Genesis 1-11: Myth or History?Prof. David J. Engelsma |
"l believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth."
This is first in the Christian creed.
It is very simple: the Christian knows God as Creator and, therefore the truth about
the origin of the world and himself by faith -- by faith only. Implied is that this
knowledge of God as Creator is derived from Scripture, especially from the outstanding
revelation of God as Creator in Genesis l and 2. For faith looks to, and is informed by,
the inspired Word of God.
Knowledge of God as Creator is not only first. It is also fundamental. It is
fundamental to our knowledge of God as Redeemer and, therefore, to knowledge of our
redemption. Upon both of these articles, faith in God as Creator and faith in God as
Redeemer, depends the third: "I believe in the Holy Ghost." Where the doubt of
unbelief concerning the Creator is entertained, trust in the redemption of the cross and
hope of the resurrection of the body are a lost cause.
This is the issue in the present controversy over the historicity of Genesis 1-11 in
reputedly orthodox churches and seminaries. Rightly, the controversy centers on the days
of Genesis 1 and 2.
In a few years, the churches that tolerate the question, "Genesis 1-11: Myth or
History?" as a serious question (to be answered, of course, by "science")
will be struggling with the question, "Luke 1 and 2: Myth or History?" Soon
thereafter, I Corinthians 15 will be a problem.
Will Reformed and Presbyterian churches confess the first article of the Christian
faith in the teeth of the scientism, evolutionism, higher criticism of the Bible, and
sheer ridicule of faith of our day?
This is the real question.
Professor David J. Engelsma Protestant Reformed Seminary
Grandville, MI U.S.A. June 2001
The content of this pamphlet first appeared in the Protestant Reformed Journal , issues November 2000, April 2001.
Everything about the topic of this polemical essay is wrong. There is absolutely no
reason to set Genesis 1 - 11 off from the rest of Genesis, the rest of the Old Testament,
and the rest of the Bible as a special, indeed dubious, kind of writing. There is no
question whether Genesis 1-11 is historical. There may be no question about the
historicity of Genesis 1 - 11. Merely to allow for the possibility that Genesis 1-11 is
mythical is unbelief. Seriously to pose the question about Genesis 1-11, "Myth or
History?" is to do exactly what Eve did when she entertained the speaking serpent's
opening question, "Yea, hath God said?" (Gen. 3:1). Tolerance of doubt
concerning the truthfulness of God's Word is revolt against Him and apostasy from Him.
Nevertheless, the topic is forced upon us by the controversy of the present day. And it serves well to sharpen the issue: Genesis 1 - 11 is either myth or history. That section of Scripture is not, and cannot be, a third thing: mythical history, or historical myth.
The topic is not seriously intended, as though it were an open question to the writer,
and may be an open question to the reader, whether Genesis 1-11 is myth or history.
Genesis 1-11 is history, not myth. This must be the presupposition, proposition, and
conclusion of this article. Genesis 1-11 demands it.
It is shameful that the topic is necessary in the sphere of Reformed churches. Has it really come to this in the Reformed churches, that the historicity of Genesis 1-11 must be defended? One can reply, correctly, that this is also the case in all the other churches, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic. Nevertheless, the Reformed believer so feels the shame of it that also the Reformed churches have proved vulnerable to the assault on Genesis 1 - 11 that he has no joy in publishing an article that makes this known. His spirit is rather that of David in II Samuel 1:19. 20: "How are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph." He experiences the sting of the apostolic rebuke in Hebrews 5:12: "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God."
Humiliating though the topic is, the issue must be confronted: the historicity of Genesis 1-11 is widely and increasingly denied, in evangelical and Reformed circles; and the historicity of the opening chapters of the Bible is of fundamental importance.
In this issue, the gospel itself is at stake among us. If we agree that Genesis 1-11 is myth, the divinity of Scripture--its "God-breathedness," as II Timothy 3:16 puts it--is denied, and thus is lost Scripture's authority, reliability, clarity, sufficiency, and unity. If Genesis 1 - 11 is myth, the message of Scripture is abandoned, for Genesis 1 - 11 is the foundation of the doctrine of justification by faith alone and the source of the gospel of grace. Martin Luther is our teacher here. Of the early chapters of Genesis, he said: '"certainly the foundation of the whole of Scripture."
The force then of the sorry, embarrassing topic of this piece is, "What are we to make of the foundation of the whole of Scripture? myth? or history?"
The foundation of the whole of Scripture and, therefore, also of all that the whole
Scripture teaches is a myth, the Christian church is being told today, by her own
ministers, theologians, and scholars. A myth is a story that explains an important aspect
of human life and experience. Often the story is of a theological, spiritual, and
religious nature. But a myth is a story that never happened. The storyteller casts the
myth in the form of events, events that occurred on earth among men. Usually these events
involved the gods and their relationships with men and women. But these mythical events
have no reality in actual fact; they are unhistorical. If read or listened to for
entertainment, the myth is fictitious. If taught as the factual explanation of a certain
aspect of human life, the myth is a lie.
C.F. Nosgen gives this definition of "myth": "Any unhistorical tale,
however it may have arisen, in which a religious society finds a constituent part of its
sacred foundations, because an absolute expression of its institutions, experiences, and
ideas, is a myth." 1
Heathen religions abound in myths. The Greek myth of Pandora's box explains evil in the
world as the result of a woman's opening a box contrary to the instruction of the gods.
The Babylonian myth Enuma Elish explains creation from the killing and dividing of
a great monster, Tiamat.
Scripture speaks of myths. In the Greek of the New Testament, Scripture speaks of myths explicitly: the Greek word is muthos, "myth." The King James Version uniformly translates this Greek word as "fables." But Scripture denies that the biblical message is based on, or derived from, myths: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables (Greek: muthos), when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (II Pet. 1:16). It warns the saints, particularly ministers, against myths: "Neither give heed to fables (Greek: muthos)" (I Tim. 1:4). Nevertheless, Scripture prophesies that in the last days, under the influence of unsound teachers--"mythologians," we may call them--professing Christians will turn from the truth to myths: "And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables (Greek: muthos)" (II Tim. 4:4).
This prophecy is now fulfilled in evangelical and Reformed churches in that men and
women hold Genesis 1-11 for myth. They have turned from Genesis 1-11 as truth to Genesis
1-11 as myth. This is widespread. This prevails. Otherwise, we would not be forced to the
shameful extremity of defending the historicaal reality of the events recorded in Genesis
1 - 11.
Many Reformed people in North America learned that Genesis 1 - 11 is regarded as a
myth, in reputable and influential Reformed circles, with the publication of the book, The
Fourth Day, in 1986. 2 Since the author of the book was then a
professor at Calvin College, the book and resulting controversy brought to light that the
view of Genesis 1 - 11 as myth is held, taught, and tolerated at Calvin College.
Four years later, in 1990, a similar work came out of Calvin College. This was titled, Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives on the World's Formation. 3 In a chapter entitled, "What Says the Scripture?" John H. Stek, at that time a professor of Old Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary, boldly asserted that Genesis 1 draws on heathen, Egyptian myths; is non-historical; is a "metaphorical narration"; and is, in short, a "storied rather than a historiographical account of creation."
A third installment of Calvin College's ongoing denial of the historicity of Genesis
1-11 followed in 1995. In his book, The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church's
Response to Extrabiblical Evidence, professor of geology Davis A. Young rejected the
historicity of the account of the flood in Genesis 6-9. On the basis mainly of geology.
Young declared that "there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that human or animal
populations were ever disrupted by a catastrophic global flood." The account of the
flood in Genesis is Scripture's exaggerated-enormously exaggerated--description of
some local flood or other once upon a time in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers: "The flood account uses hyperbolic language to describe an event that
devastated or disrupted Mesopotamian civilization--that is to say, the whole world of the
Semites." 4
But it would be a mistake to suppose that the mythologizing of Genesis 1 - 11 goes on
only at the college of Howard Van Till and Davis Young and at the seminary of John Stek.
It goes on almost everywhere in evangelical, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches. Rare is
the church, seminary, or college where it is not found and tolerated, if not approved.
Among the theologians,. scholars, and teachers, it is the prevailing view. This means that
in a very short time it will be the prevailing view of the people, if it is not already.
One strategic center for teaching the myth is the Christian school, not only the
Christian colleges, but also the Christian grade schools and high schools. The Christian
schools in North America are full of the teaching that Genesis 1-11 is myth.
Christian schools!
To be sure, the term "myth" is seldom used in Reformed and evangelical
circles. Those who are, in fact, teaching that Genesis 1 - 11 is myth will usually disavow
"myth" as the proper description of that part of Holy Scripture. There is good
reason for this. "Myth" has unsavory connotations. The Bible expressly denounces
myths. Only the most radical (and candid!) of liberal theologians--the Rudolph
Bultmanns--boldly call the Bible stories in Genesis 1-11 "myths." Hence, the
evangelical and the Reformed mythologians are careful to use other terms. However just as
a rose by any other name smells sweet, so a myth by any other name still stinks.
We ignore the liberals like Hermann Gunkel, who called Genesis 1-11 "legend," and the neo-orthodox like Karl Barth, who called the passage "saga." Our concern is the extent to which Genesis 1-11 is regarded as myth in reputedly conservative circles. In The Fourth Day, Howard Van Till described the opening chapters of Genesis as "primal, or primeval history." The committee of the Christian Reformed Church that advised synod on the views of Van Till and his colleagues referred to Genesis 1-11 as "stylized, literary, or symbolic stories." 5
The Dutch Reformed scientist and author Jan Lever had earlier written two books that were translated into English in which he attacked the Reformed confession that Genesis 1-11 is historical. In his Where are We Headed? A Christian Perspective on Evolution, he vehemently denied that Genesis 1-11 is "an account of historical events.... Anyone who reads the Bible with common sense can reach the conclusion that a literal reading of the Genesis account is wrong." Rather, the opening chapters of the Bible are a "confession about God." 6
A recent book by notable evangelical theologians and other scholars, The Genesis
Debate, has a number of these men insisting that Genesis 1-11 is unhistorical, indeed
allegorical. One scholar is bold to state an implication of this view of Genesis 1-11 that
fairly bristles with doctrinal implications, namely, that it is absurd to think that the
human race descended from two (married) ancestors. Nevertheless, so the editor informs us,
this scholar, like all the others, is "committed to the full inspiration and
authority of Scripture." 7
Another prominent evangelical, Charles E. Hummel, in an InterVarsity publication, The
Galileo Connection, contends that the first eleven chapters of Genesis must be seen as
a "literary genre"; they are a "semipoetic narrative cast in a
historico-artistic framework." Genesis 1-11 is not a "cosmogony," but a
"confession of faith." 8
The Fuller Seminary theologian Paul K. Jewett prefers the designations "primal
history" and "theologized history." Authoritative science has enabled us
moderns to recognize the "childlike limitations of the understanding" of those
who wrote the first eleven chapters of the Bible. Theirs was a "prescientific
simplicity" when they told the story of "God's making the world 'in the space of
six days.' "9
Bruce Waltke, who was professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary at
the time, wrote in Christianity Today that we must not read Genesis 1:1-2:3 as
historical. Rather. we must take "an artistic-literary approach." He quoted
Henri Blocher approvingly: the passage is "an artistic arrangement ... not to be
taken literally." Waltke concluded that Genesis 1:1-2:3 is a "creation story in torah
('instruction'), which is a majestic, artistic achievement, employing anthropomorphic
language." 10
To refer to no others, in his book, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, John
Frame, at the time professor of theology at Westminster Seminary in Escondido, California,
wrote that he is open to the possibility of interpreting Genesis 1 and 2
"figuratively" because of the findings of geologists that the earth is very old.
11
All of these men studiously avoid the use of the word "myth," although a
couple of them give the game away by their description of the kind of stories they think
to find in Genesis 1- 11. Having denied that Genesis gives us "a picture of
reality," Lever goes on to affirm that Genesis "does provide us with the
fundamentals for a life and world view, a religious perspective on the nature of
this reality, its finitude and its dependence upon God in becoming and in being." 12 This is the textbook definition of myth.
Similarly, Bruce Waltke explains his own figurative interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2:3
by quoting H. J. Sorenson in the New Catholic Encyclopedia:
The basic purpose is to instruct men on the ultimate realities that have an
immediate bearing on daily life and on how to engage vitally in these realities to live
successfully. It contains "truths to live by" rather than "theology to
speculate on." 13
This is the classic myth.
Avoidance of the term "myth" is of no significance. What is important is that
the events recorded in Genesis 1 - 11 never really happened, never really happened as
Genesis 1-11 records them as happening. Genesis 1-11 is not history, but myth. This
world never did come into existence by the Word of God calling each creature in the space
of six days, and then in the order set forth in Genesis 1. The human race never did
originate from a man, Adam, who was formed by the hand of God from the dust, and from a
woman, Eve, built by the hand of God from a rib of the man as we read in Genesis 2. Sin
and death never did enter the world by the man's eating a piece of forbidden fruit at the
instigation of his wife and by the temptation of a speaking serpent as Genesis 3 tells us.
There never was the development of agriculture, herding, music, and metallurgy as Genesis
4 reveals. There never was a universal flood as taught in Genesis 6-8. There never was a
Tower of Babel occasioning the dividing of the nations by confounding of the language as
set forth in Genesis 11.
Genesis 1-11: Myth!
This is the prevailing opinion in evangelical, Reformed, and Presbyterian seminaries, schools, publishing houses, and churches at the beginning of the 2lst century.
Myth is also the implication of the "framework-hypothesis." This is an explanation of the six days of Genesis 1 and of the seventh day of Genesis 2:1-3. The theory is occasioned by doubt concerning the literality of the account in Genesis 1:1-2:3 because of the loud testimony of modern scientists that the universe is billions of years old and that its present form is due to evolution.
The framework hypothesis denies that Genesis 1:1-2:3 makes known what actually took place in the beginning. Rather, the very human, but inspired author told a story whose point is that God created the world in some unknown way and over the span of unknown time. (In fact, the defenders of the framework hypothesis will be found holding that God created the world exactly as evolutionary science decrees: by evolutionary process over billions of years.) The storyteller of Genesis, so runs the hypothesis, hung his story on the framework (utterly fictitious!) of six days of creation and one day of rest. There is nothing factual about the days with their evening and morning, including the seventh day: nothing factual about the order of the days; nothing factual about the individual acts of creation on each day, or about any of the details whatsoever. Presumably, the unreality of the passage would extend also to God's trinitarian conversation within Himself before the creation of man in Genesis 1:26.
This is how one of the leading proponents of the theory, who also did much to
popularize it among conservative Reformed people both in the Netherlands and in North
America, described it.
In Genesis 1 the inspired author offers us a story of creation. It is not his
intent, however, to present an exact report of what happened at creation. By speaking of
the eightfold work of God he impresses the reader with the fact that all that exists has
been created by God. This eightfold work he places in a framework: he distributes it over
six days, to which he adds a seventh day as the day of rest. In this manner he gives
expression to the fact that the work of creation is complete; also that at the conclusion
of His work God can rest, take delight in the result; and also ... that in celebrating the
Sabbath man must be God's imitator. The manner in which the works of creation have been
distributed over six days is not arbitrary. 14
The name by which this understanding of the foundational chapters of the Bible calls
itself is itself the refutation of the theory: "framework hypothesis." The
faith of the church may not, and does not, rest upon a "hypothesis." The
church's faith must be absolutely certain knowledge that has clear, infallible, divine
revelation as its object and that receives Genesis 1:1-2:3 for what it itself and all the
rest of Scripture claim that it is: history.
The rejection by the framework-hypothesis of the historicity of Genesis 1:1-2:3 implies
the mythical character of the more detailed description of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:4ff.,
the mythical character of the account of the fall in Genesis 3, and the mythical character
of the rest of Genesis 1 - 11, which depends upon Genesis 1-3. For Genesis 1:1-2:3
includes the account of God's creation of a first man and a first woman in His own image.
If this account is not historical, neither is the tightly linked account of the fall of
these two fabulous persons.
Ridderbos himself acknowledged that the framework-hypothesis implies death in God's
world long before, and altogether apart from, any possible "fall" of humans,
which according to Genesis 3:17, 18 and Romans 8:19-22 is the cause of death in the
creation. Ridderbos also admitted that the framework-hypothesis opens up the church to Jan
Lever's teachings of man's biological descent from the beasts.15
Fundamental to the historicity of Genesis 1 - 11 is the reality of the days of Genesis 1:1-2:3, each consisting of one evening and one morning; the factuality of their order, as of the acts, or rest, of God on each of them; and the literality of the record of them.
What explains the view of the opening chapters of Scripture as mythical?
This view has not been the tradition of the church for some 1700 years after the
apostles. All freely acknowledge that the tradition of the church has been to take Genesis
1-11 as historical. Much less is this view the tradition of the Reformation. Luther is
representative of the tradition of the Reformation in his lectures on Genesis. Referring
to Eve's temptation by the serpent, Luther wrote:
Through Moses [the Holy Spirit] does not give us foolish allegories; but He teaches
us about most important events, which involve God, sinful man, and Satan, the originator
of sin. Let us, therefore, establish in the first place that the serpent is a real
serpent, but one that has been entered and taken over by Satan, who is speaking through
the serpent. 16
A little later in his commentary, reflecting on the first three chapters, Luther wrote:
"We have treated all these facts in their historical meaning, which is their real and
true one."17 "Nobody," he added, "can
fail to see that Moses does not intend to present allegories, but simply to write the
history of the primitive world." 18
Neither is the view of Genesis 1 - 11 as myth due to exegesis of the chapters
themselves, or to exegesis of the New Testament passages that refer to Genesis 1 - 11. The
most liberal of the critics of Genesis 1 - 11, including Julius Wellhausen and Gerhard von
Rad, acknowledged that Genesis 1-11 purports to be history and science. The writer thought
that he was giving a cosmogony and intended to give a history. Wellhausen wrote:
Yet for all this the aim of the narrator is not mainly a religious one. Had he only
meant to say that God made the world out of nothing, and made it good, he could have said
so in simpler words, and at the same time more distinctly. There is no doubt that he means
to describe the actual course of the genesis of the world, and to be true to nature in
doing so; he means to give a cosmogonic theory. Whoever denies this confounds two
different things--the value of history for us, and the aim of the writer. While our
religious views are or seem to be in conformity with his, we have other ideas about the
beginning of the world, because we have other ideas about the world itself, and see in the
heavens no vault, in the stars no lamps, nor in the earth the foundation of the universe.
But this must not prevent us from recognizing what the theoretical aim of the writer of
Gen. 1 really was. He seeks to deduce things as they are from each other: he asks how they
are likely to have issued at first from the primal matter, and the world he has before his
eyes in doing this in not a mythical world but the present and ordinary one.19
Although von Rad excluded Genesis 1:1-2:4a from this analysis, he judged concerning the
rest of Genesis 1 - 11 that
with the Jahwist it would be misdirected theological rigorism not to recognize that
what he planned was, as far as might be with the means and possibilities of his time, a
real and complete primeval history of mankind. No doubt, he presented this span of history
from the point of view of the relationship of man to God; but in the endeavor he also
unquestionably wanted to give his contemporaries concrete knowledge of the earliest
development of man's civilization, and so this aspect too of J's primeval history has to
be taken in earnest.20
Is there anyone who dares to deny that Christ and His apostles regarded the persons and
events recorded in Genesis 1 -11 as historical, and taught the New Testament church so to
regard them, in Matthew 19:3-9; John 8:44; Matthew 24:37-41; Romans 5:12-21; I Corinthians
11:7-12; I Timothy 2:12-15; II Peter 3:5. 6: Acts 17:26, and other places? No one derives
the conception of Genesis 1 - 11 as myth from sound exegesis of these New Testament
passages. Indeed, the recognition of Genesis 1-11 as historical by Christ and the apostles
in New Testament Scripture is an extreme embarrassment for the evangelical and Reformed
mythologians.
There is not the slightest opening in the confessions of the Reformation--binding
documents for all Reformed and Presbyterian theologians-- for taking Genesis 1-11 as myth.
On the basis of Genesis 1-3, in Articles 12-17, the Belgic Confession teaches creation,
the creation of man out of the dust, and the fall of man by means of the devil speaking
through the serpent as history. The Heidelberg Catechism does the same in Lord's Days 3
and 4. The Westminster Confession of Faith explicitly requires that the days of Genesis 1
be understood as historical reality: "It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
... in the beginning. to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein,
whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days. and all very good" (4.1).
Why then have evangelical and Reformed men come to question the historicity of Genesis
1-11?
This has been possible because of the doctrine of Scripture that has gained entrance
into the churches. Scripture is regarded as a human book formed by a historical process.
In Genesis 1 -11 Scripture is a weak, fallible word of man on origins. John Romer is
probably a little strong for some evangelical and Reformed defenders of a figurative
interpretation of Genesis 1 -11, but he does accurately indicate what is going on in these
circles as regards their doctrine of Scripture. In a semi-popular work on Scripture titled
Testament, Romer states that the book of Genesis introduces us to the "world
of myth." "Myth," he describes as "a sacred tale ... carefully
designed [to] deal with the deepest issues of the day." How this has come about in
the Bible, Romer explains this way:
This whole process began when the sagas of Mesopotamia were carefully re-examined
by the authors of Genesis and the thoughts and structures of that most ancient story were
turned to the purposes of Israel and their most singular and solitary God.21
Second, and no less significant, is the desire of evangelical and Reformed scholars to
accommodate the church's thinking to the thinking of the world, the desire to make
Christianity conform to the culture. This runs deep and strong in contemporary Protestant
theology. The churches have abandoned the antithesis: the absolute spiritual separation
between the world of the ungodly and the holy people of God, between the mind of the
enemies of God and the mind of Christ in His friends.
One aspect of this suicidal mania is the conviction that to be respectable, to be
attractive even, to educated modem man, the churches must adapt their thinking, their
confession, and their Scriptures to the most recent scientific theory. They call the
latest scientific theory "general revelation." Since the reigning theory is
Darwinian evolution, Genesis 1 - 11 must dance to the tune played by that infidel
scientist and his atheistic theory.
The Roman Catholic writer, Zachary Hayes, is refreshingly honest as to the reason why
both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches now regard Genesis 1-11 as mythical.
"The flat (sic), historical interpretation of Genesis is gone from
virtually all theological presentations outside strictly fundamentalist (sic) circles....
The account is largely fictional in character and contains many symbolic and mythical
elements...." The cause of the churches' new view of the opening chapters of the
Bible is not exegesis of Scripture: "It would be quite incomplete to try to account
for these changes solely in terms of the internal development of biblical exegesis."
Rather, the cause is modern scientific theory, particularly Darwinian evolution: "The
familiar theory, which was laden with inadequacies from the start, has become almost
incomprehensible for a Christian who views the origins of the human race in terms of some
form of evolution." Hayes gives fair warning: "One cannot open up the
possibility of holding some form of evolution without opening a Pandora's box. Those who
open that box must be willing to assume responsibility for dealing with the kinds of
problems which emerge in many areas of theology."22
Many evangelical and Reformed scholars and churches are less candid in their
explanations, or less developed in their thinking but they all indicate that their revised
view of Genesis is due to the pressure of modern science, that is, the theory of
evolution. The Christian Reformed "Committee on Creation and Science" consigned
all of Genesis 1 - 11 to the realm of the unhistorical. The passage is a "special
kind of historiography"; it gives us "primeval history." The reason for
this analysis of the passage was "the impact of general revelation upon our
understanding of special revelation." "General revelation" is modern
evolutionary scientific theory.23 N. H. Ridderbos indicated
the underlying reason for his framework-hypothesis concerning Genesis 1 and 2 when he
argued that "on any other view ... there arise grave difficulties with respect to
natural science. 24
What the cowardly churches are doing was perfectly symbolized by one of the most ironic
incidents in church history. Upon the death of Charles Darwin, the Church of England
buried that atheist, who did as much to destroy the church of Jesus Christ as any man in
the modern era, with full honors in Westminster Abbey, with old, admitted reprobate Thomas
Huxley carrying the casket. This really happened.
None of this implies that the mythologians do not take Genesis 1-11 very seriously and
that they do not find much fine, spiritual meaning in this unhistorical section of
Scripture.
On the contrary!
The story of creation brings out Israel's dependence on Jahweh, Israel's rejection of
the heathen deifying of the creation, and Israel's confession that their God is God alone.
The story of the fall is Israel's recognition that man is inherently sinful and needs
redemption.
But none of this fine, spiritual and helpful application of Genesis 1-11 carries
any weight, for it all rests on ... myth. It is all man's explanation of man's
fictitious account of things. It all lacks ... well, reality. It is not sound
doctrine. It is not truth.
I need to pay as much attention to Genesis 1 - 11, if it is myth, as I do to the story
of Pandora's box, or to the myth of Marduk slaying and cutting up the monster Tiamat, or
to the fairy tale of "Little Red Riding Hood." When the preacher who takes
Genesis 3 as myth tells me that I need a redeemer in view of man's fallenness, I have but
one response: "Did man really fall just as recorded in Genesis 3?" If
not, I need no redeemer; rather, I need to evolve higher.
When the theologian who explains Genesis 2 as a myth calls me to live in one-flesh
fidelity with my wife (and I notice that as the churches increasingly accept Genesis 1-11
as myth, they decreasingly call me to live in one-flesh fidelity with my wife), I have
this question: "Is Genesis 2 a factual account of a historical institution of
marriage by the Creator Himself?" If not, I am not bound by any law of faithfulness
in marriage. I may live just as I please in marriage, or outside of marriage.
The child of God must have history in Genesis 1-11. Christianity must have history there, history that is clearly and reliably set down by divine inspiration.
The foundation of the entire Scripture (such was Luther's description of Genesis 1 -
11) is history. The events recorded there happened, in and with time. They happened
as is recorded. Only if they happened as Scripture records them as happening are
the events historical. The subtle mythologians, aware of how much is at stake here, assure
us that they maintain the "historicity" of the events in Genesis 1-11. What they
mean is that the myths found on the opening pages of Scripture have a certain rootage in
things that did really happen in the dim and distant past. What these things may have
been, how they actually happened, and in what way they are related to the mythical
representations of them in Genesis 1-11, however, no one knows.
The highly reputed evangelical Henri Blocher is representative. In his exposition of
the opening chapters of the Bible, with regard particularly to the account of the fall in
Genesis 3, Blocher strongly affirms the importance of "the historicity of the content
of Genesis 3." Such is the importance of the historicity of Genesis 3, according to
Blocher, that "along with ethical monotheism and the doctrine of sin . . . nothing
less than the gospel is at stake." The unwary Christian and the trusting church
suppose that Blocher is teaching that Genesis 3 is history. They are deceived. Blocher
denies the reality of the two trees, the reality of a speaking serpent, and the reality of
the creation of a woman-Eve-- from a rib of a man--Adam. Blocher subtly distinguishes
between "a historical account of the fall" (which, according to him, Genesis 3
is not) and "the account of a historical fall" (which, according to him,
it is). Although Genesis 3 is "the account of a historical fall," the
chapter is not historical. It is mythical.25
Genesis 3 is historical inasmuch as, and only inasmuch as, it is not only the account
of a historical fall but also a historical account of the fall. In Genesis 1-11 the Holy
Spirit describes events as they happened. Genesis 1-11 is reality.
But the reality of Genesis 1-11 is far more than that the events merely took place.
They took place as acts of the triune, living God. which He did before His own face,
according to His counsel. His purpose with them was to give Jesus Christ the preeminence
in all things (Col. 1:13-20). This is the historicity of Genesis 1-11. This is
its reality, its truth. And all this history was written down by Moses, who wrote not one
word of his own private interpretation or by his own will, but who wrote as he was moved
by the Holy Ghost (II Pet. 1:20, 21).
Genesis 1:1-2:3 is not excluded from the inspired account of historical events. As a
historical Genesis 1-11 is fundamental to the rest of Scripture, a historical Genesis
1:1-2:3 is fundamental to the rest of Genesis 1-11. And the content of Genesis 1:1-2:3 is
the "days"--six days of divine creation, each consisting of one evening and one
morning, and one day of divine rest. If the days of Genesis 1 and 2, their order, and the
speech and acts of God on the days are not historical, that is, if the events of Genesis 1
and 2 did not happen as Genesis 1 and 2 record them as happening, nothing in Genesis 1-11
is historical. The issue in the controversy, "Genesis 1-11: Myth or History?" is
the historicity of Genesis 1:1-2:3, that is, real days of one evening and one morning, in
the order given, with God's doing on each of them what the passage says He did.
Because Genesis 1-11 is history, the passage has meaning for mankind, especially the believing church. What a superstructure of meaning is reared up on, and supported by, the foundation of the history of Genesis 1 - 11. Genesis 1 - 11 sets forth the origin of all things: the universe, including time and space; man: marriage and the family; the basic ordering of man's life in a week of six days of work and one day of rest; sin; the curse and death, not only for the human race, but also for the brute creation; the gospel and the Savior who is promised by the gospel; the antithesis between godly and ungodly; and the nations.
The origin of Israelis also to be found in the first eleven chapters of Genesis.
Israel's origin in Scripture is not in Genesis 12 in the call of Abram. Rather, it occurs
in Genesis 9:26 in the blessing of Shem.
All of this solid reality of origins fades into a mist of fantasy if Genesis 1 - 11 is
mythical.
Not only is Genesis 1 - 11 the all-important account of the origin of all things, but
this passage is also the foundation of all Christian doctrines and ethics. It is the
foundation of all the great doctrines of the faith: creation, fall, and redemption; man as
the image of God; original sin and total depravity; atonement and. thus. the satisfying of
the justice of a righteous God; and salvation by a substitute--a federal head, just as
Adam was a federal head.
Upon Genesis 1-11 depends also the doctrine of an eschatological destruction of the
world, out of which will come a new world of righteousness. The one historical evidence
that the believer can appeal to against the scoffers who challenge his hope of an end of
the world at Christ's coming is the flood (II Pet. 3:1-7).
If Genesis 1-11 is not history, all these doctrines are lost.
The figurative interpretations in evangelical and Reformed churches of the opening
chapters of Genesis are presently serving the theory of theistic evolution. If theistic
evolution is the real explanation of the origin of our world, death has been in the world
from the very beginning as a natural part of the process of evolution and man has been
morally weak and sinful from his appearance from the primates. Since theistic evolution is
the means that God used to create the world and man, God Himself is responsible for death
in the world and for man's sinfulness. There is then no such thing as original sin,
particularly original guilt that is imputed to every child of a real Adam, who. being
sinless, disobeyed a command about a piece of fruit. And if there is no original sin,
indeed no sin at all, there is not, and need not be, a Redeemer, who delivers by becoming
sin for sinners.
Just as all doctrine is lost, if Genesis 1 - 11 is a myth, so also are lost all the
ethical teachings of the Christian religion. Genesis 1-11 is the foundation of the
Christian life. It is the foundation of the calling to love, fear, obey, and serve God our
Creator and Savior. This is the primary duty of our life. And this is the primary cause of
the attack on the doctrines of creation and the fall by the theory of evolution, which
attack is accommodated by reducing the opening chapters of the Bible to myth. Darwinian
evolution is not physical science, not even mistaken physical science. It is spiritual
revolution against the sovereign Creator, before whom men and women must bow and to whom
they are responsible.
Genesis 1 - 11 is the foundation of the calling to love the neighbor, for the passage
teaches that the neighbor is created and put next to us by God.
It is the foundation of the calling ordinarily to marry and then to live faithfully
with the one woman or the one man for life. At the beginning of the 21st century in
depraved Western society, it is necessary to specify that Genesis 1-11 is the foundation
of the calling to marry someone of the opposite sex.
The opening chapters of Genesis are the foundation of the order in the home that
consists of the willing headship of the husband and father and of the equally willing
submission of the wife and mother.
Genesis 1-11 is the foundation of work--six days of work, as it is the foundation of
the rest of the weekly Sabbath.
Third, the importance of Genesis 1 - 11 as historical truth is this, that on the
historicity of Genesis 1 - 11 depends our knowledge of God. Upon Genesis 1-11 depends our
knowledge of God as Creator, as covenant Friend, as Judge, and as Savior. "In the
beginning, God!" To transform Genesis 1-11 into myth is to make atheists out of us.
This is what has actually happened in churches where Genesis 1-11 came to be regarded as
mythical. Before a church succumbs to the thinking that Genesis 1-11 is myth, believers in
this church should do themselves and their children a favor and examine the churches that
have already yielded to the mythologians--the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Gereformeerde
Kerken in Nederland: GKN), the Presbyterian Church (USA), and others. They are full of
people who no longer believe in the Christian God and are ready, therefore, to worship the
idols.
Charles Darwin himself is an example. Doubt about the historicity of the opening
chapters of the Bible made an atheist out of him. Warfield gives the chilling account of
Darwin's religious development in his essay on the Life and Letters of Charles Darwin.
As he [Darwin] wrought out his theory of evolution, he gave up his Christian
faith--nay, ... his doctrine of evolution directly expelled his Christian belief. How it
operated in so doing is not difficult dimly to trace. He was thoroughly persuaded (like
Mr. Huxley) that, in its plain meaning, Genesis teaches creation by immediate, separate,
and sudden fiats of God for each several species. And as he more and more convinced
himself that species, on the contrary, originated according to natural law, and through a
long course of gradual modification, he felt ever more and more that Genesis "must
go." But Genesis is an integral part of the Old Testament, and with the truth and
authority of the Old Testament the truth and authority of Christianity itself is
inseparably bound up. Thus, the doctrine of evolution once heartily adopted by him
gradually undermined his faith, until he cast off the whole of Christianity as an unproved
delusion.... Here is the root of the whole matter. His doctrine of evolution had
antiquated for him the Old Testament record; but Christianity is too intimately connected
with the Old Testament to stand as divine if the Old Testament be fabulous.26
The secular thinker, John Herman Randall, Jr., has warned the church that the truth of
a Creator God is ruled out by evolutionary science:
The very form of nineteenth-century evolutionary science has made that idea
[namely, an "external Creator"] all but impossible and substituted for it the
notion of a God as immanent. as a soul or spirit dwelling within the universe and
developing it through long ages.27
If Genesis 1-11 is myth, atheism is warranted. On the day that I am convinced that
Genesis 1-11 is mere myth, because God Himself convinces me through evolutionary science
(I write nonsense), on that day I will renounce Christianity and Christianity's God. And
if at the end of the day I must stand before God to give account of my apostasy, I will
defend my renunciation of Christianity with a defense that He Himself will not be able to
gainsay. "You yourself," I will say, "made the Christian faith and the
knowledge of yourself depend upon Genesis 1 - 11, but this worthless "Scripture"
was only a myth. I put no stock in myth, and no self-respecting God, worthy of my time and
worship, should have put any stock in it either."
But this is foolish talk. Genesis 1-11 is history. And the true church has always
proclaimed it as history.
The reason why the true church and the genuine believer have always received Genesis
1-11 as history is not extra-biblical evidences that prove, or are thought to prove, the
historicity of the biblical record. Extra-biblical evidences for the truth of creation as
taught in Genesis 1 and 2 mean as little to the church as someone's finding a piece of
wood on Mt. Ararat would mean for the church's belief of the biblical account of the
flood. The church's faith concerning Genesis 1-11 does not rest at all on anything outside
Genesis 1 - 11 and outside the rest of Scripture. Just for this reason, nothing,
absolutely nothing, can shake the church's faith concerning the historicity of Genesis 1 -
11.
I have to smile when the evangelical and Reformed mythologians pile up their impressive
findings and authorities, to convince us that Genesis 1-11 is myth, or primeval history,
or literary genre, or some other euphemism meaning unhistorical. The mythologians do not
understand. If an angel from heaven appeared to tell us that Genesis 1 - 11 is myth, not
only would we not believe him, but we would also curse him as a devil and deceiver (Gal.
1:8, 9).
Believers receive Genesis 1 - 11 as historical because Genesis 1 - 11, the Word of God,
claims to be historical. Read it! Believers receive Genesis 1 - 11 as historical because
it is the testimony of Jesus Christ and the apostles that the Old Testament passage is
history. Hebrews 11:3 testifies to the historicity of the account of creation. Matthew
19:3ff. testifies to the historicity of the entire account of Adam and Eve. Romans 5:12ff.
testifies to the historicity of the record of the fall. I Peter 3:20 testifies to the
historicity of the Genesis flood. Acts 17:26 testifies to the historicity of the account
of Babel. And believers receive Genesis 1 - 11 as historical because the Holy Spirit
witnesses in our heart that the testimony of God the Holy Spirit on the pages of Holy
Scripture is true, whereas every man is a liar.
But how can anyone maintain that Genesis 1-11 is history, it will be asked, in the face
of the contradiction of this by general revelation, by "Science," and by
virtually all the scholars within the churches as without.
First, the Reformed believer permits nothing to set aside, or overrule, the teaching of
Scripture. Is not the great Reformation-principle just this: "Scripture alone"?
With specific reference to God's revelation of Himself in creation and history, general
revelation does not control Scripture. Rather, the believer receives and interprets
general revelation in the light of Scripture. The notion that the revelation of Scripture
on origins in Genesis 1-11 is quite obscure so that it must be enhanced and corrected by
the brighter light of general revelation is folly on the very face of it. As regards
origins, Scripture is perfectly clear. It could not be clearer. In comparison with general
revelation, as regards the truth of creation, God "makes Himself more clearly and
fully known to us by His holy and divine Word" (Belgic Confession, Art. 2).
In addition, the content of general revelation regarding creation is limited. General
revelation makes known only that God made the world. It testifies to the Creator (Rom. 1:1
8ff.). Scripture reveals far more. Scripture reveals how the Creator brought the
universe into existence.
Second, the Reformed believer is not awed by "Science." As regards genuine
science--the investigation into and knowledge of some aspect of creation in submission to
the Word of God--the Reformed faith is no enemy of science; nor is science an enemy of the
Reformed faith. There is even a good case to be made, that the Christian faith, especially
through the Protestant Reformation, gave birth to modern science. But the Reformed
believer is well aware, or should be, that "Science," that is, autonomous man's
sovereign reason and research, is one of modern man's favorite gods. In maintaining the
authority of God's Word in Genesis 1-11 and in confessing the wonder of biblical creation,
the Reformed believer is obeying the first commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods
before me, specifically the god, "Science."
Besides, the Reformed believer does not confuse modern evolutionary scientific theory
with science. Modern evolutionary scientific theory is sheer nonsense. It is unproved,
unprovable foolishness. The theory was proposed, not because it was proved, but because
unbelieving scientists found the alternative--creation--repugnant. The philosopher,
Fichte, expressed the real reason for the adoption of evolution as the explanation of
origins. Creation, he said, is the basic error of all thinking and of all religion,
because creation confronts man with a sovereign God.28
Darwin himself freely admitted the lack of evidence for the notion that is basic to his
evolutionary theory, namely, the development of one species from another by
"intermediate links." In The Origin of Species, he wrote:
Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such
intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic
chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged
against the theory.29
In his ecstatic welcome of Darwinian evolution, the Anglican clergyman Charles
Kingsley, managed to combine all of these errors--honoring general revelation above
Scripture, worshipping "Science," and confusing the latest theory of a scientist
with science. "Science is the Voice of God--her facts, His words--to which we must
each and all reply, 'Speak Lord, for Thy servant heareth."'30
Third. science cannot possibly get at the events recorded in Genesis 1 - 11, to
analyze, judge, and confirm them. Creation itself was a wonder. As a wonder it is as
little accessible to the scientist's tools of investigation as is the resurrection of
Jesus. The wonder is known only by faith, which humbly and thankfully receives God's Word
about the wonder.
In addition, between God's work of creation, as described in Genesis 1 and 2, and present-day science lie two barriers that scientific effort cannot penetrate: the fall with the attending curse on all creation and the flood which destroyed the world that then was, bringing about an entirely new form of the world (Gen. 3:17, 18; II Pet. 3:6). No scientific instrument can reach back beyond the flood. The world before the flood cannot even be known by any scientific theory, since scientific theories work on the basis of the principle of uniformitarianism. But as the apostle declares in II Peter 3:1-7, it is not true that "all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." In the flood--the real, historical flood of Genesis 6-8, not the pitiful, mythical puddle of a local flood in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers31 --the watery "world that then was perished"; out of the flood came the present fiery world. The only knowledge that anyone has, or can have, of the world before the flood is that given by God Himself in Genesis.
Fourth, the opinions of the scholars, particularly the theologians. that Genesis 1 - 11
is myth, mean nothing to the Reformed Christian. At the Reformation, virtually all the
scholars opposed the Reformation and its gospel. Learning and scholarship were the enemy.
For the most part, it is the same today. This is not a reflection on learning and
scholarship, but on the vainglorious, treacherous, cowardly men and women who use these
good gifts of God to criticize His Word, deny His wonderful works, and wreak havoc on His
church.
Recently, A. M. Lindeboom has written a book on the spiritual destruction of the once
glorious Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKN). These churches have fallen away from
Christ. They believe nothing of the gospel. They practice every corruption, no matter how
vile. This awful--and rapid--apostasy began with an arrogant intellectualism that
challenged the authority of Scripture. The challenge began at the opening chapters of
Genesis. The reason? "The doctrine of evolution, which is taught in schools and
universities everywhere in the world as an established fact." The title of
Lindeboom's book is De theologen gingen voorop--The Theologians Led the Way.32
Fifth, the believer who reads Genesis 1 - 11 as history cannot be moved by ridicule.
There is such ridicule. Nor does it come only from "liberal" quarters. "Do
you still believe such absurdities as creation in six real days, God's forming a man out
of real dust by His own hand, God's forming a woman out of a real rib of the man, and a
speaking serpent?" "Fundamentalist!"
This cannot move the believer, because by the grace of God he has already believed a
far more impossible impossibility and a much more ridiculous absurdity: the incarnation of
God by a virgin birth, in order to redeem sinners by a cross. What is creation in six real
days, forming a woman from a rib, and a speaking serpent in comparison with this? The
Christian glories in the absurdities of the faith. If he does not, with Tertullian, quite
believe because the truth is absurd, the absurdity of the truth certainly poses no
problem to his faith. Does not the Word itself tell him that God's wisdom is foolishness
to the ungodly world and to the mind of the natural man? (I Cor. 1:18-31; 2:14) With
Abraham and Mary, the Christian believes the impossible, because his God--the God of
Christianity--does the impossible.
This brings us to the heart of the issue, "Genesis 1 - 11: Myth or History?" namely, Jesus Christ.
Out of a mythical Genesis 1-11 comes a mythical Christ.
This is necessarily so. First, the thinking that sets Genesis aside as a human word must also set aside the gospels as a human word. Second, if there never was a historical fall from the sinless height of a historical creation of a historical Adam, there is no need for a historical Jesus. Third, the Bible itself makes Jesus analogous to, and dependent upon, Adam (Rom. 5:12ff.). No Adam, no Christ! Fourth, Jesus Christ comes out of the womb of the promise of Genesis 3:15: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." But to whom did Jehovah God speak the words in which this promise--this "mother-promise"--is found? To the speaking serpent! Deny the historicity of Genesis 3, deny the historicity of the speaking serpent, and you annihilate the promise whence Jesus the Christ has come. No speaking serpent, no Savior!
A mythical Genesis 1 - 11 means a mythical Christ. But a mythical Christ did not die for our sins. A mythical Christ cannot forgive us our very real sins. A mythical Christ will not go with us through the valley of the shadow of death. A mythical Christ will not raise our body from the grave. Only the historical Christ did and will do these things.
The historical Christ makes a historical Genesis 1 - 11 the foundation of Himself and His work. His coming is by promise made to Adam and Eve in a garden in Eden in view of their disobedience to God's command concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He came to redeem men and women originally made by God in God's own image from the sin and death of the fall. As Adam's disobedience, so Christ's obedience (Rom. 5:12ff.). As Adam's plunging all into death, so Christ's making alive (I Cor. 15:21, 22).
The historicity of Genesis 1 - 11 is the foundation of Jesus Christ in another way.
Christ was God's goal, or purpose, in creating the world, as well as in God's providential
government of the course of the creation thereafter.
By him [Christ] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or
powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by
him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it
pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through
the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say,
whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven (Col. 1:16-20).
Creation was for Christ. Every event in Genesis 1-11 happened for the sake of Christ. The end that the beginning of Genesis 1:1 and all that follows in Genesis 1-11 look to is the new world of Revelation 21 and 22, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and renewed by His Spirit. Upon the historicity of Genesis 1 - 11 depends the reality of the coming Day of Christ, our hope.
There may be no compromise with the denial of the historicity of Genesis 1 - 11. But
the evolutionary theory of origins necessarily involves the dismissal of the opening
chapters as non-historical. Among many others, David Lack, himself an ardent proponent of
Darwinian evolution, has stated this bluntly:
While Darwinism was widely supposed to contradict the accuracy of the Bible. what
it actually challenges is the literal rendering of the first three chapters of Genesis,
and if these are properly to he regarded as allegorical, no conflict need arise.33
There may be no compromise, therefore, with the evolutionary theory of origins. None.
Benjamin B. Warfield's surrender of the historicity of the biblical account of creation
to Darwinian evolutionary theory was shameful. Warfield made epochs of the days of Genesis
1, allowed for what today is known as the theistic evolution of all the forms and species
other than man, and found acceptable the biological development of man from the apes as
regards the body. So far would Warfield go with Darwin. Only the soul of man could not
have derived from the beasts. This, God had to slip into brutish Adam as a kind of
aboriginal deus ex machina.
If under the directing hand of God a human body is formed at a leap by propagation
from brutish parents, it would be quite consonant with the fitness of things that it
should be provided by His creative energy with a truly human soul.34
As regards the biblical account of the creation of Eve, which cannot be harmonized with
theistic evolutionary theory and which is virtually impervious to exegetical manipulation,
Warfield, though he recognized the difficulty, suggested that the creation of Eve from a
rib of Adam could somehow be explained away so as to allow for the evolutionary
development also of the body of the woman.
I am free to say, for myself, that I do not think that there is any general
statement in the Bible or any part of the account of creation, either as given in Genesis
1 and 2 or elsewhere alluded to, that need be opposed to evolution. The sole passage which
appears to bar the way is the very detailed account of the creation of Eve. It is possible
that this may be held to be a miracle (as Dr. Woodrow holds), or else that the narrative
may be held to be partial and taken like the very partial descriptions of the formation of
the individual in Job and the Psalms, that is, it teaches only the general fact that Eve
came of Adam's flesh and bone.35
At the end of his consideration of the life of Charles Darwin, self-confessed
unbeliever and enemy of the Christian faith, Warfield could write: "We stand at the
deathbed of a man whom, in common with all the world, we most deeply honor."36
Warfield refused to oppose the evolutionary theory of origins with its concomitant
reduction of the opening chapters of Genesis to myth. Instead, he approved it. Thus,
Warfield contributed greatly to the destruction of his Presbyterian Church as a Christian
body. Warfield's error is now doing grave damage to conservative evangelical, Reformed,
and Presbyterian churches on a wide front. In almost all the conservative churches and
seminaries, the theologians are appealing to the great Princetonian in defense of their
own acceptance of evolution and rejection of the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2. 37
This appeal to Warfield is not without its value. It indicates how far those who make
the appeal have gone in their own thinking and how far they are willing to have their
churches go. Usually these theologians are quite reticent about their own views,
contenting themselves with striking out against the "fundamentalism" and
"anti-intellectualism" of those who insist on a literal reading of Genesis 1 and
2 as history. By appealing to Warfield, these men show, at the very least, that they are
open to epochs of millions of years, theistic evolution as the explanation of all the
forms and species other than man, the biological descent of man from the beasts as regards
his body, and even "Adam's" begetting of "Eve's" body from a primate.
How such thinking answers the question, "Genesis 1 - 11: Myth or History?" is
plain to all.
What explains the vulnerability of Warfield and other otherwise orthodox men of his day to the pressures of evolutionary scientific theory? The explanation is fourfold. First, the assault on the doctrine of creation and on the inspiration of Genesis 1 - 11 by the enemy of the Christian faith and its God in these last days is powerful and crafty.
Second, Warfield was mistaken in his thinking about general revelation. He supposed
that general revelation and Scripture are two equal authorities for Christians. Indeed, in
practice Scripture must give way to general revelation. Warfield then naively identified
the latest scientific theory with general revelation. Worse still, Warfield thought that
God's revelation of Himself in creation to unbelievers, for example, Charles Darwin,
resulted in right knowledge of God as Creator, so that the Christian church is required to
yield to Darwin's proclamation of the truth of God. Darwin is virtually a herald of God in
the world! Warfield confused general revelation with natural theology.38
Third, Warfield was not sufficiently impressed with the total depravity of the mind, or
reason, of the ungodly. This is also a fundamental error in Warfield's apologetics.
Ungodly scientists, for example, Charles Darwin and Thomas ("Dr. Beelzebub")
Huxley. do not think neutrally, much less favorably, about God and His Word on the basis
of raw data. They theorize in enmity against God and His Word. Their scientific theories
are the weapons of their warfare against the church.
Fourth, Warfield's attitude toward the culture of the world of the ungodly, especially
the culture of the universities, learning, and science, was not antithetical. It was not
the attitude of spiritual separation and warfare. Relations between the Presbyterian
Church and its colleges, on the one hand, and the surrounding culture, on the other hand,
were friendly. The world would bless the church through its learning, and the church would
Christianize the world with its theology. No doubt, the theory of common grace helped to
frame this attitude.39
Whatever the reasons, by his concessions and compromise, Warfield sold out the
historicity of Genesis 1-11.
There may be no compromise with Darwinian, or any other, evolutionary theory of
origins. History has abundantly proved the truth of Darwin's own confidence, that the
slightest concession to his theory invariably will result in complete surrender.
It early became a maxim with Darwin that those who went a little way toward his
doctrine would eventually go much farther, and that those who went a great way, would
eventually become converts.40
On the contrary, faithful churches, with their seminaries, must nail their colors to the mast on this issue. The Protestant Reformed Churches require all candidates for the ministry to believe from the heart and to confess the historicity of Genesis 1 - 11, particularly the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2, that is, the seven days of creation and rest. The ministerial candidates must promise that they will not tolerate but oppose every form of the lie of the mythical nature of the opening chapters of the Bible. All members of the churches are required to believe the historicity of Genesis 1-11.
To us, the issue, "Genesis 1 - 11: Myth or History?" is not intellectual
and academic.
In the Protestant Reformed Churches, the covenant children begin their catechism
instruction at the age of five or six. These are the questions and answers that they learn
in the first lessons of the first book:
"Who is your Creator? God."
"Did God create all things? Yes, in the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth."
"How do we know about this creation? God tells us about it in His Word, the
Bible."
"Who are our first parents? Adam and Eve."
"How did Satan come to Eve? He used the serpent to talk to Eve."
"What did God promise? A Savior, to save us from our sin."
We want these little children to go to heaven. If they come to doubt all these answers
as myth, they will go to hell as unbelievers. Whoever is responsible--parent, preacher,
schoolteacher, theologian, or synod--it were better for them that a millstone were hanged
about their neck and that they were drowned in the depth of the sea.
These little ones, who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand,
must believe a historical Genesis 1-11.
And the theologians are called, and privileged, to lead the way.
1. C. F. Nosgen, cited in Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament. ed. Gerhard Kittel, vol.4, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967, p.765. For
a forthright acknowledgment that "myth" is, in fact, man's own creation of
history, see W. Taylor Stevenson, History as Myth: The Import for Contemporary
Theology, New York: Seabury Press, 1969.
2. Howard J. Van Till, The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the
Heavens are Telling Us about the Creation, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986.
3. Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives
on the World's Formation, ed. Howard J. Van Till, Robert E. Snow, John H. Stek, Davis
A. Young, Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.
4. Davis A. Young, The Biblical Flood. A Case Study of the
Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995. The book
was reviewed in the November, 1995 issue of the Protestant Reformed Theological
Journal. The quotations are found on pages 311, 312 of the book.
5. "Report 28: Committee on Creation and Science," in Christian
Reformed Church in North America: Agenda for Synod 1991, Grand Rapids: Christian
Reformed Church, 1991, pp.367-433.
6. Jan Lever, Where are We Headed? A Christian Perspective on
Evolution, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970, pp.25, 27. See also Jan Lever, Creation
and Evolution, Grand Rapids: Grand Rapids International Publications, distributed by
Kregel's, 1958.
7. The Genesis Debate: Persistent Questions about Creation and
the Flood, ed. Ronald Youngblood. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990. H. Wade Seaford, Jr.
scoffs at the descent of the race from two parents on p. 163. Youngblood praises Seaford's
commitment to the inspiration of Scripture on p. viii.
8. Charles E. Hummel, The Galileo Connection: Resolving
Conflicts between Science & the Bible, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1986. See
particularly pp. 214, 217.
9. Paul K. Jewett, God, Creation, and Revelation: A
Neo-Evangelical Theology, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991, pp.16, 478-484.
10. Bruce Waltke, "The First Seven Days: What is the Creation
Account Trying to Tell Us?" Christianity Today, April 12, 1988, pp.42-46.
11. John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, Phillipsburg
New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987, pp. 314, 3 5. Frame calls this figurative
interpretation a "revised exegesis."
12. Lever, Where are We Headed?, p.23.
13. Waltke, "The First Seven Days," p.46.
14. N. H. Ridderbos, Is There a Conflict between Genesis 1 and
Natural Science?, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957, p.45.
15. Ibid., pp.70, 71. To his credit, Ridderbos did not try
to hide these implications of the framework-hypothesis. Neither did he minimize the
importance of them. He spoke of "two profound problems."
16. Martin Luther, Luther's Works, vol.1, ed. Jaroslav
Pelikan, Saint Louis: Concordia, 1958, p.185.
17. Ibid., p. 231.
18. Ibid., p.237.
19. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient
Israel, Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1973, p.298.
20. Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, vol.1, New York:
Harper & Row, 1962, pp.158, 159.
21. John Romer, Testament, New York: Henry Holt and Company,
1988, pp.33. 39.
22. Zachary Hayes, What are They Saying
about Creation?, New York: Paulist Press, 1980.
23. "Report 28," pp. 379-384.
24. Ridderbos, p.46.
25. Henri Blocher, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of
Genesis, tr. David G. Preston (Leicester, England: InterVarsity Press, 1984),
pp.156-170. As evidence that the explanation of the opening chapters of Genesis as
non-historical necessarily involves the denial of the fundamental Christian doctrine of
original sin, Blocher's next book did this very thing: it denied original sin both as
regards original guilt and as regards inherited corruption from our first parents. See
Henri Blocher, Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1999).
26. Benjamin B. Warfield, "Charles Darwin's Religious Life: A
Sketch in Spiritual Biography," in Studies in Theology (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1932), pp.549, 550. Warfield knew. This makes all the more inexcusable
Warfield's grievous compromise of the Christian doctrine of creation in the interests of
accommodating Darwinian evolution and, with this, his mythologizing of Genesis 1 and 2.
This article on Darwin's religious life is included in the recent volume of selected
writings by Warfield on evolutionary science, Evolution, Science, and Scripture (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2000). The editors, Mark A. Noll and David N. Livingstone, intend that the
book defend and promote theistic evolution and a "non-literal interpretation of the
early Genesis narratives" among evangelicals, Reformed, and Presbyterians.
27. John Herman Randall, Jr., The Making
of the Modern Mind. A Survey of the Intellectual Background of the Present Age (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: The Riverside Press, 1940), p.276.
28. See Paul K. Jewett, God, Creation, & Revelation: A
Neo-Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p.439.
29. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (New York and
Toronto: The New American Library, 1958), p.287.
30. Cited in David Lack, Evolutionary Theory and Christian Belief:
The Unresolved Conflict (London: Methuen, 1957), p.68.
31. For the denial of the historicity of the account of the flood in
Genesis 6-9, see Davis A. Young, The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church's
Response to Extrobiblical Evidence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). The book indicates
how deeply into Genesis 1-11 the myth has penetrated in confessionally Reformed churches
and colleges today.
32. A. M. Lindeboom, De theologen gingen voorop: Eenvoudig Verhaal
van de Ontmanteling van de Gereformeerde Kerken (Kampen: Kok, 1987). The quotation is
from page 20, which is part of the chapter titled, "In the Grasp of Modern
Science." The titles of the opening chapters of the book and their sequence tell the
tale: "The Arising of Intellectualism"; "In the Grasp of Modern
Science"; "Criticism of Scripture Begins" [with Genesis 1]; "Criticism
of Scripture Continues"; "Concerted Advance" [upon all of Genesis 1-11].
The next chapter has the title, "The Son of God." It details the attack of the
Dutch theologians in the GKN upon the Godhead, work, death, resurrection, and second
coming of Jesus Christ. "De theologen gingen voorop"! On the spiritual
condition of the GKN, in addition to Lindeboom's book, see the GKN theologian H. M.
Kuitert, Do You Understand What You Read? On Understanding and Interpreting the Bible, tr.
Lewis B. Smedes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970) and I Have My Doubts: How to Become a
Christian without being a Fundamentalist, tr. John Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1993).
33. Lack. Evolutionary Theory, p.34. Lack, of course, is urging
Christians to give up the view that these chapters are literally true" for the view
required by evolutionary science, namely, that they are "allegorical." Lack is
honest.
34. Benjamin B. Warfield, Critical Reviews (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1932), p.138. Warfield is reviewing James Orr's God's Image in Man.
35. Benjamin B. Warrield, "Evolution or Development," in
Evolution, Scripture, and Science: Selected Writings, ed. Mark A. Noll & David N.
Livingstone (Grand Rapids: Baker, 20(X)), p.130
36. Warfield, Studies in Theology, p.580.
37. Instances of this widespread appeal include David N. Livingstone,
Darwin's Forgotten Defenders: Tiie Encounter between Evangelical Theology and
Evolutionary Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) and Noll & Livingstone,
editors, Evolution, Scripture, and Science.
38. Rom. 1:1 8ff. teaches that the ungodly, including ungodly
scientists (probably ungodly scientists especially), immediately hold under the
knowledge of God that they have from creation, changing the truth of God, for instance,
the truth of God as Creator, into a lie. This is all that they can do as totally depraved
sinners. God's sole purpose with general revelation for the ungodly is to render them
without excuse. David Livingstone traces the surprising readiness of evangelicals to
accept evolution to "the longstanding Puritan assurance that God had revealed himself
both in the book of Scripture and in the book of Nature" (Darwin's Forgotten
Defenders, p. 169).
39. In his book, Darwin on Trial, Phillip E. Johnson notes that the early supporters of Darwin's theory of evolution "included not just persons we would think of a religious liberals, but conservative Evangelicals such as Princeton Theological Seminary Professor Benjamin Warfield." Johnson offers two reasons for this support: "(1) religious intellectuals were determined not to repeat the scandal of the Galileo persecution; and (2) with the aid of a little self-deception, Darwinism could be interpreted as 'creation wholesale' by a progress-minded Deity acting through rationally accessible secondary causes." See Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1991), p.188.
40. William Irvine, Apes, Angels, & Victorians: The Story of Darwin, Huxley, and Evolution (New York: Time, 1963), p.174.
Last modified: 06-May-2002