Questions for theistic evolutionists

[nightbringer]

I'm a YEC-er but I'm no scientist so my while I do have some doubts about the scientific validity of the general theory of evolution, my stance is mostly fuelled by my faith in Scripture. That said, I'm interested to see just how much of a live option theistic evolution is for a someone who holds to Biblical inerrancy as I do so I'd like to ask some questions relating to how certain passages can be understood from a theistic evolution perspective. I tend to find most discussions focus on the Genesis 1 text but I do not think Genesis 1 alone would demand a young earth. I am personally persuaded by the view put forward by John H. Walton in 'The Lost World of Genesis One' that Genesis 1 describes functional origins not material origins.

My first question is about Exodus 20:8-11

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (NIV)

Here God is telling the Israelites to adhere to a literal seven day week with one day for rest. God's reason for this takes into account his own seven day creation activity. Would it make sense for God to base his reasons for a literal seven day week on a non-literal seven day creation activity? Isn't this text a good 'proof-text' for a literal seven day creation?

I'd appreciate any thoughtful responses to this question. Thanks in advance!

[shunyadragon]

I'm a YEC-er but I'm no scientist so my while I do have some doubts about the scientific validity of the general theory of evolution, my stance is mostly fuelled by my faith in Scripture. That said, I'm interested to see just how much of a live option theistic evolution is for a someone who holds to Biblical inerrancy as I do so I'd like to ask some questions relating to how certain passages can be understood from a theistic evolution perspective. I tend to find most discussions focus on the Genesis 1 text but I do not think Genesis 1 alone would demand a young earth. I am personally persuaded by the view put forward by John H. Walton in 'The Lost World of Genesis One' that Genesis 1 describes functional origins not material origins.

My first question is about Exodus 20:8-11



Here God is telling the Israelites to adhere to a literal seven day week with one day for rest. God's reason for this takes into account his own seven day creation activity. Would it make sense for God to base his reasons for a literal seven day week on a non-literal seven day creation activity? Isn't this text a good 'proof-text' for a literal seven day creation?

I'd appreciate any thoughtful responses to this question. Thanks in advance!

The best reference I can give is grmorton. He has had some threads in the past that deal directly with this issue. If he does not respond to this thread send him a PM or email.

From my perspective you simply have to deal with the overwhelming physical evidence against the YEC view.

In response to the Exodus quote, the day to God may be a different time reference than a day on earth. There is a reference in the Bible that describes a day may refer to a long period of time. I refers to 1,000 years to a day, and this may be symbolic to longer period of time.

[nightbringer]

Yeah just dropped grmorton a PM, good suggestion.

The problem I have with the 1 day = 1000 years argument is that while I agree that the 1000 years is symbolic, I don't see why God would reason for a 7 day week based on some unrelated period of time.

[rogue06]

I'm a YEC-er but I'm no scientist so my while I do have some doubts about the scientific validity of the general theory of evolution, my stance is mostly fuelled by my faith in Scripture. That said, I'm interested to see just how much of a live option theistic evolution is for a someone who holds to Biblical inerrancy as I do so I'd like to ask some questions relating to how certain passages can be understood from a theistic evolution perspective. I tend to find most discussions focus on the Genesis 1 text but I do not think Genesis 1 alone would demand a young earth. I am personally persuaded by the view put forward by John H. Walton in 'The Lost World of Genesis One' that Genesis 1 describes functional origins not material origins.

My first question is about Exodus 20:8-11



Here God is telling the Israelites to adhere to a literal seven day week with one day for rest. God's reason for this takes into account his own seven day creation activity. Would it make sense for God to base his reasons for a literal seven day week on a non-literal seven day creation activity? Isn't this text a good 'proof-text' for a literal seven day creation?

I'd appreciate any thoughtful responses to this question. Thanks in advance!

This is a question that should be addressed to OECs of various stripes as well since it is one dealing with the nature of the creation days rather than anything exclusive to TE.

The first thing I’d point out is that it might be the other way around. Instead of the six day motif in Exodus being used to reinforce the notion of a creation week it could be that the six day motif in Genesis to reinforce the concept of the work week with a holy seventh day of rest.

IOW, the only thing it demonstrates is that God gave us a pattern of work/rest not that the 24-hour long day model is the correct interpretation. Essentially the text establishes the principle of six periods of work followed by one period of rest.

Second you should probably understand that many of those considered leading figures in the Biblical Inerrancy movement have little or no trouble with either the idea of an old Earth and evolution. Some were even advocates of evolution.

B.B. Warfield, whose influence can be seen in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI), was a theistic evolutionist (TE): "I do not think that there is any general statement in the Bible or any part of the account of creation, either as given in Genesis 1 and 2 or elsewhere alluded to, that need be opposed to evolution."

While he had questions he makes it clear that,

“The upshot of the whole matter is that there is no necessary antagonism of Christianity to evolution, provided that we do not hold to too extreme a form of evolution. To adopt any form that does not permit God freely to work apart from law and which does not allow miraculous intervention (in the giving of the soul, in creating Eve, etc.) will entail a great reconstruction of Christian doctrine, and a very great lowering of the detailed authority of the Bible.”

He further said that, "If under the directing hand of God a human body is formed at a leap by propagation from brutish parents [that is, per saltum evolution (evolution by mutation)], it would be quite consonant with the fitness of things that it should be provided by his creative energy with a truly human soul."

IOW, God created the matter of the universe with the forces of nature ex nihilo, through evolution he providentially formed man, and by a special act of mediate creation he created the soul of humans.

Warfield also held that

“All that has come into being since [the original creation of the world stuff] – except the souls of men alone – has arisen as a modification of this original world-stuff by means of the interaction of its intrinsic forces…. [These modifications] find their account proximately in ‘secondary causes’; and this is not only evolution but pure evolutionism.”

D.I. Packer, considered one of the most influential evangelicals in America and defender of Biblical Inerrancy wrote an endorsement for the pro-TE anti-ID book called 'Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?' in 2008 and has said that he could not see anything that bears on the biological theory of evolution one way or the other.

Returning to the days of creation as well as the 1982 International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) that I mentioned earlier in association with Warfield, with the exception of one of the founders of the modern YEC movement Henry Morris, they unanimously agreed to not include a 144-hour (six 24-hour long days) creation as an essential component of a fundamentalist belief in inerrancy.

The ICBI also advocated freedom of interpretation on the age issue. In their "Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics," Articles XX-XXII relate to Bible and science issues the ICBI conferees refused to link Biblical inerrancy with a specific view of the age of the earth in interpreting Genesis 1, allowing freedom of interpretation.

Dr. Norm Geisler wrote that Article XXII of the ICBI Statement affirmed the factual, historical nature and scientific accuracy of Genesis 1-11, but it "left open the question of the age of the earth on which there is no unanimity among evangelicals and which was beyond the purview of this conference." (Explaining Hermeneutics, ICBI, 1983).

Biblical scholars point out that the Bible is inerrant with respect to religious truth, not in matters that are of no significance to salvation. That was made clear by the ICBI’s statement on Biblical Hermeneutics, article 23: “WE AFFIRM the clarity of Scripture and specifically of its message about salvation from sin. We deny that all passages of Scripture are equally clear or have equal bearing on the message of redemption.”

As Merrill F. Unger another prominent advocate of Biblical Inerrancy IIRC put it this way: "The Naïve View that creation was effected in one ordinary week about 4,000 B.C. is shaky on hermeneutical grounds and absurd on scientific grounds."

Some current prominent, conservative, evangelical scholars who firmly believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, the historicity of Genesis, and believe in long creation days include Gleason Archer, William Lane Craig, R.C. Sproul, and Norman Geisler.

So, realizing that the Earth and surrounding Universe is actually far older than a few thousand years is not opposed by biblical inerrancy. And neither is accepting that evolution took place.

Sorry. Meant for this to have been a quick answer.

[KBertsche]

My first question is about Exodus 20:8-11



Here God is telling the Israelites to adhere to a literal seven day week with one day for rest. God's reason for this takes into account his own seven day creation activity. Would it make sense for God to base his reasons for a literal seven day week on a non-literal seven day creation activity? Isn't this text a good 'proof-text' for a literal seven day creation?

I'd appreciate any thoughtful responses to this question. Thanks in advance!

I had a Bible professor in seminary who viewed it the same way Rogue does. He thought this verse makes the days less likely to be literal 24-hour periods, and more likely to be a divine "accommodation" or literary construct to serve as an example for man's work week.

[Marshall Janzen]

Hi Nightbringer,

Good question. I'm going to answer it from my perspective by looking at a few related texts to Exodus 20:11.

In Exodus, the six days of creation are twice mentioned when talking about the Sabbath. The other mention is in Exodus 31:17 where we also read that on the seventh day God "rested and was refreshed." I believe this is more symbolic than literal. God didn't actually become tired and need refreshment. As Jesus later declared when questioned about working on the Sabbath, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." If God ever took a break, we wouldn't be here! In the Genesis 1 account and the Exodus references to it, God is personified as a human labourer. God works during the day and rests each night, as seen by how each day ends with "and there was evening and there was morning" with no activity during this time. Finally, God sets apart the seventh day to rest and be refreshed. (And like rogue, I think Genesis 1 describes creation in a structure that we can emulate, rather than us emulating the literal work time and break time that God used, since God doesn't literally take breaks.)

The same humanization happens in the other key explanation of the Sabbath command in a parallel account to Exodus 20. In Deuteronomy 5:12-15, the Sabbath commemorates the exodus. I don't take the "mighty hand and an outstretched arm" as a literal description of God's body and how he defeated the Egyptians, but rather a more symbolic reference to his miraculous deliverance. I also take the six-and-one day framework as symbolic. There is no reason that a symbolic reference to six creation days would be out of bounds in the Decalogue, just as it isn't out of bounds to have a symbolic reference to the exodus.

If that is hard to accept, consider how another ordinance was instituted. Not the Sabbath, but the Lord's Supper. Jesus said "this is my body", and many Christians believe this must be literal, especially since the same thing is described in more detail in another account (John 6). Others think it is a true statement by Jesus, but symbolic. So too, many Christians insist that the Sabbath command explanation that "in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day" (Exodus 20:11) must be literal, especially since the same thing is described in more detail in another account (Genesis 1:1-2:3). Others think it is a true statement, but a symbolic one. The six days are just as symbolic as the seventh, which represents God's rest, which we can still enter today because it is ongoing (Hebrews 4:1-11). Support for this is found in Psalm 104:10-30, which describes many of God's creative acts from Genesis 1 as being ongoing and not confined to six days in the past.

Seeing symbolism in how human ordinances are tied to God's indescribable work doesn't make God's work false, but it does change how we understand it.

[nightbringer]

This is a question that should be addressed to OECs of various stripes as well since it is one dealing with the nature of the creation days rather than anything exclusive to TE.

Yes quite right. I didn't think about that.

The first thing I’d point out is that it might be the other way around. Instead of the six day motif in Exodus being used to reinforce the notion of a creation week it could be that the six day motif in Genesis to reinforce the concept of the work week with a holy seventh day of rest.

IOW, the only thing it demonstrates is that God gave us a pattern of work/rest not that the 24-hour long day model is the correct interpretation. Essentially the text establishes the principle of six periods of work followed by one period of rest.

I don't think this is a plausible option. The logic found in the Exodus passage is "God did X, therefore the Israelites ought to do Y". This solution changes the logic to "The Israelites ought to do Y, therefore God gave them a model of X." There might not be anything intrinsically bad about the logic of the solution, it just isn't found in the text.

Second you should probably understand that many of those considered leading figures in the Biblical Inerrancy movement have little or no trouble with either the idea of an old Earth and evolution. Some were even advocates of evolution.

I realise this but the fact that some people believe both TE/OEC and Biblical inerrancy does not mean that they are consistent in doing so. Consistency is what I'm concerned with here. Saying that, I am not of the YEC stripe that says all non-YECers are consciously compromising exegetical integrity to harmonise modern science with the Bible. I don't think the Biblical case for YEC is as a clear cut as most proponents claim. Thus I recognise the issue as one very much open to debate. Hence my inquiry here

Sorry. Meant for this to have been a quick answer.

Hah no worries. Thanks for the response.

[nightbringer]

Hi Nightbringer,

Good question. I'm going to answer it from my perspective by looking at a few related texts to Exodus 20:11.

In Exodus, the six days of creation are twice mentioned when talking about the Sabbath. The other mention is in Exodus 31:17 where we also read that on the seventh day God "rested and was refreshed." I believe this is more symbolic than literal. God didn't actually become tired and need refreshment. As Jesus later declared when questioned about working on the Sabbath, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." If God ever took a break, we wouldn't be here!

I agree, God does not need refreshing! Walton, in the book I mentioned in the OP, makes a case that the "resting" talk refers to the temple where God is enthroned to rule (he sees the Genesis 1 account as described the setting up of the functional temple of the cosmos.)

In the Genesis 1 account and the Exodus references to it, God is personified as a human labourer. God works during the day and rests each night, as seen by how each day ends with "and there was evening and there was morning" with no activity during this time. Finally, God sets apart the seventh day to rest and be refreshed. (And like rogue, I think Genesis 1 describes creation in a structure that we can emulate, rather than us emulating the literal work time and break time that God used, since God doesn't literally take breaks.)

I think the same problem occurs here, that the logic of the Exodus 20:11 passage does not reflect this sort of thinking.

The same humanization happens in the other key explanation of the Sabbath command in a parallel account to Exodus 20. In Deuteronomy 5:12-15, the Sabbath commemorates the exodus. I don't take the "mighty hand and an outstretched arm" as a literal description of God's body and how he defeated the Egyptians, but rather a more symbolic reference to his miraculous deliverance.

Agreed. But it would be quite different if God commanded the Israelites to develop mighty hands with always outstretched arms because he himself has so. In this scenario we would have to consider either that the arm descriptions of God are literal, or that God has some very funny logic.

I also take the six-and-one day framework as symbolic. There is no reason that a symbolic reference to six creation days would be out of bounds in the Decalogue, just as it isn't out of bounds to have a symbolic reference to the exodus.

If that is hard to accept, consider how another ordinance was instituted. Not the Sabbath, but the Lord's Supper. Jesus said "this is my body", and many Christians believe this must be literal, especially since the same thing is described in more detail in another account (John 6). Others think it is a true statement by Jesus, but symbolic. So too, many Christians insist that the Sabbath command explanation that "in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day" (Exodus 20:11) must be literal, especially since the same thing is described in more detail in another account (Genesis 1:1-2:3). Others think it is a true statement, but a symbolic one. The six days are just as symbolic as the seventh, which represents God's rest, which we can still enter today because it is ongoing (Hebrews 4:1-11). Support for this is found in Psalm 104:10-30, which describes many of God's creative acts from Genesis 1 as being ongoing and not confined to six days in the past.

I don't think the lord's supper is a relevant analogy here. In the lord's supper Jesus gives us a symbolic means to remember a literal event. That is different from the Exodus 20:11 passage where you are claiming God gave the Israelites a literal 7 day week to pattern themselves after a non-literal creation period.

[nightbringer]

As it happens, through re-reading parts of The Lost World of Genesis One to think about your responses, I realised I totally misunderstood part of Walton's conclusion. He in fact agrees that the creation days are literal, it's just that those days didn't consist in material creation, but in the ordination of creation's function. So I accept that the Exodus 20:11 does correspond to literal days without making any statement about how long the material process that created us took. So I've kinda answered my own question. I very much appreciated everyone's input though!

I'd like to ask another question if that's cool! In Genesis 3:14-15 God describes the curse he has put on the serpent for deceiving Eve. Of particular note is the part where God says,

... on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

YECs typically interpret this to mean that snakes had some morphological change after the curse (they lost their legs when previously they had some, or something.) Obviously, by the standard chronology, leg-less snakes predate humans. How do OEC/TE-ers interpret the curse?

[KBertsche]

I'd like to ask another question if that's cool! In Genesis 3:14-15 God describes the curse he has put on the serpent for deceiving Eve. Of particular note is the part where God says,



YECs typically interpret this to mean that snakes had some morphological change after the curse (they lost their legs when previously they had some, or something.) Obviously, by the standard chronology, leg-less snakes predate humans. How do OEC/TE-ers interpret the curse?

It seems to me that the text primarily has in mind a curse on Satan, and perhaps on the one particular serpent (indwelled by Satan) involved in the Fall. Does this apply to all other serpents as well? I don't see that the text clarifies this, and it is dangerous to go beyond the text.

Likewise, when the ground is cursed, it is in relation to man's productivity and livelihood, somewhat analogous to the curse on woman's productivity in childbearing. I don't see that this implies any sort of wholesale change to the rest of the created order, such as the rocks and the stars and the animals.

[nightbringer]

I think you make some good points. I'm going away now for a few days but I'll respond in more detail when I return.

[Marshall Janzen]

Addressing two issues together:

I think the same problem occurs here, that the logic of the Exodus 20:11 passage does not reflect this sort of thinking.

I don't think the lord's supper is a relevant analogy here. In the lord's supper Jesus gives us a symbolic means to remember a literal event. That is different from the Exodus 20:11 passage where you are claiming God gave the Israelites a literal 7 day week to pattern themselves after a non-literal creation period.

Certain interpretations may not reflect that sort of logic, but I don't think we can put that back on the text. The example with the Lord's Supper is indeed instructive. Many Christians would not read that as symbolic the way you do -- many think there is something more literal in the wording. Now, I agree with you on the symbolism in how the Lord's Supper is equated with Jesus' body, but I do so for the same reason that I see symbolism in how the six days are equated with God's work in creation, and the Sabbath is equated with God's rest. As Walton's book states (though I've only read his Genesis commentary, not the one you mentioned), and as Hebrews 3-4 alludes to, God's rest is much more than a literal day. I don't think we can press the previous six days to be more literal than the last one.

Now, I do agree that the days are presented as literal in Genesis 1. However, this is no different to how the bowls of Revelation 16 are presented as literal. Within the account, God's wrath is a liquid of some sort that is contained in these bowls and can be poured out onto the earth. Within Genesis 1, the seven days encapsulate God's creation and rest just as later the seven bowls encapsulate God's wrath. So, I don't think we need to try and stretch the days to ages or the bowls to cisterns, because within the accounts they do refer to days and bowls. But, the whole framework is used to tangibly describe something that physical terminology really can't do justice to. God is condescending to speak, and thank God for that, because otherwise we'd have no revelation at all!

But it would be quite different if God commanded the Israelites to develop mighty hands with always outstretched arms because he himself has so. In this scenario we would have to consider either that the arm descriptions of God are literal, or that God has some very funny logic.

God commanded the Israelites to rest and be refreshed because he himself rested and was refreshed. Yet, neither of us takes that refreshment literally for God, even though I assume we think the Israelites were supposed to literally be refreshed (whatever else the Sabbath included, it's clear it included rest and refreshment).

[grmorton]

Yeah just dropped grmorton a PM, good suggestion.

The problem I have with the 1 day = 1000 years argument is that while I agree that the 1000 years is symbolic, I don't see why God would reason for a 7 day week based on some unrelated period of time.

Being the president of a startup geophysical company leaves me, unfortunately, very very little time to debate. I do books, I program product, I am a salesman, accountant, treasurer and all round flunky for my partner, who is also all the same things to me.

I just answered Nigtbringer. For anyone else, I would suggest looking at http://home.entouch.net/dmd/daysofproclamation.htm

I believe that the 6 days were 6 pre-temporal events and God used days to memorialize them. The Exodus verse, in my opinion, does not have to be interpreted as indicating the temporal time of creation. My view goes back to the 4th century AD so it isn't original to me and I owe Basil, Whiston, Capron and Hayward for their previous work on this viewpoint. I am a mere follower to those great men--yes they are all great, even if I disagree with some of the theological views of some of them.

[superdan54]

Hi nightbringer, thanks for asking these questions!

I don't have too much to add except that even Scripture itself seems to shy away from the idea that we are privy to know the exact details of God's creation. For example, the wise Solomon reflected this in Ecclesiastes 3:11

"He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end."

I certainly understand the desire to keep the simplicity of the text, but Scripture continually paints a picture of a God who's thoughts and actions are much higher than our own. This, of course, applies both ways, no matter how you view the text .

[mostlyharmless]

I'm a YEC-er but I'm no scientist so my while I do have some doubts about the scientific validity of the general theory of evolution, my stance is mostly fuelled by my faith in Scripture. That said, I'm interested to see just how much of a live option theistic evolution is for a someone who holds to Biblical inerrancy as I do so I'd like to ask some questions relating to how certain passages can be understood from a theistic evolution perspective.

It would be helpful if you stated exactly what you mean by biblical inerrancy. Because most TE's do not believe that scripture was inspired to be a scientific guide for man in any way. As such any scientific inaccuracies in scripture are simply a reflection of the cultural period and so do not affect Biblical inerrancy.

Here God is telling the Israelites to adhere to a literal seven day week with one day for rest. God's reason for this takes into account his own seven day creation activity. Would it make sense for God to base his reasons for a literal seven day week on a non-literal seven day creation activity? Isn't this text a good 'proof-text' for a literal seven day creation?

Lot's of commentators believe God works within the culture and beliefs of the people. If we understand the creation stories as inspired retellings of creations stories common to the area then God is just again reusing an inspired cultural artifact for an inspired purpose (establishing a work rest schedule for man). The literalism of the account is simply not an issue since that was never the purpose of the creation story anyway.

Blessings