in Genesis 2:4 "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." and goes on to describe how there were no plants on the earth and then how God successively made man and then the plants. Clearly, Moses wouldn't have forgotten about what he had just written and when he related another, different account of creation with a different order.
Also, there are many ways of interpreting Genesis and Mark regarding the existence of male and female from "the beginning" without resorting to a literal 6-day period.
Anyway, we could go back and forth like this all day, each one of us with good Biblical reasons for believing one way or another. Short of a Biblical authority that has decided which of us is right and which is wrong which we will both accept, I don't see any way of resolving this impasse. To be honest, the only denomination/Church that I know of which believes in one and only one way of interpreting Genesis are the 7th Day Adventists, and I doubt either of us wants to go there. From my perspective, this is one instance where science is a great help in picking which interpretive school I'm going to follow, because there isn't a shred of doubt in my mind that science tells us the universe is billions of years old.
"All of the Bible is true, and some of it really happened."
Douglas, let me first do a little confrontation here about something that I find disturbing about your post. The time stamp says, 3:59 AM!!! You should still be asleep at that time!
ReplyDeleteThanks again for your comment. Again, you are very thoughtful and I appreciate the input.
Let me say first and foremost that I am not an expert in the study of origins. I have been fascinated with the topic since I was a new Christian as a teen. So I have studied the topic quit extensively. The thing that I find amazing by this topic are the crazy number of rabbit trails that one can chase down to defend or defeat the topic. For instance, your last comment brought into question the authorship of Genesis. That in and of itself turns into a long and tedious discussion- Was Moses the actual hand that penned the books? Did Moses have a scribe that wrote as Moses dictated? Are these book a compilation of stories that were later ascribed to Moses? And that just barely scratches the surface.
But for the sake of brevity, I will continue with the assumption the authorship is indeed Moses, with the Deuteronomy 35 being completed by Joshua. Before I get to this comment, let me back up just a bit to your last comment. I don’t know if you realize it, but the premise of your argument was an ad hominem argument in which you went after the person instead of the proposition. From what you said, literalists are suppressing and the scientist Henry Morris is using scar tactics and cherry picking.
I believe that there are many strong believers on both side of the fence that are sincerely trying to get at the truth. I don’t believe that Henry Morris or Hugh Ross are cherry picking the evidence that they come across, while ignoring evidence that contradicts their theory. Both men, from both sides of the argument, are sincere and honest in how they approach the subject.
Having studied for years the research of these men and many others, I feel like the best answer to the origins of life are best answered by the young earth theory. Science and theology are not mutually exclusive. I find that when questions arise from new discoveries, the literal creationists usually have just as valid answers, if not better.
For instance, take the monarch butterfly. It takes four separate generations to complete a journey that goes from Canada down to Mexico and back. Not a single butterfly has ever made a complete journey. And yet each generation knows where it is in the journey and which way to fly to complete the migration. Evolution cannot explain (or at least, not very well) such a radically intricate thing like that.
But, I tend to still treat this subject with some leniency. Both ideas are called theories for a reason- WE DON’T KNOW! None of us were there. I am open to being wrong. Hugh Ross makes some very compelling arguments and some excellent explanations for difficult passages in Scripture.
Let me deal with your last comment. I think one of the things that makes me lean a certain way is my desperate attempt to accurately understand the Scripture. Hermeneutics (the art to the study of Scripture) is not to be taken lightly. And here is another lengthy rabbit trail that one could chase out. Again, for the sake of brevity (which has already been lost) I won’t go into all the details. Genesis 2 is a retelling of chapter one, but with specific attention being given to the account of man. 2:5 does seem to be a contradiction when you read it in English. But the original language does not offer the same problems. So when you read the word “earth” in verse 5, the Hebrew person would have read the word “land”. This is speaking specifically with the Garden of Eden. The land of the garden had not been plated as of yet. God created man, and then, in the land of the Garden of Eden, God “made all kinds of trees (to) grow out of the ground- trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food…” So the text you referred to was dealing with a specific region or place. Context is everything in hermeneutics, and the context of chapter 2 is dealing with the Garden.