Continuing our journey through Volume One of Luther’s Works, we come to another point that we have addressed here previously, and that is the claim that “young earth six-day creationism” is a relative newcomer on the theological scene, and specifically the product of American “fundamentalism.” 

Once again, even a cursory study of historical theology disproves these claims, and a study of Martin Luther’s teaching makes it clear. 

“We know from Moses,” Luther writes already in the third paragraph of his first lecture, “that the world was not in existence before 6,000 years ago. Of this is it altogether impossible to convince a philosopher, because, according to Aristotle, no first man or last man can be conceded.” 

My point here is not to argue that the world can be no more than 6,000 years old. That’s not a hill I’m willing to die on, although theologians that I respect do argue for a strict Biblical chronology, basing themselves on the genealogical record included in Scripture to estimate that about 6,000 years have passed since the creation week. My point is, first of all, that “young earth creationism” is no novel idea; far from being the product of an American fundamentalist response to evolutionism, this has been the default view throughout the history of the church. Luther knew nothing of the developments that would arise in the 19th Century, when evolutionary geology would open the doors to the development of evolutionary biology and the idea that the universe is billions, and not thousands, of years old. But his conclusions, developed in the context of debates with non-Christian philosophers, were that the earth is, in relative terms, “young.” 

As for a “literal” six days of creation, this understanding of Scripture’s teaching also has a lengthy pedigree – as do competing viewpoints which deny that creation occurred during one week of regular days. Luther turns his attention to this topic in his discussion of the creation of human beings on the sixth day, and declares his opposition to “Hilary and others, who maintained that God created everything at the same time”:

“Here our opinion is supported: that the six days were truly six natural days, because here Moses says that Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day. One may not use sophistries with reference to this text. But concerning the order of creation of man he will state in the following chapter that Eve was made sometime after Adam, not like Adam, from a clod of earth, but from his rib, which God took out of the side of Adam as he slept. These are all works of time, that is, works that require time. They were not performed in one moment; neither were these acts: that God brings to Adam every animal and that there was not found one like him, etc. These are acts requiring time, and they were performed on the sixth day.”

Today, “six-day creationism” is opposed to the evolutionary idea that the world as we know it is the product of billions of years of development, whether guided by God, in the case of theistic evolution or progressive creationism, or not guided or directed by anything at all. In Luther’s day, and before, this understanding stood in opposition to instantaneous creation (which Augustine and Hilary held to), and the philosophical idea of the eternity of matter. But regardless of the nature of opposing viewpoints, the Biblical argument remains the same.

And that Biblical argument, far from being peripheral or a minor point on which we can simply “agree to disagree,” is in fact a foundational one. God has spoken. His Word is perfect, and is our ultimate authority. With Luther, we must strongly maintain that “one may not use sophistries with reference to this text.” What is sophistry? According to the definition I found, sophistry is “the use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.” We have received the Word of Truth, and we need to do our utmost to “rightly handle” that Word (2 Timothy 2:15). The issue of our origins is intimately linked to the issue of our fall, and that of our redemption. All must be rightly handled. May God help us to do just that.

In the past three weeks, we’ve featured two scholarly essays by Dr. Noel Weeks, as well as a video lecture in which he highlights the arguments of his essay from 2016.

If you have more time, and if you caught on to Dr. Weeks’s very endearing lecture style from the last video, you will no doubt find very helpful this online lecture by Dr. Weeks, given at the Holy Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Tampa, Florida. He spoke on the topic, “If Evolution is True, What are You?”

Weeks opens with a cute story—and did I mention that he also has a charming style of lecturing : )—about a zoologist improving the lives of zoo animals. Gibbons at the Santiago Zoo had to learn to press levers to get their food. After learning this, the gibbons were given the choice to have their food for nothing or by working for it. Surprisingly, they chose the latter, and the zoologist suggested that the gibbons were “enjoying” themselves. But, says Weeks, she “caught herself,” for she realized that she was looking at animals from our perspective, which is no longer permitted in the animal sciences. Instead, we ought to think of ourselves in terms of animals. He asks: Which way should we look at ourselves? Who are we? If evolution is true, who are we? 

As Christians we must think from the top down, from God to us. Evolutionists think from the bottom up, from atoms to life to animals to humans to, perhaps, the gods.

The lecture then seeks to explain how we in the West came to these two ways of thinking. Whereas the top down account is from Christianity, its the bottom up account that needs to be explained.

Explaining the Bottom Up View

Weeks begins with the Enlightenment and its scientific discoveries and the idea of a regular world ordered by laws. Next he mentions the European Wars of Religion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Seeking to get away from this, European thinkers moved towards Deism in their thinking. By this they could get rid of fanaticism. They also reflected on the regularity of the universe, its laws. God drifts further and further back, creating just the simplest atoms which slowly arrange themselves. The more God is considered to be distant, the more the system drifts to atheism.

Coming to the late eighteenth century Weeks introduces the Scottish economist Adam Smith and his views of economics, competition, and efficiency. A law of competition came to be seen as something good. Greed is okay because everyone benefits.

Here, like a good detective, he drops a clue. You’ll have to listen (21:40).

At around the 20 minute mark Dr. Weeks explains in very clear and helpful terms the development of racial theory in the 19th century. People sought to approach the problem from a “rational” and “scientific” mindset, and combined Adam Smith’s theory of competition with this. Decimation of natives was considered to be a “law of nature.” One race is simply “pushed out of business.” Weeks thinks this is appalling. What happens when some powerful culture considers a certain race to be “inherently evil”? The “Final Solution,” presented as scientific and rational. It makes us shudder to think of it.

At around the 25 minute mark he shifts from questions of race to questions of social class, alluding to how Marx and Engels depended upon evolutionary theory.  They argued that history shows an unstoppable progress of one class overcoming and destroying another. This, they said, is normal and good. It must not be stopped, and if you try to stop you must be destroyed.

Getting back to whether religion causes all the violence in the world, he asks, “Is the cause religious? Is that what we have to deal with, or is there another cause? If non-religious theories, racial theory, Nazism, Communism, can lead to people being murdered in the millions, is the problem religion or is it something else?” (around 27:30).

Weeks teaches us how Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin took the  theory of competition and applied it to the development of animal and human species. This is where the earlier clue comes back (34:30). Again, you’ll have to listen. 

The Bottom Up View Forgotten

Weeks points out a fundamental problem connected to his opening story: “According to evolutionists] we’re not supposed to think of animals in human terms. [But ] isn’t that how we think of them in the theory of evolution? Some are more successful, some are more entrepreneurial than others” (around 35:30).

Using the example of photocopiers not handling paper clips very well, Weeks introduces “the problem of intelligent design,” which is that chance does not work well in an extremely ordered, complex system. It doesn’t make sense. One cannot maintain the well-ordered system of the universe by introducing chance changes.

In order to explain the lack of evidence for these “chance moments” by which change was introduced, Stephen Gould argues that evolution involves long stable periods without change and then moments of “terror” when change occurs so suddenly that no evidence for the change remains. A handy explanation for a theory lacking evidence!

Why did evolution have to resort to such explanations? Fundamentally, because Adam Smith’s theories about human entrepreneurial ways were applied to animals, whereas in fact animals are not human and do not have such innovative and entrepreneurial ways (around 41:00).

If evolutionists would embrace the consequences of their theories, and view our ethics coming up from animals, we would have a world like Nietzche’s, Marx’s, and Hitler’s.

The Top Down View Restored

Weeks then properly surprises us by stating that the problem of people killing each other is not a problem of world religions or of biological theories. Ultimately it is a human problem. We are all inclined to sin. We can only understand the problems in our world if we accept the truth that we are the children of God and we rebelled against him. That’s the problem that we need to grapple with.

The speech ends here, at the 45 minute mark. Following this was about 30 minutes of discussion, also recorded.

And, by the way, we are open to donations to fly Dr. Weeks over here to North America to deliver for more of his high quality speeches, given in his very endearing style.

We’ve pointed out this video already, but thought it should receive a post of its own. Dr. Weeks’s lecturing style is so winsome that we think you should watch just to praise God for his ability to deliver his lecture with such clarity and yet without any notes.

The lecture was delivered in 2016 and serves as an excellent summary of a scholarly article written by Dr. Weeks that appeared in the Spring of 2016 in the Westminster Theological Journal and reviewed by us in our most recent blog post.

You can get to the video by following this link.