A review of The Essence of Darwinism by Kirsten Birkett:
Evangelical compromise misses the essentials
by Jonathan Sarfati
28 December 2001
Kirsten Birkett has a Ph.D. in the history of science, and is editor of Kategoria,
an apologetics journal addressing common anti-Christian belief systems. The Essence
of Darwinism is one of a number She has written several other books published
by Matthias Media. Both Birkett and Matthias are strongly connected to Moore College,
the most conservative Anglican seminary in Australia.
With her background, it’s not surprising that she’s written some good
apologetic material, reaching many of the same conclusions as we have, e.g.
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Science grew out of a Christian framework (see Creationist
Scientists).
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The alleged ‘warfare’ between science and Christianity was manufactured
by 19th anti-Christian propagandists such as Huxley, Draper and White.
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Galileo’s main opponents were the defenders of Aristotelian cosmology, and
the Church was unfortunately persuaded to link this pagan-invented cosmology with
the Bible (see Q&A: Galileo).
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The play and film Inherit the Wind was a great distortion of the Scopes
Trial (see Q&A: Scopes Trial).
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Analyzed the secular feminist movement in The Essence of Feminism, pointing
out that it has let women down, while the Bible provides the real answers, which
is why the earliest movements for women’s education and suffrage were overtly
Christian. This book is also strongly pro-life; Birkett says she is ‘appalled
at the power the pro-abortion lobby has had’ (see also
Q&A: Human Life).
However, as will be shown, Dr Birkett displays an inexcusable ignorance about the
importance of Genesis, and this echoes the general Moore College hostility towards
literal creation. The final chapter of the book spoils what would have otherwise
have been a reasonable introduction to the history of Darwinism.
Scientific issues
Chapter 1 cites an evolutionary textbook by Michael Rose, Professor of Evolutionary
biology at the University of California, for ‘evidences’ for Darwinism.
Birkett doesn’t necessarily endorse the arguments, but she missed a golden
opportunity to demolish some of the classic arguments, and one has to wonder whether
she understands the science. For example:
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‘Universality of nucleic acids as the basis for life, DNA in particular’.
But the alleged first life did not even contain DNA, though a popular theory is
the RNA world (see
critique), and there are exceptions to the alleged universality of the genetic
code.
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Homologous structures, e.g. the tetrapod limb pattern. But these similarities are
often produced by a totally different developmental pathway (see
Common structures = common ancestry?).
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Embryonic recapitulation and a claim that mammal and bird embryos have gill arches—totally
discredited. Rose tries to downplay this by claiming that evolution doesn’t
require perfect recapitulation. But even the alleged similarities of embryos have
been shown to be based on fraudulent photos. See Q&A: Embryonic
Recapitulation and Similarities
Birkett provides some useful material about the way Darwin wrote Origin
as a work of persuasion, directed at fellow Victorian gentlemen, rather than a real
science book with experimentation and documentation. This is why Darwin made great
use of analogies, e.g. natural selection and breeding of animals and plants by humans
(see Q&A: Natural Selection).
Early scientific problems with Darwinism
However, Darwin had no understanding of genetics, believing in pangenes and Lamarck’s
idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The idea of blending inheritance
also presented a problem, of how to stop the new trait from being swamped out when
the next generations interbred with creatures without this characteristic. Darwin
also had the problem that the fossil record didn’t support his gradual change
(still the same today—see Q&A: Fossils) and
there was a lot of hand waving to explain complex organs.
Mendel’s discovery of genetics solved the blending problem in principle,
although analysis shows that a new gene is likely to be lost simply by chance, even
if it is beneficial (see Are mutations and natural
selection sufficient?). Weisman’s proof that acquired characteristics
could not be inherited was also a near mortal blow. So by about 1890, Darwin’s
theory of evolution by natural selection was largely dismissed, despite the popular
misconception that it had enjoyed an untroubled march towards general scientific
acceptance.
Birkett then describes how a form of Darwinism was revived by combining genetics
and natural selection, to give the ‘synthetic theory’. But in Europe,
evolutionists downplayed selection in favour of internal factors driving evolution.
Modern evolutionary debates
Her descriptions of some internecine evolutionary debates in Ch. 8 are useful, e.g.
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Gould’s invocation of other materialistic factors such as mutations in
homeotic genes (a type of regulatory gene), species selection and catastrophes,
pointing out that the proposed evolution of life is contingent, i.e. it need not
have followed this path
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Lewontin’s accusation that Dawkins’ adaptationism is misguided, i.e.
the idea that every feature is the result of natural selection. Lewontin points
out that many just-so stories of adaptation cannot be proven, that it’s impossible
to prove that a trait is optimal, and there are features due to allometry, i.e.
differential growth rates of different body parts. Pleiotropic genes, i.e. those
that code for more than one trait, are another factor. Natural selection may act
on one of their traits, and therefore a totally unrelated trait coded by the gene
is also unavoidably selected, although there is no adaptive reason for this trait
per se.
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Lynn Margulis’s emphasis on evolution by co-operation, e.g. endosymbiosis,
but there are problems with this—see critique.
However, Dawkins, singled out for his adaptationism, protests that these accusations
attack a caricature of adaptationism he doesn’t hold.
Birkett says:
‘However, the truth is that evolutionary biology is not a “fact”,
but a wide-ranging collection of competing theories, some well supported by evidence,
others on the edge of speculation, and many others under violent dispute.’
(p. 44)
‘It is no answer to contend that these debates are about the mechanism of
evolution, not evolution itself; for it is the very explanatory power of natural
selection that makes evolutionary theory compelling.’ (p. 65)
‘Natural selection does not appear convincingly to account for all features
which look well designed, or for the origin of species. To say for the rest “it
just happened”—even if you call this “the importance of contingent
events”—is not a strong theory. We may as well have stuck with “That’s
the way God did it”. The rhetoric on behalf of evolutionary theory—“evolution
is a fact”—is misleading as long as there are major areas in which it
fails to provide explanation for the living world as we see it today, and there
is considerable dispute amongst biologists as to what proper evolutionary reasoning
is at all.’ (p. 66).
She goes on to point out that these disputants put up a united public face to evolution,
mainly against anti-materialists. But the only way one can claim that there is good
evidence for ‘evolution’ is to define all change as ‘evolution’.
Creationists of course don’t deny that things change, but deny that the changes
increase genetic information. Yet evolutionists have failed to observe
even one example of this, although there should be plenty of examples if goo-to-you
evolution were true. Birkett fails to point out this cardinal difficulty with goo-to-you
evolution, which is unlikely to be mentioned by many evolutionists, although if
she were at all familiar with creationist scientific literature she would have been
aware of this (see The information problem).
Evolution and ideology
Birkett does a good job of showing that the evolution debate is not mainly about
science v. religion, as we have been saying for years. She points out that evolution
is not neutral and:
‘Evolution is not, and has never been, simply a scientific theory. It is a
theory which has always been connected to fervent (usually anti-Christian) beliefs,
and has frequently been held and defended by members of the scientific community
purely because of their religious convictions, not because of its scientific value.
… [Evolution] is not about science, but about how we understand humanity.
If people are uptight about evolution, it is not because they are (or are not) scientific.’
(p. 9)
These revealing quotes from Richard Lewontin and
Scott Todd support Birkett’s claims that evolution is largely a deduction
from materialistic ideology, which rejects a designer a priori.
Evolution and materialism
It’s a shame that Birkett doesn’t come down more strongly against evolution,
especially as she acknowledges its ideological basis. She’s certainly right
that the ideology doesn’t prove evolution is wrong (and neither does the overt
Biblical basis of a creationist logically disprove any scientific evidence they
adduce in support). But it should also make one even more cautious than she is about
accepting their claims.
While Birkett acknowledges the contribution of a Christian worldview to science,
she seems to think that science must be naturalistic. Historically, the founders
of modern science agreed that the way God currently upholds creation (Col.
1:16–17) would be regular and repeatable, and so could be described
by ‘natural law’, which must be discovered by experiment. But they never
thought that God’s original creative acts had the same restriction, any more
than we should believe that the laws by which a computer works are the same as those
that put it together in the first place. This is further discussed in
Naturalism, Origin and Operation Science. Neither did they ignore where
God had clearly revealed what He says He did in the past, but Birkett overlooks
this below.
Darwin’s historical milieu
She documents the ideological basis for evolution by analyzing the history of evolution
in Ch. 10. Darwin’s own grandfather defended an unscientific version of evolution,
and was a deist and sexual hedonist. Lamarck linked evolution with the anti-Christian
philosophy of the French Revolution.
Ch 11–12 describes England’s political turmoil in Darwin’s day,
with lots of social reform movements. There was an important Christian contribution
to abolition of slavery, improvement in women’s conditions and a crackdown
on the exploitation entailed in prostitution. However, the anti-Christian social
reforms achieved more publicity, and the established Church was seen as part of
the problem, being allied with the establishment. Alas, this was largely true, with
younger sons of wealthy families becoming clergy to make a respectable living, not
because of any strong Christian conviction. Indeed, Darwin’s unbelieving father
wanted Charles to become a respectable country parson, as he did not seem to be
fit for much else (by Charles’ own admission)! On p. 25, Birkett says of the
inventor of the term ‘agnostic’ as a self description:
‘… the anti-church activist Thomas Huxley … [although he] did
not agree with Darwin’s theory himself, he found it highly useful as a tool
in his efforts to reduce church power over intellectual institutions and to promote
professional science as the arbiter of knowledge.’
Plenty of mythology has grown up around Huxley, especially his Oxford debate with
Wilberforce and the alleged grandfather quip—see
Did Wilberforce really say it?
What has been overlooked by many is that the ideas of billions of years were also
ideologically based, and provided the ‘scientific’ framework for Darwin’s
ideas (see Darwin, Lyell and billions of years.
So it’s a mistake to challenge merely evolution and try to agree on an intelligent
designer, since that compromise failed to stop Darwin in the first place (for example,
Paley’s Watchmaker was highly regarded by Darwin, as Birkett notes
in a different context).
Modern anti-Christian evolutionists
Ch. 15 is titled ‘Three modern religious evolutionists’, discussing
the views of Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould. It’s good
that she points out that these materialists are promoting a religion, and
her analysis is good.
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Dawkins has a blatant vendetta against theistic religion, comparing it to the smallpox
virus, and claiming that teaching Christianity to children is a form of child abuse.
This should be enough to refute the claim, by any Skeptic organisation that promotes
him, of their religious neutrality. His wide promotion also shows up the bigotry
and intolerance, as well as hypocrisy, of the modern academia and media establishments.
I.e. they applaud such idiotic demagogy from Dawkins, but they would be the first
to squeal ‘arrogant intolerant bigot’ to any Christian who claimed that
atheism was a mind virus or that teaching atheism was a form of child abuse. Dawkins
mistakenly thinks that ‘faith’ has nothing to do with evidence (contra
Hebrews
11:1) while evolution does. He claims to get much joy from using ‘science’
as a substitute for religion in inducing awe and wonder, claiming a sovereignty
for science far more than most real (experimental) scientists would allow. But he
also admits that under his own theory, everything is destined to ‘the great
universal slide into the abyss of uniformity’, which undercuts his claims
about the awe of his evolutionary world view.
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Wilson apostatized from a shallow Southern Baptist background because of evolution,
and rejects theism. But he’s not as overtly hostile towards theism as Dawkins
is, seeing it as something that once conferred a survival advantage. But he wants
to subsume religion into his evolutionary framework. This includes ethical questions.
Unlike most ethical philosophers, Wilson believes that ‘is’ = ‘ought’,
committing the naturalistic fallacy but denying it is a fallacy. But the evolution-inspired
Nazi Holocaust is an ‘is’ in the sense that it really happened, but
few nowadays would claim that it morally ‘ought’ to have happened. So
Birkett is right to affirm that it is a fallacy despite Wilson’s claims to
the contrary.
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Gould adopts the non-overlapping magisteria approach (NOMA), which means denying
all factual claims to religion. Birkett rightly points out that NOMA presupposes
the fallacious ‘fact-value’ distinction. Christianity is more than just
ethical precepts (‘values’)—it is primarily a religion about a
God who acts in history (i.e. historical facts), taking on the nature of one of
His creatures, and who died for their sin. Significantly Dawkins rejects NOMA, pointing
out that religions do make claims about history. CMI has discussed the
fallacies of NOMA in Stephen Jay Gould and NOMA.
Compromise on Genesis
By far the worst part of the book is the section on Genesis. It’s sad that
despite her proven skills in historical research, Birkett has failed to do even
minimal research on what creationists actually believe.
Even at the beginning, Birkett writes:
‘…geologist Ian Plimer even sold his house to prosecute “creation
scientists” for false advertising.’ (p. 8)
A minimal amount of research into the court case (e.g. in our
Plimer Files) would have shown that he never took creation scientists to
court! His case was against Ark Search, which is not associated with any Creation
Science organizations. It also would have been appropriate to mention that Plimer
was Australian Humanist of the Year 1995. That was the main driving force behind
the case, apart from its being a counter-suit against a defamation action and part
of his obsession with self promotion aided by the doting humanist-dominated media.
It’s a shame that Birkett just takes him at this word with his history of
demonstrably false claims. Actually, Plimer bragged in print that he had divested
himself of his assets prior to the publication of his book Telling Lies …,
taunting creationists to sue him.
Historical views on Genesis
It would also be well worth her while to research how exegetes have historically
understood Genesis. As shown by the leading Reformed systematic theologian Dr Doug
Kelly in Creation and Change (left), the overwhelming majority of exegetes
took Genesis as historical narrative until the rise of uniformitarian ‘science’.
Birkett would have known that, if she had attended the CMI seminar held at Moore
College in 1999, but unfortunately the Moore academics weren’t interested
in hearing ‘one of their own’ (‘Reformed’) expound on Genesis.
CMI has documented that most of the Church Fathers
and Reformers believed in literal creation days and that the earth was only thousands
of years old.
Birkett cites people like B.B. Warfield as examples of theologians who had no problem
reconciling Genesis with evolution. But she misses the point that people like them
would even admit that the obvious meaning of Genesis is the plain one, but since
that would conflict with so-called ‘science’, they were intimidated
into reinterpreting Genesis to fit. Warfield had no qualifications in science, so
simply accepted what the evolutionists told him, and being (rightly) unwilling to
sacrifice Biblical inerrancy, he was forced to incorporate evolution into his theology.
The fact that intimidation with science, not the grammar of the text, compelled
evangelicals to compromise, is shown by quotes from Warfield’s predecessor
at Princeton, Charles Hodge. Hodge wrote a book What
is Darwinism? and concluded ‘It is atheism’. But he paved the
way for further compromises by Warfield by his acceptance of non-literal creation
days because of alleged geological proof for long ages. Quotes by modern evangelical
compromisers such as Pattle Pun of Wheaton College and
Gleason Archer are further proof that uniformitarian
‘science’ not sound hermeneutics is driving their compromise.
However, they should have been aware that these so-called ‘proofs’ of
evolution or long ages are really interpretations of the facts under a
uniformitarian belief system. This is the biggest irony in Birkett’s whole
book. She demonstrates that evolution is mainly ideological rather than scientific
(and the same should be said of long ages). Then she says that Genesis need not
contradict evolution. But her ‘authorities’ for saying this have reinterpreted
Genesis precisely because they erroneously thought evolution/long ages
were scientific fact!
How Genesis compromise weakens the fight against liberalism
This is a huge problem for her own apologetic efforts. Moore College is among the
leaders in the battle against liberalism in Australian Anglicanism, and we applaud
their efforts on this front. But the liberals are actually more consistent. Moore
in effect teaches that we must reinterpret Genesis because ‘science’
has proven at least the long ages aspect of the current evolutionary worldview.
The liberals reinterpret the accounts of Jesus’s Virginal
Conception and Resurrection as
unhistorical because ‘science’ has shown that miracles such as these
are ‘impossible’. The evangelical compromise with Genesis has simply
unlocked the door to doubting the authority of all scripture.
Birkett’s rationale for a non-literal Genesis
Research on historical exegetes would have shown her that her alleged ‘problems’
with a literal Genesis were solved centuries ago, yet she raises them as though
they were knock-down arguments that creationists were too silly to consider.
Literary form
First, she lectures on the fact that the Bible contains many types of literature,
and presents Psalm 19 as an example of non-literal writing. But only those who have
never read creationist literature would suppose that creationists are unaware of
literary genres, to use the compromisers’ favourite buzzword. However, we
have pointed out, this ignores what CMI teaches about interpreting historical narrative
as historical narrative, and poetry as poetry, and the distinctions between them—see
Should Genesis Be Taken Literally? and
Is Genesis poetry / figurative, a theological argument (polemic) and thus not history?
She agrees that Genesis 1 is not Hebrew poetry, but claims that it is not a literal
chronology of events either. However, the Hebrew grammar of Genesis 1 is exactly
what is expected if it were representing a series of past events. That is, only
the first verb is perfect, while the verbs that continue the narrative are imperfect.
In Genesis 1, the first verb is bara (create) which is perfect, while the
subsequent verbs that move the narrative forward are imperfect.
Birkett seems to advocate the ‘Literary framework
Hypothesis’ for Genesis 1, popular among compromising evangelical
academics who can see the futility of day-age
and Gap Theory compromises. But it’s strange,
if it were the true meaning of the text, that no-one interpreted Genesis this way
until Arie Noordtzij in 1924. Actually it’s not so strange, because a leading
Framework proponent much admired by Moore College academics, Henri Blocher, admits:
‘This hypothesis overcomes a number of problems that plagued the commentators
[including] the confrontation with the scientific vision of the most distant past.’
(In the Beginning, p. 50, IVP 1984)
Once again, the rationale for a bizarre, novel interpretation is a desperation to
fit the alleged ‘facts’ of science.
Did God make us from apes?
Birkett says:
‘God has left us free to discover what mechanism he has chosen to use in this
wonderful creation of his … It may seem bizarre, or even uncomfortable, to
us that God developed humans from apes. What of it? … We do not and cannot
dictate how God has worked.’
We often see similar pseudo-pious nonsense about a six day creation ‘limiting
God’. But the only ‘limitation’ is that we believe that God did
as He says He did! It’s our opponents who limit God by, in effect, denying
that He could communicate what He did accurately and understandably.
Genesis
2:7 teaches that the first man was made from dust and became alive when
God breathed the breath of life into him. This rules out the idea that Adam was
already a living primate of some kind when God breathed on him. Eve was made from
Adam’s rib (Gen. 2:21–24). Luke’s genealogy of Christ traces
His lineage (through Mary) all the way back to Adam, then directly to God, not via
any ape-like creatures or pond scum (Luke
3:23–38). Further,
1 Corinthians 15:45 states that Adam was the ‘first
man’, and Eve was so-named because she was to become the
‘mother of all living’ (Genesis 3:20). Also, Paul’s teachings about male and
female roles in
1 Cor. 11:8–9 and
1 Timothy 2:13–14 explicitly support the historical order of creation—the
man before the woman—in Genesis 2:21–23. (Evolutionary theory has populations
evolving, not individuals, and certainly not men before women.)
Days and nights before the sun was created
This hoary old argument is often put forward as though creationists have never thought
of it. But we have pointed out that God is most capable of creating light without
the sun, and a directional light source and rotating Earth would provide the day/night
cycle (see How could the days of Genesis 1 be literal before
the sun was created?).
Some historical research would have shown that this ‘problem’ was answered
centuries ago. In the 16th century, Calvin wrote about ‘let
there be lights …’ (Gen. 1:14):
‘God had before created the light, but he now institutes a new order in nature,
that the sun should be the dispenser of diurnal light, and the moon and the stars
should shine by night. And he assigns them to this office, to teach us that all
creatures are subject to his will, and execute what he enjoins upon them. For Moses
relates nothing else than that God ordained certain instruments to diffuse through
the earth, by reciprocal changes, that light which had been previously created.
The only difference is this, that the light was before dispersed, but now proceeds
from lucid bodies; which, in serving this purpose, obey the commands of God.’
(Calvin, J., Genesis, 1554; Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, UK, 1984, p. 83).
Even earlier, in the 4th century, St Basil the Great commented on the
same passage.
‘Heaven and earth were the first; after them was created light; the day had
been distinguished from the night, then had appeared the firmament and the dry element.
The water had been gathered into the reservoir assigned to it, the earth displayed
its productions, it had caused many kinds of herbs to germinate and it was adorned
with all kinds of plants. However, the sun and the moon did not yet exist, in order
that those who live in ignorance of God may not consider the sun as the origin and
the father of light, or as the maker of all that grows out of the earth. That is
why there was a fourth day, and then God said: “Let there be lights in the
firmament of the heaven.”’ (Hexaëmeron
6:2)
Genesis 2:4: ‘In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens’
Birkett alleges that this further shows ‘the non-chronological nature of Genesis
1:1–2:3’ because ‘clearly “day” in this verse means
something other than a 24-hour period of time; it means something like the “the
general time at which”, a fact which adds to our impression that chapter 1
may not be setting out to describe a strictly chronological period of 144 hours.’
In a note she admits, ‘The NIV translates “in the day” as simply
“when”, which is defensible as a translation, but not entirely helpful
given the importance of the word “day” in chapter 1.’ But the
NIV is her own preferred translation throughout the book.
Here, yom is prefixed by be—beyom—this
is often an idiomatic expression for ‘when’, so the NIV is
helpful, in the sense that it avoids Birkett’s excuse for misunderstanding
Genesis 1. The phrase is translated ‘when’ in Genesis 2:17, 3:5, 5:1,
5:2 in the NIV, and the Koehler Baumgardner Hebrew Lexicon stated that it has the
meaning ‘when’ in Gen. 21:8 as well (according to OT/Hebrew scholar
Dr David Fouts, CEN Technical Journal 11(3):307–308,
1997). The context of yom in Genesis 2:4 is totally different from Genesis
1, where there are no prepositions with yom.
The Fourth Commandment provides a more appropriate comparison — the six days
of the working week and a day of rest were commanded because God created in six
days and rested (ceased) from His work on the 7th. There is no point
even trying to understand the Bible if a word in the same passage and same grammatical
context can switch meanings, without any hint in the text itself. Also, the Fourth
Commandment in both Ex 20:11 and 31:17 has the causal explanation
‘For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the Earth, the sea, and all
that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day’. The word
‘for’ (Hebrew ki, also having the sense ‘because’)
at the beginning of this expression shows that the creation week is the very basis
of the working week.
Genesis contradictions?
On p. 138, Birkett claims that Genesis 1 and 2 teach a different order of creation
of man and animals. Unlike outright bibliosceptics, however, she doesn’t claim
this proves that Genesis is errant, but that it is meant to be non-chronological.
Her only attempt to support this is a cryptic footnote to a number of translations
of Genesis
2:19. She doesn’t even say what her point is, so I can assume only
that she’s trying to counteract the point we have made in
Do Genesis 1 and 2 contradict each other? i.e. that translating it as in
the pluperfect tense as ‘God had formed the animals’
eliminates the contradiction.
Her attempt to counter it by appealing to translations—but significantly excluding
her own preferred one again—is very superficial. Hebrew verbs don’t
correspond neatly to English grammatical rules. The tense must be decided by context.
If there are several possible translations, it makes sense to choose the one that
doesn’t lead to a contradiction. This is especially important when Jesus Himself
cited Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 together, showing that he regarded
the two chapters as parts of a whole (Mt.
19:3–6). Leupold made the point well in his scholarly Exposition of Genesis
1:130 (1942):
‘Without any emphasis on the sequence of acts the account here records the
making of the various creatures and the bringing of them to man. That in reality
they had been made prior to the creation of man is so entirely apparent from chapter
one as not to require explanation. But the reminder that God had “molded”
them makes obvious His power to bring them to man and so is quite appropriately
mentioned here. It would not, in our estimation, be wrong to translate yatsar
as a pluperfect in this instance: “He had molded.” The insistence of
the critics upon a plain past is partly the result of the attempt to make chapters
one and two clash at as many points as possible.’
The erudite 19th century Old Testament commentary by Keil and Delitzsch
justified this translation as follows (Pentateuch 1:87)
‘The circumstance that in ver. 19 the formation of the beasts and birds is
connected with the creation of Adam by the imperf. c. waw consec.,
constitutes no objection to the plan of creation given in chap. i. The arrangement
may be explained on the supposition, that the writer, who was about to describe
the relation of man to the beasts, went back to the creation, in the simple method
of early Semitic historians, and placed this first instead of making it subordinate;
so that our modern style of expressing the same thought would be “God brought
to Adam the beast which He had formed.” [Footnote to following paragraph]
‘A striking example of this style of narrative we find in 1 Kings vii.13.
First of all, the building and completion of the temple are noticed several times
in chapter vi, and the last time in connection with the year and month (chap. vi. 9,14,37,38);
after that, the fact is stated, that the royal palace was thirteen years in building;
and then the writer proceeds thus: “And Solomon sent and fetched Hiram from
Tyre … and he came to king Solomon, and did all his work; and made the two
pillars,” etc. Now, if we are to understand the historical preterite with
consec. here, as giving the order of the sequence, Solomon would be made
to send for the Tyrian artist, thirteen years after the temple was finished, to
come and prepare the pillars for the porch, and all the vessels needed for the temple.
But the writer merely expressed in Semitic style the simple thought, that “Hiram,
whom Solomon fetched from Tyre, made the vessels,” etc. Another instance we
find in
Judg. ii. 6.’
Egyptologist and scholar of the ancient near east, Kenneth Kitchen, writes in Ancient
Orient and the Old Testament (pp. 116-7, Chicago: IVP, 1966):
The strictly complementary nature of the ‘two accounts’ is plain enough:
Genesis 1 mentions the creation of man as the last of a series, and without any
details, whereas in Genesis 2 man is the centre of interest and more specific details
are given about him and his setting.
There is not incompatible duplication here at all. Failure to recognize the complementary
nature of the subject-distinction between a skeleton outline of all creation on
the one hand, and the concentration in detail of man and his immediate environment
on the other, borders on obscurantism.
Cain’s wife?
Birkett writes (p. 138):
‘It is also worth noticing that Genesis 2–3 (and following) does not
seem to be an exhaustive account of everything that happened. Who, for example,
was Cain afraid of being killed by in chapter 4? And whom did he marry? And why
did Cain build a city in Genesis 4:17 if there were only himself, his wife and his
son to live in it?’
Considering that CMI has written extensively on this topic, e.g. Where did Cain get his wife?, it’s inexcusable for
her to raise such facile problems. She’s right that Genesis 2–3 is not
exhaustive, but we never claimed it is. This does not mean it is not historical.
Her further questions are blatantly leading, and ignore Genesis 5:4, which states
that Adam and Eve had a number of sons and daughters, with no prohibition against
some of them being born before Seth. And the Hebrew word translated city (‘ir)
means any protected encampment or walled town, and the world’s population
could have grown large enough by the probable near-130 years between Creation and
Abel’s murder.
The creationist objections Birkett ignores
Birkett totally ignores some of the main objections creationists have to compromising
with evolution/long ages. It would have been proper to try to find out, especially
in a book purportedly giving a scholarly overview of the issue for educated Christian
laymen. There are several Biblical doctrines called into question by compromises
on Genesis:
The perspicuity of scripture
The Protestant Reformation recovered the doctrine that scripture was perspicuous,
that is, ordinary people could use sound hermeneutical principles and understand
the Gospel message of scripture without needing an elite group to interpret it (2
Timothy 3:15–17). They were also determined that it was not compulsory
to believe anything that could not be deduced from scripture.
There is a parallel with long age issues. Note that no Christian exegete, even when
interpreting the scripture in its historical and grammatical context, thought of
‘long-age’ interpretations until such views became popular in ‘science’.
This indicates that such views were not gleaned from scripture. But the above quotes
of Hodge et al. claim that sound grammatical principles are not enough
to understand scripture; we need uniformitarian ‘science’. I fail to
see the difference in principle between that view and the claim of the
medieval church that we need the Papal Magisterium to understand scripture.
The Hugh Ross disciple Don Stoner, in his book A New Look at an Old Earth
(1997), tries to explain away the absence of long-age interpretations by claiming
that God sometimes hides the truth (pp. 37–41). A logical implication of Stoner’s
argument, and probably the most disturbing teaching of his book, is that God deliberately
hid the alleged ‘truth’ of long ages from the most devout and knowledgeable
exegetes in Christian history, and instead revealed it to deists, agnostics and
atheists who used this ‘truth’ to mock the Bible.
All this has baneful implications for anyone’s ability to understand the Bible.
If six days should really be interpreted to mean 15 billion years, then any attempt
to understand scripture is hopeless. Evil could be interpreted as good, and indeed
must be, for reasons explained in the next heading. It’s no accident
that many denominations permeated by theistic evolution now condone fornication,
homosexual practice and abortion, even among leaders.
Death as the penalty for sin
The biggest problem of non-literal interpretations of Genesis is that there then
would have been billions of years of death, struggle and suffering before Man’s
Fall. But scripture teaches that death is the result of Adam’s Fall (Rom. 5:12–19),
and
1 Cor. 15:21–22 states:
‘For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also
through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.’
Death is also called the ‘last
enemy’ (1
Corinthians 15:26). It is insufficient to claim that this refers only
to human death, because
Gen. 3:17–19 states that the whole Earth was cursed,
and the New Testament refers to the whole creation ‘groaning
in travail’ (Romans
8:20–22). It is also wrong to claim that Adam’s punishment
was spiritual death only—Gen. 3:19 indicates that physical death was part
of the punishment, and the context of 1 Cor. 15:21 involves a bodily resurrection
of Jesus who was physically dead.
All (mis-)interpretations of Genesis which deny its plain meaning, and so involve
death before sin, must assert that ‘the last enemy’,
death, was a part of the ‘very good’
creation (Genesis
1:31). But how then can a Christian give a good apologetic answer to questions
such as ‘Why would God allow mass murders such as the
terrorist attack on New York?’ A consistent Biblical answer, as in
our new booklet (right), points out that death is an intruder, so it is not part
of God’s original creation, but is ultimately due to man’s sin. But
according to their theology, death has always been with us, and theistic evolution
even says that God used this ‘last enemy’
as His means of producing His ‘very good’
creation!
Also, if all the creation that ‘was subjected to frustration’
is eventually to be restored (ROM
8:20–22), we must ask: ‘Restored to what?’ Billions of
years of death and suffering?’ Verses like the following hardly teach that
the restored paradise will have bloodshed in the animal kingdom—Isaiah 65:25
(NIV):
‘The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion
will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent’s food. They will
neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,’ says the LORD.’
This is supported by the fact that
Gen. 1:29–30 teaches that animals were originally vegetarian, and
that meat-eating, at least for people, was permitted only after the Flood in Gen. 9:3.
The words of Christ Himself
Jesus said in
John 5:46–47: ‘If you believed Moses, you would
believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how
are you going to believe what I say?’ Of course, if Jesus can
make mistakes in testable areas, why should He be trusted in untestable areas (cf.
John
3:12)? No wonder that doubt of Genesis often leads to doubt of Christ’s
other words, as discussed previously in the context of Moore College’s battle
against Anglican liberalism.
Indeed, Christ endorsed the Genesis records of creation (Mt.
19:3–6), and of Noah’s Flood and Ark (Luke
17:26–27). He also said ‘But from the beginning
of the creation God made them male and female’ (Mark
10:6). As man was made six days after creation, a true time
line of the world would indeed have man at the beginning, which the Bible indicates
was about 6,000 years ago. But evolution/long age ideas have man’s existence
in a microscopic segment at the end of a 15-billion-year time-line, almost an afterthought.
See also Jesus and the age of the world.
Jesus also cited Abraham with approval in
Luke 16:31: ‘If they do not listen to Moses
[the writer/compiler of Genesis]
and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’
Indeed, denominations that doubt Moses by teaching theistic evolution often have
leaders who doubt the Resurrection too, which again is relevant to Moore College’s
own battles.
Many Christians, including the Moore College academics, fortunately don’t
carry doubt of Genesis to the logical conclusion of doubting Christ, who endorsed
Genesis. But this is not so of a professing ‘evangelical’ leader of
a prominent theistic evolutionary group here in Australia (ISCAST),
who have had conferences at Moore College at which Dr Peter Jensen, then Principal
of Moore, spoke. This leading ISCASTian has told several people that Jesus was limited
by the knowledge base extant in His 1st century Jewish culture, and we
now know better because we ‘have the light of science’. But questioning
Jesus Himself obviously has baneful consequences for Christianity as a whole —
see further refutation of this serious error in The Authority
of scripture.
Conclusion
The back cover blurb claims, ‘For anyone who wants to really understand Darwinism,
and its relationship to biblical Christianity, this short straightforward book is
the place to start’. As shown, this statement is partly true and partly false.
Yes, the book is short and straightforward; yes, it has value in its presentation
of the history of Darwinism, the current disputes within evolutionary theory, and
documentation that most evolutionary propaganda is religious rather than scientific
in origin. But no, there is insufficient material on the scientific problems with
evolution, and there’s nothing to show that the author has any grasp of the
real problems in trying to mix the Bible with evolution or long-age views. The book
provides a confused, illogical apologetic.
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