At some point in my tenure in the church, I was introduced to Christian apologetics, a scholarly discipline whose purpose is to defend the Christian faith. The intellectual nature and purpose of apologetics caught my interest as meaningful for two reasons: it would help me to understand the reasonableness of my faith, and it would allow me to sustain my worldview when challenged by others. This, of course, means that I came to Christian apologetics with a bias.*
I ate it up. I read Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, and wanted more; so I continued on to reading Lee Strobel, Ravi Zacharias, and eventually an old book by Gary Parker and Henry Morris called What is Creation Science? among others. Subconsciously, I thought of the debate in us-verses-them terms, and when it came to the debate between creation and evolution, I argued in favor of young-earth creation.
The notion of a young earth was by no means new. Proponents like Tertullian and Augustine held to flood geology, the idea that fossils were organisms killed and deposited during the Biblical flood. That boulders, loam, and gravel were found in northern Europe, far from their source regions, provided evidence of this.
I had always assumed that the earth was young. I had no idea, however, that there was a historiography on the scientific study of origins that documented the diversity of opinion on the earth's age (historiography is the study of how history is written, or in this case, all the history written on a particular topic). I found, in fact, that the predominant view of the earth's age among Christians in the nineteenth century was one that envisioned an old earth. Many of those who believed in a creation accommodated the belief in an old earth-- an idea popularized by James Hutton-- with one of two theories. The first was the gap theory, or the idea that there were large gaps of time between two creations: one "in the beginning" (Gen. 1) and the other occurring with the six literal days of creation (starting in Gen. 2). Opposed to that were proponents of the day-age theory, who argued that the days of creation were not literal twenty-four hour periods, but ages of time.
In the twentieth century, however, the idea of a young earth became dominant as creation science, at the expense of alternate views of creation. This happened because an amateur geologist named George McCready Price reinvigorated flood geology with a paper in 1923. His ideas were later taken up and revised by Henry Morris and John C. Whitcomb, Jr., in The Genesis Flood (1961). Historian Ronald Numbers shows that Price's idea helped to move the belief in a literal six-day creation from its place as a fringe ideology to become the central and dominant version of creationism.
Gallup polls have shown, however, that there is a difference of opinion today among those who believe in creation. Some say that humans were created fairly recently and existed as they do today, or close to it. Others favor old-Earth creationism, and believe that humans evolved from primitive forms into our current species. Even in the nineteenth century, scientists differed on how creation took place, whether it involved one creation, two creations, or several creations (the result of catastrophes that required God to recreate). In short, there is less consensus, even among Christians, as to when and how creation happened. Amid the arguments about creationism, however, it has been important for me to remember that whether God created the earth recently or long ago does not affect the central message of the Bible: that God sent Jesus to rescue us so that we could be free from the bondage of our sin and stand in right relationship with him.
*I recognize my bias, and have thought about evolution as a viable idea. I have seen issues with my own beliefs about creationism, and I've seen reasonable responses to creationist ideas. For my part, I once believed that the second law of thermodynamics-- called entropy-- showed that evolution could not be true, that the universe is decreasing in organization so that nature cannot become more complex; but I've since learned that this argument relates only to what are called "closed systems," or natural systems that do not require their energy to come from outside them (in contrast to open systems, like the human body, that require an outside source for energy). The idea of irreducible complexity is reasonable to me (the notion that organs like the human eyeball cannot have evolved, because reducing its complexity in any way would cause it to cease functioning), although I have read thoughtful responses to this idea as well.
I ate it up. I read Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, and wanted more; so I continued on to reading Lee Strobel, Ravi Zacharias, and eventually an old book by Gary Parker and Henry Morris called What is Creation Science? among others. Subconsciously, I thought of the debate in us-verses-them terms, and when it came to the debate between creation and evolution, I argued in favor of young-earth creation.
The notion of a young earth was by no means new. Proponents like Tertullian and Augustine held to flood geology, the idea that fossils were organisms killed and deposited during the Biblical flood. That boulders, loam, and gravel were found in northern Europe, far from their source regions, provided evidence of this.
I had always assumed that the earth was young. I had no idea, however, that there was a historiography on the scientific study of origins that documented the diversity of opinion on the earth's age (historiography is the study of how history is written, or in this case, all the history written on a particular topic). I found, in fact, that the predominant view of the earth's age among Christians in the nineteenth century was one that envisioned an old earth. Many of those who believed in a creation accommodated the belief in an old earth-- an idea popularized by James Hutton-- with one of two theories. The first was the gap theory, or the idea that there were large gaps of time between two creations: one "in the beginning" (Gen. 1) and the other occurring with the six literal days of creation (starting in Gen. 2). Opposed to that were proponents of the day-age theory, who argued that the days of creation were not literal twenty-four hour periods, but ages of time.
In the twentieth century, however, the idea of a young earth became dominant as creation science, at the expense of alternate views of creation. This happened because an amateur geologist named George McCready Price reinvigorated flood geology with a paper in 1923. His ideas were later taken up and revised by Henry Morris and John C. Whitcomb, Jr., in The Genesis Flood (1961). Historian Ronald Numbers shows that Price's idea helped to move the belief in a literal six-day creation from its place as a fringe ideology to become the central and dominant version of creationism.
Gallup polls have shown, however, that there is a difference of opinion today among those who believe in creation. Some say that humans were created fairly recently and existed as they do today, or close to it. Others favor old-Earth creationism, and believe that humans evolved from primitive forms into our current species. Even in the nineteenth century, scientists differed on how creation took place, whether it involved one creation, two creations, or several creations (the result of catastrophes that required God to recreate). In short, there is less consensus, even among Christians, as to when and how creation happened. Amid the arguments about creationism, however, it has been important for me to remember that whether God created the earth recently or long ago does not affect the central message of the Bible: that God sent Jesus to rescue us so that we could be free from the bondage of our sin and stand in right relationship with him.
*I recognize my bias, and have thought about evolution as a viable idea. I have seen issues with my own beliefs about creationism, and I've seen reasonable responses to creationist ideas. For my part, I once believed that the second law of thermodynamics-- called entropy-- showed that evolution could not be true, that the universe is decreasing in organization so that nature cannot become more complex; but I've since learned that this argument relates only to what are called "closed systems," or natural systems that do not require their energy to come from outside them (in contrast to open systems, like the human body, that require an outside source for energy). The idea of irreducible complexity is reasonable to me (the notion that organs like the human eyeball cannot have evolved, because reducing its complexity in any way would cause it to cease functioning), although I have read thoughtful responses to this idea as well.
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