Yes, that’s the intent. We look forward to seeing a submission!

Bruce,

If you write that paper, I’d happily supply the “opposing” position from a Young Earth perspective.

Speaking anecdotally (although, I believe this is supported by Scripture) non-believers will always find reasons to reject Christianity. If you’ve experienced ridicule concerning Yong Earth creationism, imagine what you’ll experience when you talk about blood atonement or the immorality of homosexuality.

These “intellectual” unbelievers, with all their ridicule of YEC, are, themselves, mired in irresolveable philosophical issues. The “demarcation” problem in the philosophy of science, alone, is embarrassing enough. They can’t even agree on what is or isn’t “science”.

So while I’m not clear on how you’ve derived your beliefs about YEC’s undermining the “veracity” of Christianity (perhaps you’re alluding to a statistical survey or maybe just citing your own intuitions?), it doesn’t seem relevant to me.

The idea that natural theology in some instances has more truth than special revelation is not without precedent. Early Reformers such as Calvin, Luther, and Melanchton used Scripture to teach a geocentric world … later found to be a false teaching.

Regarding Genesis 1:1, the Hebrew text does not mean “in the beginning” … beresheet, ending with a tav, is in the construct state, and means “at the start of” (compare Jer 26:1; Jer 28:1, etc). Furthermore, Gen 1:2, “surface of the waters” (and not ice), indicates heat, atmosphere, gravity, mass, hydrogen, oxygen, protons, electrons … in other words, more than 90% of ‘creation’ had already occurred before Day One. Genesis 1 is something other than the “big bang” of science, ‘x’ billions of years earlier.

The second word in Gen 1:1 (spelled beth, resh, aleph) can also be an active participle, and the root does not mean ‘ex nihilo’ (compare the ‘creation’ of man out of the dust of the ground in Gen 1:27 and following). An accurate translation of Gen 1:1 is, “At the start of God’s creating / redeeming the sky and the land, the land was … (unproductive) …”.

The context of Gen 1 is the land … it starts in darkness under the waters (vs.2), rises to become shallow seas in the translucent light (vs. 3), etc … (this theme is already developed by other authors). It ends with the land / dust taking on the form of redeemed man as the start of a new genealogy. If the context of these events is an island rising out of the sea on an inhabited planet earth, then its return to the sea is the context of Noah’s story. This interpretation solves many problems, starting with Cain’s wife not being an outcome of incest. In short, a 10,000-word paper could build an interesting theology to expand on redemptive history.

No matter what interpretation is developed, Part II should propose methods to unify Reformed congregants at large. The scientific naivety and desperate statements by young-earth creationists, especially on the Internet, has become unproductive.