Is Ham’s version of creationism theologically viable?

 One blogger likened the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham to the experience of being invited to a basketball game only to realize that the host brought tennis rackets instead of basketballs.  This is perhaps the best analogy for the debate.  The subject was, “Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern, scientific era?”  Bill Nye arrived ready to talk about science.  Ken Ham, on the other hand, came with tennis rackets ready to talk about theology.  He began his opening statement saying that, “The creation/evolution debate is really a conflict between two philosophical worldviews…”[1]  With that statement he threw science out the window and began to explain his philosophical position.

Pulling in short videos from actual scientists who also happen to be young earth creationists, it was as if Ham organized the debate to simply say to the world, “Hey we do science too!”  His main argument was that creationists do excellent “observational science” but they disagree with Nye about “historical science.”  With this novel approach Ham insisted that whatever secular scientists (by that he means mainstream science) or creationists (by that he means his school of thought) say about the past is only speculation at best.  They can use the same observed data and come to different conclusions about the past. And that’s ok, because none of us were there!

As a viewer, I became excited that Ham would then use this observational science to show how the earth and the universe could be about 6,000 years old.  That would, after all, stick to the subject of the debate.  Instead Ham explained that we know the universe is only 6,000 years old because the Bible says so.  The Bible is the word of God, so we should trust it. 

Nye on the other hand, focused on the subject of the debate and gave example after example of scientific observation that pointed toward a 13 billion (or so) year old universe.  IF this were a science debate, Ham would have carefully considered these examples and shown how they really point toward a young universe.  Oh the joy I would have had IF it were a science debate.  Instead, Ham began huddling behind his podium like a young child saying, “Nuh ah, the Bible says the universe is young, and I trust that more than science.” Bill Nye summarized it well when he said, “I give you lion’s teeth, you give me bible passages.”

Needless to say, I was unimpressed, though not surprised by the debate.  The Science Guy talked science and the Fundamentalist Christian Guy talked theology…kinda.  Many times I turned to my wife and said, “Ken isn’t debating science with Bill anymore! He’s trying to debate theology with me!”  And so to honor the sneaky true spirit of the debate I would like to raise the following debate question:

Is Ham’s version of creationism theologically viable?

From the debate about science, I learned these fundamentals about Ken Ham’s faith:

    

1. The Bible is the foundation for Christian faith.
2. The Bible is the Word of God.
3.  Jesus believed in a young earth/six day creation.
4. When the genre is historical narrative (Gen 1 and 2), the content of the Bible gives infallible scientific truth.
5. The Bible is a unique book that gives more answers than any other religious book.

Let’s consider these points in reverse order.

5.   The Bible is a unique book that gives more answers than any other religious book.  Ham’s elaboration on this belief came with the last question of the debate, “What more than anything do you base your beliefs upon?”  He wanted Nye and us viewers to be impressed by the uniqueness of the Bible in trying to answer ultimate questions in life: Where did the universe come from?  Where did humanity come from?  Why is there sin?  Isn’t it fantastic that no other religious book grapples with these questions? I mean other than the Quran.  And the Vedas. And the Tipitaka.  And the Babylonian account of creation, Enuma Elish.  In this creation account divine spirits pre-exist creation.  The world is created in this order: light, firmament, dry land, heavenly lights, and humans.  When it was complete, the gods rested.[2]   Please don’t misunderstand, the Israelite description of YHWH’s creation takes these abundantly common themes and reinterprets them to cast a new vision of their God.   But we cannot claim that Genesis’ cosmology is particularly unique.  In fact it was quite common (and unlike our contemporary cosmology).

Taken from Reading the Old Testament, 115

4.  When the genre is historical narrative (Gen 1 and 2), the content of the Bible gives infallible scientific truth.  When asked if the Bible should be taken literally, Ham fumbled about to ultimately affirm that historical narrative (into which he believes Gen 1 and 2 belong) should be taken literally and do give reliable information about that history.  There are two significant assumptions in this affirmation.  Firstly, that historical narrative gives infallible scientific truth.  Scripture is primarily a theological book that gives theological insights into historical events.  Even in the case of historical narrative, the purpose is not to give some objective view of what happened (an altogether Modern expectation of historical documents).  Rather the authors and the communities that read the narratives are interested in what it says about God and their community composition.  It assumes the prevalent cosmology and interprets God’s interactions with His people.  For example in Joshua 10:13 (historical narrative) we read that the Sun stood still and the Moon stopped.[3]  Are we to reject the heliocentric view of our solar system because the Bible says that the Sun moves around the earth and thus has the capacity to stop in its orbit?  I hope not. Obsessing over the scientific and historical validity of this passage misses the point of v 14, “Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel.” 

The second assumption is that Genesis 1 and 2 are historical narrative.  Given the repetitive, poetic, hymn-like structure many interpreters do not consider this to be historical narrative.  The fantastical elements like talking serpents, clay-idol humans, and trees that bear virtues as fruit, lead most to conclude that this is a mythological piece meant to vividly and pictorially depict a theological view of the person and creation.  It actually reads better as a polemical piece against the creation accounts of Babylon and Egypt than it does as a historical or scientific textbook.  In my opinion, while Ken Ham obsessed over secular humanists hijacking the word “science,” I would suggest that Ham hijacked this obviously mythological narrative.

3. Jesus believed in a young earth/six day creation.   For rooting everything he believes on the Bible, this is simply an incredible statement for Ken to make.  The basis of this point is that Jesus referenced the creation accounts to make a historical statement.  Matthew 19:4-5, “ He answered, ‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” Ken said, “He quoted from Genesis as literal history.”  We can say for certain that Jesus quoted from Genesis.  But putting words into Jesus’ mouth that Genesis 1 and 2 is literal history?  Isn’t that what we call eisegesis or rather, “making god in our own image?”

2.  The Bible is the Word of God.  It would seem that I would need to add very little here, but I wanted to cast a nuanced view. A simple question may be, “What is the word of God in the Bible?”  The Word of God came to John in the wilderness (Luke 3:2). The crowds pressed in to hear Jesus preach the Word of God (Luke 5:1). In the parable of the sower, the seeds represent the word of God (Luke 8:1).  In John’s prologue Jesus is the word of God (John 1).  One way the New Testament treats the “word of God” is that it is not a book at all.  The word of God is a revelation of God or in the case of John, the word of God is a person.  In the incarnation, Jesus is the definitive word of God.  Jesus is the “fullness of all Revelation.”[4]  In the person of Christ (not a book) God is made known and effects change in the world.  The New Testament contains primitive witness to the Christ event.  Yet the New Testament never claims to possess the entirety of divine revelation nor the entirety of the Christ event.  In fact just the opposite is true: “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).

1. The Bible is the foundation for Christian faith.  What then is the foundation of the Christian faith?  Lest we succumb to idolatry, the foundation of the Christian faith is not a book, but a person: Christ.  It is Christ whom the Church preaches (1Cor 1).  This is why when Ken was asked if anything would change his mind, I was astonished to hear that he went back to a defense of a book.  He insisted that his view of Genesis would never be disproved and thus he would never change his religious beliefs.  But the New Testament insists that our faith is in vain, not if Genesis 1 and 2 is not taken as science, but our faith is in vain if Christ has not been raised from the dead (1Cor 15).  Our Christian faith rises and falls on Christ.  When Christ ascended to the Father, He did not drop a book from heaven.  Christ sent the Holy Spirit to guide the Church and lead it into all truth (John 16:13).  It was the apostolic preaching of Christ done by the Church, empowered by the Holy Spirit that spread the message of salvation.  This occurred before the New Testament was written.  For a few hundred years there was not even consensus about what made up the New Testament.  Christ is the foundation for Christian faith, not a book.

Bill Nye keenly pointed out that Ken Ham is a minority with his dealings with science and his approach to Christianity.  Is Ham’s version of creationism theologically viable?  By misinterpreting and misrepresenting the genre and theological thrust of the creation accounts, by putting words into Jesus’ mouth, and by coming close to a bibliolatry, Ham’s approach is not theologically viable.  Scripture is a source for truth about God, but the extra-biblical assumption that it contains all truth about history and science is simply that: extra-biblical.  It is outside the scope of what the Bible claims for itself and outside the rich intellectual tradition of the Church.

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[1] Please note that this wasn’t a debate between evolution and creation or creationism.  It was a debate as to the scientific viability of Ham’s creationism.

[2] Lawrence Boadt. Reading the Old Testament: An introduction.  (Paulist Press: New York, 1984), 117.

[3] In our contemporary view of the solar system, the sun stands still as the earth rotates and orbits.  For the sun to appear to have stopped in the sky it would be the earth that would have stopped.  But the text says that the sun stopped.

[4] DeiVerbum Paragraph 2.