According to Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018–2019, sixty-five percent of Americans identify as Christian.1 This represents a steep decrease of twelve percent within the last decade alone. During the same time period, the number of individuals self-declaring as religiously unaffiliated soared from seventeen to twenty-six percent.2 This is consistent with a larger trend throughout Western culture that has been observed since the scientific revolution. In the eyes of many, the development of scientific thinking has made religious thought irrelevant. Moreover, many point to various historical and cosmological inconsistencies between the Bible and the scientific record as proof that science and religion are incompatible. However, in response to these secular arguments, many Christian scholars have developed their own theories related to science and religion. Specifically, many have attempted to integrate modern scientific theories of origins with a theological interpretation of the Bible, with particular emphasis on the book of Genesis.
Among these scholars is the young-earth creationist Ken Ham, who perhaps epitomizes the modern atheist academic’s greatest concern when it comes to religion. Ham maintains that “Genesis 1–11 is history — not poetry, parable, prophetic vision, or mythology.”3 Using the Bible as a historical document and reading it literally, young-earth creationists trace the creation of the Earth to a mere 6,000–10,000 years ago. Integral to Ham’s theory is the idea that the fall of Adam and Eve cursed not only humanity, but also the whole earth. The consequence of this is that observation of the flawed natural world around us is not the optimal way to reach truth. Instead, Ham advocates accepting the Bible as “God’s eyewitness testimony” to history, and claims that refusing to do so amounts to accepting the authority of man over the authority of God.5
The problem with this perspective is that although the Bible was divinely inspired, it requires human interpretation. The words of the Bible held so tightly by Ken Ham were not the same words that were divinely inspired. To this day, scholars fiercely debate the most faithful interpretation of the original Hebrew texts. Even if we could reach universal consensus regarding translation, there remains the problem of cultural context. In the words of Robert C. Bishop et al., “[t]he Bible is written for us but not to us.”6 This necessitates an interpretation that appreciates the nuances of Ancient Near East cultures, which represent the audience to whom Scripture was written. Anyone analyzing a text has presuppositions and pre-existing frameworks of interpretation; unless the context of the text is carefully incorporated into this framework, the analyst will inevitably substitute their own modern assumptions.
Another relevant consideration is the purpose of the Bible. Is it meant to serve as a historical document? Or does it have another purpose? If God was not intending to convey literal truths through certain parts of the Bible, but was instead communicating to Ancient Near East cultures in a way they would understand, then Ken Ham’s use of these sections of Scripture as evidence for understanding the world around us is questionable at best. This ties into the most frightening aspect of young-earth creationism, which is the complete rejection of scientific evidence, or, (worse still), the misappropriation of “science” to support a flawed interpretation of the evidence. The idea of a young earth is not only wrong, it might even be anti-Christian from a certain point of view. God created a highly ordered universe and gave us some form of capacity to gain insight into its structure. Although science has naturalistic assumptions, it owes its existence to God. Therefore, to blatantly reject the conclusive finding that the earth is around 4.6 billion years old is in effect a rejection of the God-given gift of the scientific process.
Interestingly, there are scholars who take Genesis 1 seriously and also believe in an Earth that is billions of years old. One of these is Hugh Ross, who holds a belief called old-earth or day-age creationism. In this view, the Hebrew word for “day” is not interpreted literally, giving more flexibility to the timeline of creation.7 However, breaking from the naturalistic assumptions of science, Ross views the rapid rate of speciation during the Cambrian Explosion as evidence of God intervening in the process of evolution.8 In fact, Ross rejects the idea that all life could have evolved from a common ancestor.9 In a similar vein, Stephen Meyer points to human DNA as evidence for God’s continual and direct intervention in natural processes. Meyer argues that random mutation proceeds at too slow a rate to produce the kind of coded information observed in DNA,9 indicating that evolution cannot explain the origin of genetic information, which points to intervention by an intelligent designer.11
In contrast, Deborah Haarsma sees God’s relationship with evolution through a slightly different lens. Haarsma accepts the geological and astronomical evidence pointing towards the ancient age of this planet.12 In addition, she accepts the biological evidence supporting a theory of evolution and common ancestry.13 In this view, God is still responsible for creation. However, he does not intervene in a way that overrides his previous involvement by violating laws of nature he has already established.
This is not to deny God’s active involvement in his creation. He is not a watchmaker who created the world to tick on by itself while he dozes in the corner. Yet we must be careful when we assume he is involved in a way that overrides the laws of nature he himself put in place. In the process of creation, God limited himself in many ways. This helps to explain evil: God refrains from fixing every problem because to do so would deprive us of free will and the continuum of suffering and meaning that are dependent upon that free will. Without the freedom to sin and suffer, we cannot understand what it means to act justly and thrive. In the same way, God limits himself from interfering in the created world because doing so would deprive us of the ability to understand and appreciate his natural order, which is by itself a miracle. God is active by sustaining the laws of nature. To point to parts of the natural world we do not yet understand is to sequester God into those gaps, which is a dangerous place for him to be as we continue to develop our scientific theories of the natural world. Both intelligent design and old-earth creationism run the risk of confining God to these gaps in our scientific understanding.
A valuable idea that Hugh Ross borrows from the Belgic Confession (1561) is that Scripture and the natural world are two different “books,” each originating from God and providing necessary information about the world.14 However, although the Belgic Confession implies that God’s communication through these two books is straightforward and direct, it seems clear from the degree of discourse around these topics that both books need interpretation. As Hugh Ross says, “The scientific enterprise is no more equivalent to nature than biblical theology is to Scripture.”15 Neither science nor theology are infallible. The two disciplines ask and answer fundamentally different questions, although they do overlap. It is the duty of the academic Christian to be adept at performing and respecting both forms of interpretation. This means knowing how to artfully navigate the boundaries of both disciplines.
Nathaniel Trumble ’22
Nathan majored in Psychology and minored in French and Chemistry. He is currently living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We thank Dr. Peter Gonthier (Physics) for his guidance with Nathaniel’s piece.
1 Pew Research, “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace,” Pew Research Center, October 17, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/.
2 Pew Research, “In U.S., Decline.”
3 Ken Ham, “Young-Earth Creationism,” in Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design, ed. J. B. Stump (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 19.
4 Ham, “Young-Earth,” 25-26.
5 Ham, “Young-Earth,” 34.
6 Robert C. Bishop et al., Understanding Scientific Theories of Origins: Cosmology, Geology, and Biology (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018), 10.
7 Hugh Ross, “Old Earth (Progressive) Creationism,” in Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design, ed. J. B. Stump (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 79-82.
8 Ross, “Old Earth,” 95-98.
9 Ross, “Old Earth,” 88-90.
10 Stephen C. Meyer, “Intelligent Design,” in Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design, ed. J. B. Stump (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 188-193.
11 Meyer, “Intelligent Design,” 203.
12 Deborah Haarmsma, “Evolutionary Creation,” in Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design, ed. J. B. Stump (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 134-137.
13 Haarmsma, “Evolutionary Creation,” 140-146.
14 Ross, “Old Earth,” 71.
15 Ross, “Old Earth,” 77.