[scordova]

The following is taken from Creation: ‘where’s the proof?’ by Ken Ham

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When the person you talk to on creation insists that you ‘leave the Bible out of it’, they are really saying the deck should be stacked one way.
...

If one agrees to a discussion without using the Bible as some people insist, then they have set the terms of the debate. In essence these terms are:

‘Facts’ are neutral. However, there are no such things as ‘brute facts’; all facts are interpreted. Once the Bible is eliminated in the argument, then the Christians’ presuppositions are gone, leaving them unable to effectively give an alternate interpretation of the facts. Their opponents then have the upper hand as they still have their presuppositions — see Naturalism, logic and reality.

Truth can/should be determined independent of God. However, the Bible states: ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Psalm 111:10); ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge’ (Proverbs 1:7). ‘But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned’ (1 Corinthians 2:14).

A Christian cannot divorce the spiritual nature of the battle from the battle itself. A non-Christian is not neutral. The Bible makes this very clear: ‘The one who is not with Me is against Me, and the one who does not gather with Me scatters’ (Matthew 12:30); ‘And this is the condemnation, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the Light, because their deeds were evil’ (John 3:19).

Agreeing to such terms of debate also implicitly accepts their proposition that the Bible’s account of the universe’s history is irrelevant to understanding that history!


When someone tells me they want ‘proof’ or ‘evidence’, not the Bible, my response is as follows:

[scordova]

In contrast to Ham, Phil Johnson said in The Wedge Breaking the Modernist Monopoly on Science

[YEC]

Sal,

I be interested in hearing what you think the areas of strength and weakness are with regard to physical evidence for YEC

[YEC]

Sal,

A week or so ago you were discussing an article that John Morris wrote about the differences between creationists and IDists, and you were disagreeing with ICR and AiGs approach outreach. In that article John said that ICR was concerned about christians who had been led astray by false arguments against the Bible (there are many examples of christians turned atheist because their faith was destroyed due to accepting evolutionary teaching and deciding the Bible was wrong and therefore irrelevant). Could it be that different creationists approach the "debate" with different target audiances in mind? ICR and AiG may be more interested in building up the faith of Christians in the validity of the Bible, so they assume that their audiance already holds the Bible with a general degree of high regard. But you are more interested in reaching those who have a built-in assumption that the Bible has nothing relevant to say, because it nothing but an old book of myths and superstitions -- so you are trying to establish in their minds that the Bible has some legitimacy?

The first group is more likely to say "here's what the Bible (which you believe) says, and here's the evidence that supports it." And you are more likely to say, " look at this evidence for my theory, note that my theory is consistant with the Bible"?

I would urge you not to look down on the former group, I think maybe they just have a different audiance in mind. (keep in mind that, arguably, the Bible is still held with some esteem in the american culture at large, so the first approach probably isn't an altogether bad approach with the average american.)

[jb]

[scordova]

It would be worth while to see if the Bible itself teaches that this is the way to defend certain ideas in the Christian faith and whether Ken's Ham's approach is actually consistent with what the Bible teaches regarding apologetics.

I think a case can be made that his approach is NOT supported by scripture. At the very least, I don't see that the Bible says this is the way to defend Christian ideas in the face of challenges to those ideas.

[scordova]

When Jesus said to Satan, "it is written", I doubt that this could be described as Jesus making an appologetic (as we would when we talk to other human beings).

He was arguing with the devil over what God had said.

1 Pet 3:15 does not give a detailed model of apologetic, but Acts 17 does. Acts 17 does not accord with what Ham is recommending.

In that regard, if Ham is not being consistent with the Bible, then all the more his advice should be criticized.

[scordova]

It would be curious to consider, Does Paul make direct appeals to Biblical authority to defend his thesis of the Christian God. In fact, he starts with PAGAN ideas and then relates them to the Christian God:

[YEC]

I don't know Sal, seems to me Acts 17, especially the first part, gives excellent support for starting from the Bible when dealing with Christians. In Acts 17:1-4, Paul reasoned "from the Scriptures" with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks. He used a different tack when talking to the Pagans -- That's exactly what I'm advocating.

I'm not saying that if a Chirstian is having doubts about the validity of the Bible you should just respond by telling them that the Bible is true because the Bible says that the Bible is true, and leave it at that. Or to only argue that evolution is wrong because the Bible says that evolution is wrong ... AiG or ICR wouldn't advocate that either - that's why they are in the creation-science ministry, they like to tell people about the science that supports the Bible. The only way I can see someone arguing the way you are describing might be a pastor or layman who isn't aware of the scientific, or archeological, or etc. evidence for the validity of scripture.

Why, gentlemen, would these organizations be in the creation-science ministry if they only wanted to use the argument that the Bible is true because it says so. In that case they would probably be hostile to trying to use science to support the Bible.

I'm not sure what we're arguing about ... or even if we are arguing ... I just sense some hostility from Sal towards some promenant creationist organizations that I don't get ... I mean, I understand that you were responded to poorly when you had serious doubts ... but I don't see AiG or ICR advocating the kind of response that you got.

[scordova]

YEC,

I appreciate your concerns and you are correct to point out where I have evidenced hostility and perhaps less than a good attitude toward my YEC brethren. I apologize for that.

I know this may be surprising given my how much more politely I treat a great many members in the ID community who are not YECs nor even evangelicals like myself.

It might be good to discuss some of my issues with AiG in general in seprate thread.

However, back to the topic of this thread, Ken Ham offers how to defend the idea of a Young Creation to someone who:

1. doubts the Bible
2. disbelieves the Bible
3. may disbelieve, but would like to believe

Consider the young lady, a college Freethinker freshman who approached me and expressed her desire to believe. I recommended 2 ID classic books by non-Christians (Jastrow and Denton). She was very hung up on the idea of special creation and evidence for God.

I asked 30 people to pray for her after I met her, and 6 weeks later she accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. She later told me she appreciated the fact I suggested those books because she couldn't accept something written by evangelists. The persuassiveness, she said, was the fact people on her side had to acknowledge the evidence. It echoes exactly what Paul said, when he said, "even one of your own poets has written".

Think of the opportunity I may have lost if I had followed Ham's advice. How many other souls and opportunities are missed by people who follow Ham's advice.

Over the next few years when I would occasionally see her in the school cafeteria, I noticed her reading the Bible or sharing it with her friends. It was not my intent by "taking the Bible" out of the discussion that I was indicating my lack of reverence for its authority over all of my life. When I saw her so dillegently endearing the Bible in her life, I have to admit I got pretty choked up.


But the bottom line, since we are talking religion, how much of Ham's advice in our dealings with unbelievers or doubters is scriptural? My understanding of the Bible and my experience tell me this is at least a legitimate question.

Much has been made of the schism between YEC and ID on the topic of origins, but in reality there is the schism between the Evangelical Christian communities symbolized by Ken Ham and the Evangelical, non-Evangelical, and secular communities symbolized by Phil Johnson.

At the heart is the issue of "taking the Bible out of the discussion". There is a time and a place for everything, even to be silent about the glorious gospel of Jesus, in order to help further it. Consider 1 Pet 3:1 where husbands of believing wives are " won over without words".

Ham suggests arguing from Biblical pre-suppositions, and in practice this is not really done when one starts quoting secular science. Furthermore, I have pointed out that "proof by contradiction" is a powerful way to argue. It is powerful in that one starts with the presuppositions (say naturalism) and shows that the presupposition is indefensible even by it's own terms, therefore it is untrue, therefore it is reasonable to consider another set of pre-suppositions. Paul uses a form of argument very close to this.

[MaxAug]

Personally, i dont think we should leave the Bible out, but use it carefully, depending on the topic and the person. Greg Bahnsen didnt leave the Bible out of his debates against atheists. Even if you dont mention the Bible, you have to use Biblical principles. Example? Do you guys really believe there are REAL atheists?

For starters, i believe, if a person is approaching the issue, such as the girl Sal mentioned, it is because God is working.

But then we have this problem of begging the question. I agree with stuff you guys said. If indeed a person claims to not believe the Bible at all, i think an agnostic approach against naturalism is the best thing. But you can show evidence that the Universe is not self-existing and then add Gen 1:1.

Other thing im curious about is: What method is bringing more lives to Jesus? This is crucial, i mean, it is cool when we hear about prominent people like Flew accepting some form of theism, but is he saved?

(Ill try to find again an audio file i listened from unchainedradio.com, relevant to this topic. I really recommend some stuff they have there.)

[Rick]

This is a challenging issue for me because, on the one hand, there's an underlying sense that the Bible is somehow suspect as a source of knowledge. It may make historical claims; however, it can't really be trusted until those claims are somehow backed by science or something--regardless of whether the historical claims are actually subject to scientific scrutiny. Do we treat other ancient history in this same way--demanding that it be scientifically corroborated before placing confidence in it? Of course not. So why demand that biblical history be proven scientifically before we'll accept it--unless we don't really trust the historical record it contains?

On the other hand, I can understand the apparent problem of simply insisting that the biblical account is true BECAUSE it's the biblical account. After all, one could presumably choose any other document and take the same position.

A problem I see with requiring the biblical creation account to be subjected to scientific scrutiny is that, well, this is history, not science. Moreover, the creation of our world was a supernatural event. It happened once in history, and there were no human eyewitnesses. Unless the historical record is simply deemed untrustworthy, how in the world does modern scientific inquiry trump the historical account? Do we demand that the resurrection of Jesus Christ be substantiated scientifically? Obviously we don't. Why not?

Now, if it were possible that modern observations could prove that the biblical historical account is inaccurate--and wildly so--then we'd have a problem. It would demonstrate that the account is untrustworthy, and there are logical consequences that would follow--consequences that believers usually try to avoid by such tactics as claiming that the Genesis account isn't really intended as history but as poetry or allegory, or some other such thing: anything to protect the text from being falsified, in other words.

As far as different approaches go, we have one approach that insists on starting with the Bible and another that leaves it out. It's suggested that the latter is supported by Acts 17. Certainly Paul didn't begin with the Scriptures when addressing the folks on Mars Hill. On the other hand, we have in Acts 2 an entirely different approach--one that put a great deal more emphasis on Scripture. Moreover, even though Paul on Mars Hill didn't overtly quote Scripture, he certainly didn't stick with what his audience exalted as their respected source of knowledge. Paul referred to God the Creator of the world and everything in it. He talked about God as the judge of the world, and he talked about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (at which point he lost most of his listeners). The point is, even though Paul didn't quote the Hebrew Scriptures to his non-Hebrew audience, he did not fail to present the gospel to them--even though, as he probably knew, it wouldn't be an easy thing for them to accept.

The question has been asked, If one takes a strictly scientific approach and convinces someone of the fact of design in our world, but that person remains unpersuaded of his need for a Savior and dies without accepting Christ, what, exactly, has been accomplished? Science is important, just as is any source of knowledge; however, as Christians our commission is not to teach the world a solid understanding of science but to teach about salvation through Christ. Knowledge--scientific and otherwise--is valuable as it promotes this end.

[scordova]

[Rick]