Creation: We interrupt this series…again
Unintended Sabbatical
I have had no time to devote to this Sunday page for many weeks now, having rather pressing professional obligations and a well-deserved personal break interrupt the flow. Honestly, I have been doing tons of research into our dear friend, “Lucy,” who now only anecdotally referred to by Darwinists as our oldest human ancestor. Turns out, though this is less widely known, she is merely an example of an extinct ape, like a chimpanzee.
Since I am not quite ready with the Lucy fraud, but wanted to continue to contribute, I thought I would take some time today to speak on Creation in general and continue the series to its conclusion beginning next week. What has been on my mind recently is the way in which the Christian worldview has been so severely compromised.
Sanctification
More than 90 percent of Americans have faith … in something. About 80 percent claim belief in the Christian God. Most of us say that our faith is a precious, important thing in our lives—and so it can seem strange that more Christians do not defend their worldview.
I think the problem has do with something called sanctification. A very basic definition of sanctification is that when one is sanctified, one is set apart. Now, that implies an elitism and an exclusivity that tends to go against the very nature of America’s concept of egalitarianism.
The thing about being exclusive is that “truth,” by its very nature, is exclusive. It is an intrinsic property of truth to be exclusive. The truth excludes anything and everything, in point of fact, that is not true. Let that bake your noodle for a nanosecond. Just ponder it with a purpose. Muse for a minute.
I think that secular culture with the introduction of Relativism in the Postmodern age has been very successful in muddying the waters of exactly what truth is. How many times have you heard there are no black and whites? Everything is some shade of gray. Nothing is completely cut and dry. Your truth might be true for you, but that isn’t true for someone else … and so forth.
The fruit of that belief system is that the profound and enduring nature of the truth, the transforming and obliterating truth of the good news found in the Gospel for example, is then equated as no more and no less valid than some pagan belief in the movements of stars and planets, or a belief in soil and twigs and scum-covered ponds to hold some mystic qualities in directing our lives.
I think by and large, Americans have at least partially accepted Relativism as valid. Dare I sound conspiracy theory minded enough to proclaim that this acceptance occurred through almost methodical and highly structured gradual programs of indoctrination in which the public school systems have participated as willing accomplices for more than half a century?
The problem with buying into the Relativistic school of thought is that Relativism is not TRUE. I am not saying that the Gospel is true and Relativism is also true and that some truths are more equal than others, I am saying that there is only one truth and it is, intrinsically and without argument, exclusive. And that truth rests firmly on the crown of and in the innocently shed blood of the Risen Christ.
Let’s say someone accuses you of something — racism for example. The truth is that you are not a racist. But the truth according to your accuser is that you are. Does your accusers belief that you are a racist in any way change the truth of the fact that you are NOT a racist? Is his truth equally true when compared to the actual truth? Do you see just how conflicted and without even a hope of logic Relativistic thought can be?
The bottom line, in this scenario, is that one of you is right and one of you is WRONG and that is truth. One of you knows and believes what is TRUE and one of you assumes and believes what is NOT true. As you can see, the truth is exclusive and by its nature excludes falsehood.
The Truth
I think that due to this illogical and false acceptance of Relativism, American Christians have let a lot of the foundations of their worldview fall by the wayside. Biblical roles have been discarded and Biblical responsibilities and duties have been abdicated. Sanctification, living a life that is pure and fully devoted to serving God’s purpose is no longer sought as the highest human achievement.
The Christian worldview is meant to be one that fully accepts the TRUTH of God’s holy word. We do not compromise scriptural truth with notions that are not tested, not proven, not authoritative, and by and large the (very often fraudulent) artificial constructs of seriously fallible man. As Christians, we are called upon to be sanctified — set apart — in our beliefs and our behaviors. One tenet of sanctification is that we accept on faith that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, inarguable, authoritative, and completely true word of the one true living God.
That means, if something man says contradicts scripture, we should not go about trying to figure out just how scripture must have gotten it wrong — we better be about the business of figuring out how fallible man messed up in his calculations. That means when fallible man starts off with hundreds of thousands of years, then a little over a million, then millions, then billions of years — all a trail of errors interestingly enough — instead of wondering how the word of God could have so messed up the timeline, we better splash some cold water in our face and consider the source. One source is fallible man and the other is God. Which source do YOU find more trustworthy?
God has called upon believers not to have a spirit of fear. Why are we so afraid to defend our beliefs? Are we so afraid to take a stand for what is true? In God’s holy name, why? Are we afraid that we will be mocked? Be not deceived, beloved, God is not mocked.
God has called upon us to live a sanctified life not to serve our own ends, but to serve His purpose. Do you live in such a way? Are there impurities in your worldview that are compromising your entire belief structure? Do you believe you are rich soil or thorny soil?
The Christian worldview accepts the facts of God’s Creation as recorded in scripture as an exclusive and explanatory TRUTH because it is written in God’s holy word and spoken into our hearts by our heavenly Father. So what are you afraid of?
God Bless you and yours.
Gregg
Resources:
Additional Posts dealing with Creation and Darwinism
Lots of question arise – you could do a second post on this topic.
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You are convinced that one thing is the truth, another group is convinced you are wrong and that group’s view is the truth, another group thinks you have insufficient basis for your claim that your view is the truth. One view IS the truth, but you have not been able to convince these other groups that yours is that view. You have to share a society with these people. How does this work in practice in different situations? Some may be easy, others more complicated.
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Many people in the world think they know the truth and their conviction of what is true is not the Christian view. Many Christians think they know the truth and it does not always agree with your view. Catholic Christianity differs in some ways from views that could be called Protestant. Churches like the Quaker church or the Methodist church differ from views with a literal view of the Bible. Even within groups that take a literal view of the Bible there can be vehement differences on how to follow the Bible – things like Saturday versus Sunday as the Sabbath or head covering for women or whether to celebrate Christmas or to call it Christmas or whether the US should be a theocracy. How do you decide who is right on whether to interpret the Bible that God strongly wants Sunday to be celebrated as the Sabbath, or strongly wants Saturday to be celebrated as the Sabbath, or that to God it is totally unimportant which day is called the Sabbath, or even that making a big issue out of it is contrary to what Jesus taught as important?
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Your view of the literal truth of the Bible is clear, and your conclusion that science must be wrong when it disagrees with the Bible follows from that. However it does not follow from that that current thinking or observations or conclusions of science are therefore false or incorrect. It does not follow that the explanations from creationist websites are therefore true. And it doesn’t follow that your explanations on this website are therefore correct.
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……”That means, if something man says contradicts scripture, we should not go about trying to figure out just how scripture must have gotten it wrong — we better be about the business of figuring out how fallible man messed up in his calculations.”
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Because of your belief you are always able to say that the earth is only 6000 years old based on the Bible and that therefore the current conclusions of scientists are ultimately incorrect.
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You can of course look for a flaw in the evidence and conclusions, but you do not have a guarantee that a flaw exists. The current conclusion could be completely reasonable based on the current evidence, and the current evidence could be as accurate as can be currently measured from available sources.
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If you are correct in your belief, it is still possible that God has created the universe in such a way that current measurements lead correctly to the current result – that the physical nature of the universe as God designed it has the appearance of billions of years even if it was literally created in 6 days. In that case, the findings of science are the correct physical conclusions even though they do not agree with the Bible.
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It is possible that God created the universe in six days but no physical measurements by people can ever reach that conclusion.
(As an aside, various claims have been made for changes after the Fall which adds in a complication to the way the physical world correlates with the Bible.)
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Alternatively it is possible that sometime in the future, new completely unanticipated discoveries will reveal the earth to be only 6000 years old, but that right now we have no way to foresee that information or make those measurements. It is possible that our current measurements are reasonable based on what we know now and can currently measure, even if they will ultimately be revealed as incorrect.
Thanks for your comments, hd. Obviously, you were not really the intended audience for this post which was thin on science and thick on exhortation.
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I appreciate that my principles appear non sequiter to you, but that is only because you are not a believer.
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God Bless,
Gregg
Okay, I said this:
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…”If you are correct in your belief, it is still possible that God has created the universe in such a way that current measurements lead correctly to the current result – that the physical nature of the universe as God designed it has the appearance of billions of years even if it was literally created in 6 days. In that case, the findings of science are the correct physical conclusions even though they do not agree with the Bible.”
If according to your belief and your understanding of the Bible, God would NOT make the universe in a way such that the physical nature of the universe appears to be billions of years old when actually it is thousands of years old, then you would logically reject this. Am I understanding this correctly?
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I said this:
…..”It is possible that God created the universe in six days but no physical measurements by people can ever reach that conclusion.”
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You might reject that logically on the basis that God would not have made the universe in such a way that the correct physical nature of the universe could not be known. Is this correct?
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I said this:
……”Alternatively it is possible that sometime in the future, new completely unanticipated discoveries will reveal the earth to be only 6000 years old, but that right now we have no way to foresee that information or make those measurements. It is possible that our current measurements are reasonable based on what we know now and can currently measure, even if they will ultimately be revealed as incorrect.”
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I don’t see why you as a believer would have a problem with this idea; maybe you could explain. Certainly we understand things now in science that were unknown to us 100 or 200 years ago. (At least in my view this is the case, and I hope you would agree – things like the periodic table, composition of atoms, biochemistry and DNA for instance.)
I realize I’m not your target audience on this but it is interesting to me. I hope you don’t mind my commenting.
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Okay, one more thing from above:
I wrote this:
…..”Your view of the literal truth of the Bible is clear, and your conclusion that science must be wrong when it disagrees with the Bible follows from that. However it does not follow from that that current thinking or observations or conclusions of science are therefore false or incorrect. It does not follow that the explanations from creationist websites are therefore true. And it doesn’t follow that your explanations on this website are therefore correct.”
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I think you are saying that this sentence from that paragraphis incorrect in your view:
….”However it does not follow from that that current thinking or observations or conclusions of science are therefore false or incorrect.”
If I understand, you are saying that in your view it DOES follow.
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However I still say that the rest of my paragraph is correct:
…..”It does not follow that the explanations from creationist websites are therefore true. And it doesn’t follow that your explanations on this website are therefore correct.”
Let me clear up what I meant. For me, it follows perfectly in that (Premise:) scripture is both completely without error and completely true. Based on that premise, (Argument:) anytime that anyone claims anything that contradicts scripture, (Conclusion:) the claim is by definition in error — if not entirely false or fabricated as is also often the case.
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In any case, following that logic, it CANNOT be completely true.
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What I meant was not meant to sound snotty or anything. I simply meant that since you do not share my worldview as a believer, your worldview looks at any evidence put forward by fallible man and you assume that scripture must therefore be in error. To me, that line of thinking does NOT follow since scripture is infallible.
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In the years of study that I have personally devoted to this topic, what I discovered is that every piece of so-called scientific evidence put forth to refute the Biblical account of creation relies upon 1 or more pretty far out assumptions. If any single one of those assumptions is wrong, then every part of the argument falls apart.
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For example: abiogenesis. The base assumption is that a fully organized living organism complete with lifesaving processes and irreducibly complex systems can magically spring forth out of dirt and rocks and water. This is the foundational assumption of macro-evolution. If that single rather gigantic assumption is wrong, then every part of the remainder of the argument as well as the conclusion falls apart.
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The bias is that the Biblical interpretation of creation isn’t scientific. That is a false bias and excludes a number of possibilities. True science allows for possibilities such as design. Also, how does one completely exclude a supernatural possibility? I am not talking about ghosts and vampires — I mean an other-than-natural cause. The secular worldview is very closed-minded if you ask me.
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My time is super limited these days but I wanted you to know how much I appreciate your comments.
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God Bless,
Gregg