Like Button

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Prior Commitment

"I'm sorry. I appreciate the invitation, but I have a prior commitment." We all understand that. When we commit to something, subsequent commitments will be a problem. The same is true in our thinking.

From the early days of Israel on into the 19th century anyone who read Genesis 1 came to no other conclusion but that the world was created in 6 24-hour periods. There are such explicit statements there, like "the morning and the evening were the first day" (Gen 1:5,8,13,19,23,31). Then factor in what God said in Exodus 20.
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." (Exo 20:8-11)
Israel was commanded to honor the 7th day of the week as the Sabbath on the basis that God made the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th. Sure seems clear.

If I had written this in the year 100, 1000, or 1800 there would not have been a question. That's exactly what the text was saying. No longer. We have debate among believers all over the place ranging from, "I think you might be mistaken" to "If you believe that you're an idiot at best and a heretic at worst." From both sides. Why? Well, the notion that God made the universe in 6 days would run afoul of Science's position that the universe is billions and billions of years old. Science will tell you without hint of refutation that the universe is some 14 billion years old and the Earth is something a little more than 4 billion years old. So much for Scripture.

Of course, we (believers) don't conclude, "So much for Scripture." We exhibit our prior commitment to Science and reevaluate Scripture. One of the earlier versions of this was what is known as the "Gap Theory." The argument posits that there is a gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2. At one point He created the heavens and the Earth (Gen 1:1) and at a later point it was "without form and void" (Gen 1:2). Apparently something happened between the two. Could have been a long time. Could have been billions of years. Who knows? Something happened and God did a second Creation that is outlined in Genesis 1:3-31. Clear enough. Although it is without any substance. After that one came the "Day-Age Theory." Sure, sure, the text says it was six days, but, look, if you examine Hebrew you'll find where the word for "day" can also be understood to be an undefined amount of time. Maybe a day; maybe an entire era or age. Could be. In this view, each "day" in Genesis 1 is an undetermined amount of time in which God goes about creating all that is. And now we have billions of years front-loaded into our Genesis narrative. given either the Gap Theory or the Day-Age Theory, the presumed error of Scripture where it collides with Science's Age of the Earth is solved.

Why do we do this? It is not from a prior commitment to Scripture. It only occurs when we have a prior commitment to Science. (I write it with a capital S for that reason.) We don't stand first on Scripture and then say, "Hmmm, look at that ... science doesn't agree. I wonder where science went wrong." That would be a commitment to Scripture over Science. (It should be noted that the age of the Earth is premised upon the theory of deposition of horizontal strata in rocks. How do we know that is correct? Well, we don't. It is simply assumed.)

My aim here is not to urge that you jettison science when it contradicts Scripture. I don't think that's the first, best course of action. But science is not God and science is not infallible ... by definition. Science is full of theories that are examined and tossed or affirmed, but never infallibly. Science is not omniscient. Further, it is not unbiased. It is human-driven which includes an anti-God bias (Rom 8:7) and a deceitful heart (Jer 17:9) and damaged mind (Eph 4:17). We have all sorts of prior commitments -- modern morality, preferred sexual partners, human philosophy, money, power, the approval of others. Lots of prior commitments. The question is whether or not we will allow them to supersede our commitment to God and His truth. Which is your prior commitment?

11 comments:

Craig said...

I’d possibly disagree slightly on the day age position. If one is taking that position as a way to align themselves with Science, then I’d agree that it would be a mistake. If one simply looks at examples in scripture where we see that God takes a different view of time (because He transcends time), then I don’t have as much of a problem with it.

It’s also interesting that science as we know it stems from an explicitly Christian view of creation, yet too many would presume to set the two at odds.

Stan said...

The only reason I can even imagine that someone would read the text and jump to "Maybe the word for 'day' was really intended to convey 'age'" would be "Science says so." Now, to be fair, people I respect and admire hold that position and I don't think they do so out of a prior commitment to Science (capital S), but it still seems like an attempt to align Genesis with science. And none of them seem to have a problem with the confusion it raises in Exodus 20. So, we only need to honor the Sabbath every 7 undefined ages? How does that work? You see my problem.

Craig said...

I'm not saying that the day/age compromise is without problems, just that it can be asserted without bowing to Science.

I've gone back and forth, and I certainly wouldn't get too upset if someone asserted that position, but I finally came down on the issue as somewhat secondary. I believe that the more important aspect is that of creation ex nihlo, that as long as we have a God who is able to create everything from nothing, then I'm slightly less concerned with how long it took. It seems clear that the reason why He chose to take days, isn't because He needed to, but because He was illustrating a point.

I personally think that the "theistic evolution" folks have a much bigger problem than the day/age folks.

Anonymous said...

Many times I've wondered when was the earliest reading of "day" as "age of a billion years or so." Is there any historical evidence of someone reading it like that prior to, say, AD 1700?

Stan said...

I agree with you, Craig. Interestingly, one of the earliest to argue that the 6 "days" of creation weren't actually 24-hr periods was Augustine, who argued that God could create it all in a flash. (He didn't argue for longer than 24-hr periods.) As far as I can tell, the only reason to argue for theistic evolution is a prior commitment to Science.

Stan said...

No, Anonymous, no one prior to the 19th century tried that. Interestingly, if you look up the history of the Day-Age theory, most of its earliest proponents were Darwinists arguing for theistic evolution or those who didn't take the Bible as written.

Craig said...

I'd definitely agree that the theistic evolution folx go there because of the commitment to Science.

The six literal days is one of those things that I'm content to wait until I see God to get a definite answer to.

Stan said...

I'm flexible, but I'm not sure what's wrong with the principle of apparent age. It seems obvious to me that when God made Adam, he wasn't a fetus and when God made trees, they weren't seeds and ... well you get the idea. If you were there on day 6, the place Adam lived wouldn't appear 6 days old. For that matter, if we get to heaven and God says, "You know, there really was a long time between verse 1 and verse 2 in Genesis 1," I wouldn't be miffed.

David said...

The other problem with trying to use the day/age idea (not really a theory) as being an answer for what we see in nature, it doesn't line up with the order of life. The order of Creation doesn't follow the same path that Evolution says it took (this is also a problem for the gap idea). Plus, the terminology around the word days indicates 24 hour periods, according to Hebrew scholars. While the word itself can mean an indeterminate amount of time, the context gives it the definition of one day. Evolution and Creation are simply incompatible in Scripture. That's why most Christians that believe in Evolution now just throw it out as an origin story akin to any other cultures story of creation, all the while happily ignoring the implications that has on the validity of Scripture.

Craig said...

I’ve never had a problem with the appearance of age, I’ve just heard enough people make reasonable arguments on both sides that I’ve stopped worrying about it. I’ve come to the point that the focus should be on the creative power and sovereignty of God and less on the mechanics.

Stan said...

Yes, David, correlating science with science while trying to make Scripture fit the mold can be troubling, can't it? (I don't know why the gap idea would have a similar problem. The theory is that when God made the heavens and the earth (v 1), He made it whole -- rocks, plants, animals (no people). I'm not defending the idea; I'm just explaining what they say. And you're right. Most who defend Evolution vs Creation end up discarding the Bible.