System Problems

I was using Word Press, but they kept having system problems so I am back to using Blogger, my tried and true.

My last post elicited a comment from my friend Kris, and brings up an interesting point that probably should be made- Any questions I have raised in my consideration of questions regarding theology are actually questions I have raised myself. It is kind of Kris to make it seem that I have created an answer as intelligent sounding as one that a professor would have created. I do not believe myself to be a great researcher, but I do think that enough evidence exists to question certain things, one of which being the non-biblical assertion that the earth is less than ten thousand years old. It is true that debate exists as to the validity of certain dating methods, but it is also true that the Bible does not date the earth.

The question I am raising in regard to the date of the earth is not in promoting a certain age, though I tend to believe that the earth could be older than young earth creationists believe. My purpose here is to question the dogma that is based on a Biblical inference.

Let me explain it this way- If an archeologist came forward with the bones of Christ I would instantly tell my children that he will eventually be shown to be a fraud. Why? The reason I wouldn't believe this evidence presented by my hypothetical archeologist is that Scripture clearly states that Jesus Christ was bodily resurrected and bodily ascended to Heaven. Great pains were taken by the Apostles to make this point clear. Now as to the age of the universe there is no statement by anyone authoritative in Scripture that the earth is a certain age. A bit of research will show that young earth theorists believe that the age of the earth is defined by genealogies given in Scripture. While this seems to be a good indicator of the age of our current world, it does not mean that the earth is older than the first day of creation. For a hint of where I am going consider the answer to this question- During which day of creation was water created?

While it seems far-fetched consider the fact that 4 billion years could have occurred between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. God does not say as much about His creation of the heavens and the earth as He does the creation of what He put in them. One only need to read the rest of the first chapter of Genesis and then the second chapter of Genesis to see that God does not seem to care all that much about the technical details about how it all came about. A super literal reading of these two chapters makes it appear that God forgot in what order He created man and animals. A more appropriate reading of these two chapters sees that God's point in reversing the order of these creations between the two chapters probably had more to do with man's relationship with animals as the superior than an attempt to confuse the super literal.

So we return to my main point- I do not think that we should reject extra-scriptural observations simply because they do not seem to agree with certain inferences made from Scripture by those who teach Scripture. I intend to explain my concern over this in more detail in future posts.

How Old?

I am not completely ignorant as to the arguments that my friends use to support the “young earth” vs the “old earth” beliefs. Old earth theory states that the degradation rate of various atomic particles found in samples of rocks and sediment point to the fact that our earth has been around for billions of years. I have read several seemingly unrelated sources who agree in principle to the facts of this theory, though there may be some discussion to how many billions of years the age of the earth may be. My young earth friends smugly point out that these particle degradation theories cannot be shown to be true since we have no observed data older than a few decades. In the words of one young earth advocate- “Were you there?” . The fact is that both science and theology depend on the idea that present patterns should be expected to predict past and future patterns unless clear reasons are given to state otherwise.

For example, we can look at the degradation rate of certain atomic particles in certain elements to determine the exact age of something from ancient times for which we know the exact age- a dated building from ancient times, for example. The pattern of degradation for the elements in that building should be the same as any other similar element found in the earth’s crust. One simply needs to count to see the number of the particles in one compare to the number of particles in the other to determine the age. The problem is that when the number generated from element found in the earth’s crust the young earth creationists insist that the number must be in error because their understanding of Genesis says that is not true. In other words, their dogma dictates their observations. This is like seeing a creature that looks and behaves like a cat in a cage labeled “dog” and refusing to admit that the creature in the cage is a cat because the label you have accepted contradicts your observations.

Are Christians truly required to refuse to accept their observations if they don’t agree with the Bible? I find a great deal of concern here. Is it possible that our observations which seem to disagree with the Bible are actually pointing out the fact that we have misunderstood the Bible? One need not look far to find an example of this failure. The church of the Dark Ages insisted that the universe rotated around the earth due to a poor interpretation of a scriptural statement. When astronomers could not explain their observations using this poor interpretation of Scripture it was as if they had to reject Scripture in order properly understand the movement of heavenly bodies. The Church finally accepted its theology as flawed and used the scientific observations to explain Scripture better. Is this something that we can do with the creation story in Genesis? Is it possible that we have misread it?

Problems with Scripture

Tonight I read Genesis 1 to my six year-old at her request and I had to admit to some misgivings. As you know I am the member of an outspoken Presbyterian church which strongly adheres to the concept of a literal understanding of the Genesis story of creation. In other words, my church states that God created the world in six days (seven if you include His day of rest) and that the entire creation is but a few thousand years old. This is a concept that I have believed for most of my life, but I have come to seriously doubt these details in recent years. This, of course, is no less than heresy in the eyes of those with whom I fellowship and share genetic traits. So I feel like defending myself, if only for the sake of seeing how brilliant I am to myself.
In the beginning of my defense I must state that we have made a great deal of certain interpretations of the Bible as "ultra-conservative" Christians. We feel the need to defend our faith against all comers due to the fact that our faith has constantly been under attack by the "ultra-scientific" for more than three centuries. I have had some of my fellow Christians take offense at my belief that dinosaurs were real because these great lizards had been upheld as proof that evolution is true. My foray into questioning the truth of the creation story of Genesis began as the result of my father telling me that he believed in a non-evidence-based theory of health care because it is the most true to Scripture. In other words he tossed out the whole record of scientific inquiry into health care practices because its conclusions seemed to him to disagree with Scripture. Now one could debate his understanding of Scripture, but I am forced to consider the more basic problem raised by this stand. Is there any other area where science must be abandoned because it disagreed with the dogma that has become essential to some religious doctrine? In other words, is it right to throw out the observations of science because they disagree with so-called Scriptural dogma? My father and the pastor of my church say yes. I say no.
Here is the deal. God had the Bible written to guide us into His understanding of life. One can find this in Paul's statement that all Scripture is "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." (2Tim 3:16-17) This must be acknowledged from the start to understand why the Bible exists at all, and to understand how to approach Scripture. This means that the Genesis story was written for the purposes stated above, and that it cannot be discounted in importance. We must acknowledge that God created the world the way He stated it was created. Now there is a problem. Scientific evidence states unequivocally that the creation is millions, if not billions, of years old. So what do we do with this? What do you think needs to be done with this? Do we toss this out because the rest of Scripture clearly indicates that the time from Day One to now cannot be more than a few thousand years? I want to think about it a little...