Creation in Anglican newspaper

This letter on creation and the Bible's historicity popped up recently on another website (one we watch). Its worth keeping track of.

Nothing new under the sun

We might think the debate over the age of the earth is modern, attended by the weight and prestige of science on the one hand, and ancient texts on the other.

Ne'er so far from the truth.

From an article in Creation magazine 30(4), the current issue (Sept 08) "Evolution: an ancient pagan idea"

"The early church fathers constantly argued with the pagans about the age of the earth, or about the age of civilization. They were unanimous that God had created the earth less than 6,000 years before they wrote. For example...Augustine (AD 354-430), in his most famous work. City of God, has a whole chapter, Of the Falseness of the History Which Alots Many Thousand Years to the World's Past, where he says:

"Let us, then, omit the conjextures of men who know not what they say, wheh they speak of the nature and origin of the human race. ...They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed."

The article then goes on to catalogue the very ancient times given to the earth by pagans.

It seems to me that the function of giving super long ages to earth history either sets out to, or merely actually achieves one single thing: it puts real contemplation of origins, and therefore genetic connection with God, so far in the past as to be meaningless; lost in the vagueness of unimaginable periods of time. The pagans finally end up with endless cycles of history that render us purposeless pawns in time's dust, with the only connection being ultimate oblivion to join the great roll of senseless time. Precisely the same end that materialism, with its modern long ages, has for us.

That the church connives at this hopelessness is surprising to say the least; betraying a lack of historical sense ironic, if nothing else, in a faith that is historical.

The counter of course, is that the Bible goes against this and connects us in comprehendible history to our creation, and therefore, makes a link for us with our creator; a link that the Holy Spirit frequently reminds us of, when the scriptures declare that God is our creator (referring of course, to the only account of creation in Genesis 1). Inserting eons of time between our creator's act and our history destroys the connection. For the materialist, it pretends to give an impersonal cause to our being, denying any role for a 'god' in our origin or life. The disconnect is fatal, and renders God more a figment than a friend.

It's about time...

From Yourgrau, P., A World without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein (Allen Lane, 2005)

p. 122

"Appearances, however, can be deceptive. The universe, for example, as everyone knows, is very old. Its exact age is a matter for debate, but there is no disagreement that it runs to billlions of years [setting aside, that many do disagree]. We marvel that as frail and isolated a species as we are can have achieved such impressive wisdom about the origins of everything that is. In truth, however, it is more than marvelous to have discovered the age of the universe. It is impossible. For if the universe is n years old, its present state comes n years after the moment when it all began. In 1905, however, Einstein had demonstrated in the special theory of relativity that there is no such thing as "the present state of the universe," that is, what would be revealed by a snapshot of the universe as it exists at this very moment. The relativity of simultaneity implies that what is taken to be "now" relative to one inertial frame will differ from what is "now" in another frame if the second frame is in motion relative to the first. It follows immediately that if the theory of relativity is correct, there simply is no such thing as "the present state of the universe" of four-dimensional space-time. Einstein himself said this quite clearly: "The four-dimensional continuum is now no longer resolvable objectively into sections, all of which contain simultaneous events; 'now' loses for the spatially extended world its objective meaning." "

For a cosmos that was made by being 'stretched out' as is mentioned about 17 times in the Bible, the response to claims about its age might well be: how interesting; where and when is it such and such an age? On earth we have biblical history taking us back about 6,000 years; but it may be that nowhere else in the universe is there commensurate space-time. We may be left with the assessment above: "it is impossible." to tell!!

Simple, beautiful and not influenced by the spirit of man

A friend sent me a paper recently. I found this extract very sensible and wanted to share it.

"This argument had been advanced by P. H. Gosse in his book, Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot which was published in London in 1857. Dabney does not refer to it and probably had not seen it. Gosse’s book is quite summarily dealt with by Bernard Ramm in his recent book, The Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954). Ramm makes no mention of Dabney. He prefers to give the scientists all the time that they want to develop a cosmos by what practically amounts to a uniformitarian and naturalistic method, despite the fact that he declares himself to be a supernaturalist. Against such a view Dabney argues: “Why should the Theistic philosopher desire to push back the creative act of God to the remotest possible age, and reduce his agency to the least possible minimum, as is continually done in these speculations? What is gained by it? Instead of granting that God created a cosmos, a world, some strive continually to show that he created only the rude germs of a world, ascribing as little as possible to God, and as much as possible to natural law. Cui bono; if you are not hankering for Atheism? Is a completed result any harder for infinite powers than a germinal one? What is natural law; and what is its source? It originated in the creative power, and is maintained, energized, and regulated by the perpetual providence of God. Do you crave to push God away, as far as possible? It does not help you to say, natural law directed the formation of this mass of marble instead of supernatural creation; for God is as near and as infinite in his common, natural, as in his first, supernatural working.”"

Hebrews 9

Mediating through Hebrews 9 recently, I came to verse 26:

Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

It seems that there is an acknowlegement of continuous history connected with human's soteriological need extending to the foundation of the world.

Within the Bible's frame of reference, the reference to the foundation of the world can only be to the opening chapter of Genesis 1. It also seems to be in presumptive harmony with the chronological milestones marked through the OT, from which the Jews calculate the age of the world to be a mark under 6000 years.

Here we have, it would seem, a statement of the necessity of a salvation connection extending to the year dot, implying pretty obviously that humans in need of salvation had a history coextensive with the history of creation.

Along with Hebrews 11:3 (By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.) this would seem to eliminate realist views of origins that reject the biblical conception of time that is woven through the OT, and reinforced in the NT. The purely realist treatment of Cain and Abel and their connection to the original man made in Genesis would also seem to set the dependence of these concepts on a continuity in the biblical time-frame of reference that is denied systematically and without real biblical warrant (to my mind) by the SADs and their pals.

The biblical language and flow of historical ideas do not allow the extended periods of earth history that is insisted by materialist views.

Watchtower Society’s founder Charles T. Russell finds much common ground with Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen

(or Why did Andrew Katay say he was giving his audience a red pill when it was actually the blue one?)

A few days ago I stopped to chat with a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve discussed the Watchtower’s heretical theology with its representatives (face-to-face and through correspondence) and I prefer these days, when asked what “brand” of Christianity I uphold, to just state immediately that I’m a Trinitarian. This avoids the unfruitful and highly irrelevant task of responding to their well-rehearsed doctrinaire training of passing judgement on the implied deficiencies of your denominational preference. It also allows me to point the conversation in the direction where I want it to go.

These two were no different and this allowed me to quickly show them 2 verses in John’s Gospel where Jesus is called ‘The God’ (20:28) and the Holy Spirit is called by the masculine pronoun (16:13). I point out at the same time that a universal rule (i.e. Jesus is never called The God and God’s spirit is just a thing) is no longer sound if just 1 counter-example can be raised.

The woman’s final response to all of this was to ask what being a Trinitarian can give me over what she, an Arian, has obtained. I said that it was all a matter of truth for truth’s sake. There is something cleansing, edifying and proper about chasing after truthful knowledge. If hers is a false representation then it’s akin to a libellous editorial or a gossip magazine’s invention about some celebrity’s person life. If Jesus really is God, then her substandard portrait just plainly misses the mark.

This later got me to thinking about The Watchtower’s creation theology. Witnesses present Jesus as merely a god and although they admit he is a creator, of sorts, they understate and misunderstand the meaning of the ‘through’ in Colossians’ “all things were created through him”, thus approximating him to a Gnostic or neo-platonic demiurge. This creator is not co-eternal with the Father and merely serves as an organiser of matter, making the real creator one step removed from the cosmos.

It was somewhat ironic that last week the SAD minister Andrew Katay was also giving a talk at Sydney University’s EU titled, ‘Wake Up!: Seeing the World God’s Way’. On the poster was a blown-up picture of Keanu Reeves reflected in Morpheus’ glasses reaching out for one of the two pills on offer. (By the way, I wonder if EU had corporate permission to use this still from The Matrix.) Andrew, for those who are unfamiliar with him, toes the party line on creation quite faithfully. This was rather efficiently evinced in his debate with Sydney University philosopher Adrian Heathcote when Andrew rather proudly announced at its conclusion that he “had no problems with Big Bangs and 18 billion years”, thus guaranteeing that the preponderantly young audience that lunchtime dined on a generous portion of Gnostic theology.

SAD theology introduces a foreign element or principle to Christianity. Not persuaded by appeals to pellucid Scripture passages which unanimously declare the world young, the Sydney Diocese turns to an understanding of the cosmos which injects time as the operative principle. Time allows God to step back and permits things to just unfold, very, very slowly. In fact, God, when you think about his role in their heresy, does little. Sure, he’s God so he must do something, but exactly what and how remain vacuous when SADs are questioned. Unbelievably they frequently try to drag you into their nescience by answering with the presumptuous, “We don’t know and you certainly don’t!”

At least the pagans have an excuse. Their gods are feckless and invisible, in the immediate sense of things that is, and so pagan religions have to have something to get things happening. The most logical is ‘time’ - well, ‘Time’, to be more accurate. If there is one thing certain in this world, both empirically and deductively, it is this: the more time one has, the more things happen. So what better ‘demiurge’ is there than Chronos? If “magic”, as Polkinghorne puts it in his polemic attack on the miracles of the Bible, is ruled out, then the slow, relentless hand of time will accomplish everything…and anything. As C.S. Lewis mentioned, paganism’s (and Islam’s) “miracles” are pointless and incredulous, so to explain why there is something rather than a zero, time serves its cause rather well.

Christianity, on the other hand, has no use of time as a means to bring forth the wonders and riches of creation. Solomon quite rightly writes that, “not without these, wisdom and discernment, the Lord based earth, the Lord framed heaven; not without skill of his did the waters well up from beneath us”.

We at this blog ask our heretical friends just how you propose that these triune attributes of God can come to bear as creative energies when the huge amounts of time you put forward cancel out their effectiveness. Wisdom, discernment and skill are not seen when something is occurring at a snail’s pace but when order is brought from chaos quickly. God, as the Bible tells us, has no need for another partner. He does things quickly because he is supremely intelligent and intelligent beings, by definition, don’t waste time putting their plans into reality.

“Wisdom is the Lord’s gift; only by his word spoken comes true knowledge, true discernment.”

Serendipity & Wine

Talk to any wine buff and a point sure to pop up will be the supreme joy of purchasing a bottle of some relatively cheap plonk, made by some unfamiliar vintner, setting it down in your cellar, and after a few years uncorking it to discover that it has been transformed into a well tasty, underpriced gem (as an aside, note no miracle here!). This is what I’m hoping for with one of my latest acquisitions, the label of which is eponymously named Johnny Q.

This 2006 Shiraz from Tharbogang NSW (no idea!) also has another drawcard: its rather entertaining blurb on its rear label. Let me quote from it.

‘In the beginning, there was the wine creator…a sumptuous Shiraz created with your enjoyment in mind. For 6 days and 6 nights the fruit was harvested, crushed and left macerating on skins to develop a long lasting deep colour, intense bouquet and delicious taste. On the 7th day Johnny Q rested.’

Now, I’ve been known to drink a fair bit of this stuff, and I even once tried to ingratiate myself with the housekeeper at Chateau Petrus in Bordeaux in order to obtain a grape-picking job at vintage, but I really know very little about wine production. And so I’m quite happy to accept Mr Q’s oenological account as history, its platitudinous and self-praising aspects notwithstanding.

From the language used - the tight but sufficiently informative details of the passage, as well as its commonsense and everyday usage - it seems entirely the case that Johnny isn’t lying or expecting the reader to access some extra-textual code obtained from some sort of sacerdotal “expert” that unlocks the occult meaning and event sequence of Johnny’s wine-making “week”. It just seems to be, well, saying what it means and meaning what it is saying.

And you know what? I can’t imagine Peter Jensen, Rob Forsyth, Gordon Cheng or any other of the Sydney Anglican Heretics, for one moment, questioning the veracity of Johnny Q’s little history. Yet – and here it comes, guys – while they would whole-heartedly believe this guy, they obstinately deny God’s historical blurb on the first page of the Bible. Think about it: They would take at face-value the word of, in all likelihood, an alcoholic, yet torture and eviscerate the very words of God’s Spirit. Talk about the overturning of commonsense!

I think I need a drink!

Time and Genesis

In the Interpreter's Bible on Genesis (v. 1 1952 ed.) page 1:5

"There can be no question but that by Day the author meant just what we mean--the time required for one revolution of the earth on its axis. Had he meant an aeon he would certainly, in view of his fondness for great numbers, have stated the number of millenniums each period embraced. While this might have made his account of creation less irreconcilable with modern science, it would have have involved a lessening of God's greatness, one sign of which was his power to do so much in one day."

I thought of this quote when I read John's post on 'time' and its implications for our understanding of God and his acts.

Discussion on Days

The interpretation of Days in Genesis 1 attracts a lot of 'hot ink'.

I'll collect a few internet sources here.

Here's one treating the framework hypothesis: "Difficult Passages in Genesis" series on Green Bagginses

A Biblical Theology of Creation

The Days of Creation: Literal or Figurative? by Gerhard Hasel

Chronogenealogies, also by Hasel

The Genesis Creation Story by Doukhan

EXILED IN [HIS] REFLECTIONS

One of the more common reptiles on the east coast of Australia is the blue-tongue lizard. Despite its ubiquity, this rather beautiful and familiar animal has an identity crisis. A central component of this problem is that the blue-tongue frequently thinks he’s a snake. Growing up to 30 cm in length, if disturbed it will hiss, and if this defensive act occurs in long grass where its body and legs are obscured, a surprised and inexperienced person may mistake its thick, triangular head for that of the deadly death adder’s. Sadly, this confluence of circumstances has on the odd occasion contributed to its meeting a premature death by a solid whack from a man’s spade or axe.

It’s the opposite with Mark Baddeley and his incoherent “theology” drawn from his expurgated, postmodern Bible. Mark, unlike our venerated reptile, is a snake who thinks he’s a lizard. I suppose I shouldn’t be too harsh with Mark because, give him his dues, he’s done some of the requisite homework that makes him close to an expert on the creationism case for a young earth (he was one after all…or so he says). You can see the evidence for his comprehensive grasp of the subject in his first statement. Mark believes that creationists hold to an 8,000 year old earth. That’s a mere 33 per cent out - not too far off the money!

Though it is often quite difficult to extract from his sermons what he actually believes – I sometimes think he holds to very little – it would be fair to say Mark supports the following four propositions about the earth and its biological and geological history:

(i) The earth is extremely ancient

(ii) What happened over this long age bears no relationship to the putative chronological sequence of Genesis 1

(iii) There was no universal flood and in any case the geological record cannot be reconciled with such a catastrophe

(iv) God’s biological creative efforts were spread out over millions, if not billions, of years

Despite the Bible’s making clear and lengthy statements to the contrary, Mark’s primary justification for his position is that final knowledge about these issues can only come from science. I don’t necessarily object to his reliance on science per se (and by ‘science’ I mean knowledge in its broadest sense), but Mark’s use of science here is limited to the circularly utilized and defined data which appear to only support the long-age view. Mark’s a priori commitment to an old age earth means he will not acknowledge the myriad of evidence that can only be explained by a young earth. There are enormous numbers of young earth scientists throughout the world who have multiple postgraduate degrees in science and who work in their specialized areas, routinely publishing papers in peer-reviewed journals. Mark’s silence says more about his unchristian lack of respect for his Christian brothers than the correctness of his case.

But perhaps the most disquieting aspect to Mark’s poor scholarship is his belief that theology (i.e. the Bible) is not the relevant analytical tool to decide whether or not the above 4 propositions have any historical truth value. Mark not only draws a line and says “God, you must remain on that side of the line, for now we humans in our scientific enterprise must drive the quest for truth”, he also is claiming, rather perplexingly, that the Bible does not clearly address their historicity.

Before I address my concerns I want to quote Oxford’s Oriel Professor of Hebrew, James Barr: ‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.’

Barr’s words sound like those of a typical creationist fundy, though one who is both articulate and educated. Interestingly, the theologically liberal Barr has written a book attacking the fundamentalist approach to the Bible; yet he can recognize on language grounds alone that the Genesis chapters cannot be manipulated to return Mark’s liberal de-historicised version. Ironically, Barr accepts that Genesis is pushing the historical line but rejects it on “scientific” grounds, and so in this respect the very liberal Barr is less liberal than Mark!

The one common thread of all 4 of Mark’s propositions is ‘Time’ (note the capitalization of this word, something I’ll return to shortly), and certainly ‘time’ is something the Bible considers an extremely important commodity. In fact, one would be hard pressed to indicate another culture that was more concerned with ‘time’ than the Jewish one. One can identify a subtle hint to its importance in the following Gospel incident.

Toward the end of Matthew’s gospel Jesus and the disciples are walking in the countryside and feeling hungry. Matthew writes that,

‘[S]eeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” And the fig tree withered away.’

“What’s your point?” asks the atheist, to which the Christian responds, “Can’t you see that that’s a miracle?”
“Not really,” replies the atheist. “It could have died 6 weeks or 6 months later. The text tells you nothing about how long it took and so there really is nothing saliently miraculous about this incident. All trees eventually die.”

The atheist has a point. Not mentioning how much time passed between Christ’s words and the tree dying raises immediate doubt that the event was miraculous. If the disciples had passed by the same tree, say, 5 years later, would the writer have been justified following up with, ‘And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither away so soon?”?

Thus, it seems quite sensible that increasing the amount of time cannot serve as the conduit for the miraculous to reveal itself. Quite the opposite: slashing time is the agency by which miracles are discerned. A person slowly regaining their eyesight over a ten-year period hardly warrants an exclamation of “It’s a miracle!” However, it would be clear that a miracle had occurred when, for example, a person was diagnosed blind one moment and the very next he was able to see.

I would suggest that brief moments of time, particularly as they approach instantaneity, are the most visible means by which the hand of God is recognised working in nature, extraordinarily. Natural laws, as they are metaphysical, can’t be seen and thus it could never be apodictically demonstrated whether Jesus in any one particular case actually held the apposite natural law(s) in abeyance. However, these laws can be accelerated, either forwardly or in reverse, and this conspicuously reveals itself when time is reduced. Then we can discern when a miracle has occurred. Without this compression of time a phenomenon can be explained away merely as the natural outworking of regular, chemico-physical laws.

So now I have a confession to make as I’ve purposely misled. I omitted one word from Matthew’s record. The final line should have read, ‘And immediately the fig tree withered away.’ The addition of this one adverb now sends an unequivocal statement that a miraculous intervention had just occurred. Big things come in small packages, and a lone adverb is certainly a modest box - yet what significance!

Quite naturally I would assume that Mark has no quarrel with Jesus’ instantaneous, and hence miraculous, killing of the tree; so this makes Mark’s attitude all the more peculiar when it comes to understanding Genesis 1. According to Mark’s cataracted hermeneutic, the inclusion of tens of temporal limiting words and phrases (i.e. ‘an evening and a morning’, ‘day 1’, ‘2nd day’ etc) merely signifies atemporal beauty. Mark, the aesthete, ignores the information that points to God’s immediate and miraculous involvement. Ideas have consequences, and Mark’s belief in long ages, when they are plainly not in the text, brings with it some rather unpleasant religious ramifications.

Once Hesiod’s and Homer’s gods were sent packing, the Greeks recognized time as a key explanatory constituent for change within their various cosmogonic accounts. The Stoics, Platonists, Aristotelians and Epicureans incorporated vast ages into their systems and through these eons it was supposed that the one and the many could be manifested. Though differing slightly, ‘Time’ in each of these pagan philosophies was a co-equal to, or surrogate for, God. ‘Time’, as Mark’s religious outlook has it, purposes exactly the same by setting up another “god” or power to perform the work of God. Inserting this demiurge-like principle between God and the creation, after all, must contribute something. By partially buying into the evolutionary myth, Mark’s theology, somehow, has long ages allowing the extraordinary to take place. Just how this miracle of life actually occurs in Mark’s philosophy, and how God’s majesty or presence is specifically demonstrated by these purported excessive eons of time, are never quite explained. As Socrates might have said, an unexamined philosophy is not worth espousing.

Quote on time (just in time)

Reading the comments on my post on the Finnish shoot up, it seems that the notion of Genesis 1 as being about time is a point of some issue. One commenter (Geoff) was indicating that one could attest the words of Genesis 1 while denying their truth status! I don't know how, and I wonder if the author has really thought out the implications of this bifurcation of meaning.

In this connection, I read today in the latest issue of Creation (21(3)) p. 97 f. in Kay, M "On literary theorists' approach to Genesis 1: Part 2"

" "This belief that the concern of the Genesis' author is atemporal is one replete with irony. It is ironic because such a misunderstanding opens the door to nothing less than a full revisitation by a pagan world-view. As several authors have extensively indicated, the removal of real time or chronological history is a marker for paganism. It cannot be an outlook informed by Jewish concerns because a biblical, Hebraic mindset was deeply and inextricably attached to 'the march of time'. Indeed, God himself was 'in time', so the writer of Genesis could not but reflect this also. Meir Sternberg calls this the 'grand chronology' and says that this interest with orderly sequence pervades the Bible and is Jewish to the core: ".. .chronological sequence is the backbone of the bible's narrative books, their most salient and continuous organizing principle. It figures not as a time-line that we reconstruct from some entangled discourse to make sense of what happens . . .[but is] an unfolding of events from prior to posterior, from cause to effect. So for the Bible to communicate is to chronologize the surface itself, the narrative as well as the narrated sequence of events . . . the order of presentation in the biblical text follows the order of occurrence in the biblical world. In this the Bible contrasts with the entire tradition of large-scale temporal disordering, fathered by Homer's plunge in medias res and widely elevated ever since into the repository of artful arrangement . . . what could be more ab ovo than beginning with the very beginning of the world, hence of time, indeed with the word "beginning" (bereshit) itself? What could make (and herald) a more orderly sequence than the march of Creation from the first day to the climactic sixth, then to the seventh with its sense of rest and arrest, fulfillment and closure? Beginning, middle, end -- each finds its proper place and value in this paradigm of order. Indeed, the books from Genesis to Kings, all likewise conceiving of story as divine history, follow suit both individually and in canonical series." "

References in this passage are:
Eliade, M. Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return, Jaki, S. Science and Creation, and Sternberg, M. Time and space in biblical history telling: the grand chronology.

Quote of the moment

I'm reading "The Leader's Handbook" by Peter Scholtes; note not 'leader' as in "we don't have ministers any more, but leaders" in the church (man, talk about lapping up the world and its ways), but 'leader' as in, I'm trying to do my day job better and better: a recommended read for anyone in business.

From page 18 a telling quote:

"a list of revolutionary thinkers that includes, among many others . . .Darwin (we are not specially created, only the most advanced of the life forms)"

I think he gets it. The direct implication of Darwin's legacy (and he is the beneficiary of the Epicurean's legacy) is that the specialness implied in Genesis is erroneous. He gets it, zillions of others get it, humanism relies upon it, Finnish teenagers act on it. Sydney Anglicans . . . but, but, but, they can only "but" along while they fail the test and keep the liberating truth from people! Makes one wish they were a Baptist!

By way of reference: Evolution and Epicureanism