Genesis 1: Straight talk or Circumlocution?

Genesis 1 – is the point to convey what really happened or a roundabout way of saying “God created”?

For a moment, let’s follow the crowd: there’s no way Genesis is literal; the point is God created. Great. God guided evolution (or set the process in motion and let er go). What I love about this solution is that it works great for every person who doesn’t read his Bible.

The problem is I am one of those eccentric souls who actually read mine.

What am I supposed to do when I get to Genesis 3 and I read that the penalty for sin is death? If millions of years of evolution passed before Adam, then millions of years of death passed before Adam, then Adam’s sin didn’t cause death – God did and used it as His mechanism to create. And if God’s mechanism to drive evolution was to weed out the weak, why do we strive to keep them alive? Shouldn’t we endeavor to eliminate the frail, the feeble, and the pathetic? (Is it any wonder eugenics and assisted suicide have been accepted by so many?)

What am I supposed to do when I get to Exodus 20:11 and God inscribes in the Ten Commandments that the basis for our seven day week is the creation week?

What am I supposed to do when I get to Mark 10:16 and Jesus declares that “at the beginning” God made them “male and female”? If Adam and Eve didn’t enter the scene until 12 billion some years after the beginning, what is Jesus talking about?

What am I supposed to do when I get to Romans 5:12 and Paul asserts that death entered the world through Adam? If millions of years of evolution and death passed before Adam, then Paul got it wrong.

And let’s say I’m okay with the above problems and still insist on jamming millions of years into Genesis 1 to make it fit the latest evolutionary theory, do I have to change the order too? Genesis says the earth came before the sun; evolution claims the opposite. Genesis says the plants came before the sun; evolution claims the opposite. Genesis says birds came before reptiles, evolution claims the opposite.

And yet most Christians are okay with this and even defend it. Case in point: the Clergy Letter Project (Google it). Even the pope accepts it (Benedict, JP, and Pious) (Google “Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church”). Never mind that evolution wreaks havoc on Scripture and numerous Biblical teachings; the majority accepts it, so that settles it.

I think Charles Spurgeon said it well, “We are invited, brethren, most earnestly to go away from the old-fashioned belief of our forefathers because of the supposed discoveries of science. What is science? The method by which man tries to conceal his ignorance. It should not be so, but so it is. You are not to be dogmatic in theology my brethren, it is wicked; but for scientific men it is the correct thing. You are never to assert anything very strongly; but scientists may boldly assert what they cannot prove, and may demand a faith far more credulous than any we possess. Forsooth, you and I are to take our Bibles and shape and mould our belief according to the ever-shifting teachings of so-called scientific men. What folly is this! Why, the march of science, falsely so called, through the world may be traced by exploded fallacies and abandoned theories. Former explorers once adored are now ridiculed; the continual wreckings of false hypotheses is a matter of universal notoriety. You may tell where the learned have encamped by the debris left behind of suppositions and theories as plentiful as broken bottles.”

The short of it: evolution can’t dance with the Bible. We either follow the Bible’s lead or get a new partner.

Later I’ll blog about the two mechanisms (mutation and natural selection) that supposedly drive evolution forward while, in reality, doing the opposite.

Starlight, Starbright, How old are you?

100 billion stars in the Milky Way. 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe with millions to trillions of stars in each one and Psalm 147 tells us, “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name”!

The question, however, is, “When did God create the stars?” The Bible clearly states “Day 4.” Some try to reinterpret “Day” to mean “epoch” or “era,” but Genesis 1 doesn’t allow this interpretation. The Hebrew is pretty straight forward - the days are literal, 24 hour days (and just in case there was any doubt, Exodus 20:11 supports it). So, if we just read the text, we come away with six, 24 hour days and an earth that is only several thousand years old.

How then can starlight take millions of years to reach earth? (the answer is going to take awhile, but it’s worth it)

Some well-meaning Christians have tried to posit an “in-transit” theory of starlight. What then are we to conclude about supernovas? If the light was in-transit and if the earth is only several thousand years old, then the supernovas astronomers have witnessed didn’t really happen because there hasn’t been enough time for the light from the explosion to reach earth. If this is so then God created the appearance of a supernova. In other words, God is deceiving us – doesn’t sound like the God of the Bible.

So now what?

Let’s start with the Biblical text. In several places the Bible indicates that God “stretched out” the heavens (Isaiah 45:12 is one). By the way, astronomers observe that the heavens are still stretching - called “red shifts.”

Anyway, if we rewind a bit we can arrive at a time when the universe was smaller (before God stretched it if you will).

Evolutionists rewind to a single infinitesimally small point (which they call a “quantum state of being”). Most people imagine this dot exploding into space, but that’s not what evolutionists teach. They teach that all matter, energy, and space-time was inside the “quantum state of being” and it (for some unknown reason) rapidly expanded into our cosmos (some 13.7 billion years ago).

And get this, they teach that it (the dot) was infinite with no center and no edge. So, that centerless, edgeless “quantum state of being” rapidly expanded into the centerless, edgeless, infinite cosmos we know and love today.

This is an essential cog in the evolutionist’s theory. Stephen Hawking explains, “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end, it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?” (137-138, A Brief History of Time)

Here’s what I find interesting: evolutionists admit that from all observations and calculations earth seems to be located in an ideal place for star gazing. In fact, it appears to be near the center of the universe, but having earth near the center of a universe with at least 100 billion galaxies is statistically impossible (lest it was placed there by a Designer).

So, they assume a centerless, edgeless universe. Hawking and Ellis admit, “we are not able to make cosmological models without some admixture of ideology… we are now so democratic that we would not claim our position in space is specially distinguished in any way. We shall… call this assumption the Copernican principle” (The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time)

Ok, if you plug an edgeless, centerless universe into astronomical equations you get an old earth and old starlight coming from a big bang some 13.7 billion years ago. But please note, the conclusion is affected by the staring assumptions. If you change your starting assumption, you change your conclusion.

The Bible says God “stretched out” the heavens. If we rewind to creation week, we can assume the universe was smaller. If the universe is bounded (i.e. has an edge and a center) and if earth is near the center of the universe (which the Bible suggests when it tells us the sun, moon, and stars were created for us as “signs to mark seasons, days, and years….” (Gen 1:14), then our conclusions will be far different from the big bang cosmology.

Here’s how: gravitational time dilation. I’ll make this as simple as possible and avoid black holes, white holes, event horizons, and E=MC^2.

Here’s the short of it: gravity affects time. The greater the gravitational force the slower time moves relative to time under lesser gravitational force (if you want examples, I’ll give you some).

So, if earth was near the center of a smaller universe, then the gravitational force would be greater toward the center than the edges. If so, clocks on earth would move slower relative to clocks on the edges of the universe.

Now this is going to stretch your brains, but if the force was great enough (which the equations suggest they were), then millions (and even billions) of years could transpire in the outer reaches of the universe while only days transpired on earth.

Here’s the short of it, there was plenty of time for distant starlight to reach earth and the time referenced in Scripture is given in earth time.

So, if you take a bounded universe with an edge and center and posit that earth is near the center (not that earth is stationary and the universe revolves around it) and that the universe has been stretched out and plug all this into the astronomical equations, you end up with a young earth with relative old light.

In short, the Bible’s account stands. I skipped a lot of steps to get here. If you need me to fill them in, ask.

If you want to know more, buy Starlight and Time: Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe by D. Russell Humphreys.

RVL resonates with Bell

A while back I mentioned that something Ray Vander Laan said reminded me of something I had heard out of the emerging church.

During RVL’s talk he described Matthew’s account of Jesus and Peter walking on the water. RVL said that Peter didn’t lose faith in Jesus (because Jesus was right in front of him); he lost faith in himself. In other words, Peter didn’t believe he actually could be like his rabbi (which was the highest aspiration of ever disciple).

So, when Jesus said, “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?” He was saying, “Why did you doubt yourself and your (Spirit empowered) ability to follow me?” RVL was sure to include the “Spirit empowered” qualification.

I’ll let somebody else critique RVL’s exegesis here; I want to share where emerging church pastor Rob Bell takes this. (Bell, by the way, is enamored with RVL. As best I can tell, Bell takes RVL’s teachings to places RVL didn’t/doesn’t envision.)

Anyway, here’s a quote from Bell’s Velvet Elvis, “God has an incredibly high view of people. God believes that people are capable of amazing things. I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that Jesus believes in me. I have been told that I need to have faith in God. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that God has faith in me.” (134)

Before I go further, my purpose isn’t to bash Bell (or RVL); Bell has a lot of great stuff and he’s absolutely right about several things. Here, however, I struggle to take him seriously.

“God has an incredibly high view of people.” Does he read the Bible I read?

“God has faith in me.” Really?

I know one of the characteristics of the emerging church is a hesitancy to define terms with precision (and I’ll admit that endless definitions of terms can be tedious at best). EC prefers “messy” theology – by which they mean a more eastern approach of story/question/conversation in contrast to the western’s proposition/answer/definition. In many ways it’s a helpful corrective. Despite the dryness of definitions, however, they’re essential for conversation. If you don’t know what another means, how can you converse?

So, how does Bell define “believe”? Belief in God is a “good thing”? Isn’t it a saving thing? Does God believe in us in the same way we believe in Him?

How does he define “faith”? Faith in God is a “good thing”? Isn’t it by faith alone in Christ that we are saved? Does God have faith in us in the same way we have faith in Him?

At some point we have to define terms. As much as EC likes things messy, they are going to have to define terms to carry on their conversation. Otherwise their conversation will become as meaningless as the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between Rome and The Lutheran World Federation.

Perhaps someone else has thoughts on this? Maybe I missed Bell’s point altogether. Let me know.