65. Geochronology, the Sabbath and Death before Sin

Note: This is a paper I presented in July, 1998, at a conference on faith and science at Andrews University, sponsored by Andrews and the North American Department of Education. There are several references to the paper on the web, but the actual text is not available elsewhere, so I'm posting it here. To be clear: I'm posting as a historical document not because I think it represents the latest and best thinking on the subject.

GEOCHRONOLOGY, THE SABBATH AND DEATH BEFORE SIN

John McLarty

Abstract: McLarty identifies the seventh-day Sabbath as crucial for SDA self-understanding and unity, but questions our use of the Sabbath as an epistemological principle. High regard for the Sabbath and for conventional geochronology are not mutually exclusive. One possible solution is to see the Genesis One account as a poetic expansion of a creation event that lasted one week but which was a local creation of a habitat for humanity rather than the creation of all fauna, flora, and land forms. The paper also includes some hypotheses regarding death before sin.

Sabbath afternoon in Zion National Park. There were four of us, an engineer, a geologist, an entomologist and a theologian. The topic of conversation? Earth history, of course. And not the date of the Big Bang or the age of Precambrian granites, but the question of when life first appeared on earth.

We all freely acknowledged the paucity of our knowledge. We admitted the existence of problematic data no matter what position we took. There wasn’t much dogmatism that day. But then someone raised the question I’ve heard in nearly every Adventist discussion of geochronology: What about the Sabbath? Isn’t a literal interpretation of Genesis One¹ and the seventh-day Sabbath inextricably linked? If we give up our belief that all terrestrial life forms have their ultimate origin in a single week a few thousand years ago won’t we also lose the Sabbath?

After kicking around some possible solutions to the Sabbath question, the entomologist raised the other perennial question: If you accept conventional geochronology, then how do you handle the matter of death before sin?

The question about the Sabbath is primarily an Adventist question. The question about death before sin has broad ramifications in classic Christian theology.

The Sabbath Issue

Sabbath comes close to being the essential glue that holds us together. We can argue about the meaning of the cross, the role of faith and works, the authority of Ellen White, the nature of

Biblical revelation/inspiration, the meaning of the Apocalypse, and proper Christian dress and video customs. But then we come to the end of the week and interrupt our frenzied lives with

Sabbath habits—special meals, Sabbath School classes, corporate worship, distinctive music, even in some places distinctive radio and TV habits. Sabbath, probably more than any other habit or belief, connects Adventists across the amazingly diverse philosophical/theological spectrum of Adventism.

Given the crucial role Sabbath plays in our Adventist identity, it’s only natural that devotees of Adventism would vigorously combat anything that undermines our church’s appreciation of the Sabbath. And without question, many Adventists, scientists and lay people alike, have seen conventional geochronology as a serious threat to our Sabbath doctrine and practice.

I do not have the chutzpah to suggest this paper can settle all the questions. But I do insist that what follows demonstrates the possibility of holding a high regard for Scripture AND an openness to conventional theories of earth history.

Sabbatholatry.

I betray my conclusion with my title². At times we Adventists talk as though Sabbath is the ultimate test of Biblical interpretation and scientific veracity. If something challenges the Sabbath it must be false. In practice we’re treating the Sabbath as an ultimate epistemological test.

But Sabbath is not the touchstone of truth. Jesus is. If the starting point for one’s theology is the historic Adventist understanding of the mark of the beast, then perhaps we could justify giving Sabbath a normative role judging truth. But if one’s starting point is more Christian, that is if our starting point is a conviction that God has spoken to us through His Son and the record of the Son in The Word, then it seems to me misguided to make a theory’s implications for Sabbath-keeping the ultimate litmus test.

What if we found out the Bible did not teach that ALL terrestrial life forms originated from the flora and fauna which first appeared during a seven-day creation week six thousand years ago? What if we discovered that the Bible did not intend for us to understand that Australia’s protomarsupials disembarked from Noah’s Ark? Would we still believe these things to avoid losing the Sabbath? What if nature itself bore unmistakable witness to several million years of life history? Would we still insist on a life history in the magnitude of thousands of years just to preserve the Sabbath?

To state it bluntly, it would be highly unethical to oppose theories that were true but which we refused to believe merely because they contradicted other theories that were precious to us. It would be unethical to reject a biochronology of millions of years in order to maintain our Sabbath witness if we, in fact, could locate compelling evidence for just such a biochronology. Sabbath is precious, but it does not justify obfuscation. It cannot be made the final measure of truth.

Old Earth Sabbath Keepers: Oxymoron or Fact?

Is the customary Adventist linkage of a young earth and single creation week with the Sabbath logically or experientially necessary? To answer the second part of the question first: it is quite possible to be a devotee of the Sabbath and not believe in conventional SDA creation chronology. I could name several Adventist scientists and theologians who do not believe the conventional Adventist biochronology, but are committed, glad Sabbath keepers. Experientially the linkage is not essential. (Conversely, some of the most doctrinaire “young-agers” are Sunday-keepers.)

What about the logical linkage of Sabbath and geochronology? Can a person read the Bible with any kind of reverence and still question the traditional SDA chronology? This question becomes particularly acute for someone who has grown up in the church believing wholeheartedly in a conventional short chronology but then encounters what seems to be irrefutable evidence for a long chronology. If the only way a person can believe in Sabbath keeping is to first believe in young earth creationism, then our young people who no longer believe the traditional short chronology have no choice but to leave the Adventist Church.

I am convinced it is quite possible to sustain Sabbath convictions without belief in a single, seven-day creation week a few thousand years ago. First of all because of my personal acquaintance with Sabbath keepers who accept uncritically conventional geochronology. Secondly, because I see several logical foundations on which to build a defense of Sabbath-keeping which do not include a literalistic reading of Genesis One.

Support for Sabbath other than Genesis 1

How can a person believe in keeping the seventh-day Sabbath and at the same time read Genesis One as myth or figurative poetry?

1. The Sabbath commandment is given twice in the Mosaic corpus: In Exodus 20 it is said to be rooted in the creation week. In Deuteronomy it is rooted in Israel’s experience of deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Sabbatarians have long noted that these are complementary rather than contradictory rationales for Sabbath-keeping. However that may be, Deuteronomy gives a distinctly different basis for Sabbath-keeping from that found in Exodus. In Deuteronomy the Sabbath commandment is completely independent of the Creation story.

Deuteronomy 5. Isaiah 58. Jeremiah 17. Ezekiel 20.

2. The example of Jesus and the Apostles would be quite sufficient as a rationale for Sabbath-keeping, even if one did not have Genesis One and Two. The founder of our faith was a Sabbath keeper. He declared himself “Lord of the Sabbath.” And his followers were Sabbath keepers in the decades immediately following his death and resurrection.

3. The origins of Sunday sacredness are highly suspect. The modern Protestant practice of reducing Sunday religious practice to church attendance only, avoiding any pretense of holiness for the day, [see Dorothy Bass, editor. Practicing Our Faith, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. 1997] is much more defensible on the basis of ancient Christian practice than Puritan Sunday sacredness. But it fails to satisfy the human need for a holy day.

Reinterpreting Genesis 1 and 2

1. In the Adventist understanding of hell, we have always insisted that language with obvious chronological meanings must be interpreted in the light of theology. Chronology is a servant of theology, not the other way around. When Jesus talked about the unending torment of gehenna and John wrote about “the smoke of their torment ascending up forever and ever” we make no apology for insisting that these chronological statements be reinterpreted in the light of our conviction that God would not supernaturally sustain life for the purpose of dispensing unending torment. We understand this language about unending torment to refer to the unalterability of the verdict rather than the duration of the punishment.

Applying this same principle to Genesis One we might read the Creation Week narrative as a statement of divine intention or attention rather than as statement of chronology. The story of Genesis One tells us that Almighty God involved himself with earth and did so at the very beginning with the ultimate purpose of bringing into existence creatures capable of intimate fellowship with their Creator.

2. There are many instances in the Bible of straightforward statements that we unquestioningly reinterpret because of what we know are “the facts.” Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, “you have become great and grown strong, and your majesty has be come great and reached to the sky and your dominion to the end of the earth.” Daniel 4:22. The Mediterranean famine in Joseph’s time was said to be “severe in all the earth.” Genesis 41:57. Acts refers to a famine which affected people “all over the world.” Acts 11:28. And Paul declared the gospel had reached “all the world.” Colossians 1:6. In every one of these instances we understand “the world” to refer to a geographical fragment of what we mean by “the world.” “The world” for these Biblical writers was smaller than what we mean by the same term.

Applying this to Genesis One we might conclude that the writer’s global language referred to events which, from our perspective, were local rather than global.

2A. We don’t believe the ancient world view offered in the Bible. Rev. 7:1 Four corners of the earth. Job 26:8. Wrapping the waters. Job 9:5,6. pillars. Gen. 7:11; 8:2 Flood gates of heaven.

6. There are many instances in the Bible of local phenomena being understood to have global spiritual significance. The divine selection of Abraham is seen not merely as the launching of a particular tribe or ethnic group. His choice somehow is a choice for all mankind. When Isaiah describes the inclusion of non-Jews and disqualified Jews in the congregation of God’s people (Isaiah 56) we immediately understand this to portray the inclusion of all kinds of “unacceptable” people among the people of God. Psalm 87 describes the reckoning of Babylonians, Egyptians and Philistines as natives of Jerusalem. Preachers immediately broaden this to portray the inclusion of all kinds of rejects in the people of God.

Gen. 12:1-3 cf. Rom 4

Deut. 4:34 cf. 1 Pet. 2:9

Deut 5:6 cf Rev. 14:12

Isa. 43 and 56: National language which we apply to current believers.

Ps. 87

Rev. 21.

Jerusalem is used by the New Testament writers as a metaphor for heaven. Israel is spiritualized to the people of God. Babylon becomes the forces of evil.

Israel was challenged to be kind to aliens because they themselves had been aliens in Egypt. But we apply this to our own treatment of immigrants. The declaration “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” comes in a list that includes things like rules for how many days meat from a sacrifice may be kept and eaten, prohibitions against interbreeding two different kinds of cattle, interplanting two crops in a field, cutting the body in mourning or “rounding off the side-growth of your heads.” But we have no problem at all separating the enduring, universally applicable rule “love your neighbor” from the local “do not harm the edges of your beard.” (All references in this paragraph are from Leviticus 19).

Applying the same principle to Genesis One, it would be quite possible to believe both that Genesis One referred to something smaller and more local than the creation of all fauna, flora and terrestrial landforms (as well as the sun, moon and stars) and still believe that its words about the Sabbath teach us something vital for all humanity.

New Ways of Reading the Bible and Geology

The last three points in the previous section already suggest non-traditional (within Adventism) ways of reading the Biblical text which allow for an easier harmonization of Scripture and conventional geology. Since I am a theologian, not a scientist, I can more readily suggest examples of bending that can be done by theologians. At the same time without any hesitation or timidity I challenge scientists to question the orthodoxy in their own tradition. The fact that all geologists believe something doesn’t make it true. I have worked in the field of manuscript collation and often struggle to suppress a guffaw or two when I read statements about the “assured results of scholarship” in connection with textual criticism. Those “assured results” include huge amounts of conjecture dignified by age and the academic credentials of the conjecturers. Earth science has much more data to work with than does textual criticism, but I doubt the human factors in the respective fields are much different.

I challenge scientists to cultivate at least as healthy a skepticism about the orthodoxy of science as they have about the orthodoxies of religion. Potentially one of the values of young earth creation scientists is that they keep the pot boiling. They ask impolite questions. At times, they make preposterous assertions. They “see” things that aren’t there. But at least they are roiling the status quo or in the words of the bumper sticker, they “Question Authority.”³

Our great need as Adventists is not for scientists who are committed to young earth creationism. That presupposes too much; it precludes too much. But we do need scientists who will actively look for ways to articulate the agreement of geology and Scripture. We need scientists conversant with a number of different fields who will look for ways to interpret the data that are faithful both to the tangible facts and to the spiritual insight of Scripture.

One Model

One way to understand Genesis One is to see it as the poetic expansion or globalization of a local creation event. Behind Genesis One is a particular creation week during which God prepared a local habitation for the first humans, the Garden of Eden.

Moses took the events of that week and used them to symbolize God’s global involvement and his anthropocentrism. The week which began human history is seen as the beginning of time. The creation of the animals which supported human life—domestic sheep, domestic cattle, horses, dogs, camels—is pictured as the creation of all animals. The creation of the plants on which humans depend—grains, fruit trees—is portrayed as the creation of all flora.

I’ve been intrigued by what appears to be a convergence at about ten thousand years ago of the appearance of Cro-Magnon people, grain culture, and some domestic animals. Is this “scientific” evidence for a creation?

This approach preserves the Adventist understanding of Creation Week as a literal seven-day period in which God prepared a special habitation for the primeval humans. His resting at the end of this week would still have the rich theological meaning expounded by Barth and other theologians. It would still carry the imperatives Adventists and other Sabbatarians have preached.

Whether the first Sabbath came at the end of the week which saw the creation of all flora, fauna, land forms and celestial bodies or marked the end of the week in which God climaxed creation history by preparing a special home and then creating Adam and Eve, Sabbath would remain a premier expression of God’s desire for relationship with his creatures. It would speak of grace and obedience.

Why Should We Bother with Geochronology?

Why should the SDA denomination publicly open the question of geochronology? Our system has built a reputation as a defender of a short geochronology. Many of our members are quite happy with our current public stance and would be upset if it were altered. So why bother?

I have no personal need for my model to be accepted. If tomorrow my views were declared heretical and I was defrocked and disfellowshiped, I’m sure it would hurt, but I’d survive. And my faith in God would survive. I’m too old to change that.

My concern is not for myself or other “Boomers” but for the young people I meet who are wrestling with the difference between what they can believe and what the church declares is essential Adventism. When a young person goes off to college or graduate school and comes to the conclusion that short age creationism is not tenable I don’t want that young person to be forced to choose between the community of faith and the community of science. These are not mutually exclusive communities. Many of us who are older have found our own, at-times- difficult-and-painful way between the conflicting demands of these communities. We don’t want our children and our grandchildren to face the same wrenching conflicts we did.

I remember hearing H. M. S Richards, Jr. speak to the pastors of Greater New York Conference. Speaking specifically of questions surrounding earth history he declared, “If you don’t believe it [the SDA short age tradition], then you should have the courage and integrity to resign and get out.” I don’t remember if I actually wrote a resignation letter or if I merely composed it in my mind a hundred times, but I came very close to resigning. It seemed to me the only way. This, in spite of having entered the ministry with a very strong sense of “divine call.”

Several years later, Richards sat in the committee that interviewed me for a position as a writer at Voice of Prophecy. In that interview I was forthright about my geochronological questions. I was hired. But I doubt I’ll ever forget the months of agony as I weighed the question: Could I be an Adventist pastor with integrity and still have the opinions I did about geochronology? I don’t want my children to endure that kind of pain. Life is hard enough already.

When Richards made that unequivocal statement to the pastors of Greater New York Conference, he did not intend to make me unwelcome in the church. (Witness my hiring by the Voice of Prophecy to write sermons for him to read on international radio.) He was speaking out of his profound loyalty to the denomination and his belief at that time that anyone who questioned traditional SDA earth history was undermining the Church. I’m not asking the church to re-educate its grandmothers regarding the proper interpretation of Genesis One. I am urging us to make room in our church for our children whatever their persuasions regarding geology.

Columbia, Missouri story: Man who called me after my letter to the editor appeared in the Review. He was on the verge of resigning his church membership because he thought he was the only Adventist with questions about geochronology. Because I was a minister and had the same questions he decided there was room in the church for him.

Ladell Fisher told me her brother was a geologist. He has dropped out of the church because he could not accept a short chronology.

If we are honest, we must confront the reality that many of the people in our denomination who challenge our belief in a short chronology began their study in pursuit of scientific evidence supportive of our tradition. They gave up a short chronology only with great reluctance and in the face of overwhelming evidence. Hare, Lugenbeal, Ritland, to name some famous ones. And there are many others as well.

It’s time to reject chronological concerns as the center of our spiritual life and theology. In our early days our obsession with chronology led to the great disappointment. We still like to say we got the chronology right but the event wrong. Well, maybe something like that is true with creation week. Yes, something happened a few thousand years ago. But maybe it wasn’t the first appearance of life on this planet. Maybe it didn’t involve literally the whole world. Maybe it wasn’t the first time God intervened on earth. Maybe it wasn’t the last. And if we got the event wrong, is it all that significant that we got the date right?

Death before Sin

What about death before sin? This question has broad roots in classic Christian theology. Forgive my giving a ten cent answer to a million dollar question, but just a few suggestions of some directions we might look for answers:

The uniqueness of humans. All of nature is declared to be God’s doing, to be the fruit of God’s creativity. But only humans are said to be created IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. Is immortality part of the imago dei? When the Bible declares that Adam and Eve would die if they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, did that mean that all of creation was deathless until that time or that by eating from the tree humans would sink to the condition of the animals through their disobedience? Is it possible that deathlessness a unique gift given to humans alone of all creation?

The Tree of Life. It appears that even Adam and Eve had only conditional immortality. When separated from the tree of life they died. Would this have been the result even if they hadn’t sinned? Why did they need to eat from the tree? The very existence of the tree of life suggests that Adam and Eve did not live in a deathless world. Did animals eat from the tree of life also? What if they did? What if they didn’t?

The difference between pre-fall and post-fall nature. If there was a deathless world before sin, then pre-fall nature was so radically different from what it is now that we probably can know NOTHING of the pre-sin world by studying nature. In fact, the difference between that world and ours would be so great that the present world would have to be the result of a complete recreation. If the deathless world of creation transformed into our world with its cycles of decay and birth, its predation and parasitism, through natural processes, it would represent a rate of change that could easily accommodate the evolutionary changes from the Cambrian through the Pleistocene in a very few years indeed. I.e. Darwinism is more plausible.

The Atonement. Human death has a unique meaning rooted in the unique position of humans as the image of God. If we conclude not all death is the result of sin, that in no way undermines the significance of the cross. In classic Christian theology, the cross was necessary not because of the existence of death (human or otherwise) but because of the existence of sin. And of all terrestrial creatures only humans were capable of sin. For Almighty God death is an easy problem to solve. The warping of the moral fabric of the universe by the sinful choices of humans or “gods” creates a much larger problem. And it was that warping and associated problems that the death of Jesus addressed.

CONCLUSION

While Adventists have understandable concerns about potential threats to our convictions about the Sabbath and our understanding of the connection between death and sin, openness to conventional geochronology does not necessarily undermine either doctrinal cluster. This paper presents just one approach to harmonizing Adventism and conventional biochronology. If the church were more open, it is my conviction that the creative tension between devotion to the Bible and love of the natural sciences would prompt the publishing of a variety of useful and interesting answers to these long-standing questions.

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¹Throughout the article I will refer to Genesis One. I know that the first creation narrative continues through Genesis 2:3. I also know there are other passages which refer to the creation story as recounted in Genesis One. Still it is a convenient shorthand.

²The formation of the title is taken from the cautionary statements intended by the words Bibliolatry (worship of the book rather than the God who stands above the book) and Mariolatry (idolizing Mary instead of joining her in adoring her Son).

³Okay, okay. I know there’s another way to view this. It’s possible that the activism of young-earth creationists has slowed the advance of science by making it even more politically dangerous for mainstream scientists to question the orthodoxy of the system. If you question orthodoxy you have to be very careful to dissociate yourself from any sympathy for the “crazies.”

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John McLarty is a writer and producer for The Voice of Prophecy and editor of Adventist Today. The opinions expressed in this paper are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Voice of Prophecy or Adventist Today.