Are YECs insane?
“If Young Earth Creationists are out of their mind, it is for the sake of God; if Old Earth Creationists are in their right mind, it is for you.” — 2 Corinthians 5:13
Okay, I’m kidding. People who believe in a young earth are not insane, but they are out of their mind… in the way 2 Corinthians 5:13 says. Oh wait. That isn’t really 2 Corinthians 5:13, is it? Sorry about that. Couldn’t resist. As much as I emphasize that YECs have admirable faith and should not be converted to being Evolutionists at the cost of their faith and fellowship, the very tension of the Creation debate sometimes finds its release in potentially offensive jokes. So for that, I apologize. I have obviously adulterated a sacred verse. On the hand, in my joke, I am making quite a serious point. Here is the verse in its only mildly adulterated form:
13If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
I say “mildly adulterated” because the very translation of a verse often misses something… especially when quoted in isolation like I did. So, let me provide some context:
 11Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. 12We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.
Basically, Paul is admonishing the church at Corinth for studying the world around them, and taking pride in what they understand of that, rather than living in faith and taking pride in what they understand from God. It is, actually, one of the points that YECs try and drive home to us! By concentrating so much on what we see in the world, and can observe with modern science, we risk missing out what we see when we focus on God. For many evolutionists that is certainly case… especially those with no faith in Jesus. But then, Paul was talking to believers, so I think we should assume he is talking to us.
In my opinion, it is very dangerous for us Old Earth Creationists to insist too strongly on the scientific evidence to Christians who will not receive the science, or to non-believers who would never accept our faith. In either case, we risk the appearance of putting what we see above what is in our heart. Am I saying that we have switched the order like that? Not necessarily. I know I haven’t, and I know of several other Old Earth Christians who haven’t. But I also know that we risk the appearance all the time. And so I suggest we take verse 5:13 above, which I applied to YECs and turn it back in on ourselves, not as the listener, but as the speaker…
13If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
In context, it saying that where our mind focuses on things of faith, like the Gospel and salvation, it is for the sake of God; where we focus on things we see and study, like science, it is for the church.
In other words, our relationship with God is not the reason for studying science. I do not mean not to study it however. I personally enjoy it, and it is wonderful to study God’s handy-work. I also do not mean that there is no benefit to our relationship with God, because there can be. In my case, discovering certain scientific discoveries and putting them in context boosted my faith 1000 fold. However, that is only because God met me where I was at… He would not have done that if I wasn’t already putting my faith before the science, and doing so for His sake. I did not start out in my “right mind”; God put me there, and He only did that for the benefit of others.
Now, for me to truly take ownership of verse 13, I need to seriously tackle the last part of it, which says that to the extent that I think rightly about what my eyes can see in the world, and science can explain about it, how can other Christians benefit? I do not yet know, but I do know this… it is not for the sake of converting believing YECs, but perhaps doubting ones. Why doubting? Because the believing YECs are “out of their mind” (i.e., faithful to Jesus, to the extent of not accepting what their eyes see and science explains), and they are that way for the sake of God, which is the most important way they can be. The doubters on the other hand, are not out of their minds for God’s sake, because they are not living in faith, they are not making any choices for God’s sake. They are simply confused and wandering, because they see the conflict between their weak faith and their strong eyes… for those people, I am in my “right mind”, able to understand the world through science. Because I was out of my mind for God, he has placed me in my right mind for those who need to put God first, and are not in a place where they can. But, I am nothing special in that regard. If you are a scientifically minded Christian, who loves God first and science somewhere further down the line, then this verse is speaking to you as well.
November 15th, 2009 at 5:48 am
To clarify, anyone who puts God first is “out of their mind”, but in the spirit. I kept wanting to make that point, but never got around to it above. So, to the degree that it applies to a YEC, it is because they are in the spirit, and not “in the world”. For the OEC, studying evolution is clearly being “in the world”, but that is okay as log as we remember to be in the world, and not of it.