I have to say that Creation 'Science' makes me hopping mad (and perhaps it is too easy a target for hopping and not many of my readers will demurr, though I could be wrong)... so forgive the lack of balance in what follows. I know it comes from an often godly desire to uphold the authority of the Bible, but as such it is a human attempt and actually serves to diminish its authority. It is bad science, but - worse - it is bad exegesis and bad theology. Though well intended, it is apologetically disastrous.
I always think it is weird how the 'Creation' 'Science' people like Answers in Genesis put lists of qualified scientists on their website. On the one hand, 'Creation' 'Science' urges us to mistrust secular science and the academy; on the other, they plead for credibility from the very thing they repudiate. Which is to be? Further, though apparently we can't trust non-christian scientists to date the earth, we can trust them to come up with life-saving drugs... There seems to be a real confusion here.
Interestingly Calvin in his fabulous Institutes II.14-16 has a very high view of the capacity for 'secular' human science within its prescribed limits:
'if we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonour the Spirit of God. For by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem, we contemn and reproach the Spirit himself.'
41 comments:
Can we go back to some fun things like baby names?
Being a working mother of three I like to look at some pictures and read something easy of an evening.
Hello. How funny. As I was just "surfing the web", I received a message that you had commented on our blog..... Hello there in the UK.
Right back at you!
Michael,
Bad science, exegesis and theology how?
I agree that the quality of exegesis and theology is more important that that of the science in this issue.
I also agree that Creation Science can be apologetically disastrous. We do some open air work on Cornmarket every fortnight on a Saturday afternoon and some of the people involved slip in the odd dig at evolution or contemporary explanations of the origin of the universe. There's usually some creationist literature available. Whether you agree with their interpretation or not, it just seems so unnecessary. You don't have to become a six-day creationist before you become a Christian. It can put people off the gospel. Our focus should be on preaching Christ and exhorting people to repent and trust in him - if they do, then all these peripheral issues will eventually fall into place.
I'm not too familiar with Answers in Genesis, but I guess the rationale behind not trusting secular science's ability to date the earth while trusting them to develop life saving drugs is that the former impinges directly on the idea of God as Creator, and so unregenerate scientists who wish to throw of God's rule by their very nature are likely to err and distort the truth on this matter. As for criticizing secular science but listing Christian scientists (not the cult members!), I suppose they would say that believing scientists do have new birth and are being transformed by the renewal of their minds and so are not going to be suppressing the truth about the Creator.
Well you have given a pretty good answer to your own question Daniel!
Why do 'believing' scientists need to display their accreditation from secular universities at all?
It does seem a little inconsistent.
The exegetical/hermeneutical issue is this:
CS confuses 'literal' with 'literalistic' and doesn't take genre into account. It tries to defend Scripture where it doesn't need defending and argues a slippery-slope principle, ie if you give in on this you give in on the whole bible.
With Spurgeon I say "defend the bible - I'd sooner defend a lion!"
BB Warfield is a good ally in this.
I completely agree that genre must be taken into account and that "literal" mustn't be confused with "literalistic".
What are your thoughts on the genre of Genesis 1-2 and its implications for interpretation?
What about Exodus 20.11 for that matter?
Michael, I couldn't agree with your critique of CS more!
I think we do people a real disservice when we try to convince them that the scientific evidence points towards a young Earth. As soon as these people look into it for themselves, they quickly realise that the real scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of an old Earth and thus there confidence in Christianity is undermined needlessly.
I recently came across an example of the accuracy of radiometric dating while I was doing some reading for an essay on deep time. In 1991 geologists found some of our planet’s oldest rocks in western Greenland. These rocks were independently dated by twelve different labs, using five different radiometric techniques. The age accorded the rocks by all twelve labs, ranged from 3.62 billion years to 3.65 billion years, which is a variation of less than 1% and well within the acceptable error ranges reported! You can read about it in more detail here.
Darrell Falk also quotes Calvin as saying,
"The natural sciences are effectively emancipated from theological restriction"
Yes: it takes a complete paranoia to suggest that this is all an anti-God plot.
The bible is better than that!
Daniel: Wenham's Genesis commentary is the outstanding (and evangelical) source on this. Genesis is poetical and polemical. The question of 'is it historical' in the sense we moderns mean it is irrelevant to it. I would use the word 'myth' but I wouldn't want to be misunderstood!! (ie, myth doesn't imply 'not true' or 'unhistorical!')
I am not sure what I am supposed to infer from your mention of Ex 20:11 ... What about it?
Well, this is fun. Hope you don't mind me barging in and joining Daniel! Just a few comments.
(1) It was the exegetical and hermeneutical issues that persuaded me first to accept a young earth (on the basis of the Gen genealogies), and then a 6 day creation. I'm not familiar with the AIG stuff, although am aware of its existence, and agree that using "science" to "prove" the Bible is unhappy.
(2) Michael, in comparing dating the earth and pharmaceuticals, you're comparing apples and oranges. The issue isn't, strictly (or at least, solely), one of the noetic effects of sin, it's one of authority. All thinking and research, whether scientific or otherwise, is done under Scripture, and, at least, by the permission of Scripture (cf. John Frame, Doctrine of the Knowledge of God). Therefore, if Scripture speaks about something, then scientists are not competent to oppose, deny, or undermine what Scripture teaches. As far as I can see, Scripture does tell us how old the earth is, and how long God took to make it. But, it doesn't tell us how, or if to make drugs; in fact, it gives us a theological rationale (God as creator and sustainer, man as his image, etc.) to do so.
(3) On genre, agreed, Gen 1 isn't typical Hebrew prose (although it's not poetry either). But how does one demonstrate it's not therefore historical (in the sense of narrating what actually happened)? Identifying polemical intent and quasi-poetic genre doesn't answer the question of historicity. Can we not have all three?
(4) On Ex 20.11 - We work 6 and rest 1 because God did the same. There seems a pretty direct analogy here, which breaks down if GOd didn't actually do this.
(5) Dave: On creation with an appearance of age, see my comments on this post, in response to Celal http://motherkirk.blogspot.com/2006/06/experiment-with-reality.html
(6) Dave, where did Calvin say this? If, in context, he means what that sentence suggests, then he's just plain wrong. He's not the pope! (And neither's Warfield for that matter, who's arguments against the historicity of the Genesis genealogies are v weak, imo)
(7) I wonder if a 6 day young earth account of creation (not "creation science") might have real apologetic value. See my comments here: http://motherkirk.blogspot.com/2006/06/creationism-and-apologetics.html
Blessings
Matthew
btw, Michael, I've just read your profile. How can you have "nearly" four children? You sound like Peter Singer. ;-)
daughter due 13th July!
'if Scripture speaks about something, then scientists are not competent to oppose, deny, or undermine what Scripture teaches. As far as I can see, Scripture does tell us how old the earth is, and how long God took to make it.'
Well that begs the question. I would argue that Scripture teaches no such thing.
'Speaking' and 'teaching' are different things entirely of course.
You are basically saying that if scripture speaks of a certain cosmology (ie that there is an expanse of water above us and one below us as in Gen 1! or that the earth is founded on pillars) then we have to believe it despite the obvious data from nature. Job 9:6 Ps 75:3) Creation 'science' just gets away (barely) with the old earth/young earth debate because it is easier to throw mud in the air.
Sorry: should read - (ie that there is an expanse of water above us and one below us as in Gen 1! or that the earth is founded on pillars Job 9:6 Ps 75:3)then we have to believe it despite the obvious data from nature.
Scripture doesn't teach these things, is what I mean. It uses these as a means of speaking to human beings accross times and cultures...
What I am trying to point out is that even CS-ers are selective in which bits they take literalistically and which bits they take as 'poetic'.
But they won't come clean and admit it!
Michael
Congratulations. So, you already have four, then, it's just that your daughter is in utero! :-)
On teaching / speaking, point taken. I should have said "Scripture teaches" both times to convey my meaning more clearly. Although, I suspect that it's not always simple to distinguish the two.
On begging the question: I did so no more than you did in your original comparison :-)
On pillars, I think it's arguable that Ps 75 is referring to the pillars of the land, that is, the rulers. Dunno about Job, I've not done my work on the book; good question, I'll have to think further.
On water above the firmament-heaven: it seems to me that this is referring to the waters/ice /crystal surrounding the throne of God in the highest heaven (cf. Ezek 1.22; Rev. 4.8). This doesn't have to mean that heaven is literally "up there", although from the perspective of an observer on the earth, that's where it is - hence people symbolically lift their eyes to heaven, etc. Scripture seems to indicate that heaven is in a different "dimension", which, actually is quite close to us, when God chooses to reveal it (e.g., Isa 6).
Can you flesh out your point re symbolism and literalism - I'm not conversant with CS material.
If you admit to this level of metaphor and symbolism, then why not to the 'days' not indicating literal periods of 24 hours?
I would add Ps 104 to the mix here, too: that is, the bible presents a number (well, a few anyway) of creation accounts with different cosmological frameworks in view. Clearly it is the gist of them that matters - the Bible isn't teaching us a cosmology in the way that the old myths did but something else again, though it is using the language of the old myths to do it. We can get in to trouble because we overlay modern/ modernist expectations about 'historical truth' etc on to the text which doesn't really care about those things.
Interesting to compare Calvin and Frame: Frame has 'Scripture' as a control for ALL truth. Calvin allows the Spirit a wider brief... this I think is a more robust position.
I'm not convinced Ps 104 contradicts Gen 1. And these "modernist" expectations seem to have been the expectations of many, if not most(even pre-modern) exegetes throughout church history. (Obviously not Augustine, but his reasons for asserting an instantaneous creation strike me as entirely spurious).
In principle I'm happy with lots and lots of metaphor/symbolism. But, why do I think day refers literally to concrete 24 hour periods? (1) because of the time referents: evening and morning. (2) because elsewhere in the Pentateuch yom in conjunction with a numerical adjective always means day (3) Exod 20.9-11 (again!) - how wd you explain the parallel in this text? (4) In Exod 20.11, God created in 6 days, and (I think I'm correct in saying this) elsewhere in the OT, yamim always refers to actual days.
Matthew, thanks for your comments. As you asked, I read your response to Celal here. You argue that from a young Earth perspective it is not problematic to suggest that God created the universe with the appearance of age because he obviously did this anyway by creating a fully grown Adam.
This is a point of internal consistency in the young Earth account which I hadn’t noticed before, thank you for pointing it out. I can see how your argument carries weight against somebody who believes that it would be out of character for God to create the universe with the appearance of age and yet affirms that he did just this with Adam.
I don’t think your argument carries any weight, however, for those who think Adam was not created as a fully grown man or for those who don’t think Adam was a particular individual human.
Personally, I’m still undecided about the nature and identity of Adam.
Re the Calvin quote, I have tracked it down for you on Google books. According to McGrath in The Impact of Reformation Thought upon History (p275) the below quote from Calvin appears in a preface Calvin wrote for Olivétan’s translation of the New Testament.
“The whole point of Scripture is to bring us to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. It does not, and was never intended to, provide us with an infallible repository of astronomical and medical information, the natural sciences are thus effectively emancipated from theological restrictions.”
Isn't it frustrating when someone makes the same point that you were going to make? I guess that's just pride.
I'd like to echo Matthew's point that, even if Genesis 1 isn't typical Hebrew prose but is polemic/poetic (which is what I think, anyway, just so you know), that doesn't stop it narrating actual events. Moreover, even if the creation account is highly figurative, that mean that creation could not have taken place in six literal days. Exodus 20.11, as Matthew has already noted, in response to one of your earlier questions, Michael, really has to be the clincher for that. God is commanding his people to restrict their work to six days and to rest on the seventh on the basis that God created in six days and rested on the seventh. Surely that doesn't work as an argument if God did not create in six literal days.
A literal, real, historical Adam is a given (e.g. Romans 5.12-17). Jesus seems to think that the events of Genesis 1 and 2 actually took place in history (e.g. Matthew 19.4-6). The fact that following the creation God commanded men and women to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion" (Genesis 1.28) and that he placed Adam in the garden after he had formed him to work it (Genesis 2.8, 15) sounds to me like Adam was created as a fully grown man.
Michael, you also write:
"You are basically saying that if scripture speaks of a certain cosmology... then we have to believe it despite the obvious data from nature."
I'd have to distingush there between the ways in which Scripture speaks of these things. If it's poetic and no more or accommodating to our idiom or perception (e.g. talking about the sun "rising") then there seems to me to be no reason to allow that to shape our cosmology. If, on the other hand, Scripture is describing how something actually happened (e.g. creation in 6 days - Genesis 1 cf Exodus 20), then I'd have to say that we should believe Scripture's cosmology over the "obvious data" from nature. Every part of human existence is tainted by sin, including our intellects and the way we understand the world around us. What makes us think our data aren't biased or distorted? What makes us think the interpretation we give to that data is right? We're surely dependent on revelation, which must be our authority, and if our perception of the world around us doesn't match what God's revelation says, then we have to conclude that we've got it wrong. History is replete with examples of conclusions based on obvious data from nature turning out to be wrong. The Galileo affair springs to mind, in which the Church of Rome persisted in adhering to Aristotelian science and what was obvious to them - the Sun orbits the Earth - when in fact they were wrong.
Regarding the Calvin quote - I agree that "the whole point of Scripture is to bring us to a knowledge of Jesus Christ" and that "it does not, and was never intended to, provide us with an infallible repository of astronomical and medical information". Galileo once said that "The Scriptures tell us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go". However, I disagree with the conclusion Calvin draws (is such a thing allowed?). It does not follow that "the natural sciences are thus effectively emancipated from theological restrictions". While it is not the intention to instruct us in astronomy, where the Scriptures genuinely tell us something about the world around us as it actually is and how it actually came to be that way, then surely we must accept that as the reality and allow that to act as the framework, however, skeletal, into which we fit our other observations.
In my post at 4.54, there is a very crucial "doesn't" missing!
Moreover, even if the creation account is highly figurative, that doesn't mean that creation could not have taken place in six literal days.
Dave
Thanks for your interaction; absolutely fair point about Adam; like Daniel, I personally find it impossible to get round the in Adam/in Christ parallel in Rom 5.12ff, and 1 Cor 15.21f, 45-49, which seems fairly explicit - "as by a man...so by a man"..."the first man Adam...the last Adam".
And thank you for the context of the Calvin qn. Like Daniel, I don't think his conclusion follows from his premise. It only works if Scripture doesn't teach us *anything* about science (or, in this case, history). Actually, I think that the purpose of Scripture is to bring us to a knowledge of Christ, but because Christ is Creator, and Scripture is His Word, I'm unsurprised to find it teaching us not simply about salvation, narrowly construed, but also about how to exercise dominion. If I can put it like this, Scripture is a tree of knowledge as well as a tree of life.
Well: a couple of things. Firstly, some of the verses quoted here are not the 'clinchers' they appear to be. At all.
Mat 19:4-6 for example...what relevance does it have? I am not denying of course that Gen 2 in this case is an authoritative text, or that it isn't an authoritative and truthful (even 'true'!) way in which the
bible describes the primal relationship between man and woman and nature and God.
I still don't see why Ex 20 is such a knock-down for a young earth/literalistic reading. It could certainly refer to creation narrative as authoritative without stating it as a kind of historical document in our contemporary sense.
(It is of course worth asking how ancient peoples thought of their 'myths' and their relationship to what we would call 'history'...not that these are necessarily the same as Israel's understanding, but we can see there how literature can be true according to its own genre, which is the point at issue, and how it can be evoked authoritatively without asserting its literalistic correspondence to events necessarily. There are dangers here of course, but then I think this is difficult territory of course)
The issue is really the relation of the text to the events that it describes. You seem to assume that we look through the text to the events as through a window. The nature of the texts themselves suggests otherwise.
As for Adam: again I don't see how it is a 'clincher' for a young earth/literalistic reading of Gen 1. I am committed to an historical fall as I believe is theologically and exegetically necessary.
The reformed theologian Henri Blocher's fine argument in his book Original Sin is very interesting here.
So: to believe in young earth creationism, in my opinion, is unnecessary, because it is neither taught by the bible nor is it in any way corroborated by the findings of science.
I think Calvin is right, and that you have overstated (with Frame) what the Bible IS.
By the way: of course, the creation could have taken place in six 24 hour periods (though hang on, there was no sun until day four, though there was light on day one? hmm... ): but that's not what I am denying.
But the text does not demand at all that we read it that way. and so, the findings of latter-day science pose no threat to the Bible but only an enrichment of our sense of God's sovereign granduer and eternity! He is bigger than we thought!
hmm. Maybe I now agree more with Daniel N's analysis of the Calvin quotation... it would depend what Calvin meant of course!
Regarding the whole Adam thing: if there is a literal Adam then the genealogies do tend to imply a young earth, don't they? (I was using the Matthew 19 reference in support of a literal Adam.)
With the Exodus 20.11 point, the way God uses the creation narrative indicates that more than authoritative but is actually what happened. The argument "Do this because this is what I did" relies on the equivalence of what was done and what is being commanded. For God to command Israel to work six days and rest on the seventh because that's how God created the world only follows if God created in six literal days. He is commanding Israel to work six literal days and rest on the seventh in imitation of him, which requires the six days he created and the seventh day he rested to be literal days.
Michael, you write:
"You seem to assume that we look through the text to the events as through a window. The nature of the texts themselves suggests otherwise."
I wonder if you could qualify that last sentence.
This debate always heads off on a wild tangent. I am neither a Creation Scientist nor a Darwinist, but I am a professional technologist. Real world science is totally distinct from origin science. The people are different and their methods are different. Some drug designers BELIEVE in 6-day creation. Some drug designers BELIEVE in evolution over billions of years. The science of drug design is completely independent of origin beliefs. When you go into a high-tech work environment and have the pressure to put out scientifically sound work, beliefs about origins immediately become meaningless.
Speculation about origins needs to be decoupled from science.
Looney, I don't think it's fair to say that origin theories should be decoupled from science. The techniques used by cosmologists to determine the age of the universe are at the heart of astrophysics. The radiometric techniques used to date the Earth by Geologists are fundamental to nuclear physics. And the techniques used by Biologists to analyse the evolutionary genetic tree are the same techniques used by those doing genetic research for new drugs.
I don't see how you can say that 'real world science is totally distinct from origin science' when they are using the same techniques and relying on the same scientific knowledge.
Dave, I have some molecular biology texts of the sort that are foundational for drug design and are written by Darwinist at John Hopkins University. There is exactly nothing in the texts that is related in any way to origins and evolution.
I also studied advanced physics in the university: There is nothing that is based on a dating method or a belief in the big bang. A 6-day creationist can discover oil in a geological deposit just as easily as a multi-billion year old big banger. There is exactly nothing in the technology of our modern society that requires any particular belief in origins.
The only known benefit of believing in evolution is that it might save you from an angry professor. Likewise, a belief in creationism might save you from an angry fundamentalist. Neither is relevant to real world science!
Or do you suppose that ones ability to drive or fix a Saab is based on whether or not you believe that Saabs were made by Trolls in Trollhatten? Origins don't matter to science.
Looney, I think we may be speaking across each other rather than disagreeing directly.
I am happy to accept that a scientist’s personal beliefs about the origin of life have no effect on their ability to do effective research in many fields of study. The example you give of a 6-day creationist geologist discovering oil in a geological deposit fits into this category.
However if you asked that same geologist to date the rock sample in which she found the oil she would be forced to make a tough choice. As far as I can see she would have three options.
1. Claim that God created the world with the appearance of age
2. Renounce her belief in a young Earth
3. Deny that radiometric dating techniques are accurate (perhaps you would say they are not ‘real world science’ – is that what you are saying?)
If you are advocating the first option (as both Matthew and Daniel appear to be doing in the above discussion) then we are not disagreeing over science but theology.
If you are advocating the third option then you are not only going against a vast scientific consensus (see my first post for an example) but you are also calling into question a fundament principle of nuclear physics, namely that radioactive elements decay according to a fixed half-life (which is the point I was trying to make in my last post).
What I am suggesting is that scientific research into the age the earth and the evolutionary process is every bit as much ‘real world science’ as the person working to discover the genetic cause of a disease. The same basic assumptions underlie the work of both and while both are capable of poor science, it is unfair to call one ‘real world science’ and to equate the other with Trolls making Saabs (nice image btw) : )
Sorry Looney my last sentence didn't follow logically from what you said – just ignore it.
'Regarding the whole Adam thing: if there is a literal Adam then the genealogies do tend to imply a young earth, don't they? (I was using the Matthew 19 reference in support of a literal Adam.)'.
Don't think so. Warfield's discussion on the geneaologies is good here... there is no necessity for assuming that the geneaologies don't cover many many generations that they don't mention. Also, though I don't necessarily go for this, it is perfectly plausible to think of a 'theological Adam'.
'The argument "Do this because this is what I did" relies on the equivalence of what was done and what is being commanded.'
It depends in what the equivalence lies, doesn't it? I still don't see the necessity of the connection I am afraid.
My last sentence merely points to the fact that Genesis 1 (and indeed most of Gen 1-11 though in different ways) is highly stylised and poetic/dramatic (as almost everyone recognises), suggesting that the ordering/patterning of the text serves a different purpose than a chronological account of a sequence of events. It is more like 'the charge of the light brigade' than the newspaper (both of which are true records of events).
Now, Looney: my point about 'science' is really that the scientific worldview is a total worldview - and it is hard to see how you can buy one part of the package wholesale and reject the other as demonic. In which case there needs to be a better theological understanding of science is does and can do... It seems to me that suggesting that this entire international profession - including many Christians! - has concocted a conspiracy to skew the data away from a young earth reading is akin to denying the moon landings.
Nah. Warfield's discussion of genealogies is dreadful. There's no good reason for believing there are gaps.
I realise some genealogies in Scripture do have gaps, but how do we know that? Because there are other (earlier) Scriptural genealogies that fill in the gaps...
In Gen 5, the same begetting language is used of each generation, and we know that in at least some generations the 2nd person named is actually the son of the first; so there's a pretty big burden of proof on those who say begetting cd mean that y was a descendent (several gens later) of x. And even if you cd prove that, you'd still not get round the chronology within the genealogy.
I'd love to continue this, but, sadly, in 4 hours I'm off to France to sun myself, eat camembert, drink lots of claret, and grumble about socialism :-)
Thanks for the interaction.
Matthew
And we haven't even got onto the flood!
Michael, first I agree strongly with your original post, but there is something different too.
In engineering, we have a rule which is loosely enforced: "Thou shalt not extrapolate". Meaning that when you extrapolate outside of your known working area, all kinds of bad things happen. Thus, extrapolation must be done prudently and sparingly.
Cosmology and origins is what I would call the "mother of all extrapolations". The world view here is completely distinct from the real science/technology world view. Then the creationist comes along and insists that he can do wild-eyed extrapolation better than the Darwinist can do wild-eyed extrapolation. They both need to shut up.
I won't argue dating, but the intelligent design argument is impossible for the Darwinists to win without a Supreme Court ruling. Having learned that DNA is so much like computer software, and evolution can't replace the worst unintelligent designer in Silicon Valley, Darwinism is now as bad off as spontaneous generation for explaining how it is that your brain is able to comprehend this post.
My point was, however, that science can and should be decoupled from origins. This is because a) it is an observable fact that the fields are distinct and b) it would take science education out of the path of ideological warfare.
'They both need to shut up'.
That is really what I have wanted to say all along!
"You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. 34Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. 35John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light." -- John 5:33-34
"...and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4though I myself have reasons for such confidence." -- Philippians 3:3-4
Are these examples equivalent to what Creation Scientists are doing when listing their academic qualifications? Academic credentials do not guarentee the truthfulness of what people believe, but if people want to make an issue over such things, then you can point to them.
Yes, but pointing to academic credentials at all seems to undermine the whole ideology of creation science, which is that academic science is essentially distorted.
BTW, if it is distorted and even malevolent in this area, shouldn't we assume that it is in other areas too? In which case: don't trust your non-christian doctor I say...
On many issues sadly we might not be able to trust doctors, such as reproductive ethics, embryo testing, abortion, euthanasia, sexual health. But I think that may miss your point, because in these cases it is not the science that is wrong, but how it is applied in life.
Post a Comment