Age of the Earth and Orthodoxy

Update: I've tweaked this post to make it more explicitly not about someone else's position. At this point, I'm not comfortable that I'm prepared enough to challenge him on this, so I don't want my work to encourage someone else to do so. My hope is by the end of this process, I will either be prepared or have come to realize there is no standing or need to talk with him.

I recently learned that a man whose ministry has been very helpful to me holds to an agnostic position regarding the age of the earth. This teacher is very conservative in his biblical interpretation and has a strongly logical mind, and while I disagree with him on some secondary doctrines, I've always found his positions to be well-grounded and ably defended.

This post and those following aren't meant to respond or criticize his position on this issue; I can't honestly say I could accurately summarize his position, and for me, that's the first step to interacting with it critically. Instead, I'm writing about ideas of my own that are a result of thinking through some of the comments I've read challenging a dogmatic young-earth position. In particular, I'll be using two points I read from the teacher I mentioned above as a springboard for examining different aspects of this topic.

First, he separates age of the universe from acceptance of evolution. In other words, just because one doesn't assert a young earth doesn't de facto mean one accepts evolution. This is something that may seem minor, but I think it's a bad idea to dismiss this observation as a distinction without a difference. Granted, any evolutionist I've read agrees with an old universe (and as far as I know, would agree that great periods of time are necessary for the evolutionary processes to work). However, one can argue that evolution is fundamentally impossible regardless of the time given for the process; whether the universe is six thousand or six thousand million years old is irrelevant if the evolutionary engine doesn't work. So evolutionary assumptions don't necessarily follow from skepticism regarding a young age of the earth.

(Of course, that doesn't mean that position is logically sound or biblically consistent.  More on that later.)

Second, and this is the point I expect to dwell on for a few posts, the assertion is that we cannot be dogmatic about the age of the universe (i.e. Scripture doesn't clearly support any asserted age, old or young). Of course, this requires a rejection of the biblical interpretations typically presented by young-earth creationists, such as the "no death before sin" argument.

I want to spend some time on this because as I've discussed this with different people, they've raised questions regarding salvation, church polity, and general Christian orthodoxy that they see as inextricably tied to one's acceptance of a young earth literal understanding of Genesis 1-3. With stakes (and emotions) that high, I need to have my arguments clear on this, because I'll need to either defend or refute that understanding.

In this post, I want to outline my presuppositions and give an outline for the posts to follow, as I work through this.  Here's where I'm starting from:

• The Bible is God's Word, perfect and complete, and a correct understanding of what it says is always the truth.
• The grammatical-historical method of hermeneutics is the best way to understand the original intent of the Author, and therefore the correct understanding of the text.

What does mean here?

• If a consistent interpretation of Scripture requires a young earth, then I'm going to hold to that position regardless of any extra-biblical evidence or interpretation to the contrary. Fundamentally, this could be seen as no different than believing in any of the miracles of Jesus. (I'll expand on this later.)
• If a consistent Scriptural interpretation does not require a young earth (and this interpretation should be done without any reference to earth age from outside the Bible), then it's correct not be dogmatic about the doctrine.

In short, the biblical argument is the key. Nothing else matters until that is explored in good faith.  My next post is going to flesh that out in greater detail.

After that, I'm going to look into the two strongest arguments that I've seen for being definitive regarding a young earth (by which I mean less than  approximately 10,000 years since creation of the universe):

1. A plain reading of the text will conclude that everything was created in six twenty-four hour days just a few thousand years ago.  This is the heart of R.C. Sproul's argument that caused him to embrace the young-earth position, ask described here.
2. Any timeline that allows for death prior to Adam's sin contradicts Scripture (Gen 1:31; Rom 5:12-21; 1 Cor 15:20-26)

These two arguments have far different standards, but I think if either holds strong, it would satisfy my condition for a biblical requirement of the young-earth position. So I'll look at both of them.

Finally, I want to consider how important this topic is within Christian orthodoxy by considering these sorts of questions:

• Is adherence to a young-earth position a foundational doctrine?  In other words, does rejecting it leave you with something other than Christianity?
• What other orthodox doctrines (if any) are especially tied to one's position on the age of the earth?
• Should elders and teachers be required to hold a specific position on the age of the earth?

That's my game plan. We'll see how long it takes to work through.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that a correct position is a consistent one, and a consistent position can withstand rigorous examination; my intent is to approach this as skeptically as I can, always bearing in mind my fundamental assumptions regarding Scripture as God-breathed. So in the interests of full disclosure (and in case I end up changing my mind on anything), I want to state my own position up front:

• I hold to a young-earth creationist position.
• I think the ramifications of any other position contradict proper understanding of the Bible.
• I think that the foundation of a rejection of the young-earth position (even if it's just an agnosticism) is the appearance and assertion of great age in the universe, not any ambiguity or silence in the biblical text.
• I'm not comfortable saying that belief in a six-day literal creation is itself a primary doctrine, but it's a pretty important secondary doctrine. I do think improper teaching on secondary doctrines will bear fruit in conflict with primary ones, so it's a very appropriate question to pose to any elder, expecting an orthodox and energetic response.

To repeat: I don't want to imply that the teacher I mentioned in my first paragraph hasn't thought about this issue, and I don't mean to present my posts here as a refutation of his position. I'm thinking through my own position here; I'll admit it's contrary to his, but I'm not aiming anything at him.

I hope I can find time over the summer to finish this up...

A great example of looking for root problems

Rob Bell's new book Love Wins has been getting a lot of critical commentary, mostly from Calvinist or Reformed folks. This post, from an Arminian, identifies a real issue that can happen when we get more caught up in defending our own theological understandings than in protecting the essentials of the faith, and offers the right solution:

For Calvinists, the issue was not Arminianism but was the Christian faith in general. Yet for some Arminians, the issue was Calvinism versus Arminianism. There are times when we can embrace our Calvinist brethren in defending the Christian faith and historic doctrines. And this is such a time.

Chris gets the last word

I believe this will be the last word barring further developments; I've said everything I wanted to say at this time.  In case anyone is interested, I've listed the posts related to this topic in a more subject-oriented flow:

1. My initial post about Chris's take on Ingrid's statements and why I disagree with his critique. This was updated to clarify something in response to a comment from Chris.
2. A follow-up post to reconcile my claim that Ingrid had called Dr. Horton a bridger, after I was told she said that she had not done so
3. My challenge to Chris after he claimed I'd misrepresented his position in what I wrote. I updated this after he responded, offering to talk to him about this directly and publicly.
4. The initial back-and-forth about my offer
5. Chris's refusal of my offer and my response, leaving the offer open
6. After waiting a week and not hearing anything Chris, I had to assume his refusal stood, so I posted his response to my challenge, which I'd deliberately held back when I made my offer to dialogue
7. Chris's final response is given below.

My critique and all clarifications and responses are available on this blog. I welcome anyone who's been concerned about this situation to review everything in context and judge the merit of my comments accordingly.

Chris's Clarification

I haven't heard anything back from Chris since I wrote him five days ago, so I'm going to assume he's standing by his original rejection of my offer.  As a result, I'm going to post what he'd written to me after I asked for details on what parts of his position I'd misrepresented, plus my response to it, and unless I hear something more, I'll move on; I have other things to write about as time permits.

I've emailed this to Chris as well.

*Update* I clarify my original offer

(Update: I've added my response at the end.  I've also changed the title of this post to be more in line with my response.)

Chris has written back to me. I'll be writing a brief response tonight, but I wanted to post this, in case anyone is following the story.

I've made this a separate post because Chris used some formatting that I couldn't put in a comment, and I didn't want to lose anything in what he wrote.