An article by Ken Ham:

There are many different, what I call “compromise positions,” on Genesis such as theistic evolution, progressive creation, gap theory, day age theory, and many others. They actually all have one thing in common: trying to fit the supposed millions/billions of years into Scripture. Let’s look at one of these positions that has been fairly prevalent, progressive creation.

This position (popularized by Dr. Hugh Ross) allowed Christians to use the term “creationist” but still gave them supposed academic respectability in the eyes of the world by rejecting six literal days of creation and maintaining billions of years.

In summary, progressive creation teaches:

The big-bang origin of the universe occurred about 13–15 billion years ago.

The days of creation were overlapping periods of millions and billions of years.

Over millions of years, God created new species as others kept going extinct.

The record of nature (as interpreted by man) is just as reliable as the Word of God.

Death, bloodshed, and disease existed before Adam and Eve.

Manlike creatures that looked and behaved much like us (and painted on cave walls) existed before Adam and Eve but did not have a spirit that was made in the image of God, and thus had no hope of salvation.

The Genesis flood was a local event.

The big bang origin of the universe

Progressive creationists claim that the days of creation in Genesis chapter 1 represent long periods of time and that day three of creation week lasted more than three billion years! This assertion is made in order to allow for the billions of years that evolutionists claim are represented in the rock layers of earth. This position, however, has problems, both biblically and scientifically.

The text of Genesis 1 clearly states that God supernaturally created all that is in six actual days. If we are prepared to let the words of the text speak to us in accord with the context and their normal definitions, without influence from outside ideas, then the word for “day” in Genesis 1 obviously means an ordinary day of about 24 hours. It is qualified by a number, the phrase “evening and morning,” and for day one, the words “light and darkness.”

As their name indicates, progressive creationists believe that God progressively created species on earth over billions of years, with new species replacing extinct ones, starting with simple organisms and culminating in the creation of Adam and Eve. They accept the evolutionary order for the development of life on earth, even though this contradicts the order given in the Genesis account of creation. Evolutionary belief holds that the first life forms were marine organisms, while the Bible says that God created land plants first. Reptiles are supposed to have predated birds, while Genesis says that birds came first. Evolutionists believe that land mammals came before whales, while the Bible teaches that God created whales first.

Progressive creationists have stated that nature is “just as perfect” as the Bible and call nature the “sixty-seventh book” of the Bible.

Now God tells us in Romans 8:22 that “the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs” because of sin. And not only was the universe cursed, but man himself has been affected by the fall. So how can sinful, fallible human beings in a sin-cursed universe say that their interpretation of the evidence (nature) is as perfect as God’s written revelation? Scientific assertions must use fallible assumptions and fallen reasoning—how can this be the Word of God? It can’t.

Christians should build their thinking on the Bible, not on fallible interpretations of scientific observations about the past.

Progressive creationists believe the fossil record was formed from the millions of animals that lived and died before Adam and Eve were created. They accept the idea that there was death, bloodshed, and disease (including cancer) before sin, which goes directly against the teaching of the Bible and dishonors the character of God.

But God created a perfect world at the beginning. When he was finished, God stated that his creation was “very good.” The Bible makes it clear that man and all the animals were vegetarians before the fall (Genesis 1:29-30). Plants were given to them for food (plants do not have a nephesh [life spirit] as man and animals do and thus eating them would not constitute “death” in the biblical sense).

Concerning the entrance of sin into the world, progressive creationist Dr. Ross writes, “The groaning of creation in anticipation of release from sin has lasted fifteen billion years and affected a hundred billion trillion stars.”

The Bible,however, teaches something quite different. In the context of human death, the apostle Paul states, “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). It is clear that there was no sin in the world before Adam sinned, and thus no death.

Since evolutionary radiometric dating methods have dated certain humanlike fossils as older than Ross’s date for modern humans (approx. 40,000 years), he and other progressive creationists insist that these are fossils of pre-Adamic creatures that had no spirit, and thus no salvation.

Progressive creationists accept and defend evolutionary dating methods, so they must redefine all evidence of humans (descendants of Noah) if they are given evolutionary dates of more than about 40,000 years (e.g., the Neanderthal cave sites) as related to spiritless “hominids,” which the Bible does not mention. However, these same methods have been used to “date” the Australian Aborigines back at least 60,000 years (some have claimed much older) and fossils of “anatomically modern humans” to over 100,000 years. By Ross’s reasoning, none of these (including the Australian Aborigines) could be descendants of Adam and Eve and so wouldn’t have souls. However, Acts 17:26 says, “And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings”. All people who have lived on earth are descendants of Adam.

In addition, the fossil record cannot, by its very nature, conclusively reveal if a creature had a spirit or not, since spirits are not fossilized. But there is clear evidence that creatures, which progressive creationists place before Adam, had art and clever technology and that they buried their dead in a way that many of Adam’s descendants did. They were fully human and actually descendants of Adam, and they lived only a few thousand years ago.

Progressive creationists will say they believe in a “universal” or “worldwide” flood, but in reality they do not believe that the flood covered the whole earth. They believe in a local flood. They argue that the text of Genesis 7 doesn’t really say that the flood covered the whole earth. But read it for yourself and you will find the language overwhelmingly speaks of a flood covering the entire earth and everything on it.

Now it is true that whether one believes in six literal days does not ultimately affect one’s salvation, if one is truly born again. However, we need to stand back and look at the “big picture.” In many nations, the Word of God was once widely respected and taken seriously. But once the door of compromise is unlocked and Christian leaders concede that we shouldn’t take the Bible as written in Genesis, why should the world take heed of it in any area? Because the Church has told the world that one can use man’s interpretation of the world (such as billions of years) to reinterpret the Bible, it is seen as an outdated, scientifically incorrect “holy book,” not intended to be taken seriously.

Beware of compromise positions that attempt to fit man’s evolutionary/millions of years beliefs into the Bible.

Ken Ham (in a facebook post) writes:

Who should you trust first? God or the scientist? God or the theologian? God or the Christian academic?

Many times over the years, I’ve had a number of conversations with Christians who won’t accept the days of creation as ordinary days and vehemently defend millions of years and other evolutionary beliefs. Often, the person talking to me has quoted various Christian academics, well-known theologians/Christian leaders, or certain church fathers claiming that I should give up my position on a historical Genesis because these academics/famous Christians do not agree with me.

My answer to them has been, “But what does God clearly state in his Word? I judge the people you quoted against God’s Word, not the other way round.”

I have certainly been scoffed at and mocked at over the years because of my position. Now don’t get me wrong. I respect scholarship. But regardless, we need to recognize that we could have 100 PhDs from Harvard university, but compared to what God knows we would still know nearly nothing.

When I teach children about dinosaurs, creation, and evolution, I like to ask them these questions:

•“Has any human being always been there?” They answer, “No.”

•“Has any scientist always been there?” They answer, “No.”

•“Does any human being know everything?” They answer, “No.”

•“Does any scientist know everything?” They answer, “No.”

•“Who is the only one who has always been there?” They shout out, “God.”

•“Who is the only one who knows everything?” The shout out, “God.”

I then ask:

“Who is the one we should always trust first? God or the scientist?” They call out, “God.”

And I could add, “Who should we always trust first: God, the scientist, the theologian, the teacher, the pastor, the professor?” And the answer will always be God.

In a way that sounds rather simplistic. In fact, I’ve had people who oppose my position claim that I have too simplistic a belief to just take Genesis 1-11 as it is written. Now when someone claims it’s too simplistic, I believe this is showing up a problem we all have to battle with because it’s a part of our nature, the sin nature we have, because we are descendants of Adam. The problem is pride.

God’s Word has a lot to say about pride:

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom”(Proverbs 11:2).

“Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 26:12).

And God’s Word tells how to gain wisdom and knowledge:

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7).

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).

I would rather stand before the Lord and say that I’m guilty of simplistically believing what his Word states in Genesis than to trust the word of fallible humans and reinterpret God’s Word.

I’m reminded about this so-called “simplistic” approach when I read what Jesus said about children:

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3–4).

It is so much easier for children who have not had years of indoctrination from the world to believe God’s Word as written. Reading Genesis for them is just like reading a history book. Well, it is history, and history as God had it recorded for us. Sadly, the more educated people become, many find it harder to believe God’s Word as written in Genesis. And it’s not because Genesis is literal history, but I believe it’s because of pride.

And a reason for that is we all have an underlying problem.

It doesn’t matter who we are, we all have sinful hearts.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

The origin of sin is found in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil to disobey God. Now consider two elements of the temptation that help us understand our sin nature:

“He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say . . .” (Genesis 3:1).

Note the first attack by the devil was on the Word of God to get Adam and Eve to doubt God’s Word so that doubt would lead to unbelief.

“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).

The second part of the temptation was really to offer them to be their own god.

We know Adam took the fruit and disobeyed God and brought sin and the judgment of death into the world. God’s Word states:

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come” (Romans 5:12–14).

So we have that sin nature. And Genesis 3:1 and 3:5 sum up that nature.

Our propensity will be to doubt the Word of God, as we would rather trust the word of man. I see that over and over again with Christian leaders/academics who would rather trust man’s word (beliefs) about millions of years and evolution instead of God’s Word as it’s clearly stated in Genesis 1-11.

Also, we have this propensity to be our own god. We want to decide truth for ourselves. We see ourselves as being proud of what we know. We think we can reason correctly by ourselves, so we have that problem of intellectual pride wanting intellectual respectability.

I believe this is why there is so much compromise in the church when it comes to God’s Word in Genesis. Our heart is such that we would rather trust man’s word than God’s Word, so we have a problem with intellectual pride and thus we cave to peer pressure. We must guard against this. However, none of us like being called anti-intellectual or anti-academic. And we will be called that if we believe in six literal days of creation and a young earth and universe.

But I often think about those in Hebrews 11 and the Christian martyrs of the past. They were sawn in half, thrown to lions, burned alive, lived in caves, were destitute and suffered many atrocities. And yet, so many Christians today cave because they are belittled by secular academics for believing the “simplistic” account of creation, the fall, the flood, and Tower of Babel as related in Scripture.

I wonder how many in the church today would have stood with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Would you? Who do you trust first: God or the scientist?

“‘Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?’

“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up’” (Daniel 3:15–18).