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Feedback 2011
Why compromise doesn’t work
(Atheists see the problem!)
Published: 25 June 2011 (GMT+10)
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Robert V, USA, who is a long age creationist, wrote in after reading
What all atheists have to believe saying that he believes that Christians
should avoid taking a stance on the plain reading of Genesis, believing it is detrimental
to sharing the Gospel. His message is printed in full, followed by a response from
CMI-CA’s speaker (and co-host of CMI’s TV show
Creation Magazine LIVE!) Calvin Smith.
As an Old Earth Creationist, I disagree with the literal six-day interpretation
given in Genesis. Could God have created the universe/world in six days? Of course.
Science does seem to be painting a different picture however, and according to Romans 1:20, natural revelation is a valid means of learning
certain things about God. That said, I am human, and could very easily be wrong.
If the only valid reading of Genesis 1 were a literal six-days, I can see insisting on
this translation. There are other valid ways of reading the text however, and by
insisting on the literal reading we run the risk of losing a number of Christians
who cannot bring these concepts together. Speaking as an ex-atheist, I can say that
when a Christian would start making this argument I would instantly tune out.
I think that you and I agree that the Gospel of Jesus is the most important message
in the Bible. Why risk having people lose their faith in that truth over a passage
that can be read in a few ways? Why guarantee that atheists will refuse to give
the Gospel a hearing over such passages?
Growing up as an atheist I frequently used questions regarding Genesis to deny belief
in God. When a Christian wanted to witness to me (i.e. tell me about Jesus) I would
simply ask them questions about Genesis. When they couldn’t give reasonable
answers it justified not listening further.
Hi Robert, thanks for taking the time to write in. Just to preface my comments below,
as a Christian apologist I try not to argue with fellow brothers and sisters in
Christ, and understand that there are saved people everywhere that have different
stances on Genesis (and other passages/doctrines etc). What I try to focus on when
speaking to a fellow believer who disagrees with my stance on scripture is what
you allude to further on in your email, that is, the effect on sharing the gospel
that these interpretations have.
As a former atheist myself I believe I have some perspective as well both from my
pre-salvation days and from the hundreds of encounters with people during the last
10 years speaking on this subject. I believe that an informed skeptic has some legitimate
logical arguments VS Old Earth Creationists (OEC) and Theistic Evolutionists (TE)
that they do not have with Young Earth Creationists (YEC).
What I would like to do (following) is answer your questions from an informed atheist’s
perspective. How would you answer them? (Remember, you and I are saved and so have
no real opposition to each other so I’m only doing this to get you thinking
of how you would defend against an atheist’s attack on your views.) Hopefully
this will help you present a consistent Gospel message to those you share the faith
with. So from here on in, pretend I’m ‘atheist Calvin’ …
As an Old Earth Creationist, I disagree with the literal six-day interpretation
given in Genesis.
Why? Most Hebrew scholars
agree that the days in
Genesis were intended as literal days. Is it because science has disproven
the Bible? Didn’t the
church fathers and the majority of Christians believe in a young earth and a 6 day
creation up until recently until science proved it wrong?
Could God have created the universe/world in six days? Of course.
I thought the Bible recorded what God did do, not what he ‘could’
have done. God ‘could’ have created the world using a Flying Spaghetti
Monster, but that’s not what it says he said in the Bible!
Science does seem to be painting a different picture however,
Science seems to be painting a different picture regarding talking snakes, talking
donkeys, floating axe heads, people living in whales for 3 days, virgin births and
dead people coming back to life after 3 days as well.
How come you want to accept science in one area and change the plain meaning of
what the Bible says because of it but not in the other areas? Isn’t that inconsistent
and illogical? By the way, science says that animals evolved (made themselves),
weren’t created. Why don’t you believe science regarding that?
and according to Romans 1:20, natural revelation is a valid means of learning
certain things about God.
Romans 1:20 states that you can supposedly know there is
a God because of what He created and that His eternal power and divine nature are
revealed in His creation so no one has an excuse not to believe in God, that’s
all. It doesn’t say that natural revelation trumps the Bible.
Furthermore, science1 says
that there is no evidence that God created; it is all explained by natural processes
operating over billions of years. In this view, ‘God’ is an unnecessary
addition. Indeed, university departments of religion will tell you that we invented
God, God did not invent us. This is the evolutionary view.
(Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s
invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly
seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.)
That said, I am human, and could very easily be wrong.
But the Bible says that God can’t be wrong and that He doesn’t lie,
so why do you believe the Bible as plainly written in one area (virgin birth, etc.)
and not others? By the way, if you believe in the millions of years of geologic
earth history doesn’t that mean that most all of the fossils got laid down
prior to Adam sinning?
The Bible says that at the end of God’s creating everything was ‘very
good’, but we find evidence of diseases like cancer in the fossil record!
We find billions of dead things that have died, been killed, scavenged, etc., which
means that the ‘days’ in Genesis must have been filled with pain, agony
and suffering, but God called it ‘very good’.
Let me ask you then, if you have such a loving God,
why is there so much pain and death in this world? Did God just make it
that way? Then
isn’t death his fault? But Romans 5:12 says death came into the world because of
sin (not before). And why were all of the
animals and man commanded to eat plants prior to the Fall of man (Genesis 1:29-30)?
As you said, you could easily be wrong about what you believe, even about the Bible
being true, especially if it doesn’t give any clear answers …
If the only valid reading of Genesis 1 were a literal six-days, I can see insisting on
this translation.
According to the original language (without outside scientific influences) 6-day
creation IS the only valid reading of
Genesis. If by valid you mean it doesn’t have to conform to the recognized
rules of grammar, context/word usage, etc., because science disproves the
plain meaning, then why believe that Jesus was born of a virgin or that Christ died
and rose again? Shouldn’t you re-interpret those events in light of science?
In this scientific world doesn’t it just make more sense that Jesus was a
good teacher and his followers embellished some of the stories surrounding him?
And any other (interpretation) ‘translation’ (gap theory, progressive
creation, day age theory, theistic evolution, framework hypothesis) means that death
wasn’t the result of sin. Isn’t death and sin what Jesus came to atone
for because Adam sinned? Don’t Christians believe in a perfect restoration
where God will restore the world to a state of no death or pain like it was in the
beginning? But if God used pain and death to create (from the beginning) what is
it REALLY going to be like? Is the Bible really that confusing from beginning to
end but just clear about that one part about Jesus coming back to life?
There are other valid ways of reading the text however, and by insisting on the
literal reading we run the risk of losing a number of Christians who cannot bring
these concepts together. Speaking as an ex-atheist, I can say that when a Christian
would start making this argument I would instantly tune out.
Did you not realize these logical
and rational arguments I have just laid out at the time? If you know them
now, why have you not questioned the Bible more intensely, as you already know it
can’t be taken as plainly written in some areas. Why not others? How do you
know which ones are the right ones to take as plainly written? How can you know?
By the way, I know atheists that tune out as soon as a Christian says they DON’T
believe the plain reading of the Bible because they see them as inconsistent, illogical
hypocrites that shape the Bible to say whatever they want, while proclaiming that
they believe it is “God’s Word” and to be obeyed. Which method
of presenting the Bible do you believe is the best then? As
plainly written or not?
I think that you and I agree that the Gospel of Jesus is the most important message
in the Bible.
OK, now I am speaking as your fellow Christian again (by the way,
please don’t take any of the comments above the wrong way, they are just a
sampling of the types of questions informed atheists have posed over the years that
you might come up against). And yes, I agree that the Gospel is the most important
message in the Bible.
In the responses above you will notice the way in which I used the word ‘science’
equated with scientific interpretations that support millions of years and/or evolution.
I have seen this done often as a way to intimidate Christians about their beliefs
(the ‘science VS faith’ fallacy). This is such an important thing to
understand, that when you are talking about events that supposedly happened in the
past, you cannot use the scientific method to verify your conclusions. All ‘facts’
must be interpreted according to a set of beliefs or a scientific model you hold
to.
Why risk having people lose their faith in that truth over a passage that can be
read in a few ways?
I hope you can see that the converse is true: “Why risk having people lose
their faith by telling them they don’t have to take the Bible as
plainly written?”
Growing up as an atheist I frequently used questions regarding Genesis to deny belief
in God. When a Christian wanted to witness to me (i.e. tell me about Jesus) I would
simply ask them questions about Genesis. When they couldn’t give reasonable
answers it justified not listening further.
Example;
Q-‘So you believe the Bible?’
A – ‘Yes!’
Q-‘You believe some guy put two of every animal on a big boat, and there are
millions of animals in the world?’
A – ‘Uhhh … ’
Or;
Q-‘You believe the Bible?’
A – ‘Yes!’
Q-‘You believe some lady talked to a snake?’
A – ‘Uhhh … ’
It seemed like I almost always got one of two responses. Either the person had no
reasonable answer, or they tried convincing me what I was referring to didn’t
necessarily mean what the Bible plainly said. Either way, their answers were illogical
and unconvincing.
How so? Logically if there was no reasonable defense of Scripture or it could be
‘reinterpreted’ to mean whatever you wanted it to mean, why should any
portion of it be considered authoritative? This helped justify my sin and disbelief.
Why guarantee that atheists will refuse to give the Gospel a hearing over such passages?
The origin of sin, death, the need of a savior, marriage, clothing, work etc., are
all found there (in Genesis)…it is important to take such a stand, because
if someone gets ‘saved’ but only professes belief in certain parts of
scripture, they can get taken apart easily by an informed skeptic in regards to
so many areas later on.
I believe if you think about it the use of the word ‘guarantee’ is not
valid, as I myself (and many others have testified) needed to hear that the Bible
could be trusted from the very first verse in order to ‘hear’ the Gospel.
Telling someone the biblical account of origins doesn’t ‘guarantee’
they will refuse to give the Gospel a hearing (nor does it guarantee they will either).
I believe the real issue is ‘What does the Bible clearly say?’ If we
base our defense on ‘science’ (which is commonly equated to mean ‘secular
interpretations of scientific evidence’) the skeptic can easily trip you up.
If you base your defense on what scripture says, and then show them how the ‘facts’
can be interpreted scientifically and are consistent according to what scripture
says then we have a better presentation of the Gospel; logical, defensible and reasoned
(see links above to see how a YEC can answer the atheists’ questions easily).
Genesis 1–11 is a building block for the Christian
faith because all Christian doctrines (directly or indirectly) are founded in the
book of Genesis. The origin of sin, death, the need of a savior, marriage, clothing,
work etc., are all found there. That is why I believe it is important to take such
a stand, because if someone gets ‘saved’ but only professes belief in
certain parts of scripture, they can get taken apart easily by an informed skeptic
in regards to so many areas later on.
This was a main point in my article, accepting millions of years = Bible not plainly
written = evolution results in relatively easy apostasy. (Understand I am not espousing
a particular theological stand on the mechanisms of salvation but rather its outer
workings.)
I have found personally that there is great hunger for the truth of God’s
word and that many Christians take the old earth paradigm as true simply because
they believe science has ‘proven’ millions of years of earth history
and they have never heard or considered the arguments and evidence for the biblical
account. Perhaps a look through our related articles regarding the original language
and creationist arguments for a young earth may help you at least understand the
scientific backup of YEC beliefs. Here are some links that may help.
Blessings,
Calvin Smith
Creation Ministries International, Canada
A reader’s commentTherese K., Italy, 6 July 2011
This article defies the basic understanding of the Holy Writ. If we have not faith, then we have nothing. Being a book that was divinely inspired, I would tremble at the thought of dissecting it to satisfy my own limited, HUMAN knowledge. Read Hebrews 11. |
Related articles
Further reading
References
- Note that this is ‘atheist Cal’ speaking and that
this is the prevailing view of ‘science’ today, not that of the founders
of modern science. Return to text.
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