I don't recall when I first came across the ministry, InspiringPhilosophy (IP). According to their “About us” page, they are an apologetics ministry and describe themselves as, “a nonprofit Christian organization with the goal of spreading and defending the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” I'd say they're sincere. I've seen a lot of their videos on YouTube and some of them are really good. Of course, there's probably not anyone with whom I agree 100% of the time and my point of contention with IP is their confrontational attitude toward young earth creationism (YEC).
There are other Christian apologists who compromise on the issue of origins but not all of them are as in your face about it as IP. IP doesn't just disagree with creationism and then moves on. They produce a lot of material to try refute it. One particular video they've made is TOP TEN Biblical Problems for Young Earth Creationism. As the title suggests, they present 10 passages from the Bible which, they claim, don't reconcile easily with a young earth. I invite you to watch the entire video for yourself.
I'd like to write a point by point rebuttal of each item. As much as I dislike writing series, I see no choice but to respond in a series of posts. Depending on the length of my reply, I will respond to 1 or 2 points at a time. Please keep checking back.
INTRODUCTION
The video starts by saying, “If you haven't heard, there are millions of people today who believe the earth is only about 6,000 years old and, about 4,000 years ago, there was a worldwide flood that destroyed all life on land except for a few people and two of every animal that survived in an ark. The basis of this theory comes from many who say that we ought to take a literal or a plain reading of the Bible, the Holy Book of Christianity.”
Right from the start, IP is in error. They seem to have the impression that a “literal reading” and a “plain reading” of the Bible are the same thing. Most people should understand that a plain reading of any text will take into account the use of literary devices. A literal reading would mean that even figures of speech would be taken as a statement of fact – so when Jesus said, “I am the vine,” it would mean He is literally a vine!
It's alarming that IP would conflate the two as though they are the same thing.
The video continues, “The rational behind this young earth view, is that they are just taking the plain reading of the text...”
Do you see why IP conflates plain and literal readings? By doing this, they are able to make the plain reading of the Bible seem extreme. 2 Peter 1:20 tells us, “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” In other words, there is no hidden meaning to the Bible. The most obvious meaning of any passage will likely be the intended meaning. If millions of people believe there was a global flood, it's because that's what the Bible seems to say. IP acts like reading the plain words of the Bible is questionable hermeneutics.
The video continues, “and that Christians, who believe the earth is old, have to misconstrue or reinterpret passages to make the Bible fit with an ancient earth and the theory of evolution.”
Well, if the shoe fits.... Look, when God gave the Law to His people, He said, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8-11). Do you think any of the Jews stopped to ask how long God meant by six days? Yes, to make the seven days described in Genesis fit with an old earth and evolution, compromising Christians necessarily misconstrue and reinterpret this passage!
The video continues, “But what many young earth creationists don't realize is that there are several passages, within the Bible itself, that create problems for the young earth theory. Meaning, if we took the plain reading of the text in many places, it would actually contradict the view that the earth and the universe are only about 6,000 years old.”
IP still seems to be saying that a plain reading the Bible isn't the correct way to understand it. If it's not, I have no other way of knowing how to read God's word. Even as I listen to the video, I take its words at their face value. If words never mean what we ordinarily understand them to mean, it would be impossible to communicate!
As I begin to examine the 10 points, keep in mind that wherever it says plain reading, it means the passage really isn't saying what it seems to be saying!
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In this verse, the video suggests that Abraham laughed because he thought it was “biologically impossible” for a 100 year old man and a 90 year old woman to have a child. The claim is that this seems to contradict the genealogies of Genesis where many people lived long ages, so having a child at age 100 shouldn't be such a big deal. There's an old adage that says, a text without a context is a pretext. Looking at this verse by itself, the video's interpretation might seem reasonable but we need to consider the entire context of Abraham's relationship with God.
Abraham was only 75 years old when he left Heran. At that time, God told him, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing” (Genesis 12:1-2). We see then that God didn't appear to Abraham at age 100 and tell him he would have a son. He promised him that many years earlier.
In Genesis 15:2-3, many years later, Abraham is still childless and he argues with God, “And Abram said, LORD God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.”
Still a few years later, Sarah begins to believe she will always be barren. In Genesis 16:2, she tells Abraham, “Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing.” Out of frustration, Sarah tells Abraham to take her handmaid, Hagar, and have a child with her. They do this and Abraham has a son, Ishmael, with Hagar when he was 86 years old (Genesis 16:15-16).
Turning now to the subject verse, when Abraham laughed, I don't believe it was because he thought it was “biological impossible” for an older man and woman to have a child. If he laughed because he doubted God, it was more likely because he had resigned himself to the idea that Sarah was hopelessly barren, seeing that she had not yet had a child after so many years of trying.
I said if he doubted because it's even possible that Abraham's laughter was rejoicing, and he marvelled that God would finally give them, even in their old age, the son they for which they had waited so long! In the same chapter, after his conversation with God, he immediately obeys God's commands and is circumcised along with Ishmael and all the men in his house. He doesn't act like someone who didn't believe God's promise!
Concerning the patriarchs, we can't say with certainty that Abraham knew how long people lived before the Flood. Antediluvian people may have lived to be 900+ but lifespans dropped radically after the Flood. Abraham wouldn't have known anyone 900 years old so 100 may have seemed old in his day. But consider this: Genesis 25 tells us that Abraham remarried after Sarah died (at the age of 127 according to Genesis 23:1-2) and continued having children with his next wife until his death at the age of 175. There's no reason to believe he ever thought a 100 year old man having children was “biologically impossible.”
By the way, at 2:27, the video makes a mathematical faux pas. Well, it's more like a bone-headed mistake. It tries to say that Abraham's father, Terah, was himself 130 when Abraham was born. It reaches this number by claiming Genesis 12:4 says Abraham was 75 when Terah died at the age of 205. They need to go back and read the text again. Genesis 17:26 clearly says that Terah was 75 when Abraham was born. Genesis 12:4 says, “So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.”
I wonder, does IP believe Abraham lived to be 175 or that his father lived to be 205? What do these numbers mean if they don't mean what they seem to be obviously saying? Any Christian who believes in evolution will reject the possibility that people ever lived hundreds of years. So how do they know which numbers are meant to be literal and which are merely symbolic? For example, what does the Bible mean when it says Abraham was 99 and Ishmael was 13 when they were circumcised? Regardless of what the text plainly says, IP has to misconstrue and reinterpret the very passages the video cites, in order to make them fit the evolutionary point of view!
Read the entire series:
I think you make your case that Abraham was not rejecting a priori that a hundred-year-old man could sire a son, or even that a ninety-year-old woman could become pregnant. I have a couple of quibbles.
ReplyDeleteThey seem to have the impression that a “literal reading” and a “plain reading” of the Bible are the same thing.
John Wesley, at some point in his writings, noted that some passages of the Bible are blatantly figurative, and that "in this case, the figurative sense is the literal sense." "Literal" in regard to biblical interpretation is a term of art (I myself did not appreciate this until recently), and is in fact synonymous with reading the text in what is commonly called the "plain sense" (though that may also be misleading, since different cultural contexts may suggest different "plain senses;" this is why some "biblical literalists" use rather cumbersome terms like "historical-grammatical sense" to remind us that we should consider what the original readers would have considered to be the plain sense).
Oh, and in addition, "literal" when used to describe biblical interpretation includes "inerrant." This goes back to the original biblical literalists, the Reformation pioneers like Calvin (note that in Calvin's case, he was rejecting, not a mythological or poetic reading substituted for a literal one, but several allegorical senses piled atop the literal one to support what seemed to Calvin to be human-made doctrines added on to the original deposit of the faith). This implies that a "literal" reading that creates an absurdity, internal contradiction, or blatant error is an incorrect reading, and some sort of figurative reading should be regarded as the correct literal reading.
I assume that this is why, e.g. old-Earth creationist Hugh Ross can describe his own position as a "literal" reading of scripture. Indeed, Inspiring Philosophy seems to me to be building an argument that since a creationist reading produces too many internal contradictions, then a properly "literal" reading of Genesis would regard the entire text as heavily figurative rather than strictly historical.
We see then that God didn't appear to Abraham at age 100 and tell him he would have a son. He promised him that many years earlier.
I think here, unlike your later criticism of the video over how old Terah was when Abraham was born, you are straining to make a point. Obviously, regardless of how many times God might have made the same promise before, the text literally says that God made the promise (again) to Abraham when Abraham was 10 years old. The video's point is about how many of Abraham's ancestors were implied to still be alive at Abraham's hundredth birthday, not when the promise was first made.
I wonder, does IP believe Abraham lived to be 175 or that his father lived to be 205?
Since the video suggests approvingly interpretations that the multi-century lifespans of earlier patriarchs might be hyperbole or symbolic rather than actual statistics, I would suspect that they did not, in fact, believe that Abraham lived to be 175; it is conceivable that they do not regard Abraham as an actual person who actually existed.
Steven J,
DeleteThanks for your comments.
I probably didn't need to point out the video's error in Terah's age but there are 3 reasons why I decided to include it:
1) The error is so blatant, it calls into question how well IP understands the passages their citing.
2) IP was using their incorrect understanding as evidence for their point. They are saying that, if the ages were literal, Abraham would have known his own father fathered a child when he was over 100, so Abraham wouldn't be surprised he could have a son at age 100.
3) I was reinforcing my point by showing that, even though many of the patriarchs lived to be more than 100, most began having children when they were younger than 100. The fact that he and Sarah were this old and still hadn't had a child probably further cemented in Abraham's mind that Sarah was hopelessly barren.
By the way, I too am certain that IP doesn't believe any of the old ages of the patriarchs. I was asking that rhetorically to show that IP really doesn't believe any of the passages they're claiming are problems for creationists. Christian evolutionists often assign the term “symbolic meaning” to the numbers given in the Bible but they are usually very vague about exactly what they're symbolizing.
Thanks for visiting. Please keep checking back on this series. God bless!!
RKBentley