Creation Revisited (Part 1)

I am studying creation (Genesis 1:1-2:4) now in seminary. And it has been very interesting! Coming from a scientific background (biochemistry and medicine) that is heavily influenced by an atheistic worldview, it has been thought-provoking to hear a clear, insightful, educated, and rational (not to mention humble) perspective in support of a literal interpretation of Genesis. (I have had some very negative experiences from hateful and overbearing creationists in the past.) My professor, Douglas Kelly, wrote the book Creation and Change and he makes some very interesting theological points that have caused me to critically “readdress” the issues regarding creation (instead of panning the debate as largely irrelevant). This week, I will be sharing some insights that I have picked up from his lectures and reading materials. As usual, please understand that a tiny blog entry will not do justice to this immense topic. So I present these points not as a defense of one position or another (since I am still trying to “figure it all out” for myself), but rather as simply thoughts that have caused me to “take pause” and to reconsider some of my assumptions regarding creation. So, here they are (in no particular order of importance):

1. A correct view of creation is important for our understanding of the rest of Scripture. The reason is simple. The creation account found in early Genesis forms the foundation by which we understand all of Scripture at large. Central tenets of Christianity find their establishment with the creation account. In these early chapters, we are informed of who God is, who man is, how sin entered the world, the effect of sin on our relationship with a holy God, and the promise of hope given to Adam and Eve before being expelled from Eden (which allude to Christ’s redemptive work on the cross). Therefore, a mythological interpretation of these early chapters of Genesis would undermine fundamental Christian doctrines.
2. Belief in either evolution or creationism all proceed from faith based presuppositions. In other words, even the evolutionary model is based on “faith” in something which guides how the evolutionist interprets the evidences. Dr. Kelly quotes Michael Polanyi as saying,

   “No human intelligence . . . can operate outside such a context of faith, for it is within that context that there arises within us, under compulsion from the reality of the world we experience, a regulative set of convictions or a framework of beliefs which prompts and guides our inquiries and controls our assessment of the evidence.”

3. The New Testament holds a “high view” of Genesis and there is no suggestion from the New Testament or Christ’s sayings that Genesis should be interpreted as mythological. Dr. Kelly quotes Henry Morris: 

   “The New Testament is, if anything, even more dependent on Genesis than the Old. There are at least 165 passages in Genesis that are either directly quoted or clearly referred to in the New Testament. Many of those are alluded to more than once, so that there are at least two hundred quotations or allusions to Genesis in the New Testament. It is significant that the portion of Genesis which has been the object of the greatest attacks of skepticism and unbelief, the first eleven chapters, is the portion which had the greatest influence on the New Testament. Yet there exist over one hundred quotations or direct references to Genesis 1-11 in the New Testament. Furthermore, every one of these eleven chapter is alluded to somewhere in the New Testament, and every one of the New Testament authors refers somewhere in his writings to Genesis 1-11. On at least six different occasions, Jesus Christ Himself quoted from or referred to something or someone in one of these chapters, including specific references to each of the first seven chapters.”

4. How we interpret Genesis 1-2 will reveal something about our hermeneutical presuppositions (i.e. the “belief system” that guides how we interpret the Bible). If we say that Genesis 1:1-2:4 is “poetry” and “metaphorical”—when the majority of Hebrew scholarship does not identify it as such—are we then imposing our own assumptions regarding the origin of life on a plain interpretation of Scripture? How will this awkward “forcing a square peg into a round hole” affect how we interpret other parts of the Bible that doesn’t agree with our preconceived notions of how life should work?

Anyway, Dr. Kelly makes these and many other good points, and I’m looking forward to finishing his book. Obviously, this little blog entry will do nothing to settle this 200 year old debate. Just something for me personally to think about (since a literal interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2:4 contradicts my indoctrination by a medical education which assumes a purely atheistic or deistic worldview).