Let There Be Light! Why the Ongoing Discussion Over Creation Views Really Matters

Why The Current Debate is Critical

For eighteen years I drove past the cemetery in which the remains of school teacher John T Scopes are buried, an almost daily reminder of a debate that's dominated a great deal of Christian and Anti-Christian thought for more than a century. Scopes of course was the teacher at the center of the legal storm that erupted over teaching evolution as a theory in his Tennessee school room, a story made even more famous by the popular movie "Inherit the Wind". The movie portrays the Biblical literalism of prosecuting attorney William Jennings Bryan as a backwards, idiotic, anti-scientific arrogance that needs to be pilloried and consigned to the ash heap. The actual trial proceedings aside, that's an accurate portrayal of how a lot of people view literal readings of the early chapters of Genesis and offers a pretty clear view of the antipathy many hold to an authoritative place in our lives for the Scriptures. Discrediting the text allows them to discredit the Church and her message.

In that regard, I agree with the antagonists: if the text is read and understood correctly, but the text and its right understanding are manifestly untrue, then the entire Christian Church and message cannot be defended and should be abandoned. If God is not the Creator of all things, and if the fall of mankind into sin is a myth, then there was no need for a Savior - which would also make Jesus just another first century peasant who happened to believe his culture's myths about origins.

But that's the question at the center of all the debates about the text today. From Young Earth Creationists to Theistic Evolutionists, and a host of opinions in between, Christians are seeking to rightly read, understand, and defend the early chapters of Genesis. This discussion is manifestly important, with the very credibility of the Scriptures and the Church at stake. And this is why I begin with Jesus himself, the One in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He is revealed as Creator and Savior, and he held up Adam and Eve as his model for marriage in a debate over divorce, and after his resurrection began the re-creation of the universe by 'breathing on his disciples' the gift of the Holy Spirit, re-engineering humnankind in just the same way that Genesis 2 records Adam becoming a living being. To say that Jesus had a rather high view of Genesis would be the understatement of the century. How could my view possibly be lower than his? When did I grow smarter than Jesus? To claim that position really would be folly.


Opposing Creation

It seems to me that opponents to the Faith seem to think that the Young Earth Creationist view (YEC, the belief that God created our universe about six to ten thousand years ago, all during activity confined to six twenty four hour days) is the only possible one held by true believers (some true believers would agree!). Such a view is more often than not simply dismissed with a chuckle and wink by most of the academy, or even by a decent sampling of eighth graders. That said, the antagonism to the very idea of God as Creator and that mankind is a unique creation of God, seems to be rooted in far more than a defense of scientific endeavor and the advance of human knowledge. There are a host of socio-political-historical matters which are noted by many as good reason for rejecting the early chapters of Genesis as a) literal history and/or b) religious texts informing all of human existence.


It is certainly true that a higher critical approach to the text of Genesis has yielded a non-literal understanding of the text in many academic circles (including seminaries), one that embraces a wide range of opinion about its meaning, from viewing the text as post-exilic re-telling of Israel's creation and fall/exile to simply the Hebrew form of an ancient mythological account of origins. While debates over the validity of these approaches have influence in religious circles, I find that the other socio-political-historical issues seem to drive the debate in other disciplines. Examples include those who link a supposedly arrogant view of human domination over nature in Genesis with the currently claimed world-wide ecological crises in which humankind abuses and despoils the environment. Others connect the abuse of women by men with a supposed portrayal of male over female dominance in Genesis. Still others claim that the same gender distinctions in the presentation of Adam and Eve as the exclusively God-ordained model of family and marriage lay the foundation for the suppression of homosexuality and the abuse of homosexuals.

Each of these objections reflect the undeniable truth that Genesis has played a formative role in the development of our society. It is not going too far to say that what one believes about Genesis influences or even controls what is believed -

- About the Existence and Being of God

- About Scripture's Interpretation and Authority

- About Human Knowledge and Advancement

- About What Constitutes a Human Being

- About the Foundations of Sexual and Familial Ethics

- About the Stewardship of Resources


- and in turn forms the core of what is commonly referred to as a 'worldview', the foundational belief system held by an individual or community. That the entire Biblical revelation commences with the phrase "In the beginning God created", and the Christian Confession begins with the words, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth" demonstrates the foundational significance of what we hold to be central to Faith, namely the matter of creation. There is no dimension of human endeavor, social structure, and Biblical belief unaffected by what one holds to be true in regard to the Genesis account of creation. Thus the current discussions are of supreme importance.


Church and Mission

There are other pastoral and evangelistic matters in play as well.

On the Pastoral front, Church members who work in the sciences and the academy need to know not only that their work has Biblical foundation, but also that their faith is credible in the face of the often very aggressive claims for contrary views which can be characteristic of their work environments. They need to know that their own scientific investigations and research have the understanding and support of their fellow-Christians, as opposed to enduring a dismissive and antagonistic to science rhetoric that can characterize some preaching and teaching in the Church. This is certainly true for our University students as well, wrestling as they do to make what was often their father's faith their very own. All truth is God's truth, and that includes the truth being learned from creation, whether derived from a distant star observed by a deep-space telescope, or the messages sent to us by DNA and received with as much understanding as we can currently achieve via chemical analysis and observation. Disrespect for knowledge is anti-Christian and our members need to know this, noting alongside this truth the limits of a fallen, finite, and fallible human grasp of the created order, that God the Creator is the only infallible interpreter of reality, and that our 'conclusions' in the realm of human knowledge of our world are always preliminary.

In regard to the Evangelistic task, many non-believers have been taught to simply ignore or dismiss the claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ because the authenticity and authority of the Biblical accounts of creation and miracles cannot possibly be true because 'Science' ably demonstrates that such claims are impossible in the light of scholarship - which is always infallible. This 'war' between Faith and Science, unwittingly reinforced by some Christians who take a dim view of the scientific life and project (all the while benefiting from and depending on its very presence!), does not need to exist. Certainly contrary claims inherent in total worldviews will generate conflict -that happens within science itself in debates over the supremacy of quantum mechanics and other global theories of physics. Without ignoring authentic differences, however, the common grounds in Faith and Science can be put forward. This is not a question of appeasing an unbelieving person or society, or trying to avoid ridicule by the opponents of Faith - such mockery has always occurred and always will because opposition to Jesus Christ lies far more in the will of man than the mind of man. The claims of Christ over a soul are total and those who don't believe often employ all manner of defenses, including ridicule and shame, to keep the Lord at bay and discredit his invitation to life; the cross will always be a stumbling block and the Christian Gospel foolishness to the perishing. Rather what must be advanced is a coherent explanation to the unbeliever of what the Scripture teaches about God, creation, humankind, and our redemption that bears in mind the 'defeater' objections already firmly entrenched in the minds of many through a false view of science in which the lab is viewed as the fulcrum of infallibility. Good communication begins with where people are at rather than where one wishes they were, and speaks their language in order to teach them the vocabulary of the new. Ignoring or deriding science is not helpful to the furtherance of the Gospel.


Let's Talk

My position in this entire discussion is that the matter is of such supreme significance that patient and respectful listening to one another within the Christian Church is essential as we seek to understand and articulate in fresh ways the truth of God as Creator, Lord, and Savior, together with the truth of mankind as his unique creation fashioned after his image. We need to listen well, be aware of new discoveries in the realm of science, and learn to speak in sensible ways about such matters to our children, congregations, and to the world as we share the Gospel. We need to have some historical perspective too. Controversial issues in Biblical interpretation and theology usually aren't solved over a weekend - and sometimes even over a century. We may be witnessing the eruption of a new phase of Christian scholarly debate over the meaning of the text which will yield new and more exact ways of confessing what we believe, along with how we hear and read the Scriptures. Arius was wrong about the two natures of Christ, but his heresy paved the way for several centuries of wrangling (not always pleasant!) that bequeathed to all generations a robust and Biblical Christology. Its possible that our current debates will necessitate as many years - and perhaps just as much wrangling! - to arrive at an equally rich inheritance.

What is somewhat different now, though not entirely dissimilar to the Copernican and Galilean controversies, is the way in which God's 'Book of Nature' will be part of the debate, together with the text of Scripture. Both books have their unique purposes and characteristics, but neither book bears false witness. The problem with reading the books lies with the limits of our minds not the veracity of the witnesses. What we discover to be true about the universe from the work of science (broadly considered, and noting the preliminary nature of conclusions that attend such endeavors) will not ultimately undo what is known to be true in the Scripture. The witness of the stars and the rocks will bear witness to the One who is the Rock and whose birth was announced by a star. So let the debate proceed - and please, please my Christian friend and scientist, stay hard at work. This world needs your labor; your Church values you and your labor; your Savior has called you to your labor. Physicists and Chemists, Astronomers and Biologists, Paleontologists and Geologists, Oceanographers and Physicians, may God bless your research to the end that all the world he loves and all who bear his image may find their lives continually enhanced and the beauty of his handiwork made more gloriously manifest, the hungry fed, the diseased healed, and new technologies serve to aid the spread of the Faith.

God Has Questions for Job! Pentecost Sunday Sermon Notes

Now I Have Some Questions for You!
Job 38:1-7
Pentecost Sunday
May 27, 2012

Today is Pentecost Sunday and we celebrate the great outpouring the Holy Spirit on the Church as noted in Acts 1-2. This is the culmination of the Spirit’s activity and the fulfillment of Jesus’ work and promise.

* In Creation: Genesis 1
* In the Incarnation: Luke 1
* In the Resurrection: Romans 1 (John 20!)
* In Mission: Acts 1

The whole world was brought into existence in the atmosphere of the Spirit and so was the entire Church. This reminds us of our dependence on the Spirit as life-giver, not only for ourselves but for all creation. This also reminds us of the centrality of the Doctrine of God as Creator, especially in a day of unrelenting attacks on this doctrine by pop-culture atheists like Dawkins, Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens.

Do we have questions about our origins? It is important to remember that before we ask such questions, God has a question for us about the same subject! God undermines and lays waste to the basic assumptions that control the worldview of those who are demanding answers from him - he undoes their misguided certainties and replaces them with a new humility that is the true mark of the disciple.

* Cone-shaped view of certainties: Richard Pratt

It’s interesting that as he begins to take Job and his friends into a dialogue that God begins with the subject of origins, not because he’s trying to teach them a particular way of seeing that problem, but because he wants to introduce them to the reality of their limitations. What about us? Are we living with false certainties that eradicate humility, or are we humbly learning how to embrace the truth of God’s sovereign and wise love and power?

What about the question of origins? What is essential to believe and what is an allowable place for Christian engagement on the subject?

I. God the Father, the Creator
* “The Maker of Heaven and Earth”
A. The Basic Views
1. Non-Christian
a. Materialism
* Especially Evolutionary Biological Process, and especially as this becomes an entire worldview seeking to explain everything.
- Plantinga on Naturalism and Faith
- 98.6% DNA Equivalence with chimps? OK; thank God for the 1.4% difference!
- Social Darwinism as an overarching theory provides no basis for itself, that is for the preservation of community and society and learning, no reason for itself.
* Berlinski in The Deniable Darwn
b. Eternal Continuum: Carl Sagan - “The Universe that was and is and is to come.”

2. The Basic Christian Views
* There have been many! Augustine’s ‘Spontaneous’ View
a. Theistic Evolution
b. Young Earth and Old Earth Six-Day Creationism
* Mature Universe View
- Did Adam have a belly button?
c. Day-Age
d. Framework

B. Creation’s Faithful Witness - Psalm 19; Romans 1
* This is my Father’s world
* Neither the anti-religious nor the anti-scientific certainties fit with the Scriptures.

- Two Opposite and Equally Unhelpful Poles: The Religion of Scientism and the Anti-Scientific Ignorance of Know-Nothing Fundamentalism; the earth isn’t lying to us, but our minds and eyes are often blind. Paleontology, Geology, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics are the domain of the Christian not least because these spheres lead us to better understand God’s world but serve those made in his image. It is well and good to pray for the healing of those who suffer with cancer but who is praying for the scientists working on cures for cancer?!?

II. Jesus the Son, Our Redeemer
* “And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord”
A. Historical People and Events
* Adam, Eve, and the Fall of Man
- Genesis 2-3; Romans 5
- Man is a sinner against the Creator of his environment not the product and victim of his environment

B. Historical Savior and Grace
- Romans 5; 1 Corinthians 15
- Second Adam, Last Adam undoing the disaster of the fall, and this not only for the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, but for the entire created order: Romans 8
* The Last Adam was made of the dust as well, but the dust was transformed in his resurrection, prophesying the reclaiming of all dust, including our own bodies. In this new Adam, the Last Adam, there is only blessing.

III. The Holy Spirit and New Creation
* “The Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life...”
* Jesus ‘breathed’ on us to bring us to life
- Restoring the Marred Image
- Recovering our Communion
- Renewing the Whole Creation

We are limited in our certainties, but we are by the Spirit directed to the unchanging and infallible truth of the Scriptures which are inspired by the Spirit. These tell us that the whole creation was formed by God’s word, not by chance; by the power of life, not a process of death. By that same creative word the old forces of death have been defeated together with the sin that brought it about, and you can even this day be part of the new creation in Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Lord.

Where is Wisdom to be Found? Job Has Questions, Part 7

What Should I Do with the Rest of My Life?
Job 28:12-28
Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 20, 2012


So FB opened at $38 a share and closed at 38.23 on Friday. According to Forbes that added some 10 new billionaires to the world’s roll call of wealth. What will they do with that wealth? Mark Zuckerberg made a good first call on Saturday - he married his college girl friend. He saw our passion to connect and our desire to share something with others and capitalized on it. Now we are networked and possibly know more about more people than we even want to know. And if we’re a little short on information, we can also tweet and be tweeted.

We are not dying from a lack of information but from a lack of wisdom; not from a lack of ability but a lack of character to put that ability into service.

Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T. S. Eliot


“What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients...a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently...”
- Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize in Economics

I. Our Desperate Search for Wisdom - Job 28:12, 20
* Wisdom and Knowledge - skilfull application of truth and gift to life
* Our greatest need
- Information vs Life-formation


II. Our Dependable Source for Wisdom - Job 28:23-28
A. Where it is Never to be Found
* The earth and seas; the markets and the mind of man

B. Where it is Always to be Found
* Colossians 2:1-3, 9
- The Cross is the Wisdom of God - 1 Corinthians 1:18-25


III. Our Decisions Supported by Wisdom
Life-decisions -
A. Cross-Shaped
B. Christ-Glorifying
C. Scripture-Rooted

Can we undo the past? No. Can we see a future that is shaped by the Cross, the wisdom of God and lived to the glory of Christ who is the wisdom of God? Absolutely! He is the Savior of those who know they are fools and find themselves made wise enough to confess it.

Where is God When I'm Hurting? Job Has Questions, Part Six

Where is God When I’m Hurting?
Job 15:7-16
Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 13, 2012


What do we do with our griefs and sorrows? Christians have these in abundance - faith in Christ is not a way to avoid sorrow but trust in the Person who is with us in such sorrows, the One who does not always lead us away from sorrow, but through it for his glory and by his strength.

Yet we are sometimes bereft even of the sense of his presence. What then?

In Grief and Anguish and Uncertainty - a death, a terrible diagnosis, unemployment, the demolition of a home through divorce - where is God?

“Are the consolations of God too small for you?”

* Pondus Amoris (Augustine): 'My weight is my love, and this it is that bears me in whatever direction I am borne." (Confessions)
- "My love is the true gravity of my person: if my love looks downward, is attached to earthly things, it will sink by its own weight like a rock in water; but if my love yearns for God, it will rise...like a flame seeking the heights." - Erasmo Leiva Merikakis

I. The Consolation of His Sure Word: Psalm 119:49-50
* Psalm 23; Isaiah 43:2; Matthew 28
- These words are from the lips of the One who is the Man of Sorrows and Acquainted with Grief.


II. The Consolation of His Spirit’s Work: John 14:25-27
* Let not your hearts be troubled...be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (John 14 - John 16). And these words surround the promise of the Holy Spirit.


III. The Consolation of His Sovereign Grace: Romans 8:28
* This did not start with me and does not stop with me...even with my weak faith, my unbelief. God’s mercy is more than a match for my heart.
- Sin: “People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient and then repent.” - Bob Dylan
- Disappointment: God will even arrange for those gifts he offers - His Church, our family and friends - to fail us that we might be reminded that our life is found in him alone.

When Job was overwhelmed with the death of those he loved, the loss of his income and wealth, and finally beset by terrible illness so great that his friends did not recognize him, he did not look for something or someone other than God Himself to be his consolation.

* Alexander Ogorodnikov: “I was placed in solitary - not alone in a cell, but alone in an entire building. My only companions were hunger and cold. The hunger was so great, that I wanted slit my wrists to drink my own blood in order to survive. And the cold? It was northern Siberia. The guards would smash the windows to let the freezing wind come in. You could not flee the cold. The cell is a tomb, with only a weak light present. In my cold, I would pray - so I ‘prayed without ceasing’. I had no experience of the Jesus prayer before this, but this I prayed constantly. This prayer helped me breathe and calmed my heart. I said, ‘Surely God you have not forgotten me’, and as I prayed I would become warm. I can only compare this warmth to the breath of a mother upon her cold child. I cannot communicate this beauty to you. I began to weep and a quiet joy - quiet but uncontainable - began to rise within me. Then I did not notice the passage of time or the cold. In the morning the guards would come with a doctor expecting to find me dead. But I was warm and well instead. The Lord showed me I was preserved, not by my merit but by the prayers of thousands of people, thousands of miles away - those prayers rose to heaven, got over the wires, passed the dogs, and came to embrace me. A voice came to me and said, “You are not alone.” And I wasn’t."

Where is God when I am hurting?

Here with me

Here within me

Here for me.

The Augustana Choir, This is my Father's World , arr. P.Christiansen

Can We Discover the Depths of God? Job Has Questions, Part Five

Knowing God: the Christian’s Great Passion
Job 11:7-12
Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 6, 2012


In this passage we encounter a question which is at once easy and impossible to answer. It is easy because it deals with the most basic and essential meaning of our existence; it is impossible for the same reason.

‘Can we discover the depths of God?’

The Apostle Paul, quoting Isaiah, answers this question first in a negative way, noting God’s ‘otherness’: Romans 11:33-36. Confronted with the unsearchable depths of an infinite God we are left only to worship and to wonder, and that is both a good place to begin and to end.

Yet the Apostle will also affirm the truth that God is knowable; indeed, that ‘knowing God’ is his supreme passion in life, for which he was willing to give up everything: Philippians 3:7-10.

No doubt this began with Paul’s first response to Jesus on the road to Damascus: “Lord, who art Thou?” (Acts 9). May I suggest that this question, asked from the ground by a man blinded by the light of revelation, is exactly the question which should control our entire existence? We must spend the rest of our lives asking from the ground and confessing our blindness, “Lord, who art Thou?”

* Late Night Lightning Flashes at the Window

This is perfectly in line with what Jesus has told us about eternal life: John 17:3

Hosea, too, exhorts us, “So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.” - Hosea 6:3

In other words, knowing God is life itself, now and forever. That means ‘knowledge’, more than a theological formula or system, is an encounter with a Personal Being, with God in Three Persons. ‘Knowledge’ means ‘intimate acquaintance’: Yada, Yada, Yada!

* Veils and Life Long Mystery!

I. Knowing the One We Don’t Know: “I AM that I AM”
A. Beginning with Mystery
* Met Kallistos: “God is not so much the object of our study as the cause of our wonder.”
1. The magnitude of God
2. The finitude of Humans
- “Finitum non capax infiniti”

B. Moving to Revelation
* Like Paul, we have to be shown
1. God desires us to know him
2. God reveals himself so that this might be our inheritance
* Isaiah 65:1
- “More affectionate than any friend, more just than any ruler, more loving than any father, more apart of us than our limbs, more necessary to us than our own heart...God is the Inn at which we rest for the night and the final end of our journey.” - Nicolas Cabasilas
* Yet this move to ‘revelation’ is a move to deeper and deeper mystery!

II. Knowing the One We Can Know: “Behold Your God!”
A. The Revelation of God in Creation: Romans 1:19-20
* neither pantheists or even panentheists, for the world, while it is filled with his glory, cannot contain him.

B. The Revelation of God in Humankind: Genesis 1:26
* seeing him in every face and hearing him in the echoes of Eden

C. The Revelation of God in Jesus Christ: Hebrews 1:1-4
* “If you have seen Me...”

* And all of this is possible only because of the revelation of God to us Sacred Scripture: Isaiah 55:8ff; Psalm 19.


III. Knowing as We are Known: “This is Eternal Life!”
* “Here below, to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” - John Henry Newman. Yet even in heaven: “Perfection is growth, not arrival” - Gregory of Nyssa

* Epaktasis: “Reaching Forward”

- “Not only in this present age, but also in the age to come, God will always have something more to teach man, and man will always have something more to learn from God.” - St Irenaeus


Can we discover the depths of God? No, not ever. However, while we cannot ever know him exhaustively,we do know him truly, and this because Jesus Christ, God the Son, has come to us from heaven and shown us the love and justice of God in his life and death and resurrection and ascension. He is Lord, the One who appeared to Paul, the One who is our Savior. “So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.”

Job: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye seeth Thee...”