Jason cites a ‘review‘ (polemical responses aren’t reviews; they are sad instances of someone defending their own presuppositions against anything that may cause them emotional and mental harm) by a Young Earth Creationist group on John Walton’s book, The Lost World of Genesis One. This one, by the way, is a great start to actually understanding Genesis 1 within context, but his second book on the subject, published by Eisenbrauns is a much more involved one.
I love the hypocritical presuppositionalist view point expressed in the review… First, they detest the fact that the Church may have in fact gotten more than a few things wrong. What’s wrong with this view point? First, they assume that the theologians of the Church are as inspired as Scripture. Second, their avenue of thought must undue all of the Reformation and place us all back into Rome. Third, they assume that humans aren’t fallible. Fourth, they also assume that the entire Church has always believed what they themselves believe now, when in fact, history stands against them. Another error is that they use the Creeds (honestly, a YEC’er using a Creed?) to suggest that the Church has always seen God as Creator but that Walton and others do not. This is a straw man, and in fact, a flat out lie. To this end, they suggest that ex nihilo was always the official Church stance, when in fact it was not. Indeed, it was a much needed doctrine to thwart the dualism of the age, but it is not actually found in Scripture. Not believing in ex nihilio nor in the YEC’er interpretation of Genesis 1 does not remove the central belief that God is the Creator, something Walton and others have affirmed time and time again. They also go into this “Scripture must interpret Scripture” which is the biggest pile of horse, well, you know, that I’ve seen used. Remember, not even Christ suggested that when he urged the Pharisees to look at him instead of searching the Scriptures. They go on to issue more cockamamie tripe all in the name of defending their non-existent faith.
Jason, on the other hand, suggests that what we need is humility. He then goes on to write,
Humility would lead us to go back to the Scriptures and the Early Church to see what they held concerning the matter.
I can assure you that no humble, open-minded person will come away with the understanding that folks such as Walton and Enns have presented to us.
Ironic that Jason uses the words ‘open-minded’ and ‘humble’ when he has by this very statement shown that he is against both things. Let’s turn back to the early Church Fathers like Origen and Augustine who didn’t believe in a YEC’er interpretation, nor many of the other fundamentalist doctrines. Further, Jason flat out lies when he writes,
The intellectual climate in Europe when “The Origins of The Species” was written was such that there was essentially a nominal belief in God and Christianity.
The problem with Jason, Ken Ham and Tony Breeden, among others, is that they are driven by an intense desire to guard their own faith, not realizing the often times hypocritical routes which they must take to condemn others. They fall back on Church Tradition, the Fathers, and the such, and yet roundly condemn those who do this everyday, such as the Catholics. They read everything anachronistically. Further, they don’t understand science and yet pretend that they can offer valuable insight into it. Not only that, but they make up history.
What Dr. Walton and Dr. Enns have done is to show that the actual Authority of Scripture is maintained without having to bend over backwards, become hypocritical, and condemn others who disagree as somehow denying Christ. I applauded them, and it is because of them and those like them that the Christian faith will continue to grow… and it because the apologetic YEC’ers that the Christian faith will stumble and harm others, causing the faith of many to be lost. May God forgive them
Psst… Jason… your permalinks needs to be changed to allow for the title of the post. Search Engines love this, much more so than the numbers style.
