"To be a Christian, you must pluck out the eye of reason" - Martin Luther

This is likely a major source of general Protestant anti-intellectualism

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On the dishonesty of Liberal Christians:


Gospel at Stake in Creation-Evolution Debate, Argues Ministry Leader

"There have been various attempts to 'reconcile' Darwinian evolution with biblical creation.

And yet, for Dr Carl Wieland, Managing Director of Creation Ministries International in Australia, it's not a mere matter of choosing between several equally plausible options, whether it be Young Earth creationism, which holds that the age of the earth is thousands of years and that it was created in six earth-rotation days, or Old Earth creationism, which incorporates geological findings that seem to point to the fact that the earth is billions of years old but rejects evolution, or theistic evolution, where evolution is fully embraced as God’s method of creating the world and universe or many others.

Responding to a query from The Christian Post (Singapore) during the Saturday premiere of a cutting-edge documentary produced by CMI at the New Sanctuary of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Dr Wieland believes that the view of Creation is inextricably tied to the reliability of the Bible as God’s supreme guide for human life.

He highlighted that evangelical commentators from hundreds of years ago never had any doubt that the six days of Creation mentioned in the Book of Genesis were referring to earth-rotation days, judging by the use of the Hebrew word ‘Yom’ in conjunction with the words for ‘evening’ and ‘morning’.

Moreover, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself alluded to the Old Testament as a trustworthy historical witness in His references to Jonah and the big fish and how God had created human beings male and female from the beginning of Creation, as opposed to millions of years later.

“[A]ll of the time-honoured rules of Christian exegesis, the historical-grammatical method tell you that Genesis was written as history,” he said, citing “pressure from science” rather than theological understanding as the main reason for the reservations of many Christian scholars in this regard.

“[A]nd yet you’ll find that most of the theologians don’t even understand enough about the science,” the General Practitioner-turned-Creation Science ministry director charged.

Indeed, liberal scholars, who have no interest in the fight for biblical authority, readily concede that the author of Genesis was trying to tell his readers that it was six ordinary length days and that the world was really covered in flood and so on.

What is the result of denying that Genesis is a historical record of God’s Creation?

“[A]t some point, you’ve got to come down on one side or the other; are the words of Jesus authoritative for the Church or are they not? If they are not, there’s a possibility of all sorts of error in the Bible. Then everything is up for grabs because you can invent your own Christianity by acquiring it from this bit and that bit and saying, ‘Well, I’ll throw this piece out because I don’t like it or am embarrassed by it’ and so on,” the MD stated.

And this has significant reverberations in society, according to the German-born Christian leader. He emphasised that social dilemmas that Singapore was currently experiencing such as the issue of homosexuality are related to the abandonment of biblical doctrines – in this case, that of marriage, how God intended for marriage to be one man for one woman.

More importantly, the issue of Creation strikes at the heart of the Christian faith, the Gospel and even the nature of God, he asserted.

“[T]he Gospel is… about the issue of sin and death,” he said. “If you accept the millions of years as a literal interpretation of the fossil record then you are saying that there was death and cancer and all of those bad things were in the world before Adam and Eve, therefore before sin… You’ve got to say that God must like those things because He said they are all very good at the end of the Creation period. God said He looked at everything He made and He said it’s all very good, which must include cancer and bloodshed and violence and so on…”

Holding that the world had experienced death, pain and suffering for millions of years makes it hard to justify the Christian doctrine that God’s nature is love before nonbelievers and sceptics, whereas, by taking Genesis as history, believers can give the answer that “it wasn’t always like that”, and that, in fact, all the animals originally ate plants.

The Young Earth creationist standpoint is also in line with the restoration mentioned in the Book of Revelation, where it says that the curse of the Fall will be removed and all things will be restored to a sinless, deathless condition as in the beginning. If the removal of the curse removes death, pain and suffering, Dr Wieland argues, then it’s clear that the curse brought in the death, pain and suffering.

Moreover, it is the only way in which Christians don’t have to compromise their faith but “can have a whole harmonious, integrated worldview where everything makes sense.”"


On the dishonesty of Fundamentalist Christians:

"I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth—whenever its true meaning is understood... [reading] its bare words... not only contradictions and propositions far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible, but even grave heresies and follies. Thus it would be necessary to assign to God feet, hands, and eyes, as well as corporeal and human affections, such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes even the forgetting of things past and ignorance of those to come...

The Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Nature's actions than in the sacred statements of the Bible. Perhaps this is what Tertullian meant by these words: “We conclude that God is known first through Nature, and then again, more particularly, by doctrine; by Nature in His works, and by doctrine in His revealed word.”...

I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations. This must be especially true in those sciences of which but the faintest trace (and that consisting of conclusions) is to be found in the Bible...

In St. Augustine we find the following words: “It is likewise commonly asked what we may believe about the form and shape of the heavens according to the Scriptures, for many contend much about these matters. But with superior prudence our authors have forborne to speak of this, as in no way furthering the student with respect to a blessed life—and, more important still, as taking up much of that time which should be spent in holy exercises. What is it to me whether heaven, like a sphere, surrounds the earth on all sides as a mass balanced in the center of the universe, or whether like a dish it merely covers and overcasts the earth?... to undertake this and discuss it is consistent neither with my leisure nor with the duty of those whom I desire to instruct in essential matters more directly conducing to their salvation and to the benefit of the holy Church.”...

I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: “That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.”...

We are unable to affirm that all interpreters of the Bible speak by divine inspiration, for if that were so there would exist no differences between them about the sense of a given passage... It would probably be wise and useful counsel if, beyond articles which concern salvation and the establishment of our Faith, against the stability of which there is no danger whatever that any valid and effective doctrine can ever arise, men would not aggregate further articles unnecessarily...

It is sufficiently obvious that to attribute motion to the sun and rest to the earth was therefore necessary lest the shallow minds of the common people should become confused, obstinate, and contumacious in yielding assent to the principal articles that are absolutely matters of faith. And if this was necessary, there is no wonder at all that it was carried out with great prudence in the holy Bible. I shall say further that not only respect for the incapacity of the vulgar, but also current opinion in those times, made the sacred authors accommodate themselves (in matters unnecessary to salvation) more to accepted usage than to the true essence of things. Speaking of this, St. Jerome writes: “As if many things were not spoken in the Holy Bible according to the judgment of those times in which they were acted, rather than according to the truth contained.” (27) And elsewhere the same saint says: “It is the custom for the biblical scribes to deliver their judgments in many things according to the commonly received opinion of their times.” (28) And on the words in the twenty-sixth chapter of Job, He stretcheth out the north over the void, and hangeth the earth above nothing , (29) St. Thomas Aquinas notes that the Bible calls “void” or “nothing” that space which we know to be not empty, but filled with air. Nevertheless the Bible, he says, in order to accommodate itself to the beliefs of the common people (who think there is nothing in that space), calls it “void” and “nothing.” Here are the words of St. Thomas : “What appears to us in the upper hemisphere of the heavens to be empty, and not a space filled with air, the common people regard as void; and it is usually spoken of in the holy Bible according to the ideas of the common people.”...

All that is really prohibited is the “perverting into senses contrary to that of the holy Church or that of the concurrent agreement of the Fathers those passages, and those alone, which pertain to faith or ethics, or which concern the edification of Christian doctrine.” So said the Council of Trent in its fourth session. But the mobility or stability of the earth or sun is neither a matter of faith nor one contrary to ethics...

[Quoting St Augustine] “In points that are obscure, or far from clear, if we should read anything in the Bible that may allow of several constructions consistently with the faith to be taught, let us not commit ourselves to any one of these with such precipitous obstinacy that when, perhaps, the truth is more diligently searched into, this may fall to the ground, and we with it. Then we would indeed be seen to have contended not for the sense of divine Scripture, but for our own ideas by wanting something of ours to be the sense of Scripture when we should rather want the meaning of Scripture to be ours.” (38) And later it is added, to teach us that no proposition can be contrary to the faith unless it has first been proven to be false...

[Quoting St Augustine again] “It often falls out that a Christian may not fully understand some point about the earth, the sky, or the other elements of this world—the motion, rotation, magnitude, and distances of the stars; the known vagaries of the sun and moon; the circuits of the years and epochs; the nature of animals, fruits, stones, and other things of that sort, and hence may not expound it rightly or make it clear by experiences. Now it is too absurd, yea, most pernicious and to be avoided at all costs, for an infidel to find a Christian so stupid as to argue these matters as if they were Christian doctrine; he will scarce be able to contain his laughter at seeing error written in the skies, as the proverb says. The worst of the matter is not that a person in error should be laughed at, but that our authors should be thought by outsiders to hold the same opinions, and should be censured and rejected as ignorant, to the great prejudice of those whose salvation we are seeking. For when infidels refute any Christian on a matter which they themselves thoroughly understand, they thereby evince their slight esteem for our Bible. And why should the Bible be believed concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the Kingdom of Heaven , when it is considered to be erroneously written as to points which admit of direct demonstration or unquestionable reasoning?”

--- Galileo Galilei, Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany: Concerning the Use of Biblical Quotations in Matters of Science (1615)


I was surprised to learn that even such early luminaries as St Jerome and Thomas Aquinas did not advocate Biblical literalism.

Be that as it may, it's a pity everyone doublethinks and ignores the elephant in the room, but that is the consequence of begging the question.