Is there any good evidence for biblical creationism?

Paul_Price

This debate is about the question of evidence: is there good evidence to support the worldview of biblical creationism? (The idea that Yahweh, The God of the Bible, Is real and the Bible is true). Pro will argue yes, Con will argue no.

Both debaters are required to answer the question "What constitutes good evidence for the existence of the God of the Bible, And why? " as part of their response.

I believe there is most certainly good evidence for the God of the Bible, And this comes in the form of two different categories:

1) General evidence for the existence of any supernatural god (because Yahweh is a supernatural God)

2) Specific evidence that the Bible is true as compared to competing religious texts

As I wrote in the article at creation. Com/detective-approach, (Quoting)

The obvious sorts of things we might look for. . . Would be things like:

>Evidence for design, Rather than randomness, In the cosmos
>Evidence for design, Rather than randomness, In our earth and solar system
>Evidence for design, Rather than randomness, In life

As the apostle Paul wrote,

"For his invisible attributes, Namely, His eternal power and divine nature, Have been clearly perceived, Ever since the creation of the world, In the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. " (Romans 1:20, Emphasis added)

And in Hebrews 3:4,

"For every house is built by someone, But the builder of all things is God. "

Beyond this, We would also look for signs that God had communicated to us (i. E. In a body of Scripture). Why would a god bother to create something like our planet Earth, Fill it with life including human life, And then do nothing else and remain totally silent? It seems very straightforward that if a god exists, We should expect to find evidence of communication from this god to us.

As it turns out, There are numerous competing claims of alleged divine revelations throughout history (and these competing claims are mutually exclusive because they contradict one another), So we would also need to look for clues like miraculously fulfilled prophecy to authenticate this Scripture as genuine. The Bible passes this test.

There would probably be other markers to distinguish true divine revelation from frauds; in the case of the Bible, We have a single coherent message with a beginning, Middle and end which was given to dozens of authors over a period of thousands of years. This in itself is extremely impressive, And indicative of divine authorship. But we should also expect that God's communication would be unique in its accuracy, And its ability to be confirmed by the available evidence.

These are the obvious signs, But there is something a bit less obvious as well: the fact that we are able to think rationally and have knowledge at all actually points back to and depends upon God. If there were no God and therefore no designer for human life, What would that say about the usefulness of our brains for properly understanding truth?

If there is no ultimate Authority governing the cosmos, Does the concept of "truth" really hold any meaning at all? If we deny God"s existence, We are actually undercutting the validity of our own reasoning altogether. In the final analysis, All human knowledge depends upon God, And if God did not exist we would not be able to know anything for certain at all.

ctr0

Hello Paul, And thank you for the challenge.

Introduction:

Hello Debateisland and welcome to the debate between Paul Price (/u/PaulDouglasPrice), Events Manager at Creation Ministries International, And CTR0 (/u/CTR0), Moderator of the evolution discussion; education; and debate community /r/DebateEvolution on Reddit.

In this debate I will negate "There is good evidence for biblical creationism. " My understanding based on my opponent's opening statement, My prior experience with him, And our discussion in arranging this debate (see debate arrangement) is that by Biblical Creationism he means the 7-day event described by Genesis I in the Old Testament. He includes the demand for him to support quote "the Bible is true, " and by extension my opposition. My position in negation satisfies this criterium as I do not believe that Genesis I is true, Particualrily in the non-alagorical sense that old testement creationism is known for.

Opening Arguments:

On the question of "Is there any good evidence for biblical creationism? " I would say no on the basis that I have not been presented with such. The quality of evidence, However, Is an experiential thing. I have no knowlege of the experience of those judging this debate, Nor could all possible avenues be addressed preemptively in the limited time and space available (see: Index of Creationist Claims, CH: Biblical Creationism). Therefore, I find it reasonable that this debate should be judged based upon strictly the 'Good evidence for biblical creationism' presented by my opponent, And my refutations to such. I ask my opponent to present their best evidence for biblical creationism. If my opponent's best evidence for creationism could not be considered 'good' by the judges, Then by extension, Worse evidence would be worse.

Since in this debate I will be reactive, I have no opening arguments in favor of my position, And will be strictly refuting the claim that my opponent's evidence is good support for biblical creationism.

Responses:

On what is good evidence:

My opponent has demanded I answer the question, "What constitutes good evidence for the existance of the God of the Bible, And why? " There are interprtations of Yahweh that are compatible with naturalistic explinations, And I am not challenging Yahweh's existance. An example of this is the BioLogos group. However; I would say this would call for the same answer as any other phenominon: good evidence for a phenominon would be independently verifyable and specifically support the position it is being used as evidence for. Evidence might only be good if grouped together depending on the claim. Ultimately, What is 'good evidence' is subjective. What I consider good evidence and what our judges consider good evidence may differ. Though my opponent said he would, He has yet to answer this himself.

On Theism:

In this debate I am not objecting to the existance of Yahweh, But only that certain interpretations of him are. As long as I refute to satisfaction that there is good evidence that the Bible is true in reference to creationism, Given the context of the debate, I satsfy negating the inclusive statement that good evidence supports "the idea that Yahweh is real and the Bible is true. "

On Yahweh and the Bible:

Even if Yahweh was shown to exist, The idea that Genesis I happened would not be supported (IE, The statement in the bible "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, " among others, See King James Bible, May not actually be true). This is conflicted by the existance of sects of Christian thinking like and BioLogos, Which both supports evolution in contrast to a true Genesis I, But also believes Yahweh exist. For my opponent's argument of using the Bible to show that biblical creationism is true to hold, He wouldn't have to just prove Yahway exists, He would somehow have to objectively show that his interpretation is write and any position that has non-literal interpretations are wrong.
Simply speaking, Showing that Yahweh existed would not also show that everything in the Bible, And particularily Genesis I, Actually happened.

On Truth and Cognition:

My opponent here makes a non sequitur. It does not follow how a nonexistence of a god would invalidate truth. If it did, It wouldn't matter, Since I am not arguing against the existence of a god or the validity of truth.

Closing:

I see no places that my opponent presents evidence for the truth behind Genesis I, And if there is no evidence, There is no good evidence.

Supporting Evidence:

Debate Arangement: https://old.Reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/cesbtd/invitation_to_debate_live_chat/eu4v5ku/? Context=7

Index of Creationist Claims, CH: Biblical Creationism: http://www.Talkorigins.org/indexcc/list. Html#CH

King James Bible: https://www.Kingjamesbibleonline.org/

Biologos: https://biologos.org/common-questions/what-is-evolutionary-creation

Paul_Price

@ctr0
My opponent's first response leaves much to be desired, And can best be described as a dodge. There are so many possible avenues of evidence (I grouped them into two categories, See Round #1), That every piece of evidence cannot be listed here.
Instead, I asked an all-important question:

"What constitutes good evidence for the existence of the God of the Bible, And why? "

Unfortunately, The only response we got to this from ctr0 was, "It must be verifiable and it must support the conclusion. " Well yes, Of course that's very obvious, But it ignores the thrust of the question. Let me rephrase it a second time:

"Since you are arguing that no evidence exists for the truth of biblical creation as outlined in the Bible, What sort of evidence would you expect to find that you fail to find? How would the facts present themselves differently, Were biblical creation true? "

My opponent's answer was entirely without substance, And as such we have gotten off to a poor start on this debate. My opponent says:

"I have no opening arguments in favor of my position. "

This is how you forfeit a debate. You must present arguments for your position (i. E. That there is no evidence for biblical creation). If you flat out refuse to do this, As you have done here, Then you might as well say you are quitting the debate!

"What I consider good evidence and what our judges consider good evidence may differ. Though my opponent said he would, He has yet to answer this himself. "

My entire opening argument was a broad answer to that question.

"In this debate I am not objecting to the existance[sic] of Yahweh. . . "

Then you have already lost the debate, Because if Yahweh exists, Biblical creation is true. We learn about Yahweh from the same source that we learn about the doctrines of biblical creation: the Bible. If you grant one, You grant the other.

"Even if Yahweh was shown to exist, The idea that Genesis I happened would not be supported. . . "

Who is Yahweh? The same God that inspired the text of Genesis 1! This is nonsensical.

"There are interpretations of Yahweh that are compatible with naturalistic explanations, "

No, There are merely some individuals who claim that, But they fail to make their case. It seems you want to change the entire debate topic from "Is there any good evidence for biblical creation? " to "Is the Bible compatible with evolution? " The latter was not our debate topic here. However, Since you have advanced no arguments of your own, I will address this wrong claim, And you will be forced to answer the topical question of what your expected evidence might look like.

Yahweh, We learn from the Bible, Took human form in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus taught nothing while on earth that was not from the Father:

'So Jesus answered them, "My teaching is not mine, But his who sent me. "' John 7:16

We also know that Jesus believed that Genesis was true, Literal history, Because Jesus referenced Adam and Eve as real historical people and he also taught that Adam and Eve were present "from the beginning of creation". This is completely incompatible with the ideas of syncretist organizations such as BioLogos, Who deny the clear teaching of Jesus on this point.

But Jesus told them, "Moses wrote this commandment for you because your hearts were hard. But from the beginning of creation, "God made them male and female. "" Mark 10:5-6

Any attempt to reconcile this history with a secular evolutionary timeline fails, Because under no secular old-earth timeline do Adam and Eve exist "from the beginning of creation"! It's the opposite: humans have not come into being until they very latest and most recent part of "creation" (the timeline of history) under an evolutionary scheme.

Paul, The apostle of Jesus, Also reinforced the fact that Genesis is true history by making a direct comparison between the literal man Adam and the literal man Jesus:

'Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, And then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, A man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ' (1 Cor 15:45-47)

We even have a direct genealogy straight from the first man, Adam, All the way to Jesus Christ, In the book of Luke chapter 3.

Another reason that ALL old-earth interpretive schemes fail is that they ALL require the existence of death and disease and suffering prior to sin. The Bible precludes this entirely. The Bible teaches that these things are a result of the Fall of mankind in the Garden.

1) If Yahweh exists, The Bible is true. (Yahweh is defined as the God of the Bible)
2) Yahweh exists
Therefore, The Bible is true.

1A) If the Bible is true, Then biblical creationism is true.
2A) The Bible is true
Therefore, Biblical creationism is true.

Let my opponent decide which of my premises he wishes to attack. He has already chosen to grant the existence of Yahweh!

ctr0

Responses:

On what is good evidence:

My opponent has changed his question to "Since you are arguing that no evidence exists for the truth of biblical creation as outlined in the Bible, What sort of evidence would you expect to find that you fail to find? How would the facts present themselves differently, Were biblical creation true?" Note here that the adjective 'good' has been dropped from evidence by my opponent. There is evidence for creationism, but that evidence has in my experience not held up to scrutiny.

The Bible is evidence for biblical creationism, but if we examine the order of creation (for my argument's sake, just the moon before animals, see King James cited previously), we see that it conflicts with geological evidence. The Tiktaalik fossil, is approximately 375 million years old and understood to be the precursor to land animals. The moon is approximately 4.5 billion years old. Not only does the bible conflict with geological findings in order, this goes far beyond the commonly cited 6 to 10 thousand year timeliness for the universe itself. Since the Bible's claims could not be independently verified, I would qualify it as bad evidence. 

If biblical creation was true, I would expect the evidence to be verifiable.

On the subjectivity of evidence quality:

What convince people of arguments is subjective. If this were not the case, it is unlikely we would be having this debate. Further, my opponent has. opened Round 2 by stating "There are so many possible avenues of evidence that every piece of evidence cannot be listed here." It would be impossible for me to show every argument as 'not good,' in Round 1, and I could not reasonably predict what my opponent would present as what he finds as good. By allowing him to present what he believes is the best evidence, it would follow that he would believe the arguments not listed are worse. Refuting his presented evidence would then satisfy my burden in the debate, even without having any opening arguments myself.

On the existence of Yahweh proving creationism:

My opponent never demonstrates why his interpretation of Yahweh is correct and why other groups that believe in Yahweh but reject Genesis-I-as-literal creation like Biologos and Catholicism are wrong, he only proclaims it. Regardless as to whether or not evolution is true, if my opponent wants to use the bible as evidence for his position, he needs to explain why it must be taken literally.

On the validity of the Bible's claims:

My opponent claims that because the bible says Jesus spoke on Adam and Eve as beginning from creation. He fails to demonstrate how this can't be allegorical either. If we understand Adam and Eve to be the 'first people' (a concept which violates Minimum Viable Population, by the way), then that doesn't hold up to scrutiny without introducing new evidence. Tikktalik is understood to give rise to land animals, and is billions of years itself younger than the moon. 'Existing since the beginning of creation' fails to reconcile with 'coming into existence billions of years after the moon.' By my definition of good evidence, if what you're saying was good evidence it would instead not dramatically conflict with geological confirmation.

On Syllogisms:

I maintain that premise one of syllogism one is unsupported based on everything in this post.

Closing: 

My opponent claims I have lost the debate because I provided no initial arguments showing the evidence he insists is good for biblical creation is not, and that I have lost because I am not challenging the existence of Yahweh. To the first, he himself says it would be unreasonable to cover every argument here, so as a courtesy I allowed him to present what he found to be best. To the second, My opponent's evidence is thus far all biblical, and in response to the challenge that Genesis I can be interpreted as non-literal (and therefore not strictly true), he presented more biblical support. He must now show why his new biblical quotes must be literal. Further, he failed to show how this 'evidence' is independently verifiable.

Since he never actually said what good evidence was, but only provided examples, I feel as though my definition holds. So far, he has failed to independently support that the claims held in the bible in respect to creation are true. Such, I feel as though his best evidence does not qualify as 'good.' If the best evidence does not qualify as good, then by my opponent's hierarchy no evidence does.

Supporting Evidence:

Minimum Viable Population: https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.biocon.2013.12.036

Age of the moon: https://www.nature.com/articles/508051a

Info on Tikktalik: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04639

 

Paul_Price

@ctr0
My opponent has clarified his position:
"The Bible is evidence for biblical creationism"

But he feels it is not good evidence, because he sees apparent contradictions between historical scientific theories and the statements of the Bible.

However! He severely contradicts himself here by trying to simultaneously argue for the position that the Bible is perfectly consistent with "naturalistic interpretations". One cannot have it both ways. If the Bible is consistent with evolution then you cannot claim it is evidence for biblical creationism.

My opponent has fatally contradicted his own primary thesis--namely, that the Bible's truth or falsehood has no bearing on the question of the truth or falsehood of biblical creationism. For the Bible to count as evidence for biblical creationism, though, the above claim must be false.

Let us examine what we can of my opponent's rebuttal to find anything that could salvage his claim that the Bible is compatible with naturalism and evolution.

"My opponent never demonstrates why his interpretation of Yahweh is correct "

That's simply incorrect. I invite the reader to go back to Round #2 where I fully explain my position and give supporting quotes from Scripture to justify it. My opponent has not taken the time to investigate or rebut any of those supporting passages.

 "he needs to explain why it must be taken literally."

What does the Bible mean? It means what grammar and vocabulary of the words on the page convey, which must be understood in terms of its context and in terms of the cultural understandings of the authors who wrote it. This is known as the 'historical-grammatical hermeneutic'. We do our best to discover the authors' intended meaning. I have quoted many passages to show that the authors of the Bible intended the Creation account to be taken as true, literal history. Furthermore we find that essentially nobody in the church taught anything other than a young earth all the way up until the 'scientific revolution' and the 'enlightenment', after which secular ideas not based in Scripture began to take hold in western culture. This is extremely damaging to the idea that Scripture itself might be teaching some sort of long age old earth scheme.

I put it to my opponent to explain what, exactly, in the context of the passages I quoted, actually should show us that it is not intended by the author to be taken literally. In fact, I would argue that any statement, left on its own and without any context clues to the contrary, is always assumed by default to be literal.

Example:

"I had a great breakfast this morning."

Nobody would assume I meant anything other than a literal breakfast with food if I made this statement. The only way you could claim it was intended to be taken non-literally would be with sufficient contextual information. (For example, maybe we know that I did not eat any food.) The onus is on my opponent to prove how the context of all these passages, taken together, demands a non-literal interpretation.

"Further, he failed to show how this 'evidence' is independently verifiable."

This is also a false allegation. In Round #1 I mentioned that we would expect the Bible to be accurate and independently verifiable, and we do find that it is. One avenue, and perhaps the most important one, is the fact that the Bible makes verifiable statements of prophecy which later come to pass. My favorite example of this is when one reads Isaiah 52 - 53, and finds the undeniable fulfillment of these words in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

We also find that the Bible matches up with archaeology and even drives the discovery of new archaeological finds. One great book detailing such evidence is 'Evidence for the Bible' by Anderson and Edwards:

https://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Bible-Clive-Anderson/dp/1683441117/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=evidence+for+the+bible&qid=1563539110&s=gateway&sr=8-2


"I maintain that premise one of syllogism one is unsupported based on everything in this post."

As a reminder that premise is:

1) If Yahweh exists, The Bible is true. (Yahweh is defined as the God of the Bible)

My opponent's attempt to reject this premise is self-contradictory. How can the God of the Bible be real, and yet the Bible be false? We only learn about the God of the Bible from ... the Bible! If the Bible is false, it would imply that the God of the Bible must also be false. I can only understand this claim to be an attempt at restating his earlier premise: that the Bible can be false in a literal sense yet 'true' in a metaphorical sense. However my opponent has failed to make his case that this is the intended meaning of the authors of the Bible.

Time and space are unfortunately running out in this debate, so let us now summarize the previous two rounds:

Round 1:
I explained my general outline of the types of evidence we find for the truth of the biblical worldview, and asked my opponent to define what kind of evidence he expects

My opponent declined to answer or provide any arguments, but claimed that he does not deny the existence of Yahweh and claimed without supporting arguments that the Bible can be taken non-literally

Round 2:
I reassert my question of evidence and explain why the Bible is meant to be taken literally in the area of origins.

My opponent contradicts his position in Round 1 by claiming that the Bible is evidence for biblical creationism, but that it must be disqualified (it's not 'good' evidence) because of some scientific claims coming from the secular community, and fails to provide any substantial response to my explanation of the Scriptures.

Addenda: Tiktaalik

My opponent brings up the issue of the fossil Tiktaalik, which he claims invalidates the Bible based upon the evolutionary story that this fossil represents the missing link between sea and land creatures. However, even based on evolutionary assumptions governing the fossil record, we now know this cannot be the case! The Tiktaalik fossil has been disqualified as a 'missing link' because evidence of fully-formed land animals has now been found that is dated by evolutionists to be older than Tiktaalik.

Supporting reference:
https://creation.com/tiktaalik-finished

Minimum Viable Population:

ctr0 claims that all humanity could not have been started by only two individuals (contrary to the Bible's clear statements that it did), based upon a paper about 'minimum viable population sizes'. However this is misguided because the cited paper is about dealing with issues of inbreeding and genetic health. Adam and Eve would have been genetically perfect, no mutations, and pre-loaded with enough genetic potential to generate the entire human race that we have today. This is a completely different situation than what is being discussed in this conservation paper, which means it is a red herring. For more on adam and eve and genetics:

Supporting reference:
https://creation.com/genetics-primal-couple

On voting:

I thank the audience for your patient readership! Please do both ctr0 and myself the favor of voting on this debate, and please attempt to do so based only on the arguments and evidence presented by both sides here, and not based on any preconceived biases and preferences you no doubt hold on this topic.

Thank you and God bless you!

ctr0

On the Debate Terms:

When we formulated this debate, we agreed on 5000 characters. My opponent's Round 3 response contains 7225 characters, violating the terms of the debate (see: Debate arrangement, previously cited). While not ever confirmed by text, we moved here from Debate.org due to a buggy platform, where he instigated with the character limit in place (See Initial Debate). Please consider this when voting on my refutations herein, as I will be holding myself to our agreement.

Responses:

On evidence quality:

Throughout this debate, my opponent seems to fail to understand what the difference between good evidence is and what any evidence is. The fact that the sky is blue is evidence for both evidence for it being caused by light refraction off of water and evidence for my neighborhood magician turning it blue before I was born; however, it is bad evidence for the later, because we have significant documentation of the sky being blue prior before even his birth. Similarly, the bible can be evidence for creation, but it is not good evidence because of conflicting data.

On my opponent's interpretation:

My opponent attempted to shift the burden of proof by saying I should demonstrate why certain passages should not be considered literal. I am expressing doubt by giving examples of others that do not consider it literal, though 'words conflicting with tests' might qualify. He defends his interpretation with an analogy, but calling a John "my father" still allows for him to be a father figure, and not literally a father. He supported his position on Yahweh in Round 2 using more scripture. He's still defending his interpretation of scripture with scripture. His evidence needs to be independently verifiable to be considered good. My opponent agrees with this, but never does it.

My opponent continues to defend the Bible by showing instances where the Bible was correct on things. My position has never wavered from the Bible getting some things right, only that it may have gotten Genesis I wrong. He never shows how Genesis I is supported by reality, even if other parts of the Bible get things right. If Genesis I cannot be defended, then it is unlikely that the Bible is completely true.

Lastly, my opponent claims a hardcover book on amazon shows that the Bible drives new archeological finds but doesn't explain how this connects to Genesis I.

On my opponent's summaries:

For Round 1, opponent claimed I supplied no supporting evidence showing that the Bible can be taken non-literally. I provided an example of a group taking Genesis I non-literally, Biologos. I also added a second example in Round 2, Catholicism. I find people taking the Bible non-literally as good evidence that it can be taken non-literally.

For Round 2, my opponent defended his position with scripture, and claims I never addressed it. I did, challenging that this new scripture might also be allegorical. He also criticizes me for accepting the Bible as a form of evidence, in conflict with my first round. I never stated that the Bible was not evidence, I only challenged its quality as evidence for Genesis I.

On Tiktaalik:

My opponent swings and misses here. My argument for conflicting timelines is not dependent specifically on evolutionary lineages, but the ages specific things were found to be. His cited fossil is found to live about 400mya. This is still significantly younger than the multi-billion year old moon, so my argument holds.

On The Minimum Viable Population:

I'll grant to my opponent that if Adam and Eve had 'perfect' genomes, Minimum Viable Population would not be a problem for them. There are still problems but I don't want to introduce new arguments.

In closing:

My opponent has defended Genesis I using scripture. Unfortunately, this is using the Bible to support the Bible. He never defends how his interpretations of new scripture are better than others, even if it is a different place in the bible. Further, his only his only independent verification was the use of the bible for archeological findings. We could never verify this as specific to using Genesis I (since other parts of the Bible might be true).

If this is what my opponent believes is the best evidence for Genesis I, then I feel I have sufficiently refuted his evidence as 'Good.' If this is his best evidence and his evidence does not qualify as good based on the agreed definition of 'good evidence', then it follows that any other evidence my opponent has is worse.

I'd like to take the time to thank the audience for reading and taking the time to vote, the moderators for correcting a double post that initially locked me out of Round 3, and my opponent for the debate.

If the judges find them to be in agreement that the arguments I presented show that my opponent's support for Genesis fails to qualify as 'Good' based on agreed terms, then I urge them to vote Con.

Supporting Evidence:

Initial Debate: https://www.debate.org/debates/Is-there-any-good-evidence-for-biblical-creationism/1/