I watched the entirety yesterday’s 2.45 hour debate and took 24 pages of notes, complete with screen captures of illustrations. You can watch the entire debate on youtube here. If you want to skip to my big picture perspective of how the debate went, scroll down to the Conclusion section. Otherwise, I invite you to read on.

The Opening

It was interesting watching a popular scientist dialogue with a lesser-known Christian educator. I come at the topic from the perspective of a masters-degree-holding Biblical scholar. I have extensively studied philosophy and apologetics. My primary interest in this debate was to watch the argumentation to see if either side was able to prove their positions. For those interested in philosophy, watching debates is like watching a sports game of a sport that you play. You understand the strategies, the plays, and the challenges involved.

Both of the debaters took the shotgun approach, which is to blast as much information as you can in hopes that the sheer quantity of your assertions with make a convincing case. They then attempted to hammer one or two points home, but by then the other was preoccupied with attacking the more easily defeatable points that were put forth in the initial volley. This resulted in an unfortunate lack of true dialogue.

Ken Ham opened up with statements that the word “science” had been hijacked by secular society and put in contrast to “creation” in order to create a false separation between the two.  He then stated that Creation is the only viable method of historical science confirmed by observational science. Bill Nye began with asking the question, “Does Ken Ham’s creation model hold up?” He then pointed out the disagreement they had over the distinction between historical science and observational science.

The Fall

At this point the debate became a lost cause. The question, straight from the website, is “Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?”  The question “Does Ken Ham’s creation model hold up” is not the question that should be debated. At this point we are dealing with a straw man. We are not dealing with the idea that a God created the physical universe and the life it contains. Rather, we are dealing with the specifics of Ken Ham’s view, and any portion of that view may be attacked. Bill Nye did not attack the strongest case for creation, but rather a particular, less-defensible version of it.

He attacks Ken Ham’s view that the earth is 6-7 thousand years old. See Ken Ham believes, like many faithful Christians do, that the Genesis 1 account teaches that creation occurred in seven literal days, and that the Bible records accurate genealogies (records of descendants) all the way from Adam to Jesus Christ. You can then extrapolate the age of the earth, with the Flood happening around 4 thousand years ago. Bill Nye spent the bulk of his efforts attacking the idea of a young earth, and a recent flood, neither of which are necessary for Creation. Both of those ideas could be completely defeated, and yet Creation could still be viable.

Here’s how this works: there are several perspectives on Creation that godly Christian men and women have held throughout the ages. Before we go into each of them, we need to take a brief look at the historical context and intent of the book of Genesis.

Tradition and the best archeological/historical evidence (if you want to contest this, show me your degrees) shows that the book of Genesis was written when the ancient Hebrews (Israelis) were leaving slavery in Egypt and living in the desert wilderness between Egypt and the land that would become Israel (this isn’t conjecture, it’s national history). At the time, the readers had no idea who made them, and who they were. The purpose of Genesis was to tell them those things.

Now remember, Bill Nyes attacks focused on the idea of a young earth. All Ken Ham would have had to do was present a Creation view that did not necessitate a young earth

Ken Ham’s perspective is the young Earth 7-day view. He mentioned the hebrew word “yom,” which I can tell you from 5 semesters of Ancient Biblical Hebrew that while the word can have a broader meaning, it does generally plainly mean “day.” This is accentuated by the repeated use of “and there was morning and evening the x day” in Genesis one. Eons don’t have a single morning or evening, but days do. That’s how they are defined. As mentioned earlier he states his belief that the genealogies are an accurate record that can be used to mark time.

Separation

The first area that some Christians diverge is the idea that the days were literally 7 days. The Day-Age perspective is that each day was actually an undefined eon, and that the important thing God was communicating to them was that God made them. The literal time it took wasn’t important, rather the who was important. This opens the door for the idea of theistic evolution (God used evolution to gradually develop life). Ken Ham pointed out that this would result in death before sin (the evolution of man would require much death over millions of years if we’re going with survival of the fittest), which is an unacceptable conclusion for a Christian.

But there are other ways to go about this. Another perspective is Progressive Creation. This is the idea that rather than having a gradual development of life from one simple species into a more complex species, God created different species in chunks, completely developed as each are made. Instead of a gradual progressive slope of development, there are stairsteps with long periods of time in between each step (the “days”). This perspective could work if God sustained life so there was no death before sin, as it doesn’t itself require death for progression.

(I’m not going to talk about Gap Theory because it’s undefendable and would not add to this article in a meaningful way.)

Then there is a completely different way of tackling the problem. See Ancient Near East (ANE) genealogies (the genealogies in the Bible are ANE geneologies) normally had gaps. They focused on significant figures. In the context of the ANE genealogy genre, “Guy the son of older Guy” can simply mean “Guy the descendant of older Guy.” “Son” generally does mean “son,” but it doesn’t always. Compare Genesis 11, Luke 3, and Matt 1. Generations are skipped. This isn’t because the Bible is wrong. This isn’t because God is trying to trick you. This is because the recorders of ANE genealogies understood that it would be a record of significant figures. They did not intend them to be exhaustive, but rather to contain highlights.

Ken Ham could have held his position to a literal seven-day creation and escaped from Bill Nye’s attacks if he argued the possibility that the genealogies had gaps. There would be no need to defend the idea of a young earth and a recent flood. We would suddenly be dealing with the actual issue: divine creation vs naturalistic evolution.

Now for a brief aside: what must we keep when interpreting Genesis 1 and 2? Again, Genesis was written for the purpose of telling Ancient Israel (and still informative for God’s people today) who made them and who they were. 1. God created all things. We need to absolutely keep this. Any theory of origins that abandons this notion cannot be held by a Christian. This means we belong to God, and are accountable to Him for all aspects of human living. 2. Humanity is created in God’s image. All human life is innately valuable. Whether unborn, infirm, or deemed unable to contribute to society, all human life matters to God because God’s image is in humanity. This image remains after the Fall (Genesis 9:6). No matter what you have done or what anyone has done to you, you are valuable to God. Keeping in mind these two important ideas, do your very best to be faithful to the text.

Hope for Redemption

There were some bright points in the debate. Ken Ham was able to point out that the laws of logic and nature only make sense if they were created by an intelligent being. There was also some actual back and forth discussion on if new information can be added by energy. I would have liked to see studies and data on that topic, rather than on dating methods.

From my viewing of the debate, Bill Nye was able to put forth a strong case for earth existing for over 6,000 years. I believe that even Chinese history goes further back then that. It seems that Bill Nye’s sole ambition was to discredit Ken Ham’s view of a young earth, and he had compelling arguments.

Ken Ham got Bill Nye to make a couple significant admissions during the Q&A time, which was by far the most meaningful part of the debate. The first had to do with the atoms that caused the big bang. Bill Nye had no explanation for the existence of such atoms, while Ken Ham was able to simply point to a God who created something out of nothing. This was a huge missed opportunity for Ken Ham. He should have said something like “According to observable science, neither matter nor energy are spontaneously created out of nothing. According to naturalism, the universe should not exist. The universe exists.” Naturalism is defeated. Or at least Bill Nye would have been forced to defend an infinite regress/circular argument (matter existed because it always existed). This is of course different from God’s eternal existence, as God is not bound in the laws of observable science. Naturalistic scientists will happily tell you that.

The second, and what I think is the most significant concession Bill Nye made is naturalistic science’s inability to account for the existence of life. Ken Ham should have said something like, “According to naturalism, life cannot come about from non-life. Life exists.” Naturalism is thus defeated. A supernatural creator is necessary.

Unfortunately, these points were not driven home.

Conclusion

The bulk of the debate was spent focused on the age the of the earth/universe, which was not the topic, nor was it meaningful. The actual dialogue should have been over the idea of a Divine Creator. Bill Nye was able to do a great job arguing against the idea of a young earth, and Ken Ham took the bait and defended that position instead of focusing on the necessity of a Creator that exists outside of the physical universe. I think he could have had Bill Nye if he had just done that.

One more thing I want to mention is that I see some Christians publicly bashing Ken Ham for his position. I will say two things. 1: Have you put in even half the time formulating your position on Creation as he has? 2: He gave a clear Gospel presentation at least three times to thousands of people yesterday. How many have you shared the Gospel with?

Ultimately when we meet our Creator face to face He’s not going to be concerned with our theories of origins (not to say it’s unimportant). He’s going to be concerned with the Great Commission.