#it is very common for Christians reconciling faith and evolution to say the Genesis stories are not literal but stories contextualized

[protestantposting]

As I grow older and develop a more nuanced understanding of my own faith and faith in general, "turtles all the way down" seems less and less an easily refutable belief to me.

A younger me would just point it out as wrong because it was ridiculous to me. All the while ignoring or giving ample room for interpretation the things that are weird or ridiculous at a glance in my own faith traditions.

If I were to give the same metaphorical and culturally contextual grants to 🐢 🐢 ♾️ as the Christian creation myths I might say something like the following. 🐢 🐢 ♾️ is a great way to explain that the world is held up by something both beyond our comprehension and very much alive with a will of its own.

I think the point of this post is perhaps to condemn the practice of finding someone else's beliefs strange (which is fine and normal in and of itself) but then writing it off because it's ridiculous (bad faith and wrong). Christians and others need to be better at good faith examinations of other religions, eagerly looking for nuggets of truth. Just as Christians look in the Bible for nuggets of truth about people and God in the sometimes factual, sometimes embellished, sometimes entirely metaphorical word of God.

Lest we one day find ourselves suddenly aware of the ridiculousness of our own faith traditions and struggling to reconcile our beliefs because we are so used to writing ridiculous things off as false.

[kabane52]

On Creation and the Fathers

A comment I wrote on Facebook...

As you read, if you are a theistic evolutionist or old ager, I suspect you will have many objections and arguments. I ask that before you write them, you read through my articles here: http://kabane52.tumblr.com/creationism I spent seven years as a theistic evolutionist, and I articulated many of the same objections undoubtedly forming in your mind. In the above compilation of articles, I have compiled my responses to these common arguments. I don't know when Patriarch Kirrill said this. What I do know is that Metropolitan Hilarion Alfayev said something similar several years ago, but has since changed his views and argued that Darwinism is inherently hostile to the Christian faith. So these folks are not in theological stasis: their views develop, and they are developing in a positive direction. Those saying that a young-age view is "Protestant" should stop talking. This is like saying that belief in Jesus is Protestant because of how much evangelicals talk about Jesus. Read the Fathers on Genesis 1. Almost every one of them take it as a historical account of creation. For those who incessantly quote the Fathers on allegorical exegesis, these same Fathers are always careful to emphasize that allegorical exegesis is not opposed to literal, historical exegesis, but actually depends on it. The Scriptures are allegorical because they record history, and history is providentially overseen by God. Thus, instead of imposing allegorical and symbolic meanings onto a world which does not inherently possess them, the Scriptures reveal the symbolic aspects which are inherently had by the creation. This flows necessarily from the doctrine that the world was made in and through the Divine Logos: everything in creation is symbolic of Christ. As far as I can tell, two ancient writers have been cited in favor of an ahistorical reading of Genesis 1: Augustine and Origen. Origen was a brilliant scholar, without question. But his theology was explicitly rejected at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, and the Church spent centuries purifying his insights from his false teachings. Why did he take Genesis 1 as ahistorical? Because Origen had a preexisting philosophical belief that the world was not created out of nothing, but had existed eternally. In other words, his reading of Genesis 1 directly flowed out of a false theological doctrine condemned as heresy by the Church. Next, there is St. Augustine. Before I comment on why Augustine held this view of Genesis 1, let me point out three things. First, Augustine held that the chronology of Scripture set forth in Genesis 5 and 11 was inerrant and binding on the Church, and he calculated the date of creation from that chronology. That is diametrically opposed to what theistic evolutionists try to argue. Second, Augustine explicitly rejects the view that allegorical readings of Genesis 2-3 are opposed to historical readings. Third, Augustine takes to task pagan critics of Christianity who mock the flood story, and he does so by defending its absolute literal historicity. He calculates the dimensions of the ark, estimates the number of animal kinds on Earth, and thereby defends the historical authenticity of the global flood. So, what of his reading of Genesis 1? Here is where things get deeply ironic. Augustine held this reading of Genesis 1 because he mistakenly interpreted Sirach to teach an instant creation. Thus, he was trying to reconcile Genesis with his reading of Sirach. In fact, Sirach says no such thing, so we can take Genesis 1 in its obvious historical sense, as stated by God Himself in Exodus 20 where He says He created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. But the irony is that Augustine held his reading of Genesis 1 because he believed in the absolute inerrancy of the Bible, a concept ludicrously mocked as "Protestant" by some moderns, despite the fact that the Fathers are soaked through with affirmations that there are no errors in Scripture. Look. If you want to defend theistic evolution, you need to do it honestly. And the honest truth is that almost all of the Fathers affirmed the historicity of Genesis 1 as six-day creation, and every single one of them without exception believed that the Flood of Noah covered the entire Earth and the highest mountain fifteen cubits deep. This will be the case no matter how many times Augustine is mentioned. As Gideon mentioned above, I used to be a very passionate theistic evolutionist. I was so passionate about it that I wanted to study evolutionary biology as a career. During this time, God was still faithful and treated me as His son. I was asked by one pious Orthodox Christian to simply ask God to reveal to me the truth of the matter. Even though I was absolutely confident of my correctness, I figured it could do no harm to ask God, so I did. And within a year and a half, I found myself believing young-age creation. When I came to believe in young-age creation, I realized something. My doubt about the truth of the Christian faith, doubts which had plagued me for seven years, were utterly gone. And when I realized that, I discovered for myself the massive untruth of the idea that young-age creation causes doubt. No, it is theistic evolution which causes doubt, because those who think through its implications can see for themselves the disturbing implication- God is distant and relatively uninvolved with the world. The implication is that God's own children, the Church, were misinformed about the origins of the creation, and the truth was discovered by secularists, atheists, and liberal Protestants. Certainly in such a world it seems as if Christianity is not true. One might be able to hold them together for a time. But it is a highly unstable synthesis. So those Orthodox Christians who hold theistic evolution are my brothers in the Lord, yes. And God deals with them as His children. But I do ask that you pray to God about the matter.

[scribeofthenewworld]

Speculation On Creation

NOTE: this paper was originally written in Chicago format and utilises footnotes. The footnotes are not available in the text below; for the full paper with references, follow the link below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11A944lIB8yrlg9Ltai1_8enJ-DIK9413P5lCztlM4iA/edit?usp=sharing 

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. A simple enough statement, but under further scrutiny, one wracked with controversy. The creation account in Genesis 1 raises such questions from believers as ‘was the earth really created in six days?’, ‘how much of the creation account is literal, and metaphorical?’, ‘where does science fit into the story of the creation of the world?’, and so forth. This paper will attempt to answer these questions and others like them, as well as examining evidence for and against each of the creation theories and reconciling scientific and Biblical agendas. Although the majority of Christians today seem to adhere mainly to young earth theories of creation, upon examination, the scientific evidence backing any of the old earth creation theories is vastly superior in both credibility and abundance.  

Before embarking on this journey of scientific discovery, a good Christian must take proper inventory of their Biblical angle and thoroughly consider their beliefs. The most important question, in this particular instance, would probably be “Do I take every last thing in the Bible literally?” If answering “yes” to this question, one must then consider “why?” Not to say that the Bible should not be studied and followed, but simply that, in certain cases, taking a literal interpretation makes little sense. Many places in scripture, whole books even, are classified as poetic – Psalms, for example. Why, then, should other parts not be also? Furthermore, “Language differences increase the difficulty of comprehending the meaning of the creation ‘day.’ The entire Old Testament… comes to us from ancient Hebrew”. Most English-speakers simply do not take into account the language gap present when considering the Bible. Yet it remains acutely present – biblical Hebrew contains a few thousand words, as opposed to English’s vernacular of nearly four million. As such, many Hebrew words have multiple potential translations. More than that, though, the very essence of the language differs from English: ancient Hebrew is a rich, poetic, meaningful language, with nuances and structures that no one who has not studied it can hope to understand. The language’s nature being thus, the Hebrew Bible was written not with the intent of providing precise, scientifically-acute data, but of conveying to its reader the character and might of God. Moreover, the Hebrew culture differed astronomically from ours in many aspects, one of which being its unconcern with precision and hard fact; the Hebrews were much less concerned with hard science and time. Rather, the ancient Hebrew language emphasized poeticism and meaning, being more ‘big picture oriented’ than English. The discontinuity between the two creation accounts in Genesis accentuates this; had the tales been transcribed literally, each would contradict the other. Within the context of poetic imagery, however, each can be appreciated as a tribute to creation and God’s creative splendor. 

Now bearing all this in mind, one can further contend interpretation of the Biblical creation accounts. Before engaging in more intensive speculation, though, one must keep in mind this: true science does not contradict scripture, for scripture does not contradict facts of the natural world. “Both the Old and New Testaments emphasize the importance of testing, of making sure the evidence supports truth claims”. God created a world of order, with laws and functions comprehensible to man; therefore, it should stand to reason that not only can science and scripture exist compatibly, but harmoniously. Now, it is surely no disputed matter that differences in scriptural interpretation can be met with some quarrel. Yet to properly assess one’s points of belief, one must put aside emotional responses and examine the facts. Foremost, one must consider the intended meaning of the word “day” in Genesis. The Hebrew word translated as “day”, yôm (יוֹם) is used “to indicate any of four time periods: (a) some portion of the daylight (hours), (b) sunrise to sunset, (c) sunset to sunset, or (d) a segment of time without any reference to solar days (from weeks to a year to several years to an age or epoch)”. It is entirely possible, therefore, that the “days” to which Genesis 1 refers are not twenty-four-hour days at all, but indiscriminate amounts of time. Moreover, Psalm 90:3 states “A thousand years in your sight [o Lord] are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night”, and again, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day”. Because God exists outside any human concept of time, he need not conform to any specific timeframe. Also, mankind did not even exist for the first five “days” of creation, so man’s concept of time would have been irrelevant in any case; God’s only timeframe would have been his own. 

The most compelling evidence for the earth’s age, however, can be found in the earth itself. It should be noted that, for the sake of the length of this paper, explanation of scientific processes and methods must be minimal, if not forgone altogether. Keeping this in mind, the most common method for precise dating, radiometric dating, measures the presence of long-lived radioactive ‘parent’ isotopes and their stable ‘daughter’ isotopes in minerals. Over time, radioactive elements decay into lighter elements, which is one of the ways scientists know the earth to be at least one billion years old – those radioactive elements with shorter half-lives cannot be found that originated in the earth’s crust. Radiometric dating puts the oldest mineral fragment ever found (zircon), according to the journal Nature Geoscience, at 4.375 billion years old, give or take about six million. Obviously, this is significantly longer ago than some people believe the earth to have even existed. What to think? To begin with, radiometric dating has been proven one of the most accurate methods of mineral dating used due to the variety of radioisotopes and the constancy of decay; its (notably slight) error margin accounts almost entirely for timeframe miscalculation (different radiometric methods are used to date relics from different time periods). To examine the constancy of decay, one must understand that “radioactive decay is the process whereby an unstable nucleus either ejects or captures particles, transforming the radioactive nucleotide into an isotope of another element”. Decay constancy can be expected for two reasons: first, atomic nuclei are extremely well insulated by their electron cloud, preventing them from interacting with other atoms’ nuclei. Second, the energy required for nuclear changes is 106 times greater than that involved in chemical activity – an energy level naturally attainable only in nuclear reactions. Because radioactive decay necessitates elemental transmutation, and therefore nuclear changes, such an unlikely interference of external factors means that, barring some fundamental change in the nature of matter and energy, rates of decay have remained constant. 

The cosmos serves as another huge indicator as to the passage of time. The better part of the universe remains largely mysterious to man – he has neither the technology nor the time to explore deep space. Still, man has discovered quite a goodly amount about his own solar system, to his credit. Based on much of the knowledge garnered by astronomers and astrophysicists, science has been able to ascertain the age of the universe. NASA’s oldest estimation of the universe falls around 13.7 billion years old – far older than planet earth, they posit. These conclusions were reached by extensive study of sound and light waves and how long they take to reach earth, and of the background microwave radiation avowedly produced at the dawn of the universe. Additionally, the majority of meteorites that have fallen to earth have been dated at between 4.4 and 4.6 billion years, and the oldest recorded supernova has been dated back a measured 4.3 million years; because “supernova explosions occur only when a massive star has burned up nearly all its nuclear fuel... this burning process takes several million years – even longer for less massive stars”. Therefore, all white dwarfs claim that age, at least. Moreover, by study of ancient galaxy clusters, astronomers have been able to determine that some stars therein date back tens of millions of years by comparing them with more newly formed adjacent stars. As a matter of fact, the simple reality that things billions of lightyears away can be observed attests to the solar system’s exceptional age; “lightyear” refers to the distance light can travel in a year, ergo light-sources billions of lightyears away would yet be unobservable were the solar system young, for the light from them would not as of yet have had sufficient time to reach earth. As a matter of fact, an excerpt from Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith notes, “Space and time, the cosmological coordinates, are correlative. Interlocking of the two is pronounced in God's seventh day rest, a temporal concept that connotes the spatial reality of the holy site of God's enthronement. Also indicative of their correlation is the giving of the temporal names ‘day’ and ‘night’ to the spatial phenomena of light and darkness [Gen. 1:5]”.

Likely the most controversial affair within science today, particularly among theists, is evolution. While evolution remains technically a theory, nearly overwhelming evidence exists in its favour and it represents a fundamental piece of biological history. To clarify, the term “evolution” is used here to express the concept of microevolution. Evolution does not purport to know how the first life came to be upon this earth, nor does it automatically posit the so-called “Big Bang Theory”. However, usually when one says they do not believe in “evolution”, it automatically connotes both evolutionary concepts. Such a claim sounds a bit foolish, if not downright absurd. First of all, the evidence for microevolution is abundant enough that it could very nearly be considered confirmed; furthermore, it is treated by the scientific community as fact. The most popular example of this principle in action is the study of the Galapagos Finches, however a clearer example lies in the sudden emergence of complex multicellular organisms (Eukaryotes) in the fossil record, following the Proterozoic period. Evolution within species causes an organism to adapt to its environment through mutation – in this way, they are better able to survive. It is not the subversion of species separation, but simply the division of already-existing species.

The tenets for young earth creationism are numerous; therefore, as much of the science forming the groundwork for various young earth arguments has already been discussed, from here on shall focus primarily on the different young earth views and their theological premises. One theory, “mature creationism”, postulates that God created the earth with an appearance of age, just as he presumably created Adam and Eve as mature adults. The problem with this theory is its inference that God not only created an earth that looked old, but that had every detail of an age to which it could not truly contend. To what end would God scatter fossils and mud cracks about in the sediment to make the earth look unnecessarily ancient? It would accomplish naught but confusion for his people, and worse, it would make him a deceiver -- something that God most decidedly is not. The other popular young earth position, called “flood geology”, speculates that the flood in Genesis 6-9 severely altered the geology of the earth’s crust, giving it an appearance of advanced age. This theory hypothesizes that the flood spanned the entirety of the earth, wiping out all -- plants, animals, and humans alike. However, the case for a geographically global flood lacks both Biblical and scientific basis – in fact, Psalm 104:7-9 seems to directly contradict the thought. Furthermore, the Hebrew word used throughout the Old Testament commonly translated as “world” was ‘erets (אֶרֶץ), which can also be translated to mean “land” or “country”. In fact, it was more commonly used to mean “land” than “earth”! Additionally, geographic evidence stands in opposition to flood geology; fossils, impressions, and patterns within sedimentary structures in other areas of the world bespeak no great hydraulic catastrophe.

Probably the most vexing young earth queries are those involving the question of death before the fall; obviously (assuming the advanced age of the earth), death of animals would have had to occur for fossils to be deposited as they are, and had animal death not occurred beforehand the planet would have been nearly overrun by the time the creation of man occurred. It then stands to reason that God’s creation was not entirely perfect, even before the introduction of sin. Yet, Genesis never says anything about God calling his creation perfect; Hebrew has multiple words that could be potentially translated as “perfect”, and God used none of them. Rather, he used the word tôv (טוֹב), which simply means “good”. As “good” presents a far more vague definition than “perfect”, it can be argued that an imperfect creation involving physical death could still be considered “good”. Since God (presumably) did not create animals with the same moral distinguishments as man, sin did not exist before him (“sin” meaning willful deviance from God’s instruction). This premanifestation of physical death may make sense even with concern to pre-fall humans – in part, due to the language used when forbidding consumption of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil: rather than simply using the regular form of the Hebrew word for “die”, môt (מֹות), God used an intensified form (מֹות תָּמֽוּת). This indicates a more extreme sort of death than mere physical death: spiritual death. The fact that God said post-fall “He [man] must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever” backs this up; God would not have needed to proscribe man from the tree of life were he already predestined to live forever, be it in the physical or the spiritual sense. 

Ross makes the statement that “Current culture subscribes to this false dichotomy: facts and faith don’t mix. Yet the Bible claims that faith is built on reasonable evidence”. It seems silly, then, that some scorn evidence and fact on the part of faith, when in reality neither need jeopardize the other. It is true that some questions exist to which no one can ever truly know the answer. Yet, whilst man dwells upon this earth, should he not seek to study and understand it to the best of his ability? Earth is mans’ God-granted home, and as such man should not view attempts to explain and fathom it as heretical, but as explorative and progressive. God did not beget for man a random world, but one that can be ordered, analyzed, and explained; therefore, it stands to reason that he desires humanity to explore and decipher their home. The world God created for his people makes wonderful sense, and one day when everything is revealed, people will also be able to look at the gloriously harmonious congruity of creation and say “it is good”.  

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