Ken Smith [K] wrote: A quick response to one part of Don’s response. I’ll give a response to some other parts in a subsequent response.

[snip]

Now let’s at least get Galileo straight. This debate is, in part, at least about how the Bible is to be interpreted.

D:

Yes, let’s get it straight, and realise that the church had married Scripture to the Ptolemaic cosmology of the scientific establishment of its day. Ken wants to do the same with evolutionism.

K:

And I want to know who is to be our infallible interpreter.

D:

Do you have to be an infallible mathematician to know that 1+1=2? Humph, about the only sensible thing I’ve ever read from Smith was critical of this postmodernist nonsense that he’s now espousing. God meant to communicate with us via Scripture (2 Tim. 3:15-17), which presupposes that we are meant to understand it. A disturbing implication of Smith’s postmodernist approach to the Bible is that sound grammatical-historical principles are not enough to understand Scripture; we need uniformitarian ‘science’. I fail to see the difference, in principle, between that view and the claim of the medieval church that we need the Papal Magisterium to understand Scripture.

K:

I posted, earlier today, a list of commentaries on Genesis by evangelical scholars, and pointed out that none of them supported six-day creation.

D:

This is a recent aberration, as I showed from the Church Fathers and Reformers. It was only after the rise of uniformitarian dogma that commentators ever thought of long ages. We know that some commentators reject six-day creation. But as I stated, many of these same commentators admit that the text does seem to teach it, but they are intimidated by so-called science (actually the conjectures of historical ‘science’) to reject it. The following admissions by prominent commentators come from Jonathan Sarfati, ‘Refuting Compromise’, pp. 56-58, Master Books, 2004:

 · Charles Hodge (1797-1878) was a systematic theologian at Princeton seminary, who wrote many books and articles defending the truths of Christianity, including biblical inerrancy. But he lapsed by rejecting the plain meaning of Genesis because of alleged geological ‘facts’, which were really uniformitarian interpretations of facts. ‘It is of course admitted that, taking this account [Genesis] by itself, it would be most natural to understand the word [day] in its ordinary sense; but if that sense brings the Mosaic account into conflict with facts [millions of years], and another sense avoids such conflict, then it is obligatory on us to adopt that other.'[Hodge, C., Systematic Theology, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, pp. 570-571, 1997.]

 · J. Barton Payne (1922-1979), a highly regarded Presbyterian Old Testament scholar, admits about a variant of the day-age theory: ‘confessedly, it would not have been as readily deduced from the Genesis text had it not been for the evidences advanced by secular science.’ [Payne, J.B., The Theology of the Older Testament, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, p. 136, 1972.]

 · Gleason Archer, Hebrew scholar and staunch defender of biblical inerrancy: ‘From a superficial reading, the impression received is that the entire creative process took place in six twenty-four hour days. If this was the true intent of the Hebrew author (a questionable deduction, as will be presently shown), this seems to run counter to modern scientific research, which indicated that the planet earth was created several billion years ago … the more recently expanded knowledge of nuclear physics has brought into play another type of evidence which seems to confirm the great antiquity of the Earth, that is, the decay of radioactive minerals.’ [Archer, G.L., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Moody, Chicago, p. 187, 1985.]

The rest of Archer’s section is a rationalization to explain away the clear biblical teaching of six 24-hour days, to fit in with uniformitarian ‘science’, because he (rightly) wants to preserve inerrancy, but (wrongly) reinterprets Scripture rather than the ‘science’.

 · Pattle Pun is a biology professor at the ostensibly evangelical Wheaton College. She admits that the plain meaning of Genesis is as YECs say, but rejects it because of the authority of ‘science’: ‘It is apparent that the most straightforward understanding of Genesis, without regard to the hermeneutical considerations suggested by science, is that God created the heavens and the earth in six solar days, that man was created on the sixth day, and that death and chaos entered the world after the fall of Adam and Eve, and that all fossils were the result of the catastrophic deluge that spared only Noah’s family and the animals therewith.’ [Pun, P.P.T., Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 39:14, 1987; emphasis added. Note that creationists would say that most, rather than all, fossils were formed during Noah’s Flood. As shown in ch. 8, creationists acknowledge post-Flood catastrophes.]

 · James Montgomery Boice (1938-2000), a staunch defender of Biblical inerrancy, admitted much the same: ‘We have to admit here [concerning those who take the six Days of Creation as literal days] that the exegetical basis [the arguments from the words of Scripture] of the creationists is strong. … In spite of the careful biblical and scientific research that has accumulated in support of the creationists’ view, there are problems that make the theory wrong to most (including many evangelical) scientists. … Data from various disciplines point to a very old earth and even older universe…’ [Boice, J. M., Genesis: An Expositional Commentary, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, 1:57-62, 1982.]

 · Meredith Kline, a leading advocate of the ‘framework hypothesis’ (see p. 85) admits that his primary rationale is to avoid a conflict with ‘science’. His abstract states: ‘To rebut the literalist interpretation of the Genesis creation week propounded by the young-earth theorists is a central concern of this article. At the same time, the exegetical evidence adduced also refutes the harmonistic day-age view. The conclusion is that as far as the time frame is concerned, with respect to both the duration and sequence of events, the scientist is left free of biblical constraints in hypothesizing about cosmic origins.'[Kline, M.G., Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 48:2, 1996]

In note 47, Kline says:

‘In this article I have advocated an interpretation of biblical cosmogony according to which Scripture is open to the current scientific view of a very old universe and, in that respect, does not discountenance the theory of the evolutionary origin of man.’ In an unedited draft of this paper, Kline admitted further: ‘… Certainly, Genesis indicates that there were steps or stages. The debate is over the time duration of each step … To be sure, the word “Yom” or “day” is almost always used to refer to a 24-hour period so the prima facie indication would be the same in Genesis … My concern here is that the literary structure may indicate something else …’

 · Henri Blocher, another leading Framework proponent, admits: ‘This hypothesis overcomes a number of problems that plagued the commentators [including] the confrontation with the scientific vision of the most distant past.’ [Blocher, H., In the Beginning, IVP, p. 50, 1984.]

 · Bruce K. Waltke, leading Hebrew and Old Testament Scholar: ‘The days of creation may also pose difficulties for a strict historical account. Contemporary scientists almost unanimously discount the possibility of creation in one week, and we cannot summarily discount the evidence of the earth sciences.’ [Waltke, B.K. and Fredricks, C.J., Genesis: A Commentary, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, p. 77, 2001]

K:

Galileo was persecuted

D:

I pointed out that the heresy was inquisitorial not theological.

K:

because his ideas conflicted with the interpretation which had always been held by the Church –

D:

It was equivocal language, just like when we use words like “sunset” and “sunrise”. And please familiarize yourself with the concept of reference frames that I have already explained, which you seem to have missed.

K:

it isn’t hard to dig out from the writings of the Reformers that they, also, accepted that the Sun went around the Earth.

D:

What, the dubious alleged quotation from Luther from Table Talk, published long after his death? Or more equivocal language?

K:

And this is just the main point. The views of Christian scholars have changed through the ages.

D:

Actually, theological novelty in substantive issues is normally called *heresy*. But I have already said that it is appropriate to use science in a ministerial sense, but not a magisterial way. And I have given examples. But Ken is using the conjectures of historical ‘science’ to overrule (not illuminate) the foundational history of the Bible — the history that the rest of the Bible accepts, that Jesus accepted, that the Apostles accepted, the Church Fathers accepted and the Reformers accepted.

K:

If you are going to accuse any theologians who don’t hold to a six-day creation of having some sort of deficient theology, then you will find yourself in a very small minority among writers from the 19th century onwards.

D:

Again you tacitly admit here that earlier writers believed as I have said, in spite of your attempts at obfuscation over the matter. But it is just as I said – they deserted the clear meaning of the Bible because they were intimidated by uniformitarian geology, not because of any new insights into the Hebrew text. And, as I’ve said, being in the minority is not necessarily a bad thing, considering how often the majority head in the wrong direction (as Jesus indicated re the broad and narrow ways). I guess Elijah must really have been wrong because there was only one of him and there were so many prophets of Baal! And Luther must have been wrong, too, because he was a minority of one also. And Tyndale must have been wrong to go against the flow in publishing the Bible in English. Even Galileo must have been wrong if the majority opposed him!

Come on Ken! All these appeals to authority and majority contribute nothing to the debate. Deal with the issues, please.

K:

But doubtless some of this will come up again once we start talking about scientific matters.

D:

The rate we are going with your refusal to address the real biblical issues, we are never going to get to that point.

K:

I will have to dig out some of the very large number of evangelical Christians who have said much the same thing and compile several posts of their quotations.

D:

Oh right, right, so it’s OK for anti-creationists to be vile and nasty, but you will still demand that creationists to be polite back to you. How about practicing what you preach if you don’t want to look like a hypocrite. Also, I would carefully check the accuracy of their statements unless you want more egg on your face.

K:

In your response to a couple of my posts which Rowland put up on the JMM site, and which Rowland put up in the same place, you made some comments about Jonathan Sarfati’s criticisms of John Stear’s No Answers in Genesis site. Up to that time I’d only read the shorter article on NAiG, and decided it wasn’t worth a response. However reading the full article on the True Origins site I realised that the two were different.

D:

Of course. Dr Sarfati informs me that the True Origins version was the LATER one, the opposite of what Smith claimed. The True Origins article contained extra material (NOT a case of the posted version dropping material), but how does this amount to lying? I carefully compared the TrueOrigins article, the one on NAIG, Mrs Smith’s piece and Ken’s piece and I fail to see any evidence whatsoever of lying, which is the slanderous allegation made by Ken. And he has written this piece supposedly to justify his quoting an atheist calling my colleague a liar and an idiot (the label of ‘idiot’ he has not attempted to justify – and I think that the intelligence of AiG leaders would be more than a match for that of Skeptic leaders. Maybe a chess match to settle it; my colleague blindfold against the entire Skeptics board 😉 ?).

So, is Ken claiming that Plimer was right to assert that the Bible errantly says that pi is exactly 3 (rather than understanding it as approximately 3)? It seems so. For more on this topic, see http://www.tektonics.org/lp/piwrong.html or http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i2/pi.asp

K:

I printed this out and took it home to show my wife. She was so incensed at the misrepresentations

D:

I fail to see any misrepresentation. Is this the lying that Ken Smith imagines? They are just different perspectives on the same issue. Fact is, his wife lost the election although she was unopposed. Stop complaining and realise that there is no point trying to convince sceptics that your wife should have been elected. It was the Queensland Baptist Union delegates you had to convince, not anyone else. And clearly they emphatically decided that one so intimately associated with a prominent Skeptic who had a track record of aiding and abetting Christ-haters would be an inappropriate choice as Baptist Union president.

K:

that she promptly wrote a short piece which John Stear put up on his site.

D:

She forgot to ‘thank’ him for writing such bile against Christianity in the Skeptic that it made her husband look bad for being part of them, and dooming her in the election. We will produce some choice Stearisms below.

K:

And I added my response as well.

D:

It’s sad that you would both yoke yourselves with the known Christ-hater Stear. This is the man who said,

“If evolution is fundamentally correct, then there was no Adam; no Adam, no fall; no fall, no atonement; no atonement, no reason for Christ to have died on the cross. If Christ died for no reason then he was not divine and Christianity has no basis in fact. Is there really any need for scientific proof in order to debunk Christianity?”

Without the slightest objection by Ken Smith, Stear went on to fulminate against monotheism, and to chide Skeptics that it “could be seen by some as less than honest” not to attack religion directly (Skeptic 16(2):62, 1996).

Would Smith also agree with Stear’s absurd claim that Hitler and Stalin were Christians? And of course, there wasn’t a whimper of protest from Ken when Stear wrote a book review entitled “Religion as a Health Hazard”, railing against “religion” in general and Christianity in particular for their “deleterious effect on society” (Skeptic 17(3):60, 1997).

How was it that it had to be John Snowden, an agnostic, rather than Ken Smith, who pointed out the many shortcomings of organised humanism/skepticism? But then Ken’s buddy Stear was quick to defend the humanistic faith. In the process he referred to something called the “Christian myth” and “the hazards of religion” and made this absurd statement: “Christianity has some deleterious effects on the well being of society” (Skeptic 18(2):52-53, 1998). Once again, not a peep from Ken.

K:

You, and other people reading this thread, can look at both of these on http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/default.htm under thw “What’s New” part. Helen’s is in the April list and mine is in the May list.

I’ll let other people decide about who is lacking in veracity.

D:

I truly hope that anyone following this unpleasant interaction will actually compare the various documents and you will see that Ken Smith has no case; it’s pure bluff and bluster.

Let’s get back to debating the subject at hand, Ken, which is “How are we meant to understand Genesis?”

Sincerely and with sadness at having to descend into the muck,

Don