on the debate

I love the Creation Museum. I really do. And here’s why (it’s really simple): they have lots of anatomically correct dinosaurs. And that’s a HUGE deal for me. I’m not a YEC (Young Earth Creationist), though I’m very familiar with their arguments and the position. When I was in high school, I was an avid YEC, filling binder after binder with all sorts of arguments and “evidence” in support of a young earth and the idea that the world’s geological situation was the result of the worldwide Flood of Noah. I’ve since recanted, finding the inconsistencies too staggering and the evidence too stretched. When you study something in-depth, you begin to uncover all the chinks in the armor. The cracks in the YEC’s arguments caused me a lot of grief, and under the direction of Ken Ham and the like, I felt that if I disavowed YEC, I was disavowing God. My greatest allegiance was to scripture, and so I had to take the Genesis narrative on faith and somehow blind myself to the said chinks. When I learned that the Genesis narrative didn’t necessitate a YEC interpretation, it felt like a boulder was lifted off my shoulders, and I could breathe again. I’m not YEC, and I’m not sure what I am. Something between an Old Earth Creationist and a Theistic Evolutionist. I’m a fan of hybrids, it’s why I like mutts. I watched the debate at the Creation Museum over YouTube, and here are some little thoughts:

Ken Ham accuses secularists of hijacking the term “science.” In the same way, Ham hijacks the term “creationism.” You don’t have to be a Young Earth Creationist (the position Ham holds) to be a creationist. You don’t have to believe in a young earth to be faithful to scripture, despite what some YEC adherents (or, rather, aggressive promoters) will have you believe. You can be an Old Earth Creationist, even a theistic evolutionist, and not lose a trace of what it means to be a creationist. I’m a creationist. I believe God was involved in the creation and birth of the cosmos from beginning to end. There are problems with evolution and problems with Young Earth Creationism; adherents to both will admit as much, even if done in their own closets.

As humans we interpret everything through a lens. Ham’s lens isn’t the creation story in Genesis but his interpretation of that creation story. He wraps science around his interpretation of the creation narrative. Nye is no different; he uses the current scientific model as his basis and wraps science around that. We need to be aware of how we do this and seek to recognize when we are doing it, but at the same time we need to acknowledge that we do this intuitively and there is no such thing as truly “objective” reasoning. In regard to Genesis 1-3, the text shouldn’t be read as Greek literature, as we westerners tend to do (Enlightenment thought is a product of Hellenization). This isn’t to deny the truth in the Genesis narrative, but to acknowledge the reality of the narrative. Genesis is a Jewish book written from a Jewish point-of-view (and an old Jewish point-of-view, at that!). I’m of the persuasion that the “real history” (as a Hellenist would put it) doesn’t really begin until the Call of Abraham; but in no way do I discard the truth of all of Genesis up to that point. Most “old age” Jewish commentators didn’t read the text like Ham does, as “literal story,” but rather saw it as polemical and apologetic in nature; that is to say, the creation narrative is an attack on prevalent pagan gods and an exultation of the Jewish god YHWH over against those gods. I really like that take better, and I think it makes more sense of the text.

At the end of it all, of course, we must exercise humility whenever we come to the text. God’s Word may indeed be infallible (as I believe it to be), but we are not infallible, and neither are our interpretations. We Christians who disagree with Ham sin against him when we’re disparaging towards him, as tends to be the theme on Facebook. He is our brother in Christ, and chances are he’s far more intelligent than any of us Facebook-mongers when it comes to science, and we should exercise humility in our critique. Why should we be so confident that he is wrong and we are right?