Hopefully some of you have had the pleasure of watching the debate between scientist, Bill Nye, and young Earth creationist, Ken Ham. If not, you may watch it here. It's not a prerequisite to what follows, but is an insightful and thought-provoking exchange.
If you've been following my blog - particularly with respect to my C.S. Lewis fan-fiction - you've probably gotten the impression that while I share some sentiments with those of religious faith, I also reject certain assumptions of the broader faith community.
George Carlin once joked about his Catholic education saying that he and his classmates were so well-educated that by second grade most of them had lost the faith. I feel much the same way about my Catholic upbringing. I was taught to think critically and to question. I still believe in God and in the inherent dignity of every person; but I see no reason why those things cannot be taken irrespective of each other. I accept that my belief in God cannot be proven and I see no reason to compel the conversion of atheists. One's belief in such things ought not be a matter of choice or compulsion, but a natural extension of how one perceives the world. I cannot help but believe in God.
The purpose of this debate was whether the Young Earth Creationist (or YEC) worldview is viable today. Ken Ham, CEO of Answers In Genesis, argued for the resolution and Bill Nye, "the Science Guy", against it. I do not intend to repeat the debate here, merely to present a perspective that is often lost in the false choice between Theistic Creationism and Atheistic Evolution. To be fair, Mr. Nye - an Atheistic Evolutionist - addressed this when he pointed out that there are billions of religious people in the world who also acknowledge evolution. While I appreciate that, there's still an impression among adherents to both views that they are irreconcilable. Therefore, it is appropriate to consider what relationship - if any - exists between scripture and the evidence.
So, what is scripture? At its most obvious layer, scripture constitutes a series of writings compiled over thousands of years which appears to say something about who we are, how we got here, and why we are here. In short, it's an origin story. I'm referring here to the book commonly known in the Western world as "The Bible" including both Old and New Testaments. Now, there are several different translations and versions of this text; but across all of those different versions there are some basic points which remain true to all of them: all say that God created the world in six days, that Adam and Eve were the first humans and their sin brought evil into the world, that God caused a great flood and commanded Noah to build an arc so that only he, his family, and two of every living creature would survive, and that God sent his son, Jesus, to save us from sin. I choose these four points because these were the ones upon which Mr. Ham focused in his argument. In my terms, they are: Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and Salvation.
Let us begin with Creation. The YECs take this section literally. God literally made everything in six 24-hour days approximately 6,000 years ago. If this is true, the world should be full of evidence reinforcing this view and devoid of evidence suggesting otherwise. But this is not the case. Even if one grants legitimacy to all of the evidence YECs claim support their Creation story, it pails in comparison to the mountains of evidence suggesting the Earth is closer to 4.5 billion years old. When asked to explain the inconsistencies between their evidence and that of mainstream science, YECs point to scripture as the source of this evidence rather than merely the source of the claim. Here we need to make something clear about logic: Just as one cannot use a word to define itself, neither can one use the source of a claim as evidence in support of it.
Next is the Fall and the Flood. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and by doing so brought sin into the world. Up until this moment, the world was perfect. With sin's entry into the world, it became flawed. It became so flawed that generations later, God had to wipe out all life on the planet with a massive flood. Now, to take the story literally up until this point is to believe in the actuality of all of these events. For example, there's this question of "the world". What does it mean? To us, in this time, it could mean several different things. Did God just create the Earth or the entire Universe? In which case, the terms "world" and "universe" become synonymous. In this context, does "world" mean the entire Earth? When someone says "world" today, I think of the planet, Earth. But just a few hundred years ago, the term "world" carried a connotation much closer to "region"; as in there was the Western World (Europe) and the Eastern World (Asia).
In order to give scripture the benefit of the doubt I am going to assume the latter definition for "world" meaning region. Now, in this case we can somewhat support the notion that a great flood once occurred in the region now known as the Middle East. Meaning there are extra-scriptural accounts - possibly contemporary with scripture - attesting to a massive flood in the region. The Epic of Gilgamesh, corroborates such a flood near ancient Babylon. Was there a massive flood in the Middle East? I can't say for sure, but I'm willing to accept the possibility based on these two independent sources.
But here we see a problem inherent in literal interpretations of ancient texts. Translation issues aside, the meanings of words change with time. When the King James Bible was written a few hundred years ago, the term "world" already possessed a meaning closer to "entire planet" than simply "region". Suddenly, what could have been a true-ish narrative history is now utterly preposterous. We know this because we have living trees on this planet which predate the flood, yet managed to survive it. Unfortunately, this fact means little to Ken Ham who insists that "the world" means the entire Earth and that Noah's Flood covered all of it.
Next, let's get to the most controversial topic - the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The controversy about Christ is not whether he existed - there's as much documentary evidence to support his existence as there is Socrates'. The question is whether he was sent by God to save us from the sin of Adam and Eve. Even this, I will grant. I will grant that Jesus was, in fact, the Son of God sent to save us from sin. The question that follows is: how did Jesus save us? Well, He taught us. He taught us the importance of compassion, the importance of faith, that we are not to judge others, and He taught us about peace. How?By telling stories. Now if we accept that Christ - the Son of God and our savior - accomplished this by telling us stories: Why wouldn't God have instructed us in the same manner in the stories of the Old Testament?
Nobody ever questions the literal truth of the parable of the Mustard Seed, the Good Samaritan, or the Prodigal Son. Why not? Because to focus on this would be to miss the point and do so obtusely. I submit to you that if we accept scripture as the word of God, that Jesus is our savior who taught us through stories, and that whether or not these stories occurred literally is irrelevant: Why would a Christian insist that the stories of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood must be taken literally?
Thank you for reading. In my next post, I will consider what the stories of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood tell us if not a literal truth about the origins of humanity. I encourage readers to leave comments and turn this into a discussion.
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