I have been told that I
am not a Christian. I have been accused of not taking the Bible literally. I have had to listen to the charge that “we can’t
believe what science tells us because scientists are fallen.” As a science
teacher and a Christian, it is important to me to look at both subjects
objectively and rationally, realizing that salvation is based on belief in
Christ, not the age of the earth. I think the evidence from both the Bible and
current science support an old earth view. You can be a Christian and at the same time accept the scientific evidence
that overwhelmingly shows the earth to be 4.56 billion years old.
Really good science is
done by non-Christians. In fact, science that actually confirms what the Bible
teaches is done by people who assume a naturalistic position. While I am sure
there are dishonest scientists, the vast majority look honestly at the
evidence. Just because they may have a
non-Christian world view does not mean that they will come to bad conclusions. For
example, we accept all kinds of scientific research done by atheists in the
areas of medicine, automobile and airline technology, and electronics. Why do we question it when it has to do with
the age of the Earth?
Most scientists know
that when they propose a model for
nature, it is probably not fact and is probably not representing exactly what
nature is like. Scientists generally enjoy that our view of nature constantly
changes and what we state as “fact” now might not be “fact” 50 years from now. For
a scientist to become famous, they usually need to find evidence that overturns
an accepted paradigm or disproves an existing theory, so most are trying to do
just that! In terms of evolution, the mechanistic model for how life evolves has changed in the last
few years; this is why we continue to do research. However, there are areas in
science that have been studied so exhaustively they do disserve the “fact”
label. One example is speciation; the fact that micro-evolutionary changes in
an isolated population can cause a new species to emerge.
When we claim to take
the Bible literally, we must be clear about what that means! Genesis was not originally written just for us. It had to make sense to every person reading it
throughout history. It was written in a different language, in a different
cultural background, and originally for a different people group. We have to be
careful not to impose our cultural understanding on the text. Scripture is
inerrant, but our interpretation of it is not. We need to be humble in our
claims of what Genesis (and any other text) is teaching. I take the Bible literally; to me that means that we
attempt to figure out the purpose and meaning of what the original author
wrote.
Scholars have been
analyzing Genesis for thousands of years and there is no conclusion as to the one correct way to interpret the
creation account. There are several possible interpretations that are not
“literal”; many theologians take the account to be figurative. Genesis does not
specify that creation was done in six 24 hour days. The earliest commentaries
on Genesis from first century Jewish scholars show a mix of views on the age of
the earth and 24-hour creation days. Philo wrote that the six days are
figurative and are a metaphor for order and completeness. Josephus was undecided
about the meaning of the expression “one day.”
It is important to realize that those who advocate
long periods of time for the six “days” of creation are not saying that the
context requires that these be
understood as periods of time. They are simply saying that the context does not
clearly specify for us one meaning of day
or another, and if convincing data about the age of the earth, drawn from many
different disciplines and giving similar answers, convinces us that the earth
is billions of years old, then this possible interpretation of day as a long period of time may be the
best interpretation to adopt.[1]
Jewish Genealogies are theological and they have gaps. You
cannot use them to date a historical event in the Bible. The “witness who was
there” did not tell us the age of the earth because the writings were concerned
with teaching something more important.
It seems fair to conclude that the genealogies of Scripture
have some gaps in them, and that God only caused to be recorded those names
that were important for His purposes. How many gaps there are and how many
generations are missing from the Genesis narratives, we do not know. The life
of Abraham may be placed at approximately 2000 B.C., because the kings and
places listed in the stories of Abraham’s life can be correlated with
archaeological data that can be dated quite reliably, but prior to Abraham the
setting of dates is very uncertain.[2]
New Testament writings
do not confirm that Jesus believed in a literal, historical interpretation of
Genesis 1. The proof texts that Ham gives for this on his website can all be
easily interpreted from the point of view of Genesis being a theological
treatise. In fact, as I have written in earlier posts, many of the early church
fathers (who were closer in time to the teachings of Jesus) were tolerant of
several views of the creation week; early Christian writings on the subject
were also inconclusive and open to several views. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (a
student of Ignatius, Papias and Polycarp, who were all students of the Apostle John)
both suggested that the “days” could be thousand year epochs. Clement of
Alexandria (a third generation student of Mark and a fourth generation student
of Peter) echoed Philo’s teaching that the six days are figurative and are a
metaphor for order and completeness. Augustine wrote quite a bit about the
creation days and concluded that the Genesis creation day is different from our
understanding of a day.
Except for Augustine, the early church leaders
expressed their views [on the Genesis creation account] tentatively. There is
no indication that they sharply debated the issue or took a dogmatic stance.
Instead, they charitably tolerated a diversity of views.[3]
Almost everything about
observational astronomy contradicts a recent creation! We do observe the past directly. When you look out into space, the
light you are seeing is from the past! We view the moon as it was 1.3 seconds
ago, the sun as it was 8 minutes ago and the Andromeda Galaxy as it was 2.5
million years ago. We actually have a “picture” of the universe when it was 380,000 years old. The horizon “light travel time problem” no longer exists with
the recent data we have from the Planck satellite.
We are also observing
the past directly when we are studying fossils and when we are investigating
old atmosphere trapped in ice cores. When radiometric dating is used correctly
and corroborated with several dating techniques (as is usually done) it is
accurate. Here is a long explanation for the accuracy of radiometric dating: www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens2002.pdf
The discoveries in the
past 50 years are getting closer to confirming that the laws of nature have remained constant throughout the
history of the universe, so you can
extrapolate what you see now to what has happened in the past. For a discussion
of this, go here: www.reasons.org/articles/sandage-test-affirms-biblical-creation-model-and-constant-laws-of-physics
The Bible does not have
to be interpreted as teaching that there was a global flood. I believe the Genesis flood is better
understood as a local phenomenon from both
the evidence in the Bible and the evidence from nature. Go here (there are two parts) for a
discussion of Biblical evidence: www.reasons.org/articles/exploring-the-extent-of-the-flood-part-one
It is not contrary to
the Bible if animals and plants died before the fall. For a good explanation of
this, go here: www.reasons.org/articles/animal-death-before-the-fall-what-does-the-bible-say
In conclusion, I want to again stress that salvation
is based on belief in Christ, not the age of the earth. The purpose of this
post reflects the overall purpose of the blog: To show skeptics and Christians
that you can believe the Bible, you can be intellectual and you can use your
mind without having to fear or belittle science. Current science that shows the
earth to be 4.56 billion years old does agree with what the Bible teaches. When
interpreted correctly, Christian scripture and nature should be in harmony. God
created the universe and inspired the Bible; both should agree.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.