Two millennia ago, the Apostle Paul wrote to his Christian friends: “… and every exaltation that arises against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obedience to Christ” (2 Cor. 10: 5). Over the past two centuries, perhaps the main source of "exaltation, rebelling against the knowledge of God" has been materialism - the teaching that there is nothing in the world but matter. The crown of this dogma was historical materialism, which asserts that the origin and history of the universe can be explained exclusively by natural processes.
In such natural sciences as astronomy, geology, biology, there are elements that are based on materialistic premises and at the same time are used to support them. These elements are the cosmology of the Big Bang in astronomy, the theory of uniformitarianism in geology, and the theory of evolution (the origin of the entire gigantic spectrum of living organisms) in biology. All three of these elements, and not just the theory of evolution, oppose the traditional biblical view of the history of the world based on chapters 1-11 of Genesis (not just the first chapter!).
However, with all this, there are good reasons to think of Genesis 1-11 as a record of genuine historical events. These are the reasons:
1. A Christian, as a follower of Christ, must follow His example in relation to the Old Testament
Jesus perceived the Old Testament Scriptures as the Word of God, that is, the Word spoken by God Himself or inspired by His Holy Spirit, although it was written by the hand of a man (Matthew 19: 4, 5; 22:31, 32, 43; Mark 12:26; Luke. 20:37); therefore, even the smallest letter or dash “will not pass away” (Matthew 5:18; Luke 16:17). Jesus quoted practically all the Old Testament books as unshakable truths, thereby confirming the authenticity of the canon we know.
Consequently, one cannot consider any part of the Holy Scriptures to be defective on the grounds that it is allegedly the fruit of the inventions of "uneducated savages" ("primitive shepherds", "Semitic nomads", etc.).
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The only correct method of hermeneutics (interpretation), which coincides with the method of Jesus Himself, includes exegesis: we read in Scripture only what its authors really say, and not what we would like to attribute to them. Only by honestly and sincerely reading the Holy Scriptures, we discover in it what God says, and not what we, the readers, would like to read, make it more "digestible", adapt to the generally accepted opinion.
This is not at all the superstitious worship of the Bible, which is arrogantly accused of those who believe in the divine inspiration of Scripture. On the contrary, it is only by submitting to Christ's dominion that Christians can learn from Him. Jesus in His sermons now and then says: "For it is said [in the Old Testament] …", thereby confirming the infallibility of the Holy Scriptures. Not only is He not jealous of His hearers for the Bible - He reproaches them for their lack of knowledge of the Scriptures (Mat. 22:29; Mark. 12:24)! In fact, Jesus affirms the historical accuracy of even those portions of Scripture that modern skeptics find most suspicious.
The inerrancy and inerrancy of Scripture logically follow from Jesus' ideas about the divine inspiration of the sacred text: how could God have inspired a mistake? If the Holy Scriptures contain errors, then anyone who points to them, thereby, claims to be infallible, inherent in God alone. The logical culmination of this approach is the ultraliberal "Jesus Seminar," where lots are cast to determine whether Christ actually spoke the words ascribed to Him by the Bible.
Holy Scripture cannot have the highest authority if it is not infallible. Otherwise, we can assume that words such as “love your enemy,” “do not steal,” or “If we confess our sins, then He, being faithful and righteous, will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” are also a mistake!
Sometimes we hear this: "The Bible has authority over matters of faith and practice." But this view is alarmingly narrow: if you cannot trust the Bible, say, in matters of history, then how can you trust it in matters of faith and practice (theology)? Luke 16:31 says: "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then if someone is raised from the dead, they will not believe." And Jesus asks Nicodemus: "If I told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?" (John 3:12). Thus, if the Bible cannot be trusted in earthly matters, why should we trust it in heavenly matters (forgiveness of sins, heaven, moral law)?
Among evangelical Christians, the so-called “Chicago statement” about the infallibility of the Bible is widespread, which is consistent with the teaching of Christ: “What the Scripture says, God says. May He be glorious. Amen and Amen."
However, it is absolutely necessary to make a reservation here. Belief in the infallibility of Holy Scripture by no means means stubborn literalism (a favorite pseudo-argument of the opponents of Christianity). Defenders of the inerrancy of the Bible, and we among them, apply the classical, orthodox grammatical-historical hermeneutics, which takes into account such devices as metaphor, hyperbole, etc. In other words, we literally take only those elements of the sacred text that are clearly intended literal perception (including chapters 1-11 of the Book of Genesis). See also. refutations of other pseudo-arguments, which, unfortunately, have been resorted to by such scholars as JP Moreland and W. Dembski, usually distinguished by scientific consistency.
2. Jesus clearly considered the history of the creation of Adam and Eve and the history of the Flood as facts
Jesus asserted the reality of many people in whose existence skeptics do not believe, and many events that, according to the same skeptics, never happened. Among these people and events are Adam and Eve (Mat. L9: 3–6; Mark 10: 2–9), Abel (Luke 11:51), Noah and the Flood (Mat. 24: 37–39; Luke 17: 26–27), Abraham (John 8: 56–58), the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Mat. 10:15; 11:23, 24), the story of Jonah and the big fish (Mat. 12: 39– 41). One of two things: either Jesus was wrong, in which case He does not deserve our worship, or the skeptics and their allies are wrong. Moreover, Jesus made it clear that history for Him is not at all billions of years, at the end of which man appears; on the contrary, for Jesus man is at the beginning of creation (eg, Mark 10: 6, Luke 11: 50-51).
Christ was fully God, and God is never wrong. But some in the church, trying to disguise the faith of Jesus in the recent creation of all things, claim that He could be wrong in His humanity. This point of view is called "kenotic heresy", which runs counter to the text of Philippians 2: 6-11. However, “humiliation” was actually the addition of Christ's human nature to His divine nature (“the word was made flesh” - John 1:14), not a diminution of the attributes of divinity. Jesus voluntarily renounced some of His attributes that did not depend on the authority of the Father (say, omniscience) -that is why He did not know the day and hour of His second coming; although He could use them at any moment - for example, to know the thoughts of a person. However, Jesus never gave up such absolute attributes,as His perfect goodness, truth, mercy, etc.
Thus, everything that Jesus taught, He preached from the standpoint of absolute infallibility (Matthew 24:35, 28:18). He Himself said: “The words that I speak to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). And He also warned: “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His glory both of the Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).
Moreover, even about the omniscient God the Father, Jesus spoke from the standpoint of absolute authority (John 5:30, 8:28). So those who claim that there are mistakes in the Bible and that Jesus was also wrong, because he was a Man, should take the next logical step: to blame God the Father for the mistakes!
Moreover, such critics often confuse the following pairs of concepts: Adapting to the limitations of mortal humanity does not mean that deception is permissible. Thus, a mother may say to a four-year-old child: “You grew up in my tummy” - this would be a simplification, but not a deception. If you say: "The stork brought you," then it will be an outright deception. In a similar way, God, the Giver of Truth, sometimes condescends to simplifications (for example, like modern scientists, he takes the Earth as a starting point) and anthropomorphization, but he never makes mistakes.
Limitation does not mean misunderstanding. When the Second Person of the Trinity was incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth, He deliberately renounced omniscience, that is, He did not know everything in His humanity. However, this does not mean at all that His knowledge contained errors. Human understanding is generally limited, but this does not mean that correct understanding is impossible!
3. Genesis is a real historical record
In Hebrew, there were special grammatical structures for describing real historical events. These structures are found in chapters 1-11 of Genesis, as well as in chapter 12 and beyond, in the books of Exodus, Joshua, Judges, etc. These structures are not poetry or allegory. The Book of Genesis is dotted with repetitions of the conjunction "and", which is typical of historical chronicles. The verb forms in the first chapter of Genesis are also ideal for a real historical description: this is the past tense, a listing of a number of events that took place in the past. In this case, only the first verb, “bara” (“to create”), is in perfect form, while the rest are in imperfect. Parallelism, this typical feature of Hebrew poetic texts (see many psalms), is practically absent in the Book of Genesis - more precisely, it is found only in quotations from someone's speech.
The most obvious is the structural parallel of Genesis chapter 1 to Numbers 7: 10–84. Both of these texts are structured narratives, both of which contain the Hebrew word 'ισ yom,' meaning day, with an ordinal; more precisely, both deal with the sequence of days, and again the grammatical structure with the multiple repetition of the conjunction "and" is encountered. In the seventh chapter of Numbers, each of the twelve tribes offers a sacrifice on a specific day:
This parallel is further strengthened if we notice that in the seventh chapter of Numbers not only the days are listed, but individual verses (for example, 10 and 84) also include the structure "on the day of his anointing", which can be attributed to each of the days of this sequence. Moreover, no one doubts that we are talking about the most ordinary days of a day. This allows us to refute the assertions of some critics that, judging by the expression “Ι′ισ byom; while”from Genesis 2: 4, which summarizes the week of Creation, the days referred to in Genesis 1 differed entirely in length. “At the time when” is just a colloquial expression that does not differ in meaning from a simple “when”.
Of the structured narrative of Numbers 7, which includes a sequence of days, it never occurs to anyone to say that this is not a historical record, but simply a poetic device applied for theological purposes. No one doubts that Numbers 7 days are just days.
Consequently, there is no grammatical basis for denying the same fact in relation to the first chapter of Genesis. Genesis 1 is also a real historical record. Hebraic scholars claim that the Book of Genesis was created as a historical chronicle. For example, Oxford Bible scholar James Barr writes:
Barr, in accordance with his neo-orthodox views, does not believe in the truth of the chronicle of Genesis, but understands that the Hebrew author of this Book wanted to say exactly what he said. Some critics object to our quoting Barr on the grounds that he does not believe in the historicity of Genesis. But this is precisely why we quote Barr because he is a "hostile witness"! Barr does not need to try to reconcile Being with anything, he does not consider this book as an authoritative source, and therefore nothing prevents him from clearly seeing the author's intentions. This is very unlike those "evangelical" theologians who insist on the "authority" of the chronicle of Genesis, without believing in it themselves.
Other Hebraic scholars who support literal days of creation include:
- Dr. Andrew Steinmann, Associate Professor of Theology and Hebrew at Concordia College, Illinois.
- Dr. Robert McCabe, Old Testament professor at Detroit Evangelical Theological Seminary in Allen Park, Michigan;
- Dr. Tinh Wan, Lecturer in Biblical Hebrew at Stanford University.
4. Hermeneutic principle: Scripture interprets Scripture. Throughout the rest of the Old Testament text, Genesis is taken as a true story
Exodus 20:11 sums up the week of Creation and excludes the possibility of any interpretations suggesting a different time scale (the hypothesis of the "frame of reference", the idea of "day-century", the "gap theory", etc.), since it serves as the basis for the modern week with its seven days, one of which is for rest: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, mine and all that is in them; and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it”(Ex. 20:11). Note that Exodus 20:11 reads: "And God spoke all these words …" These are the words of God Himself, and not the guesses of Moses, or a later editor of the text, or any J, E, D or P (unfortunately, in our "evangelical" theological institutions they still teach this nonsense, which has long discredited itself).
The genealogy of Adam from Genesis is summarized in 1 Chronicles; many other Old Testament texts also confirm the authenticity of the events of Genesis - real historical events that took place in time and space.
5. Hermeneutic principle: Scripture interprets Scripture. Genesis 1-11 is taken as a true story in the New Testament
The New Testament contains over one hundred quotes and direct references to Gen. 1-11, and none of these references gives reason to believe that the chronicle of Genesis is not real history. The genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3) goes back to Adam, "the son of God", and by no means a descendant of a great ape! And for those who consider names from ancient genealogies as metaphors, it would not hurt to ask: if you read these lists from end to beginning, then at what stage do people cease to be people and turn into metaphors? Hebrews 11 lists the heroes of the faith, beginning with Abel, Enoch, and Noah, without the slightest hint that these individuals are "less historical" than the rest. Second Peter 3 deals with Creation and the Flood, and the Greek word is used, meaning not an ordinary flood, but a global cataclysm in the era of Genesis (cf. Luke 6:48).
The apostle Paul quotes God's command to Adam and Eve, as well as the fact that Eve was deceived by the serpent and Adam sinned, and deduces from all this the teaching about the role of men and women in the church (1 Tim. 2: 13-14). If the first people descended from monkeys, then this teaching loses all meaning, since it turns out that the man was not created before the woman.
6. Belief in the historicity of Being is consistent with other historical facts of the divine acts of Creation
Genesis says that God created through His Word. As Psalm 32: 9 says, “He said, and it was done; He commanded, and it appeared. " It is natural to assume that the best thing about God's Creation can be told by God Himself. The Book of Genesis - His Word - says that Creation was fast. This is quite consistent with other biblical accounts of the acts of instantaneous divine Creation. For comparison, let us take the dialogue of the Lord Jesus Christ with the faithful centurion in the Gospel of Matthew 8: 5-13. When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and asked for help. “Lord! my servant lies at home in relaxation and suffering severely. Jesus says to him: I will come and heal him. And the centurion, answering, said: Lord! I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but speak only the word, and my servant will be healed; for I am also a subject person, but, having soldiers under my command,I say to one: go, and he goes; and to another: come, and he comes; and to my servant, do this, and he does. hearing this, Jesus was astonished and said to those who followed Him: Truly I say to you, and in Israel I have not found such faith. But I tell you that many will come from the east and west and will lie down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion: Go, and as you believed, let it be done for you. And his servant was healed at that hour. "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion: Go, and as you believed, let it be done for you. And his servant was healed at that hour. "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion: Go, and as you believed, let it be done for you. And his servant was healed at that hour."
The centurion perfectly understood: even if his own orders are carried out immediately and unquestioningly, then what can we say about the commands of the Lord! This is what happens in the days of Creation described in Genesis:
In this way, God's commands were fulfilled and judged on each of the 24-hour days. Attempts to close our eyes to the clear historical-time frame of the book of Genesis lead to a breakdown of the connection between God's commands and the reaction of God's creation to them, as a result of which Genesis diverges from the rest of Scripture.
7. Without the chronicle of Genesis, suffering and death cannot be explained
Having completed the Creation, God declared that what He had created was "very good." However, things are not so good today. Death entered God's creation - “the last enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26).
The Bible clearly teaches that people began to die as a result of the Fall (Rom. 5: 12-19; 1 Cor. 15: 21-22). The Epistle to the Corinthians even compares the death of the “first Adam” with the resurrection from the dead of the “last Adam” - Jesus.
And therein lies the big problem for the proponents of the theory that the days of Creation are long ages. Because, according to their dating methods, the fossilized remains of a person are much "older" than the estimated dates of Adam's life. Thus, the remains of Homo sapiens with signs of intelligent activity and material culture are "dated" to the age of 160,000 years. And the age of two fragments of Homo sapiens skulls, discovered in 1967 near the Omo River in southwestern Ethiopia, was determined by radiometric dating as 195,000 years.
Of course, the fossil record is a death record. Any attempt to reconcile the Bible with secular "natural history" is based on the idea of billions of years. But billions of years of what? All these unthinkable eras and eons did not come to us on a cloud, infinitely far from reality. The fossil record of multicellular organisms is believed to span a period of about 600 million years in which these organisms died and turned to stone. Among them are, for example, fossilized bones with cancerous tumors. It is a chronicle of suffering and death. Man, according to this model, appeared on Earth about a million years ago and was one of the last results of countless experiments based on the death of the weak and the survival of the fittest (Tennyson's poetic line about the “bloody fangs” of nature is well known). And what - it turns outwhen a man appears at the top of this many-kilometer pyramid of bones, does God say that all this is "very good" (Gen. 1:31)? Is this not an insult to the merciful God that the Bible tells us about?
How can the idea of God's goodness (theodicy) be defended using any of the compromise models that include belief in these millions of years? All that remains is to helplessly throw up your hands, shrug your shoulders, and yield the podium to the unbelievers (which is what many prominent church leaders do when they are asked, for example, about natural disasters). A consistent theodicy follows from only one interpretation of Genesis: when we perceive this book as an account of true historical events. Genesis 1 makes it clear that both animals and humans were originally vegetarians (verses 29-30). It is difficult for us to imagine such a world, but it fits perfectly, for example, with the pictures of the coming paradise in Isaiah 11: 6-9; 65:25. Animals that scream in pain when the fangs of predators dig into their throats- all this does not fit well with the idea of a future (at least partial) revival of God's creation, deliverance from the curse (Gen. 3) and suffering. It is impossible to imagine that about millions of years of suffering and death, God said "very good"!
In Romans 8: 18-25. it is said that all creation, and not just people, is in "slavery to corruption" and "collectively groans and torments," waiting for redemption. All leading commentators on Romans, such as FF Bruce, CEB Cranfield, and James Dunn, agree that the Apostle Paul speaks of the Fall. This is consistent with the real story from the third chapter of Genesis, where all creation, not just man, is cursed because of human sin. It is said, for example, that the earth will only produce "thorns and thistles" (Genesis 3:18). These "thorns and thistles" are preserved in the fossil record and are dated to approximately 300 million years before the advent of man. If this is true, then the Bible is misleading us!
Because of the fall of man, we now live in a corrupted world. This world was originally created quite differently. This is the traditional Christian point of view on this issue. This Christian worldview, once generally accepted, is reflected in the classic poems of John Milton - Paradise Lost and Paradise Returned. For example, Basil the Great - one of the church fathers, Bishop of Caesarea from Cappadocia (329-379 AD), wrote:
The great reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) agrees with Basil:
John Wesley (1701–1791), founder of the Methodist Church, wrote that the Bible teaches the following:
David Hull, a philosopher of science and non-Christian, wrote:
But according to the Bible, God did not create the world as it is now; the world became like this because Adam and Eve sinned. The historical reality of the Fall is a necessary condition for good theodicy, which means that before Adam and Eve there was not and could not have been hundreds of millions of years of survival of the fittest. Note that the “gradual creation” models, while rejecting the idea of evolution, still include billions of years of suffering and death as part of the incremental process of God's creation, as a result of which the world allegedly became as we see it today.
8. Being is the foundation of the Good News
From Romans 5: 12–17 and 1 Corinthians 15: 20–22; 45–49 it follows that the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus is based on the reality of the chronicle of Genesis. Adam, a real man, sinned and thereby brought physical death (“and to dust you shall return” Gen. 3:19) and destruction to God's “very good” world. In the same way, another real Man - the God-Man who descended from heaven, the Head of the entire human race - came to correct the deed of the first man. One man brought death to all his descendants; another, perfect Man brought life to all who believe in Him.
The idea of the historical reality of Adam as the ancestor of the Messiah and all of us lies at the very heart of the gospel message. The prophet Isaiah called the coming Messiah "Redeemer", literally - "Redeemer by blood," that is, the Redeemer is connected by blood relationship with all whom he came to redeem (Isaiah 59:20; the same Hebrew word λ¡μζ ("goel") is used here) which defines Boaz in relation to Ruth). The Book of Hebrews explains that Jesus took on human nature to save humanity, not angels (Heb. 2: 11-18). Only the descendants of the first Adam can be saved, because only they are related by blood relationship with the Last Adam.
Denying the reality of the chronicle of Genesis is destructive to the gospel message. This is convincingly illustrated by Bishop Hugh Montefiore's Confirmation Notebook, published by the Anglican SPCK UK (1984):
This worldview completely and completely contradicts the teachings of the New Testament!
9. The historicity of Being is a necessary condition for an integral and consistent biblical-Christian worldview
The Bible tells us that in the future, the universe will be purified by fire and a new heaven and a new earth will arise (2 Pet. 3: 10-13). But why? If God created this world the same as we see it now (from which by default all sorts of theories come, trying to reconcile the Bible with "scientific" historical materialism and its "long ages"), then why would He purify this world with fire? What's the point of this? However, the meaning immediately becomes clear if you take Genesis 3 as a real story (reflected in Rom. 8, etc.).
In other words, the idea of "long ages" negates biblical eschatology. Moreover, denying the historicity of the Flood also undermines the foundations of eschatology. Jesus Himself mentioned the Flood (Luke 17: 26-27). If you do not believe that God judged the world with water, then why believe that He will judge it with fire? It is interesting to note the prophecy of the Apostle Peter that in the last days there will be “insolent abusers” who do not believe in the second coming of Jesus. They will say that everything remains the same as it was at the beginning of creation. The Apostle Peter says: "Those who think so do not know that in the beginning by the word of God the heavens and the earth were made up of water and water: therefore, the then world perished, being drowned by water." (2 Pet. 3: 3-6). This is a very accurate reflection of the materialistic thinking inherent in scientific and broader circles today, as well as the consequences of such thinking. Further (Art.7) the apostle connects the (universal) Flood with the coming (also universal) purification by fire: "And the present heaven and earth, contained by the same Word, are saved by fire for the day of judgment and destruction of wicked people."
Note that in the Bible the Creation of the world and the Flood are perceived as obvious and generally known facts; anyone who does not believe in them deserves God's punishment for knowingly ignorant, for refusing to see the obvious (Rom. 1: 18-32; 2 Pet. 3: 3-7). If the origin of the world is explained by “evolution”, and the works of God are completely invisible, if modern historical geology has no evidence of the reality of the Flood, then why should God punish unbelievers?
10. Disbelief in the historicity of Genesis separates the Bible from the real world, turning Christian faith into something distant and alien
It is often said, "The Bible is not a physics textbook," or, "The Bible has to do with theology, not science," or, "Science answers the question" how, "and the Bible, the question" why. " The late Pope John Paul II said that religion and science "do not intersect." However, the Bible is largely a history book, and biblical theology is based on biblical history. Does it matter when exactly Jesus died and rose again? Perhaps, it is only important that the Bible teaches us to love our neighbor (this is what "liberal" theologians say)? When "scientific materialists" talk about the origins of man and the history of the universe, they are essentially talking about what the Bible tells about and on which truths about salvation are based - namely, about history.
One lecturer at an evangelical (seemingly!) Theological College in Sydney (Australia) inspires his students that Genesis is metaphorical through and through: it teaches us that God created the world, but it is not a scientific and theological truth. Meanwhile, "science" (more precisely, the current scientific establishment) claims that the universe created itself out of nothing through the Big Bang and that all forms of life emerged by natural processes from the elements that arose in the Big Bang; God did not participate in this process, and there was no need for His participation. So either science makes theological claims, or the Bible is scientific. And this problem cannot be solved by verbal balancing act and artificial division of knowledge. When this kind of nonsense is heard from Bible colleges, it should cause the outrage of the church - especially those churches thatwho financially support colleges that undermine church doctrine!
In 1894, Scottish theologian James Denney wrote:
Sounds prophetic; this is exactly what has happened in the last hundred years! In one study, children were asked to answer whether they believed a Sunday school teacher or an elementary school teacher. 80% chose a primary school teacher. Why? They said the school teacher tells them the facts and the Sunday school teacher just tells stories. Children reason this way because in many churches the Bible is really taught as fairy tales, divorced from the real world. No, of course, they have morality - say, as in the fables of Aesop - but the events described in them obviously did not take place in space and time.
Likewise, many Christians today have divided their thinking into two parts: reality and faith. That is why believing scientists manage to teach materialistic disciplines in colleges on weekdays, and to profess faith in God on Sundays in church.
This phenomenon has been called "the difference between fact and value", although most philosophers reject such a division on the reasonable grounds that no good demarcation criterion has yet been proposed. Proponents of this division refer the Christian faith to the area of “values”, that is, purely personal beliefs that are not related to reality. Therefore, many opponents of Christianity claim that they "respect" the Christian faith, but at the same time completely exclude Christian ideas from scientific discussions.
In fact, Christianity is a system of absolute truth (this is exactly what Nancy Pearcey called her book on these issues - Absolute Truth). Christianity makes objective statements about the world, including world history, and about absolute good and evil. For example, the bodily resurrection of Christ is an integral part of the Christian faith (1 Cor. 15: 12-19), but also a fact of history. The resurrection story includes the assertion that on the third day the tomb of Jesus was empty. This is where the collision with science occurs: Christianity clearly demonstrates that God is stronger than the so-called "laws of nature", according to which dead bodies decompose and do not return to life.
Because of this division of thought into two parts, "Christian" and "scientific", Christianity today for many means an existential leap into darkness, undertaken against common sense (or rather, not associated with common sense). A person may say, "That's how great I prayed today!" These are the costs of so-called "positive thinking". Atheists, however, only need “faith” to be just such that it does not claim to be true and does not protest against the relativistic ethics of the non-Christian world. But is this really biblical Christianity? The Christian faith is based on the faithful testimony of those who “saw and heard” things that actually happened (1 John 1: 3). This is not blind irrational belief. That is why atheists spend so much energy fighting Christians who defend the truth of the biblical story (Creation, Fall,The Flood, Exodus, Resurrection of Jesus, etc.).
11. The church fathers believed in the "young earth" and the Flood
There are two more reasons for considering the history of Genesis interpretations:
- General considerations: If the idea of long ages has always been popular, then you can find confirmation of it in the Bible. If it gained popularity only together with the corresponding “scientific” theories, then, most likely, such interpretations are motivated by attempts to reconcile the Bible with “science”.
- Especially for those who champion the idea of "long ages" in the church: when accused of following "science" rather than the biblical text, they argue that throughout history, Bible interpreters have not ruled out the possibility of "eras of creation."
Basil the Great (327–379 AD) in his "Conversations on the Six Days", sermons on the six days of creation, argued that the days of creation are days in the literal sense of the word, the most ordinary days; that at the command of God the land was immediately covered with bushes and trees, and the rivers were filled with fish (see paragraph 6 above); that the animals did not originally eat each other (see paragraph 7 above); that the Sun was created later than the Earth, and so on. Vasily objected to evolutionary ideas, saying that people could not have come from animals. It should be noted here that the ideas of evolution were not invented by Darwin; they go back to such philosophers of the pre-Christian era as Anaximander, Epimenides, Lucretius. And these ideas were originally pagan, directed against one God.
Some people misinterpret the position of the church fathers because they carelessly read their writings. The Eastern Orthodox Church traditionally views the week of Creation as a real week, however, in parallel with this, it often sees in it an allegory with seven thousand years of earthly history - this is how many years supposedly must pass before the end of the world. But the Orthodox Church certainly never considered the days of creation to be long eras! The late Seraphim Rose, an Orthodox priest, has meticulously compiled statements from the Church Fathers showing that they perceived Genesis in the same way as modern creationists. Dr. Terry Mortenson, a Ph. D. in the history of geology, writes in a review of Rose's book:
Rose showed that the Church Fathers were unanimous in their views on Creation Week, the Fall and the Flood. They also believed in the instantaneous acts of God's creation and believed that the world before the Fall was fundamentally and radically different from what it later became.
Some have referred to Augustine and Origen to sneak the idea of "long ages" into the Bible. These two, being representatives of the Alexandrian school, tried to allegorize various episodes of Holy Scripture. However, their allegory of the days of creation does not follow from the biblical text, but is inspired by later influences - in particular, their adherence to neo-Platonic philosophy (from which they "deduced" that God would not restrict Himself with time frames, etc.). But, unlike those who try to prop up their own ideas of "long ages" with the allegories of Augustine and Origen, the latter two argued that God created everything instantly. And they explicitly spoke in favor of the biblical time scale (several thousand years) and the Flood.
Of course, we can say that the interpretation of the church fathers is wrong, that we have in our hands much more perfect tools of hermeneutics. But modern exegetes are not the first to have knowledge of the languages and cultures of the Bible. Those who put forward new interpretations bear the burden of proving it.
12. The Fathers of the Reformation considered the chronicle of Genesis to be true history
Calvin said [commenting on the words "Let there be light"]: "The cycle of day and night was established even before the creation of the Sun." Further: “Those who believe that the world was created in an instant are mistaken [here Calvin is almost certainly alluding to Augustine and Origen]. It is too much of a stretch to believe that Moses, solely for the purpose of edification, stretched out for six whole days what God accomplished in a single instant. Better to conclude that God really worked for six whole days in order to adapt His creation to human understanding. " And one more thing: "They will not refrain from laughing when they hear that a little more than five thousand years have passed since the creation of the world." And also: "The flood lasted forty days, and Moses repeats this many times to emphasize that the whole world was covered with water."
Luther spoke even more clearly on these issues, openly insisting on the historical accuracy of Genesis. He also denied skepticism about alleged inconsistencies between the first and second chapters of Genesis.
Opponents of the historicity of Genesis love to refer to the book by historian Ronald Numbers, The Creationists. Namberz allegedly convincingly proved that "young earth creationism" was invented in the 1920s by George McCready Price, a Seventh-day Adventist. This is one of the more egregious examples of historical revisionism in action, along with the myth (fully exposed by historian Jeffrey Burton Russell) that the peoples of antiquity, and in particular the ancient Christians, considered the Earth to be flat. It seems that for Namberz, the story generally starts with Price! It is enough to study the above materials on the Fathers of the Church and the Reformation to see how wrong Numbers is. However, the matter is far from limited to these materials. See for exampleresearch by Dr. Terry Mortenson, a specialist in Earth history, about the early 19th century geologists who championed the biblical age of the Earth and the Flood.
13. Historical materialism (in cosmology, geology, biology) is a dogma of faith for an atheist. Therefore, every enlightened Christian must understand how stupid it is to deny the historicity of Being in order to adapt his faith to materialistic "science"
The "Humanist [atheistic] Manifesto" declares belief in the materialistic origin of the universe and humanity. The last, third version of the "Humanist Manifesto" emphasizes the idea of "uncontrollable evolution", although from a practical point of view this is pure tautology, because evolution is uncontrollable by definition (nature creates nature). For the same reason, "theistic evolution" is an oxymoron (an uncontrollable process controlled by God!). And, as proved above in paragraph 7, the biblical God would never use a senseless and bloody process of evolution over millions of years to create a world that would be "very good."
As the famous English atheist Richard Dawkins said, "Darwin provided an intellectual foundation for atheism"; and many others have similar thoughts. For example, the American atheist Will Provine, a biology professor at Cornell, states:
Indeed, evolutionary teaching makes people atheists. Harvard sociobiologist EO Wilson says: “Like many Alabama natives, I was a born-again Christian. When I was fifteen, I became a member of the Southern Baptist Church, was a zealous believer, and had a keen interest in fundamentalist religion; at the age of seventeen I entered the University of Alabama, where I became acquainted with the theory of evolution."
For the atheist, the theory of evolution serves as a justification for atheism, refuting perhaps the most convincing evidence of the existence of God (that the creation needs a Creator). Therefore, it is not surprising that the most ardent and ardent defenders of the theory of evolution and the "long ages" are also ardent atheists in combination.
The theory of evolution (in cosmology, geology and biology) argues that it does not need the idea of the divine to explain the origin of all things. Thus, it contradicts the biblical teaching that the attributes of God are clearly visible in His creation so that on the day of Judgment people cannot say that they have not seen them (Rom. 1: 18-32). Likewise, God says that the "mockers" will have to be held accountable for their deliberate ignorance of the Flood (2 Pet. 3). All theories of "long ages", almost by definition consistent with the uniformitarian theory of geological strata, according to the same logic, reject the Flood (which was supposed to transform the surface of the Earth beyond recognition). The evolutionary paradigm is essentially a religion. Michael Ruse, a Canadian philosopher of science and ardent anti-creationist, wrote:
Subsequently, Ruth wrote a book in which he argued that a Darwinist could be a Christian; however, from his point of view, you can be a Christian and reject the Resurrection. This clearly shows the perniciousness of flirting with Darwinism.
14. Disbelief in the historical authenticity of Genesis leads to heresy and apostasy
Disbelief in the historical authenticity of Genesis has repeatedly led to disastrous consequences. We witness them with our own eyes: broken lives, broken families, fractured churches and entire nations.
Many prominent atheists openly declare that the theory of evolution prompted them to abandon the faith of their fathers. Biologist E. O. Wilson, mentioned above, is just one of many. Take, for example, the reasons for the apostasy of Charles Templeton, a former preacher who was appreciated by Billy Graham himself. Templeton raised pseudo-intellectual concerns about Being and historical accuracy, as well as emotional arguments against God's sovereignty as Creator.
A youth pastor in an Anglican church in Victoria, Australia told us:
Is it just a coincidence that church attendance in the Western world plummeted precisely in the years when the theory of evolution began to be systematically and universally taught in schools (in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this began in the 1960s)? Josef Ton, a Romanian Baptist pastor who was imprisoned for his faith under the communist regime, says: “I came to the conclusion that two factors killed Christianity in Eastern Europe. The first is the theory of evolution, the second is liberal theology … Liberal theology is the same theory of evolution, only applied to the Bible and our faith. Similarly, the unbeliever F. Sherwood Taylor, curator of the Oxford Museum of the History of Science, put it:
The United Church of Australia is being destroyed by a vague understanding of the infallibility of Scripture beginning with Genesis. In the United States, Princeton Seminary is a classic example: the great (in all other respects) Presbyterian theologian Charles Hodge admitted that the idea of long ages in the history of the Earth was at odds with the Moses narrative in Genesis; but he himself bows to the authority of "science" and therefore adapts his understanding of the Bible to it. Therefore, although Hodge opposed Darwinism as clearly atheistic, he was clearly influenced by Darwinism. His son and follower, A. E. Hodge, believed in millions of years of earthly history and cherished the idea of theistic evolution. Another follower, BB Warfield, formerly known for his conservatism,took the next step in the "adaptation" of Scripture to "science" - he called himself a Darwinist. The next generation not only accepted Darwinian theory with its millions of years for granted, but also openly questioned the authority of the Bible. Conservatives such as J. Gresham Machen split away and founded Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929. Princeton has ceased to be a defender of the truth and inerrancy of the Bible.
Many of those who call themselves "evangelical Christians" argue that we must rethink Genesis, because evolution and millions of years are "proven by science." In doing so, they rebel against liberal theology. But liberal theologians are actually more consistent. They interpret the stories of the Immaculate Conception and Resurrection in a new way, because "science has proven" that "miracles do not happen." Those Christians in our Bible colleges who do not believe that Genesis is to be taken literally have yet to apply the same hermeneutics to the rest of the biblical text. But one way or another, history proves again and again that doubt about the truth of Genesis leads to doubt about the authority of Scripture as a whole.
15. There is only one reason not to take the chronicle of Genesis literally: fallen mankind tends to make mistakes and cover up the viciousness of their reasoning with considerations of "science"
Dr. Pattle Pun, a biology professor at Wheaton College and a believer in the "long ages," expressed a point that many others, including modern evangelical theologians, agree:
So, this approach is similar to that of Augustine: relying on external sources, come to the conclusion that Genesis means something different from the narrative clearly stated in it. Many "gospel" Bible students and scholars speak in the same spirit as Dr. Pan. However, here is what Dr. John MacArthur, a distinguished American pastor and theologian, says:
And what about science?
In this work, we deliberately did not touch upon a number of scientific issues. "Theology is the queen of sciences." Rodney Stark, a longtime professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington, writes:
This is not surprising, because science relies on a number of axioms, without which it is unable to function:
1. The world is real (because it was created - Gen. 1), and not illusory, as the mystical religions of the East teach.
2. The universe is ordered, therefore God is a God of order, not chaos (1 Cor. 14:33). But if there is no Creator, or if the world is ruled by Zeus and his companions, then where does order come from? If Eastern religions are right, and the world is just an illusion, then at any moment everything can change beyond recognition.
3. Man can and should explore the world, because God has given us authority over His creation (Gen. 1:28); creation itself is not divine.
4. Man has freedom of thought and action; they are not entirely determined by deterministic laws or brain chemistry. It follows from the biblical teaching that a person has both a material and a spiritual side (see, for example, Gen. 35:18, 1 Kings 17: 21-22, Mat. 10:28). The non-material side means that a person is more than just matter, therefore his thought is not just a product of brain activity. But if materialism is correct, then "thought" is simply an epiphenomenon of the brain and a consequence of chemical laws. Thus, if we proceed from the strictly materialistic assumptions, materialists do not come to their conclusions independently - these conclusions are due to brain chemistry. But the question is, why is their brain better than yours, if both obey the same chemical laws? Therefore, if the materialists are right, they cannot even choose for themselves,what to believe in (including belief in materialism). But at the same time they boast of their free-thinking, not noticing the irony of their own situation! Free thought is an almost insurmountable problem for materialism.
5. Man is able to think rationally and logically, and this logic is objective. This conclusion follows from the fact that man was created in the image of God (Gen. 1: 26-27), and also from the fact that Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, is the Logos. The Fall and rebellion against the Creator weakened, but did not destroy, the ability of a person to think logically. The Fall has led us to sometimes draw the wrong conclusions or base ourselves on the wrong premises. Therefore, it is very foolish to put human thinking above the knowledge that God has revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. But if the theory of evolution is correct, then natural selection selects only the fittest and not necessarily the most rational.
6. Scientific results must be reported honestly because God forbids perjury (Ex. 20:16). But if the theory of evolution is correct, then why not lie? Is it any wonder that in the scientific world (where evolutionary doctrine dominates), as in business and politics, the problem of deception and falsification is becoming more acute?
It is no coincidence that the flourishing of science began with the Reformation and took place primarily in countries where there were most of the truly biblical Christians - that is, in the countries of Western Europe. And it is no coincidence that the United States, the country in which Biblical Christianity is best preserved, is the world leader in science and the practical application of scientific achievements. Recall, too, that it was precisely at a time when the teaching of the theory of evolution was predominantly banned in American schools, in the period of the supposed decline of science between the Scopes process and the launch of the first satellite, that the United States gave the world more Nobel laureates than all other countries combined. To be absolutely precise, then twice as many - and especially in physiology and medicine, that is, areas in which, without the theory of evolution, it is allegedly impossible to take a step!
Thus, there is nothing more reasonable than to start comprehending the world with what God Himself said. If we do not agree that God really spoke to humanity, that the Bible is really His word, then we do not even have a starting point for this discussion. If we believe that God spoke to people and strive to make them understand what He said, then we can begin to interpret the “facts” of history.
Dr. Don Batten and Dr. Jonathan Sarfati