Why the Bible does not teach Young Earth Creationism and Theistic Evolution is Unscientific - In my opinion!
The doctrine of creation can be a very contentious issue among Christians. In fact the Facebook Group UK Apologetics & Evangelism has banned discussion of the topic because it caused so much rancour! However, another Facebook Group I am a member of, The Hall of Dogma, has a much more mature approach and we normally manage to disagree about things without it dissolving into a fist fight. Biblical discussion is also mixed in with a fair amount of nonsense/fun talk as well.
Recently someone in the group asked what people’s views were on creation. There are a range of views, and I said I was on Old Earth Creationist, I reject Young Earth Creationism on Biblical grounds, and Theistic evolution on scientific grounds. This remark caused some interest, as it was designed to do, and I was asked to explain myself, so here is my explanation!
Let me start by saying two things. First, I will split the various views on creation into three groups, with a brief summary:
- Young Earth Creationism (YEC) - the world is a few thousand years old and the days in Genesis 1 are six twenty four hour days.
- Old Earth Creationism (OEC) - the universe and the earth are very old (billions of years), but creation is a deliberate, purposeful act of God.
- Theistic Evolutionary Creationism (TEC) - this view broadly accepts evolutionary theory, but sees it as the means, or part of the means, that God used in creation.
Within each of these groups there are a host of variations, and some people will not fit neatly into any of them, but I will stick with these groups to make discussion manageable.
The second thing, and this is very important, there are good Christians within each of these groups. Within the church that I go to I have friends who hold to each of these views. It should perhaps also be noted that each of these groups has its fair selection of nutters as well, but that’s life! Anyway, I might say some fairly direct things, but if you disagree with me that does not mean I don’t think you are a Christian!
What is really important
Let me split this into two parts. First, here are some basic truths about creation:
- Everything, seen and unseen, was created by God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit)
John 1:3, Col 1:16
- Everything was created good.
Genesis 1:10,12,18,21,24,31
- Mankind is unique, we are God’s special creation, made in His image.
Genesis 1:26-30
- The whole of creation is utterly dependent upon God for its continued existence
Acts 17:28
- We were created on purpose and for a purpose
Gen 1:26-30
- All mankind is corrupted by sin and this is the root of all our problems, and has affected creation.
Rom 3:23, 8:20,21
These are the things that really matter about creation, these facts are foundational to my life, to my worldview. And I would guess that most or all of us who believe the Bible would accept them.
The second part of this essay in one sense doesn’t really matter at all! But it could be fun, so please read on.
What is not so important, but might be interesting
I will now explain my statement on why I reject YEC on Biblical grounds and TEC on scientific grounds. I am not saying this to try and “convert” anyone, just to make you think. I don’t really care if you agree with me or not on these matters, I could even be wrong, and it wouldn’t really bother me. The stuff in the “What is really important” section above is what I really care about, and what I want people to believe.
Why I reject YEC on Biblical grounds
I said this to be provocative because there are some Christians who are YECs sometimes adopt a superior attitude, or accuse those who are OEC or TEC as being less faithful to the Bible, and putting science before the Word.
So why do I reject YEC on Biblical grounds? The most fundamental reason is that I just don’t think that when God wrote Genesis 1 & 2 what he was thinking was “what these guys really need to know is that I completed the whole job in 6 days flat”. I believe it is the order of creation and the purposefulness of creation, along with our place in it that God wants to communicate. These ideas completely contradict the “creation myths” that various civilisations had. These tended to see us as the by-product of wars between various gods, or as us being created as slaves for gods. The Biblical account is utterly different. Interestingly, exactly the same applies today. What is the most common “creation” view of atheism? It sees us as the product of random chance, not that much of an advance over us being the by-product of god-fights.
There are also objections within the text itself. One of the most well-known is how could we have day and night or twenty four hour days when there was no sun and moon until day 4? In Genesis 4 onwards there seem to be people around for whom no account is given in Genesis 1 and 2. So Genesis is not seeking to give a complete “scientific” explanation. Another objection is what about the 6th day? We read in Genesis 2 of all the things that happened on day 6. That was one heck of a day! For instance, God brought all the animals to Adam to see if any of them were a suitable companion (which, by the way, means that if God had brought a labrador along Eve might never have been created!). How did all this happen in a single day? What was going on, some sort of speed dating session? You can give answers of a sort to all these things, but my point is that a so-called literal reading of Genesis 1 and 2 raises serious questions and may not actually be that literal at all.
But what about the criticisms of OEC and TEC that YEC folk sometimes raise? One is that if you start doubting Genesis 1 and 2 where will the doubting stop? Well there are two things that can be said. First, I would say that I am not doubting Genesis 1 and 2, but taking them in the way they were intended. Secondly, a point of testimony. For a long time I didn’t pay much attention to the age of the earth etc. I started to look at the matter in some depth about six or seven years ago, and I have an OEC view. Since then Genesis 1-3 are absolutely foundational to my thinking, and will often form the basis for my preaching. For instance, a few months ago I preached on “Gender, sex and marriage” and it mostly based on Genesis 1 and 2. So if someone says not believing in YEC means you will doubt the Bible then quite simply that person is talking complete garbage.
Another objection is that OEC and TEC are giving science priority over the Word. The negative answer to this is again that Genesis 1 is not teaching a 6 24 hour day creation, but let’s be more positive. The Bible tells us that creation declares the glory of God, God tells us to have dominion over the earth and to explore it (eg naming the animals). Doing this, my assessment of the scientific evidence from various branches of science is that the evidence for an old earth and universe is compelling. It could still be wrong, but it seems reasonable to me, and I do not see any conflict between an old universe and the Bible. But looking at the world and drawing conclusions from soundly based evidence and deductions is not unbiblical. OEC is sometimes criticised on the grounds that it assumes uniformity over time. Yes it does, and this could be wrong. However, the Bible would actually seem to lend credence to assuming constancy over time.
None of this is meant to be a complete statement on matters, there are many questions , and other points of view. It is just intended to explain my thinking.
Rejecting Evolution on Scientific Grounds
So why do I reject the TEC view on scientific grounds, when most people would expect it to be rejected on theological grounds? Well, while there are theological problems with TEC, there are also theological problems with YEC and OEC, in general I could see how TEC could be consistent with the Bible. In Gen 2:7 it says God created Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. One could see this as saying God used “natural” processes (which would still have been created by God!) to create our physical being, but then breathed life into us to create our spiritual being. This isn’t meant to be a watertight argument, just to show that TEC is not necessarily at odds with the Bible.
There are of course other arguments against evolution, but please don’t mention the one about “God not using a chance process”. This argument is absolutely worthless. It is perfectly possible to use a process that involves a lot of randomness to achieve a specific goal, ie to use it as part of a purposeful process. And I say that as a mathematician.
So why do I reject TEC on scientific grounds? Well I have listened to theistic evolutionists and their books, and have read books by atheistic evolutionists and am utterly unconvinced. Now let me say what I do not have a problem with. I do not have a problem with God using a mechanism (or mechanisms) that can be explained in scientific terms. Nor do I necessarily have problem with common descent.
So what are the scientific problems? Many and numerous! The Intelligent Design people have posed many serious challenges, so go there if you really want a detailed sensible critique, I will just mention a few things.
First, there is an awful lot of hand-waving goes on in evolutionary arguments. Ie they rarely explain fully or convincingly how life forms developed. Secondly, in the world we see today, and can test and examine, mutations are almost always deleterious. So why are they so able to cause such successful developments of life forms? The probabilities also seem to be massively against evolution. Moreover, many of the examples of evolutionary development of lifeforms are utterly trivial. There seem to be no real examples of significant lifeform development. In the course of my studies I read “Why Evolution is True” by Jerry Coyne, an ardent atheistic evolutionist. The book is very interesting but I will take a final example of why I reject evolution from that book. At one point he refers to some bees in Asia (Japan I think) who get attacked by wasps. They have developed a defence mechanism that essentially involves them swarming over the wasp and cooking it! This is presented as evidence for evolution, but there is no explanation at all of how this behaviour developed by evolution. How did it happen gradually? It is clearly an all or nothing process. This is just typical of some of the arguments presented by evolutionists, ie so-called evidence presented without any proper explanation at all.
Anyway, I have said quite enough, maybe more than enough. No doubt many will disagree with me, I hope you do. If you do want to know more about these matters here are some resources from all three camps:
Some Resources
Young Earth View
Book
Creation & Change : Discovering God in Creation - Kelly Douglas F, Mentor (1997)
Website
Answers in Genesis https://answersingenesis.org/
Old Earth Creationist/Intelligent Design
Books
Seven Days that Divide the World - John Lennox, Zondervan (2011)
A Matter of Days: Resolving a Creation Controversy - Hugh Ross , Navpress (2004)
Darwin’s Doubt - Stephen Meyer, HarperOne, (2013)
Website
Discovery Institute http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/idtf/
Theistic Evolution
Book
Creation and Evolution - Denis Alexander, Monarch Books(2008)
Website
Biologos http://biologos.org/
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