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The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens are Telling Us about the Creation

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Like the German Green's motto " neither Right nor Left but OUT IN FRONT" this book takes on both sides of the CED debate.
and in doing so moves the whole discussion into a new higher level:
---quote---
"It is my contention that neither the scriptural nor the scientific view of the cosmos is complete in itself, despite the fact that each view contributes an essential perspective on the complete reality. Through the spectacles of scriptual exegesis, we Christians see the cosmos as Creation: we see where it stands in relationship to God the Creator,who is its Originator, Preserver, Governor, and Provider. Through the lens of scientific investigation, natural scientists are able to observe the internal affairs of the material world--its coherent properties, its lawful behavior, and its authentic history. Both views are integral parts of what I call the 'creationomic perspective,' the view of the cosmos that is gained when natural science is place in the framework of the biblical doctrine of creation." preface pg ix
---end of quote---

The take home message is simple enough:

God is Creator, Sustainer, Law-Giver, and Provider.

The best way to read the book is to xerox the chart on pg 198 and keep it at your elbow. It summarizes the entire book!!!

To Scripture you address questions of external relationships:
Status Origin Goverance Value Purpose
To Science you address questions of internal affairs:
Properties Behavior History

This in a single table is the argument of the book, but to understand the critical component: the categories of questions you need to hear the example he uses.
Holding up a piece of paper, he asks you to describe it, one voice answers GREEN, another offers SQUARE. pg 204-5 The paper is in fact, both. Is these two pieces of information contradictory, of course not, it is complementary, coming from two different viewpoints. The extend the example in a way that the author does not, to which person do you address the questions concerning shape, to which do you address questions concerning color?

The first part concerns Scripture and how to build a correct hermeneutic to interpret it by. Again he introduces a good illustration, i suspect from his years of teaching this has proven to be a good memory technic and organizing principle: good illustrations. It is the vehicle model of Scripture, pg 14ff, a caravan of vehicles carrying packages with things inside the packages, think a bunch of UPS brown vans. (looks remarkably like the compiler theory train) The vehicle is the cultural historical context as expressed in the literary genre the passage is written in. The packages are the specific story, particular symbolism in a poem, specific cultural patterns. The contents are God's message to His people, in all places, throughout all time. And from pg 83, "In either case, if we attempt to consume both the content and the packaging, we may encounter significant difficulty in chewing, swallowing, and digesting the combination. Those who want to feed on the truths of Scripture must take care to differentiate between food and packaging." The two cases to distinguish are a journalistic account of the actual events of creation(think video tape) from the primeval history account that we have in Genesis.(think metaphorical origins story- mythos)

Scientism and YEC(young earth creationists)- chapter 11, " more heat than light, the creation/evolution debate" and the real battle with unbelieving scientific naturalism as a religious doctrine. Van Till makes it clear throughout the book that the YEC position of apparent age is nothing more than bad science and bad theology, for it denies the coherence of creation. It denies that God created the universe with sufficent thought to have inside it the things it needs to build up the complexity we see around us. By more importantly it denies the value of creation as an arena for the providence of God, to operate through the use of physical means.

I finished the book with a touch of sadness. For the time, energy, and people the false debate of CED is consuming in the Christian community. While good frameworks like Van Till's are neglected for want of people to work on them. If AiG or ICR did not exist, and that energy and talent was used to advance Van Tills type of arguments the Church would be far along the way to competing with the real enemy. Scientism, the world and life view that we are nothing more than sophisticated machines, the result of mindless and random meanderings through the genetic space of living beings. This is a religious, a metaphysical battle, not scientific. For science rightfully limits itself to the things of this creation, the things we see and the forces we can theorize behind them. The YEC have diverted an enormous amount of energy into bad science, trying to fight a battle at the level of facts, denying the clear evidence for an old earth, while misinterpreting the preamble of the Great KIng of Genesis One as a scientific how-to-do book on the manufacture of us. Sadly we are all the weaker knowing that good ideas like this book have been around since 1986 and are yet to be discovered.

I hope you discover this book as a result of my review. It will well worth the time to read, and i didn't even try to tell you the gems in the astronomy section--part 2.

In college I took Howard Van Till's course in Advanced Astronomy and observed first-hand some of the research that went into this book. In person, Van Till is one of the most committed physicists and christians that I know. He takes a substantial amount of talent, integrity and faith and spreads the light for all. The Christian world has given him mixed reviews because many of them are strict "six day" creationists, which Van Till is not. You will be hard pressed to question his physics and he shows the flaws in many simple-faith approaches. I have read dozens of books on creation and cosmology -- this is one of the best.

It's a shame this book is out of print. The book is divided into three parts: The first describes what the Bible tells us about Creation and the Cosmos. The second details evidences gleaned from the study of the Cosmos, in particular, astronomy. The third section offers a new perspective on the relationship between science and religion, in constrast to a traditional young-earth creationist perspective.

Howard J. Van Till is a professor of physics and astronomy at Calvin College. He is also a contributor to books such as Three Views on Creation and Evolution, Science Held Hostage: What's Wrong With Creation Science and Evolutionism, Science & Christianity: Four Views (Spectrum Multiview Book Series Spectrum Multiview Book Serie), and Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives on the World's Formation.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1986 book, "This book is addressed to those who want to take both the Bible and the Creation seriously, to those who, like myself, are vitally concerned first to get clear and accurate views of the cosmos through scriptural exegesis and scientific investigation and then to form a unified, coherent perspective that incorporates both views."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"The Bible is ascientific; it expresses no interest in either ancient or modern science." (Pg. 60)
"The days of the Genesis 1 story are clearly ordinary solar days. There is nothing in the story itself to indicate that they should be thought of as any other time period... The days of Genesis 1 have nothing to do with the cosmic timetable; they are simply literary devices in the story, not actual temporary intervals directly corresponding to events in cosmic history." (Pg. 91)
"My guess is that a fully satisfactory description for the processes of biological evolution will eventually be worked out." (Pg. 188)
"(C)osmic history is evolutionary in character. The theme that permeates the history of all material systems... is the theme of continuous, coherent temporal development over a period of approximately fifteen billion years." (Pg. 189)
"If the cosmos is only a few thousand years old, and if the light we are now receiving was created en route to appear as if it were coming from a distant source, then most of the visible universe is reduced from reality to illusion... If the apparent-age hypothesis were true, then that magnificent, orderly, coherent history of which we spoke earlier would necessarily be reduced to a divinely-perpetuated hoax." (Pg. 238-239)
"I am fully convinced that 'scientific creationism' is a travesty of natural science and a sad parody of biblical theology." (Pg. 246)
"Whether as the sole position or as an alternative to special creationism, naturalistic evolution should not be taught in the public school system." (Pg. 261)
"I would like to stress that I am not advocating what some have called 'theistic evolution.' ... I prefer to stick with 'the creationomic perspective.' Divine action ought always to be the matter of prmiary importance, with natural process as the secondary or contingent reality." (Pg. 265)