"I enjoyed the review of Glenn's book even though I feel his position that
Noah lived 5.5 million years ago is as much an embarrassment as is the
young earth position. I guess I had not realized that his interpretation
is based on a localized flood. He is the expert but it seems to me that
once you reject the universal flood that about any local flood in the
mideast would do. Surely in the last 5.5 million years there must have
been some other local flood; hopefully at a time when there is some
scientific evidence of even remote civilization."
I would like to make some observations relating to this assessment:
1. Yes, I agree. The idea of placing Noah 5.5 million years ago is an
embarrassment. As Bill points out, this predates modern man by millions of
years - thereby "implying that Adam and his descendants, including Noah,
were most likely one of the earlier hominids, such as homo habilis." Bill
suggests that modern man did not appear on the scene until 10,000 years
ago. The figure I recall hearing from my (primatologist) cousin is 40,000
years. Either way, nothing close to 5.5 million years.
2. The nature of the embarrassments are not of the same sort in the two
cases:
(a) YEC's, motivated by an attempt to defend the faith, have challenged
well accepted scientific "facts" in order to maintain various important
biblical understandings.
(b) Glenn, motivated by a conviction that the relevant scientific "facts"
are largely correct, has challenged accepted biblical interpretations -
while attempting to interpret the Bible as literally as possible - in some
cases more vigorously than some modern conservative interpreters. And he
has attempted to trace out the implications.
Both approaches lead to an embarrassment; neither seems to lead to
believable conclusions.
It should be noted that both approaches are meant to provide apologetics
for the faith, a practice that goes back to the earliest days of the
church.
3. My brother's suggested solution to Glenn's very ancient Noahic flood -
by looking at relatively modern localized floods in the Middle East - has
been ruled out by Glenn. The details are complicated, and I don't pretend
to understand them all, but the gist of his argument is that the biblical
accounts describe facts which are difficult to reconcile with practically
all localized floods - and cannot be reconciled with a global flood -
based on well established geological understandings. Be that as it may, I
believe this is an important area for us to explore - by those who feel
capable of raising the hard issues - and Glenn should be expected to make
a strong defense of his position.
4. Suppose Noah did live 5.5 million years ago. How big a problem is this
to our faith. While I live in a part of the U.S. where the notion that
blacks did have souls was preached in some churches - and in a country
where some argued that American Indians are subhuman - I believe I can
honestly say that it would not bother me to accept some nonhomo sapiens as
fellow humans. (As a side note, I believe Christians are way ahead of the
American public as a whole in accepting the unborn as human from the point
of conception.)
Well, there are other issues to consider, which I hope some of us will
want to raise on this reflector. My understanding is that there is some
evidence of a religious outlook in nonhomo sapiens. If this is correct,
I am prepared to believe that God put this consciousness there, and that
they are part of the those for whom Christ died. This too raises many
interesting questions.
5. What about embarrassments? The church has experienced many over the
centuries. The list is well known to folks on the reflector, and I won't
try to list them. But let me point out that those with a naturalistic
bent have had their embarrassments as well - many occurring in the area of
archeology when evidence for civilizations described in the Bible turned
out not to be mythological after all. But there are others as well. For
instance, I believe it can properly be said that the idea of the Big Bang
was initially repugnant to a majority of naturalists because it suggested
a beginning. Moreover, at a time when the sheer vastness of the universe
was becoming apparent, anyone who would claim this started as a point -
many times smaller than a pin head - had to make such a claim with some
sense of embarrassment.
I would like to suggest that embarrassment is a natural process of coming
to understand God's creation, and that we as Christians should find ways
to take them in stride, rather than to fight tooth and nail whenever they
show up.
6. Even when Glenn was a YEC, he was disturbing the status quo. For this
I will simply share some personal data he has recently shared with me:
>> What is strange is that even as a YEC, I was viewed with a little bit
of suspicion. My attitude toward explaining science and the Bible has not
changed from those days. The first article I published, and one I am most
proud of is a calculation of the surface temperature under a canopy. It
was the first time that a creationist had calculated that temperature and
it was too hot for life. That article made people dislike me, question my
motives and my salvation. People sent me tracts, anonymously, explaining
how to become a Christian. It all was quite a shock. I discussed my
article vs. Dillow's book with Henry Morris personally. He absolutely
refused to listen to any suggestion that there might have been a
mathematical error in Dillow's work (Henry had been the only signatory to
Dillow's Th.D. Dissertation from DTS). Two years later, Dillow admitted
the error and attempted another approach. It wasn't until 11 years later
that a leading creationist agreed with my calculation. Vardiman and Rush
wrote:
"Morton(1979) was apparently the first to conclude that the canopy would
have made the earth's surface too hot for human habitation (Kofahl did
not calculate surface temperatures). Morton made a number of assumptions
that greatly simplified the problem, and his surface temperatures are
much higher than ours, but the general conclusion is the same: Life as
we know it would not have been possible under a canopy of 1013 mb (1
atm), nor even with a canopy of only 50 mb. When other features such as
clouds are added to the model, this conclusion could be modified greatly,
however. Preliminary explorations with cloud layers at the top of the
50 mb canopy have shown significant radiation effects which lower the
surface temperature drastically. Unfortunately, while the surface
temperature decreases when clouds are added, so does the temperature of
the canopy, reducing its stability."~David E. Rush and Larry Vardiman,
"Pre-Flood Vapor Canopy Radiative Temperature Profiles," in Robert E.
Walsh, and Christopher L. Brooks, Proceedings of the Second
International Conference on Creationism, (Pittsburgh: Creation Science
Fellowship, 1990), p. 238
What they are saying that if they put clouds in the model the canopy
collapses although they seem to sugar coat their description of what
happens with clouds. They are correct about my simplifications. I
performed the calculations on an old Rockwell calculator that only added,
subtracted, multiplied and divided and was not programmable. You bet I
simplified the problem!!! <<
So if anyone feels the need to send him a tract, you won't be the first!
:-)
7. What I have said above easily goes beyond my competence, and I have no
doubt some of it is wrong. Please correct me where appropriate.
My objective has been to discuss a few of the issues of interest to me
arising out of his work. We have a feast of others. So sharpen your knives
and let's get started!
Gordie