Quick Hit on Creation and Evolution

RJS is a contributor to Scot McKnight’s blog, Jesus Creed, who usually writes on matters of science. Today she references a recent survey about pastors and their view of origins, and answers a question about the necessity of the Bible’s view of the fall and redemption. You can read it here, though I will pick out just one section.

There is no more certain fact than the “fallenness” of humankind. We don’t need a single mother, a single father, or a snake to convince us of this. It runs through human experience worldwide. Given a fallen creation (however it got there), we need redemption and a redeemer.

About this she is surely right. We don’t need the Bible’s story to convince us of fallenness. However, we do need the Bible’s story to provide a rational explanation for it. In the naturalistic or evolutionary theories of origins (she distinguishes the two and says naturalism is the real enemy of Christianity), evil exists, but there is no explanation for how it got here.

The universal existence (and recognition) of evil can be explained only by the Bible’s teaching of one man and one woman from whom the human race descended. This is why it is the human experience worldwide and has been from the beginning. All people worldwide find their sinfulness in one man. This is exactly the point of Romans 5:12-21, where the sin of one man is tied inseparably to the redemption by one man. So not only do we find our sinfulness in one man, we also find our hope in one man—the man Jesus, the second Adam, who did what the first Adam did not do.

It is certainly true that true Christians can be evolutionists and deny the historical Adam and Eve. But they cannot do so rationally. They undermine the whole reality that pervades our world and end up grasping at straws. In essence, they have sold the farm in hopes of hanging on to the barn. In the end, they lose both.

While many do not want to make a big issue of either end of the world (creation or eschatology), these things still matter. We best not pretend they don’t.

Genesis, the Resurrection, and History

RJS over at Jesus Creed relates a letter he recently received, from which I quote here:

I agree ... that it is helpful to understand Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis as mytho-historical.  … My question relates to how to handle this issue when teaching my kids the Bible stories. My oldest is 5 yrs. old. She doesn't have any idea what "mytho-historical" means. To her, the story in Genesis 1 and 2 is no different from the resurrection story when I read it out of a kids' Bible stories book. One is naturally as historical as the other, in her mind.

To me, that is pretty interesting. Someone just reading the text without burden or prejudice, thinks that Genesis 1-2 sound like real events, just like the resurrection.

The letter continues:

Is it better to wait until kids are older to begin to discuss these issues? If not now, at what age, and what is a good way to raise it? And if I wait, do I set up a crisis of faith when she later learns that I don't really view Genesis 1 & 2 (and perhaps other passages) as history in the same way I view the other, central NT stories I've been teaching her.

I think you will set up a crisis of faith when she discovers this strange hermeneutic you have. My guess is that she will wonder why, if Genesis 1-2 are not actual history, you think the resurrection and other NT stories are.

I have to admit I wonder the same thing.

I think it smacks of what my theology professor used to refer to as “brush pile theology.” It is theology that is unintegrated with the whole of revelation. It’s what leads us to say that “this is historical and this is not” and then just leave the piles sitting there uncomfortably separated, sticking out a like a haystack in the Biltmore house. Everyone knows there is something wrong, but it’s at the Biltmore house, right? Surely they don’t make such a mistake. It’s an emperor with no clothes. But because some PhD from TopNotch U said it, people fall in line.

Now make no mistake. There are hard historical questions in the Bible. But Genesis 1-2 is not one of them. It could hardly be easier.

He ends with:

Any wise advice from others who've already confronted this issue with young kids would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Here’s my advice: Believe that Genesis 1-2 is actual history and teach your children to believe that. It brings several benefits.

First, you will be like Jesus and the rest of the biblical authors who believed that Genesis 1-2 were actual history, and that’s pretty good company to be in.

Second, you won’t have to deal with the burdens of a scientific community who can’t explain why things are the way they are, but you can rather recognize that things are the way they are because God created them with order just the way that  he said he did. The reality is that there is too much in the “scientific community” that makes no sense in their worldview (and most of them know it). Only in the biblical worldview with a Creator God as revealed in Genesis 1-2 does the material world actually make sense.

Third, you won’t have to find some torturous explanation for your daughter as to why some of the Bible is worthy of your belief but other parts are not.

Simplistic? Sure

Out of touch with reality? According to some … some who are not omniscient, who have hard questions because we do not know everything.

Since we do not know everything, it seems a reach to assert that Genesis 1-2 is not actual history since there is nothing in either the text or the material world that would lead us to believe that.

So why not simply say that?

I don’t know …

Strange Omission

A major evangelical seminary is holding a conference on Science and Faith.

And yet they are apparently excluding one of the major evangelical views of science and faith, namely young earth creationism.

Whether one agrees with young earth creationism or not, it is undeniable that it is a major contender in the realm of biblical worldviews, and that it has solid answers for pressing questions both of the text of Scripture and of origins.

So why does an evangelical seminary exclude this view in  a conference on the topic? Someone please tell me.

Now, I know at the beginning that this post will draw two responses. Some will like it and agree, and others will find me hopelessly out of touch with reality. Almost no one will be in the middle.

But here I go anyway …

The distaste for the biblical teaching on origins is distressing to me. It is completely needless and quite frankly, ridiculous.

Personally, I think it shows the seduction of academic respectability. It is not respectable to be a young earth creationist. So people abandon it, not because the text demands it (it doesn’t), and not because the physical world demands it (it doesn’t either), but because the academy does.

I think “science” as traditionally conceived is the enemy of faith because it tells us that the history of the Bible cannot be trusted. And if the history of the Bible cannot be trusted, why should its religion be trusted?

It boggles my mind that people who believe in the resurrection for which there is absolutely no scientific evidence or proof (only revelation) refuse to believe in the biblical record of creation (for which there is not only revelation, but scientific correlation, meaning that what we see in the world around us through science is completely consistent with the biblical account of six day creationism). At least the liberals of old recognize the problem and abandoned the resurrection through various means. People today apparently do not have the sense to see the contradiction.

There is nothing inherent in science for Bible believers to be afraid of. But those with the bully pulpit were allowed to speak unaddressed, for the most part. As a result, faith no longer rules exegesis; naturalism does.

The Christian faith is not more compelling from an old earth creation viewpoint (in its many incarnations). To borrow from our Savior himself, “If they won’t believe Moses and the prophets, they won’t believe even if one rose form the dead” (Luke 16:31).

People are fond of saying, “Well the Bible doesn’t address scientific issues.” Well, quite frankly, that seems like a silly thing to say. The Bible clearly addresses these issues.

Now, it is true that the Bible is not a scientific textbook. But the next time someone brings that up, ask them for the name of someone, anyone, who believes that the Bible is a scientific textbook. I imagine they won’t be able to come up with one name.

Then ask them why they object to something that no one believes anyway.

Of course the Bible is not a scientific textbook. But where it addresses issues of science, it is accurate.

And while I am here, appealing to genre issues in Genesis 1-3 is inadequate. There is nothing in the text of Genesis 1-3 that would lead one to believe it is any genre other than historical narrative. It is just like the rest of Genesis. So let’s treat it that way.

Simply put, Christianity gains absolutely nothing from abandoning young earth creationism. \

However, they lose the very foundation of the Christian faith—a Creator God to whom we must answer, sin that corrupted the world and brought death, marriage and family, the unity of the human race under the first Adam and second Adam, the reason for the brokenness in the world around us, and the atonement itself just to name a few.

If we don’t trust God to tell us the beginning of the story, then why would we trust him to tell us the end of the story.