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Spectrum of Beliefs on Evolution, Creation and Literalism
January 14, 2008 |
Posted by vancemac · Filed Under Creation/Evolution, Bibliology
There is currently a spectrum of belief among Christians regarding the origins and nature of the universe and Mankind, ranging from those who cling to a flat-earth (very rare) and a geocentric universe (still with some vocal proponents), all the way to a form of theistic evolution in which God created in such a way that it all happened naturally. Needless to say, this has become a major topic of debate, for good or ill, and I think it is useful to survey the broad spectrum of beliefs held by devout, Bible-believing Christians. Kind of viewing the “playing field”, so to speak.
These positions are very often tied to how literally one reads Scripture and the degree to which one is willing to allow the evidence of God’s Creation (scientific discovery) to inform their beliefs about that Creation. Ultimately, it is not a debate about whether to believe what the Bible says (since even Theistic Evolutionists believe what the Bible says), but rather how to understand what the Bible says. Think of the spectrum running from left to right, as I diagram below. What is important is to keep in mind that everyone other than number 1 has allowed a certain degree of scientific knowledge to inform and influence their interpretation of Scripture (whether they know it or not). Each position looks at the one to the left of them and says that they are reading Scripture too literally, and looks at the one to the right and says they are not reading Scripture literally enough, and letting scientific conclusions influence their interpretation (and sometimes thinking they do not do that at all). Here is the spectrum generally, you can review the descriptions further below to see what each refers to:
1.FE 2.Geo 3.YEC 4.Gap(OEC) 5.Progressive(OEC) 6.TE1 7.TE2 8.TE3
(note: the Intelligent Design position could apply to any of these, other than possibly TE 3).
For example, the geocentrist would say that the flat-earther is being hide-bound and overly conservative in his reading of Scripture, but would say that the young earth creationist simply does not trust Scripture’s “plain meaning” and has allowed himself to be influenced by scientific “discoveries” regarding the relation between the earth and the rest of the solar system. The YEC would, in turn, say the exact same thing about the Old Earth Creationist, and so on.
The important point is that it is a sliding scale of interpretive philosophy, not a black and white “God says it, I believe it, that settles it” for anyone other than number 1. And there are very few of them left! So, it is not a matter of whether you allow scientific knowledge to inform your interpretive process, simply a question of how much. If you are not a flat-earther, you are allowing scientific evidence to influence your interpretation of Scripture to some extent.
So, let’s look at the spectrum! See where you land:
1. Flat-earthers - believe that a plain reading of Scripture indicates that the earth is flat. Very few still hold onto this belief.
2. Geocentrists - believe that the sun and all the stars literally revolve around a fixed and unmoving earth. Still a surprising number of these around, although it suffered a major setback after the late 60’s. They have a plethora of Scripture and theological bases to argue from, however, and insist that a literal reading of Scriptures requires geocentrism.
3. Young Earth Creationists - believe that the earth and universe are both young (less than 10,000 years old) and that all the diversity of species is the result of special creation, based on a literal reading of Scripture (even if not AS literal as those above).
4. Gap Theorists (a form of Old Earth Creationism) - Believe that the earth and universe were created at the time science says, but that God created Man and all the animals at the “young earth” time frame (with a huge “gap” in between. Some believe this is a “re-creation”, God having scrapped an earlier version (dinosaurs, etc).
5. Progressive Creationists (aka “Day-Age Creationists”, another form of OEC)- Believe that the earth and universe were created at the time science says, but that each “day” in Genesis referred to an indefinite period of time. Genesis is an historically and scientifically literal account (using that alternate form of the word “day”), just that it happened over a VERY long time period.
6. Theistic Evolutionists (with a literal Adam and Eve) - believe in an old earth and universe, and accept that God used evolution as part of His creation, basically as science describes it. But they feel that there was a literal Adam and Eve in a literal Garden. Some attribute this Adam and Eve to an instance of special creation, others to election as “representatives”, etc. Also believe in biogenesis, not abiogenesis.
7. Theistic Evolutionists (no literal Adam and Eve, but biogenesis) - believe that Man evolved along with the other species (pursuant to God’s plan), but that the initial spark of life was immediately God induced. Some even push this forward to some mass special creation of a variety of “kinds” around the Cambrian period, with all the species evolving from there.
8. Theistic Evolutionists (abiogenesis) - God created everything and established the full system of natural laws upon with the universe and the earth would work. And it did work, entirely naturally, as God intended. With life arising at the time and place He had known it would, etc. So, here the “abiogenesis” would not mean that life arose without God, only that God built how life would first arise right into the “program”. This is not “deism”, however, since it says nothing at all about God interacting with and even directly intervening in His creation at any point in time (such as a particular event 2000 years ago, for example).
A bit of a side category is the Intelligent Design movement of recent years. This asserts that whatever you accept about creation, there is firm evidence that the universe and the earth in particular were designed with specific intelligence, by a designer, and not happening entirely naturally. Those holding this opinion come in each of the flavors mentioned above (other the last one, presumably), although the most recent and influential of these have been essentially Theistic Evolutionists of the first or second variety (whether they would claim that title or not). Also, some Theistic Evolutionists prefer the term Evolutionary Creationists.
So, where do you fit in, at least tentatively? Have you ever found yourself pointing to those on either side and saying “you are just reading it too literally” and “you are letting science control your decision!”?
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I like your spectrum and what you said about it being a matter of how *much* you let science influence you, not *if* you do. I’d put myself somewhere around 4 or 5, but would also include several interpretations that you don’t list here. That is quite a shift considering my grandparents were taught #1 both in church and in a government-funded private school in the early 1900’s.
BTW, if anyone is interested, I have a 7-hour lecture series in MP3 format on this topic. Drop me a line at daniele at reclaimingthemind.org and I’ll send you the URL where you can download it. They’re free.
Thanks for the comment and feel free to add in any variations I left out. I tried to get the major ones, and to show a progression of literalism, but there may be many, especially among the OEC flavors.
That is interesting about your grandparents. I remember reading a tract as a kid in the early 70’s that I picked up at our church (my dad was the pastor). It talked about how Scripture described the universe as geocentric, and that this whole Copernican “earth revolves around the sun and spins on its axis” stuff was just unproven scientific theories designed to destroy the Bible’s credibility. I immediately went to my dad and asked him about it, since it did not sound right to me. He was really not sure (never having given it serious thought, just toe-ing the party line) but said he would look into it. He came back and said that the tract had been written in the mid-60’s and that it ended up being wrong. From that point forward, I realized that EITHER side could be wrong, and that we must avoid dogmatism on such issues.
My grandparents were some of the founding members of Zion, IL. It was a unique place, to say the least. A flat earth was one of the core beliefs of the church there. As far as the different views of Genesis go, I cover a dozen or so in the lecture. Most are from an old presentation that Rob Bowman did for the Atlanta Christian Apologetics Project many years ago. Their web site is now gone, but the presentation data is archived at http://tinyurl.com/37u68d
I would call myself a 5+.
I try to take the approach that both God’s Word and the record of nature are both 100% accurate in proper context and design. Thus they are both fully supportive in seeking God’s Truth.
Therefore both must fully support each other. So when seeking to find God’s Truth in either, we must attempt to understand the context of the written word and ensure accurate, unbiased, and thorough testing as to the record of nature. When both of these factors are properly taken into account the overwhelming support between both God’s Word and the record of nature is truly, well… supernatural.
My main convection on this topic is how do we properly glorify God through our beliefs in the way he created all there is?
Are we as the Church encouraging questions to be raised or are we suppressing natural truth in new discoveries due to religious tradition?
Are we confident in proper testing to help give God His deserved praise as to the awesomeness of Creation?
I have found that knowing more about God’s Word and the truth found within a well researched scientific understanding in the record of nature gives me (personally) a much stronger love and faith for Christ through which all was created.
Bill, I like that a lot, and I feel much the same. I find that I have a much deeper sense of awe and wonder at God’s creation the more I learn from both science and Scripture.
Daniel, that is so weird. Although I have lived in California all but my four high school years, I spend those IN Zion, Illinois! My father was a pastor of a church there, and you are right, a VERY interesting (read odd) place.
Unrelated to the content, but related to the post and hoping to catch the admin’s eye.
Any reason the posts dont show the author any longer?
Sounds like I need to cross Zion, IL off of my list of places to go. ;^)
Daniel, that is an interesting link, and I like how it breaks down all the variations.
Since it seems to focus on the “day” idea, I will add in my own thought there. I believe that the “yom” used was, indeed, being used in the 24-hour sense of the word, but that it is being used figuratively as a literary construct like the last couple of views.
And, hey, yeah, where is my name?! :0)
vanceman, my only caveat to the “yom” 24 hour view, is the following phrasing of “evening and morning”(except for day 7), not evening to evening or morning to morning which would more accurately representing an earthly “24 hour” period of time (which in itself is hard to accurately determine with the rotational rate of the earth slowing, but I digress).
I am of the opinion that the Word was written to maintain its truth through every generation that reads its message no matter what the current understanding of “science” is at the readers respective time, yet still maintaining an understood accuracy in its brilliant written form. In other words, both figurative and literal at the same time. Again, only by Divine direction could this have been written in such a way.
The “evening and morning” phrasing specifically gives me a figurative picture(yet in the original context, literal application can be applied) where chaos becomes form -(disorder to order); confirming the magnificent order that we see in how everything is put together in our universe.
But, regardless of the readers opinion on the timeline or method for Creation, the purpose of Genesis 1 is to point to God, giving Him the credit for all that is.
Exactly, Bill, it is amazing that regardless of what you think Genesis 1 says about the timing and method of God’s creation, we all come away with the same essential truths. In that way, the text is conveying truth to every generation who reads it, as you say.
There can be no doubt, however, that God has allowed some Scripture to be written in a way that can lead to incorrect conclusions if the text is read improperly. Folks have read many passages to require a geocentric universe, or even a flat earth, and have for centuries. In the cases of these Scripture, though, it was not figurative and literal at the same time, it was just figurative, but incorrectly read as literal, and people reached the wrong conclusion.
And, when the state of scientific knowledge was geocentric, that was fine. As you say, no harm done, since the ultimate truths were not impacted by their mistake. But, when we learned that the earth was NOT fixed and unmoving with the sun and stars revolving around it, the Church as a whole should have said “ah, I see, we have been reading that bit wrong . . .”, and realize that the REAL truths were still the same either way. They eventually did this, but it took a while. If they had failed to do that, and geocentrism was the norm in Christian belief, the damage to the Gospel message would be enormous.
So, I think it becomes a balancing and takes some careful, and ultimately humble, analysis. As we learn more about God’s creation, and a finding of science seems to contradict a particular interpretation of Scripture we have to weigh the strengths of the evidence against the exegesis to determine which is more likely the source of the “false conflict” (since we know that conflict is, indeed, non-existent as you mentioned above).
I was raised #3, and anyone who thought otherwise had their salvation questioned. The scientific community was either completely blind or engaged in a mass liberal conspiracy. No “real” Christian would ever question the literal reading of Genesis 1! I’ll admit I found those explanations lacking, but not being very scientifically bent, I didn’t concern myself with investigating further. However my husband found this question of origins a major stumbling block on his way to Christ.
So I really appreciate your raising these issues, Vance. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts here and other places. Right now, I don’t know where I stand, but am gaining interest in the subject since I have kids of my own. They are still little, but they will no doubt be asking some really good questions of their own the coming years. So thanks!
Thanks, Lisa, and that issue about the kids is an important one for me as well. As I wrote in another article, I am very concerned about the “stumbling block” issue your husband faced, and I don’t want my kids faced with that kind of “either/or” decision.
They are just getting to that age, and I have told them that, while our particular church has very strong feelings about it, Christians hold many different beliefs and they should not feel pressured to reach any conclusions right away, if ever. I told them to just know that what the Bible DOES say is that God created everything, that He did something special with Mankind and wants a relationship with us, but that Mankind somehow failed and we lost that intimate communion with God and that God sent Jesus to make it right, if we only believe.
They can look at my wife and I and see two devout and Bible-believing people, one of us who accepts that God used evolution, and one that is not convinced that He did, and that we respect each other’s opinion on that point. I think that is healthy for them.
Dealing with how you teach your kids is important. The best thing is the truth, and the truth is that there *are* different interpretations out there and the current popular one hasn’t always been the most popular. The very famous Scopes “Monkey” trial didn’t have any young-earther’s involved. William Jennings Bryan was an old-earther. When Henry Morris and John Whitcomb wrote The Genesis Flood, it was a *new* interpretation to the audience that bought into it.
That being said though, it is important that Christian kids be taught the young-earth position. They need to know the pros and cons about it. My home-schooled kids go to a science class that is VERY admimant about a young earth. I help them with their assignments. But I also let them know that there are also very good reasons to not believe that way and show them the logical fallacies involved in some of the YEC arguments. Ultimately, they will have the facts of both sides and will make up their own mind. As long as it is an educated decision, I’m fine with it.
Ultimately though, I don’t think we want to turn the comments section of the blog into a debate. If someone wants to debate or promote the particulars of any of these interpretations, we really need to do it on the Reclaiming The Mind forum.
D.
Exactly, this is a good place to discuss the phenomenon of the breadth of beliefs as well as the relative nature of “literalism”. I like hearing where people land as well, and then if anyone wants to discuss the pros and cons of a given position, I agree that the RMM forum is a great place for that!
I’m definitely a 5.5
I think that we are raising a stumbling block and missing a significant apologetic argument if we force a YEC viewpoint that requires denying truths discovered from General Revelation.
Hi Vance and all. I still don’t know where to put myself. I believe that God created all that exists but that when it all “started out” the world didn’t look the way it does today and the world is VERY old. I don’t think it was six literal days that God created all that we see now. I don’t think there was an actual Adam and Eve but there COULD have been. It’s hard for me to “imagine” God creating humans in one fell swoop knowing all the elements we are made up of and whatnot. But it’s also hard for me to imagine us evolving from some other form of animal. So I just don’t know.
I think it’s funny what you wrote in #4 about “God having scrapped an earlier version (dinosaurs, etc).” Scrapped!!
Joanie D.
Oh, and I had noticed a couple days ago that the name of the original poster was no longer there and asked Michael what happened. He contacted Richard who I guess does the technical stuff for them and I see the names are back now. Way to go, Michael and Richard! Thanks.
Joanie D.
Yes, I couldn’t resist that, Joanie! There are a variety of old-earth concepts, and I just chose the most familiar. Daniel’s link above gives a good synopsis of more of them. Some, IIRC, bring in the fallen angels and other hypotheses. All very interesting. I think that the Progressive (Day-Age) seems the most prominent Old Earth view nowadays, with Hugh Ross doing a solid job representing that approach.
He is also troubled with the hominid record, seemingly leading right up to humans, but still thinks God came in and did a special ex nihilo work of creation for humans at some point.
[…] From Vance McAllister at Submerging Influence. […]
Hi Vance,
Good succinct model. I’m with you for the first 5.9 catagories ie. TE with literal Adam & Eve. After that, I think that literal interpretation of scripture is irrelavent - what is more relavent is one’s view of divine action. For many Christians divine action is primarily about (if not limited to) an intervention in creation. Others are comfortable holding to “natural” explanations (where as you note, natural does not mean without God). Four of the key areas which many Christians say require a non-natural divine intervention are:
a) creation of life - (your biogenesis catagory)
b) creation of species
c) creation of mind
d) creation of the human soul
.
So you have some people that declare that all 4 of these need divine intervention (a new catagory of Progressive Creationists above), some TE’s that state b) and c) are created naturally, some that state that even a) could have arisen naturally, and others that say even the human soul is an “emergent property”. (For example, see Nancey Murphy, an Evangelical theologian/philospher at Fuller who would hold this view).
And all of this is independent of “literalness”.
.
For example, personally, if we discover a scientific mechanism for the generation of first Life on earth, it will not affect my faith one bit (I suspect we’ll actually get this explanation in the next few decades). So, from above, you’d immediately slot me into catagory #8.
But not so fast, because I *might* say there needs to be a literal Adam and Eve, not because of Genesis, but because of NT references to Adam and doctrine of the Fall (eg. Romans 5). Might, because right now I’m not sure - I could go either way.
On the divine action, I have no problem with a) b) and c), but have difficult with d) (creation of the human soul). Again, I could go either way on this.
So, in summary, I think your literal measurement works fine for the first 5 catagories, but you need to add a “divine action” attribute after that. (Which means you no longer have a spectrum, but a matrix).
[…] Patton at Reclaiming the Mind channels Vance McAllister at Submerging Influence regarding the way we look at the Creation account. This is one of those divisive themes that […]
Steve, you are right, as usual! Luckily, I said that there are a wide variety of positions and “very often” these are tied to your approach to literalism (how is that for wiggling of the hook?).
Those are some good points of intervention, and I agree with your analysis. I tend to follow the Catholic line on this: the soul is the one bit where I think God has intervened directly.
Ha! I remember the first time I saw this list. The last time I dropped in at CF, that thread was still active!
Yes, I first wrote up the list a few years ago, and it was so helpful, they made it a sticky! I check on it occasionally, it is very interesting to see where people are.
[…] http://submerging.reclaimingthemind.org/blogs/2008/01/14/spectrum-of-beliefs-on-evolution-creation-a… […]
[…] (HT: Michael Patton at Reclaiming the Mind and Vance McAllister at Submerging Influence) […]
Hey Vance:
I spent some time researching this all out (for my little blog) and have concluded that you are absolutely correct. If I start with a Biblical literalist position and follow it through to its logical end, I must conclude that the earth is flat. Let God be found true though every man be a liar.
You have given me good stuff to think about.
Rob, keep in mind that you need not come to a hard and fast conclusion on any of this. The fact that you will not be dogmatic about any given position is enough, really, since this is not a salvation issue. All we need to ultimately keep in mind is that Scripture IS God’s message to us, and it can reliably convey that essential message. We need not worry about the style of literature He chooses to use along the way.
I’ve been having an ongoing argument with a friend over creation vs evolution. He has challenged me to come up with an example of one species evolving into another. But I’m no scientist. He says there should be billions of in-between species in the fossils if evolution happened. Can anybody help me come up with some examples?
Ron, I don’t think that you are going to find much support for evolution here.
Well, he seems to have been getting his information from creationist sources! :0)
The idea of a “transitional” species is much misunderstood, and usually misused, by creationists. The theory of evolution does not predict that there would be ANY species that was merely an “in-between” two other “real” species. Each change is gradual and incremental, and at each stage of development, the species is a whole and complete species fitted to its particular environment. As it’s environment changes, it changes.
So, in truth, EVERY species is a transitional, since every species has predecessors and species that will follow it in development. And, we do see many, many examples of species that have developed from earlier species. Ironically, the hominids are one of the most complete. But, we would never expect to find billions of *anything* when you consider that only a tiny percent of what has lived ever gets fossilized.
Here is a good summary on the idea of transitionals, but the bottom line is that your friend is asking for something that evolution would not predict, so it is basically a “strawman”:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html
For a more detailed study by a Christian scientist, here is an in-depth review:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Miller.html
Daniel, have you read the comments on my other posts on this blog? I would say at least half of the commenters accept evolution.
I think the point of the blog is that there is a wide spectrum of beliefs on this topic. Most of the posts that I have read are in the middle of the spectrum, not at the extreme of the evolution end. I wouldn’t consider anything below a 6 as an “evolutionist”.
No, I am talking about comments to my other posts in this “series”. I think pushing half of all the Christians posting on them accept evolution. My point is that it is wrong to say he would would not find much support for evolution on this site.
Maybe I’m not defining “evolution” the way you are or are missing the comments that you are referring to. Can you specify which of them you are talking about? Ron posted something back on the 16th that I responded to, but I don’t see any outright promotion of evolution and, even if someone did have that opinion, I think most people would separate the opinions expressed in comments from those of the blog itself. I don’t think we are in danger of someone confusing Submerging Influence as a evolution site.
Look at my post on The Dangers of Misplaced Dogmatism and a few others. There are at least half a dozen regular commenters on this site that fully accept evolution, one has written a book on it, and one runs a site about it. SI is a site that has folks from all segments of that spectrum. So, would a person find support for evolution here? Well, sure, along with support for the other positions as well.
I was looking on *this* blog, not Parchment and Pen. I’ll go check that out. I never commented over there and clicked the box to be notified of responses, so I was not up to date on it.
No, I was referring to this blog as well. Check out this post and the comments:
http://submerging.reclaimingthemind.org/blogs/2007/09/04/creationism-v-evolution-the-danger-of-misplaced-dogmatism/
I didn’t even *know* about Submerging Influence back then. LOL
Ah, we could go back to the even earlier incarnation (by a few months) under another the name Euangelion. :0)
I’m just curious as to how a literal reading of scripture supports a flat earth or the sun moving around a fixed earth. It just talks about creating them, not their shape or movements.
Tim, those that take that literal approach would point to references that talk about the four corners of the earth or the ends of the earth, for example, as well as references to things like the sun standing still as opposed to the earth stopping its rotation or the earth not being moved. Job also talks about taking the earth by the edges and shaking it.
I have a problem with the whole spectrum. The article was well-written and insightful, bu I think it’s really just a zooming-in of two major categories. You’ll probably just think I’m being predictable and saying what I’m expected about the people on either of my category.
But to me you either believe the Bible is entirely accurate or you don’t. You either allow “science” to plague your interpretation of the Bible or you don’t.
Those in categories 1 and 2 do more than choose not to consider science in their reading of scripture. They ignore verifiable science. It can be proven that the world is spherical and that it revolves around the sun. And the Bible doesn’t say the world is not round. It does say that water came before land, the earth came before the sun and stars, and birds came before dinosaurs (all counter to a big-bang, Darwinian-evolutionary understanding of the universe).
Categories 4 through 8 are hybrids of man’s ideas and scripture (and they are not scripturally accurate).
Only category 3 both affirms the Bible and is affirmed by verifiable science…. keyword verifiable. Nothing in science has PROVEN anything in the Bible to be untrue. You use in more than one category the phrase “what science says.” Science doesn’t say. Some scientists “suggest.” There’s a difference between a theory and a law… an idea and a fact.
We all have the same evidence, the same fossils, the same facts. It comes down to intrepretation of the evidence based on starting points. If you start with the Bible and believe God’s word to be true and accurate, you will see (and be excited by) how much of science affirms the biblical account of creation, the global flood, etc. If anything seems to contradict the Bible, we know we must take another look at the evidence, perhaps holding our conclusions until more information becomes available. We’re mere mortals. We can’t understand everything. If nothing else, God can tell us all how it worked when we get to Heaven! If we start with an assumption that millions of years and evolution must be true, we will interpret the evidence in such a manner that affirms this. The problem is that parts of the Bible no longer seem to make sense to us.
If we allow ourselves to rely on our ever-changing ideas to view the world (instead of the ever-steady Word of God), we begin to compromise our understanding of and reliance on scripture. After all, “science” would seem to suggest that a virgin birth, a miracle-working prophecy-fulfilling messiah, and a resurrection also don’t make sense.
Check out AnswersInGenesis.org for more great info on this topic.
Take care and God bless!
Chad said: “But to me you either believe the Bible is entirely accurate or you don’t.”
I’d ask you to consider that just because someone has a different interpretation about what is being discussed doesn’t mean that they think the Bible is not accurate.
It is also not an issue of “allowing Science to plague your interpretation of the Bible”. It is a matter of properly interpreting the Bible so that your interpretation matches the truth. Any *untrue* interpretation is not the proper one. So, when multiple interpretations exist, we have to determine the true one. We can’t do that using our interpretation alone without begging the question. And we can’t do it properly if we only get our information from questionable sources or start out with an interpretation and only look at evidence that may support it.
Where the Bible talks about external things, there is nothing wrong with analyzing those things to determine which interpretation is true. It was this very argument, that science should/could be used to determine which interpretation was the proper one, that led to the introduction of young-earth flood-geology creationism to the US church in the 1960’s.
Chad,
Science is nothing more than observation of the natural world and the search for the system that most reasonably explains those observations. Are we prohibited from using our observation to interpret the Bible? No - and it’s a good thing, because we can’t help it! You yourself use your observation of the world to help you make sense of the Bible. Should we not, then, be allowed to make use of the systematic observations of scientists? You would ostensibly recognize the sun as stationary relative to the sun (a scientific observation, any way you cut it), so when you read that Joshua made the sun “stand still”, your observation informs you that this must be phenomenological language. When this happens, you have just made a judgment on how to interpret Scripture based upon science!
As Daniel said, we must not equate the “ever-steady Word of God” with our interpretation of it, which does change, and in many cases improves with observation (check out Luther’s thoughts on that passage!). You are seemingly under the impression that the Bible does not need interpretation, but as I pointed out above, it manifestly does.
We should use every tool at our disposal for recovering God’s original intent for each passage of Scripture by acknowledging that our first-blush reading of the text is bound to be incomplete, and filling in the holes by determining its original context. God communicated His truths to cultures far removed from ours, and it would be frankly more troubling if God didn’t accommodate His truths to the original audience than if He tailor-made it to fit our twenty-first century worldview. But guess what - the ancients were more interested in why and by whom than how the universe was created. Would it be such a crime if God saw it fit to communicate the already controversial answer to the most important questions (wait a minute - you say YHWH did all this?!) without also laying the needless stumbling block of correcting the old world understanding of how it happened? He had his spokespeople wrap up the unchangeable truth in attractive wrapping paper. God never expected us to play with the wrapping paper - what’s inside never changes.
You two are right - what’s inside the Bible doesn’t change but interpretations do. And of course we can use observations to interpret. But there’s a difference between observational data and guesses. And as Daniel said above, where there are multiple interpretations, only one can be TRUE. Can we ever know all the fine details of this truth? Perhaps not, but it still remains. There are not different truths. Truth is absolute. I’m just saying that when one interpretation seems to disgree with the Bible, we must see the interpretation as wrong, not the Bible.
But that’s just it: it sounds like you’re saying that we must compare every interpretation of the Bible with “what’s inside the Bible” - as though “what’s inside the Bible” is able to be discerned without interpretation. We must determine the correct interpretation, and we do so by all our powers of observation and all the reason God gave us to be able to make sense of it. As you said originally, we all have the same data - either you proceed to make the best sense of the data in a systematic fashion or you use your predetermined (but no less objective) interpretation of the Bible to file away each piece of data.
With one method, we don’t try to interpret the Bible until we have availed ourselves of as much of the data as is available, in humble consultation with the ones who have tried to make the most sense of their observations; with the other, we proudly bring all our unexamined presuppositions on how to interpret the Bible to the data. With all due respect, Chad, if we followed that last track consistently, we’d still all be geocentrists.
Chad:
You are right. But an old earth is not an interpretation that disagrees with the Bible. It is an interpretation of the world that disagrees with an INTERPRETATION of the Bible. And, if you start getting your information from sites *other* than the AIGs and ICRs of the world, you will find that it is the very young-earth position that Ken Ham espouses that John Whitcomb and Henry Morris introduced as a “new one” back in the 60’s. You are not going to read that well-documented history or those quotes from their book on the AIG web site though. The Bible encourages us to determine the truth from more than one witness. And that *doesn’t* mean that we should choose two that quote each other. Proverbs 18:17 tells us that when you depend on a Ken Ham for all your information, it *seems* right. But we should also examine the opposing opinions with just as much acceptance and be just as skeptical of the statements and backgrounds of those we agree with as we are those that we disagree.
The problem is that Ken Ham actively teaches that we should not approach this topic with an open mind and let the evidence lead us to the truth. He and people like Kent Hovind actively teach that you should approach everything with the assumption that their interpretation is the true one. It begs the question and makes and objective observer wonder why they don’t want an objective look at the text and the world of which it speaks.
BTW, I wrote
but I meant
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