Some Questions for the Theistic Evolutionist #1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1

A few weeks ago my daughter, a long term health insurance salesperson, was speaking to a client who happened to graduate from the same liberal arts college as I (Hiram), although a full decade later. He went on to seminary in a mainline denomination in which he now serves as a pastor. When they were discussing me my daughter mentioned that I had written several books, one of which dealt with the debate between Intelligent Design and evolution. When he asked where we worshiped he remarked, “Oh you must be one of those evangelical fundamentalists and your Dad is probably a crazy creationist.” That preacher was obviously a “theistic evolutionist.” The question for the theistic evolutioist is this, “Do you believe the Bible to be entirely true, and if not which portions do you rely on to assure that you have eternal life in Christ?”

The term “theistic evolutionist” (TE) is used to refer to a person who claims to believe in God but also strongly contends for the alleged truth of an evolutionary process to explain all life on planet Earth. In my estimation, that claim requires a refutation of the absolute, inspired, inerrant truth of God’s Word, not to mention patently ignoring the failure of science to come up with a scenario found to be provable in the laboratory or nature. That failure was adequately discussed in the previous series entitled “Ten Questions for Charles Darwin and His Followers” in my blog at http://www.aproundtable.org/.

The first inconsistency associated with the TEs’ theory of origins comes with their interpretation of Genesis chapter One. Therein they claim that the Hebrew word for day (yom), which is used for both a twenty-four hour span of time in addition to an indefinite period, actually represents the latter; I. e. millions of years. The hermeneutic principle of interpretation combines percentage of usage with context to arrive at a particular meaning of a word is a specific verse of Scripture. In the Bible, 85% of the time it is used, yom refers to a literal 24 hour period of time. Only in 15% of the cases does it mean an indefinite time span.

These same people, disbelieving the record that mankind could possibly have lived for over 900 years, take the Hebrew word for year and say that it actually means months. Thus Methuselah, who the Scriptures tell us lived 969 years, actually lived only 80 years and 9 months in the TE's interpretation. That length of life would of course be in keeping with the lifespan of a majority of today’s senior citizens. The inconsistency arises when they stretch a twenty-four hour day into numerous millennia in Genesis One while shrinking a year into a month four chapters later.

The next blog, question #2, will deal with context as a means of interpretation and the real message God wanted to express regarding His acts of Creation.