Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and in this episode, I am going to be getting back into the Views of Creation series. Now, these aren't really necessary to listen to in order, so if you haven't listened to the previous ones, don't worry about it. You can always pick those up after you listen to this one if you want. But if you are interested in those episodes, they are number 10 and 15. In episode 10, I talked about John Walton's functional view of creation. And in episode 15, I talked about the analogical day's view and the literary view.
So today what we're going to do is we're going to get into the more scientific views of the views of creation. in other words, when we [00:01:00] read Genesis 1, we are looking at it as something that we could kind of equate with science in some way.
There are actually a number of different views that can fall under this umbrella, but the most common two that you're going to see are what we might call the literal six day creation view. This is where it is claimed that we can take the plain reading of Scripture as exactly what happened in history.
And we're probably quite familiar with how this is often contrasted with the idea of evolution. So the other thing we're primarily going to be talking about is theistic evolution, or evolutionary creationism. Depending on who you're talking to, they might prefer one term over the other, and quite often Christians who accept evolution don't fall into one particular way of formulating what that means when we're looking at the text of the Bible and history.
Now, I'm [00:02:00] not a scientist. I am NOT going to be presenting the scientific evidence for evolution here. I am just presenting some ways that people have viewed the creation. And honestly, these are Christian ways of viewing the creation.
I'm really not a big fan of... The stance that you have to have a particular view of creation, or you're not a Christian, or you're not taking Scripture seriously, or whatever it is. So what I'm trying to do is present these honestly and in their strength so that you can kind of understand where people are when they come from these frameworks.
Now, of course, I'm not covering every little nuance, because even within all of these views of creation, you have a wide swath of different kinds of opinions. I'm just trying to show that these are valid ways of viewing things, whether or not I agree or [00:03:00] disagree.
I have my own personal opinions, and I'm sure that those will shine through here and there as I'm talking now and in other episodes. But I really think as Christians, we need to be aware that there are other ways of interpreting Scripture and there are reasons for that. People come to their interpretive decisions through very valid reasons. And it's a very complex thing. And that's also something I'm going to be talking a little bit about here today. Because I think it really matters to see how the basis of our interpretations impact where we go with our interpretations in the end.
And because we have such a wide variety of people in Christianity today, you are going to have a wide variety of ways of looking at the text. And of course, the best thing we should be doing is looking at the text first and foremost with the lens of the original audience and [00:04:00] authors in mind. That will get us where our head is in the right place, but even so, we need to be aware that not everyone has really had good training in interpretation. And we should be aware of that, and we should acknowledge the fact that even with training, people are still going to disagree. And that's okay. So that's the framework that I am coming at this with.
But because this is my podcast and you're here listening to my opinions and my thoughts, I'm not going to shy away from giving my opinions as well. But I'm exceptionally interested in giving each of these views as much credit as I can and presenting them in the strongest way that I can.
We tend to think of literal six day creation and evolution as completely opposite views, but the previous episodes that I've done on the Views of Creation series, Those views do not [00:05:00] take any kind of scientific approach at all, whereas both the literal six day creation view and the evolutionary view do take a stance on science as part of the foundation for their views.
Or of course, really I should say that they can because you can believe in evolution and also not associate that at all with the Bible's text. And as I have said in my previous Views of Creation episodes, you don't have to just stick with one particular view, right? These can be mixed together and kind of put into a blender and you can come up with your own little thing out at the end.
But I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself because first I need to lay a bit of a groundwork. Here of hermeneutics, I think, and that's just a really fancy word for interpretation. See, what we tend to think about is that we have the Bible, right? [00:06:00] And we need to dig into the Bible, and we need to find this underlying layer of interpretation within the Bible.
Well, that's just not how it works. That's not how we can view texts. There are layers of meaning, and also when you take a text out of its original context, you're going to lose some of what the original author and readers would have interpreted it as. That's just a natural function of the passage of time.
That's not some post modern mumbo jumbo saying you can't get to the meaning of the text. I'm just saying we need to acknowledge that some of that has been lost through time, and when it comes to the Bible, we can still trust that God's message is preserved. But let's talk about hermeneutics. I'm going to read a definition for [00:07:00] hermeneutics from the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, which says,
quote,
Hermeneutics can be described as the art of understanding.
Used in its narrower sense, hermeneutics can refer to the method and techniques used to interpret written texts. In a wider sense, it can refer to the conditions which make understanding possible, and even to the process of understanding as a whole. In theology, it is usually used in contrast to exegesis. The former is understood as the theory, the latter as the practice of interpretation.
End quote.
So I think I've used the term exegesis here, and maybe I've also used the term hermeneutics. They're closely related. Hermeneutics, you can think of that as the science or the map, whereas exegesis is the act of [00:08:00] using the science, or the map. So hermeneutics is the theory and exegesis is the practice or the thing that you're actually supposed to be doing. You might have heard the term exegesis in correspondence with the term eisegesis. Exegesis is the act of drawing meaning out of the text. Eisegesis is the act of putting meaning into the text yourself.
So, when we're talking about the Bible, obviously we're supposed to be doing exegesis. We're supposed to be understanding what the Bible has to say and drawing out the meaning from the text itself, rather than saying, oh, gee, I think it means this. Let me just lay my interpretation and my thought process over the text itself.
So, let me state again, it is absolutely essential as Bible readers that we are performing exegesis. [00:09:00] That means that whatever meaning we are drawing out of the text has to be there inside the text.
Now, from the standpoint of our various interpretations that we're talking about here, the literal six day creationist needs to be saying that the original authors of the text, talking about the human authors and God, the ultimate author, what they want their readers to understand is that this is a historical narrative. This is exactly how it happened. The common term used is this is the plain meaning of the text.
Now for the interpreter who prefers the evolutionary side of science being inside the text, it's probably the case that they would not assume that Moses would have been thinking in terms of modern evolution, but that God knew [00:10:00] that this is how it happened, and so God ensured that the human writer wrote it like this to cover all of these bases. So even if the human author didn't understand exactly what was going on, we would understand it today because now we understand science in this way, and God knew that we would get to this knowledge. So, he's He's describing it in a way that the ancient person, you know, they could have kind of understood it, but we understand it on a deeper, more factual level because we have so much more knowledge now and all of the knowledge that we learn has been in the Bible all the time, but the human authors didn't necessarily know it.
So each of these views of creation, they're hopefully both trying to perform exegesis, drawing the meaning out of the text, but they're thinking of the individual authors in a [00:11:00] slightly different way from one another. So that means that their hermeneutics are a bit different. That means that they each have a slightly different map beside them that they are using to help guide their reading through Scripture.
Of course, we all want to think that we have the right map, right? We all want to think that our hermeneutics are rock solid, and that we are reading the text the way that we should be, and that that person over there, they're not reading it the same. And because they're not reading it the same, that means that they don't have as high of a view of Scripture as I do, maybe.
Or there's some other, deeper problem. But, you know, for people who think that the Bible is inspired, it's the Bible that's inspired. It's not our hermeneutics that are inspired, I'm sorry to say. And the reason for that is something that is [00:12:00] really frustrating if you are into apologetics at all. We all have different sources that we trust for our knowledge.
We all have a different grounds or method of seeking and applying and accepting knowledge. This is called epistemology. See, you're getting so many fancy words today. Epistemology is just the theory or science of knowledge at large. And the way you gain knowledge is through trusted sources. A lot of times it's through your own experience and hopefully you yourself are trustworthy to yourself. So you are gaining knowledge from yourself. Another source of knowledge is our family or our pastor or our teachers or a book from a writer , who we think knows what he's talking about. These are our trusted [00:13:00] sources and our sources are how we build a foundation of knowledge and we are bringing that foundation of knowledge to the text when we interpret it. And so not everybody's sources of knowledge are quite of the same level as everyone else, we are gonna naturally have different hermeneutics because of that. The map of how we are reading the Bible is going to differ from one another depending upon what sources we trust and what those sources have given us in knowledge.
This is why you can't just go up to somebody who is not a believer in the Bible and give them Biblical proof for something that you want them to believe in. Well, that's not one of their sources that they trust for knowledge. So you need to build up a foundation of discussion in a different way than appealing to Biblical authority. You need to appeal to the authority that they [00:14:00] accept themselves.
Now, this is part of the fight between literal creationists and evolutionary creationists because, sometimes the literal six day creationist will tell the evolutionist that they are elevating science above Scripture as an authority.
Well, maybe they are, and maybe they're not. That's kind of a different discussion. That's a discussion about epistemology. And most people don't know how to have a proper discussion about epistemology. So, you tend to be starting off on the wrong foot if you're directly going there and claiming that everyone who believes in evolution is elevating science to a position above the Bible... well, I could just as well say that anyone who believes in a literal six day creation is also elevating science to not above the Bible, but the same level as [00:15:00] the Bible, because , their view requires that the Bible and science are talking about exactly the same thing and that we will not see any discrepancies if we're doing science correctly.
So to me it's a bit hard to not see that there's a bit of a projection going on in that framework because they are the ones who are insisting that science come along for the ride whereas some evolutionists will also have the same kind of attitude, but many won't. Many will divorce the idea of evolution and the interpretation of the Bible and not necessarily see them one as the same.
So I guess my point is here that don't assume somebody's epistemology. Have a conversation about that rather than just assuming that they are elevating one source of knowledge over another. You don't know that that's the case, just [00:16:00] because they happen to be using more than one source of knowledge in order to interpret something.
Alright, so we've talked a little bit about hermeneutics and epistemology and all of those things that we are taking from what we already understand of the world and how we should view the world and bringing all of that to the text of the Bible to see what it means, right? And we're going to assume certain things about us versus the original authors in all of that mix as well.
How differently did the original authors view the world? Wouldn't they see the world the same as we do in some ways? Well, of course they do. They also see it very differently. So, there's this balancing game and there's this kind of fight we have to do when we come to the text if we're really honest about understanding it in its original context.
Now, many of us think, [00:17:00] isn't a literal interpretation the way we've always seen it? Isn't this the obvious way that everyone in all of history would have read the Bible, especially in Genesis 1. To be honest, the terms literal and plain are two terms that I would kind of like to toss out of the entire idea of interpreting the Bible.
What does literal even mean, and what does plain mean? I mean, you understand that something that's plain to one person is not necessarily going to be plain to another person. What's plain to us is going to be based on all of that knowledge that we bring to the table. It's going to be based on our epistemology.
Here's a question. Does figurative language [00:18:00] not have a literal meaning? I mean, that doesn't make much sense, right? If you're saying something figuratively, it ought to have a real literal meaning, right? Let me share a quote from the book, Basic Bible Interpretation, A Practical Guide to Discovering Biblical Truth, by Roy B. Zuck.
In a section titled, Is Figurative Language the Opposite of Literal Interpretation? It says,
quote,
In the preceding section in this chapter, the word figurative may seem to be used in a way that opposes the word literal. In 0.2 above I wrote, the figurative sense is intended if the literal would involve an impossibility.
However, this and similar statements should not be understood as suggesting that figurative language does not convey literal truth. Figurative speech, as already discussed is a picturesque out of the ordinary way [00:19:00] of presenting literal facts that might otherwise be stated in a normal, plain, ordinary way.
Saying that the argument does not hold water is an unusual way of saying the more ordinary sentence, the argument is weak. Both sentences convey a literal fact. One conveys it in a figurative fashion, the other in a non figurative way. In other words, as Raddmacher put it, behind every figure of speech is a literal meaning, and by means of the historical grammatical exegesis of the text, these literal meanings are to be sought out.
If I say he jumped out of his skin, I do not mean this in the way the words jumped and skin would normally be used in their plain sense. Instead, I am using a figurative expression, obviously no one can actually jump out of his skin, that communicates a literal fact, namely that the person was very frightened.
The figurative is a colorful vehicle for presenting literal truth. As Mounce explains, [00:20:00] a writer may convey his thought either by the use of words in their directly denotative sense, or he may choose the more pleasing path of figurative expression. But one thing must be kept clear.
In either case, the literal meaning is the same. An interpretation is literal only when it corresponds to what the author intends to convey with his statement. Figurative language, then, is not antithetical to literal interpretation. It is a part of it. Perhaps it is better not to speak of figurative versus literal interpretation, but of ordinary literal versus figurative literal interpretation.
End quote.
And literal also isn't only juxtaposed against figurative. You can have the same meaning of literal, but still come out with different interpretations. You can have the literal six day creationist who says that the world was created in six [00:21:00] literal 24 hour periods. Or, you can have the Concordist, who says that each day of creation corresponds to a particular time period on Earth.
Both of those use the text to refer to specific time periods in each case. They are both, in a sense, the same kind of literalness, if that makes sense. So you have the Six Day Creationist, you have the Concordist, who is equating the days of creation to concord with time periods on earth. You also have the person who believes in the gap theory, or the ruin and restoration views of creation.
In this view of creation, there is a time period before day one of creation, but after verse one of Genesis, that indicates that there was [00:22:00] creation, and it was ruined for some reason, usually because of a particular rebellion, and God restarted creation. So that's why we see the chaos waters in the early chapter of Genesis.
That is also another literal interpretation. They are taking the text of the Bible and applying certain meanings to each part of the text. So this means that every part of the Bible is historically accurate because it corresponds to some real time period in Earth's history. So, really, these should be called historical rather than literal. That makes a little more sense.
Okay, I want to go on one more little mini rabbit trail before I really dig into these views a little more, , because , we're fairly used to them. We understand them in a lot of ways, so I don't really think it's going to take too long to go [00:23:00] through them. So I think it's useful to kind of pad the conversation in a wider way because these views are not necessarily complex to understand in general.
So I want to ask, what are the benefits of a literal, or we might say historical, interpretation of the creation account in Genesis 1? Why in particular do certain people and groups Insist that it's so important that we understand the Bible literally and historically. Why does that matter to them?
What is the great benefit of this interpretation, or this type of interpretation. I've thought about this a lot because I kind of don't really care for those kinds of really intensive rhetorics about [00:24:00] how you are not understanding the Bible unless you understand it the way I do. That kind of puts a burr under my saddle. I don't like it. I don't like that kind of an attitude. But on the other hand, I don't think that people who are doing that, they're not being insincere, they really have some reasons for why they're doing that and why it matters so much to them. And so I really want to understand that. I want to understand why this is so essential.
And I think that there are a couple of really solid points that we could bring out here. First of all is just the question of apologetics.
If you want to share your faith with the world at large, you want to do it in a way that is going to be convincing, right? I mean, that makes sense. And we live in a world that [00:25:00] is steeped in science and these materialistic ideas and we want people to have the right ideas of that because we want to give glory to God.
We want to give all of the credit for creation to God, as well we should be. And so when we see science kind of blurring these lines that, give people this way to interpret the creation of the world without God, we don't like that, obviously, and we want to defend God, even if He doesn't need it. , we still have this desire to... make sure God is being represented well, and we don't want anyone to fall away because of science or, you know, whatever. So there is this apologetics movement that well meaning or misguided as it might be, or both, we want to get [00:26:00] everyone to believe in the Bible. And if we can prove the Bible through science, that becomes easier.
We have more ways that we can defend the faith, more ways that we can evangelize other people, more ways that we can convince others to read the Bible and see its truth. So I think in general, just the purpose of apologetics is a pretty strong motivation. For people to want to describe the Bible in scientific terms and see, in science, what we see in the Bible because that correlates it.
And also that bolsters our faith as well, you know, . We see some sort of relevance and realness to what we're reading in the Bible. I remember saying something about this in a previous episode, but if we can't see something as real, if we can't see [00:27:00] it as a reality, we're not going to believe in it.
So we need to be able to understand the Bible in its realness. And so in order to do that, people want to frame it in these scientific ways to help people do that. And that's a pretty fair goal, right? For myself, it does get a bit frustrating because I think that there's other ways to see truth than seeing it scientifically.
And again, that's not to toss out any of the literalness that's going on because the meaning is there either way. But, I digress.
Alright, so if you can read the Bible, and we can see this literal historicity in it, then that helps us with apologetics. And it might help us with our faith personally.[00:28:00] And we can assume that this makes it a believable thing, right?
If we think something actually happened in history... We will believe that that thing happened in history, right? It's crazy how that happens. And, you know, also it just goes back to what is your source of truth? What do you believe? And how do you formulate those beliefs? I mean, it's kind of interesting. We probably all know people, that people might be ourselves, I don't know, who don't like fiction, who don't like poetry, who just want... to read history books, and who just like to read the science books. And so if, you're that kind of a person, and you don't really find a whole lot of value in reading fiction, then you're not finding the truth that the fiction is holding. Whereas, you know, some other person could find way more truth in a novel than [00:29:00] they would be interested in reading a textbook for.
I think there's also an idea that we don't want to see any authority, at all anywhere, that could potentially be seen as outside the realm of God's authority. Now, I personally think that's a bit silly because as humans we are all within God's authority. There's no authority that is actually outside of God's authority, but we don't like seeing other people ascribe authority to figures that we don't want to see as being in authority, right? So if people are going to believe in science, well, science ought to have something to do with God, and the way that you're going to connect science with God is it's just different from different people. Some people will think that the Bible needs to be the lens through which all science is done, whereas other people are going to say, [00:30:00] you can do science and any truth that you find in there, it's not a threat to the Bible, because all truth is God's truth, right?
Alright, so we've talked a bit about some nice, solid benefits of historical interpretation of the Bible.
Now, what are the risks of historical interpretation of the Bible? Of course, you might not want to admit that there are risks, but there are. And the types of risks are going to depend on your formulation of the science that fits into the Bible, right?
So let's talk about the literal Six Day Creationist. Now, of course, they're going to believe that any science is going to confirm the Bible, right? This is just kind of a given that science is going to fit the Bible, and the Bible will fit science, and we will [00:31:00] all go on our happy, merry way. But, how many people do you know, or have you heard of, who have left the faith because they've discovered other scientific ideas that contradict the Bible?
We can pound our desks all we want and say that there are no contradictions. But not everyone's going to believe that, right? They're going to see other ideas out there, and if you're saying, well, those don't fit the Bible, then what do you think's going to happen to their faith? If their faith is based on a historical narrative of the Bible that is completely accurate, and they find anything else, anything else at all that goes against that, well, that's a knock to their faith.
Now, of course we can say, well, you know, that's just the risk that there is, and it's not our fault that people aren't going to take things [00:32:00] seriously and understand it the right way. Well, okay, fair enough, I guess, but, I mean, what about all of those people? It seems like that's why it gets super antagonistic, because when those people come back and say, look, I don't see that this is the case, well, then it , gets the backs up of the person who told them that in the first place.
It's just very antagonistic overall. The idea is that there's just nothing we can do about it and we have to double down on our position and say, we are right. And anyone who wants to be right can be right with us. And anyone who wants to be wrong, can be wrong over there. Ah, it's just such a sad way to do apologetics, in my opinion, , and when you see so many faithful Christians who can see the text in a different light, why are you doubling down so hard to shut off all of those other ideas [00:33:00] when you might not even be understanding where their hermeneutics are?
You might not understand their map. They might not understand your map. How about you compare maps and see what's interesting and what does cross over and meet there in those middles.
Here's another big risk about the literal interpretations of Genesis 1. What if you're wrong? What if your interpretation is wrong and you are insisting that this is the only way to go about it?
If that's the case, all of those people who have left the faith because they couldn't believe in the Six Day Creation, well, that's kind of on you. And I don't know about you, but I don't really want to be in that position. That is not a great position to be in. Also, you become unteachable. If your [00:34:00] interpretation, rather than the Bible, is infallible, then what's actually your authority there?
Is it really the Bible? Just some food for thought. And again, I'm not trying to broad brush everyone who holds certain views into these types of things, because again, it depends on your formulation of it, it depends on your attitude of how you hold that position. So I'm not trying to say that everyone who holds certain positions is falling into these types of camps, because that is certainly not the case, but it is a risk because this is what we actually see in our Christian churches.
Alright, almost two thirds of the way into our episode and finally let's get to what I'm actually trying to talk about. Okay, not really. I've been talking about this the whole time.
But as far as the literal [00:35:00] six day creation view of creation goes, it's actually a pretty strong position from a biblical interpretation perspective, because it cannot really be disproved using the biblical text. Now, what I'm not talking about is young earth creationism specifically. I'm only talking about the idea that there was a literal creation that happened in six days.
I'm not talking about young earth creation simply for the fact that Young Earth Creationism is usually the idea that you can add up all of the genealogies in the Bible and you can come up with the date of creation from that. And I absolutely think that you can disprove that simply by using the biblical text.
If you don't believe me, then go read this short little book called The God of the Gaps. And it [00:36:00] pretty concisely and meticulously disproves the entire idea that you can use genealogies in order to arrive at the date of creation. Now, that also doesn't prove that the earth is old. It just means that we have no idea how old it is.
So, I'm not saying that young earth creationism can be proven by the Bible, because I believe that it cannot. However, you cannot disprove the literal six day creation, I think. So if you're looking for a view of creation that can't actually be disproven, then I think you really can hitch your horse to the six day creation idea.
And I even say that as a proponent of science , and who leans towards the old earth. Because, guess what? God could do anything he wanted. And wrapped up into the idea of the Six Day [00:37:00] Creation is usually the idea that the world was created mature, in a mature state. And if the world was created in a mature state, then guess what, Buttercup? You can't use science to disprove any of that because the science is just going to look like it's an old earth, right? It's going to be a mirage. It's not going to disprove anything if you can say that the world was created in a mature state.
In other words, even if you're doing science and it looks like it wasn't created in six days, it still very well could have been created in six days. So, to be honest, no matter what we do with science, it's really not going to be helpful to figure out the six day creation idea. I mean, I could be wrong, there could be something that would actually prove that, but it would be a pretty particular thing, and [00:38:00] I've got my severe doubts.
Of course, it usually is married with the idea of the young earth, and that's usually what people are trying to prove. But since I have already said that you cannot prove a young earth through adding up dates in the Bible, then that becomes a solidly scientific pursuit in my perspective, and you can just go have fun with that if you want, and some people have, decided that there are interesting things in that pursuit, but that, that's not a biblical interpretation issue to me.
Maybe one of the biggest things that I have seen against the idea of the Six Day Creation is in the Hebrew terminology used for day. Some people have claimed that the use of the word day cannot or is not literally a 24 hour period of [00:39:00] time. And they use the association with the numbers to talk about this.
I don't personally think that's a very good argument. I don't really see it. I think that the original audience would have seen these as 24 hour periods. So that's not an idea that I would say is a strong defense against the view at all.
Now the days are kind of labeled oddly though, so there is that. It might not be as chronologically sound as we want to say it is, like the first day, and then the second day, and then the third day, and then the fourth day. They might not have seen it quite like that. It's possible, because day one is, it doesn't actually say the first day, it says day one.
For the second day, it does use the ordinal number. It does use the term second, but it doesn't say the second, it just [00:40:00] says second day, so that's a bit weird. I actually think you have to get to the sixth day, the day of the creation of man, where it says THE sixth day, and it says THE seventh day. So the fact that the days are labeled differently, that's a little bit strange, and it might indicate that the author and the readers would have thought of this not in a chronological way, but just that these are days that are organized for theological purposes.
Well, like I said, I didn't think it was going to take too long to get through the arguments for the six days of creation. If your hermeneutics, your map of interpretation, is structured so that these need to be historical, then I don't have any arguments against that.
I just don't, I don't think anyone else does either, to be honest with you. [00:41:00] The best I could say against it, and I don't think it's against it at all, is that there are other ways of looking at the text that are more interesting, that are more theologically rich, but that doesn't disprove any of the historicity idea, so there you go.
Oh, I guess we should talk a little bit about whether or not the ancient person would have seen this as literal history. And I think the answer for a lot of people would have been yes. That doesn't mean I have to take it as history, just because they would have though. Now, some of you are saying, now hang on a second, what about exegesis?
Aren't we supposed to understand the text in context? Aren't we supposed to understand the text the way the ancient person would have understood it? Yes, [00:42:00] but now we need to get into a distinction of the meaning of the text and truth itself. And come to think of it, this is probably another benefit of having a historical literal interpretation of the text, because there's not going to be any difference between those two things. Except, of course, when there is. Most of us don't believe in a flat Earth. Most of us don't think that the Earth is literally suspended on pillars above a great deep where you have Leviathan and other chaos monsters swimming around down there.
Most of us have accepted the science of astronomy where the Earth is not the center of the universe. So you see there's a tendency to cherry pick sometimes. The science we will accept, the science we won't accept. The meaning of the Bible that is [00:43:00] literally true and the meanings that are figurative. And I say sometimes we cherry pick, but to be honest we all cherry pick.
We all do it. And this is also why some people will accept the reality of the spiritual realm that the Bible lays out as truth, and other people will not because it doesn't fit into their, what? Oh yes, their hermeneutics.
That's actually an interesting kind of Intersection of the six day creationists and the evolutionists. A lot of times both camps will have people who don't like the structure of the unseen realm that we see in the Bible. I find that interesting, and I also find that this is maybe one reason why the scientific and historical perspectives are a bit handicapped, to be honest.
Okay, [00:44:00] so, but here's the thing. If you think about science today, I'm pretty sure most of us understand that our science is very, very different from the science of the ancient world. To the point that we might say that they didn't have science, and I think that's misguided, but it depends on what your definition of science is. I think generally we could call science the exploration of the world and trying to explain things that happen in the world in concise ways, right?
So the ancient science was very steeped in the supernatural. So their explanations for the world, they didn't go and do a whole lot of experiments like we do. That doesn't mean they didn't do any. I mean, we know that astronomy in particular was at very high levels at some points in history, but all of their science was couched in the supernatural. So their gods would be explaining why [00:45:00] the world was the way it was, right? So I think that from that perspective, Genesis was a scientific account. Because it was explaining the natural order of things in the way that they explained it.
But you see, science has, in fact, changed over time. Our understanding of things have changed. And so we don't have to take the ancient person's scientific understanding as our own. So, again, this is why a lot of people don't believe in the supernatural worldview of the Bible, because they think if that's their science, then we don't need to understand it that way, right? And from that perspective, I totally understand it and sympathize.
The problem with it is, the Bible's message is not scientific, it is theological. So, tossing out theological messaging is a [00:46:00] very different thing than tossing out scientific messaging. So, I don't think we need to accept the ancient person's understanding of the cosmos, but I do think that we need to accept their theological meaning of the cosmos.
And so, because the supernatural world... it is connected to the scientific accounts, but it's also very deeply connected to the theological accounts, and I don't think you can discredit or disprove that, right? So if something is connecting to the work of Christ, that's a very different thing than if something is just talking about the structure of the world, or how or when it was made.
Those are different things. They're different categories of knowledge. If the Bible is a science book, then we need to be mining it for scientific information. If, on the other hand, the Bible is not a science book, [00:47:00] but it is a theology book, then we need to be mining it for theology. It's not containing scientific truth, it's containing theological truth.
Alright, so let's move on to talking a bit about theistic evolution. And, again, I'm not actually going to go into the science of any of it. Because I'm not a scientist, and if you are interested in this, there are going to be some resources linked in the description, so you can go and follow to your heart's content.
There's a lot of really interesting information out there, if you really want to dig in and look at this perspective and study the people who believe it. but I do kind of want to explain what it's all about to some degree, so that we can... Have some hook that we can hang our hat on this.
To be honest, I kind of was hoping to get into this book that I have that [00:48:00] is critiquing theistic evolution because it's quite interesting and a bit broad, but considering the amount of time I have right now, I think it's best to give the positive view of theistic evolution.
If you guys are interested in me reviewing this book with you about critiquing theistic evolution, I'm happy to do so if there is interest. So, for now, I am going to go to the website of BioLogos. This is not BioLogos. com, where you will find some medical stuff. This is BioLogos. org. And if you go there, you will find blog posts and podcast episodes and videos and all kinds of things that you can really just dig into if you're interested.
This is what it says currently on the landing page. It says,
quote,
God's word, [00:49:00] God's world. A line has been drawn between faith and science. But must we choose either one or the other in order to find answers to our deeply held questions?
And then it gives a little learn more and see all resources button and a little video you can watch.
I will also say this is not the only place you can go to that has really solid information on a Christian perspective on evolution. But this is one place you can go. So, this comment about choosing either faith or science, of course, there's many ways that people have taken that approach.
The fact that we see them as enemies and opposed is actually not really from the side of science. It's actually Christians who have doubled down into that dichotomy. But if you dig around a little bit on this website, you will find that the [00:50:00] organization BioLogos was founded by a biologist named Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project. And he has a book called The Language of God, where he tells his story where he went from being an atheist to being a Christian.
Okay, I'm going to read a bit from an article on their website called, What is Evolutionary Creation? The beginning of the article starts out with a kind of a basic description or claim, which says,
quote,
Evolutionary creation is a Christian position on origins. It takes the Bible seriously as the inspired and authoritative word of God, and it takes science seriously as a way of understanding the world God has made. Evolutionary creation includes two basic ideas. First, that God created all things, including human beings, in his own image. Second, that evolution is the best [00:51:00] scientific explanation we currently have for the diversity and similarities of all life on Earth.
End quote.
Okay, so far we actually don't have anything about Bible interpretation here. It's not saying necessarily that the Genesis 1 creation account is talking about evolution. And unless you're a Concordist, that's a pretty common perspective, I think. Continuing on a bit in the article, it says,
quote,
So, what are the central ideas that define evolutionary creation?
Evolutionary creationists believe that God created and sustains all things. We believe that God acts purposefully in creation, just as he does in our lives, and that he continues to actively uphold and sustain creation. We believe in the Trinity, the full divinity and full humanity of Jesus Christ, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
[00:52:00] We believe that all humans are made in the image of God, and that all humans have a sinful nature. We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. Evolutionary creationists accept evolution as the best scientific explanation we have for how life on earth has changed over time. In biology, evolution refers to descent with modification, which includes the idea that all species are descended from a common ancestor over many generations. We therefore accept the scientific evidence that all life on Earth is related, including humans, which does not negate the image of God in us.
Evolutionary creation is neither science nor theology, but an explanatory system that seeks to incorporate the best scholarship from each. It also includes some ideas about how theology and science relate to one another.
End quote.
Now here's the thing. You [00:53:00] notice that I'm using the term evolutionary creation, whereas previously I was using the term theistic evolution. So, Biologos prefers the term evolutionary creation, and they prefer it over theistic evolution. The thing is, that book that I was talking about that critiques theistic evolution, they're critiquing Biologos, so, so really, right out of the gate, the people who are arguing against Biologos are doing so in not such a good faith way.
So, what's the difference? Well, according to BioLogos, theistic evolution is an older and broader term. And they do say that a lot of people use them interchangeably, but they prefer this term because the term theist doesn't specify the theism that you believe in, right?
So BioLogos is definitely a Christian [00:54:00] organization, and they want that to come first. They want it to be obvious that their beliefs about God and creation come above their ideas of evolution. It's just that evolutionary science seems to them to be , the best explanation for the creation that we have.
And so evolutionary is meant to be an adjective to creation, right? Whereas theistic evolution, theistic is the adjective that attaches itself to evolution.
They also indicate it's a bit silly to talk about theistic evolution because we don't talk about theistic chemistry or theistic physics, so theistic evolution seems a bit silly. There's no special Christian version of scientific facts, they say. But rather, science provides tools for investigating God's creation.
They also take disagreement [00:55:00] with the fact that historically, theistic evolutions have been called deists. And a deist is somebody who believes in God, but who doesn't believe in a God who intercedes in the world, who really cares about the world. The deistic God sets the universe in motion and just lets it ride. And that's not what they're talking about here when they're talking about evolutionary creation. God is not detached from creation. He is still very much involved and purposeful in his involvement with creation.
And how do they approach interpretation to the Bible? Further on in the article, it says,
quote,
In our approach to the Bible, excellence means reading with sound principles of interpretation in mind. We seek to understand the purpose of a given passage and what it meant to the original audience, even if that understanding doesn't answer our own modern questions. We don't [00:56:00] expect the Bible to reveal scientific facts that the original authors wouldn't have understood. We don't try to explain away the Bible's evidence that people in biblical times had pre scientific ideas and concepts.
We prayerfully seek guidance from the Holy Spirit as we learn from teachers and scholars whose work can deepen our understanding of God's Word. All of this means we can reject the fear, cynicism, and suspicion that can sometimes cause people to disengage from either science or faith. We have freedom to approach both science and the Bible with a sense of wonder, confidence and joy.
End quote.
Alright, so I'm gonna start wrapping up here. So I'm not gonna read this article on their website called How long are the Days of Genesis One? primarily because I've kind of covered what they say in other episodes. They take a literary view over a calendar [00:57:00] day view, or day age view, where the seven days are cycles of 24 hours, or whether each day is a certain kind of an age on the earth. They also mention the analogical day view, as well as talking about the cosmic temple.
All in all, this view doesn't seem particularly militant to me, like it should be some sort of threat to our faith. It doesn't sound to me like they're not taking Scripture and God's relationship to us seriously. So, take that for what you will.
And while I'm talking about this, I also want to bring up the work of Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass, who has written the book, The Genealogical Adam and Eve: the Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry, and he is not necessarily advocating for evolution, but he's not necessarily advocating for [00:58:00] the young earth idea either.
What he does is he broadens the conversation so that all the people can get together and talk over how things can actually work and, that we don't need to ostracize each other over these views that we have.
While you're at it, you can check out peacefulscience. org, where you can find quite a bit of his work, as well as the work of other people.
Now, last, but certainly not least, I will mention Hugh Ross organization, Reasons to Believe, where you can find that at reasons. org, and this organization believes in concordism. That is where we have the days of creation, which equal lengthy times that are way longer than 24 hours, but Reasons to Believe also believes that humanity is a special creation. So even if there's some evolution going on, humans [00:59:00] did not evolve from other creatures.
So if you're interested at all in science and the idea of Christianity and Christian belief intersecting with science, all of these places are fantastic places to go to see different perspectives, to see how people have looked at this in different ways. Particularly from a perspective where we still are taking Scripture very, very seriously.
I personally think it's very possible to disagree in pleasant ways and really try and connect with each other to try and understand where we're coming from. That's really what we should be doing much more than this fighting of trying to get the right answers. If we work together and we talk together, we end up coming up with much more interesting things than if we just double down into our [01:00:00] dogmatic interpretations.
I know that this topic isn't maybe the most thrilling or compelling because we're so used to hearing about it a lot, at least for a lot of us.
But I didn't want to leave out these views of creation. And it's a potential springboard to talk about some of these things that I've brought up. I will probably get into Concordism more specifically and deliberately in its own episode. I may or may not talk some more about evolution. And there's probably a lot more to say about the Ruin and Restoration view of creation as well.
See, I mentioned all these things and now I have to talk about them, so... There you go. That's what happened with this episode. I was like, do I really need to talk about the literal view of creation? Everyone knows about it. But there's still interesting ways to think about it. And honestly, I do want to encourage more [01:01:00] familiarity and just respectful dialogue amongst all of these views, so.
I hope it was interesting. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to hear any feedback you have. You can email me at genesismarksthespot at gmail dot com. You can contact me on Facebook. I have my own page. I have my own discussion group as well. And I have my website at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com, where you can put in your email address and receive my newsletter, and you can read my blog, and you can write reviews on my page.
And you can find out where you can donate, if you find this content useful. But I really appreciate all of you who listen, and I really appreciate those of you who do donate. It is really helpful, because it does cost me money to do this, and I'm always acquiring new [01:02:00] resources for you guys. And I appreciate all of the encouragement you guys give me.
Keep a lookout for the newsletter and further resources that will be coming your way. And, as always, if anybody has any questions, I do take those for Q& A episodes as well. But for the moment, I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.
