Great post TP. Love your work!

Tony, a typically fair and balanced post, so naturally I have a problem with it.

I didn’t read much Karl Barth until I did a Masters subject on it in fourth year of theological college, and then I wrote quite a lot. It was a great read; cunning, clever and sophisticated, and ultimately poisonous. It was all the more dangerous to me because I was seduced by a certain style of thinking within Barth that sidetracked me for several years, or at least, threatened to.

Now like you I don’t have a lot of time for bone-headed fundamentalists who want to make 6 day creationism the touchstone of orthodoxy and protest outside the funerals of homosexuals. So that is also a path worth avoiding.

But given the choice between the intellectual sophisticate who is able to tangle with words and questions and so tie up believers in clever enquiry, and the sliced-white-bread personality who keeps insisting at me that “the Bible says the world was created in 6 24 hour days”, I know who I would rather work alongside in gospel endeavour.

Having read bits of Barth, Tillich, Teilhard de Chardin, Jurgen Moltmann and other smarty pants theological thinkers, I reckon I would suggest to the 3rd year theolog who hadn’t read this stuff—well hey, why start now? There’s no sin in knowing about these characters, sure. But by the same token, you might as well go out for a run or watch a bit of telly with your wife. The Bible college students I know personally are too busy anyway.

Hi Gordo,

Couple of questions. Did you know you would find Barth poisonous before you started reading him or only after you read him? How would you have responded to someone telling you you shouldn’t read him?

My question more generally would be then, who creates the list of authorized and unauthorized opinions? We can’t say, “never read any of what he says but I know it’s rubbish”. That just doesn’t make sense.

As I read the New Testament, it is the pastor/teachers who are responsible for refuting false teaching. But you can’t refute it without reading it and knowing what it says. I for one am all for people at college reading broadly. It’s the only way I know of working out truth and error. In fact, if they haven’t read any, I would say they should start now.

Grimmo.

Hi Gordo, or should I say ‘@ Gordo’, whatever that means. Maybe it’s a metaphysical statement that you’re the persona currently residing @ the bag of flesh and bones called ‘Gordo’.

Anyway, before I start sounding like a smarty-pants theologian, 3 quick responses to your responses:

1. With regard to reading broadly in theological college—whether that’s bad guys or quasi-bad guys or just surprisingly different guys—it now seems we don’t really disagree. You read broadly (including the opponents and quasi-opponents) to strengthen and deepen and clarify your own position, and to be equipped to deal with false teaching pastorally when you confront it.  As for whether Barth (or anyone else in particular) is on that reading list is a matter of discussion and judgement. He might be; he might not be. Depends on your situation. Personally, I’d say that reading deeply and broadly in historical theology is really valuable, because the same errors have a habit of re-appearing. 

2. I thoroughly agree with your point about working with other people in gospel endeavour. If I had the choice of doing a joint mission with the church on my left (run by a chardonnay evangelical who seemed to spend all his time questioning evangelical theology), or the church on my right (run by a straight-shooting, checked-shirt, six-day-creation evangelical who preached an unembarrassed gospel), there’s no question which one I’d choose (the same one you’d choose).

3. All of which is to say that I really agree with my own original point—that working out how to respond to dodgy theology and quasi-liberal authors is a matter of context. It’s the same assessment theologically of where (for example) Barth stands on various issues, but what you do with that assessment, and how you act in response to it, depends on what’s in front of you. 

TP

(Division 2 of 2)

•    2 Peter3: 3-13 warns against forgetting how the earth was made and forgetting that the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished (Genesis 6:17). 2 Peter 3:5 and 6 can only carry meaning in reference to specific historical events, in the same way we can only say that 2 Peter 3:7 is speaking of a real event in time and space, and we can only claim that there is a real threat from real scoffers if Genesis1:9 is also real history in time and space.

•  In reference to real physical elements, 2 Peter 3:10 tells us `how’ the Lord will return. Clearly if we want to hold to a consistent doctrine of Christ’s return we must also hold to a doctrine of creation which in no way disregards how creation happened.

•  There is a significant connection between the elements of creation and the authority of the word of God in salvation (Water: 2 Peter 3, John 3:5. Light: John 1:1-10).  This is brought out clearly in 1Peter 3:18-21. We are baptized into Christ’s death. The significance of baptism originates in the global flood which reversed the creation event of Genesis 1:9 and brought death. (It is not the water that saves, but the baptism, i.e. the death of self in Christ, and rising anew in Christ). 

•  Genesis 2.4 includes direct evidence that we are to read the creation account as history in the word `tholedhoth’. This word can be correctly translated as `history’. Genesis 37:2 uses the same word and in backward reference to Jacobs life, not forward to that of Joseph. Since Genesis 2.4 mentions the big picture of heaven and earth, it is also best understood as a backward reference to Genesis 1. In contrast Genesis 2 moves into details about the world and does not give details about the heaven. 

YHWH has told us how to read this text; as history! The nature of history is that there is only one true reality. To the young/earth creationist, the creation account is an historical account. So any other reading cannot be true and must be placing the human authority over the word of God.

A fair conclusion in light of such evidence, is that rejection of the young earth/six day creation view is a rejection of scriptural authority in this area. And that rejecting the `how’ of creation leaves a person in peril of listening to the scoffers message “all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4). By forgetting the `how’ of creation they end up rejecting the word of God and so reject the God of creation, even though these scoffers are not necessarily atheists. 

When rightly defended from scripture, the young earth/six day creation view fully agrees with the evangelical goal to “refute any view that diminishes the Bible’s authority, such as those who place the bible under the authority of church or scholarship” (the BRIEFING, Issue 367, p 14) Hence the burden of proof lies with those who wish to be `evangelical’ and not hold to a young/earth creationist view, as to how they could be consistent in upholding biblical authority in this area, and as to why they are not actually compromising the theology of creation with uniformitarian philosophies.

Here are some questions which a young earth/six day creationist evangelical would need thoroughly answered by a non-young earth/six day creation evangelical to ensure scriptural authority was not being undermined and that neither person was guilty of “boneheaded” thinking:

1. What scriptural evidence do you see that is so clear and compelling as to necessitate rejection of the young earth/six day creation view?

2. How does this evidence prove that scriptural authority is disregarded by young earth/six day creation position, or at least that it is an example of reading the bible badly?

3. How are passages which provide immediate support to the young earth/six day creation to be understood in consideration of evidence against the young earth position, without diminishing scriptural authority in any way?

4. How can a non-young earth/six day creation view account for death, pain and suffering without integrating it with original design (and so implicate the Creator)?

5. How can the non-young earth/six day creation view honestly dismiss the abundance of extra-biblical historical evidence and scientific discovery which completely accords with a young earth/six day creation view?