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 To be clear: I'm posting as a historical document not because I think it represents the latest and best thinking on the subject.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.

^{_______________________}

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.”

___________________

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.

Chapter 64. Adventist Today

About the time we moved to California, a new independent magazine appeared, Adventist Today. It appeared to me to fill the place previously occupied by Adventist Currents, a bitterly critical journal that cataloged the hypocrisies, ethical lapses and errors of judgment of Adventist leaders. Adventist Today seemed a bit less venomous, a bit more thoughtful. Still, it seemed to me unrelievedly critical. There was no good news, no thoughtful positive presentation of Adventist spirituality from a liberal perspective.

I believed in the value of an independent press. An organization as large as the Adventist Church and having the kind of impact on people's lives the church exerts needs the check on power provided by the flow of information that is not controlled by the denomination. (This, of course, was back when most people thought of information as something that was written on paper.) Still after reading an issue of the magazine, I would find myself feeling sick. Was my church really that bad? That uniformly bad?

No, I knew from my own experience that the Adventist Church touched many people with hope and healing. It sustained human well-being, in spite of its very real failings. It offered some distinctive perspectives in theology not readily found elsewhere. And I prized some of these distinctive perspectives and thought the world would benefit from their wider dissemination. I longed for a journal that explored Adventist spirituality without the constraints of official approval, a journal that addressed problems and scandals as necessary but did not specialize in the negative.

Once, when I was in Loma Linda, I stopped by the office of Jim Walters, the editor of Adventist Today. I repeated to him what I've written above—about my appreciation for an independent press, about my concern for the predictable negatively of almost everything in the journal.

“I'm looking for a magazine that will celebrate the best in liberal Adventism. I worry about the long term effects of focusing too much on the failings of the church.” I said.

I hoped I wasn't being too impolite. Jim astonished me with his response. “If you were editor, do you think you could do any better?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then why don't you give it a try?”

I wondered how the Voice of Prophecy organization would react if I became publicly associated with something as controversial in the church as Adventist Today. I knew that taking on the editorship would close any career advancement in the church. I would never be offered any administrative position. It would mean that I was ineligible for consideration for any faculty position at an Adventist college. On the other hand, it was an opportunity to engage in the ministry I felt most called to—ministry to those whose primary challenges in spiritual life arose from the intellect. I was increasingly worried that our denomination was becoming a place that was closed to earth scientists. Within the church, we required that scientists who studied earth history consider only evidence that supported what we already knew.

I told Jim I would consider the position if it were offered. Within a few months, I became the editor. Walters was a model for releasing control and offering continued support when a younger, inexperienced person is moving into a new sphere of ministry. He did everything possible to enable my work.

The position paid three thousand dollars per year. I paid for most of my expenses, including travel, so that in the end I think I came out about even financially.

I discovered it is easier to theorize about change than to effect it. I was unabashedly committed to the “check-and-balance” function an independent press provided vis-a-vis the organization. I was even more committed to articulating a vision of healthy Adventist spirituality, a spirituality that acknowledged its debt to our denominational heritage, but openly moved beyond our historic obsession with endtime scenarios to a concern for human well-being in the most comprehensive sense. It turned out, that given our tiny budget, we were unable to make writing assignments. Often we published pieces not because they were the best, but because they were minimally acceptable and they were all we had. Sometimes I approved articles so we could go to press, not because I was proud of their content.

In a painful early learning experience, we published an article detailing the mistreatment of a female Adventist employee. There were several malefactors in the story, with a conference president being the chief sinner. The article was well-written and hard-hitting.

Oops! The writer based the article exclusively on the testimony of the disgruntled employee. She did not interview the conference president or anyone else qualified to present contrary evidence or to give context. After publication, I heard from a number of people close to the situation, people I knew and trusted. They uniformly insisted our reporting was so one-sided it was essentially false. I was embarrassed and, hopefully, a little wiser. What made our publication of this report even worse was that the author was a member of the editorial staff. I had picked up that she delighted in muckraking. Her glee at bashing the church should have made me more wary. However, I allowed myself to be swayed by the polish of her writing and the pressure of deadlines. The bottom line: I approved publication. Not long after this the author moved to a non-Adventist publication where she could more freely fuse her writing skills and anti-Adventist animus.

In July, 1998, there was a conference on Faith and Science at Andrews University sponsored by the University and the North American Division Department of Eduction. I was invited to present a paper on how one could be a Sabbath-keeper even if he didn't believe in a 6 day/6000 year creation. The focus was the pastoral care of scientists who remained in the church. I presented my paper the last day of the conference. I was flattered that many seminary faculty attended and surprised by their affirmation afterward. The responses that I remember came from two or three well-known conservatives, (men who were major presenters at the church-sponsored Faith and Science Conferences described in the next chapter). These men thanked me for my presentation. They said I helped to create room for them to do their work. I make the “safe-thinking space” in the church larger.

[Note: The paper is referenced several places on the web, but the content is not available elsewhere so I've posted it in its original form as the next entry on this blog. Bibliographic info: McLarty, John. “Geochronology, the Sabbath and death before sin”, (Unpublished manuscript, Conference on Science and Faith, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI; July 23-29, 1998).]

Chapter 59. Rocks in my Hand

In 1987, the Association of Adventist Forums (AAF) advertised a three-week geology field trip through the classic geology landscapes of the West. The red-rock country of Utah, the Green River Basin in Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park, Colorado. I wanted to go. But, of course, it was impossible. It would cost a lot of money. It would be selfish to take a three week vacation and leave Karin home with the kids.

 

The people leading the field trip included the scientists whose work I had read in Spectrum, an independent journal published by Adventist intellectuals. These scientists were infamous for their questioning of the church’s belief in a recent creation. Looking at the rocks under their tutelage was not calculated to increase my confidence in a short chronology. But I was already in too deep. I needed to continue exploring geology. I had to examine more evidence. Rocks were a siren beckoning irresistibly. I was lashed to the mast of Adventist orthodoxy by my unshakeable conviction that I had been called into the ministry by God. But the siren call of the rocks was a soul-bending lure. Besides, a trip to the Intermountain West was a tantalizing draw. I loved the West as much as I loved the City. I finally mentioned my interest to Karin.

 

“Do you really want to go?” She asked.

“Yeah. I would.”

“Then I think you should go.”

Her encouragement surprised me. “Well, I don’t know. It costs a lot. And what would you do with the kids?”

“We’ll figure something out. I’ll see if Mama can come up and stay with me while you are gone.”

 

Mama and Papa agreed to come, so I registered for the trip. A few weeks later, one of the trip organizers called and asked if I would consider car-pooling with a Japanese family. Mark was a physicist. He would be bringing his wife and eight-year-old son. They would be flying in from Tokyo and couldn’t afford the additional cost of renting a car for three weeks. It sounded like a great idea. I imagined engaging conversations as we drove.

 

I picked up Mark and Keiko Abe and their eight-year-old son at JFK, and we headed west, driving non-stop, trading off driving. Our conversations were slow and halting. Mark’s English was good enough for reading scientific journals in his field but barely adequate for conversation. His wife’s English was less. My Japanese was, of course, zero. We joined the AAF group in Green River, Utah, for the launch of the tour.

 

Days were spent examining evidence in the field. Evenings occasionally included lectures. The presenters included the stars of liberal Adventist thinking on earth history–Richard Ritland, Ed Hare, Ed Lugenbeal–laughingly referred as the GRI alumni.

 

The Geological Research Institute (GRI), is a church-funded office devoted to cataloging and disseminating scientific evidence in support of the Church’s views on earth history. Ritland, Hare and Lugenbeal were some of the first scientists hired. According to others on the trip, the original mission of GRI included a mandate to help the Church honestly examine the scientific evidence. Their research increasingly compelled these men to question a recent creation. There was a change in the presidency of the Church. The new president wanted support for the official teachings of the Church not questions. Ritland, Hare and Lugenbeal were forced out. Hare became a leading researcher in amino acid racemization dating. He had begun his research thinking this dating method would provide evidence of a recent creation. It didn’t. Lugenbeal moved into college administration where his views on earth history could be hidden. Ritland retired. They remained the darlings of Adventist intellectuals.

 

None of the then-current scientists at GRI was on the trip. According to the organizers, they had been invited, but had been pressured by their superiors not to lend legitimacy to the trip by their presence.

 

The GRI alumni and others lectured on the evidence that was inconsistent with a recent creation. There were conglomerates that included fossils in shale cobbles within the conglomerate. This meant that erosion had to lay down a layer of silt. Then animals or plants had to die and get buried in the silt. Then the silt had to turn into stone (shale beds). Then the shale beds had to be uplifted so they could be eroded into small round stones. These small round stones then had to be gathered into a basin and cemented together into conglomerate.

 

The dominant view among Recent Creationists was that all significant geologic activity–the formation of the great fossiliferous sedimentary layers–happened during the one year of Noah’s flood. How could we fit the processes required to form fossils inside cobbles inside layers of conglomerate into a single year?

 

On the other side of coin were fossil fish. Nowhere in the world do we observe fish becoming fossils. When a fish dies, scavengers and bacteria reduce it to a disarticulated skeleton within a matter of days. But in the Green River Formation there are tens of thousands, maybe millions of beautifully-preserved fossil fish. How could these fish have been preserved if they were buried in the normal process of siltation in a lake. Long before they were buried–much less indurated–their flesh would have been scavenged and their bones scattered.

 

We visited an outcrop of the Green River Formation where we were guided by Paul Bucheim, an Adventist graduate student doing research in the formation. The fish in the Green River Formation are cited by Creationists as evidence against long ages. There is no contemporary example of fish turning into fossils. Turning millions of fish into fossils was evidence that something unusual happened. Maybe that something was Noah’s Flood.

 

One reason Green River fish fossils are so famous is the ease of finding them. The fish are found in rock composed of thin layers of fine-grained sandstone, marlstone and shale. When the rock is split along these layers, often you find fish perfectly displayed on the plane that separates two layers. Standard geology interpreted these layers as varves–annual layers of sediment deposited in a lake by the ebb and flow of the seasons.

 

Creationists argue these layers were deposited by the Flood. Bucheim and his colleagues had identified over one thousand layers. Many of these layers displayed not only fossils of dead fish, but also bird tracks and other distinctive marks left by birds feeding in the mud. There was even fossilized bird poop. How could there have been time during the flood to deposit a layer carbonate-rich mud, have birds come and walk around and feed and poop, then wash in another layer of mud and repeat the whole process–a thousand times over? Even if each layer did not represent a full year, even if a new layer was deposited every day, it just didn't make sense in the context of Noah's flood.

 

The Green River Formation covers an area of more than 25,000 square miles and averages about 2000 feet in thickness. The massive scale of the formation lends itself to pictures of a world-wide flood sweeping the continent. But the fossilized bird tracks, bird poop and eggshell fragments are far better explained by less catastrophic models. Then there was the fact that beneath the Green River Formation was another 25,000 feet of sedimentary rock, all of which would have had to be deposited during Noah’s flood before the Green River fish could begin their process of turning into fossils.

 

We faced similar arguments in connection with the “fossil forest” of Yellowstone National Park. In Yellowstone, petrified trees are preserved in layers of volcanic ash. Conventional geological interpretation saw each layer as a life surface. An ash layer would be deposited. Over time the surface of this layer would be populated by trees. Eventually, another ash layer would be deposited. This would kill the trees growing on the layer below and the process would begin all over again. You could calculate the total age of the formation by adding together the age of the oldest trees in each layer. And some of the trees were huge and old. Using this dendrochronology, the formation was determined to be about 40,000 years old. It seemed like a straight-forward approach to dating. Clearly it did not fit into a six-thousand-year earth history.

 

However, before the trip I had read an article by Harold Coffin. He argued the layers did not represent growth horizons, but instead had been transported into place by water. Unlike many Creationists, he had done actual research, spending a couple of seasons in the field. His article included photographs of very large trees rising through several ash layers. If, in fact, the layers were growth horizons, this would mean these tree had remained alive for thousands of years through catastrophic volcanic eruptions. They continued to grow even after their trunks had been engulfed in many feet of superheated volcanic ash. No tree that we know of today could live in such circumstances. Coffin examined root structure on the fossil trees and the putative soil horizons surrounding them. He studied patterns of breakage, orientation of the long axes of trees that weren’t round, the plant detritus preserved around the trees. He even conducted lab tests on trees to see if uprooted trees would float vertically or horizontally if they spent weeks or months floating in flood waters.

 

Coffin made a strong case against the conventional interpretation. These trees had not grown here over a 40,000-year period. Rather they had been transported by mudflows or floods.

 

On our trip, Ritland poked fun at Coffin because on a field trip sponsored by GRI, Coffin had dragged participants great distances to show them two or three trees that penetrated multiple layers of rock. Most visible trees were contained in a single layer, Ritland said. Why traipse all over creation to find the few anomalous cases. But I couldn’t help thinking that science was advanced precisely by observing exceptional cases that did not fit current orthodoxy. Keen observation of anomalies forced the reexamination of theories. Why mock a scientist who highlighted data that did not fit the current explanatory model?

 

It seemed to me Ritland was doing exactly what Creationists accused most scientists of doing: ignoring the data that did not fit his model. I was reminded of a conversation I had had with a former student of Ritland. She described the interaction between Ritland and a younger scientist in a seminar on origins. Ritland had talked in broad, general terms about the weight of evidence against a recent creation. The other scientist cited specific articles and particular data that countered Ritland’s broad assertions. Sure there was evidence for a long history of life. But there was counter evidence as well. It seemed to her the younger geologist was more honestly confronting the data.

 

If Ritland, and other scientists on the tour were overwhelmingly biased, then perhaps I could take their assertions with a grain of salt. Maybe I could hold on to what the Bible said about six thousand years – maybe stretch it to perhaps 7,000 or 8,000 or even 10,000. But certainly I didn’t have to believe life had existed on earth for hundreds of millions of years.

 

One incontrovertible fact was the geographic distribution of animals. Most of the marsupials (animals with pouches) in the world today live in Australia–kangaroos, Tasmanian devils, wombats, koalas. If all animals in the world descended from ancestors that rode Noah’s Ark, why did almost all the marsupials head straight to Australia? If there was only one pair of marsupials on the Ark, how could those two have possibly ramified into all the species extant in Australia today in less than 4000 years?

 

It seemed far easier to explain the geographic distribution of living animals and fossils on the basis of conventional paleontology than by the story of all animals coming off a single boat 4000 years ago. (Which reminds me of a conversation I had once with a GRI scientist about this issue. I asked if GRI had considered the notion that perhaps there were other “Arks.” Noah's just happened to be the only one mentioned in Genesis. He got excited and dragged me into another office to repeat my suggestion to someone with more knowledge of the biblical/theological side of the debate. I was flattered to be taken seriously. I also thought his reaction was a measure of how challenging biogeography is to young earth creationism.)

As we were hammered with more and more evidence of problems in the standard Creationist model of origins, Mark became increasingly agitated. When he had joined “an obscure Protestant sect” as a teenager, his parents were deeply offended. In the face of their objections he had resolutely followed the teachings of the Bible, especially regarding the Sabbath. All the way through college and graduate school he had maintained his confidence in the literal historicity of Genesis. Now he was listening to Adventist scientists and even Adventist theologians question the very bed rock of his faith. I talked about it to Dr. Ritland. Why had they encouraged people like Mark to come? It was disturbing enough for people like me, but at least I had been reading Spectrum for years. I knew Adventist scientists had questions. I knew what I was going to hear on this trip. But Mark had come expecting to hear the standard Adventist defense of a recent creation. Instead he was losing his faith.

 

Dr. Ritland told me Mark had insisted on coming. They had cautioned him he would hear controversial content. Still he insisted. He said he was a scientist. He needed to examine the evidence for himself.

We visited a moraine in southern Colorado. It was easy to imagine its history. We could see the mountain valley the glacier had descended. When the climate had been colder or wetter (or both) a glacier had pushed down out of the mountains and left a perfectly shaped crescent terminal moraine. We hiked over to where a stream cut through the moraine and Dr. Ritland described what we were seeing. Instead of a single moraine, we could see two very distinct layers. Dr. Ritland explained that these layers represented two different advances of the glacier. And he pointed out that there was enough time between the deposition of these two depositions that the granite cobbles in them had weathered very differently. In the top layer, the cobbles were smooth and hard. You could see their round shapes protruding from the opposite bank where the stream had eroded away the softer matrix surrounding them.

 

The lower layer was dramatically different. While some large rocks stuck out from the stream-cut bank, many other rocks, six to twelve inches in diameter looked like they had been cut off flush with the bank. Dr. Ritland said this difference in appearance was because the granite cobbles in the lower level were rotten. They were so soft that when stream cut down through the moraine, it cut through the small boulders instead of cutting around them. That sounded crazy to me. Granite rotting? From where we were standing, it did look like some of the granite cobbles had been cut, but others were clearly sticking out from the bank. I climbed down into the stream bed, hopped across the creek and poked at rocks. The stream had carved a vertical twenty-foot tall bank. The line between the two morainal deposits was distinct. And to my amazement many of the granite cobbles in the lower deposit were so soft I could crumble them with my fingers. All of the cobbles in the upper bank were round and hard.

 

My head spun. How long did it take granite to rot? How much time must have passed between the deposition of these two layers so that in one the granite cobbles were smooth and hard and in the other they were gritty and crumbly? Manhattan was full of granite. Granite facades on buildings. Granite steps on the front of grand buildings, granite paving stones on cobble stone streets. I thought of the steps of the post office on Eight Avenue. The edges on the steps were worn in places, but there was no hint of rot. In places in New York granite treads had been in place for maybe two hundred years. The millions of footsteps had worn it, eroded it, in two hundred years there was not a hint of rot!

 

I had heard Creationist theories that allowed for a short ice age immediately following Noah’s flood–maybe a couple hundred years at the most. But this did not make sense as I stood there crumbling rotten granite with my fingers. The difference between solid and rotten granite was not complicated like radiometric dating. It did not require me to trust anyone else's word about where it had been found or how old it was. I had pulled it from its matrix myself. I had observed its stratigraphic situation with my own eyes. This granite breaking into sharp, angular fragments in my own hands screamed more time, more time.

Our tour ended in Yellowstone National Park with a weekend of worship and lectures in the village of West Yellowstone. Friday afternoon I went out to eat with a young biologist. He ordered a hamburger, I ordered an avocado and sprouts sandwich. When the food came, he grabbed his hamburger and began to wolf it down. I paused, offered a silent prayer then attacked my sandwich with similar vigor. After we had eaten a few bites, I looked at him and said, “Bill you forgot the human part of eating your sandwich.”

 

“What do you mean, the ‘human part’ of eating. God made cows for people to eat.”

 

I laughed. “I’m not talking about what you’re eating. I’m talking about how you’re eating. There’s no difference between your approach to that sandwich and my dog’s approach.”

 

He did not understand what I was getting at, but since I was laughing, he was not yet offended. “The human part of eating is stopping to say grace. That’s what turns food, metabolic input, into a meal, into communion, even.”

 

He grunted through another bite, and nodded, grudgingly conceding my point.

The worship Friday night and Sabbath morning felt thin and dry to me. It seemed to me Adventist liberals had a diminished capacity for wonder and delight. They were so cerebral, so polemical they appeared incapable of rich spiritual experience. Articles by Stephen J. Gould, the Harvard evolutionary biologist, often evinced a warmer, more human engagement with the magic of nature than did the writing of these Adventist academics. Whatever the actual age of the fossils, full-orbed human life required gifts and capacities not very evident at this conference. There was some music but it was all rather cool classical music. There was no fire. No temptation to dance.

 

Then came Sabbath afternoon. Richard Hammill, a retired president of Andrews University, spoke. He talked of his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago. He had noted at the time, the similarity between the order of creation in Genesis One and the language of Psalm 104. He knew–because he was an Adventist–that Genesis One had been written by Moses about 1450 B.C. and that the Psalms were written later. But in the years since he had retired he had had opportunity to go back and study further. And he had come to the conclusion that the similarities between these two passages was best explained by the view that Psalm 104 was written first. Whoever wrote Genesis One (and it certainly was not Moses) had obviously been influenced by Psalm 104. Genesis One, far from being a rational, scientific history was a poetic, worshipful celebration of the God of creation. Using Genesis One as textbook of geology was missing the pint entirely.

 

As he reached the climax of his presentation he choked up. The atmosphere in the room was electric. The audience was astonished by his confession. They admired his courage in publicly breaking with the official church position. But there was anger as well. Many in the room had either lost jobs or had friends who lost jobs in purges of the University faculty while Hammill had been president. They could understand Hammill not publicly voicing his skepticism about Genesis One as geology. But as president, he could have worked to shield his faculty from the zeal of the reactionary church president. Instead, he had given every appearance of full cooperation.

 

It was the one time in the entire conference when genuine emotion showed itself. I was not overly impressed with Hammill’s arguments regarding the dating of Genesis. It was back to the “assured results of scholarship” which in textual criticism usually means venerated scholarly conjecture. Textual criticism is often a brilliant, logical superstructure erected on the tiniest shreds of evidence. The fact is we don’t have any documentary evidence for the Hebrew scripture before the Babylonian captivity. There are elaborate theories about how the Bible text must have developed over time. But they are like theories of pre-biotic evolution–strong assertions in the absence of physical evidence. These assertions are supported by appeals to authority not data. Believe it because we [the community of experts] have told you so. This scholarly hubris is safe because no data is available to challenge it. Even in the face of a deeply emotional confession by a notable church scholar and administrator, I was not willing to resist ecclesiastical authority merely to yield compliantly to the academy.

The conference continued on Sunday, but I had had enough. I wanted to get home. We left Saturday night and drove straight through to New York.

 

The long hours driving were filled with bewilderment. The scientific evidence was compelling. The rocks spoke of much more time than could be accommodated by any appeal to ancient textual variants. Sure, there were all sorts of problems in conventional geology. And maybe some day someone investigating those problems would find a new scientific explanation of the cosmos that was congruent with a literal reading of the Bible. But right now, the evidence for long ages seemed irrefutable. The only way to believe in a young earth was to consciously disregard the preponderance of evidence.

 

How could I continue as an Adventist preacher when I no longer truly believed the teachings of my church. Oh, to be sure, if I were interrogated about my beliefs, I could honestly say I did not believe life was hundreds of millions of years old. That is I wasn’t absolutely certain life was old–not in the way that as a fifteen year old I had been certain life was only six thousand years old. I still hoped somewhere, some time evidence would be found that would overturn the entire edifice of conventional geology. But I strongly suspected the only reason I did not believe standard geochronology was because I was a leader in a community where that idea was unbelievable.

In one respect, the trip had been very disappointing. I had hoped for time to visit the scientists whose articles I had read in Spectrum magazine. I envisioned sitting around at meals talking about my questions and my bewilderment with people who would understand. But the group did not eat meals together. Most of the people on the trip were old friends. I was younger by ten years than most and a stranger. I found connecting socially very difficult.

 

I did manage to get an hour in a van with Peter Hare while Mark drove my car. Dr. Hare was a leading authority on one method of dating rocks with fossils in them (amino acid racemization). His research documented millions of years of fossil history. But he was also the head elder of his local congregation. When I heard him pray publicly, it did not sound like an act or mere, empty formality. He was genuinely devout, even though he was hopelessly heterodox when it came to geochronology. I was eager to talk with him about my perplexity.

 

It didn’t work. There were others in the car. I was an intruder. Dr. Hare and I talked briefly, superficially, in the small spaces between other conversations. At the next stop I transferred back to my car. Disappointed.

 

But I took with me a vivid picture of a man in whom faith and science lived quite happily together–even though he was fully persuaded life was hundreds of millions of years old and his church taught six thousand years. If he could be happily at home in the church, perhaps there was room for me, too.