An Open Letter to a Young Earth Creationist
EDITOR'S NOTE:
What follows is my response to a young-earth creationist who had inquired about the Biblical
faithfulness of a talk by Case for Christ author Lee Strobel. Lee drew heavily from cosmological arguments that involved
the big bang and the anthropic coincidences, and this response is one
possible defense for his having done so.
An Open Letter to a
Young Earth Creationist
-Paul Smith
Dear XXX,
Basically, here's the deal: I myself
am a former young-earth creationist. While I'm intellectually
attracted to certain features of various old-earth systems, it would be
inaccurate to say that I've adopted any one of them as my own. It's
probably best, then, to call me a libertarian on matters of dating the
creation; i.e. my position is that the Christian is free to believe what
he feels in good conscience - and as led by the Spirit - can create the
best harmony between his understanding of Scripture and his
understanding of natural history. In some sense, I wish that all
Christians would admit the limits of our knowledge on the proper
interpretation of both the scientific evidence and the statements of
Scripture on this matter; I have far more faith in the unity of truth
and the authority of Scripture than I have in my interpretation of
either being correct! So understand that I know that I could be dead
wrong on this, and that right now I am simply following where I think
the preponderance of both the Scriptural and scientific evidence lead. I
reserve the right to change my mind should I find the weight of the
evidence tipping the other way at some time in the future. Now I was
starting to write a testimony of my conversion from "YEC" to
"OEC," but that will take more time than I have at the moment,
so what follows will have
to do for now.
For starters, a small subset of the things that made me relinquish
my former position can be found in this article:
The Trustworthiness of Scripture in
Areas Relating to Natural Science
Walter L. Bradley and Roger Olsen
[A reprint of Chapter 5 (pp. 283-348) from Hermeneutics, Inerrancy,
and the Bible, Radmacher and Preus, eds. (Zondervan, 1984).]
There is another article that I would
highly recommend you read, co-authored by a young-earth creationist and
an old-earth creationist. The article basically makes a case for the
libertarian position I've adopted, and I think it's a very wise piece of
writing:
Christian Views of Science and Earth
History
"Rich Milne and Dr. Ray Bohlin examine the major
answers to the age of the earth question as given by
Christians with a call to mark our common enemy."
Now in what follows, I want to be very
clear that I in no way am asking you to yield your young-earth
convictions. What I do want to do, though, is make a case for the
validity of what Lee did in his message - both Biblically and
pragmatically. First off, of all the arguments that are central to the
young- earth position, I don't think that a perceived
"disorderliness" in the theorized Big-Bang event is very
essential. You may want to have a look at an article called "A Very
Big Bang" (by Patricia A. Mondore, M.A. and Robert J. Mondore) for an idea of how some Bible-believers see harmony between Scripture
and the origin event as it is currently hypothesized. Whatever your view
on that, though, at the end of the day I think we have to acknowledge
that Genesis 1 is rather terse as to the mechanics of the
creation; it tells us that God did it, but little to nothing as to what
it looked like when He spoke all things into existence. In
general, God does many things in the Bible in ways that were unexpected;
just look at how hard a time even the apostles had reconciling Jesus
with their expectations of the Messiah. I would only appeal that we be
very cautious about claiming that some theory does violence to scripture
if we are not certain about the accuracy of the interpretive inferences
we are bringing to the passage in question.
Secondly, it is very important to
remember that only 100 or so years ago, "science" was
vehemently opposed to the idea that the universe had a beginning. When
Einstein realized that some of his own calculations in relativity
pointed to a beginning of time, he resisted the idea! Now my faith in
the Bible is stronger than my faith in relativity, but the fact is that
empirical data has forced mainstream science into admitting some very
uncomfortable things: our universe had a beginning, which means that
time, space, matter and energy have a beginning! Previously, many
biologists thought that infinite time was available for Darwinian
evolution to do its thing; how much less plausible did Darwinism become
when this was refuted? Frankly, my current research leads me to conclude
that Darwinism is not very much more plausible given 4.5 billion years
than it is given only 4,000 years - but that's a side issue. The real
issue to me is that we have two common enemies - naturalism (atheism)
and post-modernism (relativism). When these two are properly subdued,
then it may be time to bring up our differences with regard to earth
history and Genesis 1. Meanwhile, I can only say that we should do
everything we can to find our areas of agreement and focus as much as
possible on those areas; we need to be of one accord if we are to impact
the culture around us in any significant way.
Thirdly, let's look at the pragmatics
of what Lee did. Basically, he took hold of an uncomfortable admission
made by modern science, and started to examine it. And the conclusion he
came to was that atheistic science - or purely naturalistic
science - was in trouble even on its own criteria; in essence, they are saddled
with a chore much like trying to explain the existence of a painting without
referring to anything outside of the painting! So folks who hold the
naturalistic line are having to come up with some rather implausible explanations for how our universe could come into existence
without a Beginner to say "Bang!" I'm sure you
understand the effectiveness of arguing from premises that your
opponents do accept when you're advancing a conclusion they do
not accept. In my mind, Lee did this
beautifully; he showed how the very premises of empiricism that modern
science claims to hold can lead one to the conclusion that the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Joseph is behind all that we see.
Ultimately, then, here is my stand as
an apologist: When I see young-earth arguments becoming effective enough
so that atheists are converted first to young-earthism and then
to Christianity, I will reconsider using them apologetically. For the
time being, though, I do not see this happening, and I do see
arguments against Darwinism - and arguments from the Big-Bang - bringing
atheistic biologists, philosophers and physicists into the Body of
Christ. I pray this continues to snowball!
I hope that in the end, it makes some
sense why I take the position I do. I don't think that Lee asked anyone
to repudiate a young-earth view in his talk, even though he used
premises which are not consistent with a recent-creation model. I had the privilege of seeing the effect that
Lee's talk had on a few people, and it was very positive. Please realize that I am as curious as anyone about what
theory of creation is correct, and I do not wish to belittle anybody's serious
concern over this issue. You are right to be cautious about
allowing too much plasticity of Biblical interpretation, and I agree that this
is a serious issue -- despite our genuine disagreement about how to interpret
Genesis 1.
At the end of the day, I am far more
concerned with seeing the Kingdom increase than I am with seeing my
curiosity satisfied on origins matters. I believe that Scripture is God's creation, and I pray for His
guidance and wisdom as I seek to come to true conclusions about the
evidence I encounter inside of it - regardless of the opinions of men.
Similarly, I believe that the world around us is God's creation, and I
pray for His guidance and wisdom as I seek to arrive at true conclusions
about the evidence I encounter inside of it -- again, regardless
of the opinions of men (scientist or otherwise), many of which I happen
to think are false. I hope that at least we can agree that this is the
way God would have us approach His Word and His world, despite our
disagreements about what conclusions the evidence in each would lead us
to.