From The Archives: Let God Be True And Every Young-Earth Creationist A Liar

I thought that, since Romans 3:4 has come up in comments on a recent post on this subject, I would repost this blog entry from a couple of years ago, since it highlights that young-earth creationists, in spite of their emphasis on creation, actually make the Creator out to be a liar:

Is “creation science” science? The answer to this question becomes clear through a simple glance through the footnotes of John Whitcomb’s classic The World that Perished. When he wrote the book, he avidly kept up to date with young-earth creationist publications, even ones self-published by their author, but his quotations from mainstream scientific sources (magazines rather than journals) were from the 1950s, whereas the book was published in 1973.

I have been asked more than once lately why there is so much controversy about evolution, and my answer has become increasinly cynical. It is a PR exercise. Evolution is about our ancestors. Genetics, on the other hand, is about us. For a Biblical literalist, the language of God knitting us together in our mother’s womb ought to be regarded as at odds with our selves forming through natural processes according to a genetic blueprint. Why is this issue that is so directly relevant to us as individuals not a matter of controversy? Because the evidence is so clear cut and well known that trying to make room for the “God of the gaps” in this domain would fail. Evolution is chosen because most people are less well informed about it, and because significant amounts of deductive reasoning have historically been required to make the case for it.

But, as Francisco Ayala has helpfully pointed out, such an approach to evolution is not up to date on the latest scientific developments. Ayala writes: “Gaps of knowledge in the evolutionary history of living organisms no longer exist” (Darwin’s Gift, p.79). Scientists are no longer dependent on fossils and paleontology in these matters, even though such evidence is still extremely useful. Just as DNA can accurately demonstrate degrees of relatedness between living individuals, and the distinctive heritage of the Jewish Cohanim, and can connect those willing to pay for family history DNA testing with a deeper historical stratum, so too can it show the degree of relatedness between ourselves and all other organisms whose genomes have been at least partially mapped. The same forensic evidence that opens and shuts criminal and paternity cases in a court of law is available for evolution. Evolution in the present day is an open and shut case.

Young-earth creationism, on the other hand, is as antithetical to science as anything could possibly be. It says, in effect, “everything happened through natural processes – except the stuff God did miraculously.” Moreover, it claims that God created the earth and the universe to look not merely older than it is, but a specific age that is not its real age. If that is true, then the world we inhabit is designed to deceive us, and science is impossible. If you find the idea that you inhabit a computer-simulated illusion rather than a real world unpersuasive, you will most likely find young-earth creation an equally unattractive option.

Paul the Apostle famously wrote in Romans 3:4 “Let God be true, and every human being a liar”. Young-earth creationists have been so busy focusing on the early chapters of Genesis, that they have failed to realize just how far they have departed from other Scriptural teachings such as this one.