In 1923, a young assistant professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary named J. Gresham Machen published a scathing critique of the worldview animating establishment or “mainline” Protestant Christianity in Europe and America. That worldview, Machen argued in Christianity and Liberalism, consisted in a groveling obeisance to anything claiming to be based on “science.” So for instance if “science”—or the habit of mind claiming to be “scientific” that amounted to little more than doctrinaire materialism—insisted that a virgin could not conceive of a child and therefore the Christian doctrine of the virgin birth must be based on a myth, a certain class of Protestant clergy and intellectuals would dutifully drop the doctrine. If “science” denied the possibility of the Resurrection, those same Protestants would figure out a way to jettison the doctrine but keep calling themselves Christians.
“The liberal attempt at reconciling Christianity with modern science,” Machen wrote—he disliked the term “liberalism” to describe the obsequious attitude he inveighed against, but there was no convenient alternative—“has really relinquished everything distinctive of Christianity, so that what remains is in essentials only that same indefinite type of religious aspiration which was in the world before Christianity came upon the scene.” His aim in writing the book was not to show that Christianity shed of the supernatural was a bad thing, though he thought it was. His aim, rather, was to show that it was a form of mere uplift and not Christianity at all. To the extent that Christianity adopted “liberal” positions on its distinctive doctrines, Machen felt, it relinquished any claim to authority or purpose. Western nations had no shortage of institutions trying breathlessly to align themselves with dominant cultural trends. There was no need for another.
The publication of Christianity and Liberalism occasioned an uproar in the large Protestant denominations of the Northeast and Midwest and marked an early fray in the ongoing conflict between conservative and liberal, or orthodox and progressive, interpreters of the Christian religion—a conflict in which neither side has always acquitted itself with honor and charity but one in which the disputed principles were, and remain, important. Whatever else may be said about this long struggle and its many ugly controversies, Machen’s argument has largely been vindicated: His hermeneutical assumptions have been derided as regressive and naive by the most esteemed scholars of Europe and North America for a nearly a century, but liberal Protestant denominations find themselves in more or less the situation he foresaw: dwindling in numbers, without influence, bereft even of the respectability they believed they had purchased.
The publication of Christianity and Liberalism occasioned an uproar in the large Protestant denominations of the Northeast and Midwest and marked an early fray in the ongoing conflict between conservative and liberal, or orthodox and progressive, interpreters of the Christian religion—a conflict in which neither side has always acquitted itself with honor and charity but one in which the disputed principles were, and remain, important. Whatever else may be said about this long struggle and its many ugly controversies, Machen’s argument has largely been vindicated: His hermeneutical assumptions have been derided as regressive and naive by the most esteemed scholars of Europe and North America for a nearly a century, but liberal Protestant denominations find themselves in more or less the situation he foresaw: dwindling in numbers, without influence, bereft even of the respectability they believed they had purchased.
Barton Swaim, Christianity and Humanity From A Distance (HT: D. G. Hart)
Good that you put “science” in quotation marks! The number of genuine scientists, most post-doctoral, registered as upholding creationist views as scientifically valid, now exceeds 1000.
However, it is worth remembering that being a creationist doesn’t guarantee your salvation.
You are right, being a creationist doesn’t guarantee your salvation, but what sort of implications does theistic evolution have on our understanding of of how sin and death came into he world, if death already existed for thousands of years before Adam and Eve, who were themselves the product of evolution from lower life forms? If death did not come by the sin of Adam, what does that do to Paul’s argument that salvation comes to through Christ, the second Adam? How does that impact our understanding that we are made uniquely in the image of God, while our lower animal forbears were not? How does that impact our trust in the Word of God as true and without error? Theistic evolution in attempting to make God’s Word more acceptable to the modern scientific culture has reduced important doctrines of the Christian faith to fables which modern science must reinterpret for us. No wonder people are abandoning the churches. What authority does the Bible have, if it contains misinformation that modern science must correct?
While I certainly agree with Machen I find it very interesting that many of his supporters deny a Literal six day creation in order to accommodate “science”.
Russ,
Machen himself held the “Day-Age” view. Few conservative Presbyterians held the 6/24 and even fewer thought of it as a mark of orthodoxy until after the early 1960s.
Your assumption that William Henry Green, Warfield, Machen, and E J Young were all selling out to appease “science” is unwarranted.
On your reasoning, unless you’re a Geocentrist, you’re a sell out too. No one abandoned Geocentrism because of exegesis.
Thanks Dr. Clark. I would not use the word sell out but I do believe that all men are vulnerable to the culture they live in. While I love and respect men that hold to a day/age view I do believe it is a more novel approach to Genesis. I also think that the historical context of the WCF and the wording “in the space of six days” was meant as 6 literal days not 6 ages. That being said I do think the framework view does answer the question of why God created in 6 days while totally ignoring the fact that it communicates how God created everything. Joseph Pipa also makes a good argument that in doing so the proponents of the framework view undercut the creation order of men and women allowing for women officers in the church.
Russ,
Joey is entitled to his opinion. I’m quite familiar with it and have interacted with it in Recovering the Reformed Confession.
As to men and women, I don’t know a Frameworker who denies the historicity of Adam and Eve or that they set the creational pattern for male-female relations.
I respect the better arguments for 6/24 creation and am quite prepared to live with them. I hope that they are willing to live with me (neither Framework, nor Day-Age).
I’m impressed by E J Young’s argument, which he made in critique of the Framework view (a view with roots in the 13th century, in Aquinas, who couldn’t possibly have been capitulating to liberal evolutionists) that there was no sun until the 4th day so that it makes no sense to talk about six 24-hour days. 24-hour days are solar days, which cannot be until there is a sun.
I’m quite satisfied with the URCNA’s resolution of this. We’ve agreed to live with one another within certain bounds.
I think it would help us all, however, to stop reading Genesis as if it were written in the 19th century to answer Darwin et al. We ought to read it as though it were written in the 16th century BC. We should ask the questions Moses was asking and see how he was answering them. That’s not giving way to science. That’s just good, old-fashioned, grammatical-historical (in the best sense) exegesis.
Thanks again For the discussion on this. As far as the Urcna’s decision regarding 6 day creation I don’t have much to say since your standards don’t take a clear stance on this. The PCA’s decision on this is far more concerning to me. It’s hard to argue that the WCF had 6 ages in mind when it states “in the space of 6 days”. Especially when we see that this was the very wording the reformers used to argue against instantaneous creation held by Augustine and other Church Fathers. The trend of many progressives in the PCA to change the meaning of words to fit their argument seems to be very popular lately. This seems to be done not only on creation but also for women deacons, scripture readers and other areas where the WCF is clear. Anyways, thanks for the quote!
Russ,
Confessions must be received. Neither the PCA nor the OPC receive the standards to require affirmation of 6/24 creation.
Perhaps the safest way to approach this issue is to admit that I just can’t know exactly know how God created world, yet I know that God can do all things by declaring it by His word, and it is. God condescends to our infinitely limited understanding by describing things in a type of baby talk, by using figurative language, using terms that we are familiar with. So God uses the term day as something we know about. But God is infinite, so what is a day in the Lord’s timetable? A thousand years is as a day and a thousand years is as a day with the Lord. 2 Peter 3:8. It seems prideful for anyone to really try to pin this down to specific time periods when our knowledge is so limited compared to God’s. This pride gets us into trouble and controversy that could be avoided by simply admitting we do not know what a day is according to God’s infinite sense of time, and leaving it at that.
What always confuses me is how some folks will be dogmatic about 6/24 creation but also contend that we can’t understand the 1000 year reign of Christ in Revelation as literal.
As Dr. Clark has pointed out many times, when we take symbolic, prophetic language as literal we make he mistake of biblicism. It seems to me this passage from Revelation is symbolic, hyperbolic language. The subject is the new covenant and the thousand years is symbolic of a long time and it needs to be interpreted in light of other passages about the new covenant.
Angela: Following your hermeneutic then, since the creation account in Genesis is not prophetic, how can we understand it as anything other than being accomplished in 6 literal 24 hour days? Can we trust that Methuselah lived 969 years? I would rather believe that the words of scripture have a plain meaning that I might not understand than to be cast adrift not being sure which parts of scripture are literal and which are “spiritual”.
The thousand years reign is prophetic, symbolic language. The days in Genesis are according to God’s infinite timeline, calling them days is a condescending way of giving us the order of Gods creation in a way that our limited understanding can comprehend. God’s time is not the same as ours. 2 Peter 3:8. No human was there so we only have it from God’s perspective of infinity, which is not necessarily divided into 24 hour days like ours. At the same time, maybe it is in this case, since God says a word and it is done, God might have created everything at once, in 6, 24 hour days or over six epochs. That is why, as Dr. Clark states, neither the PCA nor the OPC require affirmation of 6\24 creation.
Angela: When Jesus said that he would “come again” that was a prophetic statement. What hermenuetic do you use to determine whether he was speaking of a literal return or a spiritual return as when we take communion? You are categorical about the “symbolic” nature of the language of the 1000 years of Revelation, but don’t you have to be consistent and treat the promise of the return of Jesus the same way? What I’m getting at is that I don’t believe you are being consistent.
You are entitled to your opinion. I may seem inconsistent to you because I am trying to apply exegetical principles of hermeneutics that the Reformed churches have agreed upon, rather than my own literal reading, as though I am the only person to read the Bible for the first time. The church has agreed to certain hermeneutical principles, such as interpreting Scripture by Scripture so that more obscure passages are understood in he light of passages that are more clear. As I point out there are passages that actually warn against applying our measure of time to God, that is why I think we should not be dogmatic in doing that in our understanding of God’s meaning of a day in Genesis 1. I think biblicism can be a form of rationalism, where your literal reading becomes the ultimate standard of how to understand a passage, without regard for how the church reads it by considering the meaning with respect to sound theological hermeneutics. The same principles apply to the resurrection and looking to Christ’s return. How does the whole of Scripture explain these subjects? How has the church understood them? That is why our confessions are so valuable, because they summarize the understanding of Scripture according to the best teachers and pastors God has given the church. So rather than judging the meaning of Scipture passages by my literal interpretation alone, I consult these teachers and pastors that God has ordained and blessed with spiritual gifts to guide us.
As interesting as it is, the discussion hasn’t focused on Swaim’s point so I’m going to close comments on this post.