Have you heard about the controversy about Genesis and inerrancy that has recently involved the Biologos group and Al Mohler?
It started when Al Mohler gave a talk entitled "Why does the universe look so old?".
In the speech, he in passing criticized the Biologos Foundation and its blog contributors for disbelieving and teaching others to disbelieve the textually evident six-24-hour-day creation week of Genesis 1. Then Biologos contributers Darrell Falk and Karl Giberson and Peter Enns wrote responses to Al Mohler. The dialogue is rather shocking, as Giberson and Enns showcase the deliberate rejection first of contextually-honest interpretation of Genesis, then of Biblical inerrancy itself.
The Biologos folks are saying in essence: The Bible has some mistakes in some areas (like science), but that's not a problem because we can still learn from the rest.
In the words of Peter Enns, "I do not think I am honoring Scripture by expecting it to reflect modern questions that were simply not on the mind of ancient Israelites. It seems to me that you [Mohler] may be expecting Genesis 1 to do something it was not intended to do, namely reflect factual information that would answer the sorts of questions we have today."
Of course this distinction between "factual" truth versus some other kind of truth is unnecessary and dangerous. As Jesus said in John 3, "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?"
Albert Mohler wrote an initial response here, and here is another trenchant critique by Lita Cosner.
I think it's great that Al Mohler is challenging the Biologos folks about their teaching that the Bible contains mistakes. Below, I'd like to (1) excerpt a couple highlights from Mohler's speech, and then comment on two areas: (2) the actual content of the Biologos folks' argument, and (3) the devious and borderline fallacious language tricks that the Biologos folks tend to employ in their rhetoric.
1. First, here are some excerpts from Al Mohler's original speech:
"It’s not just panic amongst the cultural elites in the secular world however. It is also panic among the theologians. There is the warning from Professor Waltke, that if we do not get with the program we will be marginalized as a cult. There are the warnings of people like Peter Enns, the website BioLogos - a movement started by Francis Collins, now the director of the National Institutes of Health under President Obama, formerly the head of the Human Genome Project, the author of the book The Language of God in which he makes his own argument that, unless we get with the program, we are going to be intellectually marginalized. And Francis Collins makes the point made by so many others that we will actually lose credibility sharing the Gospel of Christ if we do not shed ourselves of the anti-intellectualism, which is judged to be ours by the elite if we do not accept the theory of evolution....
"Kenton Sparks writing on that website suggests that, intellectually, evangelicalism has painted itself into a corner - that we have put ourselves into an intellectual cul-de-sac with our understanding of biblical inerrancy. He suggests that the Bible indeed should be recognized as containing historical, theological and moral error. Peter Enns, one of the most frequent contributors to the site, suggests that we have to come to the understanding that, when it comes to many of the scientific claims, historical claims, the writers of scriptures were plainly wrong.
"Karl Giberson, Eastern Nazarene University, says this: "clearly the historicity of Adam and Eve and their fall from grace are hard to reconcile with natural history." He says this, "One could believe for example that at some point... in evolutionary history God ‘chose’ two people from a group of evolving humans, gave them his image, and put them in Eden, which they promptly corrupted by sinning. But this solution is unsatisfactory, artificial, and certainly not what the writer of Genesis intended.""
"That’s not said by someone who’s defending the book of Genesis, but rather the theory of evolution, and trying to remove the possibility of the very kinds of things that some who identify themselves as evangelicals are trying to claim. An old earth understanding is very difficult to reconcile with a historical Adam as presented not only in terms of Genesis, but in terms of Romans. It requires an arbitrary claim that God created Adam as a special act of his creation and it entangles a good many difficulties in terms of both exegeses and a redemptive historical understanding of scripture."
"It is not fair to say that an old earth position cannot hold to a historical Adam. It is to say that it cannot hold to a historical Adam without arbitrary intellectual moves and very costly theological entanglements. It is to say that this position seems to be at an insoluble collision with the redemptive historical narrative of the Gospel. The cost to the Christian church, in terms of ignoring this question or abandoning the discussion, is just too high. The cost of confronting this question is also costly. It can be very expensive because it can create intensity and conflict and controversy but I would suggest that the avoidance of this will be at the cost of our own credibility.
2. Now let's look at the specific arguments presented by the Biologos contributors.
a. The Biologos people say that Biblical interpretation has been wrong about scientific matters before, and has needed outside help from scientific observations to correct the natural/straightforward meaning of the text.
Example quote:
Let us suppose that the viewpoint you champion-General Revelation cannot trump Special revelation-had guided Christianity from its inception. The natural reading of Psalms 93 is that the earth is fixed and cannot be moved. Indeed this was thrown at Galileo and got him in trouble for proposing an "unbiblical" astronomy. The natural reading of the Biblical references to slavery is that it is OK and I am sure, Dr. Mohler, as a leader of the Southern Baptists, that you are painfully aware of how enthusiastically your predecessors defended the institution of slavery on biblical grounds. And I am sure you take pride in how hard your contemporaries have worked to distance themselves from that history. The natural reading of the creation of the moon in Genesis is that it is a light, similar to the sun, and not just a big rock. Is there not a long list of examples where General Revelation has forced us to set aside Special Revelation?
http://biologos.org/blog/how-should-biologos-respond-to-dr-albert-mohlers-critique-karls-response
Ok, each of these are separate examples. The slavery example does not seem relevant to the science debate. On the moon, Genesis nowhere says that it was "not just a big rock". Genesis merely calls the moon a "light", which it obviously is. Genesis 1 -
14Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;
15and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
16God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.
17God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,
18and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness;
On Galileo, others have shown that the main controversy was not science versus the Bible, but one scientific theory versus another.
http://creation.com/galileo-geocentrism-and-joshuas-long-day-questions-and-answers
Does the Scripture clearly teach a geocentric solar system? Not at all. For example, regarding Psalm 93:1-2 which say
1The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty;
The LORD has clothed and girded Himself with strength;
Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.
2Your throne is established from of old;
You are from everlasting.
consider this comment from http://creation.com/id-theorist-blunders-on-bible-response-to-dembski
"Dembski should read the verse in context. The next verse says, ‘[God’s] throne is established of old’, where the same word kôn is also translated ‘established’. And the same Hebrew word for ‘moved’ (môt) is used in Psalm 16:8, ‘I shall not be moved.’ Surely, even Dembski wouldn’t accuse the Bible of teaching that the Psalmist was rooted to one spot! He meant that he would not stray from the path that God had set for him. So the earth ‘cannot be moved’ can also mean that it will not stray from the precise orbital and rotational pattern God has set (‘firmly established’) for it.
...the Psalms are poetic books, so we should generally expect figurative language and be very careful before concluding that a particular verse is literal. Psalms have the defining characteristic of Hebrew poetry, which is not rhyme or metre, but parallelism. That is, the statements in two or more consecutive lines are related in some way: saying something, then saying it again in a different way. Or saying one thing then saying the opposite. So the parallelism in Psalm 93 clearly shows the reader that the verse Dembski cites should not be taken literally.
Conversely, Genesis is straightforward historical narrative. This should be obvious, because it has all the grammatical features of Hebrew narrative, e.g. the first verb (in Genesis 1:1) is a qatal (historic perfect), and the verbs that move the narrative forward are wayyiqtols (waw consecutives); it contains many ‘accusative particles’ that mark the objects of verbs; and terms are often carefully defined."
Enns tries again: "The biblical authors, along with all ancient peoples, assumed the earth was stationary and that the sun moved. Would that not require us to do likewise?"
Unfortunately, Enns misses the crucial distinction between assuming that the authors believed something, versus observing that the Bible (the authors' actual written output) states something. How does Enns know that the author of Genesis believed that the sun revolved around the earth? He assumes this, based only on writings from other ancient civilizations like the Babylonians and Egyptians. But does the Bible actually teach that the sun revolved around the earth? No. So Enns' argument does not have any substance.
As an example of Enns' fallacious reasoning, let me apply his technique against his own beliefs. Imagine if I were to say, "Peter Enns is a member of the Biologos group, which is associated with Francis Collins. Francis Collins is on record as supporting certain types of human embyronic stem cell research. Human embyronic stem cells come only from abortions. Therefore, we see that Peter Enns is a supporter of abortion. Now, how could we possibly trust anything written about Genesis by someone who supports abortion? Enns is only trying to get us to support abortion ourselves!" This building of a specious case based on presumptive unstated beliefs is what Enns is trying to do in his point excerpted above.
So Giberson's and Enns' point about Galileo seems superficially convincing, but upon examining the details, it becomes evident that the Bible does not teach the supposed "scientific errors" that they claim it does. The Bible does, however, directly teach that the world was created in six days, and indirectly that it was created only a few thousand years ago.
b. The Biologos people say that science is SO clear about the age of the earth, that there is ZERO doubt about it, and so any suggestion that the earth is only a few thousand years old simply MUST be wrong.
Example quote:
Most scientists consider the age of the earth to be almost as well-established as its shape. Just as “flat earthism” cannot be taken seriously any longer, neither can “young earthism,” and I wonder if you really want Christians to “vote science off the island,” for that is what you have to do to preserve the young earth claim.
Giberson points specifically to the problem of starlight: how could light from stars millions of light-years away reach the earth in only thousands of years? Even stellar events like supernovae and other things are seen. If God created the light 'in-transit' but these events didn't actually happen, then God would seem to be deceiving mankind.
Actually however, there are several good astronomical theories that explain how distant light could reach the earth in only thousands of years. For example, the Humphreys/Hartnett models propose that the Milky Way and the Earth are located in the approximate center of the universe, and that gravitational time dilation explains why distant stars and starlight has "aged more" than life here on earth, especially during Creation Day 4. Time dilation is a well-known phenomena that has been experimentally proven. There are even effects like the Pioneer anomaly which are best explained using these young earth creationist models.
So it is clear that "science" has not given an unequivocal answer regarding the age of the earth. Some tests indicate old ages, while many others indicate young ages, perfectly in line with the Bible. The scientific evidence and theories continue to develop, but the Bible's account remains literally accurate.
Other scientific tests methods as radioactive dating and counting varves or ice cores have been shown to be inaccurate in many scenarios and in several events whose ages are precisely known. For more info:
http://creation.com/young-age-of-the-earth-universe-qa
http://creation.com/radiometric-dating-questions-and-answers
http://creation.com/fossils-questions-and-answers
c. The Biologos people say that Genesis 1-2 cannot be literal because Gen 1:1-2 assume a "preexistent watery chaos" which God then "tamed."
As to the "preexistence" of the water, the verse right before Genesis 1:2 says that "God created the heavens and the earth". Thus it is stated that God created everything (including the waters), and then verse 2 "zooms in" and "picks up the story" from that first moment (1:1) to the creation of the sea/sky distinction.
I agree with Enns that God is indeed portrayed as taming the seas, as is later poetically described in Job and other places. But this does not mean that God did not create the world in six days as He specifically said in Genesis 1-2. Just because Francis Scott Key wrote a nice rhyming poem about "rockets' red glare" and a flag proudly waving in "dawn's early light" doesn't mean that the battle at Fort McHenry on September 14th 1814 didn't happen. History doesn't have to jettison accuracy when it alludes to grand themes. There is historical accuracy, theological significance, and poetic beauty, in the way God describes His creation in Genesis 1-2. Neither excludes the others. For more on this, see this article on the framework theory.
d. The Biologos people say that Genesis 1-2 cannot be literal because Gen 1:7 teaches the existence of a hard "firmament" which "held back" the "waters above."
As explained elsewhere, Genesis 1:7 does not teach this at all.
e. The Biologos people say that "days" mentioned before the creation of the sun indicates a non-literal Genesis 1-2.
But this is obviously a weak argument. "...all it takes to have a day-night cycle is a rotating Earth and light coming from one direction."
3. The rhetoric of the Biologos group
Here are some examples of rhetorical phrases from the Biologos group that are borderline fallacious, or especially doctrinally egregrious.
Where does one draw the line that marks that place where one has *left evangelical Christianity*? Whose view of that line should we recognize?
This is a 'straw man' argument... It seems to me that the real question is about truth, not denominationalism and demarcation. The real question is: "How did God create the world?" not, "What is the minimum set of beliefs one has to believe to be called an 'Evangelical Christian'?"
Did God form a literal first-man 'Adam' directly from dust on Day 6 and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life? Or did He pick some particular hominid from some tribe of half-monkeys after millions of years of evolutionary survival-of-the-fittest and suddenly bequeath to him some socio-theological awareness? Is the Bible sufficiently clear to decide between these competing explanations?
As another example of why Falk's rhetoric is problematic, consider those who deny the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ. Are we to wrestle with "where to draw the line" doctrinally on that issue? Or do we simply point out that those who deny such doctrines are contradicting the Bible? Who cares whether someone who denies parts of the Bible is called an "Evangelical" or a "Theistic Evolutionist" or a "Flubberdeemoo"? Labels and lines are not the point. The point is whether one is accurately interpreting and believing the Bible.
The BioLogos Foundation exists in order that the Church, especially the Evangelical Church, can come to *peace* with the scientific data...
Falk tries to uses "peace" vs "war" imagery... i.e., he tries to paint believers in a literal Genesis as "warring" against "scientific data". But actually, as one sifts the data from the interpretations, one discovers that there is plenty of scientific data that supports a young earth. And one could just as easily say that the Biologos people are the ones "warring" against the traditional interpretation of Genesis 1. We need to pray that they would come to peace with the literal interpretation of Genesis 1, the interpretation favored by Jesus, Moses, Paul, etc.
My most general question would have to be whether this really matters as much as you say. It seems to me that you are making a theological mountain out of an exegetical molehill, but I suspect we should just agree to disagree about that.
If Giberson really believed this, then why would he and his colleagues spend so many pages defending their position? If one looks back at previous doctrinal controversies, such as the modernism/liberalism controversy of the early 1900's, one notices that all heretics say this. They deny a particular truth from the Bible, then in the ruckus that arises, they try to paint themselves as indifferent to the issue.
Many *faithful* Christians understand verses 1-2 this way, and they feel that they are honoring God’s Word by doing so.
Notice that word "faithful". This is the 'they're good people, how can they possibly be wrong' fallacy. It is a sleight-of-hand intended to make it difficult to challenge these "faithful" Christians. These are not just ordinary Christians. These are "faithful" Christians.
If you reply that these Christians are not "faithful" in the sense of accurately interpreting Genesis (i.e. they call it poetry when it is actually historical narrative), the sleight-of-hand accuses you of demeaning their character (they keep their promises, they pay their bills, they are nice to their neighbors, etc).
This fits with the current tendency to use language about being a 'faithful witness' and being part of the 'community of faith', as opposed to truth, accuracy, and correct beliefs. If one is a sincere and "faith-filled" person but one's faith is based on incorrect foundations, that faith can lead into grevious error.
Also, notice that they "feel that they are honoring God's word" by allegorizing and mythologizing away the young-earth creationistic implications of Genesis 1-2. How can one argue against a "feeling"?!
However, it remains the case that truly honoring God's word involves accurate interpretation and belief. Merely "feeling" that one is honoring God's word does not guarantee that one is actually honoring God's word. As Jesus and Moses believed that Genesis 1-2 referred to literal days of creation, we can follow their example in correctly understanding the account. (Exodus 20:11, Matthew 19:4)
I realize you may disagree here, and maybe you have a way of seeing literal days where there is no sun. I disagree strongly but *that would not lead me to question your commitment to the Gospel*. Reading the days figuratively is not an act of spiritual rebellion, which you seem to suggest. It is a result of taking the text very seriously and faithfully, trying to discern from the text itself how best to read it.
Enns here is attempting to take the moral high ground, by insinuating "If you were in my place I wouldn't be condemning you... therefore you are being less openminded and generous and tolerant than I am... therefore your argument is wrong." For starters, this is an ad-hominem argument - attacking the character of the person arguing with you does not constitute an argument substantiating one's position.
Further, this is a straw-man argument, because Mohler did not question Enns' 'committment to the Gospel', but rather, his accuracy of Genesis 1 interpretation and his (un)belief in the inerrancy of the Scriptures.
Enns is quite defensive here, feeling attacked (for some reason) about whether he has been "faithful" and "committed to the gospel". Actually however, the issue he should simply admit to is his belief in the errancy of the Scriptures. Enns obviously believes that the Bible has mistakes in it, and Mohler was simply pointing that out. Enns should admit that, e.g. "Although I do believe the Bible contains some scientific mistakes, I continue to try to take the text very seriously and faithfully." That way readers can understand that when he says "seriously and faithfully", he means, "unless I come across an 'error', in which case I am free to discount it."
Christians have disagreed with Augustine, but it is hard to find someone who would warn others about him because of his views on Genesis 1. It was not a theological hill to die on.
Also, although you are a Southern Baptist, I know you have great respect for the Reformed tradition. It is true that from Calvin, to the Westminster Assembly, to 19th century Princeton, and the Dutch Reformed tradition, many (not all) Reformed theologians understood the days of Genesis 1 to be "natural" days. But even then, they did not make it a point of Christian orthodoxy, as you seem to do.
These are more examples of Enns trying to say that the interpretation of Genesis 1-2 is "unimportant", and not worth spending much energy arguing about. Unfortunately for Enns, our origins and the origin of sin is extremely important for the entire rest of the Bible. Furthermore, it is not surprising that Calvin et al did not spend a lot of time on the literalness of Genesis, because the whole controversy did not exist back then! Darwin would not yet be born for another 250 years. But in each era, certain issues are hotly attacked by heretics and liberals, and must be defended. In Calvin's and Luther's era, heretics were teaching salvation by works. Thus these men powerfully defended the Bible's teachings in this area. Today, Genesis 1-2 is widely discounted as a mythological/spiritual/nonliteral account by people and entities such as Biologos, and so Mohler and others naturally have need to defend that particular section of the Bible.
Flexibility of views and generosity of spirit concerning Genesis 1 are hardly unusual among committed Christians. It is not a slippery slope to unbelief but a humble way forward to discern what it means to read God’s Word faithfully. I do not think such flexibility or generosity are a mistake, as you seem to argue. Would you not, along with many thoughtful Christian thinkers of the past, allow diverse points of view to sit side-by-side for the benefit of Christian unity?
Notice the overload of "positive words" here, as Enns tries to whitewash his 'spiritualizing' and 'mythologizing' Genesis 1-2. "Flexibility" implicitly portrays orthodoxy as "rigid and unbending", "generosity" portrays orthodoxy as "stingy", "humble" portrays orthodoxy as "arrogant". "Diverse viewpoints allowed to sit side-by-side for unity" is set up against the traditional belief that Genesis 1-2 actually refers to a literal event, just as it explicitly describes. The words "committed" and "thoughtful" are used (as "faithful" above) as epithets to try to sneak some extra argumentative force into the discussion by citing the lifestyle of the Christians who believe in an allegorical/mythological Genesis 1-2, rather than putting the weight of the argument on actual reasons to treat Genesis that way.
How can we demonstrate that the *heart of the Gospel message* has nothing to do with the age of the earth or how God chose to create life?
What defines the 'heart of the Gospel message?' Who defines it? Does this mean we don't need to refute false Biblical teaching, as long as it doesn't compose whatever we consider the "heart of the gospel message"?
Falk's question points to a kind of "least-common-denominator" doctrinal minimalism, in which each doctrine that the Bible teaches is free to be jettisoned, one by one, because it supposedly has nothing to do with the "heart of the gospel".
On the contrary, the Bible is clear -
Every word of God is tested;
He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.
Do not add to His words
Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar. Proverbs 30:5-6
"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-19
So then, what is the gospel message?
"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures...." 1 Corinthians 15:3-4
What does "according to the Scriptures" mean? Surely it means that the Christ who was prophesied throughout the Old Testament was the One who came to fulfil 'all that the prophets had spoken' about Him, Jesus. The first prophecy was given in Genesis 3:15, to Adam and Eve, the first two humans, who had just sinned the first sin. According to Paul in Romans 5, as he is defining the heart of the gospel, "...through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin...." Paul builds a repeated comparison between Adam and Jesus which would make no sense if Adam were not historical and if death did not arise until Adam's sin.
In the same chapter that contains the oldest and most succinct creedal summary of the "heart of the gospel" in Scripture, we find it stated that Adam was "the first man" (1 Corinthians 15:45). If we deny the latter, we will end up denying the former. The literal accuracy of the Genesis account has everything to do with the heart of the gospel.
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