Today’s question, in the fight between William Lane Craig and Ken Ham, who is right?
Excellent question.
William Lane Craig has been saying that Genesis 1-11 is mytho-history. It is not historical. God did not create the universe, solar system, planet earth, life, plants, animals and human beings in six 24 hour consecutive days as written in the first chapter of Genesis.
Ken Ham immediately responded to this idea on his blog calling Mr.Craig arrogant and pseudoscientific. William Lane Craig responded to Ken Ham in a video interview given to Dr.Joshua Swamidass. I am not an arrogant person, I am just following the science. What is Ken Ham talking about?
First, let me give you some historical backdrop. The secular world has been on a mission to remove God of the Bible from the origins debate. David Hume suggested that the universe is eternal. There is no need for a Creator to create this universe. He relied on uniformitarianism. There is uniformity in nature and uniformity in human experience. Miracles of God are irrational no matter where they happened.
Many great scientists like Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle believed in miracles. Many Enlightenment figures like Voltaire did not want a universe under God’s Providence. Then onwards the mainstream scientific establishment did not follow Newtonian theism. It followed naturalism and materialism which espoused any belief in miracles. The theory of evolution was born in the quest to eliminate the creator from origins debate. It was not born from scientific observations. First, they decided on the conclusion of their mission: God did not create human beings as recorded in the book of Genesis. Then they went into the field to get support to establish that idea. The theory of evolution did not start with Charles Darwin. French naturalists were actively into Godless evolutionary theory long before Darwin.
Voltaire’s friend Comte de Buffon formulated a theory of evolution without God. Then came Lamarck who built on it. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was a French naturalist. He proposed that evolution occurred due to inheritance of acquired characteristics. The giraffes evolve by extending their necks and pass on that long neck to the next generation. That sounds silly to us today but in his time that was taught in colleges as evidence of evolution. Lamarck was a deist. God created the universe but he does not intervene in its affairs. He lived through the French Revolution, the founders of which were deists like him.
Then came Charles Darwin with his theory of evolution. He and Alfred Russell Wallace did independent research on evolution and presented their research in a joint publication. The world was ready for evolution and accepted their theories as part of science.
But macroevolution is not science. Are there quarks inside a proton? You can do experiments today and find the truth. Yes, there are quarks inside a proton. Did dinosaurs evolve into birds? You cannot do experiments and find the truth. Dinosaurs disappeared a few thousand years ago. So, Darwinism is not a demonstrable, observable science. Of course, we can observe microevolution. But, we never observed molecules-to-man kind of evolution. Ken Ham is right. Darwinism is a pseudoscience created by godless philosophers. It became mainstream because materialism became the foundation of secular science.
The developments in the 20th century like the discovery of microwave background radiation, Einstein’s theory of relativity, expansion of the universe took us to the Big Bang. The godless scientists reluctantly accepted it. Now, they are proposing Big Bounce before Big Bang. Before the Big Bang, there was a Big Bounce. The cosmos is always here. As Carl Sagan used to say, ‘Nature was, nature is and nature will be’. There is no place for God in that worldview. That is uniformitarianism. That is what Charles Darwin believed.
When Charles Darwin published his theory, botanical scientist Asa Gray was very excited about it. Gray was a Christian from America. He went to England, had lunch with Darwin and told him, ‘Mr.Darwin, God is leading your evolution’. Darwin must have laughed behind his back, because in Darwin’s worldview, there is no place for God.
Today we have so many children of Asa Gray in our churches. People like William Lane Craig, Francis Collins, Alvin Plantinga took that billions of years old Darwinian theory and try to fit it into the Christianity. There is no place in the Bible for that theory. There is no place for God in Darwinism and there is no place for Darwin in the Bible. They are mutually exclusive. Be intellectually, rationally, scientifically and scripturally honest with yourself. Stick to one and leave the other.
William Lane Craig is trying to fit Darwinian naturalism into Christianity. That is why he is calling Genesis 1-11 ‘mytho-history’. That is false and dangerous. Genesis 1-11 is real history of the universe written by God himself. So, I strongly oppose William Lane Craig in this matter.
He is a nice guy. But he is still wrong.
you assert that Dr Craig calls Genesis 1-3 “mytho-historical” because he is accommodating naturalism (an atheist view of the world). But there’s an exegetical reason to call it “mytho-history” also, simply based on the literary style. The Bible contains many exsmples of straightforward historical narrative, but Genesis 1-3 isn’t one of them.
It more dangerous to “Accuse” the brethren than to do research on the meaning behind Adam & eve as it relates to scientific facts.
And get your facts straight (you portrayed in another article) – WLC is very much against the assumptions and leaps of logic made by evolutionists. He does recognize like anyone who is secure in their faith, that the Universe is billions of years old. We’re not afraid of the truth and it doesn’t impact our trust in the Lord one bit.
Dinosaurs disappeared a few thousand years ago? I’m sorry but that is flat out lunacy and that’s not a false accusation. It is paranoid lunacy brought on fanaticism. When your walk with God through Jesus Christ becomes about the first few chapters of the book of Genesis, it ceases to be about truth and devolves into cultic reasoning. This is the Hill you want to die on? Scratching & clawing through pseudoscience that a 3rd grader wouldn’t defend? It’s no different that the flat earthers. It doesn’t matter what evidence you see. Paranoia is unhealthy and as a Christian you should be able accurately discern the difference between the Liberals and atheists lies and God’s unvarnished truth. Whatever you believe Genesis is trying to teach you – it is Not teaching the world is 6000 years old. That brother, is a undeniable fact that is just leaving you in an unhealthy, disillusioned malaise. Falsely accusing people, dwelling on meaningless ideas, getting angry, and remaining in a state of weak faith are the fruits of this denial.
Wish you well
Would you call someone with a PhD from Harvard a lunatic? Dr.Kurt Wise is a young earth creationist with compelling evidence for a young earth.