In The Beginning...

The evolution vs creationism debate is a non-starter to me.

I come from a family -- this is South Africa -- where old Kent Hovind DVDs are shown at Bible studies. I was aghast, and pointed out that even within the Creationism movement others don't want to touch his arguments with a barge pole. Nevertheless, I was assured by people who have never taken the time to question their assumptions, who have never done any textual criticism the science was good. Of a Kent Hovind DVD. And that touches on various cognitive biases, which is for another day.

That literalist reading of Genesis is just par for the course. Yes, there are theistic evolutionists, and the day / age creationists, but they're all making a similar mistake. Usually the Christian who believes evolution doesn't pay attention to the detail of the text. And the Christian who says "ah, but a day might be an age for God, so we don't need to commit ourselves to young earth creationism". The mistake is similar in that neither of them are starting with what the text actually says, they're starting with the belief.

Having begun with the belief, everything after that -- all the creation "science" -- is ad hoc rationalization. It's a just-so story. And that's frustrating because it doesn't tell us anything about how they moved from the starting point of not-having-the-belief to the next stage of having-the-belief. The most important step is skipped over, and the current belief simply taken for granted. A big part of my journey out of believing nonsense was seeing how irrationally constructed beliefs were. It was disappointing to have no example of a Christian being able to "give a reason for the hope he / she has" (1 Peter 3:15) while being intellectually honest.

What Genesis 1 is (somehow the conflicting creation account in Genesis 2 isn't dealt with nearly as often, let alone explained why we have two; and if both are God breathed why are there also two genealogies of Seth, and two of Shem, and two covenants with Abraham, and two revelations to Jacob at Bethel, two calls to Moses to rescue the Israelites from Egypt, two sets of laws at Sinai, and two accounts of the Tabernacle/Tent of Meeting)... what Genesis 1 is, is unremarkable. Last year I
came across a trio of papers by Paul H Seely - The Firmament and the Waters Above in two parts (link to part 1 here), and The Geographical Meaning of "Earth" and "Seas" in Genesis 1:10 - published in the Westminster Theological Journal.

Obviously Paul Seely is not like the Ken Hams of the world. He looks at the text and sees it as it is. The firmament is, beyond reasonable doubt, meant as a solid thing just like all the surrounding cultures believed. Put it this way: a writer not inspired by God would have believed and written the same thing. The waters above and waters below also map onto a typical ancient cosmology. We know Genesis 1 doesn't describe anything unique, and we know what it's describing isn't true. At that point, anyone's belief should collapse if they're intellectually honest. And that's where Seely runs out of courage. At the last, despite, and contrary to all the evidence he presents, he still insists that Genesis is infallibly true. Hey, it was in the WTJ -- did we expect it was going to end differently? That's grand, but now we're calling a text inspired that is no different from if it wasn't inspired. A distinction without a difference. Other ancient societies also believed in a solid sky without this amazing revelation from God - are they infallibly true? If anyone can call Genesis true with a straight face, then they've emptied "true" of all meaning.

You can only have the evolution / creation debate if you've not taken the time to understand the text on its on terms first. I fully expect that debate to continue.