Am I Fighting an Unnecessary Battle?

In my last blog I well-nigh promised I would address the theological contradictions that follow from the young-earth position on creation.  But I have the uneasy feeling that my motives for the present agenda may be perceived as harmful to the Christian cause and counter-productive to the call for Christian unity.  For these reasons I post-pone the promised theme until next time.  It is important now to clarify my goals in making the present distinctions about the age of the earth.  Is my challenge to the young-earth position reflective of a spirit of intolerance on my part?  Am I intent on dividing the Church of Christ?  The fact is, I do not challenge the sincerity of young-earth Christians in their love for Christ and the Holy Scriptures.  And I do not question their status as Children of God in Jesus Christ.  At bottom the reason I am pursuing the present challenge is because of my desire to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I seek both the salvation of the souls of individuals and the reformation of our culture under the Lordship of the Triune God (2 Corinthians 10:5).  So I humbly lay out the reasons that ground my motives.

First of all, the authority of the Bible is at stake over where Christians fall on the age of the earth.  Of course young-earth Christians will vigorously disagree with my perspective on this matter.  But at the very least, turning the key to resolving this divide must involve the careful study of what the Bible itself actually says.  Each side of this divide is telling our world a different story.  Each side must therefore take special care that our own ducks are actually lined up in a row. 

I sincerely wish I could say that the young-earth position is demonstrating the kind of careful study I am advocating.  But as a whole I find the young-earth position is fueled more by theological assumptions than by careful exegetical study of the actual biblical text.  I have often sought serious engagement with holders of their position only to be met with a refusal to even consider a fresh and non-prejudicial second look at Genesis 1.   

In my recent blog dated January 24 I laid out the extensive case, on the basis of the first chapters of Genesis, why the author (Moses) cannot have intended literal 24-hour days.  If my position is wrong, then I am misrepresenting the Holy Scriptures to our world.  On the other hand, if my position is indeed correct, then it is young-earth creationists who are misrepresenting the Bible to our world.  Countless people today dismiss the Bible out-of-hand because they find it impossible to reconcile a young earth with the demonstrated age of the universe in terms of billions of years.  Yet it is not only the world “out there” that is being lost.  We are also losing our own children within the Church who, in their intellectual development, are being forced into the choice of either faith in God or trust in the legitimacy of the scientific exploration of the world we believe God has made.   For this reason we must be extremely careful that we are faithfully representing God’s revealed Word and not insisting on a view of nature that God has never imposed.

Yet the stakes in this question involve not only the potential misrepresentation of the Bible.  They also potentially nullify the most powerful empirical (accessible to the senses) case of all for the existence of God.  In my previous blogs I have begun to write of the powerful and extensive case for the existence of God in the Big Bang.  Young-earth creationists effectively (rather, ineffectively) demand that people ignore the witness of nature, namely, that the universe had an absolute beginning out of nothing, in favor of their young-earth paradigm which has absolutely no facts to support it.  In their rebuttal young-earth creationists will appeal to the shortfalls of Darwinism as proof that the world is young.  I happen to share many (not all) of their objections to Darwinism.  But at bottom, the undermining of Darwinism is entirely irrelevant to the question of the age of the universe.  The two matters are not logically related.

I cited Romans 1:18-20 in my previous blog.  Contrary to the inclinations of young-earth creationists, the Bible does not demand that people turn away from either reason or the rigorous study of the natural world.  To the contrary, it calls all people to think even more clearly, just exactly where the powerful testimony of nature that is right in front of every face, actually points.  And that is in the direction of the Maker of heaven and earth.