Ever since I graduated from seminary, I’ve had to deal with the issue of credentials. This has come up in the church and in the classroom. When I first started teaching Bible, I had students who thought because they grew up in church, they pretty much had the Bible figured out. As I would challenge some of their ideas, both in terms of conclusions and exegetical support, I was surprised that my credentials didn’t factor into the discussion. In other words, if we were discussing an Old Testament text in freshmen Bible class, my opinion on the text wasn’t treated as weightier. I might have taken 4 semesters of Hebrew and countless biblical and theological studies classes that touched on the text, but that didn’t matter. It was just like, my opinion man (to quote The Dude).
This never really dissipated. It’s had its highs and lows, but latter actually coming in the church we thankfully left. Recently, I was reminded of it afresh after a discussion in class. One student had taken the discussion home and let me know that his dad thought I was wrong. I looked at him for a moment, my face betraying nothing of my thoughts or emotions.
“That’s fine” I said.
If I’ve thought things through and done my research, I’m not particularly bothered if someone disagrees. I didn’t want to go down the road at the time, but while I may respect his dad as a person, I don’t particularly care if he thinks my exegetical conclusions about a theological issue are wrong. And that’s not because I’m prideful. It’s because I think I’m both right and more informed on the matter we were discussing. I’m willing to be proven wrong by an argument from Scripture, but that was not forthcoming.
Now, does the fact that I have a degree from a respected seminary mean everything I think about the Bible is right? Of course not. I suppose that would be a kind of reverse genetic fallacy where my reasoning isn’t evaluated on its own merits, but on its source. While that would minimize arguments in class, I’m not sure that’s a healthy epistemological way forward.
I bring all this up by way of introduction back into the whole Genesis and science discussion. Experts are not always right, but that doesn’t mean we don’t trust their informed analysis. We read their arguments, think reflectively, and compare their ideas to others in their field with similar expertise. Sometimes they’re wrong. But, when they are talking about subject in which they have a Ph.D and I don’t, I should probably weight their analysis heavier than my own.
This was brought home in a different way when I was reading Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design. I came away from the book not fully embracing any of the views, which is fairly typical. Part of that was that each contributor was the figurehead for a different organization, none of which I enthusiastically support. The other part was that none of them had any credentials to discuss exegetical matters related to Genesis. They did engage in exegesis, but that wasn’t supposed to be the focus of their essays. I’ll explain more on that in an actual review of sorts.
The odd man out in the whole discussion was Ken Ham. He was the only author included with no Ph.D, and clearly was arguing out of his depth. His essay and responses were clearly the most combative, and the editor mentioned in passing in the conclusion that Ham hadn’t been willing to shorten his work to fit word count like the other contributors had. While that struck me as odd, it also made sense, and was another reason I’m less apt to follow his reasoning.
Lest I commit a genetic fallacy, Ham is not necessarily wrong because he doesn’t have a Ph.D in any field relevant to discussing creation, evolution, and intelligent design. To be fair, I don’t either. He may very well be right. But, what I’ve been thinking through as I’ve done more reading is how many different fields of thought have to be wrong on their conclusions if young earth creationism is right.
So, let’s assume for a minute Ken Ham is right. Everything was created in six sequential days about six thousand years ago. This creates problems for cosmology, astrophysics, anthropology, and geology, to name a few fields. And that’s leaving out biology and understandings related to how life on earth formed and developed. But, if you pick up any science textbook (or really any science book) that talks about anything related to origins or development of life on earth or in the universe at large, they are all wrong.
Now, some people might be fine with that. And sure, if the word of God teaches it, we should be willing to stand in solidarity with God’s word over and against the teachings of men. But, to do that, we should be pretty sure that a young earth creationist reading of the early chapters of Genesis is the most solid reading possible. One that takes into account the Hebrew literary conventions, ancient Near Eastern history and mythology, biblical theology, the place of Genesis in context of the Torah as a whole, and basically the whole narrative of Scripture. It won’t due to say that a “plain sense” reading of Genesis would yield a young earth conclusion. It’s only “plain sense” to a modern Western person. It’s not necessarily the plain sense to a ancient middle Eastern audience.
That being said, reading Genesis well means really wrestling with the text. It means measuring one’s reading against biblical scholars of past and present. And it means reading in light of our modern context with scientists who know more about God’s world than we often do. They may be reading nature as naturalists, not believing there is a God, but that doesn’t mean their methods or conclusions are automatically wrong. Their reasoning should stand or fall on its own merits. And starting with the conclusion that they must be wrong because the Bible teaches young earth creationism is begging the question. We can’t assume that’s what it teaches without investigating, and we can’t conclude the scientific picture of reality is wrong if we haven’t come to terms with how to best read Genesis.
And so, I’ll keep reading and studying and wrestling. As John Piper once said, raking is easy, but all you get is leaves. Digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.