Introduction
I’ve been wanting to interact with a post I was directed to on this blog since maybe last October, but Strange Fire related matters got in my way. Now that those embers have cooled down a bit, I thought I’d jump in,
Answering Common Young Earth Creationist Arguments
That article is an attempt to answer and refute all of the common, biblical and theological arguments young earth creationists use, not only in defense of their view, but also as a challenge to deep time, old earth creationists. Even though it is nearly two years old, I thought the points raised in the article were worth evaluating.
The author, J.W. Wartick, is a graduate from the BIOLA apologetics program. I couldn’t find anything specific about his theological and biblical training, though I would think that if he has a MA from BIOLA’s apologetics program, he would be exposed to some Bible and theology, so I just assume he is versed in those subjects.
Looking over his personal blog, he seems like a well-read individual. He’s certainly written on a number of subjects the last few years. Under his “About” page, he says he affirms that “the Bible is the Holy and Inerrant Word of God and the sole source of pure Christian Doctrine.” That’s all well and good, but the question I have is, does his old earth creationism he so ardently defends, which appears to be the Reasons to Believe/Hugh Ross variety, sync consistently with his personal affirmation of inerrancy? I say that it does not, as will be fleshed out over the course of my responses.
His post interacts with 16 typical questions/challenges young earth creationists (YEC) raise against old earth creationist (OEC). He defines the argument and then offers his response. I’ll try to organize and group together the similar arguments and address them as individual posts. That way my little series can be short and to the point.
So with that background in mind, let me tackle the first argument/response,
The Perspicuity of Scripture
Wartick writes,
The Argument
Some young earth creationists (hereafter YEC or YECs) argue that old earth positions undermine the perspicuity of Scripture. Perspicuity of Scripture is the notion that the central teachings of Scripture can be understood by any who come to the Gospel. The charge YECs make is that because it seems, on a surface level reading of the text, that Genesis 1 implies creation over the period of 6 literal 24 hour days, those who deny this undermine the Perspicuity/Clarity of Scripture.
Response
The Perspicuity of Scripture does not apply to all areas of Biblical doctrine. Rather, it is the notion that anyone can understand the plan of salvation as laid out in Scripture and come to right knowledge for faith.
Think of it this way: read the book of Revelation. Do you understand everything in this book, or is the apocalyptic literature hard to discern? Throughout much of Christian history, there has been debate over the meaning of Revelation. There are a number of views, like preterism, idealism, dispensationalism, etc. But this doesn’t mean that what Scripture teaches in general is unclear. The clarity of Scripture in regards to salvific issues is absolute. Any reader can read and understand God’s plan for salvation.
Addendum
If the argument is pressed, again ask the YEC whether they are claiming they understand every single doctrine that the Bible teaches. Do you understand perfectly the Trinity, the atonement, the incarnation, the Lord’s Supper, the proper relation of Law and Gospel, etc.? If someone claims they do, they are essentially equating their understanding to God, rather than adhering to Scriptural teaching (1 Corinthians 13:12).
The idea of “perspicuity” is that the Bible is sufficiently clear in and of itself for believers to understand it. As Wartick points out, it is true that the doctrine of “perspicuity” primarily focuses upon the clarity of the Gospel message and the plan of salvation, meaning that anyone from anywhere can clearly understand the Gospel message, believe it, and be saved (I’m of course assuming the regenerating work of the Spirit in the life of the sinner). The WCF 1.7 begins by stating, “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation…”
His mistake, however, is that he restricts the doctrine of perspicuity only to the clarity of the Gospel message and not to ALL of Scripture. Historically, the vast majority of Christian preachers and teachers believed perspicuity applied to the whole of Scripture.
One of the early church fathers, John Chrysostom, called the doctrine of perspicuity the “condescension of Scripture.” He believed that the revelation of God in Scripture allows for all men, regardless of their education or lack of education, the ability to understand it. William Webster, in the second volume of Holy Scripture: The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith, notes that the idea of the “condescension of Scripture” is a recurring theme in the writings of many church fathers including such men as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Hilary of Poitiers, Augustine, Isidore of Pelusium, Athanasius, Lactanius, and Theodoret [Webster, 194-201]. That doctrine of “condescension” or perspicuity, was picked up and articulated by the theologians of the Reformation like Luther and Calvin and eventually affirmed in the historical creeds like the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession.
Now Wartick argues, and in a way, rightly so, that not all doctrine in the Scripture is immediately clear to everyone. For instance, he mentions about eschatology and how many folks disagree with each other as to how the book of Revelation is to be interpreted. Or the doctrine of the Trinity or atonement.
Though I would agree with him that new Christians may not immediately grasp a full understanding of such doctrines as Christ being the second person of the Trinity, those hard to understand doctrines are not kept from a new convert. That convert, by reading the Bible and developing his understanding of those clearer doctrines he does understand, can then come to clearly understand those more difficult, or unclear doctrines. Both the WCF and the LBC state in 1.9,
The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.
So in other words, any unclear doctrine can be known by the clearer doctrine of Scripture. The point further being is that a Christian can come to a full understanding of biblical doctrine, by reading the Bible alone over time, because it is meant to be clear, or perspicuous.
Yet even more importantly than being taught by church fathers, Reformers, and in the historical Protestant confessions, the doctrine of perspicuity is articulated in the pages of the Bible itself. For example, in Deuteronomy 30:11, God says, “For this commandment which I command you today, it is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off.” The word “mysterious” having the idea of being “too difficult to understand,” or basically, “unclear.” If God commands His people, He reveals His revelation so that it can be clearly understood. No one can say, “I wasn’t entirely sure what God wanted because the interpretation of that revelation was difficult and hard to understand.” The same idea is seen in Psalm 19:7-9 where the attributes of Scripture are highlighted.
Coming to the NT, Peter tells brand new Christians who are considered “babes in Christ” to, “desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” If the Scriptures were not perspicuous, or clear, so that a new Christian had to find some outside interpreter to tell him how to understand them, Peter’s exhortation would be meaningless.
Probably the clearest example of the perspicuity of Scripture is found in Paul’s words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16, 17 which says, “All Scripture (not just the Gospel message) is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” How can a person profit from Scripture so as to be reproved by it, corrected by it, and instructed in righteousness by it, if it was so unclear he had difficulty understanding it?
Now just so I am not misunderstood, I am not diminishing the role God has for godly, mature teachers in the lives of younger believers, [Titus 2]. The Bible exhorts us to hear the teaching of sound doctrine and warns against itching ears that seeks to hear what they want to hear, [2 Timothy 4:3-4]. However, anyone who is saved, who has the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit in his life, can take up the Scriptures and though there be difficult things to understand, can come to understand them with steadfast study.
Now, how exactly does this impact our understanding of Genesis 1? I take it by Wartick’s response he seems to believe the creation week of Genesis is one of those “difficult” portions of Scripture. One that falls into the category of figuring out the Trinity or interpreting the book of Revelation. But that is silliness if he believes such things with Genesis chapter 1.
The text itself is not “difficult” to understand; the language is quite clear and straight-forward. As a first year Hebrew student in seminary, our prof. had us translate it. Anyone who reads the narrative of the creation week will conclude that it is saying that God created the world and all that is therein in the space of six, consecutive days.
The “difficulty” Wartick has in mind comes in the worldview shattering meaning of what the text conveys. It is teaching the true history of origins and how life began upon the earth and that narrative radically departs from what is commonly taught by the “enlightened elite” and what is expected to be believed by the masses.
Hence, the difficulty is not with the language of the Genesis narrative itself, nor is it with the history that it conveys. The real “difficulty” is with whether or not a person will believe what it is saying over and against the consensus of evolutionary deep-time advocates. Its a matter of which authority one submits to, not if the text is clear or unclear.
My guess is that Wartick places a high premium upon the opinions of modern day scientists who say the universe is millions of years old because he has a misunderstanding of the value of general revelation, you know, things like nature and stuff. He probably likens it as being a 67th book of the Bible (a favorite saying of Hugh Ross), believing it is self-authenticating and must be considered when interpreting the Bible, especially the creation narrative. Such however, has nothing to do with perspicuity, but has all to do with authority.
hipandthigh 
I cannot tell you how tremendously interested I will be in this series Fred. I am a YEC. I draw the line of fellowship at a historical Adam FROM the dust of the earth and a fall into sin by the temptation of the serpent. Deny that and we’re on the outs. I’ll leave your eternal destiny to God, but I will not call you brother. I shall clamor for a view as the Lord of Glory consumes that reprehensible biologos foundation with the breath of his holy mouth.
Fred, I truly appreciate your explanation of how the perspicuity of Scripture is properly applied and how that lends to a proper understanding of the Inerrancy and Sufficiency of Scripture as well. Keep up the good work brother, it’s having an impact even all the way up here in Utah.
Forgeting what the scientists say and looking solely at the text…
YECs must be pressed to explain how you can have three “literal” mornings and evenings prior to the creation of the sun on the 4th Day. There is no “literal” morning or evening that I have ever seen that did not involve the sun!
There is also the matter of the 7th Day never being “signed off” by the usual phrase “the evening and the morning.” Is this meant to indicate to us that the 7th Day has never ended?
If so then it cannot be a literal 24 hour day so we cannot insist that the others must be.
I don’t think the text is as clear for the 6 day position as you suggest. There is an ambiguity there that suggests we need to consider other possibilities.
I will eventually get to these points, probably in the next installment, but you have been misled by whatever teacher or teachers you have exposed yourself too.
I would just add that the two objections you raise about the days and no sun and the so-called never ending 7th day are strawman arguments. They have been answered in full detail by a number of individuals, say for instance Douglass Kelly, Andrew Kulikovsky, Jonathan Sarfati in his massive review of Hugh Ross’s apologetics and hermeneutic, both the ministries of AiG and Creation.com and my pastor did a detailed exegesis of Genesis chapter 1 that can be found online at the Grace to You radio ministry website. My questions would simply be, have you consulted the responses of these various resources, and how exactly do they NOT provide you an answer and rebuttal?
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I have a few thoughts, and I’ll try to be brief.
First, the doctrine of perspicuity changed during the Reformation period. As I [very] briefly point out in my post on sola scriptura in the Reformation (http://jwwartick.com/2012/10/15/who-interprets-sola/), this was because the Reformers realized there was genuine disagreement over certain passages of Scripture.
Second, there are some issues within Scripture which are genuinely unclear. If you want to deny that, I would suggest you basically have to ignore the text of Scripture. There are a number of issues: for example, underdeterminiation. One looks in vain to find the amount of detail we often wish we had on people that are listed in the genealogies, for example. More concrete examples would be the question of the meaning of certain words, lining up some apparent differences in the Gospels, etc. For example, would you say that Matthew 28:1-7 is unclear? Ah, but it says there is one angel there who speaks to the women. But then is Luke 24:1-8 unclear? But it says there are two angels!
I bring up this example not to say there is an actual contradiction (after all, it seems that Matthew just reports the one who talks), but rather to show the appeal to clear verses does not always solve the apparent difficulties. Unless you want to say that either Matthew or Luke are unclear, you have an apparent contradiction which is not solved by a “clearer” text. It is solved by thoughtful reflection and looking more deeply into the backgrounds, the way oral tradition was passed along, and the like. But your post suggests we can simply cast about for a “clearer” text to figure out the unclear. Tell me, which is unclear, Matthew or Luke?
Third, your view of perspicuity seems to mean that we only learn from being spoon fed easy truths, the exact opposite of the difference between milk and meat that Paul suggests. For example, you wrote:
“Probably the clearest example of the perspicuity of Scripture is found in Paul’s words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16, 17 which says, ‘All Scripture (not just the Gospel message) is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ How can a person profit from Scripture so as to be reproved by it, corrected by it, and instructed in righteousness by it, if it was so unclear he had difficulty understanding it?”
Have you never learned anything by being confronted with a difficult problem and striving to understand it? I suspect that you have. I suspect you’ve struggled with specific portions of the text and come out better for it when you came to reconcile the text through other observations, insights, and reflection. If you haven’t I certainly have, and I know many others who have as well.
Regarding this text, I’d also simply point out that the interpretation of it is quite forced. Is the intent of the text teaching us that all of Scripture is inspired and profitable, or is it teaching us we can just expect to understand everything?
Finally, I firmly affirm and defend inerrancy and any suggestion to the otherwise should be withdrawn. Difference of opinion over interpretation should not be taken as denying inerrancy. Rather than misrepresent your Christian brother, you should stand beside me in a defense of inerrancy. We differ on interpretation of certain texts. Unless you take your interpretation to be itself inerrant and the word of God, I ask you to stop slandering me by implying I deny the doctrine.
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The typical YEC does exactly what they say others shouldn’t do, they filter scientific meaning and cultural imperialism into the text and in doing so distort its meaning. Genesis is consistent with the entire Bible in that God never revealed any science beyond the subjects own culture. Audience relevance is of highest importance in hermeneutics, so the question is what would the Genesis passages mean to the Hebrews who just escaped from the polytheism of Egypt? Most Christians have sunday school theology when it comes to Adam and Eve and Noah’s Ark. The question of how the specific way God made the universe, evolution, the plant and animal kingdoms are not the issue in Genesis they are not the point at all, and to insert our idea of science in the Genesis scripture is to distort it and miss the point completely. Arguing about how long it took God to make the universe via the Genesis account is like arguing about how a man can be be born again through his mothers womb, it’s just not the point. A simple example would be how the Hebrew culture believed that intelligence and personhood came to us from the internal organs like the heart but also the liver, kidneys and intestines, today we use the heart as a metaphor for this but to the Hebrews it was no metaphor. We must do your best to understand what Genesis meant to the Hebrews and their culture not filtered through ours.
J. W. I thought your post was well stated. Eph 1:11 “… all things according to His will…” But we are culpable for our own sinful nature. I’m a determinist so this is easy for me but free will and determinism have been confusing for 1000s of years by well meaning Holly Spirit loving Christians.
J. W. Something you should know before you start this line of reason. There is a very strong tendency for the YEC / Historical Grammatical groups to say “I believe in the Bible and if you don’t believe like l do you don’t believe in the Bible”. This idea is shown in the posts above this one.
Particulars and generals. Its a foundational hermeneutical question: do you believe that God is precise when He communicates, or is the reader just supposed to get the general message of what He is saying? You’re arguing that God communicates in generalities… but then where do you draw the line? Seems like a slippery slope if you were to apply that reasoning to the rest of Scripture
J.W.,
Thanks for stopping by and the lengthy response. Let me address your final statement first and then I will offer some comments to the other items.
You write,
I firmly affirm and defend inerrancy and any suggestion to the otherwise should be withdrawn. Difference of opinion over interpretation should not be taken as denying inerrancy. Rather than misrepresent your Christian brother, you should stand beside me in a defense of inerrancy. We differ on interpretation of certain texts. Unless you take your interpretation to be itself inerrant and the word of God, I ask you to stop slandering me by implying I deny the doctrine.
J.W., you are way, way over reacting to what I wrote. You seriously need to step down the rhetoric. Nowhere in anything that I wrote did I suggest you denied inerrancy. Read my opening remarks again. What I did state was in the form of a question in which I asked if whether or not deep time convictions of creation sync with the stated doctrine of inerrancy. I say that they do not as I will attempt to show by working my way through your points.
My challenge in this area, not just to you, but anyone who holds to OEC, is consistency with the revelation of the biblical text and the theology we derive from the text and how that theology shapes our worldview that we must adhere to as Christians that will inevitably intersect with the varied opinions of the unbelieving world.
The public blogging arena is not for you if don’t like to be challenged as to your consistency or pointed to as an example of what I believe is inconsistency. Rather than repeating the common mantra of “I have a different interpretation you must accept it” explain how I am wrong with my evaluation. I’d wait until I am through with my series, however, if you do that.
Now, backing up to the remainder of your post,
You write,
the doctrine of perspicuity changed during the Reformation period.
Really? Says who? You merely cite from something Alister McGrath wrote, whose opinion is just one among many. What I outlined in my article is the standard Reformed understanding of perspicuity. I take it that you have read the Chicago Statements on Inerrancy and Hermeneutics? They affirm my view of perspicuity, as does the seminal publication that came out of those meetings in Chicago, Inerrancy, that is a consortium of essays addressing all aspects of inerrancy. I would challenge you to expand your reading in this area beyond just Alister McGrath, to include David King and William Webster’s tri-volume work on Sola Scriptura. I can direct you to some other sources if you’re interested.
Now just so I am not misunderstood. I am not saying the authors of those works affirm my views of Genesis. Norman Geisler is the main editor on that original book on inerrancy and he’s an old earth guy. The point I am making is that within those documents that clearly affirm the doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy, the ground work is so laid that when one reads and interprets Scripture consistently, a young earth earth history for creation emerges.
Moving along,
Second, there are some issues within Scripture which are genuinely unclear. If you want to deny that, I would suggest you basically have to ignore the text of Scripture.
Yes. And no one denies that. But when it comes to Genesis chapter one and the creation week, that record does not fall into the category of “genuinely unclear.” It may be convenient for those individuals who affirm your OEC position to declare it as such, but in my mind that is a ridiculous stretch. The illustrations from Matthew and Luke you provide doesn’t even fit in this category and are irrelevant to any discussion on perspicuity.
When we come to Genesis, both the language of the text and the ramifications of the text are clear. The issue is that you do not wish to affirm the inconvenient consequences that Genesis brings because it conflicts drastically with the prevailing view of naturalism that is promoted in our modern day because OEC believe there is some truth to that naturalism because of their muddled theology of general revelation.
Continuing,
Third, your view of perspicuity seems to mean that we only learn from being spoon fed easy truths, the exact opposite of the difference between milk and meat that Paul suggests….Have you never learned anything by being confronted with a difficult problem and striving to understand it?
The exact opposite? I am not sure what you even mean here. When one strives with a difficult problem in the Bible (which honestly are not a lot in the Bible), reflecting and observing derive from the fact that the Bible is clearly understood throughout for the most part so that when those so-called problems are encountered, a resolution can be confirmed. I honestly do not see how any of that conflicts with what I am saying here about perspicuity.
The way I sort of see it is that you are attempting to manufacture “difficulties” that you believe affirm your low view of perspicuity when none really exist nor are truly relevant to the doctrine of perspicuity.
Now what I’d like for you to do is actually go back and interact a bit with the issues I raised in the article that challenge your perspective rather than bounce down this rabbit trail that really has nothing to do with what I am saying here.
I’m READY
Donovan Dear writes,
The typical YEC does exactly what they say others shouldn’t do, they filter scientific meaning and cultural imperialism into the text and in doing so distort its meaning. Genesis is consistent with the entire Bible in that God never revealed any science beyond the subjects own culture.
I have always appreciated the smell of your strawmen when you drop by here to set them on fire. I never said anything about science, now did I? No one is filtering “scientific meaning” into the text of Genesis, right? Why even raise this? BTW, did you read the links I sent your from Robert McCabe on Genesis?
Continuing,
Audience relevance is of highest importance in hermeneutics, so the question is what would the Genesis passages mean to the Hebrews who just escaped from the polytheism of Egypt?
And why wouldn’t the Hebrews NOT understand the creation week to be God creating in a normal, period we call a week? In fact, that is exactly how they did understand it when God revealed to them the Sabbath in Exodus 20.
And,
to insert our idea of science in the Genesis scripture is to distort it and miss the point completely.
But again, no one is doing that, right? But I am dealing with the historical nature of the text. The creation is recorded in Genesis. It was a real, historical event. And God is pretty clear throughout the remainder of the Bible the time it took for Him to create, which was 6 days. To challenge that by bringing the scientific magisterium into how we interpret the account is doing the exact thing you falsely accuse me of doing.
Andrew, I don’t think God speaks in particular ways always. Yes He often speaks in generalities. Jesus answered why he spoke in parables. I absolutely believe in Biblical inerrancy no matter what genera the Biblical literature was written in. We must know that the Bible was written for us not to us and it is our responsibility to understand the Bible from the perspective of the original readers.
Save me some popcorn, please.
Fred
I’m speaking about Genesis in a much more metaphorical way that you think, I say you are taking a scientific view in terms of cosmology …Heavens and Earth, biology ….making man and animals, geology, ….land and waters, etc. YEC say they aren’t taking Genesis as science but they do because of the simple fact that they are taking the Genesis account in literal form. Strawman? nope.
You said,
“And why wouldn’t the Hebrews NOT understand the creation week to be God creating in a normal, period we call a week? In fact, that is exactly how they did understand it when God revealed to them the Sabbath in Exodus 20.”
Glad you asked, there are a few clear examples of the impossibility of 24 hour days the most obvious is the sun wasn’t created during the early period. But this example would be falling into the
historical grammatical “literalist” mistake, Genesis may not be talking about cosmology at all. For instance the simple statement God created light and called it not light, photons, alpha particles or anything like that he called it “day”, this is because the text was more about periods of time metaphorically than physics, also since I believe the Bible is always true it must be metaphorical because that statement is incorrect in any sense of literal, but it does make sense if you consider the Hebrew culture. The meaning of this part of the passage would be the importance of periods, light and darkness not 24 hour days. Also the Hebrews thought the expanse was a solid material so when God separated the water and land this had a different meaning for the Hebrews than for YEC in todays society, they can’t help but substitute science for cultural understanding.
Exodus 20 is very important in understanding Genesis in many ways, God is describing here how he brought the Hebrews out of Egypt out of slavery, not to have any Gods before Him, how He is a jealous God, and then He speaks of keeping the Sabbath holy. The Hebrews were coming out of a very polytheist culture God showed them through Genesis that He is the one and only God, a jealous but loving God. God is setting himself apart from the other Gods speaking of how powerful he is in that He created everything even setting the Heavens in their place in contrast to the other gods of Egypt. The importance of God resting on the 7th day was obvious to ancient cultures around Egypt it was an illusion to the importance of the temple, this fact is understood in Mesopotamian and Egyptian literature of the day and the center of Hebrew culture was the temple.
Fred
Can you please explain why the texts of Genesis 1 and 2 are so inconsistent. What I mean is why Gen 1:1-2:3 are written in a different literary form than Gen 2:4-3:23. Why is the first part of Genesis very poetic (in Hebrew meter) and then when the story is reiterated again in Gen 2:4 the literary style completely changes to prose. keeping a literal view in mind of Genesis after 2:4 the creation sequences are different and conflicting how is this possible if you hold to literalism and inerrancy? It seems silly but from a literalist perspective how could God get tired? It doesn’t work to say that he is somehow an example of the sabbath to come, the text says “he rested from all his work” what about immutability and impassibility in your grammatical historical hermeneutic? We know this is written anthropomorphically but God doesn’t need rest so then why does the Bible say he does if this part of Genesis is to be taken literally? The temple view of the sabbath Exo. 20 answers that question perfectly.
Thanks
As long as you like tons of real butter and Lawry’s seasoned salt on yours!!! Proof positive that God loves man!!
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I’m having difficulty understanding this statement: “I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, but…”. How is that belief in Biblical inerrancy at all? OEC attempts to shoehorn the Genesis creation account into their theories simply don’t fit into the text as written but rather have to be forced onto it.
It sounds to me like he was/is trying to make Spaghetti. Do or say what ever he has to, to make his preconceived views of scripture stick. Old Earth teaching is never based on scripture but folded into it.
This issue is my line in the sand. Those that say the Bible isn’t true in the beginning have no real basis to accept the rest as written either. The precedent has been established. I have no doubt that is how the Episcopal Church’s sad slide toward oblivion started.
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While I think that most will agree that not all areas of theology or biblical interpretation are equally clear, I think that the issue here is different in Genesis 1 and it’s correlating passages. There is no inherrant reason that the text appears unclear is because of modern scientific theories. I faced this issue in my own walk. I had given myself wholly to the study of science before being saved. After salvation, I came to the Bible and had to decide what to do. I quickly came to the conclusion that the text says what it says and if I look at the text as a man with no knowledge of modern science there would be no reason not to take the text at face value – six days. Further that the ony reason to read it otherwise is due to an inability to shed the notions of modern science that have been taken as gospel truth by our culture. The perspicuity issue is important when one considers that for millennia no on would have had any idea what the text was really saying until science came around and now we truly get it. This is arrogant in the extreme and makes God a deceiver for writing the text such that we could not understand. If God wanted to describe a different way of creation than He could have. As it is the account is not scientific in its details, a simple explanation of long ages could have been given if that is how it happened.
Very good sir. Yes, I am always quite a bit suspicious when nobody had dreamed of a view, (there’s a bunch of em now) until, bless God, the pagans helped him out.
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Even if Adam’s fall was 6,000 years ago, and there was no death before the fall, and the earth was created in six of what we consider to be normal days, there is still no biblical record of how much time passed between the creation of Adam and the fall of Adam. It could have been billions of years. The only objection I could encounter was that Adam and Eve were told to multiply and fill the earth, so that if they disobeyed this command it would have meant sin before the serpent’s temptation … but at what point would God have declared that they had willfully failed to multiply and fill the earth? After one week? After nine months? After ten years? After 40 million years? This is the simplest way I see of taking a literal interpretation of the Bible and believing in a very old earth, although it would leave many other scientific conclusions in question.