The Creation Controversy: Conclusion

Also in this series:
 
Introduction
Part One: Biblical Authority
Part Two: Authority from Tradition – the Jewish Sages and the Early Church Fathers
Part Three: The Weight of Traditional Views
Part Four: Man’s Fallible Opinions
Part Five: Clues in the Text
Part Six: More Clues in the Text
Part Seven: What are the Days of Genesis?
Part Eight: Misconceptions of Paradise
Part Nine: Life and Death in the Pre-Fall Animal World, I
Part Ten: Life and Death in the Pre-Fall Animal World, II
Part Eleven: The Other Realm and the Other Fall
Part Twelve: Tracing the Advent of Man, I
Part Thirteen: Tracing the Advent of Man, II
Part Fourteen: Tracing the Advent of Man, III
Part Fifteen: Tracing the Advent of Man, IV
Part Sixteen: Was Jesus a Young-Earth Creationist?
Part Seventeen: The Flood of Noah
Part Eighteen: Some Considerations from Science

In the course of this series, I have labored to present plausible understandings of the major themes of the Genesis debate and the scriptures most often brought into contention. In summary then, the most important points to remember are these:

 

1. God communicates with man on man’s level, according to man’s conceptions, and often in the form of revelatory imagery. In so doing, he is not necessarily bothered with correcting inaccuracies in man’s perception of the world.
2. The Bible was written to an ancient, pre-scientific culture with a different understanding of the world than our modern, global, scientifically-informed understanding.
3. The English translation of scripture does not always bring out important nuances in the underlying, original languages. Hebrew in particular has a comparatively small vocabulary, and Hebrew words often have more than one meaning.
4. The debate over Genesis is not a unique debate in the history of the church. A number of contentious theological issues have come down to us through the centuries, with great minds taking opposite positions. Nor are the charges of “heretic” and “not really believing the Bible” unique to this debate, by any means.
5. What one believes about creation does not necessarily impact what he or she thinks about other scriptural matters, including core New Testament doctrines. Allegations that old-earth views amount to an attack on the gospel are specious, sensational, and unnecessarily inflammatory.
6. Scripture does not support the view that man’s intellect is “fallen.” On the contrary, scripture takes a high view of man’s capabilities. It is man’s moral center that is corrupt. God has given us the intellectual ability to comprehend the world in which we live, however imperfectly we have managed this to date. The scientific revolution is proof that man is not an inept, bumbling creature. Furthermore, scripture tells us that man is responsible before God on the basis of what God has made, which demonstrates that man is capable of understanding creation. The scientific revolution has also demonstrated this for us in the fact that Big Bang cosmology has made atheists extremely uncomfortable and has provided tremendous evidences that our universe is fine-tuned for the existence of life forms just like us.
7. Nuanced views of Genesis existed amongst the Jews and the early Christians long before Darwin came on the scene. There were at least three views of creation at the time of Christ. Christians from the earliest times right up through the Reformation period were not averse to looking at scripture in light of what they understood about the natural world.
8. While the views of ancient theologians can be instructive, they did not face the same debate we face today. For them, it was not a matter of “Bible right/science wrong.” We do not know how they would have reacted to modern scientific discoveries, but it is at least possible that they would have delved deeper into scripture in order to re-evaluate their understanding of it when confronted with the evidences of science.
9. It is entirely possible to understand God too literally at times. Christ rebuked his own disciples for this on occasion, and even allowed people to confuse themselves and walk away from him when he might have clarified his teachings easily. He frequently taught in parables—illustrative stories—and selectively explained them to only certain persons. His teachings were deliberately hidden in part, and were deliberately designed to upset particular individuals.
10. Certain scriptures, especially prophetic events, were not entirely understood by the generations that received them; rather, they were meant to be understood at a different time, by a different generation. Some apparent relationships between creation and prophecies surrounding the return of Christ suggest that this may also be true of Genesis.
11. In scripture, the terms translated as “land” and “earth” often simply refer to dry land or to a particular country or region. There is no reason to immediately insist that these terms must refer to the entire landmass of the planet, as is proven by the fact that such uses render many passages absurd. Further, there is no evidence in scripture that the ancients understood the earth as a planet in the way that we understand it today.
12. Scripture often employs hyperbole as a form of emphasis, and in many cases phraseology must be understood within a particular context, such as “the whole world going to be taxed” in Luke’s account of the birth of Christ.
13. One does not have to “stuff millions of years” into scripture to come away with interpretations other than “six days, six thousand years ago.” There are certain internal oddities that suggest that more may be going on with the creation account than immediately meets the eye. Other portions of scripture, such as Job 38-41, bolster this impression. It is this understanding, combined with what we have learned of the physical universe, that leads to old-earth conclusions. The Bible never tells us how old the earth is, nor does it impose any test of orthodoxy on the matter
14. The “days” of Genesis are strongly evidenced to be divine work days, expressed in terms of a standard work week, for two reasons: a) To provide the basis for a calendar system, and b) To do so in a cyclical work/rest framework to which the ancient Hebrews could readily relate. In so doing, God described the creation of the world as a landowner preparing his property to be handed over to a manager, and he ended the account by placing man on the scene and giving him just such a charge.
15. The story of the creation and the Fall of Man was likely compiled by Moses during the time Israel spent wandering in the wilderness, and the parallels between Eden and Canaan are quite strong. The expulsion from paradise was a fitting warning to the Hebrews, as God promised to evict them from their land if they would not obey him, calling their dilemma a choice between life and death, blessing and cursing.
16. The earth of Adam and Eve was not one vast paradise. The Garden of Eden was a place of special blessing and abundance, although it was still subject to the laws of physics and required care. God commanded Adam to care for the garden and to maintain it. The underlying Hebrew also suggests that Adam was to protect the garden. By contrast, however, God commanded that the land outside of the garden be forcefully subdued.
17. The prophesied Millennial Age will restore the Edenic dichotomy: Jerusalem and the land surrounding it will be blessed with particular abundance, health, and safety, whereas Christ will rule over the outside nations by force.
18. There is no evidence whatsoever in scripture that animals were immortal before the Fall of Man. For that matter, Adam and Eve were not immortal, either, as they required access to the Tree of Life to maintain themselves.
19. There is no evidence whatsoever in scripture that animals were cursed with death or endowed with predatory behavior as a result of the Fall of Man. Animal attack and defense capabilities give every appearance of having been purposefully designed and built into them from the beginning. Adam’s sin is said only to have brought death upon mankind. Animals are not “cursed” with death because it is their natural condition. By contrast, Adam and Eve did not have to die. They held a special status in the creation until they forfeited it through disobedience.
20. There is no evidence in scripture that the entire physical universe “fell” when Adam sinned. The curses of Genesis 3 are very specific. The curse on the ground is said only to have affected man’s labor for food and does not appear to have continued after the flood. The subjection of the creation to “futility” is explainable as the earth having been left under the inept management of fallen man.
21. The phraseology used in Genesis where God tells man that he has been given green plants for food just as the animals have been given them is perfectly explainable as God pointing out the particular animal behavior that he wanted man to emulate. It does not justify the assumption that all animals ate only plants. Most animals do eat some form of plant life, but we do not know what animals man was familiar with when this commandment was given. Furthermore, even some young-earth creationists have acknowledged that sea creatures may have been predatory from the beginning.
22. Many stories in the pages of scripture show us that God is perfectly willing to use, and even to ordain, things that are not good in and of themselves in order to bring about results that are in fact good. God’s pronouncement that the creation was “very good” should not be taken to mean that it lacked any characteristics that we might find objectionable, such as animal mortality, but simply indicates that it was suitable for its intended purposes. God is following a plan that is fully known only to himself, and until it is complete there is no justification for assuming that we know enough of what God is doing to authoritatively declare that he couldn’t have designed anything but a harmless creation.
23. Angels were the first intelligences created by God. They are employed by him in carrying out his will in a variety of ways and scripture tells us that God is demonstrating certain things to them in his dealings with mankind. Scripture provides hints that angels could have assisted in carrying out God’s creative decrees, and this may be a major factor in why the process of creation stretched over long ages of time. Yet, we know almost nothing about the history of angels or the full extent of what they do. This is a major gap in our understanding of creation and another reason why should we not be so quick to assume that we understand everything God is doing in creation now or did in the past.
24. It is indisputable that some biblical genealogies do contain gaps. Whether the Genesis genealogies contain gaps or not is debatable, but it is possible. Biblical genealogies, including those in Genesis 5 and 11, do not always list first-born sons first. Instead, they prioritize the records around especially important ancestors. The terms “father” and “begat” or “became the father of” do not always indicate direct ancestry in scripture. Consequently, there may be undetectable gaps of time in the Genesis genealogies. It cannot be ruled out.
25. The Genesis creation account, including where the creation of Adam and Eve is concerned, is strongly indicated to be a material origins account. Although it contains a degree of theological messaging and some appeals to the understandings of a pre-scientific culture, scripture is nonetheless describing real people and real events.
26. There is no need to push Adam and Eve back in time beyond a reasonable reading of the Genesis genealogies in order to account for scientific findings related to the origin of man. A two-population model of humanity accounts for the discrepancy and may be hinted at in scripture itself. Even if one dismisses these hints, however, this does not mean that Adam and Eve were necessarily the first human beings. Scripture is primarily the story of the Adamic race and does not focus on any other races of man that may have existed in the past.
27. In light of a two-population model of human origins, Adam was a type of Christ. He was the first man in the Messianic line, specially created to more closely resemble Jesus Christ, who was virgin-born into an existing population and became “the last Adam.” Recent research highlighted by Dr. Joshua Swamidass shows that, even assuming a two-population model, Adam and Eve could well have been the genealogical ancestors of every human being by 1 A.D., which would help explain why Christ was not sent for so long. “The fullness of time” in which he came may indicate the time by which all of humanity was finally united in the ancestry of Adam and Eve.
28. The reference Christ made to male and female being joined together “from the beginning” is not an endorsement of young-earth creationism. Man was not created at the beginning of the creation but rather at the end of the process, as even young-earth creationists acknowledge. When we understand the entirety of the creation week as “the beginning,” the statement of Christ poses no problem for an old earth paradigm.
29. The phraseology of the flood account in Genesis 6-9 matches closely with language employed elsewhere in scripture that is only reasonable in a limited context, suggesting that the flood could well have been regional rather than global. The dimensions of the ark, the depth of the flood, and the recession of the flood waters indicate that the ark ran aground on land that was not much higher in elevation than the surrounding region. Further, we do not see any hints of typical young-earth interpretations in the flood account itself, such as the raising and lowering of land masses.
30. Scientific findings concerning the nature of the universe are entirely consistent with great age and match well with the predictions of Big Bang cosmology. Stellar z-axis motion and colliding galaxies are ready examples of findings in nature that also support “deep time” measurements. The physics and features of our universe are not consistent with a young-earth paradigm. Indeed, young-earth creationists have conceded that there is abundant evidence for great age in materials collected from both the earth and extraterrestrial sources, and they are unable to offer credible explanations for this phenomenon. Instead, they resort to emphasizing their interpretation of scripture while arguing for divine intervention on a massive yet undetectable scale—and with no apparent purpose other than to endow creation with a false appearance of age.

 

I have written this series in a spirit of “Come, let us reason together.” I have friends and family members who are young-earth creationists, and I respect their beliefs and their right to hold those beliefs. At one time, I shared those beliefs, and I understand why many Christians continue to find them compelling.

What I have sought to do here is to present a respectful, coherent, biblically-based case for an alternative point of view, and I offer it up to the Lord for whatever use he may have for it. I can only ask that my young-earth brethren consider the case fairly and in the spirit in which it is offered; and whether you agree with it or not, let us be careful to extend godly grace to one another in the midst of our discussions. Although we may have different creation creeds, we have one Lord to whom we must all give account, and one everlasting gospel to share with the world before he returns.

Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another, according to Christ Jesus, so that with one purpose and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us, for the glory of God. – Romans 15:5-7

 

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