Views on the Bible and Creation

Well, I think that last post on imputation was probably fairly incomprehensible, so I will proceed to the next topic I said some time ago that I would discuss. I wanted to mention some ideas about the creation / evolution controversy. I have been studying this issue seriously for a number of years, and the only real conclusion I have come to is that it is very complicated on every front. The science is complicated and so are the Biblical exegesis and theological discussions. Therefore, I advocate that churches allow discussion and a wide range of options as serious options for Evangelicals to believe, instead of only one. In many churches young earth creationism (Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Ken Ham, Henry Morris, Duane Gish) is the only option. But we should recognize other options from old earth creationism (Gleason Archer, Hugh Ross) to theistic evolution (Howard Van Til, C. S. Lewis).

YEC’s (young earth creationists) are usually very intolerant of any other views. But one of the great ironies in theological writing comes in Henry Morris’s book the Genesis Flood which was largely responsible for the modern young earth creationism, flood geology movement. In the introduction to Genesis Flood, Morris speaks about how his scientific views are based on the Bible. He says, “We accept as basic the doctrine of the verbal inerrancy of Scripture, to which Benjamin B. Warfield has given admirable expression in the following words:”. And then he quotes a paragraph from Warfield about inerrancy. Why is this ironic? It is ironic because even with his belief in verbal inerrancy, Benjamin Warfield was a theistic evolutionist. He believed in macroevolution and the theory of Charles Darwin. He simply believed that God had created the process and worked providentially in making it happen.

Joshua Zorn is a missionary in Asia and wrote an essay pleading with pastors and missionaries to not make a big issue of the age of the earth. You can find it here: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/zorn.html

The ASA website in general is good and helpful. Another website that talks about different perspectives on science and the Bible is the Answers in Creation website:

http://www.answersincreation.org