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.

8. Dealing with Atheism, continued...

Dealing with Atheism, continued...

This is the eighth 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 the last few posts, I described how the religion of my youth had taught me that science was the enemy of faith. I was taught to believe that evolution was an evil idea invented by Satan to lead people into atheism. It was beginning to look like they were right. I had discovered the overwhelming evidence for the truth of evolution, and was terrified of the implications. If evolution was true, then my faith in God must be a silly case of wishful thinking.

The fourth phase in Roxburgh's description of paradigm change is that of transition. The first part of my transition phase involved dealing with atheist arguments that had caused my faith to diminish to a tiny ember. In my last post, I discussed two of the main ideas that helped me deal with atheism. In this post I'll discuss what I see to be the main flaw in atheist Richard Dawkins' view of God, and then deal with a problem I mentioned in a previous post about the lack of evidence for God's action in the world.

3. Dawkins' picture of “god” is naturalistic, not supernatural

One thing that strikes me as I read Dawkins' anti-religious writings is that Dawkins seems to be completely stuck with a picture of a god that is totally within nature. I didn't notice it in my first reading of The God Delusion, but it becomes more obvious to me every time I read or hear him speak. This was an important element of my transition; I deliberately approached subjects that I had a one-sided knowledge of and balanced out my familiarity with both sides of each argument.

As I said; Dawkins's view of god seems to be that of a god who is within nature. This is important, because almost every one of his scientific arguments against the existence of God assumes a god that is within nature. It is easy to see why: a God outside of nature is not within the purview of science.

Take this quote from Dawkins in this debate with Alister McGrath; notice how he constantly invokes the “probability” of God's existence:

"When you say god didn't come into existence but was always there, I find that not really very helpful because suppose I go back to my problem of explaining the eye; it would be no kind of answer to say "oh, well the eye was always there", it would still be something that requires explanation in the sense that anything statistically improbable does. So I don't think you can't get away with it with an eye, and I don't really see why you can get away with it with God." [21:14]

And just a few minutes later:

“Everybody agrees intuitively that the eye is far too improbable to have suddenly jumped into existence, and I want to say the same about God, and you don't and I don't understand why not...”

An eternal, supernatural God doesn't make sense to Dawkins, because for him, everything must be explained naturally. This can be seen by his insistence on comparing God with an eye: He requires the same kind of (scientific) explanation for God that he requires for an eye. He sums up this belief quite succinctly when he states:

“Any entity, any being, capable of designing a universe, or an eye, or a knee, would have to be the kind of entity which would be statistically improbable in the same kind of way as the eye is.” (emphasis mine)

This is a classic case of begging the question:

1) It's very improbable for natural causes to give rise to a being capable of creating the universe.
2) Therefore, God does not exist.

Dawkins' implicit assumption is that any god must exist within nature. He then bases the rest of his argument on this assumption. This is circular reasoning and complete nonsense. The Christian God exists outside of nature, and therefore it is nonsense to speak of the probability of His existence. The god that Dawkins argues against has nothing in common with the Christian God.

4. Divine Action: God as “The Great Delegator?”

In a previous post I mentioned one of the most significant challenges to my faith is the difficulty I experience in perceiving God's action in my life. This is a problem I still struggle with today, but McGrath provided me with some insights that help the situation considerably.

For instance, in the same interview I mention above, McGrath discusses this matter with Richard Dawkins. When discussing God's part in the September 11 terrorist attacks, McGrath states:

"Why didn't God just take the steering wheel [of the terrorist's plane] and change things? Well, that has been a constant issue down the ages as you well know. Christians understand God to have made the world in a certain way that is like a framework, but does not actually intervene. Of course the classic example of this the crucifixion. People were screaming at Jesus: 'If there is a God, why doesn't he just take you away from here?' That reminds us that we are dealing with a God that does not intervene directly in the world as we might hope." [47:40]

So God apparently prefers to delegate his action to creation itself; His activity in the world happens almost exclusively through natural causes. I didn't quite grasp this concept while I was initially dealing with the atheist proposition, but later it resonated with me because it fit perfectly with my experience. The concept of God as “The Great Delegator” sowed the seeds that eventually grew into an understanding of a God who is constantly creating through natural processes (evolution). This concept was simultaneously a defense against atheism and an introduction to the God who created evolution.

Unfortunately, this problem is not completely solved. A God who delegates His action to his creation can explain the lack of His obvious action in our world. But most Christians, including McGrath, claim that God does intervene in the world. In their discussion, McGrath states that if one child were spared in a devastating earthquake (while thousands of others perished) God could be seen as intervening to save the child. Dawkins points out the inconsistency of this position:

“What worries me is the inconsistency of what you just said when when I asked you whether God saved that one child... Sometimes you say that God doesn't intervene, (and you make a very eloquent case for why it would be a rather undignified thing to do as a God.) On the other hand you say He does intervene when He rescues one child from a earthquake.”

In a sense Dawkins is saying “Which one is it! Does he intervene or doesn't he?” I think Dawkins has a point here. Sure, God is free and able to intervene in one case and delegate in another, but for us to conveniently invoke God's intervention in this way is a pathetic case of theological cherry-picking. We really don't have a leg to stand on.

I think one possibility for obtaining a consistent picture of God's action centers around the extent of His involvement in the creation of natural laws. The word “design” has undesirable connotations in this context, but bear with me: What if God has so intricately designed the natural laws so as to bring about his purposes in both types of situations? What if God set up natural laws so as to save the child from the earthquake in what only seems like a miraculous way? This suggests a God in control of his creation in a completely different way; the laws of nature truly become the hand of God acting in our lives. It's hard for my finite mind to imagine, but I think this only amplifies the wonder of God and His creation.


So in conclusion: Atheistic ideas had dealt a serious blow to my faith, resulting in a seemingly perpetual state of doubt. With the help of the writings of people like Allister McGrath, I dealt with this problem by first realizing that both atheism and belief in God were faith positions. I decided to choose faith in God, regardless of my feelings about whether or not that faith was real. I saw that atheists like Richard Dawkins presupposed God's non-existence, and this could be seen in their main arguments for their position. Furthermore, my view of God was altered significantly with the observation that He seems to act almost exclusively through natural causes, and these causes could be so intricately designed so as to bring about events that are both mundane and incredible. This matched up well with my every-day experience. Finally, I was left with the resolution that my faith, whatever would become of it, would cease to be real unless it deliberately incorporated all the evidence from all credible sources.

In the next post, I'll continue discussing my transition phase by describing how I dealt with the remains of Young Earth Creationism that still lingered in the corners of my mind.

7. Dealing with Atheism

This is the seventh 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.

Dealing with Atheism

As I described in the last few posts, disembedding from my YEC roots was pretty thorough. I had learned a lot about evolution, and was completely convinced of its veracity, despite being taught as a youth that it was an idea invented by the Devil. I believed in an old earth, and and old universe. I was frustrated and confused because I had been taught (and still believed) that Genesis clearly stated that the universe was created in six days.

I had adopted old earth creationism as a sort of stop-gap, but this also crumbled under the weight of new scientific knowledge and devastating atheistic ideas. Suggestions by atheist writers had been devastating to my faith, and I couldn't shake the thought that all my religious beliefs were just a sad case of wishful thinking. Was I just hanging on to God because I would loose my friends, marriage and parent's love?

In Roxbaugh's description of paradigm change, the fourth stage is "Transition". My transition stage involved dealing with four different things: atheism, young earth creationism, the people in my life, and the science-faith conflict. I'll describe how I dealt with each of these in separate posts. Each of these happened simultaneously, but I will discuss them sequentially to avoid total confusion.

Dealing with Atheism

As I mentioned in my previous post, atheist suggestions (particularly those coming from a scientific perspective) had a significant affect on my languishing faith. One of the most outspoken atheists is of course, Richard Dawkins. Young Earth Creationists do a terribly poor job at defending against Dawkins' attacks, resorting to their typical tactics: quote-mining, red herrings, and ignoring Dawkins' actual points. As a result, I was surprised when I encountered the writings of Allister McGrath.

Two of McGrath's books, Doubting and The Dawkins Delusion, were extremely helpful in dealing with atheism. McGrath approaches Dawkins intelligently from a scientific perspective, acknowledging the value that scientific inquiry and reason can have to the conversation.

An even greater help was a debate between McGrath and Dawkins, which can be seen here. Watching this for the first time was rather poignant for me; I was overcome with relief and hope as I watched McGrath engage in an actual conversation instead of the usual circus I had constantly seen from YECs.

I'm going to discuss several main ideas that were extremely helpful in dealing with atheism. Some of these come from McGrath's body of work as a whole, some are more general. I'll give references where I can.

1. The faith of atheism

The main, over-arching problem with atheism, at least for me, is that it is just as much a matter of faith as is any religious faith. Evidence and reason are vital, of course, but at some point the usefulness of evidence and reason come to an end, and we are left with a choice. McGrath describes this in Doubting:

“[W]hen anyone starts making statements about the meaning of life, the existence of God or whether there is life after death, they are making statements of faith. You can't prove, either by rational argument or by scientific investigation, what life is all about. Whether you are Christian or atheist, you share the same problem.” Doubting, p.34

McGrath goes on to explain that doubt is not something that only Christians are vulnerable to: Atheists themselves are in the same situation. They doubt too.

It really came down to a choice: Would I have faith that God exists and wants a relationship with me, or would I choose to have faith that He does not exist? A third option, to continue to dwell in indecision, was also possible. But I had wallowed in indecision for so long. My soul was rotting away, and there wasn't much left.

At one point I read Phillip Yancey's book, Disappointment with God. While I wouldn't recommended it to anyone in a similar situation, it did make this point very clear to me. I had to choose. In his book, Yancey quotes Thomas Merton on the importance of this choice:

"How shall we begin to know who You are if we do not begin ourselves to be something of what You are?" asks Thomas Merton. "We receive enlightenment only in proportion as we give ourselves more and more completely to God by humble submission and love. We do not first see, then act: we act, then see. . . And that is why the man who waits to see clearly, before he will believe, never starts on the journey."

I definitely did not see clearly, and this is why I was finding it hard to act. God was not real to me, and previous efforts to change this had proven futile. But it was clear to me that I needed to make a choice, and act on that choice. At that time, this was all the farther I took this idea.

As of the moment I write this, I am still discovering what that all means, but I do know that Merton was right. He suggests that the more completely we give ourselves to God, the more real he will become to us. In a way, this is blatantly obvious. But it's also a strange way for God to convert new believers, isn't it? I think it shows just what kind of people with whom God wants a relationship. And it reveals a little bit of His character; he seems to want us to come to him on our own accord; He will not impress us or bully us into a relationship. In a way, He's kind of shy.

Note: I've discussed the subject of God's silence in a previous post.

2. Making sense of things

McGrath makes another suggestion that became quite important to me. He suggests that one of the basic goals of faith is to try to make the most sense of things; to try to explain our experiences and convictions in the most complete and internally consistent way possible.

This concept may sound strange, depending on ones religious background. It sure sounded foreign to me at first. I had been raised to be content with mysteries and unknowns, so burdening religious experience with the task of explaining “everything” sounded almost sacrilegious. But I think this is right at a very basic level. Deciding that God definitely doesn't exist would solve some of the problems I had been struggling with, but leaves others open and unsolved. (I do exist, after all...) Faith, (especially Christianity) attempts to answer more of these questions more consistently.

McGrath, (in his debate with Dawkins) when discussing whether faith is rational, says:

"Evidence takes us thus far, but then when it comes to deciding between a number of competing explanations, it is extremely difficult to have an evidence driven argument for those final stages. I believe faith is rational in the sense that it tries to make the best possible sense of things. But in the end it has to move beyond that, saying: Even though we believe this is the best way of making sense of things, we can't actually prove this is the case.” (at 4:58)

So an element of faith is the process of dealing with the evidence, and trying to make sense of it all. This appealed to me, since the religion I grew up with had completely ignored (intentionally or not) a lot of the evidence. I was at a point where any faith I chose to act upon must include (and integrate) all the evidence. ALL the evidence.

These are just a couple of the main ideas that helped me deal with atheism. In the next post I'll discuss two final ideas that helped increase my doubts about the faith of atheism, and enabled me to make a choice to pursue a faith that incorporates all the evidence.

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.

5. A Bit of Light Reading

This is the fifth 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.


A Bit of Light Reading

In the process of paradigm change, the third phase (according to Roxburgh) is disembedding. He describes this phase as:

"...when we begin to feel that the current system is insupportable and we begin to disconnect from it - like Dorothy [in The Wizard of Oz] being carried away from Kansas by a tornado."

As I described in the last post, my disembedding process began by shedding my long-held beliefs in a young universe/earth in favor of old earth creationism. This included extensive reading of Hugh Ross' books which left me with a significant interest in cosmology and theoretical physics. I began to read books on these subjects and was fascinated by this new window in to the world.

Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything really kicked things off for me. It was an incredible description of the unfolding of the universe, from the very beginning to this very moment. It gave me an appreciation for the process of science, and helped me understand not only what science says about the history and operation of the universe, but how we figured this stuff out. It helped to whet my appetite for more.

Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell was next. I was awed by his description of the beginnings of the universe and the nature of time. Brain-bending concepts like supergravity, supersymmetry, p-branes and imaginary time were fun to tackle and I was surprised at Hawking's ability to explain these complex ideas so accessibly.

Richard Feynman and Ralph Leighton's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! made me want to become a theoretical physicist. Its informal character stood in stark contrast to Hawking's books, but Feynman made the process of pursuing authentic knowledge seem so interesting and important. This, along with another book, Feynman's Rainbow, helped me understand that one can make profound advances in science without leaving ones desk.

I also read a bit more on evolution: Richard Dawkins' spectacularly written story, The Ancestor's Tale traces our ancestry from the present to the past, in an incredibly compelling survey of the theory of common descent. Also, Stephen J. Gould's essays in Evolution and Extinction were vital in understanding some of the nuances of natural selection, speciation and punctuated equilibrium.

Steven Weinberg's Dreams of a Final Theory blew my mind. Half-way through I was ready to pack my bags and head back to grad-school to become a particle physicist. I loved the idea that it might be possible to finally join the worlds of quantum physics (which I had studied in grad school) with cosmology (in which I was beginning to dip my toes) into one complete theory of everything.

Okay, I'm leaving something out. All this exploration of ideas that were previously deemed outright wrong across the board had brought me to the conclusion that I had been duped. The wool had been pulled over my eyes. I now saw that the universe was utterly ancient, and it was fascinating. This previously forbidden territory had opened up countless avenues of exploration, and each one I ventured down turned out to be more exciting and compelling than the next. But there was a profound and dire problem that I had yet to face: I had been taught that all of this was a lie; each exciting detail was in some way a deception perpetrated by Satan. Either the entire picture of the universe that had been painted for me was false in every detail, or my faith in God was a total sham. These two armies had become firmly entrenched in my mind, and it was only a matter of time before the battle would begin.

It didn't turn out to be much of a battle. My faith didn't put up much of a fight.

The first significant blow to my faith came from the final chapter of Weinberg's Dreams of a Final Theory entitled What About God?. In it, he discusses the implications of the search for a theory to describe everything on the existence of God; generally answering the question of whether the final theory will say anything about God, or even prove or disprove His existence. I'll discuss specific ideas in my next post, but I remember spending my lunch hour in the parking lot at my work, devastated by the feeling that my faith was gone. I remember talking myself through the steps that would be required to break the news to my friends and family. It wasn't pretty.

Well, feelings come and go, and apparently so does faith. I regained my composure, walked back into work, and proceeded to live my life. I continued to go to church with my wife, and existed in a state of denial for a while.

I should note that faith had never worked very well for me. I had never developed much of a relationship with God. My personal Bible reading and prayer time had always been boring and seemed pointless. It's easy to see why the battle was almost over before it began.

Curiosity made me pick up The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. [You should be hitting your forehead with your palm right about now...] Although Dawkins' tone was quite off-putting and condescending, I still got his message: I was raised by Christian parents, so I was a Christian. I want God to exist to make myself feel better about death. My faith is wishful thinking, nothing more.

At about the same time I read Bertrand Russell's Religion & Science and Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. Both reinforced the conclusion I was quickly reaching: My faith was a sham. I was a fake. Faith had never worked for me because it wasn't true! I knew science was right, and Christianity was wrong. Evolution made sense; I saw it everywhere I looked. I was forced to choose between science and God. Science seemed so real. God seemed so fake.

In my next post, I'll finish describing the disembedding phase of my transition from YEC to evolutionist. I'll discuss a few of the specific problems that really bothered me in the reading I described above, especially those which became significant in the later phases of this transition.

4: To Old Earth Creationism via Clark's Gully

This is the fourth 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.


To Old Earth Creationism (via Clark's Gully)

Roxburgh describes the third phase of paradigm change, disembedding, as:

"...when we begin to feel that the current system is insupportable and we begin to disconnect from it - like Dorothy [in The Wizard of Oz] being carried away from Kansas by a tornado."

As I described in the last post, my confidence in Young Earth Creationism took a huge hit when I heard creationist Kent Hovind make a fool of himself in a radio debate with evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci. This bothered me considerably, and was enough to overpower my comfortable ignorance and begin looking into the evidence for creationism.

A more profound effect of the rupture of these long-held beliefs was a heightened interest in the world around me. The new possibility of great age was enough to turn an ordinary rock from boring into fascinating.

My wife and I both grew up in Michigan, and we frequently travel between upstate New York and western Michigan. Each trip brings us over the Niagara Escarpment, a raised ridge that is prominent along the QEW expressway in Ontario. The Niagara Falls is also along our travel route, a feature which occurs where the Niagara river flows over the escarpment.

YECs believe that all the geological features of the earth came about as a result of Noah's flood, a theory which they call "flood geology". That had always seemed a little incredible to me: How could this massive step in the earth's crust be selectively carved or deposited by a big flood? How would that same flood deposit the layers into which the escarpment is carved? Even so, I had never had a reason to question these claims.

The new discontinuity in my YEC beliefs prompted me to look up the geological explanation for the Niagara Escarpment. I just couldn't drive up and down along it without knowing how it might have really been formed. I learned that it is the edge of an ancient sea; The remains of microscopic animals that lived in this sea had formed a layer of hard limestone, which has since eroded more slowly than the surrounding rock. Now that made a whole lot more sense. And it was pretty neat.

Also at this time, I had begun to take frequent hiking trips to the gullys that pepper the slopes of the finger lakes region of upstate New York. My favorite was a gully on the south side of Canandaigua lake called Clark's Gully. This is an incredible place. From an unmarked trail, a short 5-minute hike over huge boulders is rewarded with a view up a modest 30-foot waterfall. The sides of the gully rise sharply on both sides, cutting off access to all but the most intrepid. Those willing to climb up the slippery waterfall, or take the "long way" and trek up the steep slope around the gully are rewarded with an incredible array of features; Steep, ribbed cliffs line each side, while huge mossy boulders are placed in strategic positions as if by an interior designer. I know it sounds cheesy, but I left a piece of myself in that gully, and I think that piece may just be fully YEC.




The discovery of this new and exciting worldview (at least geologically speaking) prompted me to look into the next piece of the puzzle: The Big Bang. Whole volumes are written about the evidence for the Big Bang, so this is not the place to regurgitate this information. In short, I was astonished. The evidence is so complete, so compelling, that I became embarrassed for ever believing it was incorrect. I felt lucky that I hadn't shared my anti-Big-Bang beliefs with many of my non-church friends.

While I was learning about the Big Bang, I made another significant discovery: Other Christians exist that believe the universe is old, and that the Big Bang really happened. This is one of those things that I look back on and think: "Well, duh, of course!" But this disconnect with reality is a result of my history; I was taught a single (YEC) viewpoint as a child, and taught that it was the only correct belief, and that anything different (evolution, old earth) is evil and from Satan. Coupled with an overall disinterest in all things spiritual during my college years, I had never encountered another Christian who believed anything other than a recent creation 6000 years ago. This is why the discovery of old earth creationism was a surprise to me.

Hugh Ross is the most outspoken proponent of old earth creationism. I devoured his books: The Fingerprint of God, The Creator and the Cosmos, Creation and Time and Beyond the Cosmos. Ross describes a set of beliefs that acknowledges the validity of both science and religion, including the ancient age of the universe as well as the validity of the Genesis creation account. Typically, this approach inserts large amounts of time in the days of creation in Genesis 1, and proposes a parallel between the things that were created during the seven days of creation and the scientific description of the history of the earth. Evolution is generally denied in favor of "progressive creation" which suggests that God created via fiat miracle at various points in the history of life on earth.

Another aspect of this process that I must mention is this: Old earth creationists are very fond of listing scientific facts that point to an incredible fine-tuning of the universe and solar system to support life. This concept, called the anthropic principle, describes how properties of the cosmos, universe, solar system, earth, and biology are perfectly "tuned" to support life. This interesting and remarkable fact was key in bolstering my confidence, but as I will describe in the next post, ended up being a key chink in my armor in the following few months.

So, as Roxburgh describes, the third phase in the process of paradigm change, disembedding, involves disconnecting from the current system which has failed. As I've described above, the first part of this disembedding process involved embracing old earth creationism. This was basically the same YEC beliefs, with an acceptance of the theory and process of science, the old age of the universe and earth, and a modest change in the interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis. This might seem small, but I felt light-years away from were I was just months before.

But my disembedding process wasn't over. In the next post, I'll try to describe how my new interest in cosmology would lead me to the brink of full-blown atheism.