"The Faulty Mechanism of Evolution"

This post is part of a series of posts that deal with some common Young Earth Creationist (YEC) objections to theistic evolution.  The impetus for these posts came via a comment from a reader on a previous post.  An index of all these posts can be found here.

Here I would like to address this part of Steve’s original comment:

[Y]ou must trust in literally million of totally random occurrences happening over and over and over again through out billions of years. Not to mention that all these random occurrences must take place in such close proximity to each other, and in such a small window of time on order for the two "new" male and female species to find each other and mate before they die. The odds of that are mind boggling. And to believe that this conveniently happened millions of times over? 

Evolutionists do not believe what Steve suggests above.  If what he suggests above were to happen, it would truly be mind boggling.  But this is simply not what evolutionists believe.  This argument shows a complete lack of understanding of the mechanisms behind evolution. 

This type of argument is very common among Young Earth Creationists, and betrays a complete lack of understanding of the belief they claim to dismiss.  How can someone dismiss evolution on the grounds of lack of evidence if they simply do not understand it?

Let me try to clear up three very common errors made by Steve and many other YECs.  The following three points are fundamental to evolutionary theory, and if one doesn’t grasp these points, they simply do not understand the theory.

1) Natural selection is a non-random mechanism

2) Evolution occurs primarily in groups

3) Evolution is a cumulative process

Natural selection is a non-random mechanism

Above, Steve is claiming that evolution isn’t plausible because “millions of totally random occurrences happening over and over and over again throughout billions of years” couldn’t create a new species.  He is totally correct.  Steve (and many other YECs) miss a key aspect to evolutionary theory: natural selection.  Natural selection is non-random because organisms that are able to reproduces more will pass their traits on to their offspring.   Organisms that cannot reproduce will die without passing on the traits that do not let them reproduce.   Evolution occurs when many random mutations are passed through the non-random filter of natural selection, producing a process that is not random.

Evolution is a cumulative process

It is very common for YECs to claim that evolution isn’t plausible because random mutations must occur over and over again, and the probability of this happening is just too small.  This claim falsely assumes that there is no mechanism for maintaining one mutation before the next can occur.  In fact, natural selection is just that mechanism.  Natural selection turns what would be a random process into a cumulative process.  Each mutation that is selected by the environment (because it provides a reproductive advantage) is a stable organism, which reproduces and introduces the mutation into the collective gene pool.

Evolution occurs primarily in groups

The claim made by Steve above falsely assumes that speciation must happen suddenly, where one individual produces another individual of a different species.  In fact, populations of animals gradually evolve, not individuals.   The most easily understood type of this kind of speciation is called allopatric speciation, where one group is separated from the main group.  Due to different environmental pressures, this separated group undergoes cumulative changes that are different from the main group. 

Putting it all together

So evolution occurs when the non-random mechanism of natural selection acts on random genetic variation, over long periods of time, and primarily in groups, not individuals.  If you miss any one of those elements, you simply do not understand evolution, and you are in danger of making ignorant accusations that simply don’t hold water

"The Religion of Evolution"

This post is part of a series of posts that deal with some common Young Earth Creationist (YEC) objections to theistic evolution.  The impetus for these posts came via a comment from a reader on a previous post.  An index of all these posts can be found here.

Here I would like to address this part of Steve’s original comment:

Evolution is the most dogmatic religion there is. In order to believe it you must trust in literally million of totally random occurrences happening over and over and over again through out billions of years.


[And then later]


Would you agree that it takes much less faith to believe a wonderful,loving, all knowing, always present, and all powerful GOD simply created everything perfectly just for us just because he loves us. Why must there be a greater reason or explanation beyond that. Why can't we take his word at face value?

Evolution is not a “greater reason” for God’s creation; it isn’t a reason at all, it is HOW God created, not WHY.  Steve is confusing purpose and mechanism; they are not the same thing.

Furthermore, evolution does not require “faith” and is not “dogmatic” because it is based on evidence.  As I describe in my previous post, there is a vast amount of evidence.  As new observations are made, theories are changed or abandoned to conform to the evidence.  This is exactly the opposite of dogma or the sort of faith implied above.

In fact, young Earth Creationism is actually more dogmatic, because it takes a particular belief, and (flying in the face of the evidence) claims that this is the way it should be, and any claims to the contrary are wrong.  It cannot accept that whatever God has done (As determined by biblical and scientific evidence) is okay.  This is idolatry, and this is wrong.

"The Unproven Theory of Evolution"

This post is part of a series of posts that deal with some common Young Earth Creationist (YEC) objections to theistic evolution.  The impetus for these posts came via a comment from a reader on a previous post.  An index of all these posts can be found here.

Here I would like to address this part of Steve’s original comment:

You might argue the the Bible was written and translated by man, and could have errors (I personalty don't believe this to be the case). But I feel compelled to point out to you that evolution itself is only an idea of man and also may have many errors in it. It's all based on observation with the assumption that certain events occurred. Regardless of what information you've received in your studies of evolution, I assure you, to this day, it has not been proven, and I'm totally confidant that it never will be. No one was there to witness it. There is no documented record of it taking place. No one can, or ever will know for sure.

First of all, we would never expect to observe large changes in organisms directly.  In fact, if scientists observed something like a fish turning into a frog, then we would have some good evidence against evolution.  Evolution occurs mainly by the accumulation of small changes over large periods of time.  Of course it hasn’t been directly observed.

Secondly, there is a documented record of evolution taking place.  In fact, there are several documented records.  The fossil record, biological record, and genetic record are our record of it taking place.  Now, I’m sure the question referred to a written record.  Even though this kind of record should not be expected to exist at all, (and of course does not) this does not mean that we cannot be sure that evolution did not occur.

Nothing in the natural world can be proven with total certainty.  In the claim above, the kind of certainty that is being required is only possible through omniscience, which only God possesses.  However, we can achieve a high degree of certainty by examining the evidence.  In the case of evolution, we have vast amounts of evidence from a wide variety of fields.  In each case, the conclusions from each field test the conclusions from each other field. 

The following is just a selection from the three types of “records” above that show that one must be completely ignorant of the data to claim that there is no evidence for evolution taking place. 

Keep in mind that each piece of evidence checks and supports each other piece – this is important – no single piece proves evolution, but as each piece is added, predictions can be made about what further evidence should show… This is how a phenomenon that is directly unobservable is studied.

• Common ancestry predicts a nested hierarchy (groups within groups).   We in fact see an organized, well-defined, consistent hierarchy ("tree of life").
• Different bodies of evidence give the same arrangement of the tree of life.   Morphological/physical, genetic, and biochemical evidence all produce the same phylogenies. 
• Animals from the fossil record fit into the same tree of life.   Despite the claims of evolution deniers, transitional forms have been found.
• The animals found in the fossil record are arranged chronologically in order of increasing complexity and as predicted by the tree of life. (Try doing that with a flood.)
• The geographical distributions of species and groups are consistent with their evolutionary history, e.g. marsupials are found only in Australia.  This piece of evidence is still true when fossil evidence is considered.
• Gradual change predicts a similarity in structure despite a difference in function.   As species change and acquire new functions (swimming, flying), old structures must be adapted to the new function.  This is exactly what is observed; the same bones in the same relative positions are used in human hands, bird wings, whale flippers and horse legs.   Additionally, you never see birds with wings and arms, because wings and arms are adaptations of the same structures. 
• Organisms that evolve the same functions independently should show differing structures to accomplish the function.   Octopus eyes and mammal eyes have opposite ordering of layers, because vision was evolved independently, as confirmed by their place in the tree of life.
•  Since new functions are acquired by adapting old structures, often the resulting structure/system is not optimal.  Examples:  We can choke because our digestive system and respiratory system share parts.   We have a blind spot in our vision because of the suboptimal ordering of the layers.  Octopi do not have the blind spot.
•  Speciation does occur and has been observed, despite claims that it has not.  To me, the most compelling examples of speciation in action are "ring species”.  Also, I have cichlid fish in my aquarium that only come from lakes in Africa that have habitats less than 200 years old.   Most YEC accept this because they have to invoke post-flood speciation to explain the possibility of Noah's Ark.
•  Non-functional (junk) DNA shows a remarkable pattern of inheritance.  For me, this is the most convincing and irrefutable evidence of macroevolution.

Now, although this cannot “prove” with 100% certainty that evolution occurred, it is enough to be very certain that one of two scenarios exists:

Either   1) Evolution occurred.

Or        2) God has gone to extreme lengths to make it look like evolution occurred.

Option 2) is neither the God of the Bible, nor a God I want to worship.  Hence, I am convinced that evolution occurred.

"The Slippery Slope of Evolution"

This post is part of a series of posts that deal with some common Young Earth Creationist (YEC) objections to theistic evolution.  The impetus for these posts came via a comment from a reader on a previous post.  An index of all these posts can be found here.

Here I would like to address this part of Steve’s original comment:

Joe, you claim you are a Christian yet you don't believe what the Bible has to say about how existence came into being. If you doubt that part of the Bible, how can you be sure the parts with Jesus in it are true? Or what he said and did are true. If you pick and choose what you will and won't believe, aren't you in fact picking apart the foundations of your faith? If that's the case, what reassurance do you have of you salvation or even of your existence?

First, it is simply untrue to claim that theistic evolutionists “don’t believe what the Bible has to say about how existence came into being.”  What I reject is not what the Bible has to say about origins, but what biblical literalists think the Bible has to say about origins.  I do not “doubt that part of the Bible”; I doubt the biblical literalist interpretation of that part of the Bible.

I believe the Bible (including Genesis) is inspired by God and is trustworthy.  But we need to be very careful about what we say a biblical text is trying to communicate.  More on that later.

Now on to the main point:

The general question can be stated this way:  If the creation account is not taken literally, then why should we take anything else literally, including the stories of Jesus’ death and resurrection?

There is a fundamental difference between the texts containing the creation accounts and the texts containing the narratives of Jesus’ life.   The difference is in the purpose of the original writers, and the literary genre of the texts in question.  If the genre is historical narrative, then there is no reason to interpret it literally, and it would be a mistake to do so.   But if the genre is poetic, prophetic, wisdom, etc., then we must be more careful.

Purpose & Genre of the Gospels

Looking first at the gospels, it is abundantly clear that the purpose of the gospel writers is to provide a historical narrative of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection.  Look at the opening verses of Luke:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.  Luke 1:1-4

Here it is clear that Luke’s intention is to write actual historical facts, as they have been handed down to him, so that his audience (Theophilus) can “know the certainty of the things [he has] been taught”.  There is no reason to view the gospels as anything except historical narrative because it is explicitly stated that the purpose of the text is to communicate actual events as experienced by eyewitnesses.

Purpose & Genre of the Creation Accounts

Now turning to the creation accounts:  It is not so straightforward to determine the authors’ purpose or the literary genre(s) of the texts.  However, when we begin to understand the world in which the creation stories were written, it becomes clear that there are a whole host of reasons why they may have been written other than for scientific/historical reasons. 

The ancient near east (the historical context of the creation accounts) was polytheistic, and the gods themselves were part of creation: The sun and moon were gods, not things created by a single, transcendent God.  The creation stories served the purpose (among many others) of reminding God’s people that their God was different; their God actually created the universe, and wasn’t a part of it.  These stories used already existing myths and re-wrote them to show that Yahweh is not like the gods in which their neighbors believe; Yahweh is creator, and as a result we are accountable to Him.

I’ve discussed this further in a previous post, so please go there for more explanation.  Also, a great book on the subject is The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John H. Walton.

Determining Context & Purpose Builds Confidence

I think it is pretty clear that the rejection of the creation stories as literal historical truth does not then lead to a rejection of the historicity of other parts of the Bible, including the life and significance of Jesus Christ.  On the contrary, examining the purpose and context of texts like those describing the life and words of Jesus gives us confidence that the authors were setting out to increase our certainty about Jesus, and give us assurance of the salvation that comes by making Him our Lord and Savior.

More YEC Objections

I recently received a comment on a previous post where (in the post) I discuss the events surrounding my eventual rejection of Young Earth Creationism (YEC).  The comment, (made by someone named Steve) addresses a few of the big issues YECs have with theistic evolution.  These objections are also pretty common, so I thought I’d devote a few posts to answering Steve’s questions.

Steve’s entire comment is below, followed by an index to the posts addressing his objections.

Joe, you claim you are a Christian yet you don't believe what the Bible has to say about how existence came into being. If you doubt that part of the Bible, how can you be sure the parts with Jesus in it are true? Or what he said and did are true. If you pick and choose what you will and won't believe, aren't you in fact picking apart the foundations of your faith? If that's the case, what reassurance do you have of you salvation or even of your existence?

You might argue the the Bible was written and translated by man, and could have errors (I personalty don't believe this to be the case). But I feel compelled to point out to you that evolution itself is only an idea of man and also may have many errors in it. It's all based on observation with the assumption that certain events occurred. Regardless of what information you've received in your studies of evolution, I assure you, to this day, it has not been proven, and I'm totally confidant that it never will be. No one was there to witness it. There is no documented record of it taking place. No one can, or ever will know for sure.

Evolution is the most dogmatic religion there is. In order to believe it you must trust in literally million of totally random occurrences happening over and over and over again through out billions of years. Not to mention that all these random occurrences must take place in such close proximity to each other, and in such a small window of time on order for the two "new" male and female species to find each other and mate before they die. The odds of that are mind boggling. And to believe that this conveniently happened millions of times over? 

Would you agree that it takes much less faith to believe a wonderful,loving, all knowing, always present, and all powerful GOD simply created everything perfectly just for us just because he loves us. Why must there be a greater reason or explanation beyond that. Why can't we take his word at face value? 

Index to posts:

Part 1: The Slippery Slope of Evolution 
(If Genesis isn't true, what about Jesus?)

Part 2: The Unproven Theory of Evolution 
(Nobody saw evolution happen!)

Part 3: The Religion of Evolution 
(Evolution takes too much faith!)

Part 4: The Faulty Mechanism of Evolution
(Evolution just doesn't work!)

10. Dealing with Young Earth Creationism, Part 2 – The YEC Hermeneutic

Dealing with Young Earth Creationism, Part 2 – The YEC Hermeneutic

This is the tenth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

This is a continuation of the previous post. In it, I described how the motivation for young earth creationism (YEC) does not come from an rigorous and thorough examination of the scientific evidence, but instead arises from a belief that the Bible plainly teaches that creation is young.

From as early as I can remember, I was taught the “fact” that the Bible, when read correctly, plainly shows how (and when) God created the universe. I was taught that Satan invented the idea that the universe is millions of years old, and anyone that accepts the idea of evolution rejects the God of the Bible.

As I said in my last post: In all my years as a YEC, I had assumed that scientists that call themselves young earth creationists were YECs because they had examined the evidence and determined that it agreed with what the Bible says. I was shocked to learn that in reality, the opposite was actually true; YEC scientists believe the evidence points to a young universe because that is what they believe the Bible teaches.

In retrospect, this seem extremely naive. I'm a little embarrassed. It seems pretty simple and obvious to me now. I guess this kind of naiveté comes from being raised in a particular way, and rarely being exposed to ideas that disagree with what one is being taught. This kind of childhood indoctrination is a significant barrier to overcome.

So, at this point I had quite a few questions to answer: Would I reject all of modern science because of what the Bible teaches? Was the evidence for an old earth more important than what the Bible teaches? How do YECs read the Bible? Is that the right way to read the Bible? Does the Bible really teach that the universe is young?

So how do young earth creationists read the Bible? It was obvious to me that a literal interpretation is important, but there is more to it than that. Answers in Genesis president & CEO Ken Ham gives us a clue:

“Let’s be honest – if one just reads God’s Word, without any outside influences whatsoever, one would never get the idea anywhere of millions of years. This idea, which contradicts Scripture, comes from outside of it.” [source]

Ham is suggesting that we read the Bible without considering anything outside the Bible. He and other YECs state that we should read the clear meaning of the Bible, taking it word-for-word, and interpret it without outside influences. They are fond of labeling their reading as the “literal, straight-forward interpretation” or as “Biblical fact” calling all others “anti-Biblical”. They openly equate a literal interpretation with the true interpretation.

This interpretation starts with the principle that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and as such, is completely free from error in every detail. The words of the Bible are treated as if they have been dictated word-for-word directly from the Holy Spirit, and as a result should be interpreted literally without any consideration for the historical context, genre, or human authors and audience.

The intent is to arrive at an interpretation that is free from outside influences and arrives at a single meaning for the text. This is a noble motive; it provides a seemingly self consistent framework for coming up with only one meaning, supposedly the meaning that the Holy Spirit intended.

Unfortunately, this fundamentalist approach makes the typical modernist assumption that one can read the Bible without subjectivity. This, of course, is completely false; Although one may attempt to rid oneself of all possible biases, we each approach the Bible from within our own cultural contexts.

To me, it seems the ultimate in foolishness to ignore the fact that these words came to us through thousands of years of history, from a people with a different language, culture, history, values, and scientific world view. It seems that the first step in understanding these ancient texts is to determine (as best as one can) the meaning intended by the original author.
Howard VanTill, in a great book called The Fourth Day, quotes this passage from Berkhof's Principles of Biblical Interpretation:

[In interpreting the Bible, one] "must place himself on the standpoint of the author, and seek to enter into his very soul, until he, as it were, lives in his life and thinks his thoughts. This means that he will have to guard carefully against the rather common mistake of transferring the author to the present day and making him speak the language of the twentieth century.”
-Berkhof, Principles of Biblical Interpretation, p.115 (originally seen in VanTill, The Fourth Day, p.18)

Young earth creationists, in applying their fundamentalist interpretation, make this very mistake. This failure to place the text in its original context results in several difficulties which arise when trying to understand the Bible as a whole.

One serious difficulty which arises from a literal interpretation is that it leaves the reader impotent to deal with the contradictions and discrepancies that exist throughout the Bible. Literalists must resort to explanations that push the limits of our credulity, and in many cases they must break their own rules, dismissing the straightforward meaning of the text in favor of a flimsy cop-out.

The greatest of these difficulties, however, is that a literal interpretation completely ignores the historical and human character of biblical revelation. As I discussed in a previous post, I was quickly beginning to see the nature of God's interaction with His creation as primarily that of delegation. God seems to act primarily in the world through his creation. This is especially true for the Bible, which was produced by over 40 different human authors in a huge range of cultures, languages and geographical locations, and with an equally wide range of genres and purposes.

To ignore the historical context of the Bible is to ignore the method through which God communicated these words, and any interpretation which does not take the original author's intended meaning into account cannot be a correct interpretation. Let me try to make this clear: My ascent out of atheism relied heavily on reshaping my view of God's action in creation and in my own life. Any interpretation which refuses to incorporate this view of God's involvement in history (and in the Bible) is completely invalid and utterly useless in helping me understand the God in which I have placed my faith.

So, it had become obvious to me that young earth creationism was wrong for three main reasons: First, its evidence for a young age of the earth had proven completely inadequate. Second, because of the independent evidence from widely disparate scientific disciplines, it required a sweeping rejection of the entirety of modern science. Finally, (and most importantly) the refusal to consider the contexts of the author when interpreting the Bible made it impotent to deal with issues arising from God's pervasive use of humanity in producing scripture.

At this point, the idea that Genesis might not necessarily be a historical narrative (while still containing divinely inspired truth) had been introduced to me several times.  Now that I understood how and why YECs interpret the Bible and how this interpretation fails, I was ready to take a closer look at the cultural and literary aspects of the creation story.

I'll close this post with the words of three Christians (all from vastly different time periods) whose comments are applicable to this post:

“In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.”
-Augustine, in De Genesi ad litteram, 415AD. [source]

“Men today do not, perhaps, burn the Bible, nor does the Roman Catholic Church any longer put it on the Index, as it once did. But men destroy it in the form of exegesis: they destroy it in the way they deal with it. They destroy it by not reading it as written in normal, literary form, by ignoring its historical-grammatical exegesis, by changing the Bible's own perspective of itself as propositional revelation in space and time, in history.”
-Francis Schaeffer, in Death in the City pp. 77 1969. [source]

"The tragedy of young-earth creationism is that it takes a relatively recent and extreme view of Genesis, applies to it an unjustified scientific gloss, and then asks sincere and well-meaning seekers to swallow this whole, despite the massive discordance with decades of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines. Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason?”
-Francis S. Collins, in Faith and the Human Genome, 2002. [source]

9. Dealing with Young Earth Creationism – Is science really the issue?

Dealing with Young Earth Creationism – Is science really the issue?

This is the ninth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

The fourth phase in Roxburgh's description of paradigm change is that of transition. In the first part of this transition phase I dealt with the arguments for atheism that had drastically diminished my faith. The second part of this transition phase involved dealing with Young Earth Creationism. This is the subject of this post.

Having grown up being taught (and believing) that the earth, moon, and stars are all 6000 – 10,000 years old, it was quite a painful and confusing process learning about how each scientific discipline paints the same story of the history of the universe. This is a story of immense antiquity: a 13.6 billion year old universe, 4.5 billion year old earth, and a convincing record of the history of life on this planet, showing that all life on earth has come from from a single ancestor.

Although believers in Young Earth Creationism invest incredible amounts of effort to provide “evidence” for their views, I had investigated these claims and found them extremely lacking. Not only were they totally wrong scientifically, but they bordered on deceptive. (I discuss this in a previous post) The final nail in the coffin came via a radio debate featuring YEC evangelist Kent Hovind. His incompetence made me embarrassed to call myself a believer. (I discuss this here)

In a future post, I'll discuss my interactions with the friends, family, and pastors who affected me significantly during this time. During this time, I had a lengthy interaction with one of my pastors (I am a member of a Baptist church). During our discussions he (and others) asked me to take another look at the evidence for young earth. One of the books he handed me was In Six Days – Why 50 Scientists Believe in Creation. As the title suggests, this book contains essays from 50 different scientists describing why they believe the universe and earth are young. (The full text is available here)

As I turned the pages of this book, I realized that this was a great resource: Here I had concise statements from 50 intelligent people who had rejected the scientific consensus on the the age of the earth. I could quickly determine how they had come to this conclusion, and by reading multiple essays, perhaps a common thread would emerge.

I decided to make a list of the reasons these scientists give for their personal belief in a young earth. But as I continued to read, I found this to be grueling; many authors gave similar reasons or evidence, and I was finding it difficult to tabulate everything. Soon I found two incredible resources, the first is an attempt to index every Creationist claim and give a rebuttal. The second is a Creationist's response to each item. Although I didn't consult it at the time, a third resource addresses each of the claims from an old-earth viewpoint:

Index to Creationist Claims
Creationist's Response
Old-Earth Response

Using these resources, it becomes easier to identify a claim, look it up in each index, and make a judgment as to its veracity. In this way, I was able to read each essay, tabulate the reasons given by each scientist, and evaluate the strength of the evidence.

A bit about motive: One might suggest that since I had already come to the conclusion that the arguments for a young earth were extremely weak and misleading, I would simply find what I hoped I would find. Would I simply see that there was a reason to believe in an old earth and stop there? Well, I agree that our preconceptions drastically affect how we perceive any argument, whether for or against our own views. I don't intend to try to convince you that I approached this exercise with an unbiased, neutral mind. That is simply not possible. I will simply describe my experience in investigating these claims. I invite you to do the same. If you come to a different conclusion, I'd love to discuss that with you.

As I read these essays, I noticed over and over again that the arguments these creationists gave were simply “reasons” that didn't stand up to any amount of serious thought. Claims like “The second law of thermodynamics proves that evolution can not occur” or “interpreting evidence is not the same as observation” are so easily dismissed, yet are so common in these essays.
It quickly became obvious to me that in order to be a consistent Young Earth Creationist, one must deny the basic principles of cosmology, physics, geology, biology and paleontology. These disciplines, using completely independent methodologies, have come to an undeniable conclusion regarding the age of the earth, and to claim otherwise requires a sweeping dismissal of all of modern science.

The real issue, however, is not science. The “scientists” of In Six Days don't dismiss the process of science because they have evaluated the evidence and have determined that it shows the earth is 6000 years old. No one would come to that conclusion without an external motive. That motive is the Bible.

In his essay, geologist Kurt Wise describes in an extremely instructive way what is really going on here:

Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand. [source]

Here Kurt says most plainly what all the others were saying: That it doesn't matter what science says, it matters what the Bible says. No matter how much evidence exists against a young earth, creationists will deny that it represents truth, and instead find ways to make science say what they think the Bible says.

In all my years as a YEC, I had assumed that scientists that call themselves young earth creationists were YECs because they had examined the evidence and determined that it agreed with what the Bible says. I was shocked to learn that in reality, the opposite was actually true; YEC scientists believe the evidence points to a young universe because that is what they believe the Bible teaches.

This realization convinced me that it was utterly pointless to continue examining evidence for Young Earth Creationism. The evidence would never convince me, because it is not the reason one becomes a YEC.

So, the next step in understanding Young Earth Creationism was to attempt to understand how YECs read the Bible, and to ask the strange question: Should I abandon science because of what the Bible teaches? This is the subject of the next post.

6. Four Tough Problems

This is the sixth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.


Four Tough Problems

In the previous post I described how my faith lost the battle with science and atheism. The dichotomy had been set up and reinforced since I was a child: Either my faith is real, or evolution is real. I was taught evolution was evil, and when I discovered that it was probably true, my faith went up in smoke.

I'd like to mention a few of the most significant problems that I struggled with in this period of my transition.

The Anthropic Principle

In my first post on this disembedding phase, I described how a large part of my confidence in old earth creationism came from the incredible amount of fine tuning evident in the universe. As I described, this ended up being a significant chink in my armor.

The anthropic principle (when adopted by creationists) states that the properties of the universe appear to be fine-tuned by God to be perfectly suited to support life. This argument is actually quite stunning. There are hundreds of physical constants and properties that, if changed only slightly, would not allow life to exist. God custom made our universe for us! Case closed, right?

Not really. The ironic fact is that the anthropic principle is actually the most easily dismissed argument for God. It's really quite simple: With all the millions of galaxies, stars, and planets in the universe, if life is going to arise, it will happen on the planet with the right conditions, orbiting at the correct distance from its star, in the galaxy with the right conditions for life to arise. In short, we are here because the conditions are right for us to be here. As Stephen Hawking said in A Brief History of Time:

"Why is the universe the way we see it? The answer is simple: If it had been different, we would not be here."

The Demystification of the Universe

Scientific explanations can take the wonder out of God's creation. A sunset can loose some of its splendor when one learns that it is due to particles in the air. It's easy to see why science has become the enemy of many Christians: God seemingly has less to do when he is not painting sunsets. [Pardon my sarcasm]

In the 1600s, while Kepler was developing his laws of motion, the motion of the planets around the sun was explained by angels beating their wings in toward the sun. Today, we don't need to invoke spiritual beings to explain many of the phenomena we experience.

In the words of Stephen Weinberg, in Dreams of a Final Theory:

"Once nature seemed inexplicable without a nymph in every brook and a dryad in every tree. Even as late as the nineteenth century the design of plants and animals was regarded as visible evidence of a creator... Today, for real mystery, one has to look to cosmology and elementary particle physics. For those who see no conflict between science and religion, the retreat of religion from the ground occupied by science is nearly complete."

Or, in the words of Stephen J. Gould:

“The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.”

Every time I learned something new about the universe, my faith became smaller. This is predictable, for when science is painted as the enemy of faith, new and exciting information about our world is credited to Satan, and against God.

Belief & Wishful Thinking

This third issue is a little more personal. As I said in my last post, I had always struggled with my faith, it hadn't felt real to me since high school, and that seemed like ancient history. At one point, I remember sitting in a Sunday School class at my church where our pastor asked the question: “Why do you believe in God?” One by one, each and every person who answered said something equivalent to “I believe in God because I have a relationship with Him.” I had never had a relationship with God.

I was raised in a Bible church with a strong Calvinistic theology, so I was familiar with the teaching that God chooses those whom He wants to be his “elect”, i.e. whom He wants to save. This teaching says that no one is able to believe in Him unless God himself gives them the ability to believe. The thought had come to my mind many times: Is is possible that I am simply not elected by God? Does He simply not want me? Could belief be something that I am just not capable of? I surely wanted to believe, but was finding it harder and harder to do so. I repeatedly begged God to give me faith. When it didn't come, Weinberg's words in Dreams of a Final Theory rang loud and clear:

“The decision to believe or not is not entirely in our hands. I might be happier if I thought I were descended from the emperors of China, but no effort of will on my part can make me believe it, any more than I can will my heart to stop beating.”

Richard Dawkins echoed this thought in The God Delusion when discussing the claim by Christians that we just need to “Believe in Jesus” to be saved. He responded to this by saying “What if I don't believe? Does God want a bunch of fakers?” [a paraphrase]

It seemed like my faith came down to a simple case of wishful thinking. I had a lot to lose: Most of my good friends were from our church, and while I'm sure they would still love me as an atheist, it surely would ruin many relationships. My family would be devastated, and who knew if my marriage would survive. Not to mention the promise of life after death! I certainly had an abundance of reasons to continue “believing” even if I was a faker.

Weinberg captured this thought in the single most devastating passage of any I have read:

“Unlike science, religious experience can suggest a meaning for our lives, a part for us to play in a great cosmic drama of sin and redemption, and it holds out to us a promise of some continuation after death. For just these reasons, the lessons of religious experience seem to me indelibly marked with the stamp of wishful thinking.”

Divine Action

The final issue I'll discuss is the problem of divine action. Christianity teaches that God is intimately involved in our lives, from moment to moment. This is one of the reasons prayer is important, since it can affect the course of our lives.

My problem was that I did not see this action in the world. Do not get me wrong! I had (and have) been blessed in so many awesome ways; My wife is incredible and custom made for me, my closest friends are truly gifts from God, and my family was just starting to grow with the birth of my daughter. The problem was that I could usually see the cause and effect relationships that lead up to God's supposed action. The world looked as if God wasn't doing anything. Anything anyone claimed to be “of God” or an answer to prayer was easily explainable by its natural causes. This is okay, if God is said to act only through nature, but it seemed incompatible with a God who does specific things; a God who is intimately involved with our lives.



So, these are just a few of the issues and ideas I struggled with toward the end of my disembedding phase. By this point, young earth creationism was gone. My faith was all but gone. Disembedding was complete.

The next phase in Roxburgh's description of paradigm change is transition. In the next post, I'll discuss how I tried to make sense of everything I've discussed so far. First, I'll talk about what happened when I shared my struggle with those close to me, and then I'll share my experience as I tried to reconcile my faith and scientific knowledge.