The host of the Bible Study Hour, James Montgomery Boice
(d. 2000), produced a fascinating video series on Creation or Evolution? Boice
had one of the greatest radio preacher voices of all time. Those who
don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. This video series helps us understand why so
many Christians tolerate progressive creation (God created over long ages). Boice takes a strong stance against theistic
evolution. The Gap Theory is also
discussed.
One wonders if Boice read Starlight and Time by Russell Humphreys which uses relativity to
deal with the light travel issue (if stars are billions of light years away,
how can Earth be young?). Humphreys’
book came out in 1994.
Most traditional creationists place creation around 4000
BC (Ussher was close). Boice says that
creationists claim the world is between 12K to 20K years old.
Boice brings up the topic of fossil order as a challenge
to Flood Geology, specifically plant fossils.
The vertical arrangement of plant fossils does not necessarily teach us
the story of evolution. As Robert Spicer
explains,
Both fluid and biological sorting of
potential plant megafossils during transport and deposition
processes produce a pattern that has previously been overlooked. ... Vertical
differences in species composition need not necessarily reflect temporal
changes in vegetation. [1]
The two-dimensional nature of plant materials (leaves,
some seeds etc.), changes in density (e.g. waterlogging), fragmentation and
bacterial decay are issues that models of depositional sorting must
consider. This is very consistent with a
Global Flood.
Henry Morris provides 64 biblical reasons for the global
nature of the Flood and 36 scientific, historical and cultural arguments. [2] Boice, though not holding to all the tenets
of Flood Geology, held that much geologic data “must be explained by a flood of
worldwide dimensions.” [3] He also said
that, “a flood of that duration [377 days] is not a local flood!” [4] Boice wrote a whole chapter on Flood
Traditions and concluded that, “Hundreds of flood stories abound throughout the
world in various cultures and are therefore evidence not merely of the
historicity of the flood but of its universal extent.” [5] John Byl rightly states, “… since animals
were originally vegetarian, there was no animal death before Adam’s fall. Thus all animal fossils must post-date Adam’s
fall.” Once one accepts a Global Flood,
such as ID leader William Dembski, Young Earth Science (YES) is not far behind.
Notes:
1) "The
Importance of Depostional Sorting to the Biostratigraphy of Plant
Megafossils" by Robert Spicer in Biostratigraphy
of Fossil Plants ed. by David Dilcher and Thomas Taylor (Dowden, Hutchinson
and Ross, Stroudsburg, PA, 1980), pp. 171, 181, emphasis added.
2) The Genesis Record by Henry Morris,
(Baker Book House, 1976, Grand Rapids, MI), pp. 199-205, pp. 683-686.
3) Genesis: An Expositional Commentary (Vol.
1) by James M. Boice, (Baker Books, 1998, Grand Rapids, MI), p. 366.
4) Ibid., p. 349,
emphasis in original.
5) Ibid., pp. 354,
355.
