(Happy 4th, America! I'm sorry for what's being done to you.)
There's a comment from someone named Cindy in the comment section of a post on theistic evolution vs. a literal Genesis. (Actually, the post is really just a nasty attack on Ken Ham.) Since the author of that blog stopped allowing comments on that post - it appears she didn't want any more opposing voices - I wanted to post the comment I like and agree with here, since I couldn't agree with it there.
[Note: I have linked to this blog before when it comes to Calvinism, but I don't like the tone the author is taking in the post I linked to above, the way she attacks Ken Ham and those who believe in a young earth, that God created the universe in 6 days. (For the record, I really like and respect Ken Ham, and I agree with him.) I'm not sure what her deal is, but it bothers me. And I find it a little concerning that after her strong stances against Calvinism, she would affirm a Calvinist in this post - Keller - simply because he supports theistic evolution.]
I kinda went through the same process that Cindy (the commenter) did when waking up to the importance of this issue, which is why her comment resonates with me so much. (And she sounded like the voice of reason in the comment section.)
For decades, I never thought much about this debate, and I never cared to think too much about it. (My passion was studying the end times, not the beginning.) I was like "Well, whether God created the world through evolution or through 6 literal days doesn't really matter. Either way, God created it, and that's all that matters." And I'd put it on the back-burner.
I'm not saying it's wrong to put certain issues on the back-burner. We can't always heavily investigate every debatable subject that comes up, at least not right away. It takes a lot of time, resources, energy, and mind-space to tackle the deep, complicated stuff. And we don't always have enough of these to be able to do it. (Been there!) And so I don't shame anyone else who hasn't thought too much about these or who doesn't want to. We are all of our own journeys, learning things in our own time and way. And that's okay.
[But through it all, we need to be gracious with others about our differing views on these "gray area" issues. We should all patiently, lovingly, respectfully come alongside each other to help each other on our journeys, to help each other figure things out, iron sharpening iron, instead of attacking or shaming others because they don't see things the way we do or they haven't reached the place in faith that we have. Because guess what? There are issues that they have thought through and places in faith they have reached that we haven't. It's a journey, and we all walk it at different paces, with different twists and turns and obstacles and trials and setbacks and successes, etc. And that's okay. So let's be gracious. We're all in this together. Some things are not worth dividing over - and Young Earth vs. Old Earth is one of them. (We can take firm stands against views that we think are unbiblical, but we should be gracious towards the people, the fellow believers, who are just trying to do their best on their journey of faith, just as we are trying to do too.)]
But for me, as part of my journey, the more I researched the damage Calvinism does to the Church and God's Truth from the inside out, the more I woke up to the damage that evolution (even theistic evolution) has done to the Church and to God's truth from the inside out (and it's particularly destructive to the faith of children who grew up believing evolution as scientific fact). And then the more I learned and the more I contemplated, the more I realized I needed to firmly pick a side and to know why I stood on the side I did.
And it led me to read and watch a lot about it, to really understand why I disagree with theistic evolution and why I hold to Genesis as a literal account of creation. So much more is at stake than just understanding how the earth was created. Tearing down Genesis actually tears down the foundation for our faith and for trusting that God meant what He said the way He said it (the same kind of damage Calvinism does to our faith and to God's Word).
In my opinion, theistic evolution alters God's Word to fit man's ideas. And if we say that it's okay to do this with Genesis (even teaching our trusting, innocent, moldable, naive Christian children to do this!) - to read it symbolically, to not take God at His Word even though the Genesis account of creation is clearly written as history, not poetry, metaphor, prophecy, or symbolism - it not only calls into question the other parts of God's Word that have a foundation in Genesis, but it opens the door for so many other doubts, so many other alterations to God's Word, so many other "Did God really say..." tweaks.
After all, if it's okay to do this with Genesis - to alter God's Word to fit man's ideas and theories (especially a theory that's based on taking God out of the equation) - why can't we do it with other parts of the Bible that we struggle with or that differ from what man thinks? If we teach kids to do this with Genesis, what's to stop them from doing it with the rest of God's Word? And why, then, should they ever trust "because God says so" as a reason for anything? And furthermore, what is there to fall back on or to sustain our faith in the hard times, in the doubts, in the other controversies, if we knock the legs out from our trust in and reliance on God's Word as He wrote it?
This is an issue of authority, of whose authority rules. Does God's Word or man's word rule? Which one needs to submit to the other? Which one do we take as truth, and which do we view through that lens of truth?
(No wonder the Church is in such a mess. No wonder it can't withstand the pressure to compromise on other controversial issues, such as abortion and gender-debates and marriage and LGBTQ-worldviews. If God didn't really mean what He said in Genesis, why would we think He means what He says anywhere else?)
If I really thought that the science lined up with theistic evolution, I'd be more likely to side with it, to defend it. But I don't think it does. I think it only does when we first put on "evolution glasses" and then we view the evidence through it. And how could we not see it that way, considering that the "evolution glasses" have been firmly placed over our eyes year after year, starting as children in elementary science classes in our public schools and then in all museums and nature programs and everywhere else that constantly and unanimously reports "evolution over billions of years" as fact (as if the more they say it, the more true and indisputable it is)?
But if we take off the glasses and consider the evidence in light of a catastrophic world-wide flood (as Genesis says), I think we'll see that it explains things neatly, accurately, reasonably. There is plenty of good, solid, rational evidence for a literal 6-day creation and world-wide flood - and from very intelligent, educated scientists, nonetheless. And, as Christians, it makes more sense. It resonates as truth and lines up with God's Word and further confirms our trust in the Bible (instead of slowly eroding it, as evolution does).
As Christians, we have to decide if we will view the scientific evidence through God's Word as it was written ... or if we will view God's Word through man's ever-changing evolutionary interpretations of the evidence.
["Evidence" makes no claims as to what actually happened. People have to interpret the evidence in order to make a claim about what might have happened, and we do so according to our views and biases, especially about God. So don't believe the old "But the scientific evidence says evolution is a fact." The scientific evidence didn't say that. It didn't say anything. The people interpreting the evidence according to their biases did.]
Anyway, thank you, Cindy, for sharing your comment, even though you were in the minority on that blog post. I'm with ya'. Here's her comment:
I do remember the time I became a YEC (Young Earth Creationist). It was at church where Ken Ham was the speaker.
I was taught evolution in school as fact, not a theory, in the 70’s. My Lutheran pastor firmly declared there was no dissonance between evolution and the Genesis account of creation. I didn’t really give it another thought until I started homeschooling my children and read articles and books by Dr. Henry Morris and other scientists with doctorates in geology, biology, chemistry, astronomy, and well, doctors of every stripe. I learned that the evolution theory was just that. A theory only. And there were lots of holes in this theory not supported by scientific fact.
But when Ken Ham said, “If you believe in evolution, then you believe death entered the world before sin and not because of it,” I knew I could no longer sit on the fence. I had to choose whether I believed in a God who spent millions of years trying to “get it right” and thus billions of creatures died in the process, or did I believe in a God who warned that mortal death would be (and consequently was) the consequence for Adam and Eve’s disobedience, for their sin. I chose the latter. The whole of the Bible issues from that central point. Sin issued in death, death issued in plan B for God’s desire to have a relationship with us, and Plan B demanded the sacrificial death, and resurrection of His sinless Son. [My added note: The Bible says that Adam and Eve sinned, that death was a result of their sin, and that Jesus came to earth to defeat death, to pay the penalty of death Himself that we owed for our sins. But evolution - even theistic evolution - says that Adam's sin was not the cause of death, that death was not a consequence of or penalty for sin, that death was here long before Adam and Eve ever sinned. If this is so, then why did Jesus die? If (as evolution says) death wasn't the penalty for sin, then what did Jesus's death accomplish? Evolution - even theistic evolution - disconnects Adam's sin from the death penalty, which in turn disconnects Jesus's death from His payment for the penalty. It seriously calls into question His death in our place for our sins. And if death was not really the punishment for sin, then what was? And what difference did Adam and Eve's sin make if death was already in existence and inevitable? And if death was just a natural part of life and in existence for billions of years before people sinned, then why would God tell us that it was a consequence of sin? Evolution - even theistic evolution - turns God into a liar. Sorry, but there's no other way to say it.]
What I see as Ken Ham’s passion for this Biblically based belief, others see as offensive. But that doesn’t make Ham wrong. Perhaps look at the scientifically researched evidence at the Institute for Creation Research begun by Dr. Henry Morris. It can be found at ICR.org. Dr. Morris wrote an article in 2000 titled "The Vital Importance of Believing in Recent Creation".
In this article he also makes the point that evolution is just a theory. It is not proven fact. But as a theory it demands a belief that death was not the consequence for sin, but rather the result of God taking millions of years to create billions of creatures that were destined to die in the process until God got it right. The whole of believing in a God who conquered death brought about by sin, not death as a consequence of the evolution creation process, relies on believing the Genesis account.
Light being created before the sun or plants before an atmosphere is not a hindrance to believing this. Check out ICR.org. The missing link is still….still….missing.
And here's the link to Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis website. Maybe start with this post: "Trust First: God, the Scientist, or the Theologian". If we put our faith in man's evolutionary theories, we'll have to tweak God's Word constantly throughout the decades as theories change. But if we put our faith in God's Word as it was written and meant to be understood, we'll be able to evaluate the changing theories from a solid, unchanging, biblical foundation. Here's a good, convicting quote from that article: "I would rather stand before the Lord and say that I'm guilty of simplistically believing what his Word states in Genesis than to trust the word of fallible humans and reinterpret God's Word."
If we were at all uncertain about whether we should take Genesis in the plain, simple, historical, literal way it seems like it's meant to be taken or whether we should spin/reinterpret it to make it more symbolic so that it fits man's ideas, wouldn't it be safer, and make more sense, to take God at His Word, even if it leads to difficult, confusing questions and goes against what the secular world says, what they want us to believe?
If I'm wrong, at least I can stand before God and say "Well, I chose to believe what Your Word said the way You said it." Whereas if Christians who believe in theistic evolution are wrong, they'll have to say "Well, I saw what Your Word said but I chose not to accept it that way. I chose to mash it up until it fit man's theories."
Personally, I'd rather err of the side of trusting God's Word first, above man's ever-changing ideas.
For more on my views, see my posts:
Starting the New Year with Creation vs. Evolution
"More Creation Videos We Watched"
