Some Christians are convinced that modern geology and anthropology are terribly mistaken, and that the earth is, literally, only 6,000 years old. These people call themselves “Young Earth Creationists”. I’ve read through the entire Bible a few times, and don’t remember reading that verse, but these folks assure me it’s there.
Since I wasn’t there when the earth was created, and since I lack the discernment to perceive the “geology” section in my Bible, I don’t tend to argue about these things. I also know people who claim that Neil Armstrong never set foot on the moon (it was all staged in Hollywood). I think they are a bit silly, like the Young Earth Creationists. But I wasn’t there when the moon landing happened, and neither were they, so I don’t waste my time arguing with them.
Strangely, though, there are some within Christian fundamentalism who want to use Young Earth Creationism as a litmus test. If you do not profess belief in a certain geological age for the earth, you should be considered to be opposed to fundamental Christian truth, and subject to separation, secondary separation, and militantly opposed by all true Christian fundamentalists.
Since such a litmus test has never been used historically by Christianity, these people feel it necessary to justify themselves. Why is a specific geological age for the earth a “fundamental” truth? The answer is – get this – “Conceding that YEC may be wrong would irreparably erode Biblical authority”.
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Do these people not see the implications of such a statement? If you believe that the Bible has no authority except when science aligns with it completely, you are an atheist already! By making God’s revealed word subordinate to a relatively inconsequential field of materialist science such as geology, these litmus testers make God’s word inconsequential. As if the authority of God’s word derives from empirical testing of raw atoms – could professed atheists come up with a more sublime blasphemy? What a staggering lack of faith, ironically masquerading as belief!
I suppose that we might one day find that they are right, and that the Bible was, indeed, a tome about geology. In that case, the Young Earth Creationists will be kings of all geology: heirs to the matchless prize of power over dirt and rocks. In the meantime, however, these contrived disagreements between Biblical eisegesis and modern carbon dating do not diminish the timeless lessons of the Bible one single bit.
I’m not aware of any Christian who uses this as a litmus test (does John McArthur?). I wonder what such a person would present as their best argument, i.e. in their own words, how did they arrive at their conclusion?
Quite frankly, the creation account in Genesis is about as clear as the description of God’s wrath when he destroys the Earth in Revelation. Making a litmus test of one’s ability to extrapolate details from such ambiguity would be pretty foolish, when the overall message is very clear. God created the heavens and the earth, according to his plan and his methods. And he is going to destroy these heavens and this earth, again according to his plan and his methods.
I do think it is fair to question somebody’s belief in the entire counsel of scripture. If I considered that the account in Genesis was mistaken or false that would be a valid litmus test.
I do know of Christians who rely on bad so called creation science and who get into all kinds of trouble. Note to all, science isn’t like politics where everyone has an opinion and a political camp. You can’t campaign to change science. Science is like religion, and there is one truth. Let the scientists speak for themselves. And let God’s word speak for itself.
I didn’t call anyone out specifically, because I’ve heard it from people I really respect and consider to be very good Christians (like old Sunday School teachers I love who would say, “If evolution is true, why don’t women have monkeys for babies?” — what possible profit could there be in arguing with them?) But here is a link to one of the guys who brought it up (Mark teaches systematic theology in Allen Park, MI): http://systematicsmatters.blogspot.com/2009/09/fundamentalist-raison-detre-part-4.html. His post defending his stance on YEC is due any day now. Most of what he has said on other topics is not completely insane, so hopefully he’ll make an effort to defend the position that YEC is an essential worth separation, which others have already accepted and propagated.
Science is like religion, and there is one truth. Let the scientists speak for themselves. And let God’s word speak for itself.
I like this way of putting things. It’s exactly right.
Thanks for the links. I need a good RSS reader so I can keep up with guys like that.
Reading Mark’s post, I think that YEC is a peripheral issue.
There are the “essential Christian doctrines” that are litmus tests (I’m currently taking this course at the Detroit Bible Institute, BTW). If you don’t believe them, then you are not a Christian. Then there are minor issues, like YEC, where Christians can agree to disagree.
Now, watch some of these clips of John MacArthur defending truth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BZ-N4pruFo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI9EzMWZoag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZgh54sfVZ0&feature=related
It is pretty clear that when it comes to sound Biblical doctrine, many mainline denominations are off the rails completely. And fundamentalists are needed to at least call them out.
So, I think YEC fundamentalism is a minor echo from the real battle for sound doctrine.
Joshua,
I’m curious to know how you would harmonize old-earth creationism with the geneologies of Genesis. Even if we take the Septuagint’s numbers, we aren’t much further back than around 7000 years. Even if we insert gaps, it doesn’t seem like we can get further back than 10 000 years. Would you assert that this (8000-4000 B.C) was when man was created, but the earth itself was subject to the processes of evolution for many aeons before that?
Hi David,
Thanks for the comment!
If the exact creation date of humankind was important to theology or our knowledge of God, I believe that the Bible would spell it out directly. It’s not surprising to me that militant atheists would try to make it an essential doctrine of Christianity. It is surprising that Christians would.
The geneaologies are theologically important. The timeline of creation is theologically important. However, these are NOT important for purposes of backwards-extrapolating exact chronological dates of events on such an ancient timeline.
Nowhere in the Bible does God encourage such a use for scriptures, nor do any of the Church fathers use scripture this way. Therefore, I am not interested in using scriptures to answer such questions.
I certainly agree that we ought not to use Scripture for uses for which it was not intended. However, I think the concern of YEC is that since the genealogies provide us with dates given in years, we are faced with an inerrancy/authority issue if we simply place science and Scripture in two completely different epistemological categories.
Sure, I know that YEC want to turn this into an inerrancy/authority issue. But I reject the idea that it’s a matter of disjointly separating epistemological domains. The domains always coexist. The YEC position belies a submissive bias toward the materialistic pole — a position which places the materialistic in a position of authority over scriptural. The very position colludes with the atheist in overthrowing the authority of scripture, while feiging to be gravely concerned about the authority of scripture.
Perhaps “feigning” is too strong a word, but these people are certainly complicit (at minimum tacitly) with the materialists who seek to overthrow scriptural authority.
Furthermore, the presupposition of such an argument about inerrancy seems to be that scriptures can be matched to science in a way which removes all debate and can even be verified by an autistic monkey. This insistence on exact matching of every conceivable physical/materialistic correlate leaves little room for faith, and belies an attitude in which the YEC proponent despises faith and love and desires instead a completely coercive religion (see my post about “chess is violence”, or about “bulverism”).
I appreciate this opportunity to comment. I had the same problem as David. I could not see how science and the Bible could be harmonized when the genealogies only take us back six thousand years to Adam and Eve. So I decided to find out the answer and write it up. This is what I did with the Lord’s help. It took a decade to do it, but the answer came. I found that if you analyze the drop of the patriarchs’ life spans that are given in the Bible, you can see that the descendants of Adam and Eve married into as existing human race. If you carefully study the Hebrew of Genesis, you find that the Bible teaches that God created the pre-Adamic race through descent as recorded in Genesis 1. Genesis 2 records how God created Adam and Eve. Genesis 6 explains that these two races intermarried. Science teaches that modern man has been on this earth at least 100 thousand years. As you can see, this is not a problem for this interpretation of the Bible. Further explanation can be found at my website http://www.garytmayer.blogspot.com.
Hi Gary,
I’m sure it is possible to interpret the Bible in many different ways that harmonize with science. I’m not supportive of such efforts, though. Ussher spent a decade coming up with his theory, which stood for 300 years before tumbling in disgrace and sparking all of this hand-wringing about “inerrancy”. Ussher also did it “with the Lord’s help”. But I’m still not convinced that these efforts are anything but the efforts of prideful men to turn the Bible into something it’s not. Best of luck to you, though.