Ken Ham’s new lifesize ark attraction is now open. It looks like it would be something to see, and heck, I might even go take a gander someday. But before you haul your kids over for a course in the Ken Ham view of the Bible, I urge you to think about giving your kids space to keep their faith.
Ken Ham is a dedicated Christian, but he feels that anyone who disputes a seven-day creation narrative is a foe of Christianity. He conflates this battle over the age of the earth with the battle over the origin and development of life on earth. (I heard him speak once, and he basically said you could not be a Christian and believe in an old earth, but I see on his Answers In Genesis website, he has consented to allow old-earth believers to keep their salvation—”it’s probably not a prerequisite.”) Nevertheless, keeping to one battle at a time, here is a thought-experiment about Genesis and the date of creation.
A Thought Experiment
If Michael the Archangel came down and told you that the earth is actually 3 billion years old, would you find yourself completely unable to reconcile the Genesis account with that information? Would you feel God had out and out lied in Genesis 1-3 and that the whole Bible was now untrustworthy? Or could you see yourself looking at Genesis 1-3 with a new perspective and perhaps accede that Genesis could be true in the sense that it describes God’s action in creation and declares that everything begins with God, even if it is not a 24-hour-day-by-7-day narration of events? Perhaps you could see these verses as less a scientific description and more of an ancient poetic account? Is there absolutely no other way to look at those verses except in the way you believe them to be interpreted?
Before the 1600s people believed in the Ptolemaic system to explain how the stars and sun and moon moved around the earth. They believed the Bible supported this view of the universe. Psalms declared that “the world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.” After Galileo’s telescope revealed that the earth did in fact rotate around the sun, this new view of the solar system had to be accepted. But did that make the Bible untrue and make God a liar? Or did it just mean that man had used Scripture in a way it was not intended to be used? Once discovering the heliocentric view of the solar system, men realized the Scripture could be interpreted in another way.
Leaving Room for Faith
You can go through life believing in a young earth. If you are right, then yippee. If not, it probably won’t affect you one way or the other. But that is not true of everyone. Some of our kids are going to look through the metaphorical telescope and become convinced that the earth does move—or more to the point that the earth is older than 6,000 years. Don’t set your kids up to reject the faith because they can’t accept a young earth. Leave room for other orthodox interpretations of Scripture. And leave room in your own mind for the thought that you could be wrong.
Brenda says
And why couldn’t an omniscient God create an aged earth in 6 days? He created an aged (adult) male and female in 1 day – that is, if you believe in a literal 7-day creation. It takes faith, but it also takes humility to realize that “if God is only as great as my finite mind can imagine, then He is not a very great God at all!”
Poor Potsherd says
Of course God can do anything He wants. No argument there. And my issue has not been with young-earthers per se, because I don’t like to argue about that subject with them. I have read the round of arguments that young-earthers and old-earthers engage in, and the arguments usually end up circling back to the same issues with no one’s mind changed. My real argument is with the message of people like Ken Ham to Christian parents that the young earth view of Genesis is the only view that takes the Bible seriously and if you reject that view, you are rejecting the truth of the whole Bible. If your kids ever become convinced that the young-earth view is untenable but that belief in the Bible requires it, you may have set them up to reject the life-giving message of Jesus. That’s all I’m saying.
Kenny B says
I agree with Poor Potsherd.
There are many Christians who say that a literal 6-day view of creation is some sort of basis upon which Christianity stands. It is not.
The real beauty of Genesis, I believe, is that it “works” pre-Galileo, and it “works” post-Galileo. It works pre-Galileo by taking it literally. It works post-Galileo by not taking it literally.
THINK ABOUT GENESIS PRE-GALILEO: Had Genesis somehow been written by a guy in a trance who wrote scientifically pure descriptions of creation from an old earth theory, it simply would have been incomprehensible/unbelievable to everybody. Their minds simply could not handle that.
I recently read an fantastic new book called “Galileo’s Telescope” by three Italians. It shows how totally earth-shattering Galileo’s new helio-centric view of the world was in every sphere of society. Of course, it was replacing a geo-centric view of the world which, very simply, was NOT correct.
Then I re-read Genesis 1. It became apparent to me FOR THE FIRST TIME that Genesis 1 was written from a geo-centric view, which I will say again for emphasis WAS NOT CORRECT. The fourth day in v.14-19, when you get down to brass tacks, is geo-centric. The lights shine and rule day and night, ditto for the stars. It is a geo-centric view. One interesting technical aspect of this Genesis account of the moon shining and ruling the night, is that, guess what, the moon DOESN’T SHINE in the real world we live in. It reflects the sun’s light.
You might disagree with me totally and say that Genesis DOES reflect a helio-centric view of the world. Now, you’ve put yourself in the pickle of saying that Genesis was written by a man who had a geo-centric view of the world, but that God took over while he was penning Genesis and he wrote helio-centric stuff.
The geo-centric view, which I remind you is incorrect, comes out in other parts of the Bible too. I will just point out my most recent catch of this: Rev. 21:23.
So to cycle back, a slavish and uncompromising view of a literal 6-day creation, and KEN HAM is the epitome of this view, I too have heard him in person, that uncompromising view is quite dangerous. KEN HAM would serve Christianity better if he presented his views less dogmatically.
Kenny B
Brenda says
Well-stated, Kenny! But I must disagree with your assertion that either view is correct or incorrect. My point was that Genesis 1 is a Theo-centric view, and try as we might, we can never truly comprehend HIM – but try we must, for seeking Him is our whole purpose here.
Kenny B says
Excellent point. Genesis 1 is primarily a theo-centric view of creation.
Kinsey says
I do not think that you have to believe in a young earth to be saved, but I feel strongly that reading Genesis 1 as other than literal history carries deep theological implications.
My biggest concern with interpreting Genesis 1 as metaphorical is when do you stop reading the Bible metaphorically? The origin of sin is critical to our need for Christ. Is the story of the initial temptation metaphorical? If so, is Christ’s death only metaphorical?
My understanding is that death did not exist before Adam and Eve sinned and were removed from the garden. If the world was created through evolution, death would have been pervasive before sin entered the world.
Poor Potsherd says
Kinsey, Brenda said you are really interested in this subject. You might find this set of articles from Books and Culture interesting. These are all Christians debating the topic: Did Adam and Eve exist? Some of the writers will make you mad (they did me, too), but it is interesting to hear different perspectives. I posted summaries on the articles here: Round 1. Round 2 Round 3 I think your point about metaphoricalizing (my new made-up word) the Bible into irrelevance is well taken.
Kenny B says
When some Christians take Genesis 1 non-literally, or as you might say, metaphorically, they do NOT throw away the theology and the truth. Just the opposite they retain the big truths and the big theologcial points.
What are those big points? God is the creator–1:1. Man is way different from the animals–1:26. Man has a sin problem–Chap 3.
With those basic building blocks, Christianity can (and does) do just fine.
Two other ideas to ponder:
1) A Christian who has a 6-billion-year-old-earth viewpoint, does NOT automatically have an evolutionary viewpoint. Evolution itself requires a 6-billion-year-old earth viewpoint. But honestly, that is the easy lift for evolution. The infinitely harder lifts for evolution–spontaneous generation, irreducible complexity, species morphing, just to quickly name three–still remain to make evolution a very silly theory indeed.
2) As a proposal for where one might stop reading Genesis metaphorically, and begin to read it more historically, many Christians make that break at Genesis 12 where the text itself begins to sound more historical and less metaphorical.
Kenny B