As Katie Infantine explained in her post on Bill Nye’s viral video last week, there are multiple types of creationism, distinguished by varying attitudes towards evolution and rival interpretations of Genesis.
A recent piece in Christianity Today explores these differing schools through a profile of two scientists, both Evangelical Christians, who exemplify them. To use the article’s terminology, biology professor and president of BioLogos Darrell Falk is an evolutionary creationist, while science professor Todd Wood is a young-earth creationist. An excerpt describing Dr. Falk’s view:
In Coming to Peace with Science, Falk lays out the evidence for an ancient earth and the gradual development of its creatures over millions of years. He speaks of the message of Genesis — indeed, the whole of Scripture — as a testimony to God’s goodness and his plan to save the world.
Dr. Wood, on the other hand, has been a young-earth creationist since the beginning of his career:
The first human genome sequence was published the year that Wood began graduate school, providing strong evidence for evolution. The DNA for chimps and humans was virtually the same. Traces of common origins were everywhere: Humans even possessed a broken version of the gene that lizards and birds use to produce eggs. Wood remained fully committed to a six-day creation — he says he never doubted it for a minute — because he saw no other way to read the Bible. But that didn’t keep him from recognizing that evolution had powerful attestation.
Wood’s conviction that there’s “no other way [than his] to read the Bible,” with the implication that Scripture — not science — is what guides his views about evolution, is likely shared by the 46% of Americans who believe that God created humans in their present form.
Yet there are other ways to read the Bible, ways developed long before Charles Darwin entered the scene. As Alister McGrath has written in Christianity Today, St. Augustine was contemplating alternative interpretations of Genesis some sixteen centuries ago:
Augustine argues that the first Genesis Creation account (1:1–2:3) cannot be interpreted in isolation, but must be set alongside the second Genesis Creation account (2:4–25), as well as every other statement about the Creation found in Scripture. . . .
Augustine was deeply concerned that biblical interpreters might get locked into reading the Bible according to the scientific assumptions of the age. This, of course, happened during the Copernican controversies of the late 16th century. Traditional biblical interpretation held that the sun revolved around the earth. The church interpreted a challenge to this erroneous idea as a challenge to the authority of the Bible. It was not, of course. It was a challenge to one specific interpretation of the Bible—an interpretation, as it happened, in urgent need of review.
Augustine anticipated this point a millennium earlier. Certain biblical passages, he insisted, are genuinely open to diverse interpretations and must not be wedded to prevailing scientific theories. Otherwise, the Bible becomes the prisoner of what was once believed to be scientifically true: “In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines our position, we too fall with it.”
September 4th, 2012 | 4:57 pm
(Just as a side note, Nye very specifically mentioned things like “deep time”, the idea of a universe billions of years old. In other words, he was aiming at the Woods and not the Falks.)
September 4th, 2012 | 5:10 pm
If you’re trying to suggest, by “46% of Americans who believe that God created humans in their present form”, that 46% of Americans are young earth creationists, I suspect you are way off. I’m not knowledgeable on the matter, but I suspect the number of YEC Americans is closer to 6%. One need not be held captive to a purportedly asserted Biblical time-line in order to reject the nihilism of evolutionism’s philosophical assumptions in favor of a worldview that sees in things natures willed by a Creator.
I suspect that 46% figure merely means that somewhat less than half of Americans believe in real speciation. That’s distressing, and indicative of just how wont people are, in the face of common sense, to swallow fairy tales that are dressed up in the fashions of the day.
September 4th, 2012 | 6:26 pm
I was reading the notes of a Protestant study Bible once, and got to the story of Jesus saying, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” Of course, as a Catholic, I had been taught that Jesus was designating Peter the first pope. This study Bible found the passage disturbing and suggested one possible interpretation was that Jesus said, “You [Jesus points to Peter] are Peter and upon [Jesus then points to himself] this rock I will build my church.” I can’t help but feel Dr. Wood is playing in the same ballpark. There are just some realities that are too clear to deny, and one of them is that the earth, the solar system, the galaxies, and the universe are billions of years old. There are objects in the night sky that can be seen with the naked eye that are more than a million light years away. I don’t know how young-earth creationists explain that.
(By the way, I wouldn’t claim Jesus named Peter the first pope.)
September 4th, 2012 | 6:35 pm
If I am not mistaken, the Church in the 17th century indicated a willingness to reinterpret its holy book, but only if Galileo provided solid proof for his theory – which he didn’t, according to the Church.
September 4th, 2012 | 8:00 pm
“the 46% of Americans who believe that God created humans in their present form”
None of this 46% agrees with Augsutine. I think you should discuss this with Mr. Mohler, for one:
If [you are] going to quote Augustine, [you] should deal with the consequences. How are we to reconcile the absence of an historical Adam, for example, with Paul’s very clear and unambiguous affirmation of Adam’s headship and its centrality to the gospel? The age of the earth is not the central question, though it is an unavoidable and important question.
Most of those who urge a reconciliation of evolution and the Christian faith do so at the most superficial level, without ever acknowledging the near-total transformation of Christian theology that must result if serious minds ask the serious questions and do the serious work of actually thinking seriously.
The impact of evolution on the Christian gospel cannot be reduced to ‘both an old earth and a loving God.’ That just does not represent intellectual honesty. Those who think responsibly about these questions must deal directly with the theological implications…”
Neither Nye nor Mohler are concerned about the various subgroups of creationists. Apparently, 46% of Americans are young earth creationists. From Nye’s perspecitve, that’s a sufficiently large sample (and problem) for all of us.
September 4th, 2012 | 11:18 pm
It’s something to reprimand young children with: “If you don’t learn to tell the difference between what’s true, and what you *wish* were true, you will grow up to be a young earth creationist!”
Scripture is supposed to be our sword and shield–not a cave in which to hide away from the real world.
September 4th, 2012 | 11:58 pm
“(By the way, I wouldn’t claim Jesus named Peter the first pope.)”
Agreed. He renamed Cepas Peter. And in every single instance where God renames someone in the Old or New Testament, he immediately gives them new responsibilities and new lands to govern. Here, the next thing Jesus says, is: “and upon this rock I will build my church.” The interpretation that the renaming of Peter meant precisely nothing about Peter, but was simply coincidental and Jesus then *actually* meant to continue to talk about himself, (after briefly diverting everyone’s attention with that renaming thing), is indefensible.
September 5th, 2012 | 12:24 am
In accepting the theory of evolution, we get rid of one problem – the conflict with current scientific thinking.But don’t we raise many difficult theological ones? From Romano Guardini I read:
” Death came into the world through sin. This is the answer Christianity makes to the question of death. It is a bold answer, which troubles the mind and stirs up opposition…..The modern mind, hearing that death need not exist, is either astonished or derisive.”
If death was not a result of sin, then why is it called our enemy and how does Christ’s death make any sense? If a Good God can inflict such horrors on innocent creatures merely to prepare the arrival of man, are we justified in calling Him good?
September 5th, 2012 | 8:55 am
I enjoyed Augustine’s Confessions right up to the final theological chapters on Genesis noted above. Those are hard going, but worth it for a perspective on the interpretation of the Bible.
September 5th, 2012 | 12:05 pm
So, CT takes two professors from the two extremes: one a YEC and the other an evolutionist
And as usual, the dialogue is about science not Scripture.
There is certainly no basis in Scripture for claiming a young earth.
http://textsincontext.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/in-the-beginning/
September 5th, 2012 | 12:48 pm
Olaf: If death was not a result of sin, then why is it called our enemy and how does Christ’s death make any sense?
If death is a result of sin, then how could Christ have died, if we assume that he was sinless?
Olaf: If a Good God can inflict such horrors on innocent creatures merely to prepare the arrival of man, are we justified in calling Him good?
Usually by tautologically defining ‘good’ as ‘whatever God wants/does’.
September 5th, 2012 | 1:48 pm
Well a passing familiarity with Christianity would reveal that answer – “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
September 5th, 2012 | 2:05 pm
For those who are not young-earth creationists, death has clearly been the fate of almost all living creatures since the beginnings of life on earth. (Jellyfish, hydra, and flatworms are exceptions in that they see to be able to live indefinitely.) Supposing the first humans not specially created but merely very advanced hominids which God ensouled. They would have no more been immortal than chimps or other hominids. So clearly if evolution (even “theistic” evolution) is true, death was the natural fate of almost every living creature long before humans existed, and so long before the existence of sin.
In the story of Adam and Eve, I find no hint that they were immortal. The reason they were banished from the Garden is so that they cannot eat of the Tree of Life and live forever. I suppose one can speculate that God intended for them to live forever, or that since they were not initially forbidden to eat of the Tree of Life, they were destined to live indefinitely. I don’t find that a convincing interpretation of the story.
September 5th, 2012 | 2:10 pm
“Usually by tautologically defining ‘good’ as ‘whatever God wants/does’.”
Maximillian, I’m not sure what you’re saying here. I’m asserting that God’s use of death as the very engine of creation would be inconsistent with His nature – He IS Good and death is not good.
September 5th, 2012 | 3:08 pm
I’m asserting that God’s use of death as the very engine of creation would be inconsistent with His nature – He IS Good and death is not good.
olaf,
I am not sure how it can be said that death is not good—although I certainly am not looking forward to my own! Death is part of the cycle of nature. We see death every year when winter comes, and we see new life again in spring. As I argued above, certainly we can’t claim that nothing died before “the Fall,” whatever we may interpret it to be. Baptism represents death and rebirth. We fear death far too much (and I definitely include myself). If you don’t believe in God, it’s a return of your elements to the cycle of life. If you do believe in God (or Christianity, anyway), it’s the gateway to eternal life.
September 5th, 2012 | 4:09 pm
Olaf: Maximillian, I’m not sure what you’re saying here. I’m asserting that God’s use of death as the very engine of creation would be inconsistent with His nature – He IS Good and death is not good.
It was in no way a criticism of you, in fact, I find your adherence to objective morality very admirable. But you asked how people would explain it. And in my experience with religious people, the way to explain (in their view) apparent evils, is to say: “This is not evil when it is God’s will, God is good, and everything he wills becomes good.”
September 5th, 2012 | 4:34 pm
‘I am not sure how it can be said that death is not good’
David,
I guess this gets to the heart of the issue. I react at the deepest levels of my being with revulsion at the idea that death could be considered good. Hasn’t it always been Christian teaching that Christ transformed death by His death, thus gaining us the victory over this enemy? Anyway, my own attitude accords with this from Guardini;
“Man’s natural attitude toward death is one of protest. Besides his sense of self-preservation, which he shares with the other animals, he has a mental objection. He can see no sense in death….it is simply that he finds a state of things which admits death to be not well ordered.”
September 5th, 2012 | 5:31 pm
..the way to explain (in their view) apparent evils, is to say: “This is not evil when it is God’s will, God is good, and everything he wills becomes good.”
This might be the position of uninformed Christians, but I can’t believe the smart people hold this, at least not followers of Aquinas.
September 5th, 2012 | 7:14 pm
“Certain biblical passages, he insisted, are genuinely open to diverse interpretations and must not be wedded to prevailing scientific theories. Otherwise, the Bible becomes the prisoner of what was once believed to be scientifically true”
So what about the doctrine of ‘The Fall’? I believe current scientific theory holds that there were never an original two humans. How can we have a fall without Adam and Eve. As a Catholic, I’m bound to believe in both. Do we continue to hold this doctrine, or have we cast it out like special creation and Noahs deluge?
September 6th, 2012 | 1:12 pm
Response I posted at the link…
————————————————
Of course, Augustine was a young earth creationist, believing that the universe was created just several thousand years ago, because of the context of the relevant biblical texts. Which is why I always hate it when someone quotes Augustine and purports him to have supported something otherwise.
The fact of the matter is that there were *no* Christian theologians who ever thought or taught anything other than the basic young earth creationist belief that the universe was created by God just several thousand years ago, because of the Bible, until geologists (“naturalists”) came along early on in the development of serious geological science and demonstrated otherwise. Then, and only then, did Christian theologians develop alternate “interpretations” rather than just plainly and simply acknowledge the obvious fact that what the Bible says about such matters is just wrong.
Gotta try to preserve the notion, uh… doctrine of the divine inspiration of the Bible, you know.
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