Dr. Craig Talks with a Young Earth Creationist!

In a class at HCU on the historical Adam, Dr. Craig dialogues with a student who is upset about the treatment of Young Earth Creationists in their academic pursuits!

We welcome your comments in the Reasonable Faith forums:

[wishingwell]

It's difficult to have a dialogue with a YEC who won't shift from the position that anything other than YEC means disbelieving the word of God.

[truthovertea]

Although I think the YECs discussed (Kurt Wise and Johnathan Sarfati) were wrong in assuming the motives of Craig. However, WLC has openly mocked YECs more than once in videos online. In his recent interview with Frank Turek and Steve Meyer he called YECs an “embarrassment for the Christian faith”. So they aren’t necessarily wrong in being skeptical, as the only criticism YECs give WLC is he reinterprets Genesis to fit scientific consensus.

[caughtinthevoidfloyd]

Discrimination goes both ways though. I have found that those who believe in young earth will typically tell the old earthers that we dont believe in the same God. This is something that Kent hovind does. Its simply not true. The age of the earth has nothing to do with our relationship as Christians with Jesus Christ.

[jeffjarvis]

When I read these comments I have to remind myself that half the population has an IQ in the double digits; that explains a lot. (IQ is the test where people who score in the high 80s think they got a B+.)

[blakepace]

Paranoia can be the result of actual mistreatment by numerous perpetrators, no?

[robertmog]

I love William Lane Craig, and as a former atheist who was wedded to the "doctrine" of old earth macro-evolution, I have used much of WLC's work in my debates with atheists now that I'm a Christian. But, I'm with Jonathan Sarfati on this one. His work in The Genesis Account is absolutely airtight, and I consider it to be in the top two or three books, outside of the Bible, that I've read in the 20 years since I gave my life to Christ. I sincerely believe that WLC is just plain wrong here.

[williambillycraig]

Craig usually treats YEC with contempt and their idea scornfully; I understand YEC's hesitation in working with Craig. If Craig were more like this in his interaction with YEC, more YECs would be more willing to work with him. Maybe this will be a pattern when Craig from now on, but only time will tell.

[MindTheHeart]

I feel sorry for YECs. While their view on God and theology is not far off at all, they seem to have been fooled into believing that this particular view of the age of the earth must be right "or else you can just throw away the entire Bible". But it is just that: one paraticular view of scripture.

[robertkrupnek]

Not here for extended discussion, but CMI does respect Dr. Craig and have said so in writing and elsewhere. Referring to your young-earth brothers as "embarrassing" or an "embarrassment" is probably not going to win anyone over. An argument could easily be made that all sides need to exercise a little more gentleness, while still seeking to get at the truth of the matter.

CMI also previously explained their reasoning for not participating:

"We need to present some background to this inflammatory accusation. One of the biblical creationist (‘young-earth creationist’ (YEC)) organizations Dr Craig contacted was CMI. Now just because we are paranoid (arguendo), it doesn’t prove that they were not trying to set us up. However, our CEO, in correspondence with Dr Craig, pointed out that Dr Keathley had clearly misrepresented the views of biblical creationists either deliberately or, at least, in ignorance. But either way it made him an unsuitable candidate to be an ‘impartial’ editor. Dr Craig was intransigent and would not consider anyone else for the editorial role. Thus, it made us somewhat suspicious if Dr Craig was so keen to have all views represented fairly. Particularly as Dr Craig himself has also misrepresented what biblical creationists believe. For example, like Craig, Keathley insinuates that YECs really believe in fast evolution (more below), and have redefined the biblical kind to try to save appearances."

"Another reason for objecting is that we will not give any credence to any discussion among “Evangelicals” if it includes those like Sparks who implicitly deny the deity of Christ."


Here's to hoping for straightforward, honest, and reasonable discussions in the future.

[caleblepore]

As a YEC, I appreciate that Dr. Craig sought out a YEC representative for the upcoming four views book. I also appreciate his willingness to regard YEC as a viable position when it comes to understanding Genesis exegetically, even if he does not see the merits of creation science. Hopefully there can be an increasing level of honest, helpful discussion/debate on this issue between scholarly YECs and representatives of other positions.

[drbkjv]

Ask Dr. Jason Lisle. I bet he would get in!

[editsofawesomeness]

I don't know what exactly was exchanged between Mr. Craig and Mr. Sarfati, but I can understand perfectly well why he would respond negatively to such a proposal. Mr. Craig has frequently misrepresented and ridiculed Young Earth Creationism, and even misrepresented Mr. Sarfati personally.

For example, he has said:
"Just how bizarre Young Earth Creationism is becomes evident from reading Jonathan Sarfati’s Young Earth Creationist commentary on Genesis 1–11. In order to explain flood geology Sarfati supposes that after the flood the animals that Noah had taken on board disembark and then filled the entire world. Now, how do you suppose that the hippopotami on board made it from the mountains of Turkey where the ark landed to the rivers of Central Africa or how the little koala bears and platypuses crawled all the way from Turkey to Australia or the sloths to South America. [sic] Well, Sarfati’s answer is that plate tectonics had not yet separated the supercontinent into the world’s separate continents thus enabling the animals to migrate to their various habitats. But they had to do it in a hurry. All the continental drift and mountain building such as the raising of Mount Everest all took place rapidly since the flood just a few thousand years ago."

However, that is not Sarfati's view on the matter at all. He replies:
"Here, it’s hard to believe that his misrepresentation is not intentional. The Genesis Account was very clear that the separation of continents occurred during the Flood (Ch. 18). And this has long been CMI’s preferred position: that catastrophic plate tectonics was a major cause of the Flood, not something that happened after the Flood.

Furthermore, earlier I had explicitly rejected a continental division after the Flood during the “days of Peleg” (which actually refers to the division of “the whole earth (erets) had one language and one speech” (Genesis 11:1), i.e. Babel), partly because:

'However, such splitting would most likely lead to another global flood! But in Genesis 9:13-15, God formed a rainbow to indicate there would be no repeat of ‘a Flood to destroy all flesh.’ This gives us the clue as to when the continents did move apart—during Noah’s Flood—see What about continental drift? from the Creation Answers Book.'"

Furthermore, Craig has ridiculed creation science and scientists like Jonathan Sarfati, saying such things as:
"Just how bizarre Young Earth Creationism is becomes evident from reading Jonathan Sarfati’s Young Earth Creationist commentary on Genesis 1-11."
"Truly Young Earth Creationists live in a different universe than most of us do. This is crank science and Christians should not be attracted to it."

I believe ridicule of ideas to be an acceptable tool in discussion; but when ridicule is based on misrepresentations, in this case of creation science, it is a very bad thing. Take the above example. I, too, believe that Dr. Craig's description of Sarfati's view is unfeasible; but it's not Sarfati's view, and therefore, to ridicule Young Earth Creationism because of it, has a terribly unkind effect, and promotes untruth on top of it.

Other examples of these sorts of things could be mentioned, but if it is not clear to Mr. Craig why Young Earth Creationists are not keen on working together with him on a book, he might come to understand it by revisiting these and other statements he has previously made.

God bless you all!

[benkissling]

I'm the YEC in the video. AMA.

The question is not whether "it's right or not right" to discriminate against certain views. The issue is when you know this discrimination exists and then claim that because YECs don't publish in the very journals that are discriminating against YECs, that means YEC is illegitimate.

[danieldishon]

The caller was very clearly talking about "treated with equal respect in science" and not "within hermeneutics" at the start.

[silverpondl]

I don't subscribe to young earth creationism, but there's nothing wrong with believing in the theory. I don't know why people would discriminate them. When you see Jesus after your death, he isn't going to ask if you believe in young earth or old earth lol.

[akeshharrypersad]

Can you provide more information on the young earth creation. Both for and against

[cchhiicckkeennss]

Personally as a young earth creatonist I think it is a very open room for debate but I believe there are more pressing and strong cases for god that both young and old earth creationists can agree on (Moral arguement, fine-tuning, etc) and thats what needs to be mostly focused on instead of petty infighting over how god did things.

[jamesmaybury]

Geological engineers rate how often landslides happen in an area on the basis of the sedimentary evidences and their view of timescales. Then people are killed in landslides that happen much more frequently. A known ‘feature’ but worldview costs lives. Mutation rates are calculated on evolutionary ideas but reality doesn’t concur. Looking deeper into space doesn’t give the signs of galaxy formation expected. There are good reasons to question the timescale assumptions.

[lucianobastos]

Honestly, I think Dr. Craig is losing his faith in the Almighty God. Science is slowly replacing God in questions that can be easily understood by a simple Christian.
FAITH does not kill science and Science cannot kill what was written and truly believed throughout the centuries, by humble people like the apostle Peter and many non scholars who preached the Gospel without fear, moved by a strong faith.

[bassmanjr]

Decent question and request. WLC handled it OK. For crying out loud, if we are going to allow for college academia to promote transgenderism and abortion through 40 weeks or Fauci to claim he is the science surely there is room for young earth creationists. They certainly have much more going for them.