"Since the late 18th century, many Christian academics and theologians have embraced an old earth, claiming that it is compatible with Christianity. Even conservative Christian scholars have been swept along.
The process has become predictable; scientists advance the latest iteration of the old-earth paradigm
using ‘scientific evidence’ and theologians follow meekly, generating new interpretations of Genesis to accommodate it.
These theologians and academics argue that:
1) Christianity is perfectly compatible with an old earth, and
2) biblical creationists are a danger to the church, since they make Christians the enemies of science and rationality. Their actual arguments for an old earth are typically rehashed secularism, empirical, and heavy on scientific authoritarianism.
We believe that the old-earth paradigm is wrong, and that a new line of argument is warranted for the sake of Christians who feel trapped by ‘scientific evidence’. Science, the child of Christianity, is a valuable source of knowledge. But when it is distorted in the service of naturalism, we must undo the distortions to restore its intrinsic value.
Since naturalism’s philosophy of history requires the best possible scientific extrapolation back in
time, uniformity is assumed, which includes a strict uniformitarianism, because a positivistic epistemology must establish an absolute chronology using the ‘clocks’ found in the rock and fossil records. This explains the vigor of the past conflict (red herring though it was) between ‘uniformitarianism’ and ‘catastrophism’.
Uniformitarianism further strengthens the ties between an old earth and naturalism, since the features of earth’s crust require either a short, intense, convulsive history or an extended one marked by low-energy processes operating with metronomic regularity. Opting for the latter, deep time is a part of naturalism.
Finally, uniformitarianism links deep time to naturalism by filling the gaps that mark so much of the rock record. The physical rock record is anemic relative to the time demanded by geologists, but it is the primary physical evidence of the past, and positivism requires physical evidence. It is like having a book with most of the pages missing; we are hard pressed to follow the story, unless, and only unless, those pages are irrelevant or repetitive. Since relevance cannot be discerned, then repetition is required.
In all of these ways, the old-earth paradigm is shown to be the logically consistent handmaiden of the worldview of naturalism.
Human knowledge is uncertain in two ways;
first, man is finite, and
second, the noetic effects of sin cloud our minds and darken our hearts.
Genesis starts with “In the beginning … ” and the story ends in Revelation. There is no reason to look outside the Bible for an outline of the past.
Even if gaps exist in some chronologies, the contextual narrative precludes long periods of lost time.
The events and people of the first chapters of Genesis are affirmed by Christ and His Apostles in the New Testament.
The logic of the Flood narrative is also destroyed if it is a local event (e.g. why build an ark for 100 years and take birds on board if people and animals could avoid the Flood by leaving Mesopotamia? ). Furthermore, this view divorces Genesis 2–4 from Genesis 5:1–3 and Genesis 1 from Genesis 2 and 5. Genesis 1–11 is a coherent and well-structured narrative intended to be read as factual history.
Providence also contradicts the mindless progression of uniformitarianism. Uniformity requires an underlying continuity of cause and effect that must either reside in nature or in God. Naturalism chooses the former; Christianity, the latter.
During the history of the church, there were cycles into heterodoxy, but within the context of a Christian West. But the current crisis presents a different kind of challenge. It is the challenge of a foreign worldview, not a deviation within the framework of belief. It would be like the early Christians seeking accommodation with pagan philosophy, sacrificing their core understanding of revelation to appease Epicureans, Stoics, Platonists, or Aristotelians. The old-earth paradigm is a door into atheism." CMI
The process has become predictable; scientists advance the latest iteration of the old-earth paradigm
These theologians and academics argue that:
1) Christianity is perfectly compatible with an old earth, and
2) biblical creationists are a danger to the church, since they make Christians the enemies of science and rationality. Their actual arguments for an old earth are typically rehashed secularism, empirical, and heavy on scientific authoritarianism.
We believe that the old-earth paradigm is wrong, and that a new line of argument is warranted for the sake of Christians who feel trapped by ‘scientific evidence’. Science, the child of Christianity, is a valuable source of knowledge. But when it is distorted in the service of naturalism, we must undo the distortions to restore its intrinsic value.
Since naturalism’s philosophy of history requires the best possible scientific extrapolation back in
Uniformitarianism further strengthens the ties between an old earth and naturalism, since the features of earth’s crust require either a short, intense, convulsive history or an extended one marked by low-energy processes operating with metronomic regularity. Opting for the latter, deep time is a part of naturalism.
Finally, uniformitarianism links deep time to naturalism by filling the gaps that mark so much of the rock record. The physical rock record is anemic relative to the time demanded by geologists, but it is the primary physical evidence of the past, and positivism requires physical evidence. It is like having a book with most of the pages missing; we are hard pressed to follow the story, unless, and only unless, those pages are irrelevant or repetitive. Since relevance cannot be discerned, then repetition is required.
In all of these ways, the old-earth paradigm is shown to be the logically consistent handmaiden of the worldview of naturalism.
Human knowledge is uncertain in two ways;
first, man is finite, and
second, the noetic effects of sin cloud our minds and darken our hearts.
Genesis starts with “In the beginning … ” and the story ends in Revelation. There is no reason to look outside the Bible for an outline of the past.
Creation–Fall–Flood–Rebellion–Israel–Christ–Church–Apocalypse:
a comprehensive history of this universe exists, the fabric of which is rent by any intrusion of evolutionary uniformitarianism.Even if gaps exist in some chronologies, the contextual narrative precludes long periods of lost time.
The logic of the Flood narrative is also destroyed if it is a local event (e.g. why build an ark for 100 years and take birds on board if people and animals could avoid the Flood by leaving Mesopotamia? ). Furthermore, this view divorces Genesis 2–4 from Genesis 5:1–3 and Genesis 1 from Genesis 2 and 5. Genesis 1–11 is a coherent and well-structured narrative intended to be read as factual history.
Providence also contradicts the mindless progression of uniformitarianism. Uniformity requires an underlying continuity of cause and effect that must either reside in nature or in God. Naturalism chooses the former; Christianity, the latter.
During the history of the church, there were cycles into heterodoxy, but within the context of a Christian West. But the current crisis presents a different kind of challenge. It is the challenge of a foreign worldview, not a deviation within the framework of belief. It would be like the early Christians seeking accommodation with pagan philosophy, sacrificing their core understanding of revelation to appease Epicureans, Stoics, Platonists, or Aristotelians. The old-earth paradigm is a door into atheism." CMI
Let God be true though every one were a liar,..
Romans 3:4
