Tag Archives: compromise

How Long Were Those Six Days?

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Genesis 1 lays out the historical account of God’s creative work. According to the account, the Creator took six days to make everything, and then he rested on the seventh day. Exodus 20:11 and Exodus 31:17 confirmed the Genesis account when it says,

“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God…For in six days the LORD made the heavens and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.”

Many people have tried to reconcile the modern understanding of deep time with the historical Biblical account of creation even though they are diametrically opposed.

It is so important that we start with the foundational Truth of God’s revealed Word, and then interpret evidence based on this Truth. Since we can trust God in historical matters, we can trust Him with our future as well.

Hitch Your Wagon to a Star

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Just make sure it is the right star. I first heard this phrase (Hitch your wagon to a star) in Kenny Tamplin’s 90’s release, Get Out of My Sun. At least now you know some of my obscure musical tastes. Anyway, the idea is that if you know someone who is rich or smart or famous, then maybe you can get something that you didn’t necessarily earn. I’m going to take this on to a logical conclusion with the recognition that if you got your riches, fame, or information based on a falling star, then you too are doomed.

If you’ve hitched up to a falling star (or foundation) then your wagon (or worldview) is also bound to fail.

Titanic_OldEarth

Old Earth Creationists have been shouting the mantra of the necessity for Christians to embrace Big Bang Cosmology and other naturalistic-based ideas (evolution, deep time…) One of the more famous groups to have done this is Hugh Ross’s outfit, reasons.org. They claim that the Bible introduced the Big Bang cosmology to the world. One of the many problems with the idea of the old earth creationists is that the Bible does not have anything at all to do with the Big Bang. As noted in Genesis 1, God created dry land on day 2, plants on day 3, stars/planets on day 4, birds/fish on day 5, and land creatures on day 6 (including mankind). But the Big Bang theory describes something totally different in a totally different order in a totally different time frame. The two creation stories are completely different.

Despite the obvious differences, the old earth creationists continue to hang onto the idea that naturalistic assumptions about the universe should form the basis by which Christians should interpret scripture, and from a cursory look at their websites, they have grown adept at this method of interpreting the Bible.

Unfortunately, for them, like phlogiston, abiogenesis, and leech-blood-letting before, the Big Bang model has been tossed aside by secular scientists. In this article, the naturalistic thinkers no longer want the universe to have a beginning because this would seem to imply that there were a Higher Power, to whom they might be responsible.

Big Bang? What Big Bang? In a new theory, researchers suggest that the start of the universe may have involved no bang at all.

There’s no need for Christians to compromise the revealed Word of God to try to accommodate naturalistic assumptions about creation…especially as they have a tendency to be discarded as more information is discovered.  You can trust God’s Word as revealed in the Bible to be true and unchanging.

UPDATE:

“The science is settled! It is beyond dispute that the Big Bang never happened.”

“What?! New evidence is in, and the Big Bang never happened?”

“The science is settled! The universe is eternal. The Big Bang never happened. Those who cling to the Big Bang are science deniers!”

http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/02/10/watch-the-big-bang-never-happened/

For the Love of Darwin

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Is the modern understanding of the grand theory of evolution compatible with the Bible? The pope, in all of his wisdom, recently approved the atheist’s origin story as being okay for Christians to embrace. But is this true? Can the Biblical account of creation be manipulated in such a way as to unquestionably accept Darwin’s theory?

Biologist, William Provine doesn’t think so.

Belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.

Either God created the world like He said, or He did not. Either option has profound implications about where you put your trust.

Pope

OR

God’s Word

Is Evolution Dangerous to Christianity?

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More and more I see the walls of Christendom open their gates to evolution in the hopes of gaining intellectual credibility. Is the hope of gaining intellectual credibility worth the risk of apostacy? The well-known antitheist, Richard Dawkins has spawned a new idea called the Clergy Project. The idea is that those clergy who have come to see the “truth of evolution” and no longer retain their faith in the Bible can find support from their apostate peers.

So, as Christians, how should we view the introduction of evolution into our theology? Should we be receptive to pastors who are preaching the accommodation of evolution into their views of Genesis?

It seems like the obvious question: ‘Well, did evolution happen, and if it did, how does it square with the account in Genesis?’ It seems to me that that’s the elephant in the room. And what Orthodox intellectuals would do would be to consider the question so abstractly that the question was left unanswered. When I was teaching Genesis myself in seminary, I was able to perform the same kind of magic trick—a sort of distraction: ‘Well, I’m going to talk over here, and it’s all going to sound very smart, but it’s not actually addressing the question.’

I had a conversation this morning with a Christian friend who felt that evolution is okay and should not be resisted. His only explanation in our short conversation was that I need to read the Bible appropriately. If we had more time to discuss, I’m sure that he is referring only to Genesis 1. I’d like to hear how the evolutionary worldview fits with the understanding of Genesis 3, Genesis 6-9, Genesis 11, Exodus 20:11, Exodus 31:15-17, Matthew 24:35-39, Mark 10:6, Acts 17:26, Romans 5, Romans 6:23, Romans 8, I Corinthians 15, I Peter 3:20, II Peter 3:5-6.

If Genesis 1 needs to be read as mythology (apparently counter to the writer’s intent), what about the other passages? Do they need to be read as mythology too? If we have to read the historical parts as mythology to accommodate the evolutionary paradigm, which parts can we read as the writer intended?

Can Christians safely compromise the historical veracity of the Bible? I contend that in the hopes of achieving intellectual credibility, when the Biblical Creation account is mythologized, Christians have lost both intellectual credibility and biblical credibility.