He Lives - Reformed views of a nuclear physicist

My former pastor Jack Hamilton, who died last month, had an impressive book collection.

I mean, he had a really, really impressive book collection.

Dispensational Premillennialism has much more than it's fair share of prophecy and numerology kooks. And the WorldNetDaily more than its fair share of obligingly ridiculous articles.

Mega-church pastor and mega-celebrity Rick Warren is hosting a debate between Obama and McCain. That is the type of ministry that was evident in the New Testament church, which often hosted debates between, say, Caesar Vitellius and Caesar Vespasian. Such instruction is found in the long lost Simon Zealot's Epistle to the Politically Active.

Since everyone in blogsville is using a certain phrase from the movie Dodgeball, I want to show I'm hip too:

I just vomited a little in my mouth.

It just seems apropos.

Zebedee, a commenter on my Genesis Days post below, posted a polite critique.

He makes two points, both of which will be addressed in later lessons. Nevertheless I thought a short post devoted to Zebedee’s two points of contention would be in order.

Zebedee’s first point concerns the Hebrew word yöm which gets translated as day in Genesis and throughout the Old Testament. This word has several possible meanings including the daylight portion of a day, a literal 24 hour day, or an indeterminate period such as “in my great grandfather’s day.” The latter accommodates the translation as age or era. Many old earthers, of course, want to apply this definition, that of age, to the six yöms of the Genesis creation account.

That sets the stage for Zebedee’s first point:

The first [point] is the Hebrew term "yom" and its significance throughout scripture when combined with a numerical preceding it, or concluding it. Dr. Morris, and others, have concluded that when "day" is used in this context, such as "the first day", "one day" (depending on your translation), it always refers to a literal 24 hour period when used in the Bible.

I think this is an invalid criticism for two reasons.

The first, and rather strangely the lesser in importance, is that it is not strictly true. Zebedee is arguing that anytime yöm is used in an ordinal sense, it always refers to a literal day. But In Hosea, we read:

1“Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. (Hosea 6:1-2)

In verse 2, the word yöm (day) is used with an ordinal number—the third day. Yet the common interpretation of this passage is both as a Messianic prophesy and the expectation of a long, indeterminate period of affliction and suffering for Israel (e.g., see the commentaries by John Calvin and Matthew Henry).

The second response to the “ordinal usage” argument is based on opportunity. The argument simply carries no weight given that, in all the Old Testament, the only opportunity to use a phrase such as first era, second era, etc. is in Genesis One. It is not found elsewhere in the Old Testament because the need for it never arises. Yes, it is much, much more common to refer to ordinary days in an ordinal sense than ages, and so naturally that usage dominates. To give this point teeth, YECs must find an instance where age is used in an ordinal sense and then argue: see, when the writer really meant to use age in an ordinal sense, he used a different word than yöm.

Zebedee’s second point is:

While offering a positive, or seemingly acceptable view for a "scientific view", your article appears to offer a far less favorable view of the late Dr. Henry Morris, and Dr. John Morris' assertions (both of whom are highly esteemed amongst their peers).

Fair enough, but I want to emphasize on what basis I am most severely criticizing the Drs. Morris. It is not on the basis that they believe in a young earth. It is because they are too liberal. Not literal, but liberal. That is, they take too many liberties with scripture. In particular, they argue that any death before the fall would render Christ, the Son of God, the Creator of all things, powerless to redeem anyone. In the article I quoted in the previous post, John Morris writes:

The doctrine of salvation likewise falls, for if death preceded sin, then death is not the penalty for sin, and Christ's death on the cross—accomplished nothing.

(The essay from John Morris can be found in its entirety here.)

This amounts to arguing: If an elephant, (oops, my bad) crushed an ant before the fall, Christ in heaven would have had no recourse other than to say: Ruh roh, that whole redemption plan that was laid out among the three of us just went down the tubes. Bummer.

And that is an argument that has no basis in scripture. And yet Morris and others use it to cast aspersions and question the orthodoxy of those who do not accept a young earth view. That is legalism, the most insidious form of liberalism, and it is very unappetizing.

Notes from a Sunday School that began on May 25.

Comments, corrections, and routine editing: absolutely welcomed!

An index of all posts is on the right frame.

A blog with only the Sunday School Posts is here.

Location: Grace Baptist Chapel
805 Todd's Lane
Hampton, VA 23666
Time: 10:00-10:45 am


4. The Genesis Days
The greatest challenge facing those who would like to see greater acceptance of science and faith compatibility comes in the question of the age of the earth. This in turn is tied closely to the interpretation of the word day in Genesis One as an ordinary 24-hour day. Others (myself included) believe that the same word should be interpreted as an indeterminate period of time. Some thoughts to keep in mind:

1. The insistence on an ordinary day interpretation as a “line in the sand” issue (and as we’ll see, it is indeed in some churches) is relatively modern. It was the advent of the theory of evolution that started this trend. Evolution needs a great deal of time. If you believe the theory of evolution is contrary to the faith and wish to dismiss it trivially, then the easiest way is to insist on a young earth. The evidence for this is found in the creeds and confessions of the church. The Apostle’s and Nicene creeds state that “God created the heavens and the earth.” Neither says when, or how long it took. The Athanasian Creed makes no statement on creation, other than to say each member of the Trinity was not created. The Heidelberg catechism makes no mention of creation days. Similarly for the Belgic Confession. The one exception might be the Westminster Confession, but in fact what it does is quote scripture, which no view finds objectionable.
   
   
2. While the 24-hour view is often called the “literal” interpretation, which tends to give it the high road, in fact it is not the only possible literal interpretation. For it to be the unique literal translation it would have to be the case that the words translated as day always means an ordinary 24-hour day, at least in the context if its usage in Genesis One.
   
   
3. The second point highlights the importance of vocabulary. The leads to a third interesting factoid: Biblical Hebrew had a vocabulary of about 4000 words (not including proper nouns.) Modern English is around 600, 000. That means that a given ancient Hebrew word is likely to map onto multiple English words. And keep in mind that the men who chose the particular mapping were influenced by their culture and their level of scientific knowledge. And they were not infallible.

Had I been one of the translators for the KJV, with no reason to suspect an old earth in 1604, I too would have chosen to use the word day and would have inferred that it meant an ordinary 24-hour period.

Another thing we want to ask ourselves when we approach this topic: what are the priorities as presented in scripture? Consider the following table: 33



The point of the table is that scripture says a great deal about creation, but it says much more about who and what than it has to say about when.

The goal of this section is not to convince anyone that a 24-hour view is incorrect. The goal is to demonstrate that a 24-hour view (and along with it a young earth view) is not required. The issue of the early times is not unlike the end times:

• Both are subject to radically different interpretations by well-meaning Christians who affirm biblical inerrancy and inspiration.
  
  
• Neither was deemed a line-in-the-sand issue by the early church fathers, creeds, or confessions. Those said nothing more than God created the universe and in the end, Christ will return and all will be judged.

As to testify to the fact that some do in-fact elevate the young-earth view to cardinal importance we take the example of John Morris. Morris is the President of the Institute for Creation Research (www.icr.org), an organization dedicated to teaching “Creation Science” that was founded by his father, Henry Morris. Concerning. Recently I stumbled upon this "Ask Dr. Morris" essay, reproduced here, and entitled Should a Church Take a Stand On Creation? 34

Recently my family and I joined a small church plant pastored by a former student of mine at Christian Heritage College—a man of real wisdom and integrity.

A church constitution was being written, which, of course, included a Statement of Faith. A solid creation and young-earth plank appeared in the first draft.

Although there was no disagreement among the members (many of whom were young Christians) as to the doctrine of special, recent creation, there was concern in making this a requirement for membership. I was asked to comment.

Given the fact that most of America's Bible colleges and seminaries would not even agree with the content of the plank, I acknowledged my own hesitancy about being so exclusive, but I proceeded to demonstrate how beliefs in creation and a young earth are integral parts of Christianity.

The doctrine of God is at stake. for example, is the God of the Bible a gracious, purposeful God of wisdom, or does He resort to trial and error in His deeds, testing His creation by survival of the fittest and delighting in the extinction of the weaker? Is God long ago and far away—only occasionally involved, or is He near and intimately concerned with the affairs of life?

The doctrine of Scripture comes into play. There are few Biblical teachings as clear as that of creation in six days and the companion doctrine of the global flood. Yet these two teachings are denied and ridiculed in many Christian churches today. Can the Scriptures be trusted? Can God say what He means? If a Christian can distort Scripture to teach such beliefs as evolution, progressive creation, an old earth, or a local flood, can that Christian be trusted with other doctrines?

The doctrine of man becomes skewed. Can man, with a brain and reasoning powers distorted by the curse, evaluating only a portion of the evidence, accurately reconstruct the history of the universe? Should his historical reconstructions be put on a higher plane than Scripture? Or is man and his mind locked in the effects of the curse—a poor reflection of the once glorious "image of God"—now blinded by sin and the god of this world, seeing things through a glass darkly?"

The doctrine of sin becomes questionable. If death and bloodshed preceded Adam's rebellion against God, then what are "the ways of sin?" How did the entrance of sin change things?

The doctrine of salvation likewise falls, for if death preceded sin, then death is not the penalty for sin, and Christ's death on the cross—accomplished nothing. Any form of evolution and old-earth thinking is incompatible with the work of Christ.

I still am uncertain about young-earth creationism being a requirement for church membership; perhaps it would be proper to give new members time to grow and mature under good teaching.

But I do know one thing: Creationism should be a requirement for Christian leadership! No church should sanction a pastor, Sunday school teacher, deacon, elder, or Bible-study leader who knowledgeably and purposefully errs on this crucial doctrine." (emphasis added)

Morris is not sure whether, were they to seek membership, he would find suitable for Christian fellowship men like: Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Charles Hodge, Benjamin Warfield, Gleason Archer, Francis Schaeffer, etc. Well, maybe they could join the church on a probationary basis, but extensive remedial education would be needed to wean them from spiritual Similac and onto solid food.

That aside, his essay is an exercise in logical fallacies. It is not evolution or Morris’s brand of young-earth creationism. Some forms of old earth creationism still invoke special creation. And even theistic evolutionists (who are different from old earth creationists) do not claim that error or chance was involved—they state that God was at all times in control of the genetic adaptations. And his conclusion that any death prior to the fall, say an elephant trampling and ant, an Christ’s work was meaningless, has no basis whatsoever in scripture and can only be said to impugn the deity of Christ and the omnipotence and sovereignty of God.

So, it is worth saying again, it is not the young earth view I seek to challenge, but the legalism of men such as John Morris.

Biblical Timelines

The King James translation was completed 1611. In 1642, John Lightfoot of Cambridge University analyzed genealogies to come with September 17, 3928 BC for the date the universe was created. Not to be outdone by an Englishman, eight years later James Ussher, Anglican archbishop of Ireland, corrected Lightfoot's work. He arrived at a date that would live in infamy: October 3, 4004 BC. (In a final iteration, Lightfoot corrected Ussher's correction, settling on October 18-24, 4004 BC as creation week, with Adam created at 9:00 AM on October 23.)

This date was so-ingrained in the Christians of that era that any child would recite 4004 BC as the year of creation. Ussher's timelines made it into both the marginal notes and the chapter headings of the King James Bible.

Their work ignored Hebrew scholarship. It was based, as mentioned, on biblical genealogies-even though it is well established that biblical genealogies are not chronologies. X begat (or "was the father of") Y does not always imply a one-generation relationship between the two. This both solves and creates problems. And while it is virtually meaningless in terms of the old/young earth debate, it does mean that accountings of the time since Adam roamed the earth are bound to contain errors.

On example we see is in Christ's genealogy in Matthew, where we read:

Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram
the father of Uzziah. (Matt. 1:8)

which one can compare with

11 Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son, 12 Amaziah [Uzziah] his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son, (1 Chron 3:11-12)

In this genealogy (Amaziah is the same person as Uzziah) we see that there are three generations missing from Matthew's account, which makes Uzziah appear to be Joram’s son rather than his great-grandson. That is all fine and dandy considering Matthew's purpose was to explain Christ's Davidic (legal) bloodline. Nevertheless it calls into question the precision of Matthew’s concluding:

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the
deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations. (Matt. 1:17)

I don't know a resolution to this issue, although I don't dwell on it very much. For a more striking example, we read:

Shebuel the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, was officer over the treasures. (1 Chr 26:24)

Shebuel is of the time of David, and yet Gershom is a true next-generation son of Moses (Ex. 2:22) . Thus there are 400+ years between Gershom and his "son" Shebuel.

It is also well known that if genealogies are also chronologies then there are a whole host of additional problems, such as Noah not dying until Abraham was in his fifties. No, it is clear that the bible uses genealogies as historic flows rather than precise family trees. We all are sons of Father Abraham.

These simple examples show that we cannot place too much emphasis on derived, genealogy-based timelines. It is possible that there was much more than two thousand years between Adam and Abraham. I personally believe, based on scientific and archeological evidence, that it was on the order of 100,000 years.

Secular research indicates that by the time Abraham is on the scene, civilizations have risen and fallen. The Stone Age gave way to the Neolithic era (ca. BC 10,000 the era for which remains from the original walled city of Jericho are dated) which gave way to the Bronze Age somewhere around BC 6000. The Bronze Age is subdivided into early, middle and late. Abraham appears somewhere in the "late-middle."

By the time Israel emerged as a nation in the late thirteen century BC, civilization was already ancient. In Mesopotamia, the Sumerian and Old and Middle Babylonian Cultures had already risen and fallen. Egyptian civilization, after an extended period of preeminence due to the predictability of Nile flooding, was waning. By Israel’s time, recorded Chinese history is well under way.

The picture from non-biblical history is: a great deal happened between Adam and Abraham. Or Noah and Abraham. Mankind spread about the world, civilizations rose and fell, and God waited patiently. Finally, however, God was ready for the next step in His redemptive plan: a covenant with Abraham. Why Abraham and not, say, some Indian or Chinese nomad? Who knows?--it wasn't because of Abraham's "goodness", it was because Abraham was chosen by God for God's good purpose.


33Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days, NavPress, 2004.
34See Should a Church Take a Stand On Creation? at http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=1108.

I have lots of Sunday School lessons to put on line--I am actually finished with the science & faith course--but way behind in posting the notes.

Classes start the week after next. I am, for the first time ever, teaching Astronomy! That is going to be a lot of fun, I reckon.

A few weeks ago some of you enjoyed, or found interesting, Bob Estes's post on atheism as a bad habit, like smoking.

He has a follow-up.

Well alrighty then! You can add to this to the list of things you were probably worried about but now, thanks to the fact that you had the good sense to read this blog, you don’t have to!

Here it is:

Barack Obama is not, I repeat not the antichrist!

I mean, that was certainly keeping me awake at night.

How can we rest assured that there is no 666 birthmark hidden on Obama’s scalp? Well, because so says über-dispensationalist, prophecy guru, and all-around fun guy Tim LaHaye, co-author of the famous Left Behind cash cow series. In an important press release put out by the Christian News Wire, LaHaye tells us:

I can see by the language he uses why people think he [Obama] could be the antichrist, but from my reading of scripture, he doesn't meet the criteria. There is no indication in the Bible that the antichrist will be an American.

I am thankful for men like LaHaye, men who tirelessly perform all the heavy lifting--all that tedious bible reading stuff--so that if he says that Revelation does not teach something like: "and the beast will come from a land called the U.S. of A, and he will support the Designated Hitter rule and Toyota in NASCAR" that we can be pretty darn condfident.

So who is the antichrist? My money is on Chinese actress Zhāng Zǐyí. She was born on 2/9/1979, and 666=(1979+2×9+1)/3. Plus if you add up the numerical value of her name in biblical Hebrew, you get -1, which is awfully suspicious.

concerning why I do not like James Dobson's Focus on the Family, which should, perhaps, more properly be called "Focus on American Politics (from the friendly confines of an expensive, techno-production-studio campus in Colorado Springs that would make any university proud--if only they could afford it) instead of Focusing on the Gospel."

Here FOTF's Stuart Shepard asks: is it OK to pray for God to send a downpour to disrupt Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the convention?

The answer, in my opinion, is no. The question, in my opinion, shouldn't even be asked.

Karl Giberson has written an article for Salon entitled What's wrong with science as religion.

The intent of Giberson's article is to take PZ Myers to the woodshed for his allegedly inquisitor role in the establishment of science as our state religion. He doesn't like Myers's appeal to unbridled rationality. The simple idea that a Jack Webb "Just the facts, Ma'am" approach will lead to a Glorious Society. The idea that supremely intelligent people of learning, such as Harris, Hitchins, Dawkins, PZ, and PZ's commenters, men and women freed from the yoke of irrational religious preconceptions—scholars such as these will use pure reason to arrive at irrefutable rational consensus on such important topics as the justness of the Iraq war, the utility of torture as a device for extracting intelligence, the legitimacy of eastern mysticism, gun control, and the ethics of animal testing.

Or not. What-ever.


As for the article itself, what a hack job Giberson presented! Let me show you. He wrote:

Myers' confident condemnations put me in mind of that great American preacher, Jonathan Edwards, who waxed eloquent in his famous 1741 speech, "Sinners at the Hands of an Angry God," about the miserable delusions that lead humans to reject the truth and spend eternity in hell. We still have preachers like Edwards today, of course; they can be found on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Unspeakable blasphemy! Slander so vile, thy name is Giberson! Jonathan Edwards was arguably America's greatest theologian. Jonathan Edwards was once named by Encyclopedia Britannica as a America’s greatest scholar. Jonathan Edwards was one of America's greatest preachers and evangelists. To use him as a form of insult is unthinkable. In one paragraph, two sentences long, likening Jonathan Edwards to PZ and to the TBN chuckleheads is just plain wrong!

Pardon me while I go take a shower.

I have been reading more about “New Covenant Theology” (NCT) and find much to be admired. I have not read enough to say whether I buy it hook, line, and sinker, and no doubt the answer will be that I don’t, but I am sure I will continue to find much with which I can agree.

My own theological journey started, as for many, with dispensationalism. As I wrote elsewhere, two books I read early in my walk (which began as an adult and already a practicing scientist) changed my theological position forever. Both are easy reads. One was RC Sproul’s Chosen By God. The other was Philip Mauro’s 1927 work The Gospel of the Kingdom which is available online. The former makes the case for the doctrine of Predestination, and the latter utterly dismantles dispensationalism. I mean, it thoroughly and completely dispenses with dispensationalism.

Where does one turn if fleeing from dispensationalism? Typically one seeks theological comfort in Covenant Theology. For the most part I am comfortable there—except for how Covenant Theology is forced to deal with the Law. They are essentially painted into a corner—for if there is, as Covenant Theology teaches, just one Covenant (the Covenant of Grace) that has been in place since the time of Adam, then the laws established in that one and only never ending covenant are still binding. I often get asked: if you really believe the bible why don’t you advocate stoning gays or adulterers or blasphemers? For a hardcore Covenant Theologian this is a fair question—and in fact some of them do advocate enforcing Mosaic Law.

Most, however, will dance around the question and break the Law into three groups—moral, civil, and ceremonial. The moral, which is essentially synonymous with the Ten Commandments, is kept. The civil and ceremonial are jettisoned.

This is in spite of the fact that scripture makes no mention of this division, and certainly does not say which law belongs in which group—nor does it teach, in the New Testament, “Keepest thou my Moral Law, ignorest thou those other defuncteth types, two being their number, and their number being two, the Civil and the Ceremonial.”

I have always felt uneasy about this, and on my own I simply drifted away from Covenant Theology and its teachings on the Law. I carved out a position for myself that was far from perfect, but one I could live with. It turns out that position is quite close to but not nearly as refined as what I have read on New Covenant Theology.

New Covenant Theology starts from an almost irrefutably superior position, regarding covenants, than classic Covenant Theology. It states, almost with an implied “duh”, that there are two covenants, not one. The Old Covenant and, you guessed it, The New Covenant.

"The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. (Jer. 31:31)

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant (Heb. 9:15)

Covenant Theologians must spin these and similar passages into old and new administrations of one covenant, not two covenants. NCT takes them as is.

As far as the law is concerned, to first order it is this: the laws of the Old Covenant, all of them, including the Ten Commandments, became null and void when the Old Covenant ended. The New Covenant contains its own laws. Those are the laws binding to Christians.

This is so much cleaner—no artificial grouping of ceremonial, civil, and moral. They are all gone. None of them apply to us. None. The Ten Commandments are history. They were part of the administration of an Old Covenant. They are of interest in that they are an important part of God’s redemptive, and in that as with all things Old Testament they foreshadowed something better, but in fact they are no longer binding.

Does that make us antinomian? May it never be! We do have laws, and there is no reason whatsoever why they cannot include much of the so-called moral law from the Old Testament. The Ten Commandments forbade murder. The Ten Commandments are null and void. Does that mean murder is permitted? Of course not. The new law also forbids murder. Is this then just semantics? It is not. For example, the Fourth Commandment has not been maintained. The day of rest foreshadowed something better—that we are completely at rest in Christ, all the time, 24/7, always in his Sabbath, of which He is Lord over, and which was made for men.

This is how Christ fulfilled the law, and yet not a jot nor tittle is lost. The law reflects what has been revealed about God to us. A great deal more about God has been revealed to us than to the Jews of Moses’ time—and the new law of the New Covenant reflects that increased revelation.

Our Law is what Christ set down. In the Sermon on the Mount, we see it includes upgraded versions of most of the Ten Commandments. It also includes the two great Commandments.

The little WWJD bracelets were much maligned by the Covenant Theologians. But in fact they are probably a more accurate representation of the law which applies to us in this time and in this place than are the Ten Commandments. Now, WWJD does not go far enough; we should also ask “What Would Jesus Think? It is not easy to do what Jesus would do. But that is almost trivial when compared with the perfection of the new law, which asks us to think what Jesus would think. For the new law is very much about the heart. Under the new law you could obey the Ten Commandments and still be a great sinner—just a little lust would convict you of a crime not unlike adultery.

I will continue to report on NCT as I did deeper.