War of the World Views: Powerful Answers for an "Evolutionized" Culture (11 page)

The Baptist “prince of preachers” Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) uncritically accepted the old-earth geological theory (though he never explained how to fit the long ages into the Bible). In an 1855 sermon he said,

Can any man tell me when the beginning was? Years ago we thought the beginning of this world was when Adam came upon it; but we have discovered that thousands of years before that God was preparing chaotic matter to make it a fit abode for man, putting races of creatures upon it, who might die and leave behind the marks of his handiwork and marvelous skill, before he tried his hand on man.
²

The great Presbyterian theologian at Princeton Seminary Charles Hodge (1779–1878) insisted that the age of the earth was not important. He favored the gap theory initially and switched to the day-age view later in life. His compromise contributed to the eventual victory of liberal theology at Princeton about 50 years after his death.
³

C. I. Scofield put the gap theory in notes on Genesis 1:2 in his Scofield Reference Bible, which was used by millions of Christians around the world. More recently, a respected Old Testament scholar reasoned,

From a superficial reading of Genesis 1, the impression would seem to be that the entire creative process took place in six twenty-four-hour days. If this was the true intent of the Hebrew author ... this seems to run counter to modern scientific research, which indicates that the planet Earth was created several billion years ago … .
⁴

Numerous similar statements from Christian scholars and leaders in the last few decades could be quoted to show that their interpretation of Genesis is controlled by the fact that they assume that geologists have proven millions of years. As a result, most seminaries and Christian colleges around the world are compromised.

Compromise Unnecessary

The sad irony of all this compromise is that in the last half century, the truth of Genesis 1–11 has been increasingly vindicated, often unintentionally by the work of evolutionists. Lyell’s uniformitarian
Principles
dominated geology until about the 1970s, when Derek Ager (1923–1993), a prominent British geologist, and others increasingly challenged Lyell’s assumptions and argued that much of the rock record shows evidence of rapid catastrophic erosion or sedimentation, drastically reducing the time involved in the formation of many geological deposits. Ager, an atheist to his death (as far as one can tell from his writings), explained the influence of Lyell on geology this way:

My excuse for this lengthy and amateur digression into history is that I have been trying to show how I think geology got into the hands of the theoreticians [uniformitarians] who were conditioned by the social and political history of their day more than by observations in the field. ... In other words, we have allowed ourselves to be brain-washed into avoiding any interpretation of the past that involves extreme and what might be termed “catastrophic” processes.
⁵

These “neocatastrophist” reinterpretations of the rocks have developed contemporaneously with a resurgence of “Flood geology,” a view of Earth history very similar to that of the 19th century scriptural geologists and a key ingredient of young-earth creationism, which was essentially launched into the world by the publication of
The Genesis Flood
(1961) by Drs. John Whitcomb and Henry Morris. This movement is now worldwide in scope, and the scientific sophistication of the scientific model is rapidly increasing with time.

Many Christians today are arguing that we need to contend against Darwinism with “intelligent design” arguments and leave Genesis out of the public discussion. But this strategy was tried in the early 19th century with many writings on natural theology, culminating in the famous eight volumes of the 1830s that collectively became known as the
Bridgewater Treatises
. These books were “preaching to the choir” and did nothing to retard the slide in the culture toward atheism and deism. In fact, by compromising on the age of the earth and ignoring Scripture in their defense of Christianity, they actually contributed to the weakening of the church. The same is happening today.

The renowned atheist evolutionist and Harvard University biologist Ernst Mayr said this:

The [Darwinian] revolution began when it became obvious that the earth was very ancient rather than having been created only 6000 years ago. This finding was the snowball that started the whole avalanche.
⁶

Mayr was right about the age of the earth (not Darwin’s theory) being the beginning of the avalanche of unbelief. He was wrong that the idea of millions of years was a “finding” of scientific research. Rather, it was the fruit of antibiblical philosophical assumptions used to interpret the rocks and fossils. Historical research has shown that Laplace was an open atheist, that Buffon, Lamarck, Werner and Hutton were deists or atheists, and that Cuvier, William Smith and Lyell were deists or vague theists. These men (who influenced the thinking of compromised Christians) were NOT unbiased objective pursuers of truth.

Typical of what Lyell, Buffon and others wrote is Hutton’s statement. He insisted, “The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now. ... No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle.”
⁷
By insisting that geologists must reason only from known, present-day natural processes, he ruled out supernatural creation and the unique global Flood, as described in Genesis, before he ever looked at the rocks.

It is no wonder that Hutton could not see the overwhelming geological evidence confirming the biblical teaching about creation, the Flood and the age of the earth. And no wonder all the geology students who have been brainwashed with the same presuppositions for the last 200 years haven’t been able to see it either. We should not be surprised that most Christian leaders and scholars are ignorant of the evidence. They, too, have been brainwashed, as many young-earth creationists once were also.

Disastrous Consequences of Compromise

The scriptural geologists of the early 19th century opposed old-earth geological theories not only because the theories reflected erroneous scientific reasoning and were contrary to Scripture, but also because they believed that Christian compromise with such theories would eventually have a catastrophic effect on the health of the church and her witness to a lost world. Henry Cole, an Anglican minister, wrote:

Many reverend geologists, however, would evince their reverence for the divine Revelation by making a distinction between its
historical
and its
moral
portions; and maintaining, that the latter only is inspired and absolute Truth; but that the former is not so; and therefore is open to any latitude of philosophic and scientific interpretation, modification or denial! According to these impious and infidel modifiers and separators, there is not one third of the Word of God that is inspired; for not more, nor perhaps so much, of that Word, is occupied in abstract moral revelation, instruction, and precept. The other two thirds, therefore, are open to any scientific modification and interpretation; or, (if scientifically required,) to a total denial! It may however be safely asserted, that whoever professedly, before men, disbelieves the inspiration of any part of Revelation, disbelieves, in the sight of God, its inspiration altogether. … What the consequences of such things must be to a revelation-possessing land, time will rapidly and awfully unfold in its opening pages of national skepticism, infidelity, and apostasy, and of God’s righteous vengeance on the same!
⁸

Cole and other opponents of the old-earth theories rightly understood that the historical portions of the Bible (including Genesis 1–11) are foundational to the theological and moral teachings of Scripture. Destroy the credibility of the former and sooner or later you will see rejection of the latter both inside and outside the church. If the scriptural geologists were alive today and saw the castle diagram shown below, they would say, “That pictures exactly what we were concerned about!” The history of the once-Christian nations in Europe and North America has confirmed the scriptural geologists’ worst fears about the church and society.

It is time for the church, especially her leaders and scholars, to stop ignoring the age of the earth and the scientific evidence that increasingly vindicates the Word of God. The church must repent of her compromise with millions of years and once again believe and preach the literal truth of Genesis 1–11. It is time to take our culture back.

1
. See Mortenson, T., The Great Turning Point: The Church’s Catastrophic Mistake on Geology—Before Darwin (Master Books, 2004) for a full discussion of these men and the battle they fought against these developing old-earth theories and Christian compromises.

2
. Spurgeon, C.H., Election, The New Park Street Pulpit 1:318, 1990.

3
. See Pipa, J., and Hall, D., eds., Did God Create in Six Days? pp. 7–16, 2005, for some of the documentation of this sad slide into apostasy.

4
. Archer, G., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, p. 187, 1985.

5
. Ager, D.,The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, pp. 46–47, 1981.

6
. Mayr, E., The nature of the Darwinian revolution, Science 176:988, 1972.

7
. Hutton, J., Theory of the Earth, Trans. of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1788, quoted in Holmes, A., Principles of Physical Geology, pp. 43–44, 1965.

8
. Cole, H., Popular Geology Subversive of Divine Revelation, pp. ix–x, 44–45 footnote, 1834.

8

What’s Wrong with Progressive Creation?

Ken Ham & Dr. Terry Mortenson

As we saw in the last chapter, because of the impact of evolutionary thought on our culture, many Christians have compromised with so-called “science” and tried to add millions of years to the Bible. As a result, we have the gap theory, the day-age view, theistic evolution and the framework hypothesis. While these views differ in significant areas, one thing they all have in common is adoption of an evolutionary timescale. Perhaps the most significant movement of late is the view called progressive creationism, championed by Dr. Hugh Ross. This chapter will compare Dr. Ross’s teachings with the Bible and science and show us the dangers of trying to fit the Bible into modern-day scientific theories.

One result of compromising with our evolutionary culture is the view of creation called the “day-age” theory or “progressive creation.” This view, while not a new one, has received wide publicity in the past several years. Much of this publicity is due to the publications and lectures of astronomer Dr. Hugh Ross—probably the world’s leading progressive creationist. Dr. Ross’s views on how to interpret the book of Genesis won early endorsements from many well-known Christian leaders, churches, seminaries and Christian colleges. The teachings of Dr. Ross seemingly allowed Christians to use the term “creationist” but still gave them supposed academic respectability in the eyes of the world by rejecting six literal days of creation and maintaining billions of years. However, after his views became more fully understood, many who had previously embraced progressive creation realized how bankrupt those views are and removed their endorsement.

In this chapter some of the teachings of progressive creation will be examined in light of Scripture and good science. For a more complete analysis, see the book
Refuting Compromise
by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati.

In summary, progressive creation teaches:

• The big bang origin of the universe occurred about 16 billion years ago.
  
• The days of creation were overlapping periods of millions and billions of years.
  
• Over millions of years, God created new species as others kept going extinct.
  
• The record of nature is just as perfect as the Word of God.
  
• Death, bloodshed and disease existed before Adam and Eve.
  
• Manlike creatures that behaved much like us (and painted on cave walls) existed before Adam and Eve but did not have a spirit and thus had no hope of salvation.
  
• The Genesis Flood was a local event.