A menagerie of galaxies that are only 6,00 years old? NASA
“Creationists make it sound as though a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.” Isaac Asimov
Tim Keller leans towards theistic evolution.
Tim Keller wrote this article at Biologos Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople in 2012.
Many secular and many evangelical voices agree on one ‘truism’—that if you are an orthodox Christian with a high view of the authority of the Bible, you cannot believe in evolution in any form at all. New Atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins and creationist writers such as Ken Ham seem to have arrived at a consensus on this, and so more and more in the general population are treating it as given. If you believe in God, you can’t believe in evolution. If you believe in evolution, you can’t believe in God.
As one who leans toward theistic evolution and believes in a literal Adam and Eve, I am grateful that pastors like Keller recognize a panoply of literary devices used by God in His Scriptures. This is evident in understanding the differences between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.
…Perhaps the strongest argument for the view that the author of Genesis 1 did not want to be taken literally is a comparison of the order of creative acts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Genesis 1 shows us an order of creation that does not follow a ‘natural order’ at all. For example, there is light (Day 1) before there are any sources of light–the sun, moon, and stars (Day 4). There is vegetation (Day 3) before there was any atmosphere (Day 4 when the sun was made) and therefore there was vegetation before rain was possible. Of course, this is not a problem per se for an omnipotent God. But Genesis 2:5 says: “When the Lord God made the earth and heavens–and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, because the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground.” Although God did not have to follow what we would call a ‘natural order’ in creation, Genesis 2:5teaches that he did. It is stated categorically: God did not put vegetation on the earth before there was an atmosphere and rain. But in Genesis 1 we do have vegetation before there is any rain possible or any man to till the earth. In Genesis 1 natural order means nothing–there are three ‘evenings and mornings’ before there is a sun to set! But in Genesis 2 natural order is the norm.5
If Genesis 1 and 2 are read literally, one would have to perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to make them mesh.
But in any case, you can’t read them both as straightforward accounts of historical events. Indeed, if they are both to be read literalistically, why would the author have combined the accounts, since they are (on that reading) incompatible? The best answer is that we are not supposed to understand them that way
Keller discusses the following issues, carefully outlining why deeply convicted Christians can believe in the biological process of evolution while disagreeing with the Grand Theory of Evolution.
Belief in evolution as a biological process is not the same as belief in evolution as a world-view.
…I believe that Christian pastors, theologians, and scientists who want to argue for an EBP (evolution as a biological process) account of origins must put a great deal of emphasis at the same time on arguing against GTE (Grand Theory of Evioution.)
Atheists such as Sam Harris insisted on the Grand Theory of Evolution and did so when he spoke out against Francis Collins, a devout Christian, who was nominated to head the NIH. BTW, please do not use this as an opportunity to rail against Francis Collins and his handling of COVID vaccinations. Here I am focusing on the issues surrounding believers and evolution.
The argument here is clear. If you believe human life was formed through evolutionary biological processes (from here on, referred to as EBP), you must therefore believe in the Grand Theory of Evolution (from here on, referred to as GTE) as the explanation for every aspect of human nature. Collins, he says, should see that human beings have no ‘immortal soul, free will, knowledge of the moral law, spiritual hunger, genuine altruism’ based on our relationship with God.3 Evolution, Harris claims, has shown that these things are illusions. All features of human life have a natural, scientifically explicable cause. If you believe in EBP, you must believe in GTE.
There is much more to be said about this excellent article at Biologos. But, as the reader can tell, I enjoy Keller’s reasoning.
Ken Ham accuses Tim Keller of being a lukewarm compromise regarding Scripture.
Chew on that for a minute…
One may disagree with Keller on his Reformed theology, relationship with The Gospel Coalition, and seeming ignorance of the problems with the startup TGC’s Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. Need I remind readers of the mess surrounding the new and former fellow, Josh Butler?) As folks know, I am not a Calvinist, but I appreciate various aspects of his writings and am aware of his church’s impact in NYC. I have learned from some of his books and sermons. I have long known of his tilt towards theistic evolutionism, which has caused some wailing and gnashing of teeth by some.
I have long disagreed with Ham’s approach to “apologetics.” Just as some remember the moment they “became Calvinists,” some remember the moment they became “Young Earth Creationists.” Let me be clear. There are some incredibly kind Calvinists and YECs. Ham, who is both, is not. I have written about him since the year I started this blog. I wrote about him from the beginning because of a nasty little group in my former SBC church who carried briefcases around with literature proving the earth was created 6,000-10,000 years ago, and anyone who didn’t believe that bordered on heresy. These fanboys of Ham carried on the spirit of their hero.
In February 2023, Church Leaders wrote Ken Ham Accuses Tim Keller of ‘Lukewarmness,’ ‘Compromising’ Following Announcement of Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. Apparently, when TGC announced the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, Ken Ham sounded the alarm. Genesis was under attack, and Keller was leading the troops into battle against Ham.
“So Tim Keller says ‘American Christianity Is Due For A Revival,’” Ham tweeted on Sunday (Feb. 12), quoting the title of a Keller authored op-ed recently published in The Atlantic, “but I don’t believe true revival can happen until there’s a new reformation to call church leaders (like Tim Keller) back to the authority of the Word of God beginning in Genesis.”
Christian, wake up and smell the coffee!!!
Ham added, “Then many church leaders accepted varying degrees of Darwinian evolution & eventually the Big Bang. All this undermined the authority of Scripture & resulted in generations being raised without the foundation of Genesis 1-11, which is the foundation for all doctrine, the rest of the bible, the Christian worldview, & really everything.”
“A Tim Keller apologetics center won’t help this situation because he has adopted evolutionary ideas into Genesis. True revival can’t take place without the right foundational history,” Ham argued. “Christians need to wake up and understand the foundational importance of the book of Genesis.”
Keller even wrote an article for Biologos. Trebuchets, fall to the front and commence lobbing.
Ham went on to point out that Keller has written for BioLogos, an apologetic resourcing organization seeking to reconcile Christian beliefs with scientific discovery.
…In his Twitter thread, Ham described BioLogos as “one of the leading compromise organizations trying to get the church to reject a literal Genesis,” linking to a 2012 blog post wherein he further criticized Keller.
My guess is that the Keller Center did not think Ham was worthy of a response. Currently, Keller is having difficulties surrounding the treatment for his cancer.
Ham has been after Keller for over a decade.
In 2012, Ken Ham wrote Misrepresented by Leading Pastor on His Answers in Genesis website.
Tim Keller is an example of a very evangelistic teacher of the Word, who we would applaud for his teaching on the centrality of Christ and his fervor to reach people with the gospel. And certainly, there are many who are responding to his teaching—for which we praise the Lord. At the same time we need to step back and recognize that we are losing this culture, and the church in America is moving in the direction of the church in England where church attendance is way down and the culture as a whole has become extremely secular.
We have said many times over the past years that the attack on the Word of God in this era of history has been an attack on Genesis 1-11 in particular. So many in the church have adopted evolution/millions of years into the Genesis account, reinterpreting it in various ways. This has led to an undermining of the authority of the Word of God and contributing to the loss of the coming generations from the church. It only takes one generation to lose a culture.
The following references the paper I linked to at the beginning of this post.
…It is so sad to see a great Bible teacher like Tim Keller promote belief in evolution to the church. In 2009, he co-sponsored a conference with the Biologos Foundation (a Foundation that I consider to be extremely liberal in many ways) in New York. Tim Keller presented a paper at that conference which I will link to below.
Ham says one can be a Christian and believe in evolution, but he always adds the “but.” See how he does it here.
I have stated many times that there are many men and women of God who believe in evolution or millions of years. But I am also quick to say that salvation is conditioned upon faith in Christ—Christ alone! Believing in evolution or millions of years is not necessarily a salvation issue per se, but it definitely is an authority issue—a battle over the authority of the Word of God. So to make the statement Tim Keller has declared about me—that,“If you believe in God, you can’t believe in evolution. If you believe in evolution, you can’t believe in God”—is a gross misrepresentation. In case theereader is not convinced that Ham has a thing Ham, I add this final example from 2011: Which Well-known Pastor Participated in This Pro-evolution Workshop?
In 2009, Pastor Keller co-sponsored a major BioLogos workshop. It was attended by many well-known theistic evolutionists—both scientists and theologians. It was held in November of 2009 at the Harvard Club in New York City and was entitled “In Search of a Theology of Celebration.”
Note that this group also affirms the truth of Adam and Eve.
We agree that the methods of the natural sciences provide the most reliable guide to understanding the material world, and the current evidence from science indicates that the diversity of life is best explained as a result of an evolutionary process. Thus BioLogos affirms that evolution is a means by which God providentially achieves God’s purposes.
Accounts of Origins
We affirm without reservation both the authority of the Bible and the integrity of science, accepting each of the “Two Books” (the Word and Works of God) as God’s revelations to humankind. Specifically, we affirm the central truth of the biblical accounts of Adam and Eve in revealing the character of God, the character of human beings, and the inherent goodness of the material creation.
If one reads Ham for any length, one will discover this is about an “authority” issue. However, I wonder if this is really about the authority of the Bible or the authority that Ham desires to have in the Christian world, which is leaving him behind.
We need to understand that there is an increasingly aggressive effort—more than ever before and by many Christian leaders—to convince the church to believe inevolution and millions of years and to convince Christians not to take an authoritative stand on six literal creation days, a young earth, and so on.
1
Christians have become confused about who is supposed to have authority in the Body of Christ. It doesn’t rest in pet theories, pet theology or pet personalities. There is no doubt that the authority of Jesus is waning in the American church. He has little influence in much of what we call church.
I think the title of the post says it all.
Proponents of strong conceptions of God’s sovereignty have no “in principle” objection to whatever shape natural history is found to take, since whatever happened, it was an expression of the Divine Decree.
The problem for YECs of strong sovereignty persuasion, it seems to me, is “narrative control” — who gets to define for the Church what the ancient texts mean.
One of the things that moved me to give up on the Evangelical movement was my “strong sovereignty” sense that the ascendency of YECism in the churches might be taking place by Divine Intention, and for purposes other than blessing the churches.
“the foundation of Genesis 1-11, which is the foundation for all doctrine, the rest of the bible, the Christian worldview, & really everything.”
Genesis is the foundation of everything? Funny, I thought that was Jesus.
Is it possible to idolize a bit of the Bible, because that’s what this sounds like to me.
Every false teaching/theology contains a wrong view of God, man, sin and salvation. There is no shortage of error in the 21st century church … the keepers of “narrative control” of aberrant belief will experience a harsher judgment.
Max,
Max,
‘authority’ seems to pale in the importance of an informed moral conscience that determines right from wrong at the heart of the soul of a human person with the dignity of having been ‘made in the image of God’
I suspect if people are willing to put their own moral consciences aside to follow evil leaders, they are unable to ‘see’ for themselves at that ‘crossroads’ where we all come to that determines which way is ‘the Good Way’.
Moral conscience is the gift of God that helps us find our ‘way’ on our sojourn through this wounded world. All ‘authority’ that tells us to do what is wrong and to follow what is evil does not rise high enough to defeat the judgments of one’s private moral conscience, which is God-given, and helps us to truly determine the difference between ‘good’ and ‘evil’.
‘Authority’? Please! Some wisdom from Walt Whitman:
“re-examine all you have been told at church or school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul”
CMT,
Idolize their interpretation of the Bible.. my experiences from 40-50 years ago is that many YEC obsess on YEC..
And, as we see time and again, Christ takes second (or third, or fourth) stage…
A key identifier of false teaching/theology = the Main Thing (Jesus) is not the main thing.
Jeffrey Chalmers,
Yep- they get converted to YEC or 5 point Calvinism. It is akin to my Mormon friends who tried to convince me that if I pray about it, God will give me the burning in my bosom that Mormonism is the way.
New Calvinism gives me a heartburn.
“Ham says one can be a Christian and believe in evolution, but he always adds the “but.”” (Dee)
Have you noticed how many big buts there are in the American church these days?
I think Keller (who btw I hope recovers) is mistaken about many biologists seeing evolution as the “Grand Theory of Everything”. To begin with the science behind creating a multitude of galaxies as in the picture at the top of the post, has nothing to do with biological evolution (only when life starts on some planets within those galaxies will it come into play). Even if one limits ‘everything’ to biology that still seems too narrow. There is sociobiology and evolutionary psychology which some see as explaining a lot, but, those are critiqued by many biologists (and philosophers) including atheists (feminist philosophers for instance point out that the evidence is often drawn solely from western culture [and particularly white English speaking people] and conclusions tend to support the biases of that culture).
I have real world experience with pets (not just theory), our pets have personality, but I don’t yet have a theology of pets (wink).
This argumentative deal with Keller is not Ham’s first rodeo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Ham
If evangelical Christians begin rejecting YEC and expanding what they consider to be orthodox interpretations of Genesis…Ken Ham’s “Answers in Genesis”, the Creation Museum, and the Ark Encounter all go the way of TBN’s Holy Land Experience.
No wonder Ham’s anxious.
My biggest problem with the literal 6 days version of Genesis is this, what do you do with the age of things?
Setting aside any carbon dating “issues” (likely made up), just the fact that we view the light from all of the stars should give us pause.
Where did that light come from? “God made it appear to come from way off.” Say what?
So God is deliberately lying to us about the age of the earth through the age He made his creation “appear” to be? He put a stumbling block of complete contradiction between His Word and His creation in front of us? To what end? Simply because He wanted to confuse us? What a crock.
The scripture (according to Ham) directly contradicts God’s actual creation. Cough, the creation that declares His name by the way. I guess His works are really declaring His name incorrectly since they don’t line up with Ham’s interpretation. Sounds more like an issue with Ken Ham’s interpretation to me.
The 6 says of creation approach makes God out to be a deceiver which the Scriptures certainly condemn. I would hazard a guess that creation also has something to say about God not being a deceiver.
Like all fundamentalisms, YEC is not a sign of faith, but one of fear.
Paul K,
“In February 2023, Church Leaders wrote Ken Ham Accuses Tim Keller of ‘Lukewarmness,’ ‘Compromising’ Following Announcement of Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics.”
+++++++++++++++++
sounds like a revised business model.
Samuel Conner,
“One of the things that moved me to give up on the Evangelical movement was my “strong sovereignty” sense that the ascendency of YECism in the churches might be taking place by Divine Intention, and for purposes other than blessing the churches.”
++++++++++++++++++++++
to scrap the whole scheme?
“However, I wonder if this is really about the authority of the Bible or the authority that Ham desires to have in the Christian world, which is leaving him behind”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
sounds like Buckingham Palace. (sorry for the tangent)
Well Ham seems to be a one trick pony for sure. I remember his radio bit from the local Christian radio station when I was a kid. That was 25 years or so ago, and it sounded exactly like the quotes above. But the people I knew in real life who were staunch YEC, such as my mom, weren’t obsessed with it for its own sake. They were concerned about keeping the Fall narrative. As my mom explained to me, if Genesis wasn’t literally true, humanity wasn’t fallen and therefore didn’t need to be saved.
So in this logic losing a literal Genesis was losing Jesus. I now think this is misguided and I no longer believe it, but I can sympathize with it.
You just have to realize it’s ineffable. The dinosaur bones are a joke that the scientists haven’t caught on to yet.
It’s all business. Money, power, and now the vice of shooting accusations back and forth assassinating character. Because, money. It’s King of the hill, the hill being a pile of money, gathered from donors via persuasion and attack tactics.
elastigirl,
It seemed (and seems) to me that there is a dynamic reminiscent of the Romans 1 pattern of Divine wrath: “idolatry –> giving over to darkened understanding –> bad decisions –> bad outcomes”.
One can hope that the bad outcomes eventually induce repentance and renewal, but that isn’t guaranteed. There are biblical precedents; for example Israel never properly recovered from its exile, and never recovered from the calamities of the AD 66-73 and 132-135 wars. Something very different took its place. It wasn’t exactly “scrapped and discarded”, but it was changed dramatically.
Perhaps the churches are recapitulating the experiences of Old Israel.
The Fakes, grifters all, look for or in this case compete for or fight for Fools which are their donors.
Real church leadership would deal with the elephant in the room which is actually not an elephant but predators as grifters, goons, and groomers. These “Center” for MY CAUSE donor collectors are just predatory grifters themselves. Church is a business of selling their snake oil sales of “faith” as they use church participants as a money pot.
There is no selling of faith for Jesus. Jesus never collected and never built brick and mortar. He healed and provided a path to healthy safe relationships without grift, goons, and groomers.
Afterburne,
One doesn’t have to look at distant stars to find phenomena that require “mature creation” or “appearance of age”. The Solar System has examples of this.
The wonderfully-named plantary physicist Jack Wisdom demonstrated, decades ago, that the distribution of orbital diameters and eccentricities of asteroids near the big resonances with Jupiter are explainable by dynamical processes operating over millions of years.
Here’s the original article (abstract only; the full text requires $$):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0019103583901276
It’s elegant orbital mechanics — this was done 40 years ago and Prof Wisdom (love than name!) did not have access to computers fast enough to numerically integrate the orbits using conventional techniques. He devised a way of short-cutting the process of accurately integrating the orbits that increased the speed of the computations many-fold, which allowed him to compute the behavior of large numbers of asteroid orbits in and around the 3:1 Kirkwood Gap in the distribution of asteroids.
What he found was that orbits within the region of “orbital radius, orbital eccentricity” that are empty in the current distribution of asteroids (ie, orbits within the present 3:1 Kirkwood Gap) were dynamically unstable — chaotic — and that on relatively short time periods — millions of years (one imagines KH’s teeth gnashing) — would become so highly elliptical that they would cross the orbit of Mars, after which they would soon experience a close approach to Mars and would be ejected from the asteroid belt entirely.
The boundary of the chaotic zone matches the observed boundary between “populated orbits” and “empty orbits” in the 3:1 Kirkwood Gap.
It’s a fantastic paper.
Of course, this doesn’t prove that the asteroid belt is actually millions of years old; perhaps the Creator decided to create a 6000-year-old planetary system that looked like orbital dynamics had been at work for millions of years.
But I think it’s conclusive proof that YECs cannot avoid embracing “appearance of great age”, which is something that many of them are reluctant to do (at least, as of my last familiarity with the field, which is now stale — I lost interest in the problem when I formed my assessment that it was evidence of Divine wrath against the churches), since they prefer to concede as little as possible to their competitors among the OE and TE communities.
“With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8)
CMT,
There lies the “genious” of the YEC narrative… old earth-> no fall-> no sin -> no need for Christ…. Therefore, it all is built on literal 6, 24 hr creation days on the order of 10,000 years ago..
This was “burned” into my brain 50 plus years ago…
Mine too. And undoing that indoctrination has been really challenging. When you’re taught the choices are a literalist package deal and utter apostasy, it’s painful and frightening to realize you can no longer accept all the contents of the package. Thank God for wise voices past and present that taught me that’s not what faith is meant to be. But I understand why some people don’t even want to go there.
I always want to ask Ken Ham questions such as: during the first days of the universe, when it was incredibly compressed, how long would it take the earth to revolve around the sun? How much water would it actually take if you actually take Genesis literally where it says in the Hebrew the waters covered the whole LAND, not earth?
And if he ever considered the possibility Adam and Eve, the first people, the first human beings or the first “people” as the Dineh view “people.”
So many questions he never seems to even think about.
Ken Ham gets uninvited from Homeschool Conventions for “Ungodly Remarks”
https://www.christianpost.com/news/ken-ham-disinvited-from-homeschooling-events-over-ungodly-remarks.html
AIG Board review- We don’t see a problem
https://answersingenesis.org/ministry-news/core-ministry/kicked-out-of-two-homeschool-conferences/
Having read the article I have to say that it’s a quiet news day at TWW and it’s probably better to heed Gamaliel’s advicein Acts 5 – “ 38 And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: 39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”
But as we all know – “In principal creavit Deus cœlum et terram, quod temporis principium, juxta nostram chronologiam, incidit in noctis illius initium, quæ vigesimum tertium diem Octobris præcessit, in anno periodi Julianæ 710” or in English “ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the beginning of time, according to our chronology, falls on the beginning of that night which preceded the twenty-third day of October, in the year of the Julian period 710”, that is in 4004BC. (The Whole Works of the Most Reverend James Ussher D.D, Volume 8, ANNALES VETERIS TESTAMENTI: A Prima Mundi Origine Deducti)
COMRADE O’BRIAN, INNER PARTY: There is a Party slogan about the Past — Recite!
6079 SMITH W, OUTER PARTY: Whoever controls the Present controls the Past. Whoever controls the Past controls the Future.
COMRADE O’BRIAN, INNER PARTY: And where does the past exist?
679 SMITH W, OUTER PARTY: In records. And in the minds of men.
COMRACE O’BRIAN, INNER PARTY: We, the Party, control all records. We, the Party, control the minds of men. So We, the Party, control the Present. We, the Party control the Past. And We, the Party, control the Future. LONG LIVE BIG BROTHER!
I read this a week ago and wanted to write about it. I know people who have walked away from the faith due to the insistence on YEC, as taught by Ham. It matters.
Not need to “think about”:
GAWD Worked a Miracle!
And then GAWD Worked another Miracle!
And another!
And another!
And another!
And another!
And another!
And another!
…
The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs, and Won’t Be Taken In.
“If no Witches, then no Devil.
If no Devil, then no God.”
— Witchfinders during the Burning Times of the Thirty Years Was and English Civil War
When you have Cleansed the Earth of Heathens, start on the Heretics.
When you have Cleansed the Earth of Heretics, start on the Apostates.
When you have Cleansed the Earth of Apostates, start on the Lukewarms.
When you have Cleansed the Earth of Lukewarms, start on anyone Less Devout Than Thou.
What do Predators eat after they’ve eaten all the Prey?
Deceiving us so He can send us all to Eternal Hell for not believing the Deceit.
PUNISH! PUNISH! PUNISH!
After all, in Left Behind: Volume 12, the only thing the Antichrist — THE ANTICHRIST — is damned to Hell for is teaching EVOLUTION.
Many years ago, we had a guest post by “Old John J” about the coming Genetic Engineering and how Christians are too busy fighting Darwin to notice until It’s Too Late.
Ramp that up with the new religion on the block, A.I. and The Singularity and What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
And Christians are still fighting Darwin.
As Christian Monist once put it, “Where did God put the projector where he’s back-projecting the rest of the Universe onto the big screen 6000 light-years away?”
This was why, decades ago, it seemed to me to be important to try to oppose YECism in the churches, since its ascendency would (as I then thought) have negative implications for the cultural influence of the Gospel (on Augustine’s principle that one ought not to chain the Gospel to things that were widely understood to be untrue).
Later, as I began to notice a constellation of other things in the churches that seemed to me to be harmful influences on the wider culture (principally climate science skepticism, the political/policy orientation of much of the Evangelical movement, and more recently skepticism of the seriousness of the CV epidemic), the thought occurred to me that “diminution of the cultural influence of these churches might not be a bad thing; it might actually be in keeping with God’s purposes as a matter of common grace to the rest of the world”. At that point, my concern about the ascendancy of YECism in the churches abated — along with my interest in continuing to affiliate with these churches. YECism may be a means of reducing the cultural influence of these churches, and that might be a good thing.
i.e. The moment They Were SAVED.
(During my time in-country, it was a point of pride to point to the exact Year/Month/Day/Hour/Minute/Second you Said the Sinners Prayer, REALLY Accepted Jesus as Your Personal LORD and Savior, and Got Saved(TM). And woe to all those (like me) who couldn’t remember that Exact Year/Month/Day/Hour/Minute/Second.)
Just like Koreshianity, a cult of “ELectro-Alchemy” founded/led by a Cyrus “Koresh” Teed some 130+ years ago who taught The Earth is Hollow and We Live on the Inside. (Estero, Florida was their Cult Compound/Vatican.) Well, they had a LOT of Testimony Literature about the exact Year/Month/Day/Hour/Minute/Second they KNEW “They were Inside”.
Like Dee, I know someone personally who walked away from the faith (in part) because of (many) Christians’ unwillingness to engage Genesis 1 with intellectual honesty.
It matters.
In my personal experience, many YRR who are also YEC don’t realize that certain heroes of their faith, like Augustine of Hippo and C.S. Lewis, thought the creation account in Genesis 1 is allegorical. Knowing that might encourage them to put YEC as a secondary or tertiary issue, instead of as a litmus test for one’s faith.
Personally, while I definitely lean one direction, I can accept either YEC or theistic evolution as possible. Mostly because it’s a debate that I don’t care all that deeply about for my personal faith (am I allowed to say that?).
Jesus told the Pharisees (the religious fundamentalists of his day, like today’s evangelicals, including Ken Ham) that the two most important commandments were to love God and to love one’s neighbor as one’s self (Matthew 22:34-40). He told his followers (of which Ken Ham is also one) that they would be known to outsiders by the love they show one another (John 13:34-35). So I guess my question for Mr. Ham would be, is he following this commandments in his passion for the YEC philosophy?
dee,
It matters insofar as it can provide meaning to a person’s life. I know very little about Ken Ham and his theme park and have read none of his works. I know a bit more about Tim Keller and have read some of his books. But neither of them are saying anything new. The Biblical account of Creation has been discussed and analysed for years, hundreds of years even. Hard though it might seem to comprehend, even in the realm of Reformed, Calvinistic belief, heavyweight theologians have taken different views. One such theologian, Wilhelmus à Brakel, argued that the sun circled the earth and that anyone who said otherwise was making God a liar. I’m not a fan of Theistic Evolution or Old Earth Creation or The Framework Setting to explain Genesis 1-2.
“A Beginning there was then, whatever Aristotle fancied of the world’s eternity. So true is that of a learned Italian – Philosophy seeks after truth; divinity only finds it; religion improves it. But the philosopher would be yet better satisfied. He had read, say some, the first of Genesis, and was heard to say thereupon, ‘Well said Sir Moses; how prove you what you have so said?’ An ancient (Augustine) answereth, ‘I believe it, I need not prove it’. Another (Ambrose) ‘We believe the holy penmen before heathen wise men’. A third (Rupet) ‘The mysteries of the Christian religion are better understood by believing, than believed by understanding.’ But best of all, the apostle, ‘Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God; so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.’ Divinity doth not use to prove her principles, whereof this is one. No, not Aristotle’s own divinity (his Metaphysics I mean), wherein he requires to be believed upon his bare word.”
(John Trapp, A Commentary on the Old and New Testament).
I don’t even know where to start here. I am a 3 1/2 hour drive from Ham’s ark park. I have been 10 or 12 miles from that park on several occasions, but I have never had any desire to go there.
Ken Ham, snort!
Ken Ham used Kentucky taxpayers’ money to build the ark and the park. He sold the park to himself for $10 and said his park was a “non-profit” religious endeavor. ($60 per person for admission?.. ).
He sued the Commonwealth of Kentucky in an attempt to include the park as part of a tax-payer funded state tourism incentive program……. while he claimed freedom of religion and practiced discriminatory hiring.
He sued his insurance provider because it rained and he didn’t have flood coverage on his ark park (the ark itself was not damaged, but landslides blocked the road leading to it).
And, apparently, Ham knows more about women than women do. He does an annual “Answers for Women” at his ark park ~ and of course attendees have to pay to play.
And, of course Ham believes in male headship. A wife is a “helper” ~ not like God was a helper to David …..more like “daddy’s little helper.
I think Ken Ham is all about Ken Ham. As a native Kentuckian, a taxpayer, a female, and a child of God, I find him absolutely disgusting and disingenuous.
Some strains of Christianity are based on fear as a control mechanism.
Thomas Merton on that (from “Union and Division” in his collection New Seeds of Contemplation)
And if you want to study human psychology, get a cat.
And if you want to study human psychology, get a cat.
Ted,
Hmmm, a Persian, a Siamese, a Bengal tiger, a bobcat, a Savannah…….????
My daughter use to have a Maine coon cat who thought he was a dog. He played with our golden retriever mix and our half boxer/half chocolate lab. He slept in the kitchen sink and drank out of the faucet. A few times he even went on horseback rides with my daughter. (The horse didn’t care for it.)
Human psychology? May be so.
The John Scopes trial (“monkey trial”) of 1925 set the stage for a lot of this conflict over science “versus” the authority of the bible. And the play “Inherit the Wind” explored it pretty well. Here’s a 13-minute clip from a movie re-make.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPfhOhx3x_w
Thank you. Yes, it does.
That’s exactly where I weigh in on the matter. A personal encounter with Jesus is more important than an encounter with either Ham or Keller. We will understand it all in the sweet by-and-by.
And the CHRISTIANS(TM) without any adjectives have been stuck on that for the past 100 years.
They’re still screaming about Evolution and Darwin while the society around them is Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before in Genetically-Engineered-to-Order humans and Singularity A.I. And what moral input they might have been able to put into these has been discredited in advance – ALL BY THEMSELVES.
Where have se seen this before — With Benefits (nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean know what I mean).
I’m glad that it matters. Truth matters a lot. Every Christian reconciles their faith with the scriptures.
What’s faith is faith. The bible is a guide not how to manual.
If the bible becomes “all or nothing” then the road is too dark for me to travel.
The missives and stories of the old testament, chock full of edicts, plagues, genocide, slavery are too much. I folded and cashed in my chips
The idea of burning in heck scares me less than a fully realized literal bible being implemented here on earth.
For guys like Ham, if it were only a belief in 4000 year old earth then you could disagree but you know it doesn’t stop there.
Too much hate for my liking.
Ava Aaronson,
AVA,
sounds like people ‘walk away’ from that which would rob them of their own dignity, people who want to ‘control’ them. . . .
you might find some meaning in the writing of Ursula LeGuin: ‘Those Who Walked Away From OMELAS’ . . . for some of us, ‘walking away’ is necessary to maintain a personal integrity and to hold on to our own dignity as a human person
but LeGuin’s story cuts even deeper into what it means to be a human person and what it takes to stand up for the humanity of others
BINGO! You’ve hit it on the head, Dee. Ken Ham wants to gatekeep who he thinks is Christian, and in his mind, unless you believe in YEC, you’re not properly a Christian. He’s not the first or the last to do that and YEC is not the only thing used as a dividing marker.
I won’t argue with YECers anymore. I’m still annoyed I was lied to as a teenager, and I will flatly tell them that they are lying about not just the age of the earth, but about fundamental parts of astronomy, physics and geology. Yeah, I use the word *lie*. I’m just not in the mood any more.
And let’s be clear, for Ken Ham, it’s just not believing the Earth was created in six 24 hour days, it’s also that Noah’s flood happened as it was written down. As I told a close relative decades ago (and why yes, I got in trouble for this), I could very simply prove that Noah’s flood didn’t happen with a fish tank and fresh and salt water fish, but that “some fish would die.” (Because a worldwide flood would mix up freshwater and saltwater fish, and they wouldn’t survive.) Nobody wants to hear from a smart aleck college student (me), but there you have it.
That said, if people want to believe in YEC, fine. It just becomes a problem when the gatekeepers (like Ken Ham) make it a required belief to be a Christian. I thought it was “believe on Jesus and you will be saved.”
You’re far kinder than I.
Even though I don’t believe in evolution, I can’t stand the sumb|+ch.
Jack,
“Too much hate for my liking.”
++++++++++++
yes, i see it that way, too. it’s the craziest nonsense irony to me.
When my eight-year-old complains about our cats not listening to her, I remind her that “they have minds of their own, just like children.”
She’s still working on her eye-roll response.
This hit international headlines.
I hate to be unsympathetic to anyone who’s been duped but you have to be wary of a man who doesn’t insure a Noah’s ark theme park against flood. Anyone who isn’t automatically suspicious at this unfortunately will have to learn the lesson the hard way. (Frown)
I have thought this for some time as well. Rather than try to reconcile these things I am happier now that the world is dividing along the lines you mention because the dog whistles give a clear indication of people I just don’t want to be around any more.
I have a suppressed immune system because of inflammatory arthritis and am boosted multiple times but still mask in crowded public areas. Wearing a mask instantly reveals who would be quite happy to see me dead and I can avoid them.
This sounds like I’m exaggerating but it’s actually not.
More charitably, perhaps they wouldn’t be “happy to see you dead”, but they simply don’t give a d@mn. Your life or death may be a matter of indifference to them.
I’ve been mystified by the preference to drop non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as masking, in congregate church settings. It seems a real mixed message — “we love you and want your long-term best interests” but “we aren’t concerned to protect your health (and, in US health-care system context, your finances).”
This might be a case of the tension that is evident in US religion between “faith” (IMO a flawed conception of NT faith) and the OT call to “wisdom”. When these two are set in opposition to each other, it’s time to heed the counsel of Pv 22:3,
“The prudent see danger and seek refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.”
I quoted that verse (and others like it) often during the pandemic, but saw several church folks not heed that Biblical warning and succumb to Covid (both pulpit and pew). It just didn’t make any sense to hold onto tradition when faced with a public health crisis that demanded common sense. Not obeying those in authority who knew the danger cost far too many lives.
It’s an All-or-Nothing Package Deal:
YEC, Rapture Any Minute Now, Purity Culture, Quiverfull, Gawd of Wrath, No Law Except Leviticus, SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE! – all under Pain of Eternal HELL. All Or Nothing, GAWD or Satan, Whose Side Are YOU On? HUH? HUH? HUH?
What would God ever do without Ken Ham seated at His right hand on J-Day, pointing fingers and whispering into His ear like Grima Wormtongue about Who is REALLY Saved?
“ME SHEEP! HIM GOAT! HIM GOAT! HIM GOAT! HIM GOAT! HIM GOAT! HIM GOAT! HIM GOAT!”
Remember the atheist proverb that was going viral:
“There’s no Hate like Christian Love.”
ARKology, the Christianese equivalent of Fringe Archaeology (a la Ancient Aliens).
All to find Absolute Incontrovertible PROOF that The Bible Is TRUE!
Because No Noah’s Ark means Bible is False, No God, No Christ, No Heaven, No Personal Salvation.
All Or Nothing.
“They’re desperate to find any PROOF that the Bible is True, just so they can rub that PROOF in all our faces – “I’m Right! You’re WRONG! See? See? See?'”
Max,
Amen Max! And there are still, here where I live, precious few accommodations available for the disabled, the old, the immunocompromised, all for whom the covid pandemic is most definitely not over. Curbside medical pickup is gone at wallyworld. Some stores have dropped it. Churches simply tell seniors to watch services online and send their money through this handy app.
However, a bit further east and south of us, and straight east, there are black churches that while meeting in person are zooming in anyone who wants to participate but needs to avoid the buildings. Zoom SS classes still available. Churches still picking up online grocery orders for the seniors and disabled and delivering them to their door.
Local churches claim the govt wanted to shut church doors permanently. But some churches just moved to parking lot services stay in your car and never missed a meeting. At least, those east and south east of us.
Prudence is a virtue, and technology and science are gifts from God. If only we would use them!
Good point.
The irony is grand and the humor is biting.
FWIW, the best scholarship I’ve seen on the subject allows for a very old earth and a very young creation. Amazing how many of the conundrums are resolved in this paradigm.
Although Ken Ham likes to use Genesis as a way to accuse Tim Keller of deviating from the faith, there have been many others before him who have worried that Keller is trying to introduce “another gospel” that is removed from Christian orthodoxy and the recent introduction of the Centre for Cultural Apologetics and the debacle over Josh Butler simply gave Ham another opportunity to have a go at him. He was wrong to do so not least because Tim Keller has more serious matters to contend with, like his illness.
But I also think that TWW was wrong to reference Ham’s accusations for exactly the same reasons. It seems to me that, far from being important as has been suggested, it was simply an opportunity to have a pop at Ham’s creationist views and questionable financial probity and to take a side swipe at Keller’s association with TGC and the New Calvinists. As I said upstream, the debate is not new and has been going on for hundreds of years.
I also think that it was a mistake to start the article with a rather sneering quote from Isaac Asimov – and this from a man who is a self confessed atheist, humanist, rationalist, with leanings towards population control à la Malthus and eugenics and who has been accused (in his biography) of sexual harassment of multiple women. Hardly a case of TWW standing with the victims. I knew none of this before I read the Wiki article which you all should read.
You should also read “Mapping Out the Field of Preredemptive Revelation” and “Human Creation” by Richard C Gamble in Volume 1 of “The Whole Counsel of God: God’s Mighty Acts in the Old Testament” for a comprehensive overview of the development of the various explanations of Creation.
I’m on my own side.
I believe that as a Christian, I can also be a rationalist and a humanist.
Moira Greyland accused her mother LeGuin of horrific child sexual abuse of multiple children. Certainly hypocritical of her.
dee,
But Gen 1:2 to end doesn’t describe either Creation or Evolution, and it isn’t an allegory either.
Muff Potter,
But are you a eugenist as well?
As for Asimov, most of the people whose side he pretends to be on don’t understand what “natural processes of selection” are.
Asimov and they don’t understand what theory or science are, any more than their “easy targets”.
The reason God intended meanings in Scripture is for our providence. The only true reason we should criticise Ham is because far from opposing Keller, he is covering for his watering down with their mutual spurious diversion.
Choose figures in between (by lateral thinking). Since cosmic history would be describable by rather complex graphs, perhaps there are derivates in those, representing stabilising factors appearing to operate more strongly at times. (Me showing off my latest maths.) In real science and reason (anyone remember those?) evidence of correlation doesn’t imply any of the many varieties of causation.
linda,
The furthest people back, who could be remembered. “Fall” is a metaphor for the paradox that it takes a more sovereign God to create a contingent world.
He created us male and female (and non-binary) as one main joint category, whereas the devil and the up and downloaders of the new bible changes are pitting us against each other.
John Berry,
The government has never taken the 6 ft rule seriously. There are still places I’m not allowed, so I don’t go. After we were stopped from dealing with our affairs for 3 years, many professional services have now gone out of business.
Then there was the “Big Butter Jesus,” or “Touchdown Jesus” at a church in Ohio, a 62-foot styrofoam statue of Jesus rising from a pool of water. It got fried by lightning.
Nobody could have seen that coming.
Umm… Explain? Did you reverse them by mistake?
Let’s just say that I pi$$ off both sides of the aisle.
And no, I abhor Eugenics.
Petiole,
I had not heard of that. Do you have any links?
No, that was Marion Zimmer Bradley!
When making accusations of this kind, it helps to get your facts straight!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley
Muff Potter,
I thought so! Before a generalised level of prayers dwindled, a more balanced attitude to contingency within providence, and hope despite suffering, prevailed among christians. Since God had to turn nasty due to political interference, it’s no wonder “creation” became a dirty word. In my youth Nature, Creation and Evolution were near synonyms for “what turned up”.
Tim K. is a countercultural winsome variant, while Ken H. wants his god on his terms and not Tim’s. Well arguable chronology now puts Daniel and Cyrus as contemporaries, but Ravi Z, who was browbeaten when aged 17 on his hospital bed, took all focus off our repenting by proxy on behalf of our forebears and betters.
Have the present superapostles read in Jeremiah about God’s views of the “revival” around Josiah?
From Aristotle to Darwin and back again by Etienne Gilson (translation 1984 repub 2009) with informative footnotes, traces the mostly bad grasp of succession, chronology, analogy, filiation, explanation, demonstration, “probability”, does Nature have “choice”, materialism, agnosticism, reason, inference, teleology, mechanism, adaptation, fixity, reconstruction, responsibility in politics, etc among specialists and others.
Reportedly, Darwin’s successive “editions” were very different books.
Thank you, shall look him up.
That’s because the sophists and pharisees insist God doesn’t intend meanings.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Your cultural references are so apposite, thank you!
I hope Gamble isn’t another “voluminary” like NT Wright! I think you are treating us to your dry sense of humour as usual! The problem of our God for both Keller and Ham is that Holy Spirit has personal plans and that we are on earth in support of these being possible towards us despite all contingencies. The very commonplace generalised “monotheism” of all ages, attested from the findings of Father Wilhelm Schmidt, glosses over that and this is the real reason our God is “redemptive”. Kierkegaard pointed out that the findings of scholarship only aid faith if their usage isn’t fallacy based (Schmidt, unlike some others, ground no axe). Does Gamble get any benefit out of Calvin, any more than Keller or Ham did?
A Google search to confirm this disturbing information suggests that MG’s mother was the author Marion Zimmer Bradley, who wrote in some of the same genres as LeGuin.
Very telling that in Asimov’s list of crimes, atheism and humanism are higher on the list than his thoughts on eugenics and sexual harrassment charges. Gotta get those Christian priorities straight right? Heresy and apostasy are by far more terrible, I mean god forgives anything else, eh? Praise be!
This is a first — I’ve never seen an argument of this kind previously made against a literal interpretation of the Divine creative speech acts in Genesis!
One might not want to make this case too vocally, or the YECs may start sniping at you, too!
Cheap shot. Read your bible about how the loving god told Israelite men to give their foreign women and mixed culture children the heave ho. This was a death sentence in the ancient world.
Eugenics is a discredited pseudo science but guys like Ham in their “all or nothing bible” have used this bible story justify anti miscegenation laws that in many states have only been recently removed from the law books.
I highly recommend reading Jared Diamond “Guns, Germs and Steel”. It shot guns the whole idea that some races are more superior than others.
Those of us that refute the bible are not by default “eugenicists” any more than Christians default to being a death cult.
It is unfortunate that Ham keeps pushing his agenda. It is not as big a priority for me to try to convert YECs to be more open to other science conversations. I know some pretty respectable people that I’ve met in the last 15 years or so who feel strongly about this issue, have taken their family to the museum. It’s so very weird to me how strongly they feel about this and I have no desire to visit the museum.
Some long time good friends that I grew up with quietly told me, years ago, that they listened to a different view, coming from their own denomination, and they now believe in an old earth and evolution without it compromising their belief in Jesus. I’m glad we’re more on the same page there, but it was never an issue that any of us were pushy about. The pushiness is the problem, IMO. Some of these good friends are not vaccinated with the latest vaccine. They are not afraid of me and I am not afraid of them. thank God. When we all arrange to be together, if someone shares beforehand that they have some slight symptoms, we all evaluate how long they’ve had them, using science of infection timeline, we, twice now , have decided to go for the togetherness, thank God. The vaccine does not stop transmission. And there are various states of vaccination status and the definitions of that and other related topics….have changed over a short amount of time. Not solid primary data, IMO. I prefer solid primary data, not devoid of uncertainty or unmeasured things, but when it’s offered up with transparency, then there’s something to chew on with faithful, prayerful critical thinking.
When I visit more vulnerable older friends who are more main stream covid narrative believing, I tell them beforehand what my shot status and test status is and leave it up to them as to whether they are up for a visit from me. Twice now they’ve wanted me to spend several days with them. They are amazing with their warm family hospitality, staying engaged, in their older years, and in spite of their significant medical challenges, with craftsmanship, reading, hobbies and staying connected with old friends.
How about this one instead? I will not ask you to read reams of Wikipedia and two or three books before responding.
“Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God chose the elegant mechanism of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts.”
FRANCIS COLLINS, 1950 – PRESENT
The Language of God, 2006
I don’t have the certainty that Collins has.
I’ll concede that the evolutionary model has much in the way of valid arguments, but I still cling to special creation, done by the Almighty’s fiat, without any specific mechanism.
I reject the notion that Evo is proven fact in the same way that the theorem of Pythagoras or the Law of Sines is proven fact.
But unless I’ve mis read you, you don’t reject the principles of science and how it helps us understand the universe as it is now. You don’t reject medical innovation like the understanding of bacterial resistance (which is natural selection happening all the time). The pursuit of knowledge doesn’t end with “well, it’s all in the bible”.
Currently reading, “The Colony” by Sally Denton. In this spell-binding narrative, there are definitely people (mainly women), who “walk away” to maintain personal integrity, hold on to their dignity, and seek agency. Very necessary.
You build a giant statue of flammable material with a steel frame (i.e. TWO big lightning rods) in the middle of Tornado Alley. What did you think was going to happen?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mf2u9VWAhM
Idiots.
Jack,
You haven’t misread me at all.
Science is a great and wonderful thing to be sure, but it is not the last word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas
“The Ones That Walk Away From Omelas” is about apostasy. When you go completely literal on Christianity, it boils down to you get salvation only because God took it out on someone else, then you proceed to partake of the sacrifices flesh and blood. Summed up “whip him, beat him, mistreat him then eat him”. Biblical literalism cuts both ways. Omelas is analogous to growing up in rather idyllic state then realizing what it’s all based on. Kind of like the Matrix or if you’re an anime fan “Megazone 23”
Great job, Ken. You badgered him as he was drawing his final breath.
dee,
Debating is not preaching the Gospel … and badgering is not Christlike.
Ava Aaronson,
Thanks for the reference, AVA.
I am late to this party so ask forgiveness. A key word in the YEC vs evolution debate is “believe”. “Do you believe in YEC?” “Do you believe in evolution?” The word believe/belief implies religious faith to many. So the YEC question is automatically moved from a fundamental scientific and rational inquiry to religious faith and dogma.
I try to answer those questions something like this, “Looking at all the evidence I find, I accept scientific evolution as a working framework for understanding origins after creation. Also, looking at the evidence, I accept Jesus rose bodily from the grave and have committed my life to Him.”
Faith or belief is not without evidence. Faith is based on the evidence of things not seen. As James said, faith without works is dead. Works produces evidence. I cannot see evolution – and it’s even hard to imagine – but I can see the evidence. I cannot prove Jesus lived, died and rose again, but I can see the evidence.
One thing really bothers me about YEC. One of the great problem with YEC is that it cannot be used to produce anything good for humanity or creation. If YEC is true, we should be able to use scientific investigations and studies to produce good for all. But I’m unaware of anyone demonstrating this. This troubles me.
On the other hand, information gained from scientific evolution can be and is being used to produce good for all. The evidence for scientific evolution projects both backward and forward.
Not that any of this thinking will make any difference to someone who can only focus on a perceived fixed religious belief or disbelief.
Thankfully, God’s acceptance of us is based on such a simple prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And not on a theory of origins.
christiane,
My pleasure.
“The Colony” is a nexus of Chihuahua Mormons, the cartels, and Keith Raniere. Before arrested, Raniere transported about a dozen middle-school girls from Chihuahua to upstate New York for “opportunities”. Author Sally Denton did her homework on this one.
This week I met an attorney who was raised Catholic, converted to Buddhism, then came back. When asked how to stay out of cults while exploring religious paths, the attorney said that when the group demands separation (from family, community, loved ones, etc.), that’s the RED FLAG indicating CULT.
All three: Chihuahua Mormons, Raniere’s NXIVM, and the cartels, demand exclusion. Imagine being a woman raised at the crossroads of these three communities.
Jack,
“Evolution” means emergence, in a loose series of theories, hypotheses or ideas, some tentative, at present.
I’m launching a “More Highly Evolved Church” series of “materials”, study guides, videos, “bibles”, 29 dollars 99 a shout. Or lock yourself into my advantageous “subscription”!
In passing, Asimov did debate with Sagan the relative volcanism versus plate tectonics during various phases.
I do remember the time I became a YEC. It was at church where Ken Ham was the speaker.
I was taught evolution in school as fact, not a theory, in the 70’s. My Lutheran pastor firmly declared there was no dissonance between evolution and the Genesis account of creation. I didn’t really give it another thought until I started homeschooling my children and read articles and books by Dr. Henry Morris and other scientists with doctorates in geology, biology, chemistry, astronomy, and well, doctors of every stripe. I learned that the evolution theory was just that. A theory only. And there were lots of holes in this theory not supported by scientific fact.
But when Ken Ham said, “If you believe in evolution, then you believe death entered the world before sin and not because of it,” I knew I could no longer sit on the fence. I had to choose whether I believed in a God who spent millions of years trying to “get it right” and thus billions of creatures died in the process, or did I believe in a God who warned that mortal death would be (and consequently was) the consequence for Adam and Eve’s disobedience, for their sin. I chose the latter. The whole of the Bible issues from that central point. Sin issued in death, death issued in plan B for God’s desire to have a relationship with us, and Plan B demanded the sacrificial death, and resurrection of His sinless Son.
What I see as Ken Ham’s passion for this Biblically based belief, others see as offensive. But that doesn’t make Ham wrong. Perhaps look at the scientifically researched evidence at the Institute for Creation Research begun by Dr. Henry Morris. It can be found at ICR.org. Dr. Morris wrote an article in 2000 titled “The Vital Importance of Believing in Recent Creation.
In this article he also makes the point that evolution is just a theory. It is not proven fact. But as a theory it demands a belief that death was not the consequence for sin, but rather the result of God taking millions of years to create billions of creatures that were destined to die in the process until God got it right. The whole of believing in a God who conquered death brought about by sin, not death as a consequence of the evolution creation process, relies on believing the Genesis account.
Light being created before the sun or plants before an atmosphere is not a hindrance to believing this. Check out ICR.org The missing link is still….still….missing.
Saying that the Genesis account
cindy,
If you had taken the time to read the number of posts on YEC on the blog, you might have been hesitant to share your “proof” about the missing link being missing. Instead, research and read about the many “missing links” found. Ken Ham is a nasty man who has caused much-unneeded conflict worldwide. Many Christian scientists disrespect him.
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/missing-links-and-found-links
dee,
You reference The American Scientist, but from pop science sources like this you are just going to get the usual uncritical propaganda. Same goes for Nova, Discovery, BBC, etc.
They will seldom go into the controversies surrounding the various truth claims made by evolutionists.
Speaking of taking the time to read this or that, here is some recommended reading for you.
On the subject of proposed ape-men fossil discoveries there’s “The Bone Peddlers” by William Fix (not a creationist but somewhat out-of-date material) as well as “Contested Bones” by Christopher Rupe and John Sanford.
They are creationists but rely on arguments made by paleoanthropologists to examine claims made by the most prominent candidates for ape to human evolution. It’s amazing how sketchy much of the supposed evidence turns out to be, when you know the story about how the conclusions were arrived at.
On the whole subject of missing links and the dearth of them in the fossil record there is a great video “Discontinuities in the Fossil Record” by Paleo-entomologist Gunter Bechly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-yaw80Tq10
Bechly was the curator for amber and fossil insects in the department of paleontology at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany until he embraced Intelligent Design which led to the loss of his position there. He was also “unpersoned” on Wikipedia (at least the English version of his page was taken down).
And on the subject of Tiktaalik being a transitional fossil there’s this interesting article – https://evolutionnews.org/2010/09/evolutionary_biologists_are_un/
FlatTop,
I have been dealing with true believers for decades. Should you desire to know where I stand on this subject, you can read through my many years of blogging. My husband, who did bench research on adenosine receptors, agrees with me. I learned something valuable during the Y2K mess. I could not talk the true believers out of buying caves—buying seeds, hoes, etc. Once Y2K faded, they claimed their “clarity” saved the country from going dark.
Whenever I write on Ham, I get the true believers who listen to the pundits just like the Y2K folks do. During Y2K, one Christian I knew ran around with a briefcase full of proofs for why we were going dark. Years later, I met another guy who ran around with a similar briefcase stuffed with why YEC was the only possible solution.
It’s not. I will see you in heaven, but I will not have to put up with the briefcase of proof. Since it appears I have attracted the briefcase crowd instead of those who will discuss Ham’s badgering, I’ve decided to close comments. Regular commenters know how to continue the conversation if they so desire.