Reconciling a Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1-2 in a Scientific Age (the personal search of a medical doctor)

I grew up in an environment where science has been heralded as the foundational underpinning of all truth. My father, who I greatly respect as a world-class and highly-published immunologist, instilled within me wonder of the scientific method and the discoveries that it has revealed. As a young child, I can recall memorizing a textbook on the “human cell.” I was utterly amazed that something only 1/1000 the size of a pinhead even contained its own “organs.” Dad showed me how the cell membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus, DNA, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, and Golgi apparatus all worked together in amazing harmony to form one single human cell. Microscopes, chemistry sets, insect specimens, rock collections, books on dinosaurs, fossils, posters of the solar system, frequent trips to the Smithsonian, and model rockets and airplanes were as normal to my childhood as riding my bike and skipping rock on a lake. My childhood was filled with awe of the natural world, and my father turned me into a Naturalist (in the best sense of the word).

In college and medical school, the role and influence of science in my life continued to enlarge. Courses in cellular biology, organic chemistry, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, human anatomy, pharmacology, immunology, histology, pathology, and microbiology revealed a glimmer of the vast inner complexities within biological systems. I can distinctly remember often feeling quite overwhelmed (and sometimes my grade reflected this)! The scientific method proved that it could plumb the depths of everything from sub-atomic particles to the Universe. Was there anything outside its reach of inquiry?

As a Christian, who firmly believes in biblical inerrancy, this has not been an easy question to answer. My education—seeped with humanistic (and often positivistic) presuppositions—often conflicted with my Christian faith. For instance, a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-2, in our technological age, is viewed by most scientists as intellectually backwards, narrow-minded, and simply absurd. Those who believe that the Universe was created in seven literal days are often looked at with puzzled incredulousness by a community guided by deistic and anti-supernatural beliefs. At least, that has been my experience.

This short essay, therefore, is my personal account of how I have found reasonableness in a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-2. This is not to say that I ardently hold an unyielding “Creationist” viewpoint (I am still prayerfully “working it all out”). Rather, this essay will hopefully show how one man—thankful for and dependent on his scientific upbringing—can seemingly ignore some good scientific “evidences” and find intellectual resonance in a literal seven-day creation of the Universe. Obviously, a comprehensive treatment of this enormous topic is beyond the scope of this paper (and way beyond my ability to answer). I have therefore limited the discussion to those philosophical and theological apologetics that have been most helpful to me in my personal struggle with this extremely complex issue.

The Limitations of the Scientific Method

We live in an age where science is held as “king.” And there are technological marvels that support this ascension to the throne. In the field of medicine, for instance, there have been amazing advances within the last century which have revolutionized healthcare. Our ability to treat diseases from the genome to complete organ transplantation can directly be attributed to the scientific method. And since science has yielded such amazing technological advances, it is commonly assumed that it can open the doors to all truth and knowledge. In fact, within academia, science has largely overtaken religion as the prime force shaping the intellectual mind-set. Where religion used to be revered as the authority on the subjects of personal ethics, social responsibility, and philosophy at the university, it has now been relegated to the backseat and labeled as antiquated and irrelevant while the scientific method has turned from a simple tool for empirical discovery into a guru of philosophical truth. This change has been truly unfortunate simply because the scientific method—although powerful for the study of observable and reproducible phenomenon—has never had the power to plumb the depths of every kind of truth. Non-reproducible entities such as historical truths (and therefore the historical creation of the Universe), mathematical propositions, rules of logic, and moral truths cannot be “dissected under a microscope” by using a double-blinded, placebo controlled trial. The validity of these truths are often arrived at in some other manner.

In fact, when an atheistic “scientific method” is used to discover moral truth, for example, some strange and dangerous conclusions can arise. Consider Darwinian evolution. If one simply extrapolates the logical philosophical endpoint of an atheistic evolutionary model—how survival on this planet was bred by “tooth and nail”—one conclusion is that certain morally repugnant acts such as rape could be deemed as morally acceptable. In the case of evolution, the act of rape would just be an attempt to spread one’s gene pool. Just as forcible copulation in other species (such as mice) is not labeled as morally wrong, one could incorrectly deduce that forcible copulation in our own species is likewise morally permissible. And since “science” has blurred the lines of distinction between me and a mouse, the morality of one species could be logically applied to the another species. For a purely materialistic atheist, the consummate ethical difficulty is that defining an objective moral framework outside of social convention and personal preference becomes impossible. It’s hard to imagine how an unchanging objective moral standard can arise out of a random concoction of matter, time, and chance. Also, because morality is always defined in part by consequences, if there are no ultimate consequences to our actions—and we are nothing more than “empty bobbles floating in a sea of nothingness”—then what is the point of behaving in a “morally appropriate” way? In the Christian worldview, there is a Moral Law because there is a Moral Law Giver. And the consequences of breaking the Moral Law are determined by this Law Giver.

So from this particular example, one can see that the scientific method—although very powerful and helpful and useful if properly applied to the elucidation of certain truth—cannot plumb the depths of all knowledge. Here is another example: consider man’s search for historical truth and the study of forensics. Because these areas of study involve the past—which, by its intrinsic nature, is not repeatable—they cannot be directly investigated like a chemical reaction within the scientist’s test-tube. Science may provide some indirect evidence—such as the dating of a fragment of papyrus or doing a comparative protein analysis between species of animals or obtaining DNA sample from a murder scene—but it cannot actually “give us” the past. Because our experience of the passage of time is linear, the past will always remain in the past. And any attempts to “recreate” it do not actually “recreate” it—they only build more events onto our present reality. Although these attempts of using the scientific method to understand history may yield some useful clues about what may have happened, they do not offer up anything that resembles direct evidence. And as man looks further and further back into time, physical science ultimately gives way to metaphysics.

Consequently, when scientists claim to have definitive proof for things such as the ancient age of the Universe or of Darwinian evolution, such claims need to be tempered with the understanding that they do not proceed from direct and reproducible observations. Rather, these conclusions often stem from observations that are heavily influenced by “faith-based” assumptions of how this world should or shouldn’t work.

The Role of “Faith” in Epistemology

At the heart of this debate on Genesis 1-2 is a debate on what constitutes a good epistemology. More specifically, it is a debate on the most reliable method for determining what happened at the beginning of the Universe. What takes precedence: the witness of the Bible or the occasional contradicting scientific evidences? Faith or reason?

There is a wrong assumption—especially within the scientific community—that faith and reason are always on opposite poles. That a “man of faith” is not guided by “hard” evidences. And that the “man of reason” is not influenced by “fluffy” faith. However, this false dichotomy between faith and reason really confuses the reality of how everybody discovers truth—all if it, including the pursuit of “hard” science, is guided by faith-based assumptions. When a scientist uses the scientific method, he is placing his “faith” in his conviction that the Universe works in a orderly and logical and reproducible manner and that the scientific method will therefore help to confirm or refute his working hypothesis (since the microcosm of his research will somehow reflect the macrocosm of the Universe). When a scientist uses his eyes to observe the results of an experiment, he is placing his “faith” in the trust that his eyes will not play tricks on him, and that there is a correlation between his visual observations and reality. And when a scientist thinks and reasons, he is using “rules of logic” that have been obtained—not through the scientific method itself—but by faith-based assumptions of what constitutes “good” thinking and reasoning.

So the debate is not really between faith and reason as many suppose. Rather, the debate is really in what (or even who) do we put our faith in. Placing our faith in “polka-dotted unicorns” will do no good. There obviously needs to be a correspondence between faith and reality. So, for instance, when the scientist places his faith on the “orderliness” of the Universe or that his physical senses are reliable or that his “rules of logic” are good, that faith is based on the reality that the Universe does seem to work in a logical manner and that his eyes do appear to give true witness of observable phenomenon and that his “rules of logic” are apparently consistent and not self-contradictory. In other words, his faith is based on presumed realities (which most people would agree are generally valid).

Theism as the Proper Foundation of Good Epistemology

Now, what about the Christian? What ultimate reality does he believe in? And does that reality have enough epistemological power to “trump” all other realities if they appear—at least superficially—to contradict the the witness of this greater reality? In Psalms 19:1-2, the psalmist writes:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.”

And in Romans 1:19-21, the apostle Paul writes:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

The understanding from these passages is that belief in God is—as the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga has termed—“properly basic.”¹ In other words, belief in God is a self-evident truth that requires no scientific authentication or intellectual “proofs”—”The heavens declare the glory of God.” This is not to say that scientific evidences do not naturally point to a transcendent, unimaginably powerful, eternal Creator of the Universe (I believe that they do with utmost clarity). The point is simply that these scientific proofs are not “needed” in order to believe in God. His existence is the ultimate cause of all glorious realities, and it is therefore the truth by which all men are held morally accountable. Bavinck, the Dutch theologian, writes the following concerning the “necessity” of intellectual proofs for the existence of God:²

We receive the impression that belief in the existence of God is based entirely upon these proofs. But indeed that would be “a wretched faith, which, before it invokes God, must first prove his existence.” The contrary, however, is the truth. There is not a single object the existence of which we hesitate to accept until definite proofs are furnished. Of the existence of self, of the world round about us, of logical and moral laws, etc., we are so deeply convinced because of the indelible impressions which all these things make upon our consciousness that we need no arguments or demonstrations . . . Now the same is true in regard to the existence of God . . . This is established only by faith . . . The proofs, taken as real proofs, are not sources but rather products of faith.

John Calvin writes of this divinitatis sensum that pervades humanity:³ “Yet there is . . . no nation so barbarous, no people so savage, that they have not a deep-seated conviction that there is a God.” However, this understanding of the self-evident nature of God’s existence does not assume that men do not frequently doubt or deny His reality. The noetic effect of sin remains. But for the Christian, belief in God is the guiding epistemological presupposition. And there is nothing “unreasonable” about this since it is based upon those clear internal and external witnesses to His handiwork and the self-authenticating witness of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, although belief in God may be a “faith-based”, it is not any less valid than “faith-based” presuppositions which form the deistic and positivistic views held by many scientists. In fact, what we sometimes forget is that the deistic and positivistic presuppositions of many scientist are much more of a “leap” than the theist's claim to God’s existence and His intervention within human history. When scrutinized, the claims of deism and positivism eventually become self-refuting.

The Relationship Between Faith and Reason and an Accurate Christology

So far we have discussed how all attempts to derive truth—including the use of the scientific method—are guided by certain faith-based presuppositions. And we have discussed that for the Christian, the ultimate reality that guides the search for knowledge is the belief in the existence of God. But what role does reason play in the life of a Christian? And what is the proper relationship between faith and reason in the life of the Christian? In John 14:6-7, Jesus makes a bold and radical epistemological claim:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Specifically, ultimate truth is defined not only by a general and vague belief in God’s existence, but also specifically in terms of the very personhood of Jesus Christ—his glorified deity in the Trinity. This claim is a radical departure for the scientist who sees truth defined exclusively in terms of intellectual pursuit. By claiming to be the embodiment of truth, Jesus is saying that the determination of essential truth needs to begin first with faith in him. In John 8:31-32, Jesus says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The surprising claim is that “abiding” comes before “knowing.” In other words, reason is guided by a framework built upon this foundation of relationship with Jesus Christ. We do not analyze our faith in Jesus through the glasses of human reason; we analyze reason through the glasses of our relationship with Jesus Christ (especially as he is most completely and vividly revealed through holy Scripture).

Here is another way to look at this connection between reason and our Christian faith. Martin Luther, the famous 16th century protestant reformer, describes two uses of reason—magisterial and ministerial.⁴ In its magisterial use, reason sits above faith as an overseer (like a “magistrate”). The problem, however, with having reason as “the boss” over faith is that, as those still influences by the effects of sin, our reasoning is still often error-prone and biased. If we were able to always have perfect judgement and thinking—and therefore always arrive at the perfect truth—then placing reason in a magisterial role would be good and appropriate. But only God is able to reason in this manner. And consequently our only hope, if we still desire to arrive at truth, is to rely on God. To do this, we place our faith—the ministry of the Holy Spirit through sound interpretation of the Bible—in the overseeing position and reason in a ministerial role. In this position, reason serves and defends faith, but never usurps its authoritative role in our lives.

For the Christian there is a distinct spiritual benefit of placing reason in a ministerial role—our faith remains steadfast despite the constantly changing winds of scientific opinions and contradictory spiritual “authorities.” In James 1:5-8, the author describes the man who lacks faith as “blown and tossed by the wind.” He then describes this man as “a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” What a descriptive metaphor for us who place worldly reason above faith in Jesus Christ! Having occasional doubts is a natural part of the Christian life. Christianity unquestionably teaches some radical, amazing, and difficult things! But how we deal with those doubts is often determined by where we place the role of reason and faith in our lives.

Finally, this understanding does not mean that reason should be neglected in the life of the Christian. Reason is very important. In fact, not only does the Bible command us to “Love the Lord our God with all our heart, souls, and minds,” but it also exhorts us to “work out our faith with fear and trembling.” But as Christians, our flawed reasoning should never be allowed to sit in the most prominent position in our lives. That place belongs solely to God and is practically demonstrated by the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit who guides us in the biblically contextualized understanding of Holy Scripture. If we mistakenly allow human reasoning to hold that central space in our lives, reason will occupy that throne only reserved for the Lord. Reason then becomes our idol.

The Authority of Scripture

For the skeptic, a Christian’s unabashed trust in the Bible over what seems to be incontrovertible scientific evidence is antithetical to good sense. How can a sane person put so much faith in the writings of primitive people seeped in a pre-scientific and mythological worldview?—so their reasoning goes. But is this faith in the inerrancy of Scripture really such a tremendous stretch of credulity? If God truly exists and our understanding of his existence is deemed “properly basic,” then the fact that he desires to reveal Himself to us by “prattling”⁵ in the special revelation of Scripture does not seem much of a “leap of faith”. Simply put: God exists and therefore He communicates. There is nothing strange or unreasonable about this belief. In fact, this is gloriously good news!

Therefore, when a Christian bases his faith on the inerrancy of Scripture, that faith is based on the true reality of a God who desires to communicate. The theologian, J. I. Packer, writes,⁶

Similarly (and this is our next point) God in love calls us to humble ourselves by bowing to Holy Scripture, which also has an appearance of foolishness and weakness when judged by some human standards, yet is truly His Word and the means of our knowing Him as Savior. God first humbled Himself for our salvation in the Incarnation and on the cross an now He humbles Himself for our knowledge of salvation by addressing us in and through the often humanly unimpressive words of the Bible. We are here confronted by that quality in God of which C. S. Lewis wrote: “The same divine humility which decreed that God should become a baby at a peasant woman’s breast, and later an arrested field preacher in the hands of the Roman police, decreed also that he should be preached [and, we may add, written about] in a vulgar, prosaic and unliterary language.” For this quality in God whereby He lovingly identifies with what is beneath Him—the quality of which the Incarnation is the paradigm, though all His gracious dealings with men show it—the classical name is condescension (Greek, synkatabasis) and the etymological significance is “coming-down-to-be-with.”

So what conclusion can we make from the fact that 1) God’s existence is self-evident (“properly basic”) and 2) that God reveals himself inerrantly through the special revelation of Holy Scripture? Obviously, if these two conditions are true—as professed by most evangelical Christians—then the Bible has the final epistemological authority over all other authorities (including “scientific authorities” and “philosophical authorities”). In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, we read:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Therefore, although the prevailing opinion of scientific authorities may disagree with the plain witness of Genesis 1-2, we hold Scripture as the primary authority. Although we may not be able to completely reconcile every apparent contradictions between the Bible and certain scientific findings, we do not become anxious because we understand the limitations of the scientific method, the influence of presuppositions in interpreting observational data, and most importantly, the accuracy and authority that Scripture commands as the incarnation of God’s message to mankind.

Genesis 1-2 and Biblical Hermeneutics

With any contradiction between Scripture and science, Scripture should have the final authority. However, this is somewhat of an oversimplification—this understanding is only true if we have first interpreted Scripture correctly. In 2 Timothy 2:15, we are reminded to “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” The assumption here is that if there is a “right way” to handle Scripture, then there must also be “wrong ways.” And although there is definitely a perspicuity to Scripture, this doctrine does not imply that all parts of Scripture are equally easy to understand. Some truths, such as the resurrection of Christ, are plainly obvious. Other truths, such as those relating to eschatology, are not.

How then do we interpret the first two chapters of Genesis? A detailed hermeneutic evaluation of Genesis 1-2 is beyond the scope of this paper (or my abilities to evaluate). However, it appears that the majority of Hebraic scholarship deems Genesis 1-2 as literal narrative.⁷ But who cares? What difference does it make if we interpret the first two chapters of Genesis as metaphorical poetry or literal historical narrative?

There are two important consequences that directly result from how we handle these two chapter. First, our understanding of the rest of Scripture is directly related to our understanding of Creation. The tenants of Christian doctrines find their establishment with the Creation account. Here we are informed of who God is, who man is, the effect of sin on man’s relationship with a holy God, and the promise of hope given to Adam and Eve before being expelled from Eden. A metaphorical interpretation of Genesis 1-2 could seriously undermine Christ-exalting theology. Second, our view of these early chapters reveal our underlying hermeneutical presuppositions. A poor interpretation of these early verses may have a detrimental effect on how we interpret other parts of the Bible. If we decide to relegate the creation account as simply metaphorical poetry when the overwhelming consensus of Hebrew scholarship deems Genesis 1-2 as literal historical narrative, then we are therefore hermeneutically unrestrained in “picking and choosing” which part of the Bible we want to be literal and which part we want to me metaphorical. Such an interpretive approach seems dangerous.

Conclusion

Genesis 1-2 will test the epistemological bases of every Christian. At the heart of the humanistic attack of a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-2 is an attack on the how a Christian determines truth. J. Barton Payne succinctly summarizes the issue in this way: “For every critic—the liberal just as much as the evangelical—establishing limits is a matter of faith, either in one’s own, internal competence or in another’s (Christ’s) external authority.”⁸ And Payne later writes concerning negative higher criticism (but it also applies to our discussion), “It seems to boil down to this: either human criticism gains the place of honor, or Jesus does.”⁹

In my own life, I have personally come to terms with the role of faith and reason. And although I believe that my faith is the foundation which guides my reason, I do not feel that even my faith was something that I “conjured up” by pulling myself up by my own “spiritual bootstraps.” In the final analysis, my faith (and therefore my ability to rightly reason) were nothing more than a simple gift from God. I did nothing to deserve it. I did nothing to earn it. Rather, the opposite is true—I deserved nothing but condemnation. But by the wonderful grace of God, Jesus planted a seed of faith within the soil of this sinning physician; and like Lazarus from the grave, Jesus raised me from the dead. Paul’s words in Colossians 2:13-14 are representative of my life:

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

This faith in what Jesus did for me on the cross may seem like foolishness to the humanistic scientist. But it is the one of the guiding presuppositions of my life. It is a truth that illumines other truths.

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¹ Alvin Plantinga, Faith and Rationality. London: Notre Dame, 1983. 39-44.

² Bavinck, Herman. The Doctrine of God. Carlisle: Banner of Truth, The, 1997. 78.

³ Calvin, John. Calvin : Institutes of the Christian Religion. Ed. John T. McNeill. New York: Westminster John Knox P, 2004. 44.

⁴ Craig, William L. Hard Questions, Real Answers. Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2005. 31-42.

⁵ Calvin, John. Calvin : Institutes of the Christian Religion. Ed. John T. McNeill. New York: Westminster John Knox P, 2004.

⁶ Packer, James I. "The Adequacy of Human Language." Inerrancy. By Norman L. Geisler. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980. 216.

⁷ Kelly, D. Creation and Change. New York: Mentor, 1997. 41-54.

⁸ Payne, J. Barton. "The Authority of Scripture." Inerrancy. By Norman L. Geisler. Grand Rapids, OH: Zondervan, 1980. 93.

⁹ Ibid., at 110.