The Problems with Bill_II's Idiosyncratic View

Faith & Science Conversation
101

Please explain, as I cannot understand how someone can believe in evolutionary creation without believing that the earth is old.

I have heard a number of people in this BioLogos forum make a statement along these lines, but hardly any of you seem to realize how little information this actually conveys. It clearly tells me that you are not YEC but it does not tell me anything about the figurative interpretation you have of the creation account. Nor does it tell me why you’re willing to extract “God did it” as factual, but little else.

If you’re willing, please let me try to draw out of you the figurative understanding you have of the creation account, or, at the very least, how you determine where to draw the line between what’s important in the account and what’s a “detail.”

Here is a quick prioritization off the top of my head of the data presented in Gen 1, decreasing in the order of seeming importance.

  1. God created all things.
  2. God created all things by speaking them into existence.
  3. God created all things by speaking them into existence periodically.
  4. God created all things by speaking them into existence periodically in the sequence stated.

As I say, this is a quick list. Not only might others produce a different list, I myself might produce a different list upon further reflection. My point is only to to understand in a general sense what you mean by “details.”

Notice, by the way, that I’ve said nothing about the length of the days because it’s irrelevant to this exercise.

First, it seems that you have drawn your line of what’s important from what’s a detail between 1 and 2. Is this correct? If so, why there instead of elsewhere?

Second, if indeed you draw your line between 1 and 2, are you just as open to 1 meaning “God created the primal matter from which all the things mentioned in Gen 1 eventually evolved” as you are to “God directly created all the items mentioned in Gen 1 from which point evolution began”? If not, to which do you hold?

You’re going to have to be patient with me because I’m trying to draw out through questioning your interpretation of the creation account. Alternatively, you could just explain your interpretation to me. At the very least, I hope I’m demonstrating to you how little information is conveyed when a person says “I take the biblical creation account figuratively.”

102

When I see a word like theology (such as biology or geology or psychology), I think in terms of the etymological roots. The back part “logy,” of course, proceeds from the Greek “logos” and usually meant in such a construction to me “the study of” or “the knowlege of.” The front part “theo,” of course, comes from the Greek “theos.” This is why I distinguish theology (knowledge about God) from cosmology (knowledge about the world.

I hasten to acknowledge that some people take theology to mean “knowledge about the things having to do with God” and thus might call theology something I would call cosmology. I’m not seeking to delegitimize such broader meanings of the word but I don’t feel comfortable adopting them.

I have no objection to your definition above but it does not bear on the semantic clash I was having with @pevaquark.

103

Regardless of what you call them, and irrespective of any battles you’ve had with YEC folks, I can’t understand why you seem unwilling to acknowledge that they are assumptions about the past. As you say, processes…are still being seen today." Therefore, as we go back in the past, at some point we run out of human witnesses and have to assume that said processes were taking place prior to that time.

I don’t object to that statement in and of itself. It’s just that Jesus was making a point about the way things were - not how they had been planned prior to that point. The Pharisees went away defeated once again, like Wile E. Coyote, because Jesus based His argument on history they all agreed was reliable.

“Predictions about the past” are irrelevant to the point I am making here. My point here is that it would be absurd for God to expect veracity from His prophets where the future is concerned but not where the past is concerned, and all the more so because the future is so much harder for a human to get right than the past. Why are there so many more historians today than there are prophets? For one thing, it’s easier to qualify for the former occupation than it is for the latter.

In Luke 24:25, Jesus did not condemn those who were slow of heart to believe merely what the prophets spoke about the future, nor did He commend those who were slow of heart to believe what the prophets said about the past. Rather, He condemned those who were slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

104

  1. I think i can only agree if I know how you answer the questions.

  2. I raised the issue of the Earth because it is Science… not because I thought it was Theological.

(@Swamidass, I don’t usually have such a difficult time getting an answer from a seeker of truth…)

  1. So if Everything pointed to an Old Earth… this wouldn’t affect your interpretation of Adam, his geneaologies, and his role in the Creation of man? I find that hard to believe about your theology.
105

Is there a question in here you’re wanting me to answer? Or is there a point in here you’re trying to make to me? Maybe you’re just smarter than I am (which wouldn’t be hard), but I don’t understand what you’re saying here.

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106

And what was that stipulation?

“When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken.”

If the thing spoken of does not prove to be true in the furture the prophet has spoken falsely. And let me add that I fully believe that when a prophet spoke about the future that that would come true. That is why when you look at a particual prophet you will find prophecies of the near future and prophecies of the distant future. The near term prophecies were given to proved the prophet was real and so therefor the distant term prophecies could be believed. I have heard that the vast majority of the prophicies in the OT have already been fulfilled. I have no problem with the Bible’s record of what will happen in the future. Now i have asked before and I will ask again, can you provide any example of a prophet which spoke about the distant past and this was presented as coming from the Lord?

I’m not. I saying they don’t do history. If you can give me an example of when they did I am all ears. And to be clear I am speaking of texts written by known prophets. Not all of the OT was recorded by prophets. Hopefully that is not an assumption in your thinking.

I didn’t expand on my answer but I meant there is Biblical Theology, Systematic Theology, and Historical Theology (3 I can remember off the top of my head). While all address knowledge about God they are structured in different ways and written for different reasons. But all are based on an interpretation of Scripture using a known hermeneutics. And then there are the ever popular theologies Yours and Mine. :wink:

107

When you asked before, I answered you, and that is why you have now narrowed the scope of your question from “past” to “distant past.” So please don’t ask your new question as if I hadn’t answered your original one.

As for your new question, I submit all the history that is in the Old Testament as history written by the prophets. You can decide for yourself how much of it qualifies as distant.

It is clear from the New Testament that first-century Jews so regarded what we call the Old Testament as the work of prophets that they called it by such names as “Moses and the Prophets” (e.g. Luke 16:29, 31; 24:27; John 1:45; Acts 26:22; 28:23) and even just “the Prophets” (e.g. Matt 26:56; Acts 26:27; Rom 16:26). If you want to quibble about this book or that book not being by a prophet, I don’t think it changes their overall view.

Of the three, for what it’s worth, the first is my favorite by far.

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108

This is a very practical question for all of us since nobody is an expert on everything and will have to lean on (trust) others in at least some (for most of us – many) areas. So I think a first item we must acknowledge is that with the broad availability of actual, aspiring, and pretentious experts we can find on any given subject, we will likely be able to find experts to back up whatever conclusion we could choose. I haven’t tried, but from what I hear, I could probably find a Ph D somewhere who endorses a flat earth. That may be a bit extreme (and maybe their doctorate isn’t in any earth science field), but even if we restrict our domain to the “real” experts, the point will still generally stand. So if you were always to harbor concern about dissenters, making your commitments be contingent on an unreachable unanimity, then you will forever be paralyzed from thinking or doing anything. None of us lives in that place, though we might drop in from time to time when we are motivated to find/sew doubt on an issue.

So once we move beyond paralysis, what practical advice might help then? One suggestion is to become at least familiar with the evidence under discussion for yourself. Which side is interacting more with that evidence? Is one side doing more “doubt-sewing” than actual evidence appraisal? Does one side (as a whole) spend more time dwelling on ad-hominem or conspiracy-hunting than on evidence? Now in any large issue like those in play around here, you will find these “less compelling” strategies being used on both sides --so again you have to go more with general impressions and refrain from getting excited over singular data points. If it is a scientific issue, then sooner or later a side should be able to produce positive evidence for their own case instead of just searching for holes or doubts around the opposing case or around the opponents themselves. How much positive evidence do you see?

Motivations are also telling. When a salesman tells you his product is the best one in the world, do you put a lot of weight on that singular testimony? When we have strong religious or irreligious motivation, then our “findings” might warrant additional scrutiny. Were people through history who found a lot of compelling evidence for deep time all motivated by a desire to call Scriptures into question? A few were – and a whole lot more were not. Are those who question evidence for deep time motivated by a desire to defend a cherished understanding of Genesis passages? (That bears rhetorical reflection, but I’ll say this: If you or anybody here knows of any person – even just one – who would be a counter example to this, I would love to hear their name. Really!)

Money trails are important too. Which is born out by Climate-deniers efforts to paint the movement as motivated by biased government or educational grants and the like. Those effects are probably there too; no program or government will be without its bias, but when we see doubts primarily sewn by even more highly paid oil-company scientists, then those money trails are very revealing. Just look at the (new finally resolved) issue over leaded gasoline and the history of its revelation against the powerful private sector which nearly always prioritizes profit and stock-holder stakes above the greater public good (and is legally compelled to do so in corporate settings even though they work very hard and effectively to market a different picture to all of us populist sheep). So anything that comes out of the commercial sector you can automatically take with a grain of salt unless it is a litigationally compelled concession in which case it will be a minimal allowance – just enough to address responsibility or mitigate with some P.R. damage control. If you are on a quest for actual truth, you had best fish in other ponds. If you don’t care about truth and just want money, then I don’t imagine you would be on this site, much less reading this.

So not all is lost. Even for the layman there are lots of resources that are more toward the trustworthy end of the continuum. But none so far that way that we are excused from any need for discernment.

109

I agree with your final point, but isn’t there a strong distinction between “Moses and the Prophets”. I believe there is a semantic difference between “the Prophets” and “Moses and the Prophets” that is important in those passages too. They did not have a concept of “Old Testament” as do you.

Moses wrote (the Law or the Pentateuch) and the prophets comes much later (e.g. Isaiah and Joel). The prophets are usually talking about the future, not the past (right?). Moses holds a different role.

110

@Mike_Gantt:

Let me re-word this posting (post #87, copied above) to make my questions more clear and explicit:

[1] Based on your earlier statement that you do not reject Evolution, then are you able to say:
Evolution “… requires no adjustment in theology” ?

[2] If you found a Biblical interpretation of Earth’s age that allows you to reject 6 literal days of creation - -
and thus accept the “… prevailing geological views of the age of the Earth” - -
do you maintain that you wouldn’t have to change your theology at all?

Based on how you answer these 2 questions [edited for greater clarity],
I can figure out what you are trying to say!

111

Agreed.

Again, agreed. But please note that I said “…yet there is a small minority - large enough and respectable enough that I can’t ignore their existence - who think otherwise. What’s a layman to do?” This is not a plea for unanimity. Rather, it is an assertion that there are at times minorities which, though small, are “large enough” and “respectable enough” that one cannot easily dismiss them. Perhaps one of the most notable examples of this is the small sect of Second Temple Judaism (Acts 24:5, 14; 28:22) to which we now adhere even though their first-century opponents greatly outnumbered them.

I am not insisting that YEC’s must be placed in the same category as the first Christians, but rather that YEC’s as a whole are not as easy to dismiss as are some other minority opinions against scientific majorities. I am not even saying that YEC’s cannot be dismissed. I am simply saying that they cannot be easily dismissed. This is why I resist when it sounds to me like someone is breezily dismissing them.

112

I agree that there is a distinction to be made at times between Moses on the one hand and the prophets on the other. The phrase is not mechanical as if it always has to mean exactly the same thing in every single verse in which it appears. This is underscored by the fact that the exact wording of it can vary considerably as it appears in one verse or another.

Abraham, Samuel, and David - all of whom lived well before the time of Isaiah or Joel - were explicitly called prophets in the Scriptures. (Abraham, of course, was before the time of Moses himself.) And there is a strong case to be made that Joshua and the Judges were speaking at times as prophets even if they weren’t given that title by a biblical author.

Yes, but I would see this as a difference of degree not of kind. Moses himself said he was a prophet when he said “God will raise up for you a prophet like me…” (Deut 18:15). Thus we may see Moses as the greatest of all the Old Testament prophets. And thus when Luke says, “Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,” we might just as easily understand him to be saying “Then beginning with Moses and all the rest of the prophets.”

Thus there is a sense in which Moses stands apart from the prophets and there is a sense in which he stands as one of them. In both of those senses, however, he is a prophet - God’s spokesman. This understanding gives even more power to the Heb 3 acknowledgement of the greater glory of Messiah when compared to Moses.

I haven’t done a word count to distinguish what’s historical from what’s prophetic in the Old Testament, but it seems both word counts would be substantial.

I hope I’ve said enough to convince you that I take your point about Moses’ uniqueness. (Among other things we could add, he laid the foundation of the Scriptures themselves!) Yet in the sense of writing both history and prophecy, I don’t see a way to say that he didn’t do both just as the other prophets did both. (Of course, not all prophets wrote Scripture, but I’m speaking of those that did.)

Agreed. I’ve never lost my fascination with the fact that when you read the book of Acts, you never get the sense from the protagonists that they considered what we call “the Old Testament” an inadequate or deficient collection. And I revel in the fact that unlike all the world’s false “messiahs,” our Lord’s biography and agenda were written by others long before He was born. The New Testament is affirmation of the reliability of that biography and exposition of that agenda. With these two complementary and mutually-dependent collections we may be all the more sure that our Lord is alive and well, ruling over the creation He so lovingly made for us. Now, if we can only settle on how and when He did that. :slight_smile:

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113

Sorry about that, I should have explained a little more. The difference is not in acceptance of an “old earth”, but in acceptance of evolution to the point of common descent. Of course there is some variation between individuals in the OEC camp, but most would not accept a concept of evolution that involves a significant amount of speciation, let alone common ancestry.[quote=“Mike_Gantt, post:101, topic:36201”]
I have heard a number of people in this BioLogos forum make a statement along these lines, but hardly any of you seem to realize how little information this actually conveys.
[/quote]

I realize that this can be an unsatisfactory position because it can seem like a free pass to believe whatever one wishes to believe. What I’ve tried to do in my understanding of this passage is reconcile what I read here to what I see in scientific study. I think you put together a pretty good list of four points, but I would actually draw my distinction between points 2 and 3. Maybe God didn’t literally “speak” created things into existence, but I would say He had an active hand in the process.

Mike, I greatly appreciate the effort you are making here to maintain so many conversations at once. Thank you for your patience in this endeavor.

114

Pay attention to the vast majority until the handful of dissenters either sway a majority to see it their way, as sometimes happens, or fade into obscurity, which is most often the case. If the objections of the minority really do have merit, they will win other scientists to their cause. If the objections are merely the bleating of sheep, they will be ignored. Consider the case of Einstein, who changed the scientific world while working at a patent office because no university would hire him. If the ideas have merit, they will be noticed.

In the absence of records, both are equally difficult. What records did Moses consult to write Genesis 1? No one was present while God created the heavens and the earth, so how did Moses know what happened? Obviously, both of us believe that God can inspire a true account of the distant past, just as God could inspire Isaiah with a true account of the distant future. Now, consider all the figurative elements of prophecy regarding the distant future. The prophet describes future historical events in symbols and figures. My point is this: If God inspired the prophets to describe the distant future in primarily symbolic language, I see no reason why God could not inspire his prophet Moses to describe the distant past in similarly symbolic language. And just as the prophets’ portraits of the future can be symbolic and a little “fuzzy around the edges,” yet still give us a “true” version of events, Moses has given us a symbolic, impressionist portrait of the distant past. (Hence, my earlier “trick question” about the two pictures.)

No, I’m trying to say that no matter what you decide, leave room for your grandchildren to go one way or the other on this issue. Certainly, tell them what you believe, and why you believe it, but make sure they understand that our common faith rests upon Christ and his resurrection, not on what we think about evolution or the age of the earth.

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115

Though I appreciate your edits, and though they bring some clarity, they do not bring enough clarity for me to be able to simply answer your questions. Moreover, your questions indicate that you may be conflating some issues. Therefore, let me try to be responsive to what I can understand.

Here are the statements I pulled from various posts above which seem relevant to what you’re trying to ask.

@Mike_Gantt: I can’t think of an example where a scientific discovery requires an adjustment in theology.
@gbrooks9: I think you say this because you reject the notion that Evolution is a “scientific discovery”.
@Mike_Gantt I do not reject evolution as a scientific discovery.

Let me elaborate on my two statements here, as you may be either misunderstanding them or insufficiently appreciating the context in which they were written. I fully accept evolution as a scientific discovery. By this I mean that I don’t think it’s a conspiracy or hoax. Scientists adhere to it because they believe it’s the truth. My reservations about it aren’t scientific; rather, they are about the historical implications of it which seem to conflict with historical claims I think are being made with the Bible. If I should come to a conviction that evolution is true, or that the earth is old, it will change my cosmology, but not my theology. This is because I see the latter as thoughts about God and the former as thoughts about the world He has made. The wording of your question makes me wonder if you understand my statements, so this is why I’m hesitant to answer it as worded.

As I’ve said to others, when I read Genesis 1 alone I do not feel compelled to take the “days” as 24-hour periods. The problem for me is that every OEC biblical interpretation I have so far encountered brings more problems than it solves. That’s why I keep searching here for an interpretation I haven’t heard before, or some reason to re-visit an interpretation I have heard before.

As with your first question, I must say that if I were to find a way to accept the “prevailing geological view of the age of the earth,” it would change by cosmology, not my theology. Also as with the first question, I’m hesitant to answer this question as worded because I’m not sure you’ve framed the question based on an accurate understanding of my words.

Hope all this gets you closer to where you wanted to be even though it might not get you all the way there.

116

I agree. What you seem to be missing, though, is that the book of Acts does not depict Peter and Paul marching into synagogues all around the Mediterranean with the message “The prophets were speaking symbolically about the Christ!” and expect anyone to follow them. No, they “demonstrated by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 18:28). That is, they explained how Jesus of Nazareth, through His suffering and glory (death and resurrection) fulfilled Genesis 3:15 and Psalm 110:1 and Psalm 118:22 and on and on and on. That is what is missing in your comments. None of you is showing how the symbols or figures of which you speak in only the most general of terms ever apply in the historical verses being questioned. If your theory is true, you should be able to explain how the symbols used by the prophets applied to creation in the past as well as you can explain how the symbols they used applied to Christ in the future.

As best I can tell, you don’t have an interpretation of the biblical creation account at all. What you have is a non-interpretation of it. Am I being too harsh? I don’t think so. If all someone can get out of Genesis 1 is “God did it,” then I don’t even see on what basis they get “God did it.” If everything else is “figurative,” how do we know “God” and “created” are not figurative?

I’m not upset. I’m just trying to coax out of someone either a rational interpretation of the Genesis creation account consistent with an old earth and with the rest of the Scriptures…or…an honest admission that you don’t have one. And if you’re going to say, “Mike, there’s more than one,” it’s proof positive you don’t have
one.

Uh, sounds too much like the “true for you but not for me” fallacy that’s infected so much of our society today. You probably don’t mean it that way, but it sounds that way. I agree that it’s not the most important issue, but it is an important issue. Television, movies, schools, and such are pounding away on the issue of evolution and age of the earth all day long every day. A person is either going to come to his own conclusion or be swept up into someone else’s.

On this precise point, you and Ken Ham seem to be in violent agreement. I salute you both.

Oh, and by the way:

My “trick question” comment was intended to provoke a chuckle. The serious answer is, of course, that one of those pictures is clearly more true than the other. I know that’s not the response you intended to elicit, but it is the correct one.

117

So, for clarification’s sake, am I correct in thinking the following?

Not all OEC’s believe in evolution.

All EC’s, by definition are OEC’s.

In other words, EC’s are a sub-set of OEC’s.

Yes, that is what it seems like. But I salute you for putting your own view out here.

Yes, and I think you speak for a lot of people here in this regard. One way of putting it is:

“I believe that what science is saying about the age of the earth is so overwhelming clear and emphatic, and so well attested by multiple independent lines of evidence, that whatever the Bible is saying about the age of the earth, it can’t possibly be contradicting this.”

I can see why this would be enough for a lot of people. Alas, I’m not one of them. I’ve got to find a biblical interpretation to help me get there - not a biblical non-interpretation.

118

Close, I think, but not quite. I believe the OEC term carries a connotation associated with the rejection of large-scale evolution.

I can understand and accept that position. Let me just add a couple of remarks from Augustine in his work, “On the Literal Meaning of Genesis”.

In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture. (Vol. 1, CH. 18:37)

When they are able, from reliable evidence, to prove some fact of physical science, we shall show that it is not contrary to our Scripture. But when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture, and therefore contrary to the catholic faith, either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt. (Vol. 1 CH. 21:41)

Is the theory of evolution contrary to Scripture? I do not believe so, but some will continue to see it as contrary to a literal interpretation of Genesis. But if one accepts figurative language in other parts of the Bible, I do not believe it is inconsistent to accept figurative language describing the creation week.

Mike, my purpose in engaging with more conservative Christians is not necessarily to “win them over”, but to present what I think and why I think it, hopefully toward the goal of broader acceptance of Evolutionary Creationism as an “acceptable” Biblical viewpoint. Whether or not you share my view is not nearly as important as acknowledgement of its viability.

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119

Then I’m confused. I’ve been counseled by more than one person here to approach evolution by first deciding about the age of the earth. And this advice makes sense to me. But if what you say is true, and I have reason to believe it is, then OEC means something other than merely someone who believes that the earth is old.

120

Just a slight distinction, I wouldn’t worry a great deal about it. Like I said, mostly just a difference in connotation.

It does make sense to start with the age of the earth since it is pretty straightforward to present an old earth as a first step toward acceptance of Evolutionary Creation.