Darwinism's Leakey Bucket

"Can you not hear me?! I said, 'the debate is OVER!'"

It would be comical if it wasn't so farcical but, in case you hadn't heard, the debate about evolution is, or soon will be, over.

Richard Leakey said so.

This is no doubt news to the 1000 or so scientists (listed here) who have taken the public risk, and therefore encountered the public wrath, of defying folks like Richard Leakey who will do their best to destroy the career of anyone who happens to disagree with them.

If you doubt it, consider the case of Dr. Ben Carson, as an example of what happens when you dare to doubt Darwin. Even though he holds some of the most impressive medical and scientific credentials, Carson was targeted with the outrage of the Darwimafia family leaders because they could not stomach the fact that "he's not impressed by the evidence on offer for Darwinian theory and why a materialist philosophy is at odds with the idea of free will and therefore makes it tough to offer a coherent account of moral principles." The fact that Carson is one of the top neurosurgeons on the planet was irrelevant to the Leakey-like Darwinist Priesthood.

In academic circles, you see, joining the growing list of those who "Dissent From Darwin," is tantamount to performing career hare-kari ... but people are doing it anyway. Why do you think that might be?

It seems just a little self-serving to claim that a debate in which you are supposed to be engaged is "over" simply because the evidence in opposition to your position is getting stronger by the day. But beyond that, let's consider why Leakey demands that "evolution" is true:

"If you don't like the word evolution, I don't care what you call it, but life has changed. You can lay out all the fossils that have been collected and establish lineages that even a fool could work up. So the question is why, how does this happen? It's not covered by Genesis. There's no explanation for this change going back 500 million years in any book I've read from the lips of any God."

For starters, Leakey points out that "life has changed" whether we want to call it evolution or not. But no one that I know of -- even the most ardent young earth Creationist -- doubts that "life has changed." So what? The fact that "life has changed" says exactly nothing about whether life was designed, and that is the real question. PhD philosopher of science, Stephen Meyer addresses this point by noting that there three different definitions of "evolution" in play these days:

1. Change over time (a.k.a. micro-evolution or adaptation)
2. Common Descent (the history of life shows a continuous pattern of relatedness)
3. The cause or mechanism for change in life forms that creates an appearance of design

Leakey doesn't identify which of these he is talking about and that is a problem considering the fact that definitions 1) and 2) are perfectly compatible with the work of an intelligent Creator. Definition 3) is an attempt to claim that the design we all recognize in nature is not the work of an intelligent Designer at all, but just an appearance of design brought about by the work of natural selection acting on random variations in the genome.

Ask Dr. Leakey how that mechanism works and he will be stuck for an answer. Ask Dr. Leakey how life began and he will be stuck for an answer. Ask Dr. Leakey why all those fossils he claims have "established lineages" always seem to be found to be out of chronological order, or genetically unrelated, and he will be stuck for an answer -- beyond the unsubstantiated claim that you are a fool to doubt him. Ask Dr. Leakey why all the completely formed, complex creatures of the Cambrian Explosion show no evidence of their predecessors in his "established lineages" and he will be stuck for an answer. Ask Dr. Leakey why his Darwinist assumption that so-called "junk DNA" was nothing but the useless leftovers of eons of failed evolutionary mutations has proved to be a complete and utter predictive failure and he will be stuck for an answer. Ask Dr. Leakey what theist claims that Genesis can, or should, explain how all this happens and he will be stuck for an answer. Ask Dr. Leakey which proponent of intelligent design relies on that belief based on what he/she has "read from the lips of any God" and he will be stuck for an answer.

In other words, ask Dr. Leakey what evidence he has for any of the claims he is making and you will be met with deafening silence. And that is why Dr. Leakey wants to force an unnatural and unsubstantiated end to the debate. It is not because the debate is really over -- it is because he is losing.

"Evolving" On The Slippery Slope

A few months ago, in a discussion about the issue of same-sex "marriage," a commenter chastised me for saying that the same logic being used to justify the practice could be used to justify any number of variations of the moving target this new definition of marriage would allow. My opponent mocked me for my "old guard" position and promised that the younger generations would eventually overcome the current resistance to same sex "marriage" by pointing out that "laws and culture both change ... Polygamy is also something illegal/intolerable now."

I responded that he had made my point when he used the word "now," and warned him that the basic building block of society never changes, while the definitions of terms can change any time at the whim of what some group of people "like." If someone decides they want to define a "marriage" as the union of a boy and his dog at some later time, the logic of their argument would be exactly the same one we hear being used now to allow same sex "marriage" because once you decide that there is no objective definition of a term, you have no logical way to limit the point where it ends.

His response was telling:

"... I think that if a guy wants to marry his dog, while personally repulsive to me, I don't see why he can't. It would be important though for the dog to provide informed consent. Additionally, you should know better than to resort to 'slippery slope' arguments."

This is the enlightened tolerance of the "young guard" I guess.

It is common to mock the use of the "slippery slope" argument because it has been so illegitimately abused in the past. But there is a difference between the old: "next-thing-you-know-they'll-be-saying-it's-OK-to-marry-your-dog" argument (I mean, seriously, who would ever say that?!), and invoking the exact same logic to make the case for one thing that can be used to make the case for another. This is called a "logical slippery slope" and it is a completely legitimate argument to make.

You might think it would require a robust philosophical explanation to prove that last statement, but since I'm not the most robust philosophical guy in the world, I will make it easier ... I'll just report some news.

On the day after New York legalized same-sex "marriage" last June, Moein Khawaja, executive director of the Philadelphia branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a radical Islamist propaganda unit, Tweeted the following:

"Easy to support gay marriage today b/c it's mainstream. Lets see same people go to bat for polygamy, its the same argument. *crickets*"

Now, you might think Khawaja is just a goofball. But what about the October, 2011 article titled: "Polygamy: Tis the Season?" in the Muslim Link, a newspaper serving the Baltimore-Washington area.*

There are murmurs among the polygamist community as the country moves toward the legalization of gay marriage ... As citizens of the United States, they argue, they should have the right to legally marry whoever they please, or however many they please ... As states move toward legalizing gay marriage, the criminalization of polygamy is a seemingly striking inconsistency in constitutional law ... Be it gay marriage or polygamous marriage, the rights of the people should not be based on their popularity but rather on the constitutional laws that are meant to protect them.

Same argument, different definition of marriage. This is a textbook case of the logical slippery slope.

And this is why the recent "evolution" of our President on same-sex "marriage" is so dangerous. His support of same-sex "marriage," when applied to any other kind of mutually amorous relationship, offers no reason to deny any kind definition someone may dream up.

So while I'm at it, let's check the "evolution" of Barack Obama on the same-sex "marriage" issue:**

• 1996 - Running for Illinois state senate in a trendy Chicago district: Barack Obama was for same sex "marriage"
• 2004 - Running for U.S. Senate and needing statewide support: Barack Obama favored "civil unions" but opposed homosexual "marriage."
• 2008 - Running for President of the United States and needing the elusive swing voters to win the presidency: Barack Obama said, "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I'm not in favor of gay marriage."
• 2012 - Facing a re-election in which he needs to appeal to his party's base: Barack Obama supports same-sex "marriage."

See how the "evolution" works? Or is this just a demonstration of what we might call the "opportunistic misrepresentation of the truth"?

If the stakes weren't so high for the moral character of our nation, these could be considered the comical machinations of a spineless political hack. But the stakes are high for the future us old guard folks leave our children. I pray that there are enough of us left to stop the slide.


_______________
* Source: National Review, April 16, 2012, p. 24
** Source: Elliott Abrams, The Weekly Standard

Philosophy Made Simple

I read a short article by R. C. Sproul this morning and this jumped off the page at me:

When the writers of the Wisdom Literature say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, they are saying that the absolute, essential starting point if you want to acquire true wisdom is reverence and adoration for God. 

Showing a contrast, the psalmist tells us, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1). Wisdom is contrasted with foolishness. However, in the Hebrew literature, the term fool does not describe a person who lacks intelligence. To be foolish to the Jew is to be irreligious and godless. The fool is the person who has no reverence for God, and when you have no reverence for God, inevitably your life will show it. 

The Wisdom Literature also makes a sharp distinction between wisdom and knowledge. A person can have unbounded knowledge and not have wisdom. But the reverse is not the case; no one can have wisdom if he does not have knowledge. The anti-intellectual spirit of our times declares: "I don't need to study. I don't need to know the Bible. All I need is to have a personal relationship with Jesus." 

That viewpoint is on a collision course with what the Wisdom Literature teaches.

Too many of us ignore or even fear the study of philosophy. For someone like me, who for many years avoided and even mocked it, these words hit close to home. After all, philosophy is simply two Greek words jammed together: philo (derived from phileo -- "to love"), and sophia ("wisdom"). Philosophy is the love of wisdom, and there is nothing in the Bible that cautions us about pursuing that.

Who Vets The "Journalists"?

Davan Maharaj

Yesterday, the L.A. Times published yet another set of pictures for no reason except to provoke and incite terrorists to violence against our troops. In short order, both Leon Panneta and our esteemed Commander-in-Chief apologized ... to the terrorists of course.

Is anyone else not just sick of this, but angered by it?

This latest round of pictures is from two years ago and shows soldiers, both American and Afghani, holding up the remains of a suicide bomber who blew himself up. No doubt, these pictures are disgusting and uncalled for. But the irony is that Muslims who will be outraged by the total lack of respect for humanity that the picture-takers display don't seem to have a problem with the greater lack of respect for humanity that the suicide bomber displayed in the cowardly act that no doubt killed innocent people.

The trail of blame for this latest release of pictures starts with whoever the moral midget was (from the 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division) who offered them up to the press. Whoever he is, I can only hope that he is identified and that his career in the Army will come to an abrupt end. But his stupidity does not even compare to the moral cowardice of the man shown (above left), Davan Maharaj, an editor at the Los Angeles Times Media Group. This so-called "journalist" was asked directly by the Pentagon not to release these pictures because of the backlash it will inspire toward our troops who are already in harm's way. He did it anyway, and gave this as an explanation:

"After careful consideration, we decided that publishing a small but representative selection of the photos would fulfill our obligation to readers to report vigorously and impartially on all aspects of the American mission in Afghanistan, including the allegation that the images reflect a breakdown in unit discipline that was endangering U.S. troops."

He did it for the troops, you see.

Of course, if he was serious about his "impartiality" we would see pictures every day of the mayhem and barbarism that results when these Muslim nutjobs attack innocent civilians, obliterate children, hide in mosques, and lift the severed heads of their prisoners in reverence to allah. So where are those pictures, Davan?

This moral coward no doubt drives his BMW to work in L.A., sits in his plush little office, and accepts his Ernie Pyle Awards with a sanctimonious air of self-righteousness, while his actions endanger the very lives of the troops who defend his luxurious way of life. Some of those troops are my sons, and one of those sons may be directly experiencing the repercussions of Davan Maharaj's "impartiality" even as I write this. I wouldn't know because I haven't heard from my son in almost two weeks -- not since the second suspicious death of a Marine in his unit occurred that is currently "under investigation." The last time this happened, it was because one of his fellow Marines was shot in the back of the head by an "allied" Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier who was being trained by our Marines. Some ally.

Shockingly, Davan Maharaj didn't feel any "obligation" to show us pictures of that.

I'm not sure if I can describe the disgust -- and, yes, anger -- I feel toward this so-called "journalist" but I would like to know who is investigating him. What are his motivations? What is his background? Why does he believe his "right" to publish two year-old photographs, with no other hope for a possible outcome than to incite violence against our uniformed men and women, exceeds any consideration of the safety and value of their lives? Why would he commit what I consider to be such a treasonous act and suffer no consequences for it? Whose mouthpiece is he?

I really hope someone is trying to answer those questions.

This is further proof to me of two things: 1) That the troops who are now in greater danger because of the arrogance of Davan Maharaj (and others like him) are better, more honorable, men than he could ever hope to be, and 2) that God's forgiveness and mercy for the lost and for those who intentionally commit evil acts in this life is beyond human comprehension -- at least for someone like me.

Sanctimoniality -vs- Religion

The sanctimonious "spiritualist"

Ah, yes, the Monday USA Today opinion page pays off again ... with one of the most inane commentaries it has ever offered up for derision. This installment, "Spirituality, Religion Collide," is brought to us by Diana Butler Bass, author of Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. A title like that should catch your eye, especially if you happen to be an old fashioned rube (like me) who is out of touch with The Culture enough to actually believe that Christianity is a religion. Silly me.

Ms. Bass's "enlightened" musing stems from the story that:

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion, recently announced that he would step down by year's end. A few days later, the Church of England rejected a Williams-backed unity plan for global Anglicanism, a church fractured by issues of gender and sexual identity. The timing of the resignation and the defeat are probably not coincidental. These events signal Anglican's institutional failure ... The fight over gay clergy is usually framed as a left and right conflict, part of the larger saga of political division. But this narrative obscures a more significant tension in Western societies: the increasing gap between spirituality and religion, and the failure of traditional religious institutions to learn from the divide.

And what is it that "traditional religious institutions" should learn? Embrace the new spirituality!

Ms. Bass describes Williams as a "teacher and pastor of deep spirituality" who was "caught in an impossible situation" that forced him to "struggle to be both a spiritual leader who embraces the emerging vision [of gay and lesbian persons in the church] and the leader of an institution committed to guarding the old order."

What's a guy to do?

First of all, my labeling this story as worthy of derision has absolutely nothing to do with the obligation of every Christian to love and respect homosexuals. Though we all like to point to what we consider abominable moral behavior -- conveniently defined as the moral behavior of every person but the one we see in the bathroom mirror -- the fact is that all of us violate the moral standards of a perfect God every day. Sin is sin. All of us are guilty.

Second, this is not to engage in a debate with those who attempt to make the case that the Bible does not condemn homosexual behavior. Those who do that do not take the Bible seriously and are therefore not to be taken seriously when the speak about it on this topic. It is obviously false to claim that the Bible does not condemn homosexual behavior, or even that it is neutral on the subject. Argue that point all you want. Homosexual behavior violates both natural law and the moral standards we find in God's direct revelation to us. To say otherwise is ridiculous on its face.

But loving and respecting all the everlasting creatures who are made in the image of God, and who inhabit this planet with us, is a far cry from elevating deviant immorality to a position of authority in church leadership and thereby sanctioning Biblically indefensible behavior.

The deficiency in Ms. Bass's thinking is made very clear when she says that "spirituality is an expression of bottom-up faith and does not always fit into accepted patterns of theology or practice," as if spirituality and religion are mutually exclusive categories. We hear this kind of thing all the time: Religion is bad; Spirituality is good; "Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship;" or my favorite, "I have no use for organized religion."

So do you prefer disorganized religion?

Yes, the mindless adherence to rules, regulations, form, and the supremacy of some man-made institutional bureaucracy is not what God intended. No one disagrees with that. But saying that is a far different thing from wantonly ignoring a history and tradition of worship that leads us back to the Object of our faith -- an incarnate God who instituted a community of human beings He aims to take as His bride.

As philosopher Dallas Willard warns:

The language of "spiritual," "spirit," and "spirituality" has become increasingly common today, and it cannot be avoided. But it is often unclear in meaning, and this can be dangerous. It can lead us down paths of confusion and destruction. "Spiritual" is not automatically "good." We must be very careful with this language. Nevertheless, in the sense of "spiritual," which means only "non-physical," the hidden or inner world of the human self is indeed "spiritual."

When you start disconnecting spirituality from any grounding or foundation, it becomes subject to the whims of the "spiritualist." When you start allowing that spirituality "does not always fit into accepted patterns of theology," you mostly end up with some kind of a monument to the idolatry of the self. You end up with some group of people that mistakes their mutual agreement for truth. You end up with something like an illegitimate, warped and misguided collection of navel-gazers who find ways to justify theological travesties like the ordination of homosexuals to the leadership of God's church.

You end up with Rowan Williams and the church he has helped to emasculate.

Spirituality is not only about warm feelings of reverence and an ineffable connection with the divine. These are merely the side-effects of our rightly-placed worship in the only Person who is worthy of that worship.

And that person isn't you.

Thinking Allowed

I have been challenged recently (on several fronts -- some just internally) about the purpose and usefulness of Christian apologetics. I don't take the challenge lightly. Some who have challenged me have given me some food for thought about how I approach my Christian convictions and I take their critiques seriously. I know for a fact that I am prone to over think things and to be too quick to rely on my "head" to live out my convictions while I'm too slow to use my "hands" to serve others. No doubt about it.

But I would also challenge my hand-focused friends to consider that their works of service do not absolve them from thinking about their faith. It's the only way to make sure that our service has the proper foundation and that the Christianity we are presenting is an accurate view of the world. The whole discussion reminded me of a similar post from 5 years ago that I am re-posting here.

Because I try my best to adhere to the principle of being "tolerant of people, but intolerant of (bad) ideas," I will not identify the author of the following. I only quote said author to make a point about the self-defeating consequences of anti-intellectualism in the church. Check out this excerpt (sorry it is so long) from a book which contains a chapter entitled, "Confused Mind":

Reasoning Leads to Confusion

...O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves? ... Matthew 16:8 (KJV) 

A large percentage of God's people are admittedly confused. Why? As we have seen, one reason is wondering. Another is reasoning. The dictionary partially defines the word reason in the noun form as an "underlying fact or motive that provides logical sense for a premise or occurrence" and in the verb form as "to use the faculty of reason: think logically."

A simple way to say it is, reasoning occurs when a person tries to figure out the "why" behind something. Reasoning causes the mind to revolve around and around a situation, issue or event attempting to understand all its intricate component parts. We are reasoning when we dissect a statement or teaching to see if it is logical, and disregard it if it is not. 

Satan frequently steals the will of God from us due to reasoning ... What God leads a person to do does not always make logical sense to his mind. His spirit may affirm it and his mind may reject it ... 

Don't Reason in the Mind, Just Obey the Spirit 

... the realization of how easily we can be led by our heads and allow reasoning to keep us out of God's will provoked in me a "reverential" fear of reasoning.

Let me point out that this author "has been teaching the Word of God since 1976 and in ministry since 1980." This author is the prolific writer of "more than 70 inspirational books" and has "released thousands of audio teachings as well as a complete video library." This author can be heard on national radio broadcasts, seen on national TV programs almost every day, and travels nationwide speaking and doing teaching conferences. This author has influenced a whole lot of people. I don't want to disparage the writer. I'm sure the writer has helped many people and is motivated to do so for all the right reasons. But, in this specific case, this person is just plain wrong. The teaching offered here is deeply flawed and destructive to any Christ-follower who adheres to it. Unfortunately, many new and vulnerable minds do just that.

Where do I even begin with this one?

First, the Bible verse quoted in the section heading (shown above: Matthew 16:8) is taken completely out of context. In keeping with the precept that you should be leery of anyone using a single Bible verse to prove their point (for a great discussion of this precaution go here: "Never Read a Bible Verse"), I would challenge you to look up the actual passage from which this quote was lifted. When you do, you will find it in the middle of a chapter devoted to the story of Jesus' continuing confrontations with the religious leaders who felt his ministry threatened them and their base of power.

Having just performed a miraculous feeding of four thousand seekers from a few scraps of fish and bread, Jesus tells his disciples to "be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." The disciples, who having once again forgotten to bring bread with them (they are obviously slow learners -- like me), attribute Jesus' warning as being in reference to their failure in that regard. Exasperated when he overhears their discussion, Jesus utters the lifted quote. But let's look at the entire passage:

Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, "You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don't you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Does this passage in any way attribute confusion to the use of reason? Absolutely not! In fact, it does just the opposite. Jesus is admonishing his disciples to remember what has actually occurred, then think through what he said. Three times he challenges their understanding of his words. Finally, after thinking it through, they realize what he meant them to guard against -- the fallacious teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The entire story is an exhortation to examine the evidence, think carefully about His words, and from that deduce that actual meaning of what Jesus said.

In the words of the Christian philosopher Augustine, and completely contrary to the so-called insight of the author I quote above, this is a textbook example of "faith seeking understanding."

Second, the writer implies that wondering and reasoning are anti-Biblical.

This has absolutely no basis in Scripture. Would Cornelius, a "God-fearer," ever have been compelled to ask for Peter's intervention had he not been inquisitive about the vision he reported in Acts 10:3-4? Would Peter ever have recognized his commission to reach the Gentiles without his own vision (Acts 10:9-21)? This passage reports that Peter "was wondering about the meaning of the vision" as Cornelius' couriers approached his home. Why would God encourage Isaiah (Isaiah 1:18) to "let us reason together"? Why would Paul challenge those (1 Thessalonians 5:21) who questioned his teachings to "test everything. Hold on to what is good"? These are not tangential comments. They are at the heart of the Biblical worldview.

Try to think of a character in either testament who is not given evidence and reasons for believing in and trusting God. I can't think of any. I do, however, know that we are called to engage the world in a certain way ...

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

We are engaged in a battle of ideas. The Christian worldview is the most robustly evidenced-based, intellectually defensible, reality-coherent worldview that exists. Our call is to know, live, and defend that worldview. We do so because, in our humanity, we recognize that without a God who created and sustains the world, we are doomed to a meaningless existence. Though we may not know immediately why that is, we know that something is wrong. We wonder why that is. We seek answers. We pursue God with the mind he gave us. And though we will never know Him exhaustively in this life, we can reason our way to His truths and trust His answers because they are always aligned with the way the world He created really is.

Third, the writer implies that logic and clear thinking are destructive and contrary to "the will of God." 

To say this is to say that the Apostle Paul's entire life mission was contrary to the will of God. Take a look at Paul's missionary journeys. In nearly every town he visited, the first thing he did was approach the cultural and/or religious leaders (in most cases the Jewish leadership) and "reason with them from the Scriptures." In Romans 12, we are told to be "transformed by the renewing of [our] minds." This, Paul tells us, is our "spiritual act of worship." The word "spiritual" here is the Greek logikos which is (quite ironically) translated: "agreeable to reason, following reason, reasonable, logical."

The only way to defend the notion that clear, logical thinking is contrary to the will of God is to be caught up in the contemporary notion that faith and spiritual issues have been relegated to solitary confinement as "matters of the heart." Banished there, faith is left to flounder as a feelings-based inclination that is personal, private, and beyond the reach of intellectual discernment. But the "heart" in a Biblical sense is much more than that. It is the core of our being; the place where our will resides and our choices are made. For that reason, the fashionable trend of separating the heart from the mind is not only unbiblical, but dangerous. It leads to vacuous pronouncements like these (from the same writer, in the same book) ...

I once asked the Lord why so many people are confused and He said to me, "Tell them to stop trying to figure everything out, and they will stop being confused." I have found it to be absolutely true. Reasoning and confusion go together.

... There is a big difference in head knowledge and revelation knowledge ... I don't know about you, but I want God to reveal things to me in such a way that I know in my spirit that what has been revealed to my mind is correct. I don't want to reason, to figure and to be logical, rotating my mind around and around and issue until I am worn out and confused. I want to experience the peace of mind and heart that come from trusting in God, not in my own human insight and understanding.

Here you notice a couple of things. The author claims direct, personal communication with God. Claiming this personal, two-way chat line serves to not only further entrench the idea that faith is a private matter, it also becomes a convenient asset in making the claim irrefutable. Who would dare question such a thing?! Any skepticism automatically renders the questioner a bad guy while simultaneously absolving the claimant of any requirement to defend themselves.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say the author is being absolutely truthful -- God has spoken audibly. Why then, would the hearer need to resort to "knowing things in the spirit" or "experiencing peace of mind and heart?" Neither of these is required if one actually hears the voice of God audibly. This leads to a follow-on objection ...

Fourth, the author's use of the slogan "Just Obey in the Spirit," is one of many similar (and all-too-familiar in Christian circles) exhortations that contains no actual meaning.

Like other phrases I could name, this one has become part of a kind of Christian-speak that is thrown around but that no one outside the church (or inside it, for that matter) can define. It is an empty slogan.

Humor me for a second and think about it ... how does one "obey in the Spirit" without engaging the mind? I welcome comments from those who can explain to me just how that is done.

This is not just a trivial objection to the author's view. It is a dangerous precedent to set. If "obeying in the Spirit" requires nothing but an inner, peaceful feeling, it can be used to justify any belief, thought, or action. There is no way to critique such a thing ... unless one uses reason and logic to do so. But that, we are told, is not allowed. Do you see how adhering to such a view is not only self-serving, but can be disastrous for those who hold to these ideas?

Being that I have listed the problems I find with this kind of teaching in logical order, and made a reasoned case why I believe it to be not only wrong but destructive, I'm sure that some would point out that my thinking is exactly the kind of thing the author is talking about. I am a living, breathing incarnation of the flaws the author is addressing. But in making that accusation, my critics, like the author they defend, actually help me make the fifth and final point I would like to address.

Fifth, the author has written a book meant to make a logically persuasive case for the point of view being defended.

It always amazes me when folks write books meant to convince us all that there is no such thing as truth (so is their book true or not?); or that there is no such thing as an unbiased point of view (except theirs, of course); or that no one's "story" is any more authoritative than anyone else's (this is the strong-postmodern case for relativism); or, as in this case, that we shouldn't be using logic and reason. The idea that reason and logic are bad is dashed on the rocks of the very premise for which the author wrote the book. For that matter, it is the only reason anyone writes any book in the first place. They want to convince you that what they are saying is true by logically and persuasively arguing their case!

I do not critique the author quoted here lightly. I used to subscribe to some of the ideas myself. But once one sees the fallacies and dangers in this type of thinking, it is hard to ignore it and look the other way. This type of mindset is destructive to the church. It makes us look foolish to the world and it needs to be stopped. Not because we are capitulating to the ways of the world, but because we are defying the faculty of reason God gave us when He created us in His image.

The Extent Of Noah's Flood

My guess is that anyone who is in any way familiar with the Bible understands that the account of Noah’s flood entails that the entire Earth was engulfed in the deluge. This is the default position, so familiar that it is even familiar to non-Christians. It has become a part of our culture. One defense of the catastrophic nature of the event is that it appears within all kinds of differing cultures throughout history and around the world. This provides a powerful external (outside the Bible) argument in favor of the biblical story.

The YE view includes the global flood as part of its paradigm. In fact, it demands that the flood be global as a way of both accounting for every major geological feature on the earth (mountains, canyons etc.) and of bearing responsibility for all fossil evidence. This Global Inundation view is primarily based on a single Bible verse: Genesis 7:19 -- "[The waters] rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains (Hebrew: har) under the entire heavens (Hebrew: shamayim) were covered …"

Before I offer an alternate view, let me say that, unlike the YE view that requires adherence to this Global Inundation Model, there is no such monolithic demand for "orthodoxy" among OE supporters. The OE view is certainly consistent with it, but it also allows for evidence from science and from Scripture that goes against the Global Inundation Model. There are several points that seem to buttress the idea that the flood could have been a more localized event. Let me explain ...

There are actually four models for the flood that have been proposed

• Global Inundation
• Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Persian Gulf
• Mesopotamian Plain
• Black Sea Overflow

Though the last two seem to lack much support, it is important to realize why some have proposed them. The simple answer is that scientific models almost unanimously lack any explanation for not only where the amount of water required to cover the entire Earth could have come from, but where it could have gone. No one that I have ever heard address this problem has offered what I would consider a sufficient explanation. While YE proponents used to invoke some sort of "water canopy" that collapsed from above the earth, they seem to have abandoned that bizarre idea. And while they rightly propose that a majority of the water burst forth from below, I have yet to see a plausible solution for a source vast enough to cover the entire globe.

It is not just scientific doubt about the model that weighs against it. There is also positive evidence that the Global Inundation Model does not hold water (pun intended). The geological record gives us ice cores in northern Greenland and central Antartic as well as sediment cores in New Zealand, that reveal annual layers of deposits of sediment and ice stretching back several hundred thousand years. The age of the layers in these cores is not "assumed," we can count them. Not only that, we can check them against one another by locating global impact events such as the volcanic eruptions of Krakatoa and Vesuvius, along with elliptical variations in the Earth’s orbit. These kinds of events are recorded in the layers and thereby allow us to calibrate them with one another. If there was a global flood, the evidence for such an event would show up in each of these, yet, in those hundreds of thousands of years of calibrated evidence, there is no evidence for it.

That said, scientific skepticism can never be allowed to stand alone. As always, it must be weighed in conjunction with what the Bible has to say about it. In fact, the debate about this topic is not primarily scientific. It is biblical. And, once again, what the Bible has to say is debatable.

First, the Bible gives us ample evidence of "worldwide" events that we know were not global. Examples of this type of hyperbole include:

• Genesis 41:56-57 (Joseph and Egypt's famine)
• 1 Kings 4:34, 10:24 (“the whole world” visited Solomon)
• Acts 2:5 (“Men [were present] from every nation under heaven")
• Romans 1:8 (“your faith is proclaimed in all the world")
• Colossians 1:6 (“…as indeed in the whole world is bearing fruit”)

Second, the Hebrew words used in Genesis 7:19 are once again capable of carrying more than one meaning.
• har: hill, mountain, hill country, mount
• shamayim: heaven, heavens, sky, visible heavens

These obviously support the Global Inundation Model but, when considered from the point of view of Noah, this can also be a description of the hills under the visible sky surrounding the ark being covered by water. In other words, it could be taken to say that the earth was covered "as far as the eye could see." This is especially true given the other biblical passages that touch on the issue. For instance, each of the following are included in passages that refer to God's creation of a world that was originally covered by water (Genesis 1:2) but then separated from the land:

• Job 38:8-11 -- "[God] shut the sea behind doors… fixed limits for it … [and said] this far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt.")
• Psalm 104:9 -- "…[God] set a boundary [the waters] cannot cross; never again will they cover the Earth."
• 2 Peter 2:5 -- "… [God] brought the flood on its ungodly people …"

Concerning the first two of these, there are a couple of points to bring up. First, YE proponents have dismissed them (Job 38 and Psalm 104) because they are drawn from poetic literature and should not be allowed to override the "reinterpreting the clear meaning" of Genesis 7:19. But no one said these verses should "reinterpret" anything. Those who bring them up are simply offering these verses as part of the body of evidence from Scripture. This is not be a radical idea. The fact that this goes against the YE paradigm is not a reason to dismiss it.

Also, the authors of Old Earth Creationism on Trial want to claim that Psalm 104 cannot be referring to the originally created water world, but to the waters of the flood. They defend this idea by invoking Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible and Dr. John Whitcomb's, The World That Perished, claiming in part that this is the proper hermeneutic to use because "Psalm 104 was written long after the flood." The fact that the entire book of Genesis was written "long after the flood" or that the book of Job was most likely written before Genesis does not seem to have any bearing on the issue.

YE proponent like to refer to alternate views as "local flood" models. This suggests that the extent of the flood was small, not unusual, and therefore not in keeping with the obvious catastrophic nature of the biblical account. But this is a gross mischaracterization of alternate views. No "local flood" proponent believes that the flood was not a massive, one-of-a-kind event. But a more accurate description might be "regional." But this type of flood would be catastrophic and would also include the complete destruction of mankind (except for the 8 members of Noah's family on the Ark). Why do I say that? Because mankind had not yet spread over the entire Earth. In fact, that was part of the problem with man's disobedience.

Concerning the third passage (above: 2 Peter 2:5), we know from Scripture that God’s judgment is always limited to the extent of man's reprobation. Therefore, it would be perfectly within the bounds of interpretation to say that the flood, even if it were regional, would be capable of destroying all humanity  and every living thing that had been affected by human sin. But it also reveals the fact that all animals would not have to be destroyed simply because all animals had not had contact with humanity and were thereby unaffected by sin. There would be no moral reason, for instance, to destroy penguins in Antartica, polar bears in Canada, Chinese pandas, or kangaroos in Australia.

Here, another agonizing problem with the YE paradigm comes to light. YE scholars themselves have estimated the ark could have held about 30,000 pairs of animals. Yet the record shows that since the time of the flood there have been more than 7 million species of animals identified as having lived on the Earth. Today, we still know of about 5 million different species. We also know that God rested from the work of His creating after the 6th creation day. In other words, an unintended consequence of the YE view entails not just evolution, but some kind of hyper-evolution beyond anything Darwin could have ever imagined to account for the number of species of animal we find on the Earth today.

More educated men than I have debated this for a long time. Whether it was a regional or a worldwide flood is still up for debate, but I am prepared to announce that I can state unequivocally here on the True Horizon blog that I know the precise extent of Noah’s Flood. Here it is:

The Flood covered exactly as much of the Earth as it needed to cover to achieve God’s purposes.

That is one thing we know for sure. Again, the OE view does not depend on either model. I only offer these points to demonstrate that there are other ways to understand the flood that are biblically based … even if they do not fit the paradigm we all grew up with.

What Do You Mean By "Perfect?"

One of the most controversial aspects of the OE/YE debate is the topic of "death before the fall" of Adam and Eve. At the heart of this issue is the answer to the question about what God meant when He declared His creation "very good" in Genesis 1:31. On the YE view, there is no room for interpretation of this phrase. YE proponents insist that the OE view violates the very core of the Christian faith for if there was already death in the world God created, that would negate the very reason that Christ died on the cross.

These are serious issues and they deserve to be answered. I applaud and accept the challenge of the YE side on this because I fully understand their reluctance to accept the obvious OE implication that, if the Earth had been around for a few billion years before Adam and Eve showed up, that would entail a lot of "death before the fall." If the YE view is correct about the meaning of "very good" and the implications of death before the fall, the OE view would necessarily be false. We need to be very clear, and very careful, about how we approach this issue.

In order to do that, I want to first lay out a summary of what the YE position entails. I owe this to Mark Whorton's outstanding book, Peril in Paradise (p. 25-26), a book I would highly recommend to anyone who takes the OE/YE controversy seriously and wants to do a fair assessment of the issues. There are five basic tenets to what Mark calls "The Perfect Paradise Paradigm":

1. When God declared His finished creation "very good," He meant that it was perfect in every conceivable way.
2. Eden was the embodiment of the Creator's ideal intent for His creation.
3. Man's sin thwarted God's plan, shattered His ideal intent, and ruined all of His perfect creation.
4. God introduced the physical death of man and animals as a punishment for sin.
5. God instituted the plan of redemption to reverse the effects of Adam's sin and restore all things back to their original intent.

So, with these in mind, I want to look at a few aspects of this (you can read the book if you want to get a full treatment of the issues).

First, let me say that the first point (above) is obviously false. I say this for several reasons …

• Satan was in the garden
• The garden contained the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
• 1 Corinthians 2:9 tells us that: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."
• Adam and Eve saw and experienced the Garden of Eden.
• This entails that whatever God has in store for us is better than what Adam and Eve saw, heard, or conceived ...
• Therefore, the Garden of Eden could not have been "perfect."
• Adam was always required to tend to the Garden -- the fall did not impose that work on him, it just made it more difficult.
• The curse on Eve did not originate the pain of childbirth, it increased the pain she would experience.

Folks, these are indicators that the place could not have represented "absolute perfection." Satan, and evil, and pain cannot exist in any place that God says is "perfect." But there is an even more obvious problem with this notion of "very good" -- so obvious, it is hard to imagine why we would even have to talk about it -- and it is this: "Very Good" does not mean "perfect."

The Hebrew phrase used here is meod tob. This phrase is used elsewhere in various circumstances but Genesis 1:31 is the only place in Scripture where some have interpreted it to mean "absolute perfection." Why would that be?

Because it is being improperly forced to fit the paradigm.

I don't know how else to put it.

Now, it is also obvious that the Garden was a unique and specially protected place that defies our imagination. But the flaw in the Perfect Paradise Paradigm is that it assumes these conditions also existed outside the Garden. But think about it for a second. Why would the Garden need to be specially protected if the whole creation was "perfect?" Secondly, where is the Scriptural evidence to support this idea? The truth is that it is nowhere to be found in the text.

There are several other logical difficulties that stem from this idea ... and they are not trivial. For instance:
Animals cursed by death: The YE view's demand that there was no animal death before the fall stands in part on the notion that God imposed death on them as a result of the fall. But, once again, this idea is foreign to the text. Romans 5:12 tells us specifically that death was imposed on "all men." Animals are never mentioned. [On a side note, it is interesting that, when addressing this issue in their book, Old Earth Creationism on Trial, the authors quote the beginning part of this verse to make their point that "there was absolutely no death before Adam sinned. Romans 5:12 states, 'Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin ...'". Notice that they conveniently leave out the remainder of the verse which states that "... and in this way death came to all men."

Carnivores: According to the YE Perfect Paradise, there could not have been carnivorous behavior before the fall. All those animals that we recognize as carnivores now, must have only been herbivorous before. The claim is that they simply changed their "behavior" by "degenerating" into herbivores after the fall. "Carnivorous digestive systems are fundamentally distinct from herbivore systems ... herbivores are able to digest cellulose that forms the cell walls of plant while carnivores are not ... carnivores can survive without a stomach. Herbivores cannot. Carnivores can survive without microorganisms, Herbivores cannot. Carnivores can survive without plant food. Herbivores cannot." A carnivore like a lion is a finely-tuned eating machine that depends on specific instinct, musculature, anatomical makeup, physiology and biochemical makeup. These are fundamentally different animals than the creatures that would have existed prior to the fall under the YE paradise formula.

Defense Mechanisms: Creatures like the bombardier beetle have always been favorites of creationists (of all stripes) because of the incredible design they exhibit in their ability to defend themselves. But why would such a creature need to defend itself before the fall if there was no death or violence to threaten them? Did a porcupine not have quills? Did a skunk not spray? Did sea urchins not have spines? Did snakes not have venom and fangs? The list of preposterous suggestions can go on and on.

Immune Systems: According to the YE paradigm, there would be no need for immunity because there was nothing to that could threaten living things with death through disease. Yet, these are sophisticated systems that work within the physiological makeup and energy resources of the body in an integrated way.

Extreme Habitats: There are countless examples of organisms of all kinds that are specially adapted to the environments in which they live. Not only so, but these are parts of larger eco-systems that are also specially designed to support their inhabitants and the food chains they support. In a non-threatening, perfect paradise, this makes absolutely no sense.

There are more examples and these are fatal flaws for the YE/Perfect Paradise Paradigm -- but they are not the most troubling. To me, the most harmful part of the paradigm is the implication it gives regarding the character of God, His sovereignty, and His omniscience.

This view implies that God created what He thought was the perfect world for humanity to enjoy, but His intent was undermined by free will humans who shattered what God had set up and thereby forced Him to institute a new plan of redemption to restore the creation to the way He actually intended it to be. Notice that in this scenario, man has thwarted God's intended purpose for the creation.

I don't think so.

The OE view adheres to what can be called The Perfect Purpose Paradigm. On this view, even as we accept the special status of the Garden of Eden, we also recognize that its very existence as a protected habitat implies that the much greater area outside it infers that their was a reason it needed to be protected. The incredibly integrated design we see in nature today was not the result of some enormous reaction on God's part to completely alter His original creation. Instead, in His perfect omniscience and foreknowledge, He designed the world this way, knowing exactly how He would use it to serve His purposes. Where the YE view insists that suffering and evil defy God's purpose and are only the undesirable result of man's sin, the OE view recognizes that suffering and evil are only here for a little while (as compared to eternity) and lead to accomplishing God's eternal purpose. This is the model we see throughout the Bible in the lives of Job, Moses, Pharaoh, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, the nation of Israel, Paul and, yes, even Jesus.

Under the Perfect Purpose Paradigm, God's labeling the creation "very good" is a value judgment that should be seen in light of an end which is much greater than our enjoyment of this life alone. Instead, it was meant to employ His image bearers to conquer darkness/evil and thereby achieve our real purpose: to glorify Him forever. In this light, God's plan of redemption is not a Plan 'B' that was instituted in reaction to our unforeseen rebellion. Instead it was the plan from before the beginning of time. Suffering and evil are here for a little while but serve only to lead us to a part of accomplishing the eternal purpose that God has always intended. If we insist on putting something perfect on it, "very good" means "perfectly suited to the purpose for which God intended it."

Ironically, the YE claim that the OE view negates the reason for Jesus' sacrificial death is turned on its head. If a "perfect" Eden was the chief end of the creation, there would be no need for a Redeemer. On the OE view, the chief end for all of us is yet to be seen New Heavens and a New Earth. That is a paradigm to live for.

What A Difference A Yôm Makes

One of the central features of the Old Earth-Young Earth debate is the meaning of the word that has been translated as "day" in the Genesis creation account. So, when approaching this issue, it is important to first be clear about what the word even means ... and that, like many other questions of Biblical interpretation, begins with the realization that we are used to dealing with English, which contains many times more words than the Hebrew language, which only contains a few thousand. This means that Hebrew nouns almost all have multiple meanings. The word for "day" is no different.

The Definition(s) of "day"

There are several definitions of the word "day":
1. A partial day
2. The daylight hours
3. A calendar, or solar, day
4. a working day, a day's journey
5. days, lifetime (plural)
6. year
7. a definitive time, a period of time with a beginning and an end
8. any temporal reference

There is no separate word for epoch or era as we have in English. If you wanted to talk about an epoch or era, you would use the word yôm (see: definition #7). Though the word ôlam could be used to describe something like "a long time," it is an indefinite word that would constitute something like saying "once upon a time" or "a time long, long ago."

The point is that when an OE creationist says that the "days" of Genesis 1 can be "long periods of time," she is in fact using a literal definition of the word yôm! Likewise, when YE defenders attempt to claim the spiritual/Scriptural high ground by insisting that only they accept a clear, literal interpretation of the text, this is simply not the case. All the OE view says is that it is perfectly acceptable to interpret the word “day” as a long period of time – an interpretation that is actually used in exactly that way in several other places in Scripture. As an OE proponent, I too accept a clear, literal interpretation of the text. I just happen to think the days in question are specified periods of time which God used to perform his creative acts.

And it just happens that the interpretation I defend also takes into account the clear reality of God's General Revelation through nature about the age of the universe.

There are several things to consider here … each of which support the OE view

First, three of these definitions of "day" are used in the Genesis creation account itself. The most common is definition #2, "the daylight hours," which, incidentally, is not the definition most YEs defend as being literal and clear in the creation account (they usually insist on definition # 3 above).

Second, how does the "literalist" YE proponent interpret the use of yôm in the following:

Genesis 2:4: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens ..." This is quite obviously a summary of the creation account that looks back at God’s creative work and summarizes the entire creation week with … you guessed it … yôm. Here, the entire week is referred to as a "day."

Genesis 2:17: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." How does the "literalist" YE defender deal with this? Adam did not die during the 24-hour period after he ate the fruit of the tree. In fact, he didn't die until over 900 years later!

What kind of "day" are you talking about?

Another point that YE folks claim is that the Sun, Moon and stars were not created until Day 4. So, if this is the case, just how are we to understand those who insist that these days were "normal calendar days as we experience them now" if there was no Sun to mark and define the first three days? How would we know when the days started and finished? The explanation we are given is this:

Where did the light come from? We are not told, but Genesis 1:3 certainly indicates it was light created to provide day and night until God made the sun on Day 4 to rule the day He had made. Revelation 21:23 tells us that one day the sun will not be needed, because the glory of God will light the heavenly city. (Ken Ham, editor, The New Answers Book, p. 102)

But notice that this is really no explanation at all. All it really is is a perfect example of how YE folks read the text into their paradigm instead of reading what the words actually say. No OE creationist claims there was no light prior to creation day 4. That's not the question. The question is how are the solar/calendar days counted? If these are normal days as YE folks demand, there would have to be a way to mark them. God's providing light in the same way He will in the new heaven and new earth of Revelation does nothing to mark the days. In fact, Revelation 22:5 specifically states that "there will be no more night" in the new heaven and earth, so the attempt to compare God's light in the new creation to the "regular days" of Genesis 1 is completely unfounded.

In addition to this, there is absolutely no plausible scientific explanation for the completely catastrophic event that would have occurred if the Sun, moon and stars, suddenly and out of nowhere, popped into existence beside and already existing Earth. This is not to say that God could not have done such a thing if He wanted to. That's not the issue. Of course He could have. The question is whether or not there is any evidence that He did so.

In the end, the YE paradigm is just as deficient in its explanation of Scripture as it is of nature.

Instead of putting forth these kinds of "just-so stories," the OE view offers a completely different take that is a perfectly consistent and straightforward explanation for this apparent conundrum -- one that pays attention to the actual meanings of the Hebrew words involved in this passage and is also compatible with the real world record of nature.

As it turns out, the Hebrew word translated "made" in Genesis 1:16 ("God 'made' two great lights ...") is the word 'asah. This is not the same word that is used to describe God's "creating" (Hebrew: bara) in Genesis 1:1 (the heavens and the earth), 1:21 (the 'soulish' creatures, nephesh), and 1:27 (man). Each of these instances refers to the creation of something -- which did not exist before -- out of nothing. Asah, on the other hand means "to fashion" and is also placed in a tense that connotes a past, completed action. Additionally, the phrase used in verses 14 and 15 ("let the lights be...") is yet another Hebrew word, haya. This, combined with the past completed action of asah, makes it completely within the bounds of interpretation to say that the sun, moon and stars were already created during day one of the creation account, but did not become visible to an Earth-bound observer until the atmosphere had thinned enough to "let the lights be seen" and "give their light upon the Earth."

When you take this interpretation and compare it to the record of how the Earth was formed, the comparison is astonishingly accurate. The scientific data reveals that the Earth began with a thick, opaque atmosphere that gradually, through the combined actions of the brightening Sun and maturing vegetation, thinned from opaque, to translucent, and finally into the transparent atmosphere we have today -- exactly in line with the Scriptural interpretation above.

Are we just capitulating to science?

YE folks like to claim that this idea that the universe is old did not even exist until modern science began insisting on it in the last century or so. Even if this were so, it has no bearing on the facts. All it would mean was that our enhanced understanding of nature allowed us to clarify the meaning of Scripture just as it did with the "fixed and immovable Earth" and the belief of Augustine mentioned in my earlier post. But  the truth is that this is not a new interpretation that has been made up only to appease modern scientific theories. Ancient thinkers also had questions about the "clear meaning" of the days of Genesis:

• Philo (10 BC-50 AD) believed that Genesis had more to do with principles of order and arrangement than with the length of time involved.
• Justin Martyr (103-165) and Irenaeus (late 2nd century AD) were early church fathers who both suggested that the days may have been long epochs.
• Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD), like Philo, believed that creation could not take place in time at all since "time was born along with things which exist." He understood the days to communicate the priority of created things, not their timing.
• Origen (185-254 AD) thought it was unreasonable to suggest that the first three days could have been counted without the moon and stars which weren’t created until the 4th day.
• Augustine (354-430 AD) thought that what was plainly obvious was that we could not know, or explain in words, what the "days" meant but that "at least we know that [the Genesis day] is different from the ordinary day with which we are familiar."

One of these days is not like the others

One point that those who hold the YE paradigm often skip over is this: Each of the days of Genesis ends with the phrase, "and there was evening and there was morning the x day." But what about the 7th day? The phrase is not there. And there is a perfectly logical explanation for this found within the OE view. It is the idea that the 7th "day" has not ended yet! We are still living in it. There are actually two lines of evidence that support this view.

Scripture mentions this notion in Hebrews 4:1-11 when it speaks of our being able to "enter God’s rest." The implication is that God’s rest began after He completed His creative work on the 6th day and continues to the present. Science also confirms this idea. Since mankind came on the scene, no new species have appeared in the fossil record. We have only discovered animals that have gone extinct. In other words, a study of nature through science once again confirms the Scriptural idea that God is "resting from the work of His creating."

Uncannily consistent

While the OE interpretation of the 4th and 7th days is uncannily consistent between the record of nature and the record of Scripture, the similarities do not stop there. In just the last five years, newly discovered evidence reveals even further alignment between the two. Studies in plate tectonics show that continental land masses emerged above the original water world a little over halfway between when the Earth formed and the present day ... just as the Scripture says that God separated the earth and sea during creation day 3.

Another conundrum has always been that Scripture claims God created plants prior to animals while the scientific record seemed to deny this. As it turns out plants, which have no bones to fossilize, are extremely difficult to uncover in the record of nature. That is until just last year when researchers discovered evidence of plants dated to nearly 600 million years ago -- a time just prior to the first recorded emergence of animal life on Earth during the so-called Cambrian Explosion which occurred about 540 million years ago.

While YE proponents continue to defend unsupportable models (both Scripturally and scientifically) of the reality of the world we live in, the OE view continues to present a perfectly logical, acceptable and astonishingly accurate compatibility between the two. I find it hard to comprehend why any creationist would continue to deny and demean that obvious compatibility.

Challenging the Young Earth Paradigm

Science tells us that the universe is about 14.6 billion years old and that the Earth is much younger but still about 4 billion years old. This is a shocking thing to say in most conservative Christian circles but there is no getting around it. In fact, several YE proponents including John Morris, President of the Institute for Creation Research, acknowledged during radio interviews in the early 1990s that they had never met a scientist who became convinced on the basis of science alone that the universe or Earth is only thousands of years old.

Think about that for a minute. Not a single scientist looks at the world around us and, on the basis of an honest pursuit of truth, comes to the conclusion based on that evidence alone that the universe or Earth is only a few thousand years old. Are all these scientists radically anti-Christian? Are they all engaged in a massive cover-up? Are they all just plain lying? The fact is that many of these scientists claim to be Christians. Are they heretics, sold out to a godless view of the world?

Doesn't it just seem reasonable to at least consider why they say that? I think so.

The YE view claims that a clear, plain reading of the text is that God created everything in six ordinary 24-hour days. In fact, it may surprise you to know that I agree!

The problem is that the plain, first impression reading we get from Scripture is not always correct.

For instance, it used to be accepted fact that the “The earth [was] fixed and unmovable.” After all, this is the "clear, plain reading of the text" in: 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 104:5, and 1 Samuel 2:8. Each of these clearly say that the earth is fixed in space and immovable. In addition, Psalm 19:4-6, Ecclesiastes 1:5 clearly state that the Sun rises and sets and moves in a circuit across the heavens. Yet today we know that this idea of a fixed earth, which seemed to be clearly and plainly taught in Scripture, is not the case. How do we know that? We learned something from science that changed the paradigm that had been accepted for centuries, namely that the Earth not only moves in an orbit around the Sun, but also rotates and thereby gives the clear impression that the Sun moves across the sky. The Bible was not wrong; we were just misinterpreting what it said.

It was by this same kind of misreading of Scripture that St. Augustine was convinced that people could not live on the other side of the world:

“But as to the fable that there are … men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets on us, that is on no ground credible … For Scripture … gives no false information; and it is too absurd to say, that some men might have taken a ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from that one first man.”

Augustine based this idea on a clear, plain reading of Scripture that could not possibly allow such a thing -- an interpretation that later proved the fallibility of Augustine's interpretation, not a fallibility in the Biblical text.

What I am suggesting is that we have to at least consider the idea that if the science seems to be telling us one thing about the world, it is possible that our view of Scripture which denies that fact should be considered more carefully. I am not saying that we just abandon the clear, plain meaning of the text. I am saying that intellectual honesty compels us to re-examine it. Here's why ...

The Bible never once tells us the age of the Earth or the universe. The idea that they are only 6000 years old comes from a paradigm that was put in place by Anglican Archbishop James Ussher in 1650. Ussher, meticulously analyzing the genealogies of Genesis, Exodus, 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles, calculated the exact day of the creation of the universe to be October 3, 4004 BC. When he did, a paradigm was born and most Christians have been clinging to it ever since. The YE view is based on an interpretation that takes the immediately apparent meaning of “day” in Genesis 1, and then forces everything else to fit it. Those who hold to the paradigm believe that to give it up is to reject the truth of Christianity itself and so they understandably – and ferociously – cling to the paradigm.

May I suggest that instead of clinging to a paradigm, we strive to look at what the Bible actually says. Not only that, but in areas where theology and science overlap, we should do our best to reconcile what they are telling us because both are interpretations of God's revelation to us. When we do this, the reality and compatibility of the Bible with the world we live in become astonishingly clear and compelling. The tension disappears.

As stated in my previous post, the OE Case stands on what theologians refer to as Dual Revelation, the idea is that God reveals Truth to us in two ways, through Nature and through Scripture. Both of these are error free.

We interpret Scripture through the study of theology

We interpret Nature through the study of science

The key is that both theology and science are human interpretations and therefore both are subject to error. They overlap in some areas and in those areas, if they seem to conflict it is our duty to determine where, and which, of our interpretations has gone wrong. What we cannot do is demand that some 17th century paradigm about the age of the Earth somehow trumps a detailed and honest study of nature.

I will show later that there are perfectly acceptable -- and, yes, literal -- interpretations of the Bible that allow for either the YE view or the OE view to be true. At the same time, science tells us that the Earth is old. So if the Bible allows for either interpretation, and science seems to be clear about the OE interpretation, it is perfectly legitimate to conclude that the universe is old while still respecting the authority of Scripture.

That is the OE case in a nutshell and it doesn't seem that unreasonable a position to take. It certainly would not be fair to label OE a godless endeavor practiced by those who have no respect for the Bible. My hope is that my YE friends understand this and respect my high view of Scripture in the same way I accept theirs.