I believe God is the creator of this universe and all material substances in all realms. I believe that God not only created everything, but continually sustains everything. I believe that in the future (near or far), God will renew his creation.
I value science. From Wikipedia, “Science (from the Latin word scientia, meaning “knowledge”)[1] is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.”
Science continually refines and understands truth from God’s general revelation.
God has given us special revelation (Scripture, dreams, spoken words from messengers, etc.). God has given us general revelation (creation, sunsets, mountains, beaches, roaches etc.). God has given us minds and discoveries to explore truth in both revelations. The truth does not change, but our understanding of the truth is continually refined as new discoveries are revealed.
The Counterpoint book series that I recommended before has a book called, Three Views on Creation and Evolution. The book presents the three main evangelical views: young earth creationism, old earth creationism, and theistic evolution. Some may term theistic evolution as evolutionary creationism. A subset of the old earth creationism is popularly known as intelligent design.
When I was a young adult, I devoured the young earth creation material. I met Duane Gish who was a biochemist and a driving force in the young earth creation movement in the late 20th century.
My seminary was predominantly young earth creationists, but we studied the concepts put forth by Phillip E. Johnson as the co-founder of intelligent design. In my middle years, I tended to lean more towards intelligent design.
As I have dug deeper and deeper, I have come to the conclusion that evolutionary creationism supports both Scripture and science the best.
Each view has its issues both Scripturally and scientifically. I believe the views are “negotiable.” American evangelicalism has chosen certainty over truth by demanding that young earth creationism is the only valid belief for a citizen of Jesus’ kingdom. They have made this a “non-negotiable.”
It saddens me to see very bright young people leave Jesus’ kingdom because they have been told the science that they are learning is not true and is inconsistent with their allegiance to King Jesus. It gives me hope to see some very bright young people are not accepting the either-or condition that young earth creationists demand.
Science and God are not in a culture war. Most of the great scientists from the 13th to 16th centuries gave their allegiance to King Jesus and explored science to better understand God’s general revelation. I believe that God has given us minds to reason as we carefully pursue truth and refine misunderstandings in both special and general revelation. Believing in evolution does not demand believing in materialistic determinism.
The main reason that I do not support young earth creationism is that I do not think that Genesis supports this view in its context and genre. If you learn the science of those ancient days from all of the cultures, you see that they understood that sky had a hard barrier with sluices (a sliding gate or other device for controlling the flow of water) that allowed water to flow down at times. This matched how they controlled water in their gardens which were on terraces. As you study the Ancient Near East culture and sciences more and more, the book of Genesis is so much more understandable.
I heard Ken Ham (young earth creationist) say that we do not need Hebrew Biblical scholars to understand Genesis. I was dumbfounded. I am not sure how we ever get Genesis in the English language without Hebrew Biblical scholars. I think we need Hebrew Biblical scholars and scholars who study the Ancient Near East culture to truly understand the culture in which Genesis was written. We have to remember that Genesis was not written to 21st century cultures, but was written for all cultures across history. God communicated to the Ancient Near East culture in the way its people would understand and in the words they would understand. Since we are not in that culture and most of us do not understand their languages, it takes extensive study to understand what God was communicating to them and then to see what he is communicating for us.
Here are a few web sites to explore each view.
- Answers in Genesis https://answersingenesis.org
- Discovery Institute | Public policy think tank advancing a …https://www.discovery.org
- BioLogos – God’s Word. God’s World. – BioLogoshttps://biologos.org
As I said in another post, I highly recommend John H Walton’s, The Lost World Series of books.
I also highly recommend, A Worldview Approach to Science and Scripture, by Carol A. Hill.
First posted June 12, 2021
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