Friday, February 8, 2013

Creation Moment 2/9/2013 - Blaming SDA's Again

Here is yet another writing blaming the SDA Church for Creationism-as an SDA I say THANKS-we'll take the "BLAME"....

"The study of logic is always interesting—especially the study of logical fallacies. One of these logical fallacies is known as “The Genetic Fallacy.” This fallacy is where an argument is judged to be right or wrong, depending on its supposed origins, rather than on the merits of the argument.

Karl Giberson, who served until recently as executive vice president of BioLogos, has written what they euphemistically label as a “scholarly essay,” entitled “Adventist Origins of Young Earth Creationism.” His argument is two-fold: First, he claims that young-earth creationism is not biblical and that 150 years ago or so, people would not have believed it. Second, he claims that the ideas of young earth creationism originated in Seventh-Day Adventism.

We will deal with the second accusation first, because this is an example of the Genetic Fallacy. Its thesis is this:
  1. Seventh-Day Adventism is wrong.
  2. Young Earth Creationism came from Seventh-Day Adventism.
  3. Therefore Young Earth Creationism is wrong.

According to Giberson’s article, Ellen White, the main influence behind Seventh-Day Adventism,..Giberson claims that our creationist positions are based on the expansions of Bible accounts in White’s book Patriarchs and Prophets. He states, “In a curious twist of history, modern young-earth creationism can be traced to her visionary expansion of the Genesis flood narrative.”

Giberson proceeds to refer to George McCready Price. Price was an amateur geologist, also an Adventist. He wrote a book, called The New Geology in 1923, which rejected the prevailing uniformitarian views of the time. Giberson then claims that the famous book, The Genesis Flood, by John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, is simply a rewording of Price’s book.

Even if Giberson’s contention were true, that would not invalidate The Genesis Flood. However, it is not true. Whitcomb and Morris start from scripture. If some ideas coincide with Price, then that simply means that Price’s ideas cannot be all wrong, despite Giberson’s innuendo.


In arguing that Young Earth Creationism is a recent aberration, Giberson appeals to The Fundamentals—a series of booklets published between 1910 and 1915, which define Christianity’s fundamentals. These works gave rise to the term “fundamentalism.” Giberson states:
[The fundamentalists] were not united in rejecting evolution as a mechanism of creation. And there was no rejection of the scientific research that indicated that the earth was far older than 10,000 years.
Is that so? This is easy to check, because copies of The Fundamentals are readily available. Baker published a four-volume set of The Fundamentals in 1998. In volume 1, we read:
The beginning of Genesis, therefore, is a divinely inspired narrative of the events deemed necessary by God to establish the foundations for the Divine Law in the sphere of human life, and to set forth the relation between the omnipotent Creator and the man who fell.

In summary, Giberson’s arguments are puerile and disingenuous, as well as illogical. The subtitle of Giberson’s book Saving Darwin is “How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution.” It is a shame that he couldn’t write a book with the legend “How to be a Christian and believe what God actually says.”" CreationToday written by Paul Taylor
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Genesis 2:1-3