Lennox’s expertise is in a discipline, formal mathematics, in which culture plays very little if any role. Set theory, indeed all of math, has its own language. When you translate from English to mathematical symbols and back, implicit context plays no role whatsoever; encoding and decoding is the name of the game.
Given that background, I am not surprised that Lennox evinces no awareness of the cultural issues in Genesis and elsewhere in the Bible that he overlooks. Those issues are outside his field of vision. That does not make those issues unimportant, though; linguistics has shown us how extremely important the implicit cultural context is to understanding any text, sacred or otherwise.
Now Lennox does understand that metaphor must be taken into account. Without a deep understanding of ANE cultures and literature, however, he is not prepared to discern metaphor where he is not expecting it. Nor is he prepared to discern other important ANE genres like the exalted prose narrative, which scarcely exist in our literature.
Let me move from generalization to specifics. Lennox points out that the Enuma Elish, a Babylonian etiology, has important theological differences from Genesis. He concludes therefore that Genesis is not a derivative work. Walton explicitly agrees 100% with this. However, Lennox then falls into a non sequitur–somehow, he thinks that the fact that (A) Genesis is not a derivative work means that (B) Genesis 1 is not a cosmic temple narrative. But B does not follow from A. The Enuma Elish and other ANE literature show the functional orientation of etiologic accounts, and that is the thought world that Genesis monotheistically inhabits.
Lennox further reveals his blinders when he analyzes Solomon’s prayer in I Kings 8:27:
“But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!"
Lennox treats this statement as if it were a mathematical axiom in a contra-positive proof.
AXIOM: God cannot dwell on earth or in heaven.
CONTRA-POSITIVE: The cosmic temple framework points to God “taking rest” in the heavens and earth.
DEDUCTION: The cosmic temple framework is wrong.
The key issue here is that John Lennox, the brilliant mathematician, is entirely unaware of the cultural context needed to understand Solomon’s prayer. It is not at all a mathematical axiom; the prayer is an expression of wonder and humility appropriate in the presence of an awesome Sovereign. It is a way of saying, “How could it be that God would inhabit anything at all? God is far above all! That He would inhabit this temple I built is too much for my understanding!”
Lennox misses the clues earlier in the chapter:
10 When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. 11 And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple. 12 Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; 13 I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.”
If God can indeed dwell in a temple built by human hands, why can He not in the same sense dwell in the temple He Himself built?
This has far-reaching implications for how we are to worship God and be stewards, even vice regents, of His creation.
I agree with everything Lennox says in chapter 5 of his book about the message of Genesis, by the way. But if I have to choose between an interpretation of Genesis offered by a faithful Christian who is world-renowned ANE scholar and a faithful Christian who is a world-renowned mathematician, I am going with the ANE scholar every time.
I hope you find this post helpful, Craig.
Best,
Chris