Scientific Creationism Nearly Wrecked My Faith

As an enthusiastic young evangelical decades ago, I devoured the scientific creationism literature written by the likes of Duane Gish and Henry Morris. Did you know that, based on the erosion rate of silicon, it only took 8000 years for the oceans to reach their current concentration of silicon? So how could the earth be billions of years old? I filled my mind with dozens of such factoids, held intense debates with my atheist friend Shawn, and scoffed at unbelieving scientists.

Then I entered the Ivy League, where respect for the scientific enterprise flowed like a deep, irresistible current. As it carried me along, I felt like I had to abandon my Christian faith or drown. The scientific consensus was that the earth was indeed billions of years old, but the Bible taught that the earth was less than 7000 years old. I had to choose between the two...and I chose science.

I considered myself to be an agnostic, I guess because I didn't want to adopt the label of atheist and give up all hope of ever rediscovering faith. I was adrift; just what was life supposed to be about anyway? If everything boils down to baryons and the forces of physics, then there is no free will, no design, no purpose.

I resolved one evening that I must nevertheless live a life of love. But this left me with a terrible problem: how was I to accomplish that? I was no saint, nowhere close. In fact, I would have to describe the 19 year old Chris Falter as just another selfish, arrogant Ivy Leaguer hungry for success. I gazed up at the stars in anguish, looking for an answer. Suddenly a vision of Jesus on the cross came to me. The message was unmistakable: Jesus demonstrated how to love truly when he offered his life on that cross. If I wanted to love others, I had to follow Jesus. With newfound hope I prayed, "Lord, if you're really there, make your power and love known in my life!"

I re-embarked on the journey of faith, eager to resolve the bitter dispute between faith and science. Dr. John Suppe, an astonishingly gifted geologist, was acting as a mentor to many Christian students at Princeton. He didn't openly repudiate the "scientific creationists," but the theory of plate tectonics that he was helping to develop clearly could not be squared with an 8000 year old earth. I began to believe that the word of God and the works of God did not have to contradict. Then my dear friend Jerry Roth, a Christian student in geology, pushed me over the line one day by talking about some field studies he had participated in. His team had drilled into a mountain to obtain rock samples, and dated them by the potassium-argon method. Sure enough, the deeper the samples, the older the dates, just as predicted. And yes, the dates were in the tens of millions of years.

So Dr. Suppe and Jerry showed me that I could be a Christian of both deep faith and scientific rigor; I didn't have to choose between the heart and the mind. (Indeed, Jesus commanded us to love the Lord our God with all our minds as well as with all our hearts.) From the writings of Hugh Ross, I discovered that the use of the word "day" in Genesis can also mean "era" in the original Hebrew. Thus, we are not tied to a 168-hour interpretation of the creation account. This exegesis is supported by Hebrews 4: 7, which indicates that the seventh day of Creation continues as the present age of grace--a "day of rest" that we enter by faith in Christ.

I also came to realize that the so-called scientific evidence that Gish, Morris, and others in scientific creationist camp had cited was completely in error. For example, silicon does not just erode into the ocean; it also leaves through a process called efflux. Once we take efflux into account, we see that the silicon concentration in ocean water is in equilibrium. So oceanic silicon actually supports the view that the oceans are billions of years old, and contradicts the view that they are only a few thousand years old. I will review some of the other young-earth creationist "evidence" in another post, hopefully very soon.

For now, I just want to leave you with this thought: if you are a Christian parent, why should you expose your child to the danger that he or she will read the scientific literature and conclude that the Biblical account of creation is just wrong--and that the Bible must therefore be wrong? If you are a pastor, why should you expose your flock to this danger? How I wish that a pastor had taught me the day-age view of Genesis 1 - 3 in my youth! I could have been spared a lot of darkness, despair, grief, and emptiness.

Please, please, please: spare our children the darkness that I experienced! Teach them that they can explore the whole body of scientific evidence with an intellectual integrity that befits someone who desires integrity in every area of life. Teach them that the scientific enterprise and the Bible do *not* contradict, because a reasonable exegesis of Genesis points not only to an ancient universe, but also to a God who is pleased to reveal Himself both through personal encounter and through His creation.

[Thanks to my editor, the beautiful Linda Falter, for her help with this post.]

Stupid Jokes

They say that those who approach life with humor live happier, healthier, longer lives. Does that apply to those who have a jovial demeanor but whose jokes have a...shall we say inconsistent...quality?

The time when my lovely wife Linda was most worried about my well-being was when I stopped telling jokes. We were living among the poor overseas, the challenges were unbelievably difficult, and I got so focused on just trying to suvive that the puns, word plays, and self-deprecation ground to a halt. My teenagers would say that everyone must have rejoiced! But in fact Linda was deeply worried. Perhaps more so than when I got malaria...twice. More than when I got typhoid. More than when I suffered unemployment for a year.

But now I'm making it up as I go along, and Linda is happy, most of the time. The teenagers less so, but I'm not sure what to do about that. Your own kids are a tough crowd, to be sure. A 10 year-old girl in White Plains was overheard scolding her dad for singing out loud. The father? Billy Joel. If the guy who commands $100 per ticket in sold-out stadiums can't please his progeny, what hope do I have? Of course, I love my kids so much that it doesn't matter anyway. And that's no joke!

Congratulations to Daniel and Mary

My eldest son Daniel has been a constant source of pride and joy for us. This past August he moved to Louisville to pursue a masters degree in music performance (jazz percussion), and the wonderful surprises have not ceased. He met a wonderful young lady, a fellow grad student named Mary Goff, and they fell in love. She is a delightful, creative, godly future daughter-in-law. You are reading that correctly; Daniel proposed on Valentine's Day, and she said yes.

We have great confidence that their relationship will go the distance. They encourage one another in faith, they have fun together, they strengthen one another. So why does my heart harbor a mild sensation of misgiving?

It's not about them, it's about me. Can I really be ready to be a grandfather?

I'm not old enough yet! (I might not feel old enough in another decade, either, but that's not relevant.)

Stop laughing at me, kids. I'm too weak to fight back and too senile to think up a clever riposte. Sigh.

But it's beautiful. As long as I focus on the wonderful things I see God doing in Daniel and Mary, I think I'll be okay.

Congratulations to Melody!

My wonderful daughter just turned 16, and she is sweet. She also works very diligently in her studies, and practices music all the time. (It is a great pleasure to hear the wonderful tones waft through the house from her french horn or piano.) So it is not surprising at all that Melody is in the top 10 out of roughly 700 students in her class...or that she was invited to perform with the Governor's All-Star Band at this year's Carolighting. Unfortunately, the event was rained out...but the honor remains. Yeah, Mel!

Congratulations to Benjamin and Archelle!

I have been blessed to stay in touch with my dear friend Benjamin Lincoln, even though he moved to Atlanta almost 10 years ago. He has had great success as a software developer, which surprises no one who is familiar with his smarts, friendliness, and integrity.

A young woman named Archelle has also noticed his admirable qualities--and he, hers--so they will be tying the knot at their A.M.E. church in March. A round of applause!

Congratulations to Benjamin!

My hulk of a 12-year-old, Benjamin Falter, recently earned a green belt in karate. He has manifested enterprise, persistence and humility in his approach to karate, so you can rest assured that I will be making plenty of posts about his success in many other endeavors.

The Inevitability of Booms and Busts

It seems that the Mises Institute is tilting at windmills in its hope to end economic booms and busts by reenacting the gold standard and outlawing fractional reserve banking. As long as human beings are making decisions about the prices of goods and services--i.e., as long as you and I, dear readers, are investing and consuming--we will be experiencing the crazy ups and downs. We can turn back the repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act, but we can't outlaw human nature.

This month's Atlantic Monthly published a couple of very impressive articles about how our wonderful, wacky humanity is the root of the problem. "Pop Psychology" describes experiments done by economists where a dozen participants are each given a certain amount of "securities" (for example, a certificate that yields a 24-cent dividend every 4 minutes) and cash (the real stuff, negotiable instruments). The experiment is limited to 15 rounds of dividends, so after an hour of trading the participants get to keep whatever money remains from their trading activity and dividends.

It is a trivial exercise to calculate the economic value of the security: during the first round it is $3.60 (15 times $.24), in the second round it is $3.36, etc. Anyone who believes that the trading price of the securities for these 60-minute securities in the 12-person market will largely reflect their apparent economic value, though, does not understand human behavior. (And truth be told, I must count myself among the misinformed/astonished.) What drives the market price of the securities is not their apparent economic value, but the desire of the participants to buy low and sell high. So what happens 90% of the time in these experiments is that the profit-seekers drive the price of the securities skyward--until the 15th round, at which point the market crashes.

Sound familiar?

So now you know why reverting to the gold standard will never end the cycle of booms and busts; we can change the banking system, but we are powerless to stop the tide of human behavior. I pointed out in a previous post that the cycle of expansion and contraction has occurred both when currency has been pegged to the gold standard and when it hasn't. I would be overstating the case to see that good banking policy is inconsequential; good policy might reduce the amplitude of the swings. At the same time, we do need to recognize that there is no policy that can relegate booms and busts to the dustbin of history.

In the second article, Henry Blodget (of Wall Street notoriety) examines the conduct of participants in the recent real estate and credit bubble, and finds it to be completely unremarkable. Of course home purchasers kept bidding up the price of real estate; they wanted to keep making profits. Investment bankers wanted to keep earning their bonuses. Politicians wanted the good times to keep rolling. Mortgage lenders wanted to keep earning origination fees. It takes a village to raise a child, and I guess it takes a village to cause a stampede in the real estate market.

In the wake of the inevitable bust, there has been much finger-pointing, but far too little self-examination. Perhaps we will learn our lesson for a generation, but eventually people will start saying "It's different this time, prices really can keep spiraling upward" and the next boom and crash will happen.