On the evening of February 4th, 2014 and the following day,
an estimated 5 million people from over 100 different countries watched a
debate concerning faith and science.
Bill Nye “The Science Guy” vs Ken Ham, of Answers In
Genesis, squared off to discuss the agreed topic for the debate: "Is
creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?” The
following couple of days showed this debate, and its two debaters, as the lead
topics trending on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Yahoo Science. Why? Why
would a debate that has been ongoing for centuries grab so much attention today? As we learn more through science, Creationism (as it has been coined) continues to gain popularity and more attention. Because of this the opposition
has pushed back in an attempt to suppress the obvious. In August of 2012, Bill Nye
posted a YouTube video making claims against Creationism. In this video he inferred that a non-belief in
evolution (as in “molecules to man”) would hurt science, children, and the
United States as a whole. He also stated that this belief would be non-existent
in the future. Ken Ham responded in his own YouTube video which duplicated the
atmosphere of Bill Nye’s video, but with rebuttal. With attention to the topic
growing, Ken Ham publicly offered Bill Nye to debate him. Nye, eventually agreed.
During the debate Ken Ham shared the Gospel, in-short, on
several occasions. He also established two important points; there is a major
difference in what can be shown through observable science and that which can be
extrapolated through philosophical or historical sciences, and that scientists with a belief in Creation can (and do) play an equally effective role in their respective
field.
Bill Nye argued against Christianity by attacking the logic
behind some of the stories in the Bible. He also made numerous references inferring
that the translations of the Bible over time have lead to errors, thus causing
the writings within to lack credibility. It’s interesting to note that not only
is misrepresenting and twisting God’s Word, the most popular way to argue
against God, it was also the first tactic ever used when Satan deceived Eve in
the Garden.
The atmosphere of the Legacy Hall, located in the Creation
Museum, appeared to be pleasant. The room was crowded with people from across
the country, including a notable representation from the mainstream media. The debate was carried
out with almost no technical problems and was live streamed to millions
with no known problems. After the debate, numerous articles were posted giving
praise and disdain to both sides. Of
course many organizations representing Creation Science posted articles giving
rebuttals to claims made by Nye that were left open during the debate. Answers
In Genesis has even put together an interesting option to compare their answers
to Nye’s arguments by selecting the argument and choosing past articles as the
debate jumps to that section. You can do
this here: debatelive.com.
What I liked about the debate:
- I liked the fact that the debate received copious amounts of attention. Debates of this type have been declining as those affirming the Creation side find it difficult to receive commitments from those opposing. This should not be the case. Both sides should always be open to discussion in open forum and I believe the more aware the average person is concerning this topic, the more likely the evidence will be properly followed.
- The debate was professional. It was well organized, the broadcast had great quality, was moderated impartially, and had a live audience that was very respectful.
- There was a portion of time given for Q&A from the audience. I have watched many debates and this section, if allowed, always grabs my attention in a different way. Often, these questions present more of a challenge for the debaters than they do for each other.
- The opening arguments were given a decent amount of time. The longer the opening arguments are the more information can be given for the audience to learn from. I am not sure why there was a 5 minute and 30 minute session for each person, but the total of 35 minutes gave them ample time to instruct while laying the foundations of their arguments.
- The debaters were given numerous 5 minute rebuttals. While this was nice at times it put too much constraint on them concerning their initial rebuttals. 5 minutes is not long enough to properly challenge a 35 minute argument.
- I wish there was more science in the debate. As expected, Ken Ham spoke a lot in referencing the Bible. While a Christian can appreciate and understand this, the opposition is more likely to drown out or ignore the point being made. Science shows a lot of evidence that supports design and contradicts evolution but there was not an abundance of information given to reinforce this. In the same manner, Bill Nye left his stance on science to mock the Bible on numerous occasions.
- There were no closing arguments to conclude the event. The closing arguments can be just as informative as the opening statements. Not only can the participants have rehearsed topics to mention or reiterate, but they also can add last minute rebuttals that no time was given for during the debate.
- Though not common, I like to see some sort of pre and post survey done with the attending spectators. It is interesting to see which side, if any, was able to change minds.
“Yes, one can be a
Christian and an evolutionist, but such a position is both scientifically and
biblically untenable. The Lord Jesus took a literal view of Genesis. The theory
of evolution is dishonouring to God as Creator, and its teaching leads to a
disastrous secularizing of society.”
- Dr. Duane Gish
The Lord Jesus took a literal view of Genesis.
ReplyDeleteStumble across your blog. Interesting read. Genus has always been a great comfort to me as God created it all. I've never had an issue with evolution as it's real and does not detract from God's creation of care.
Was wondering about the referenced comment. Where and when did he say or teach that he took genesis literally?? Never heard of read about that. Thanks for any info you would care to share.
chris.herrnberger@gmail.com
Thanks for the comment, Chris. This is a REALLY old post but I'm glad you stopped by and thanks for your question. I can't possibly do it justice in this response but there is a lot of great, Google-able information at your fingertips that address your questions in great detail, but here goes my feeble attempt to help:
DeleteFirst, you're actually asking three questions, I think:
1. Where does the Bible say we should understand Genesis as a book of literal history vs. say an allegory?
2. Where does the Bible teach that JESUS understood Genesis to be literal history?
3. What's the problem with Evolution? God created it all; why does it matter how he did it?
If I'm not summarizing your questions as you would have intended, then I apologize. I'm just trying to break the different questions down so I can try to address them more directly.
To your first question, Where does the Bible say we should understand Genesis as a book of literal history vs. say an allegory?
I acknowledge that nowhere in the Bible does it say, in ANY of the 66 books of canonized scripture, "These events happened LITERALLY." Instead, when the Bible is recording historical events, it simply records what happened and provides us with contextual, stylistic, and language clues to make it clear the author was writing in the style scholars recognize as a historical narrative vs. another genre, like an allegory, poem, song, letter, or a prophetic vision, etc. The Bible does contain these types of literature, but it always gives us clues when the author is employing these genres. In a historical narrative, for example, the author provides us with what would otherwise be irrelevant details unlike anything we find in fables or allegory in contemporary writings of the same period. These details are so specific, they would also be easily falsifiable and contemporaries to the writer would have had no reason to treat the books as historical documents. However, the Israelites did treat them as historical. Genesis, along with many other historical narratives in the Bible, contain detailed genealogies, names of specific places, specific measurements, geographic features, inventories of property, details of travel/trade routes, inventories of personal property, detailed descriptions and instructions for the construction of tents and buildings, and other similar details that would be completely out of place and completely irrelevant in any other form of literature. The context makes it very clear when the author is recording literal history. Other works in the Bible, like the Psalms, tell us explicitly we are reading poems and lyrical arrangements that were often set to music (even naming specific instruments to be used). Some of the events in the Psalms are references to historical events and are even prophetic, but the genre of poetry is clearly recognizable. Many historical narratives in the Bible have been validated by extra-Biblical writings, modern science, and archeology. The veracity and reliability of the Bible and it's consistency with the oldest manuscripts (copies of the original works) have also been upheld by the most intense scholarly scrutiny possible -- objectively more than any other historical document. I realize this was not your main question, so I'll move on, but I hope this is useful in explaining how we know what texts to interpret as literal history in the Bible.
To your second question: Where does the Bible teach that JESUS understood Genesis to be literal history?
DeleteJesus is quoted many times in the Gospels as quoting from the book of Genesis. Here are just a few examples:
- Adam and Eve as the first married couple (Matthew 19:3–6; Mark 10:3–9)
- Abel as the first prophet who was killed (Luke 11:50–51)
- Noah and the Flood (Matthew 24:38–39)
- Moses and the serpent in the wilderness (John 3:14)
- Moses and the manna from heaven to feed the Israelites in the wilderness (John 6:32–33, 49)
- The experiences of Lot and his wife (Luke 17:28–32)
- The judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthew 10:15)
And many more quotes from the writings of Moses and other OT writings.
I concede that quoting and believing them literally aren't the same thing but, again, we have to look at the context of Jesus' quotes. As one New Testament scholar John Wenham argued, "Jesus did not allegorize these accounts but took them as straightforward history, describing events that actually happened just as the Old Testament describes them. Then Jesus used these historical accounts to teach His disciples that the events of His own death, resurrection, and second coming would likewise happen inside of actual, time-space reality." I think this is a good explanation for why the most logical explanation is that Jesus considered Genesis to be literal history.
Even liberal scholars who tend to adopt a more allegorical view of the first few chapters of Genesis (and usually only Chapters 1-3 are even in debate amongst modern scholars), will concede the point that Jesus most likely interpreted Genesis as literal history. Mark 10:6 quotes Jesus as saying, “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’” So we see that Jesus clearly places the creation of Adam and Eve at the beginning of creation. This is his understanding of history. Could he have simply been mistaken, having been both God and man? Perhaps, but that gets into some pretty slippery territory and is pure speculation.
If we do not interpret Genesis as a historical narrative, we have the tricky problem of figuring out where to draw the line in taking any biblical work literally vs. figuratively, especially when there is no contextual evidence indicating a style/ genre is changing between historical and allegorical (as is sometimes suggested in accounts like Noah, Jonah and the Great Fish, or the Tower of Babble.
But we see consistency throughout the Bible with these interpretations and they are always consistent. In the second book recorded by Moses, Exodus, chapter 20 verse 11 states: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” This, of course, is the basis for our seven-day week — and God's command to Israel that they would have six days of work and one day of rest. Obviously, this passage was meant to be taken as speaking of a total of seven literal days based on the same timeline of Creation. This is also the interpretation of nearly all Hebrew scholars.
My question is: If we believe God is all powerful and a God of miracles, why is this so difficult to believe he did exactly what Genesis says? If we believe in Jesus virgin birth and resurrection from the dead, why do we have such a hard time with Genesis?
Mostly, I think it comes down to trying to reconcile popular secular theories like Naturalistic evolution with the accounts of the Bible and not wanting to wrestle with difficulties we can't explain, which leads me to your third question:
3. What's the problem with Evolution? God created it all; why does it matter how he did it?
DeleteFirst, I don't know of a single point of testable, observable science where the Bible is in disagreement. But we have to clarify what you mean by "Evolution." Naturalistic evolution is the theory that attempts to remove God from the equation of life entirely stating life "spawned" from literally nothing. This is a huge problem since this is not observable, testable, repeatable science and is easily disproved on philosophical, logically, and yes even scientific grounds. It is an unprovable theory that flies in the face of everything we know. Like flies don't come from raw meat. Same issue. Even secular, atheistic scientists like Richard Dawkins recognize this is a big issue and have stated that perhaps life may have been seeded on earth from somewhere else (alien life, not God). Whoa...now who needs faith!? There is just one problem, where did the alien life come from?? At some point, you have to base up to the question of where did it all start. Either matter came from nothing (not science), matter has always existed (logically self defeating), or matter came from something (powerful, intelligent, outside of space and time, etc ---> God).
I don't know of a single Christian who would say God COULDN'T have evolved life on earth over time. But we're trying to understand what did happened based on what the Bible says and the evidence we can derive from science, geology, archeology, etc. If the Bible is true, REAL science and the Bible will agree.
Evolution is a tricky word. I accept microevolution, which is defined as adaptation, change, and variation over time WITHIN a given species. This is observable, testable science. We can see all kinds of variations of fish, for example.
But no one has ever seen or proven SCIENTIFICALLY the theory Darwin theorized for Macroevolution. Macroevolution states that it is possible for a fish to turn into a non-fish through a process of natural selection over long periods of time. Modern science refers to this as "Speciation." That one species can evolve into a completely new species, not just a new variant within the same kind. This flies in the face of modern genetics and everything we know from observable science. When we look at examples of genetic mutation, for example, we find a loss of information, not new information being added. Nearly all genetic mutations are deadly in the natural world. Furthermore, consider the probability that a truly unique genetic variant, one that is a new species, can: survive, then encounter another genetic variant that is genetically compatible in order to procreate in it's own lifetime so that continued survival of the new species. This would be like finding the Holy Grail to secular evolutionary adherents.
But the supposed "missing links" are still missing. In fact, we can't site a single example of a new genetic species on earth. Every example of a "new" fish, is still just another fish. But leaps from one species into another is what we have to believe if we are to accept the theory of Macroevolution and just adding millions or billions of years doesn't fix the problem. I don't know about you, but I don't possess that kind of faith. Seeing it's never happened in the span of the last 6-10K years, even by carbon dating methods, our earth isn't old enough to bring about the kind of variation and complexity we see UNAIDED.
Now God could have aided evolution? He certainly could have created man and all life on earth through a slow process of evolution, then interjecting himself at key points in time to bring about the new species. Hybrid theories like this are sometimes called, "Gap Theory." Did he do it this way? Maybe, but I really doubt it. Genesis tells us that death entered into the world for the first time as a consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve. But to believe in a process of evolution of species over time, necessarily places death before Adam and Eve. How do we reconcile this?
ReplyDeleteGetting back to Genesis, it says God created man as a fully formed adult and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. Adam was placed on the earth as a mature adult with the ability to care for himself and the earth. Eve was formed in a similar way but God chose to use a rib from Adam in the process. For what reason, we're not told exactly. He didn't need a starting point for Adam, so we can only speculate. But if Adam and Eve had the appearance and qualities of age at the time of creation, I see no reason why the earth wouldn't also have had the appearance of age as well.
In the end, my faith in God, and whether I trust him, doesn't rest on whether he created life through a gradual process or by speaking it into existence in six literal days. Perhaps we can inquire of God when we meet him one day, eh? But then again, it probably won't matter to us at all then.
Respectfully,
Ben Ward