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Many apologies for the lengthy delay between blog posts! On way too many occasions, when I had intended to summarize John Walton’s “Greatest Hits,” I found myself surfing the internet, aghast at how much science I’ve ignored over the decades. That, and reading Daniel J. Fairbank’s Relics of Eden! God, forgive me for: (1) ignoring your general revelation for so long, and (2) leaving my readers on the hook for what came next in my journey toward becoming an Evolutionary Creationist. Now that I’ve assuaged my guilt, on to what Paul Harvey calls “the rest of the story” …

Scientific Worldview vs. Integrity of the Text

In his wonderful online presentation, Walton offers up several options people consider when it comes to resolving the apparent contradictions between science and the biblical text:

(1) Construct an alternative science (e.g., Young-Earth Creationsim, Intelligent Design, etc.)
(2) Consider the text to only teach theological truths, not science
(3) Consider the text to be a vehicle for metaphor through use of poetry

Fortunately, these three options aren’t the only ones available to us. The first option, constructing an alternative science, is typically used when one cannot deal with the face value of the text. The YEC might say, “But I am taking the text at face value! The Bible clearly says that God created the universe in six days!” Walton, however, would respond that the Hebrews would have read the very same literature very differently. What a modern, 21st-century reader would consider a “face value,” or “literal,” interpretation of the text does not necessarily equate with what an inhabitant of the ancient Near East (ANE) would consider a “face value” interpretation.

In regard to the second option, considering the text purely theological, Walton asks whether Israel (or any other ANE culture for that matter) distinguished between “science” and “theology.” It is only because our understanding of the material world has progressed far beyond that of ANE cultures are we able to contemplate the difference between the physical and the metaphysical. Four millennia ago, that difference did not exist.

As tempting as it is to go for the third option, Walton urges us not to read the opening chapters of Genesis as mere literary expression, but rather as a literal (not literary) expression of Hebrew cosmology. Ironically, the YEC and ANE interpretations of Genesis 1 use the same methodology while producing two completely different conclusions as a result of their differing worldviews.

Does Genesis Concern Making Things?

99.9% of armchair theologians would say, “Duh!” to this question. ANE scholars, on the other hand, would likely smile and invite you to sit down with them for lunch and discuss some of the following points:

• The overarching theme of Genesis 1 is that of God creating order out of disorder.
• “Order” is thought of in terms of “functionality,” not structure. In other words, Genesis 1 is not speaking of God creating the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing), but rather of God assigning function to the cosmos and its component parts.
• The “existence” of an object is dependent upon whether function (or a name) has been assigned to it, not the fact that it takes up space. In ancient Egyptian thought, for example, things were considered “non-existent” if it wasn’t assigned a function.

One of these days, I’ll get around to discussing Dr. John Walton’s take on Genesis 1 in greater detail. For now, I’ve got a few observations from the last several Answers in Genesis e-newsletters:

Here’s one that, even as a YEC, would cause me to do a double take (emphasis mine):

Molecules-to-man evolution is a belief concerning what supposedly happened in the past, but no one was there to see it happen. Thus, evolutionists are free to postulate stories about abiogenesis (non-living chemicals evolving into life), stellar evolution, or ape-men without direct observation. Such scenarios are merely belief statements. The ideas Darwin espoused were his beliefs concerning the past. They are not science in the sense of scientists being able to observe these things actually happening. However, we do not have to depend on mere guesses about the origin of the universe and life. We can thankfully refer back to the eye-witness account—the Bible.

I’m curious to know who that “eye-witness” is that saw God create the heavens and the earth. Anyone?

Here’s another that requires some creative eisegesis:

The Bible clearly teaches that when God created Adam and Eve, the world was perfect (i.e., “very good”). There was no death and bloodshed.

“Clearly teaches” that the world was “perfect”? I’d be curious to know how many hands would raise if one asked a group of people who thought “very good” can be equated with “perfect.” Moreover, what passage of Scripture teaches that there was no death or bloodshed prior to Adam’s fall? I couldn’t answer that as a YEC, and I can’t now. Consider this: What good is a threat of physical death (the result of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil) without an example in nature?

From the same newsletter comes this statement, with which I can tentatively agree (with one exception):

But a Christian who believes in evolution over eons as told by evolutionists must also believe that God used death and bloodshed over millions of years as a way to bring man into existence. For them, the fossil record is not a sign of God’s judgment in the Flood, but of the cruel nature of the world they believe God created.

The one exception is AiG’s use of the word “cruel.” What makes animal death “cruel”? By what standard is AiG evaluating the “circle of life”? To me, AiG appears to be making a subjective judgment on the nature of animal death, as the idea has absolutely no Scriptural support. From my perspective, the concept of “no animal death before the Fall” is required to provide the YEC paradigm logical consistency; I can respect that. However, I think the idea creates more problems than it solves. Can one successfully argue that Adam never performed a Pink Panther (you know, “dead-ant, dead-ant, dead-ant, dead-ant, dead-ant, dead-ant, dead-ant, de, de, de, de, dead-ant”) during his walks through the Garden? What to do about the high unemployment rate for trillions of bacteria that reside in our own digestive system to keep it healthy?

This leads me to a question that, as a YEC, I had never really considered before: Why would a single act of rebellion by mankind cause the vast transformation of his “perfect” world (and, by extension, the universe) into a cosmos of chaos and violence? Did God ever threaten Adam with that consequence? Or should we only limit God’s threat to what the Bible really says:

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17, ESV; emphasis mine)

That’s it, folks. Only man’s longevity, caused by his inability to access the Tree of Life (Gen 3:22), was threatened. Nothing else. Every other consequence is purely imagined. Of course, with man’s access to the Garden denied, there were some other sub-consequences (Gen 3:17-19). I’ll discuss those in a future post.