Undeception

I haven’t yet had the talk RJS asks about with my inquisitive, but trusting, science nerd second-grader, but I think she’s become aware of the science/creationism conflict, particularly as regards the age of the earth. She reads all secular books about science and we talk about science as though there were no such thing as creationism, but she is taught an adamant and somewhat polemical version of YEC at church. It won’t be long before I’ll have to address these issues, but I’ve been preparing for it for years now and don’t dread it anymore. Here is how I’ve imagined it going down.

Well, the ancient Israelites didn’t really know how the world came about. They weren’t scientists and didn’t try very hard to be; they were more interested in how to live life obediently to God. This was a good thing for them, and something we can learn from them nowadays.

So more than talking about how the world began, they wanted to understand why the world began. They created stories very much like other people in ancient times about the beginning of the world, like the Greek and Norse myths we read together.* These stories about the beginning of the world didn’t actually happen that way, but they helped them understand that it was our God who created the world and all that’s in it, not those cruel, weak, and often wicked gods that other people worshipped. It taught them that God is in control of the world and the world isn’t in control of God. The Garden of Eden story explained that things go wrong in life because people do things that are wrong, that we will be happy and enjoy fellowship with God if we follow His guidance, and that our lives will be sad if we rely too much on whatever we think is right or wrong.

*In my opinion, this is an important prior step.

I’m not making any claims that this will work universally, but it will no doubt assuage some of the confusion among most young children. If the child is very much younger and asks, “Is this story true?” the answer would have to be, “It teaches us something true,” followed by a simplified version of what I said before; this wouldn’t answer their question, but rather begin to open their minds to the inadequacy of the question as framed.

Another conversation, or a later stage of the one above, will include a subtle acknowledgement that the Israelites weren’t always right, without implying that we should have expected them to be. If I don’t ever make unwarranted claims about the Bible’s nature and authority – or for the authority of any source of information, for that matter – this won’t ever cause the conflict it did for those of us who were taught inerrancy and only later came to find out differently. Disappointment resulting from false expectations and a haughty disposition toward the virtue of doubt have much more potential to displace one’s faith than a conscious recognition of the epistemological limits of any human endeavor, from science to history to theology.

But for some kids, like my daughter, my words above will probably be enough for now.

I am aware that a few of my theological positions are considered by many of my evangelical readers to be “liberal” (e.g. my beliefs on origins and biblical inerrancy). But this post will (unfortunately and unintentionally) be likely to cause controversy due to its blatant conservatism. More conservative, it turns out, than most modern evangelicals.

Anyone know right offhand the first directive God is recorded to have issued mankind? Hint: it’s not about which tree to eat from. This one reveals one of God’s chief purposes for the race He created as the crowning constituent of His world:

“Have lots of babies. Raise them to take their place in the administration of My Kingdom.”

This is obviously my own colloquialization of Genesis 1.28, but I’m sure you have guessed the wording of the original command: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

It has been said that this was “a blessing, not a command,” and indeed, the words quoted above were introduced as a blessing: “Then God blessed them and said…” Now I want you to try to imagine how being blessed is not also an act of commission: how like God would it be to make provision for something He doesn’t care one way or another about? I can’t think of anything in Scripture that sounds anything remotely like, “You know, you may never wish to take advantage of this blessing, but I just want you to know that if you ever want to [blank], I’ve got you covered.” God’s blessings express His heart; far from offering an option subject to be disregarded at our whim, His blessings communicate His plan and His commitment to seeing that plan through to fulfillment.

Even in recent times, right up until and even after industrialization, the pattern God ordained was still maintained on a broad scale. Parents wanted to have children to help out in or around the home or contribute income from other employment as soon as they came of age; children were expected to help provide for their parents and siblings as time progressed. Family was a primary focus of everyone’s life; those for whom this was not the case were looked on as flighty, uncommitted, and frivolous.

But things changed: it was as though humanity decided that its commission to subdue the earth was complete, and so reproduction was optional at best and too downright inconvenient at worst. Too often these days in which self-centeredness is the rule, Americans who start having children early (and by early I mean before their late twenties) are assumed to be either 1) clumsy in their birth control efforts or 2) quaint and old-fashioned. Usually in that order.*

Actually, that first assumption is somewhat justifiable: since the advent of birth control, people have been able to enjoy sex with abandon simply for mutual or self-gratification. Christians with this mindset thank God for the gift of birth control. Birth control may in fact be a gift of God, but one arguably more beneficial to the Kingdom when unbelievers avail themselves of it. Consider the following points.

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