There Goes Dr. Larry Taylor...

Okay, nobody panic. I still like Dr. Larry Taylor, and I still appreciate his writings and views. But I have to admit to being a bit saddened by his recent blog post, "Scandal of the Evangelical Mind," which I found to be uncharacteristically sloppy in its logic with regard to the whole Creationism debate. I'm noticing more and more, that otherwise good and godly evangelical thinkers are abandoning the Genesis record in favor of a less offensive, "well, we really can't know when the Beginning was..." stand which makes the critical - and fatal - mistake of assuming that the "two books of revelation" (assumed to be the Bible and Nature) are never in conflict.

Okay, first off: No, they're not. Ever. However, that's not the same thing as saying that science and the Bible are never in conflict - and of course, by "science" I mean "science falsely so called." Modern secular science isn't really all that scientific - that is, where the conclusions which one is forced to draw based solely on the evidence, when viewed through the unadulterated grid of the scientific method, militate against their presuppositions (which are overwhelmingly Darwinian), those conclusions are rejected outright and more implausible interpretations of the data substituted, in violation of the Occam's Razor principle. Therefore, when (for instance) radiometric dating produces wildly divergent results, the one that fits with the preconception of an old Earth is kept - forget the fact that the wildly divergent results should at least cast suspicion on the very methodology used for obtaining dates. Etc.

However, when taken just at face value, the evidence leads one inevitably to only a very small handful of conclusions, and which one you wind up choosing is almost entirely based on your presuppositions, not on the evidence alone. I give you, for instance, the superb work of Dr. Russel Humphreys in which he proposes a fesh new cosmology based on the opposite presuppositions of classical Darwinian "Big Bang" theory (namely, a closed universe with a discernible center and, therefore, locus of gravity).

Dr. Taylor seems to buy into the tragic assumption that us Kreeashunnists're stuppud 'n dum-laaahk... when in fact some of the finest minds in science today are at least friendly to the Creationist position (and I'm not talking about the heartening, but woefully inadequate "Intelligent Design" camp). I point you to the superb Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal for great (if really really really really heady) information/discourse on current Creationist science trends.

Personally, the stuff on RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) research is top-notch. As an example.

So don't give me that "you Creationists are fundie boobs who are stupid and dumb and dumbly stupid, you dumb dummies." With all due respect, "pththpptphphtphphtphtphtphtttt." And you can quote me.

However, and second off (to continue the numbering from the "and first off" comment a few paragraphs above), who says there's two books of revelation? Does God reveal Himself in nature? Sure. Romans 1 makes that abundantly clear. However, and this is where I think both Mark Noll (the "scandal of the evangelical mind" dude) and Dr. Taylor goof, the "book of nature" is not even close to being on par with the only Book of God. Isaiah didn't say "To the Law, the Testimony - oh, and before I forget, go outside and hug a tree while you're at it." The invisible things of God are clearly seen by the things which are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, to be sure; however, they are seen through a broken and shattered glass since the Fall.

It all comes down to presuppositions, I suppose. It is impossible to hold both the Bible and science on the same level - one will interpret the other. And whichever is your interpretive base is your ultimate authority.

I think it's foolish in the extreme to interpret the Bible (which is eternal, unchanging, and has always been proven right) through the lens of science (which is constantly changing - in a humorously Clintonesque episode, astronomers are struggling over what the definition of a "planet" is... even the Big Bang theory is largely in question now). Nature never lies - but our perception of its message is at best incomplete and inadequate.

Ergo, I interpret science through the lens of the Bible.

Ergo, when given a handful of options for the interpretation of the available data (let's say, for instance, on the age of the Earth) and the ones in my left hand stem from the assumption of an old Earth, but the ones in my right hand agree with the plain reading of Scripture and stem from the assumption of a young Earth, given that both are equally valid on the basis of the evidence alone and that the only deliberative criteria are my presuppositions (I'm not advocating a Polyanna view of the evidence that conveniently ignores inconvenient facts - I'll leave that to the Darwinists and Old Earthers), I'll go with the Bible.

But I'm kind of silly that way, and I don't particularly care whether or not it's hep and cool and emergent and all that.

And so, without further ado (since we've already "a-done" with all that above - I'd only intended this all to be a brief introduction to the article I'm about to recommend - I'm typing this at my workstation at tentmaking), I'd like to recommend the following Back to Genesis article which I think superbly summarizes the huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge (and, in my opinion, insurmountable) problem that Old Earthers have with regard to rejecting the plain reading of Genesis and allowing for (Carl Sagan voice:) billions and billions (/Carl Sagan voice) of years of death and suffering before Adam.

Oh, one final point about evangelicalism and crises and Creationism. Christian Reconstructionists like the Chalcedon Foundation and the Institute for Applied Presuppositionalism (Greg Bahnsen's baby) are no friend to evangelicalism (calling evangelicals "evanjellyfish"). Yet they're committed Creationists. So, too, with a lot of other, non-inbred evangelical types. Interestingly, mostly of the Reformed flavor. Ice and Rushdoony being particularly vocal about Creationism... so much for this being a crisis in provincial evangelicalism. Seems to be more of a crisis in/of those who are self-consciously attempting to take the Bible at face value.

And, with all that said, I still recommend Dr. Taylor's stuff. Just use a bigger helping of salt, I suppose... ;P