More From "The Genesis Debate" - Day-Age vs. 24 Hour Views

Here’s a continuation quotes collected from my finishing reading the book, The Genesis Debate. I’d highly recommend it as a fascinating read because it’s made me think more about the creation days discussion more than anything else I’ve read. If you didn’t already read through my first collection of excerpts, go back and read that first.

So, here’s more of what struck me from the Day-Age proponents -
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One doctrine on which evangelicals agree is that God inspired all 66 books of the Bible. Another is that God created the universe and life. According the Psalm 19, God’s word is written upon the heavens for everyone to read. The Bible also testifies that God is truthful and does not lie. Taken together, these truths lead us to conclude that the record of nature and the words of the Bible must completely agree …
pg 156
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Duncan and Hall’s assertion that we “affirm parity between sinful observers of nature and God’s infallible revelation” is untrue. Young-earth creationists’ hostility to the billions-of-years duration of nature’s record would collapse were they to concede (a) that students of the Bible may be just as sinful as students of nature, (b) that God’s Holy Spirit has the same capacity and desire to spark faith in students of nature as He does in students of Scripture, or (c) that nature’s “book” is as reliable as the Bible, though it is sometimes harder to read. For Duncan and Hall’s creationist ideology to survive, they must ignore or discount an enormous body of scientific evidence and demean or marginalize all scholars who accept it.

The gnostic leaning is evidenced by the fact that young-earth proponents deny most recorded astronomical events (for example, the 1987 supernova eruption in the Large Magellanic Cloud) and light-travel times. All young-earth creationists (in agreement with atheists) accept the impossibility of integrating the established record of nature with a conservative interpretation of Scripture … we do not think that they are deliberately deceptive gnostics or Darwinists. We simply charge them for failing to consider the logical implications of their young-earth interpretation of nature and Scripture …

Has any scientist ever drawn the conclusion from scientific evidence alone that the universe or earth is young? The answer is no - not one. Even leaders of young-earth organizations admit that in several decades of full-time ministry, they have yet to persuade a scientist on the basis of science, of the young age of the universe or earth.

In note 8 of their response, Duncan and Hall [the 6-day-creationists in The Genesis Debate] imply that the current scientific record holds no more certainty than the flat-earth notion. However, no scientist - Christian or no Christian - has ever made such a suggestion, apart from young-earth indoctrination. On the contrary, even the most cautious scientists accept the certainty of much of this record. One Nobel laureate, in fact, has been quoted as saying that we have more scientific evidence for a flat earth than for a universe and earth less than 50,000 years old …

Many non-Christian scientists reject Darwinism’s strictly naturalistic explanation of life’s origin and the descent of man from primates. Many accept the evidence for a transcendent creation event and the meticulous design of the universe, solar system, and life. None endorse a young earth. Thus, one does not need science degrees to conclude that old-earth creationism has strong scientific support, while young-earth creationism totally lacks it …

We reject the notion that biblical faith is blind. Biblical faith is rooted in established truth. The Holy Spirit reveals truth, encourages us to test it (1 Thess 5:21), and empowers us to act upon it. According to the Scriptures, God wants us to test things, to sift truth from seeming truth, and to cling to that which is good.
pgs 197-199
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Scripture suggests to us that when God performs miracles, He leaves evidence for someone to detect. God does not play tricks. Duncan and Hall, however, appeal to time and again to “appearance of age,” the idea that scientific measurement reveals a false age. In their view, God hides His miracles, making things appear as they are not …

God, of course, is free to change the march of time. We believe that if He had, however, He would have left evidence of the change for us to discover, in keeping with His character. He would not force cosmic clocks to run millions of times faster than “real” time. To do so would be deceptive and, thus, out of character … We agree that God can create in any way He wishes, but again we hold that He does not lie about the manner in which He creates. For example, Duncan and Hall fail to understand that astronomers can look back in time and directly observe how God created galaxies and stars.

Duncan and Hall argue, “Galaxies, according to our understanding, appear to be old, just because He miraculously created them as full-blown” (emphasis in the original). Actually, astronomers do not see all galaxies as old or “full-blown.” None of them is old enough to have experienced the demise, the total fuel consumption of all its stars. Nearby galaxies appear middle-aged. Galaxies at a distance of 6 billion light-years from Earth are seen in their youth. Galaxies some 12 billion light-years away are observed in a near new state. At a distance of 13 to 14 billion light-years from Earth, galaxies do not yet exist. At that distance astronomers observe newly formed star clusters beginning to merge into future galaxies. Astronomers even have looked back to that moment soon after the creation event, before stars existed, when light first separated from darkness.

What seems to bother Duncan and Hall is that the light structure, star formation, and galaxy formation astronomers observe seem so “natural.” A deeper look into the scientific literature reveals, however, that this “natural” capacity requires the exquisite fine-tuning of more than thirty cosmic characteristics. The degree of fine-tuning exceeds human design capability by more than a trillion trillion trillion times. In acknowledging this design device, astronomers recognize that ordinary galaxy, star, planet, and moon formation cannot generate even one galaxy-star-planet-moon system capable of supporting life. God must have supernaturally intervened to shape and craft the just-right galaxy, star, planet, and moon to make our existence possible. We see this as a significant concession to the reality of the supernatural.

Duncan and Hall pay a huge price when they insist that the natural record astronomers observe may have no bearing on reality. They toss out all the divine design evidence astronomers have discovered in nature’s record. A young-earth interpretation of Scripture demands the rejection of what secular scholars acknowledge as the strongest evidence for the biblical God, evidence indicating a transcendent Cause of the universe and of exquisite design for physical life.

More after the jump -

Duncan and Hall take a different view of miracles than ours. They write, “The very essence of miracles is to confound our wisdom and defy scientific law.” We would say miracles show God’s power over the physical laws (and over us), demonstrating His capacity to create and implement those laws at will.
pgs 201-202
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A few quotes on Scriptural hermeneutics -

The Hebrew word ’ereb, translated “evening,” also means “sunset,” “night,” or “ending of the day.” The word boqer, translated “morning,” also means “sunrise,” “coming of light,” “beginning of day,” “break of day,” or “dawning,” with possible metaphoric usage. In other words, “evening” and “morning” refer to the beginning and ending components of “day,” however day is used.
Pg 148
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Duncan and Hall describe our claim to a literal interpretation of the Genesis days as a “rhetorical guise.” We have no trouble understanding their desire to lay claim to the exegetical higher ground. However, all Hebrew lexicons cite three different definitions for yom: (1) approximately 12 hours (the time from sunrise to sunset, variable according to season and location); (2) 24 hours (the time from one sunset to the following sunset); and (3) a long period of time (arbitrarily, but not infinitely, long). Thus, we can authoritatively state that there are three possible literal interpretations of the Genesis creation days: six daylight periods, six 24-hour periods, and six long timespans.
pg 206
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The evening and morning refrain that brackets the creation days does not fit with the 24-hour view as Duncan and Hall suggest. Theologian Paul Elbert raises an interesting question on this matter. He asks why, if the Genesis 1 text really intends us to understand the creation days as 24 hours, does it mention “there was evening and there was morning” rather than the scriptural norm for 24-hour days, namely, “there was evening and there was evening” or “there was morning and there was morning.”
pg 208
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So, I started reading this book on the side of Duncan and Hall’s 24-hour viewpoint, but I don’t like how they’ve been addressing Ross and Archer’s Day-Age viewpoint. It just seems unsatisfying somehow. Here’s some of the best I could find after thinking through their chapters supporting the 24 hour view.
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The 24 Hour Viewpoint

… we are not convinced that secular theories are so certain that they require us to alter the classical interpretation of Scripture. History may prove us wrong, but to date, we assign higher enduring status to the interpretations of Scripture from 2000 B.C.-A.D. 1800, than we do to those influenced by evolution from A.D. 1800-2000.
pg 24
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Perhaps unwittingly, Ross and Archer seem to espouse a type of rationalism that is incompatible with the best of biblical Christianity. They open their essay by affirming - at least on the surface - parity between sinful observers of nature and God’s infallible revelation. An equal authority seems to be rewarded to nature (as observed by sinful man) as to Scripture. The result is a rationalism that persistently squeezes Scripture. If Scripture must conform to the status of scientific theory, God’s word is subject to man’s mind.
pg 169
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Ross and Archer also overstate the ability of fallen man. While we agree that no needless barriers should be erected to prevent us from evangelizing the lost, we do not share the view that those who are fallen will be unbiased, make an unassisted free and rational choice, and commit their lives to Christ “when they see a creation model that successfully predicts future discoveries and withstands the assaults of skeptics.” We do not find, and the Bible does not teach, that people come to a saving knowledge simply when arm-wrestled by numerous facts, scientific proofs, or predictive models. Neither are we of the opinion that “our effectiveness in fulfilling our God-given assignment on the earth” depends on reconfiguring the Bible to meet science’s claims du jour.
pg 172
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We disagree that the Bible views things as Ross-Archer suggest: “A galaxy measured to be about 13 billion light-years away must have existed about 13 billion years ago.” That is to put God in a box or to expect Him to march to our watches. Surely, the God of all eternity and Creator of time is freer and more capable than Ross and Archer posit. God can create in any fashion He wishes, and He is not bound by our paltry understanding after the fact.

Nor do we view God as inherently “deceptive” if the galaxies, according to our understanding, appear to be old, just because He miraculously created them full-blown. Concluding that He is “deceptive” is our mistaken reckoning, not His. To insist that God fit in with our chronology is to subordinate the Creature of nature to nature. We deny the ant supernaturalism inherent in any attempt to manacle God and coerce Him to fit our fallible observations. The very essence of miracles is to confound our wisdom and defy scientific law.
pg 173
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And yes, that’s the best I responses I could find reading through the book. Some of these astronomy questions are really bothering me, and the 24 hour guys did nothing to help answer any of my questions now. Read the book for yourself and tell me if Ligon Duncan and David Hall sound very convincing. Instead, they just sort of repeat themselves and ignore half of what the day-age guys were even saying.

I can’t believe it - but my acceptance of twenty-four hour, 6 day creation has just been rocked. This is a first. I honestly never thought I was going to be really challenged on this one.

I'll keep thinking on this one.