Twenty Reasons, Part 4

This is a followup to my last post, in which I looked at the twenty reasons to Reject theistic evolution by Ken Ham and a rebuttal to them provided by "Answers in Creation" and add my own commentary. The other posts in this series may be found by simply scrolling down on this page. By the way, I am going to frequently just use the paraphrases that AiC uses (to save space), although I am checking the original AiG article to make sure AiC did not caricature or distort Ham's position.

Reason 11 will be skipped since it is just a rephrased version of the Tenth Reason.

12. Days cannot be Millions of Years

My Opinion:

This was Ham's best point:

"There are many other aspects at which we could look to show that the days must be ordinary days. For example, Adam was created on day six. He lived through day six, and day seven, and died when he was 930 years old. If each day were a million years, there are big problems here, too. It also needs to be made clear that the passage in 2 Peter 3:8, that compares a day to a thousand years is not defining the word “day” as a thousand years. In fact, taken in context, 2 Peter 3:8 has nothing to do with the days of creation, but with the fact that God is outside time."

AiC does not discuss this. This does seem to me a good, though not conclusive, evidence that the Genesis writers did indeed mean 24 hour periods when they wrote the word "day".

13. Animals reproduce "After their kind".

My Opinion:

Indeed. But kinds are defined by their characteristics, and characteristics can and do change all the time... So which characteristics can not change, and why not? All genes mutate, even the ones responsible for development (The Hox Genes). I think that a Christian might quite correctly interpret this as meaning that animals always bear offspring of a strong resemblance to themselves, with which all biologists agree.

14. The Order of Events in Genesis

My opinion:

Ham points out that the evolutionary timeline and the Genesis account are different. AiC insists that the two are not incompatible; Yet a quick look at Genesis 1:20-22 states that fish and birds were created on the same day before the day that land animals were created. As we all know, land animals have existed for over 300 million years (if not longer) while birds have existed for only about 100 mllion years. This could be reconciled with Genesis, but only if one agrees to take the superliberal stance that the entirety of Genesis is a metaphor. Even then, why didn't God just have the Hebrews right down the real order of events, instead of inventing an incorrect metaphorical one?

15. The Earth came first, not the Sun

My Opinion:

This is a restatement of the last point. AiC's rebuttal was unsupported and weak in my opinion. They said, "If you look at Genesis 1, the account is written from the perspective of an observer standing on the face of the earth (4.5 billion years ago)... The atmosphere was not yet developed, and was a swirling mix of materials which blocked out all light. Once the materials cleared enough to allow light through, the first life forms could begin (the algae). Also, light would have appeared (the Day 1 light). The sun would not be visible, however, until Day 4, when the atmosphere was clear enough to actually see the light source."

Sounds like a stretch to me. Once again, a superliberal interpretation of Genesis might solve the problem, but why not just write down the correct order of events?