A Christian view of the Bible as truth - Limits for interpreting Genesis

During this Darwinian anniversary year Christians have had to face the challenge of how to interpret the early chapters of Genesis.

In his book No Final Conflict, Francis Schaeffer looked at this challenge and proposed seven freedoms in regard to our understanding of Genesis. He did not necessarily believe any of them himself, but allowed them as possibilities. These are: 1) that God created a ‘grown-up’ universe; 2) that there is a break between verses 1 and 2 of Genesis 1; 3) that the days of Genesis 1 are ‘long’; 4) that the Flood affected the geological data; 5) that the word ‘kind’ in Genesis 1 is not necessarily to be equated with the ‘modern scientific word species’; 6) that there was ‘natural death of animals before the Fall’; 7) that ‘only the word bara must mean an absolute new beginning’.

But, having allowed these possible freedoms of interpretation, Schaeffer then goes on to set limits which he saw as necessary to preserve the integrity of the Bible. The following is what Schaeffer had to say.

Two limits

Having delineated these seven freedoms, I will mention two limits that seem to me to be absolute. The first is that the use of the word bara insists that at the original creation, at the creation of conscious life, and at the creation of man there was specific discontinuity with what preceded.

One other limitation is that Adam was historic and was the first man, and that Eve was made from Adam. It could not be: male-female-male-female-male-female, and then suddenly Zip! — male-female of man. It would be worthwhile here to read again all the New Testament references to the early chapters of Genesis. Among these it is most important to recognise that 1 Corinthians 11.8 affirms that Eve came from Adam: ‘For this man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man’. 1 Corinthians 11.12 and 1 Timothy 2.13 also relate to Eve’s coming from Adam.

Consequently, what is involved here (as in this whole discussion) is not just the first chapters of Genesis, but the authoritativeness of the New Testament as well, and especially the writings of Paul. If Paul is wrong in this factual statement about Eve’s coming from Adam, there is no reason to have certainty in the authority of any New Testament factual statement, including the factual statement that Christ rose physically from the dead. If we say this factual statement about Eve was culturally oriented, then every factual statement of the New Testament can be said to be culturally oriented; and any or all of the factual statements of the New Testament can be dealt with arbitrarily and subjectively. The Bible gives a specific limitation: Adam was created by God, and then Eve was made from Adam by God.

In passing, it should be noted that it is not inconsequential that Eve came from Adam; rather, this gives the basis for the absolute unity of the whole human race.

Theistic evolution?

Having set forth these two limitations, I must now say I have never heard anyone holding any form of theistic-evolution who follows these two limitations.

I think the reason for this is that holding these limitations in any system of theistic evolution would separate the one who holds such an evolutionary theory from the usual evolutionists as completely as holding a totally non-evolutionary theory would.

To put that another way, someone affirming these limitations would be as completely separated from those who hold the evolutionary position in its normal form as would someone who did not hold any form of evolution. And this is the reason, I think, it has not been put forward, at least ever to the best of my knowledge.

Molecule to man?

In conclusion, I would make two points. First, even if I were still an agnostic, as once I was, I would not accept the concept of evolution from molecule to man in an unbroken line. My rejection of this does not turn upon my being a Christian, but comes rather because I think this concept is weak and certainly has not been proven (in any sense of the word proven). It is a theory with many unproofs. It has not been demonstrated either theoretically or empirically that time and chance can explain either the universe with its high complexity or man as man. Statistically, Murray Eden of MIT has insisted that it is impossible that the universe and its complexity were produced by pure chance out of chaos in any amount of time that has so far been suggested (see ‘Heresy in the Halls of Ivy — Mathematicians question Darwin’, in Scientific Research, November 1967, pp.59-66). And equally, no one has demonstrated that man as man could have been brought forth from non-man merely on the basis of time and chance. When this has been tried, it ends by reducing man to non-man and man’s aspirations to illusions.

Both Darwinism as it was first presented as the survival of the fittest and neo-Darwinism have been shown to have not only philosophical, but methodological and statistical problems. And trying to make final explanations on the basis of reductionism has now largely been set aside. The concept of an unbroken line from the molecule to man on the basis of time and chance is, it seems to me, very clearly a faith position held by modern rationalistic man. He holds it tenaciously because it is the only thing which he has to give unity to the particulars of knowledge which he has in his hand; and it is all he has to give an illusion of meaning for man in a meaningless universe.

The only game in town

If modern rationalistic man were to give up his theory of evolution in an unbroken line from the molecule to man on the basis of time and chance (and with it the unnecessary but usually held corollary of sociological evolution), he would be left with his bits of knowledge like loose beads scattered on the floor. To put it another way, the evolutionary theory of an unbroken line from the molecule to man on the basis of time and chance is the only frame of reference that modern rationalistic man has; therefore, he holds it in faith.

Second, I do not hold to a concept of theistic evolution, but it must be said that there is a certain possible range of freedom for discussion in the area of cosmogony while bowing to what God has affirmed.

This article is taken from A Christian View of the Bible as Truth by Francis Schaeffer, and is used with permission of the author’s estate.