Operation Refuting Compromise

KR, thanks for your comments. I respect your views on this issue. I think, however, that you and Sarfati miss the point. All of our hermenuetical methods and the interpretations that result from them are fallible. The issue here is whether it’s legitimate to revisit a particular intepretation of a passage when that interpretation seems to clearly contradict what God has provided in general revelation. I think it is, and I think that understanding is more consistent with orthodoxy than the supposedly “literalist” stance you and Safarti take.

In fact, in many ways I think most young-earthers take the same hermeneutical stance I (and many, if not most, other evangelicals) do, for example by stating non-“nephesh” creatures could have died before the fall or that carnivores rapidly evolved after the flood. There’s no reason to adopt either of those views from the scriptural text itself; they both are necessitated by things we understand from general revelation. In short, you insist that everyone adopt your particular interpretation of the text. It’s an issue about how to understand the text and not about the authority of the text itself. If young earth folks could understand that (or for those who understand it, could admit it), this controversy would largely cease to be divisive and we could move forward in the work of the Kingdom together.

KR, thanks again for the comment. Unfortunately, you just don’t seem to get it, so there’s probably no point in much further discussion, but here goes…

As to the fallibility of Biblical interpretation, it’s hardly simply a “postmodern” question. I doubt, for example, that you believe the Sun revolves around the Earth. That belief, however, was a matter of accepted Biblical interpretation before Copernican revolution. If you don’t believe the Sun revolves around the Earth — if you reject that interpretation of Biblical passages that speak of the sun “rising” and “setting” — you’re using the very hermenuetic you disparage in progressive creationists.

I also doubt that you believe both sides of every disputed theological issue — let’s say, for example, infant baptism, the nature of spiritual gifts such as tongues and prophesy, the nature of the millenial kingdom, the timing (pre, post, or mid tribulation) of the rapture or whether the “rapture” is a Biblical idea, the proper grounds for divorce and remarriage (if any), the relationship of predestination and free will, proper church governance — and on and on. All of these are issues on which Christians of good faith, doing their best to understand the text, significantly differ. Why is that? It’s because the text can be difficult sometimes and we are only human.

As to a child telling me Genesis 1 speaks of a “literal day,” I don’t know any children who can read Biblical Hebrew. Regardless, any bright child could see that the first three day’s can’t be “literal” days since the Sun isn’t mentioned until day 4. Of course, the average YEC hack will mention some mysterious “light source” that isn’t described in the text, and will try to hide behind mystical “pre-fall” conditions that are supposedly unknowable. Such explanations, of course, are pure nonsense, since a “literal” day is caused not only by the light from the Sun, but also by the Earth’s position within the Sun’s gravitational well, which regulates the rate at which the Earth spins. This alone is enough ground to question the meaning of “Yom” in Genesis 1, not to mention the use of “Yom” in Genesis 2:4 to describe the whole creation week and the never-ending seventh day.

What you are left with, then, is simply your own insistence that something debatable and ambiguous can be understood only the way you understand it. That, regardless of what anyone at AIG might think to the contrary, is the heart of unbiblical divisiveness.

KR, you’re either misunderstanding or misrepresenting my views on several fronts.

As to my understanding of general revelation, it’s a conservative evangelical view that’s entirely consistent with inerrancy, to which I also hold. I of course agree with you that general revelation bears witness to the fact that there is a God and that we are separated from Him, but that is not all general revelation does. As summarized in Millard Erickson’s Christian Theology (a systematic theology text used in many, if not most, evangelical seminaries):

“There is a possibility of some knowlege of divine truth outside the special revelation. We may understand more about the spcially revealed truth by examining the general revelation. . . . Since both creation and the gospel are intelligible and coherent revelations of God, there is harmony between the two, and mutual reinforcement of one by the other. The biblical revelation is not toally distinct from what is known of the natural realm. Genuine knowledge and genuine morality in unbelieving (as well as believing) humans are not their own accomplishments. Truth arrived at apart from special revelation is still God’s truth.”

(Erickson, Systematic Theology, at p. 198.)

I’d encourage you to read Erickson’s chapter on General Revelation, as it provides a robust historical summary of the doctrine.

As to your accusation that I take a “Magesterial” view of science (whatever that means), that is factually incorrect and further does not at all follow from my traditional view of general revelation.

I view “science” — a term that actually requires more definition than I’m able to provide here — simply as one way of knowing, not the only or even always the “best” way. For example, I reject the supposedly “scientific” view that life arose spontaneously and developed solely through naturalistic evolutionary processes. Indeed, I believe, along with Michael Behe and others, that the irreducible complexity of many biological processes and structures demonstrates the impossibility of naturalistic macroevolution. Given this view, you can’t accuse me of deifying “science.”

Nor do I believe that general revelation takes precedence over special revelation. In fact, I believe that “all truth is God’s truth,” and that there is no real conflict between the two sources of revelation, so the question of one taking “precedence” over the other is misplaced. There are only apparent conflicts, because we (a) misunderstand the “text” of general revelation; (b) misundestand the text of special revelation; or (c) misunderstand both.

Your accusation that I elevate general revelation, which you identify with “science,” over the Bible, sets up a false dichotomy. In fact, you set up a radical view of both revelation and the capacities of human perception and reason. If you think that extreme dichotomy bears any relationship to classical Christian orthodoxy, you’re gravely mistaken.

In essence, you are saying that our perceptions of the world around us, our use of observational and mathematical tools to understand general revelation, are corrupted beyond any reliability whatsoever. I can’t really trust measurements of red shift, parallax, background radiation, and the like, even though they clearly establish an ancient universe — they are merely fallible human perceptions of nature, so I’m not free to reexamine an interpretation of special revelation that seems to suggest a younger universe.

If this my ability to perceive general revelation is so irredeemably corrupt, however, why should I trust my perception of special revelation? Why is my ability to receive, read and understand the words of the Biblical text (or any commentaries on the Biblical text, including those written by YEC proponents) any more reliable than my ability to understand mathematical calculations that give an old age for the stars and galaxies?

It seems to me that your highly limited view of general revelation, and by implication your reductionistic view of the faculties of human reason and perception, ultimately would destroy any confidence in the reliability of special revelation and the truthfulness of Christian faith claims. Young earth creationists never seem to be able to grasp this point. You’ve accused me of “postmodern” thinking, but in fact, your view reflects an extreme form of postmodernism, or perhaps a form of Eastern Buddhist or Hindu thought, which asserts that nothing can truly be understood through the use of human perception and reason and that what we perceive as reality is only “apparent” and not real.

In contrast, my traditional view of general revelation affirms that human beings can perceive reality and can use reason to arrive at true statements about reality. This means that, when I observe and study the heavens, I can have some degree of confidence that what I’m observing is real, that the events I’m seeing really happened, that the logical chains of causation leading to and arising from those events correspond to reality, that “reality” isn’t only “apparently” as it appears. I likewise can have confidence that when I read the text of special revelation, it is a real communication that I can use my facilities of reason to understand with some degree of perpiscuity.

Of course, this doesn’t mean human perception and logic are unaffected by the Fall. We are prone to misperception and to errors of reasoning, and thus it is appropriate for us to constantly reevaluate our conclusions. Moreover, our preception and logic have limits; there are some things we can never fully understand, since we are merely human and not God. These limitations, however, apply to our understanding of special revelation as well as to our understanding of general revelation. Again, I’d cite the case of the Earth-centered universe (which you don’t seem to want to address) as a textbook example of how we can misinterpret scripture to be making claims it doesn’t make.

What does all this mean for the relationship between general and special revelation with respect to the creation account? It means that if observation and reason from multiple lines of data suggest an ancient age of the universe, and the Bible doesn’t explicity address the matter, we are justified in concluding that an interpretation of the Biblical text that requires a 10,000 or so year old universe is incorrect. This isn’t pitting one form of revelation against the other, or exalting one form over the other; it’s seeking to harmonize them appropriately. Here, I’d encourage you to read the chapter on “Creation” in Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, another widely used text from a conservative (inerrantist) evangelical viewpoint. Grudem notes that

“. . . the lesson of Galileo, who was forced to recant his teachings [about heliocentrism] and who had to live under house arrest for the last few years of his life, should remind us that creful observation of the natural world can cause us to go back to Scripture and reexamine whether Scripture actually teaches what we think it teaches. Sometimes, on closer examination of the text, we may find that our previous interpretations were incorrect.” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, at p. 273.)

Finally, as to the issue of divisiveness, standing up for truth isn’t “divisiveness,” but insisting on a reasonably disputed interpretation of a difficult text is. Here I’d encourage you again to look at Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. Grudem leans towards a young earth view, but his position is well balanced:

“Although our conclusions are tentative, at this point in our understanding, Scripture seems to suggest (but not to require) a young earth view, while the observable facts of creation seem increasingly to favor an old earth view. Both views are possible, but neither are certain. And we must say very clearly that the age of the earth is a matter that is not directly taught in Scripture, but is something we can think about only by drawing more or less probably inferences from Scripture. Given this situation, it would seem best (1) to admit that God may not allow us to find a clear solution ot this question before Christ returns, and (2) to encourage evangelical scientists and theologians who fall in both the young earth and old earth camps to begin to work together with much less arrogance, much more humility, and a greater sense of cooperation in a common purpose. . . . [Y]oung earth proponents have too often given the impression that the only true ‘creationists’ are those who believe not only in cretion by God but also in a young earth. The result has been unfortunate divisiveness and lack ofcommunity among scientists who are Christians — to the delight of Satan and the grieving of God’s Holy Spirit.” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, at p. 308.)

I hope at some point, regardless of your view on this issue, you can find that balance yourself.