Christianity always has been and always must be influenced to some extent by traditionalism–the goal of preserving the traditions handed down from the past. Even if the excessive traditionalism which attaches far too much significance to human development is drastically cut back and the Bible is (as it rightly should be) considered the final standard for understanding, we are still basing our faith on a literary tradition. And so one of the most powerful appeals that can be made within the Christian dialogue is to contend that an opposing idea is new, and that the idea one is promoting is traditional.
Constantly looking back to the past for authority, then, is essential to what Christianity is. But one sad thing which continually occurs is that some, believing an idea, will pretend that their idea is the only ancient and original tradition of the church, when it can be easily proven that it is not. Take, for example, all the varieties of OEC (Old-Earth Creationism), which hold that at least the first few chapters of Genesis are in some way metaphorical. Now, it is true that much of the Bible is filled through and through with metaphor. There is no doubting this.
And so an honest OEC argument is that the creation narratives of Genesis have been historically misunderstood for centuries as historical accounts when they are really theology written in story form. Even though I disagree with this argument, I can admit that it is an honest argument. But where the OEC argument becomes dishonest is when some pretend that YEC (Young-Earth Creationism) is a new idea. More specifically, the pretense is that the historical view of creation which treats the creation of mankind and the genealogies of the Bible as straightforward history was invented in just the last century or so. They are doing exactly as Ludwig von Mises described in Human Action (191):
[A traditionalist ideology] often constructs a “traditional” doctrine which is of recent origin and is at variance with the ideologies really held by the ancestors.
Drawing upon Luther, Calvin, Irenaus, and Josephus, Jason of Pastoral Musings puts this myth to rest. His post is now added to my tiny but growing Scripture Index.
[update: about that scripture index . . .]
4 Comments
But, does always believing something make it right?
I don’t think YEC is new, but the insistence of it to be orthodox is. I note that many of the early writers thought that they were living in the last of the 6000 years, reading for the 2nd Coming. Further, many thought that the earth was the center of the universe.
Always believing something most definitely does not make it right.
If you look at the history of Josephus, he holds to a biblical timeline, but his numbers vary in many ways that do not alter the general timeframes by more than perhaps a few centuries. What this means, then, is that either Josephus was careless with his numbers, or else the Hebrew Bible manuscripts we have today are the result of universal carelessness with the numbers. And don’t even get me started on the Samaritan Pentateuch or Septuagint–both of them had systematically altered ages. So it doesn’t seem like the age of the earth was a real big issue until Darwinism existed, when many people become much more fixated on exact dates.
The insistence on YEC for to be a ‘real Christian’ is kind of disturbing to me. Now, I personally think that anyone who isn’t YEC is probably wrongly. But anyone who preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ is on my team, or rather, His team.
There’s no doubt there’s some things many early writers were wrong about, and I definitely wouldn’t bet my soul that they correctly worked out Creation.
Well said, Mitchell. I think we get bound up in these things and forget that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was not about creationism.
No doubt. The gospel of Jesus Christ is about the Creator becoming a human being and living on earth and dying and revealing his very self to people so that they could know him and bridge that horrific gap between us. How God directed that the earth come into being, though interesting, is definitely secondary.