Bakery Run #14 – Taste on Rundle

Pie Buddy: Cam Philips

Topic: Literal Biblical Creation

I immediately sensed that something was wrong when I arrived. This bakery has no pies. Not even one. Not even party pies. I settled for a pork and beef sausage roll, a massive chocolate biscuit and a cappuccino and took a seat in the little outdoor area out the back of this artisan, semi-hipster bakery in Rundle Street. Cam opts for a baguette and a short black. The place has a good feel to it, really more like a coffee shop than a bakery. My Collins English dictionary defines ‘artisan’ as ‘craftsman, skilled mechanic, manual worker’ – which I take to mean that the pies (or alternative baked goods, as it were) are skilfully crafted. And to be fair, the sausage roll is amazingly good, probably up there with the best I’ve had. The oversized biscuit certainly doesn’t under-deliver on taste, and the coffee hits the spot nicely. To make things even better, it’s all served up on a snazzy wooden platter. If you’re ever on Rundle Street and feel like eating something other than average, overpriced Italian food, I’d definitely recommend this place. I can’t rank it too highly due to its pielessness, but don’t let that put you off too much. The food, coffee, service and ambience all get the thumbs up.

And now it was time to get chatting. Is the creation account as given in the Bible intended to be taken literally, or is it merely symbolic?

“It’s been an issue that I’d never engaged with, but I’ve been grappling with it over the last few months,” Cam began. He had spent some time investigating the claims of Creation Ministries International which tries to demonstrate that the modern scientific evidence can be interpreted to fit pretty well into a young-earth model, and had become convinced of it himself. “The science does not support molecules-to-man evolution. Not at all. But I want to try to talk about some of the considerations, instead of just pushing that position.” He then turned the spotlight on me. “What do you think about it?”

To be honest it was something I hadn’t formed an opinion on. I had done some reading on both viewpoints, but I certainly hadn’t reached the point where I felt I knew enough to be certain one way or the other. If anything, I leaned towards the six days of creation being symbolic rather than six 24 hour days. Science seemed to indicate that evolution of some sort is constantly occurring. “Mind you, I don’t believe that the animals we see today would have evolved from single cell organisms.”

“What evolutionists claim is that it’s possible for animals not to just have evolved from a single cell organism, but for that single cell organism to have evolved from chemicals. So life was sparked somehow, then it became what we now have,” said Cam.

“Yeah, that I can’t believe.”

“Never mind belief,” Cam replied. “There’s not a skerrick of evidence in all the literature to support this notion. What they’re proposing is that over millions and billions of years, DNA was manifested and then grew in sophistication and complexity. Information has been added to it in an ordered way over a very long time contrary to our understanding of the behaviour of ordered systems. And yet people like Dawkins will tell you this is what happened.” Cam believed that people like Dawkins were not presenting information in a fair and balanced way.

“But there’s another model for creation,” he said. “It's been fascinating to realise how the science and hard facts that we have can be made to fit the biblical creation model.”

“So you think young earth, six literal days?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” Cam replied. “The extent to which you take the Genesis account literally, what you do and what you don’t, is a separate discussion to whether evolution is true. Because that’s the foundation of the alternative paradigm.”

“So evolution is the first tree you have to cut down?”

“Whether or not you believe in the creation story, there’s no basis whatsoever for molecules to man,” said Cam. “So why does everyone think that it’s fact?”

Life from nothing had never struck me as being feasible without the work of a Creator. I had read about experiments done to show that life could originate from chance chemical reactions. But the results seemed unconvincing, and the experiment conditions highly improbable. And the original ingredients must have come from somewhere.

We discussed the significance of this issue. “In my mind, it’s not an issue of salvation,” said Cam. “I’ve heard people say that this has divided their church, and that’s really sad. But I don’t think the response to a divisive issue should be to not engage with it. I think it’s something people should come to a firm decision on and be able to support their decision.”

“What would be the implications of not doing so?” I asked.

Cam pointed out how big an issue this was in academic communities. If Christians are to engage with the scientific world, we need to have thought this issue through. “I’m not saying you need to form a view on this to be a strong Christian,” Cam said, “but it’s potentially a barrier to a lot of scientifically minded people, and we as Christians have a lot of involvement with these people and may have to deal with these questions, so it is useful to be well versed in this issue regardless of our position on it.”

“So from a personal faith point of view it’s not a big issue, but from an evangelism point of view it is?” I asked.

“Yeah there’s that aspect.” Cam considered Paul’s writings. “If they were making arguments based on allegory, is that a strong argument? Or can we go down the slippery slope of saying divorce in the church is ok, because Jesus’ argument against it was only based on symbolic events anyway? I feel like it’s a slippery slope to liberal theology. It’s not a salvation issue, and it’s not something that everyone needs to drop everything to grapple with. But I don’t agree with the mainstream view of evolution as being a fact, and then Christians shoe-horning Scripture into it from there, without critically engaging. I think that’s a weak position.” He admitted that he used to be that person. “But it’s been interesting to see how you can take the same body of evidence that does exist and work it into a different model and see that it fits really well.”

Cam considered the implications of the New Testament references to the creation account. “If we can’t trust Genesis as an accurate historical account, then it seems to me we are removing a firm foundation from later theology that we do not consider up for debate?” Cam asked “What else is allegory? Jesus and Paul use Genesis to back up arguments about marriage and divorce. There is no indication that they don't believe the events actually happened.”

“It depends where the allegory finishes I guess,” I responded. The Genesis passages that are quoted in the New Testament in regard to marriage and divorce occur after the main creation account, at which point the text may well have switched from symbolic to literal. In any case, the focus is on the principle of the verses, not any historical event occurring in it. I couldn’t think of a New Testament passage that hinged on whether creation occurred literally over six days.

Cam made another interesting point. “If you believe that the universe is billions of years old and that we were created by evolution, at what point did we become the image of God?” He acknowledged that a sovereign God could have breathed a soul into us at some point to make us in his image. “But why believe that when we have no convincing body of evidence to believe that, or to discount the account in the bible? Why do the mental gymnastics to explain this process when there’s no need to?”

“It all comes down to how you believe the text should be interpreted,” I said. “You can’t read the Psalms the same way you’d read Matthew. Genesis is tough because it’s not totally clear how we’re meant to read it.”

 “People have said to me Genesis 1-11 isn’t written to be taken literally,” Cam added. “I don’t understand why.”

It surprised me that people thought that. “Including the flood? All the way up to Abraham?”

“Yeah, so we’re explaining away the flood, saying it didn’t happen,” said Cam. He then discussed how the fossil record is seen as being evidence of millions of years of evolution.”Was that mud and sediment laid down slowly over millions of years, or laid down really fast in a cataclysmic event?” he questioned.

“Like a flood?”

“Possibly. If we can take science and explain it in a way that fits Genesis, why should I not believe in the creation story literally?”

Cam didn’t believe there was any evidence of an earth millions of years old.

“What about dating?” I asked.

“Why do we believe dating is a sound mechanism? One of it's major assumptions is that the radioactive decay rate is always the same. It’s been demonstrated in labs that the radioactive decay rate can be changed; it’s not set in stone. The geological dating methods are often based on assumptions that aren't warranted, or that rely on circular reasoning.”

If Genesis was to be taken symbolically, the choice of wording seems perhaps a bit misleading. “I don’t see why God would have written Genesis that way, in a way that could have been so confused, given he would have known that this would come up. Why would he refer to seven days?”

“The word used for day is also used to describe periods of time,” I replied.

“Most usages of that word in the Bible are for a single earth day,” Cam replied. “If it's just symbolic anyway, it seems odd to deliberately choose language that he knew would cause such confusion?”

I guess only God really knows the answer to that question. On the topic of days, I brought up another point that had contributed to me leaning towards a symbolic interpretation. “How do the days start before the sun comes along?”

“God knew he was about to create the sun,” Cam replied. “And he knew the earth would go around the sun. And then Genesis was written after these events took place, so maybe what the language conveys at the time of writing didn't need to hinge on the chronology of the events?”

“So what about dinosaurs?” I asked. A 6000 year old earth seems to contradict where the evidence from dinosaurs points.

“The young earth creationists’ position is that there’s no reason they couldn’t have existed since the ark,” Cam replied. “The reason people think they existed 10 million or whatever years ago is because of the fossil record - and as we’ve discussed, there’s flaws to how it’s dated. So then the next question is how did they all fit on the ark?” Cam points out that the Bible uses the terms 'sorts' or 'kinds', not species – it is wrong for us to equate these. The young-earth creationist position is not against the sort of adaptation that could explain modern biodiversity as there is actually evidence for it. Dinosaurs could have existed after the flood. He mentions Cambodian ruins, approximately 1000 years old, with carvings of stegosauruses. The only seeming possibility is that a previous generation has passed down the likeness of the animal. Or the Chinese zodiac, which has eleven real animals… and a dragon. Why one mythical creature? Could the dragon have represented real, but extinct animals? Like the 'kind' or 'sort' of dinosaurs. These are just a couple of interesting points of which there are many more, though of course they are hardly scientific.

“It’s interesting when you come from the creationist perspective where you’re assuming literal creation and try to fit in observations of the world around us,” Cam said. “Evidence doesn’t interpret itself, it doesn't point to evolution, and there are alternative  explanations that are as coherent as the evolutionary model. I’m not talking about proof, just equally plausible alternatives.”

Cam pointed out that Luke, a historian who strived to write an accurate account of Jesus’ life, includes a genealogy from Adam.”I don’t get the feeling that the New Testament writers believed that Genesis was symbolic or allegory. They write and teach as if it’s literal.”

Cam also sees instances of evidence contradicting the theory of evolution, rather than just having an alternative explanation. For example, finding carbon-14 in diamonds claimed to be millions of years old, when it's half-life is around 6000 years – this is impossible according to the evolutionary model.

As a final note, Cam reiterates that he doesn’t see this as being a salvation issue. It shouldn’t be divisive. Christians shouldn’t be in conflict over this. We must keep Jesus and grace at the centre of this, not just strive to win an argument.

It was certainly an interesting chat. Whatever you think of Cam’s view, I think he makes a good point on the importance of thinking this issue through, for the purposes of engaging with the rest of the world. In 1 Peter 3:15, we are called to always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have. With that in mind, we should be prepared for challenges from all directions, including this one. I also found it interesting seeing how the same body of evidence could be looked at with a different base level assumption (that is, literal biblical creation, as opposed to creation over a longer period), and be seen to point in a different direction. And Cam made some fascinating observations in his argument.

From my personal point of view, it appears likely that Genesis 1 is symbolically written, up until the creation of man and woman. The preceding verses are there to describe God as Creator, not to describe exactly how the creation occurred. I don’t believe that God created humans or animals through evolution. After the creation of humans, I believe a literal interpretation can be taken. Given the ambiguity of the language, I believe it is appropriate to consider where the scientific evidence points (while, of course, also considering the limitations of this scientific evidence). But as Cam said, I don’t see this as being a core issue in Christian faith, and my understanding of the message of the cross does not hinge on my interpretation of the creation account.