absolutely no logical difficulty in supposing that he could have predicted, under divine inspiration, events that far in the future--or that Isaiah in the early seventh century could have foreknown the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent return to Judah, or that Daniel could have predicted the major events of history between his own day (530 B.C.) and the coming of Antiochus Epiphanes in 170 B.C. In each case the prophecy comes from God, the Lord of history, rather than from man; so there is no logical reason why God should be ignorant of the future that He Himself brings to pass.
Furthermore, the prophetic horizon of Daniel in Daniel 9:24-27 in actuality goes far beyond the Maccabean date assigned to it by rationalist scholars, for it pinpoints A.D. 27
as the exact year of Christ's appearing (Dan. 9:25-26). The same is true of the Deuteronomy 28:68 prediction of the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and of 43
the Isaiah 13:19-20 prediction of the total and permanent desolation of Babylon, which did not take place until after the Muslim conquest in the seventh century A.D. It is hopeless to attempt to account for such late fulfillments as these by alleging that the books that contained them were not written until after the predictions had actually come to pass. Thus we see that this guiding principle, which underlies the entire fabric of the Documentary Hypothesis, cannot be successfully maintained on objective or scientific grounds. It should, therefore, be abandoned in all our institutions of higher learning in which it is still being taught.
(As for the passages that are allegedly non-Mosaic on the basis of internal evidence, see the article on Exod. 6:26-27.)
44
Genesis
How can Genesis 1 be reconciled with theistic evolution?
In dealing with this question, we must carefully define our terms, for "evolution" is used in various senses by various people. We must distinguish between evolution as a philosophy and evolution as a descriptive mechanism for the development of species from the more primitive to the "higher" or more complex stages in the course of geological history. Furthermore, we must establish what is meant by theistic evolution.
Then we will be in a better position to deal with its relationship to the creationism of Genesis 1.
Evolution as a Philosophy
Evolution as a philosophy seeks to explain the physical--and especially the biological--
universe as a self-directed development from primeval matter, the origin of which is unknown but which may be regarded as eternally existing without ever having had a beginning. Philosophical evolution rules out any direction or intervention by a personal God and casts doubt on the existence of even an impersonal Higher Power. All reality is governed by unchangeable physical laws, and ultimately it is the product of mere chance.
There is no reason for existence nor a real purpose for life. Man has to operate as an end in himself. He is his own ultimate lawgiver and has no moral accountability except to human society. The basis of law and ethics is basically utilitarian--that which produces the greatest good for the greatest number.
Not all these positions were advanced by Charles Darwin himself in his 1859 classic The Origin of Species . And yet the consistent atheism of philosophic evolution was a position he would not espouse, for he believed that a creating God was logically necessary to explain the prior existence of the original primordial ooze out of which the earliest forms of life emerged. It would be more accurate to call him a deist rather than an atheist, even though his system was taken over by those who denied the existence of God.
But it should be pointed out that consistent atheism, which represents itself to be the most rational and logical of all approaches to reality, is in actuality completely self-defeating and incapable of logical defense. That is to say, if indeed all matter has combined by mere chance, unguided by
Furthermore, the prophetic horizon of Daniel in Daniel 9:24-27 in actuality goes far beyond the Maccabean date assigned to it by rationalist scholars, for it pinpoints A.D. 27
as the exact year of Christ's appearing (Dan. 9:25-26). The same is true of the Deuteronomy 28:68 prediction of the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and of 43
the Isaiah 13:19-20 prediction of the total and permanent desolation of Babylon, which did not take place until after the Muslim conquest in the seventh century A.D. It is hopeless to attempt to account for such late fulfillments as these by alleging that the books that contained them were not written until after the predictions had actually come to pass. Thus we see that this guiding principle, which underlies the entire fabric of the Documentary Hypothesis, cannot be successfully maintained on objective or scientific grounds. It should, therefore, be abandoned in all our institutions of higher learning in which it is still being taught.
(As for the passages that are allegedly non-Mosaic on the basis of internal evidence, see the article on Exod. 6:26-27.)
44
Genesis
How can Genesis 1 be reconciled with theistic evolution?
In dealing with this question, we must carefully define our terms, for "evolution" is used in various senses by various people. We must distinguish between evolution as a philosophy and evolution as a descriptive mechanism for the development of species from the more primitive to the "higher" or more complex stages in the course of geological history. Furthermore, we must establish what is meant by theistic evolution.
Then we will be in a better position to deal with its relationship to the creationism of Genesis 1.
Evolution as a Philosophy
Evolution as a philosophy seeks to explain the physical--and especially the biological--
universe as a self-directed development from primeval matter, the origin of which is unknown but which may be regarded as eternally existing without ever having had a beginning. Philosophical evolution rules out any direction or intervention by a personal God and casts doubt on the existence of even an impersonal Higher Power. All reality is governed by unchangeable physical laws, and ultimately it is the product of mere chance.
There is no reason for existence nor a real purpose for life. Man has to operate as an end in himself. He is his own ultimate lawgiver and has no moral accountability except to human society. The basis of law and ethics is basically utilitarian--that which produces the greatest good for the greatest number.
Not all these positions were advanced by Charles Darwin himself in his 1859 classic The Origin of Species . And yet the consistent atheism of philosophic evolution was a position he would not espouse, for he believed that a creating God was logically necessary to explain the prior existence of the original primordial ooze out of which the earliest forms of life emerged. It would be more accurate to call him a deist rather than an atheist, even though his system was taken over by those who denied the existence of God.
But it should be pointed out that consistent atheism, which represents itself to be the most rational and logical of all approaches to reality, is in actuality completely self-defeating and incapable of logical defense. That is to say, if indeed all matter has combined by mere chance, unguided by
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