The Sneaky Origins of Millions of Years is Sneaky.

Robin Majorbanks had a comment about the below youtube video:

It’s a complete misconception that early earth-scientists conceived they were upsetting Biblical truth. In fact the point is that Christians, by and large, did *not* subscribe to the notion today of Young Earth Creationism — that is not a fundamental belief of the Church, at all.

YEC really began as 19th Century thought, making much of Ussher’s back-of-the-envelope calculations, and it was popularized by Seventh-Day Adventists through the 20th Century. It is not ancient Church thinking, it is man’s invention — in the sense of a new filtering of how to read text, and without much reference to how the Bible would have originally been understood, and without much authentic exegesis.

YEC is in fact a very product of ‘scientism’ — a perceived need to come up with science-sounding explanations to allow a personally-forced interpretation of Genesis. “The Genesis Flood” by theologian John C. Whitcomb and hydraulic engineer Henry M. Morris is a good example of the felt need for scientifically justifying a shallow non-seeker’s reading of Biblical truth, and it ends up in awful pseudo-science, that in no way exalts Biblical Creation.

I agree with him, but I think it is just a modernist form of concordism turned into a science-sounding explanation. But it is based on a theological presupposition. To get to that presupposition listen to the first part of the video.

What I see in the presentation is a pink elephant in the room: a theological presupposition:

Listening to the audio it seems to me he claims natural processes are not involved in geology. Instead geology is based on supernatural processes.

That is a 100% theological claim. And it rules out, or at least ignores the idea of God’s immanence, ie, God working through nature.

I say “rules out” because he is doing an exclusive-or contrast.

That is bad theology.

Please note: it is not just geology at issue. It is all the sciences.

There is no point debating science with YEC. The theological foundations are like shifting sand at their very root. The real debate is the YEC theological presupposition.

I was recently asked by YEC Chris Coatney if I believe God is supernatural. The answer is YES. But I also believe God is immanent. God is in nature and works through nature. So God is both. He is supernatural and he is immanent. God has multiple attributes. And Christianity has recognized this and taught this throughout it’s entire history. The YEC people ignore some of the attributes of God and focus on one attribute only. God’s supernatural attribute.

The YEC rule is this: God does not and can not work through nature. To do that God would have to be immanent.