Something needs to be said concerning the Peter Enns, James McGraths, and Daniel Kirks of the world. They need to be told how much they need to speak positively.
For too long folks have questioned and reinterpreted the Genesis creation narrative with impunity. It is implied, insinuated, and explicitly stated that Adam did not literally exist. We are told that we can have the doctrine and covenant of Adam without having had Adam himself. The issue, we are told, is that the Bible is Christotelic and Christocentric. Supposedly that means that somehow the literal Adam is unnecessary. We can have the antitype, Jesus Christ, without the type, Adam. We aren’t told exactly how this is so.
We are simply left with doubt about Adam’s existence.
We are left with a void where Adam once was.
We are left with the negative, and we are given very little positive.
If these gentlemen truly care for the church, they will supply us exegesis, theology, and sound reasoning based upon Scripture as to why and how we can and must do without Adam.
Replace the void with something constructive.
Offset the negative with something positive.
Don’t leave people in doubt of the Scriptures and of God. Use Scripture to build a constructive case for your position.
Give God’s people a reason for believing Scripture.
If you can only sow seeds of doubt, stir up dissension, and leave the man in the pew scratching his head in confusion, just hush it up! You are doing no one any good.
Either teach a truly positive and Christocentric theology which upholds the veracity of Scripture as Jesus did, or be silent until you can.

One does not have to accept macroevolution simply because he accepts microevolution.

First of all, definitions:

Microevolution:

Microevolution is evolution on a small scale—within a single population. That means narrowing our focus to one branch of the tree of life.

 

Macroevolution:

Macroevolution generally refers to evolution above the species level. So instead of focusing on an individual beetle species, a macroevolutionary lens might require that we zoom out on the tree of life, to assess the diversity of the entire beetle clade and its position on the tree.

Macroevolution refers to evolution of groups larger than an individual species. Macroevolution encompasses the grandest trends and transformations in evolution, such as the origin of mammals and the radiation of flowering plants. Macroevolutionary patterns are generally what we see when we look at the large-scale history of life.

 

Note that macroevolution refers to evolution above the species level  and tries to understand the origin of groups larger than species, while microevolution looks at change that is pretty much change within species.

Now Young Earth Creationists generally speak of created kinds instead of species, because kinds seems to include more than a single species. That does not mean that the change within kinds that YEC believe in necessitates their believing in macroevolution. The reason is that macroevolution looks far beyond speciation to the largest of all trends in evolution. Notice that the definition above shows that macroevolution looks at the origin of mammals and not simply change within mammalia. Thus there is a vast difference between the YEC view of change and the macroevolutionary view of change.

Furthermore, YEC are not the only folks who have issues with macroevolution. There are proponents of Intelligent Design who have problems with it.

Surprise! There’s no satisfactory mathematical model for macroevolution, at the present time

In 2006, Professor Allen Macneill acknowledged that macroevolution is not mathematically modelable in the way that microevolution is. He could have meant that macroevolution is not mathematically modelable at all; alternatively, he may have simply meant that macroevolutionary models are not as detailed as microevolutionary models. If he meant the latter, then I would ask: where’s the mathematics that explains macroevolution? Surprisingly, it turns out that there is currently no adequate mathematical model for Darwinian macroevolution. Professor James Tour’s remark that “The Emperor has no clothes” is spot-on.

Click here for the full article.

The argument that YEC’s belief in multitudes of changes within created kinds is a belief in some form of Darwinian macroevolution is simply a strawman fallacy.

When the Creator spoke to Adam and warned him against eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, He warned him that he would die if he at of it. Some have looked at the statement and wondered how a father could tell his child, “If you do this thing, I’ll kill you”. The reality is that something vastly different was taking place. The man would surely die, but he was not being warned of it by one who was solely his father.

The relationship between the LORD (YHWH) and Adam was that of a King and his vassal. There is a covenant that is being established. The covenant is that man is to rule the world as YHWH rules it. He is to take dominion, fill the earth, and enjoy the fruits God gave him. There is one point which is a breaking point: if man does not worship God as evidenced by his enjoying Him through His gifts, but decides to turn aside and worship in his own way by disobeying in the partaking of the forbidden fruit, he will be a covenant breaker who is subject to death.

This is not about a father telling his son that he will kill him for disobeying. This is about the King of kings telling his subjects the consequences of treason. It is about the gracious, Covenant making God declaring the results of man’s failing to worship according to the covenant rules.

That is why there is no discrepancy between the warning that death will come and the fact that they did not immediately die. Though mankind was plunged into sin and was spiritually dead (I.e. he was alienated from God.), there was a sense in which he worshiped God and became covenantally alive by means of the death of an animal in his place ( Genesis 3:21). Man’s shame was covered and man lived a while longer due to the provisional nature of the blood sacrifice.

Thankfully we are aware that there is now a sacrifice that does not need to be repeated- that of the lamb of God ( John 1:29;Hebrews 10:11-14).

Practically every time someone such as I warns about the effects of denying the Genesis Creation Narrative as being a true historical narrative we are told that we are employing a slippery slope argument.

No, it’s not a slippery slope argument to say that the logical results (though one may not carry his theology as far as what would logically follow- people are often inconsistent) are the denial of certain fundamental Christian doctrines which have been held by most Christians throughout the history of Christianity.

Today Peter Enns has proven my point by denying that the Old Testament anywhere speaks of original sin. He gives five reasons why original sin should be reconsidered.

1. Inherited sinfulness is not one of the curses on Adam.

Ok. Granted.

But why should the text spell out what is obvious? Adam and Eve sinned, thus all of humanity sinned. What would Adam’s children then be? Sinners. As a matter of fact, Genesis 5:1 specifically tells us that Adam’s’ son was in Adam’s image; so, though the Imago Dei remained, yet there was that tarnished, sinful, Adamic image in the son of Adam.

Then there’s that statement that David made saying that he was conceived in sin and shaped in iniquity. No, he was by no means implying that the sexual act of procreation was sinful. David was stating that he was by nature a sinner. (Psalm 51:5)

Then, of course, there is the anecdotal evidence that shows that Adam’s offspring were sinful people.

2.True obedience to God is both expected and doable.

Amazing! Pelagius would be so proud of Peter!

If true obedience were doable (This is much different from that which is expected.), then why was there provision made for sin? Why were sacrifices performed immediately after Adam’s fall? Why did men offer blood sacrifices before the law was given? Why was Abel spoken of as being justified by faith- faith which was demonstrated when he offered the blood of an animal, which was a symbol of Jesus Christ crucified for us?

Why, then, does Jeremiah say, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” (Jeremiah 13:23)   Jeremiah was telling us that we are by nature sinful, just as a leopard is spotted by nature. Being by nature sinful, it is natural for us to sin; thus consistently doing good is impossible.

Further more, wise Solomon himself said, “there is no man that sinneth not.” (1Kings 8:46)

Why is Peter so hell-bent on denying  determined to deny what is so very obvious?

3. With one exception,Adam disappears after Genesis 5.

4. Adam is not blamed for Cain’s act of murder.

5. Likewise, Adam is not blamed for the flood.

I wonder if Peter realizes that he is arguing from silence. Does he not understand that is virtually no argument at all?

Remember: I am only looking at the Old Testament here. I know people will respond, “But what about Paul!?” Fair enough–but–even if Paul sees Adam as the cause of human misery and alienation from God, we still need to grapple with why the Old Testament doesn’t see it that way.

Hmmm…so Peter would have us believe that there is a controversy between Paul and Moses? Oh, wait! Peter doesn’t accept Moses as either author or compiler of Genesis.

Obviously Peter is denying that the Bible is without error, because he has just pitted one portion of Scripture against another; thus he has denied that Scripture is free from error.

Nothing new here. Feel free to move on to the next point. This is classic Ennsianism.

Others will respond: “But if Adam isn’t the cause of it all, we no longer have a good explanation for why people are so messed up?” Fine, but the fact that questions arise that muddle our theology doesn’t make the Old Testament magically fall into line.

What an interesting sleight of the hand/keyboard. Enns moves from contrasting his view of the OT with Paul’s view of inherent depravity and now simply speaks of it as our theology being muddled.

No, we are not expecting the Old Testament to magically fall into line. We understand that Paul knew the Old Testament far better than we or Enns shall ever know it. We expect Paul to exegete, explain, and apply the Old Testament correctly. In fact, once we’ve honestly looked at the Old Testament without our modernistic blinders, we find that it does more than magically fall into line- it drew the line and Paul walked the line.

Still others will respond: “But without Adam as the cause of human sinfulness, the entire gospel falls apart.” Rather, I think only a version of the gospel that needs this kind of Adam falls apart. Perhaps there are other ways (and there are).

Well, now! What have we warned about? The importance of the gospel being diminished.

Now we see that Enns proposes another gospel. It would be well if Enns takes the time to remember the words of Paul:

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8–9)

Yes, Enns is taking a slide down the slippery slope; except, as far as logic is concerned, it isn’t a slippery slope- it logically follows that a denial of the Genesis Creation Account as an accurate historical narrative could have profound effects upon how we view the gospel.

To close with the wise words of a lady who has taken the time to read Enns’ books:

there is always a domino effect when one begins to “reinterpret” Scripture. Dr. Enns does not believe that God created the world and all things in six days. Therefore, Adam cannot be an historical figure who is literally the first man created by God from the dust of the earth. Therefore, Paul must be mistaken. And, therefore, the doctrine of original sin must be “rethought” as well.

As his understanding of Scripture and doctrine continues to unravel, what will Dr. Enns be left with when he’s finished?

Cornelius Van Til (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“If the Christian position with respect to creation, that is, with respect to the idea of the origin of both the subject and the object of human knowledge is true, there is and must be objective knowledge. In that case the world of objects was made in order that the subject of knowledge, namely man, should interpret it under God. Without the interpretation of the universe by man to the glory of God the whole world would be meaningless. The subject and object are therefore adapted to one another. On the other hand if the Christian theory of creation by God is not true then we hold that there cannot be objective knowledge of anything. In that case all things in this universe are unrelated and cannot be in fruitful contact with one another. This we believe to be the simple alternative on the question of the objectivity of knowledge as far as the things of this universe are concerned.”

 Cornelius Van Til, The Defense Of The Faith, P&R, Philadelphia, PA, pg 43

In the past week I’ve learned of two guys whose life ended in what we would call a premature manner. One was forty-two years of age and died suddenly. The other was twenty-six years of age and he, too, died suddenly.

These things shock us.

We don’t expect those things to happen.

We understand deep within that these things shouldn’t happen- they simply are abnormalities.

Why?

Because we understand deep down inside that this is not how the world is supposed to be.

Now if the world truly evolved, or if God somehow used evolution to create (which to me seems to be a contradictory use of terms), then these things would be normal and expected. We would realize that it is simply how things are. We would probably even evolve a method/organ with which to deal with these things. We would then accept them easily and move on with life.

But we don’t do that.

We don’t do that because we cannot.

We don’t do that because death will never be normal, though it is understood that it happens.

We battle against death.

We fight it.

We hate it.

We try to avoid it.

We weep, we ache, we cry, we scream, we get angry when we lose someone to death.

This is only understandable in the light of the fact that God gave us a perfect creation just as Genesis 1-2 tell us.

This is understandable in light of the fact that death is an anomaly and not part of creation.

This is also understandable in light of the fact that death results from the fall of man, and so does the accompanying heartache.

We have hope because we read of a literal redemption that is available in Christ.

We have hope because we read of a time when Christ restores Paradise to man, or man to Paradise.

We have hope because we read of a time when death is finally and forever abolished.

Once one begins to deny a literal historical narrative of creation in Genesis 1-2, he logically must deny the literal nature of the reversal of the fall and the return to Paradise.

Redemption is then a fallacy.

It is only a dream.

Christianity is then only an opiate for the uneducated, or those who are in denial.

This is not a slippery slope argument. It is about following the foolish logic of those who deny that the Creation Narrative is truly a literal historical narrative to its end.

Do these professing Christians truly wish to deny hope and peace to grieving people? In the end they are denying it by laying the foundation for the rejection of redemption and restoration. They may not deny these things, but the foundation is laid. It will not be long until there are those who will follow them and their logic to its logical conclusion.

As for me, I shall cling to Scripture and cling to hope in Christ. That is the only way that I can offer hope to others.

If that sounds pragmatic; pardon  me, please. There is simply no reason or no hope in an uncreated world, and I have no desire to embrace irrationality and despair. I also refuse to subject those dear people who are in my care to hopelessness.

I choose to embrace a literal reading of the Genesis Creation Narrative because I embrace rationality and hope.

Jon has a great post here.

Though I haven’t paid attention to the total number of hits, I’m glad that this post is getting seen daily.

The contrast between Genesis and Enuma Elish cannot be emphasized enough.

God The Fount Of All Truth And Rationality

“Without God there is no meaning (truth, rationality, etc.); therefore God exists.”¹

Many years ago a man asked the question, “What is truth?”² We can only speculate about why he asked this question. It is, however, a question that we all must ask. What is truth? Truth is that which conforms to reality. It is the actual state of a matter, and it is also fidelity to a required standard or law³ Having this answer will help us move forward.

The greater problem is that all of us believe that we have truth on our side. Folks who believe in absolute truth argue for their position and do so quite strenuously. Those who do not believe in absolute truth are often absolutely sure of their position as well. Those who believe that there is no such thing as truth and that all things are meaningless are also convinced that their arguments have meaning and are true. How do we judge these claims? How do we deal with this issue? Who is correct? Whose truth is true?

The answer to the above questions brings us back to our definition of truth as that which is faithful to a required standard or law. There must be a standard of truth or we will never have anything by which to measure truth claims. Every man could, and would, be a law unto himself. Truth would be relative without an absolute standard. One man’s truth would be another’s lie, and one nation’s lie would be another nation’s truth. There must be a standard.

What is this standard? First of all the standard must be absolute, or else there will be no consistency or rationality. After all, if truth is forever changing, there is actually no truth at all; because what is true at one point in history would susceptible to becoming an untruth in a moment of time, though nothing but the standard changed. The goal posts would forever be moving and mankind would have no ability to be rational. “David Hume, the great skeptic, has effectively argued that if you allow any room for Chance in your thought, then you no longer have the right to speak of probabilities. Whirl would be king. No one hypothesis would have any more relevance to facts than any other hypothesis. Did God raise Christ from the dead? Perchance he did. Did Jupiter do it? Perchance he did. What is Truth? Nobody knows.”⁴ There must be an absolute standard of truth.

We all are convinced that we have truth. Even the person who believes that truth does not exist, or is relative, is ironically certain that his position is the truth. The one who says that there is no truth, and that words have no meaning, still expects us to find meaning and truth in what he says. Cornelius Van Til responded to such ideas and said, “No human being can explain in the sense of seeing through all things, but only he who believes in God has the right to hold that there is an explanation at all.”⁵

How does God even come into this discussion? Does logic equal God? Hardly, but, on the other hand, logic cannot exist without God. Truth cannot exist without God. Speaking of the Van Tillian view of knowledge, John Frame says, “Without God there is no meaning (truth, rationality, etc.); therefore God exists.”⁶ Greg Bahsen spoke of God and said, “His existence is required for the uniformity of nature and for the coherence of all things in the world.”⁷ This necessity for God is the thing we must prove.

We have already seen that there is a necessity for an absolute standard of truth if we are to have rationality. Why must this standard be God? First of all I must be clear that I mean the transcendent, immanent, eternal, immutable, personal, Trinitarian God of the Christian Scriptures. “Nothing is intelligible unless God exists, and God must be nothing less than the Trinitarian, sovereign, transcendent, and immanent absolute personality of the Scriptures.”⁸ Here I speak of Him only as the eternal and immutable God. (The other attributes will be addressed later in this series.) This God is the standard of truth. He is the truth. John Frame has said that “the argument is transcendental. Rather than offering straightforward empirical evidence for God, it asks the deeper question: what must be the case if evidential argument and knowledge (and hence objective moral standards) are to be possible?”⁹ The answer is that God exists and the Bible provides the only grounds for truth and rationality. But we still must prove God’s necessity.

This world has no other standard of truth than God. God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), and He alone is the arbiter and source of knowledge and truth (Deuteronomy 32:4;1Samuel 2:3;John 14:6¹⁰;2Corinthians 1:18;1John 2:27). Why is He the standard? Because He is the Creator. “If the Christian position with respect to creation, that is, with respect to the idea of the origin of both the subject and the object of human knowledge is true, there is and must be objective knowledge. In that case the world of objects was made in order that the subject of knowledge, namely man, should interpret it under God. Without the interpretation of the universe by man to the glory of God the whole world would be meaningless. The subject and object are therefore adapted to one another. On the other hand if the Christian theory of creation by God is not true then we hold that there cannot be objective knowledge of anything. In that case all things in this universe are unrelated and cannot be in fruitful contact with one another. This we believe to be the simple alternative on the question of the objectivity of knowledge as far as the things of this universe are concerned.”¹¹ There is simply no other way that there can be coherence and rationality. Either God the Creator is the sole and absolute standard and authority, with all things relating to Him and subordinate to Him, or there is no knowledge, truth, or rationality.

Thus we conclude by saying, if God then absolute truth. If we know anything at all, it is because God is the fount of all knowledge and truth.

Genesis 1:1-3;26-31

Why Genesis?

Why Genesis? That is a fair question, is it not? Why write a book of this sort? What is its purpose? What does it tell us about the world, about its authors, compilers, and hearers?

Briefly put, Genesis was written for a group of people who did not know YHWH. They had probably encountered the name, and even worshiped Him by that name (See Genesis 4:26); but they had not truly experienced the covenantal significance of that name YHWH (See Exodus 3:13-15;6:1-8). Genesis would be an introduction to YHWH.

Not only that, but Israel was an idolatrous people, and had been for many generations. Abraham was an idolater before he believed God, and his descendants worshiped the idols of Egypt while in Egypt (See Joshua 24:1-15). They were going to need to be instructed about the nature of YHWH, what He had done and was doing, as well as the fact that He would tolerate the worship of no other gods.

The reason that Israel was given to worship YHWH alone was that He is the God who brought them out of Egypt, and that He is the God who created all things (Exodus 20:1-11).

Another reason that Genesis was given was to show Israel their history so that they would know that they could/should trust YHWH. When one sees the hand of God as the Creator of all things, sees how sin affects and destroys, considers the covenant faithfulness of YHWH to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he will be led to trust Him.

Finally, it is quite reasonable to assert and believe that Genesis is a historical narrative and is thus a record of things which actually happened. After all, it is not much of an inducement to faith and worship to learn that the stories which were told about your God are things which did not truly happen. While some say that truth can be conveyed in many ways, and I would agree, I would also argue that the very fact that worship is based upon the fact that God both created all things, and that He did so in six days, would be severely undermined if God truly did not do just as we have been told.