In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

-          Genesis 1:1

April 15 of this month marked the 109th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.  In commemoration of the event, one of the YouTube channels I followed put out a multi-part series covering the events of the April 14 and 15 1912, the night of the sinking. 

One of the videos featured and interesting fact that I had heard about previously but had not appreciated its importance.  As part of the evacuation, Charles Lightoller, the Titanic’s second officer and senior surviving officer, opened the gangway door on D-Deck to help with the lowering of one of the lifeboats. As it turned out, the door was never used during the ship’s evacuation, and in the chaos, was forgotten and left open. This, as it turned out, was a significant oversight.

The D-Deck gangway door was about halfway up on the port (left) side of the ship and normally well above the waterline.  According to one article, it was the ‘front door’ for first class passengers boarding the ship.  But as Titanic settled, eventually the water made its way up to the door and started pouring in.  The way it was explained in the video, the area the gangway afforded to the advancing water was actually larger than the sum of area of the original punctures made by the iceberg on the starboard (right) side at the time of the collision.  With this additional route for water to enter the ship, the sinking of the Titanic rapidly accelerated.    

So just what does this bit of Titanic trivia have to do with today’s subject at hand, marriage?  I admit, the connection may not be immediately obvious, but hear me out.

The stated purpose of this series, going back to Part 1, is, “to apply the revealed history found in Genesis to the current moral, political, scientific and economic problems of our day, refuting the contemporary confusion and setting forth the mind of God on these issues.” 

This brings us to the subject of marriage. 

Back in the day, and we don’t have to go very far back for this, most Americans accepted the Biblical definition of marriage, whether they themselves were Christians. 

But all that has changed in recent years.  If recent polling is to be believed, a full seventy percent of Americans now support same-sex marriage.  As one measure of how things have changed, I recall that the State of Ohio amended its constitution in 2004 to specifically define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.  There was widespread public support for the amendment and the measure was adopted with little public outcry.  This was a mere seventeen years ago. 

The Ohio amendment and all other state-level prohibitions of same-sex marriage were overturned in 2015 by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, which originated right here in river city, my hometown of Cincinnati. 

To return to my earlier point about how the mistake of leaving the D-Deck gangway door open sped up the sinking of the Titanic, in like fashion, I believe, the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision sped up the sinking of the America’s ship of state, which already was well under way in 2015.  It’s not as if leaving the gangway door open is what sealed Titanic’s fate.  The ship was going to sink anyway based on the damage already done by the iceberg.  But leaving the door open sped things up.  The same with America.  American’s have been losing their liberties since the Progressive Era – I always thought it should be named the Regressive Era – so the process has been going on for well over a century at this point.  The loss of liberty was well underway even in 1912 when the Titanic sunk.  But the rate of our loss of liberty, almost imperceptible at first, has sped up greatly in recent years.  In my opinion, the Obergefell v. Hodges decision can be likened to the leaving open of the D-Deck gangway door.  We were well on our way to sinking before that, but same-sex marriage sped things up. 

I say this because it allowed evil to access new parts of our society that had remained untouched until that time.  Over the years, there was greater and greater acceptance of same-sex marriage, but the legal recognition of it has seemed to speed up, not only the rate of acceptance of same-sex marriage, but also other parts of the homosexual agenda such as the recognition of transgenders as the new Brahmins of  the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion movement. 

But despite what the wokesters would have you believe, there is a valid definition of marriage that is binding on all men and women for the very reason that it is God’s definition of marriage.  And God’s definition does not agree with the Supreme Court’s. 

What is Marriage?         

Genesis 2:24 gives us a definition of marriage with the words, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

Based on this and other verses, the Westminster Confession of Faith gives this definition of marriage, “Marriage is to be between one man and one woman.” 

As we can see, there’s no confusion at all as to the Bible’s definition of marriage, nor is it a thing hard to understand.  You don’t have to be at the level of a Martin Luther, John Calvin or Gordon Clark to get it.  And the Bible’s definition of marriage was so widely accepted even as recently as twenty years ago that, as noted above, Ohio was able to amend its Constitution to define marriage using the same words as the Westminster Confession.

Ohio’s decision and the decision of other states – Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee in this part of the country - to define marriage in a way that is consistent with the Scriptures is the very essence of good government.  But all this was preempted by the evil 2015 decision of the Supreme Court. 

Is Government Free to Define Marriage as It Sees Fit?

Now some may say that to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman is all well and good, but in the end, it’s only your opinion and you don’t have a right to impose your opinions on others.  Put a bit differently, some people like to argue that “you can’t legislate morality!” 

To which I would answer, the Christian definition of marriage is not an opinion, it is the Law of God.  And Christians have, not only the right to impose the Law of God upon the nation, but the duty to do so.  As to the objection that “you can’t legislate morality,” this is nonsense.  All criminal justice codes are, by definition, attempts to legislate, at least in the outward sense, morality.

Government is not free to define marriage as it sees fit for the simple reason that civil government is a creature of God.  The Apostle Paul asked the rhetorical question, “Does the thing formed say to him who formed it, why have your made me like this?” To which the obvious answer is, no, it does not.  And if civil government is a creature of God, and it is, then magistrates are not free to define terms as they see fit.  The Apostle Paul describes the civil magistrate as “God’s minister.” And if he’s God’s minister, his job is to carry out God’s will, which as a civil magistrate means punishing those who practice evil and rewarding the good.  And it is God who defines what is good and what is evil. 

When civil magistrates, and this includes Supreme Court justices, pass laws or give rulings that are contrary to the Law of God, they come under God’s judgment for calling good evil and evil good.

One way in which civil magistrates punish evil and reward the good is by enforcing just contracts.  Jesus gave an example of this in his Sermon on the Mount, where he told his hearers to agree quickly with those who are taking them to court, lest they be turned over to the magistrate for punishment. 

But what if the terms of a contract are unjust?  For example, we’ve probably all heard of cases where someone hired a “hit man” to murder someone for them.  In this case, the two parties agree to the terms of the contract, what is to be done the amount to be paid, but would the government be right to enforce such a contract if the hit man was not paid the agreed upon amount.  Of course not, for the simple reason that the terms of the contract themselves are immoral. 

For this same reason, the civil magistrate cannot recognize same-sex marriage or enforce the terms of such unions for at least two reasons.  First, there is no such thing as same-sex marriage, and civil magistrates are not free to redefine marriage to include such unions.  Second, because the terms of the same-sex marriage contract themselves are immoral. Not only do the Scriptures define what marriage is, they also explicitly condemn Sodomy.  It was expressly outlawed in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament we read that persons who practice it, as Paul makes clear to the Corinthians, “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” 

Calling Evil Good and Good Evil          

In Chapter 5 of Isaiah, the prophet pronounces woe on those who call “evil good and good evil.”  Even a cursory glance at the news should tell you that this is a common occurrence in our own day.  As the men of Judah in Isaiah’s day, Americans in the 21st century have “gone away backward.”  That is to say, not only have we as a nation gone wrong, we’ve gone 180 degrees wrong to the point where we think darkness is light and light is darkness and seek to punish anyone who says otherwise.    

We have, in short, lost our ability to discern good from evil. 

What accounts for this lack of discernment, the ability to make distinctions?  In his Trinity Review “The Church Irrational,” John Robbins tells us the fundamental answer is the will of God.  Men lack discernment because God causes them to lack it.  There’s an old saying Robbins quotes in “The Church Irrational” which reads, “Those whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.”  Translated into Christian terms, one can find this idea expressed several times in Scripture.  One such example is in Romans Chapter 1, where the Apostle, after calling the readers’ attention to the reasons for God’s revealing his wrath against all ungodliness, writes, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient (or “fitting” as the NKJV reads).”

In looking at the moral, economic and political landscape in which we live in America in the early 21st century, it is clear that God has given many of my fellow countrymen over to a reprobate or debased mind for their refusal to honor him to “retain God in their knowledge.”  The widespread acceptance of homosexuality, the successful demands to change the law to allow for same-sex marriage, and explosion of interest in transgenderism in our time are clear demonstration of the curse of God Paul wrote about in Romans.

As Christians we mut pray, in the first place, that God would grant us discernment that we also are not deceived.  “Don’t be deceived,” was a consistent injunction of both Jesus and Paul.  As modern day Americans, we are subject to perhaps the most sophisticated and powerful propaganda machine the world has ever seen in the form of the media, entertainment and educational complexes, all which have repeatedly shown themselves hostile to Christ and all that is called God.  We must pray for discernment.

We must also pray for courage.  Near the end of 1 Corinthians, Paul tells his readers, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.”  I always liked the King James translation of this verse, because it really does capture the sense of the Greek with the turn of phrase “quit you like men.”  The Greek verb translated by these words literally means “act like a man.”  It reminds me of Hugh Latimer’s heroic last words.  While the executioners were lighting the fires to burn him, he said to his fellow martyr Nicholas Ridley, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man.  We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England that as I trust shall never be put out.”   Who knows, maybe Latimer had Paul’s words in mind when he said this. 

Latimer’s courage, as great an example as it is of steadfast Christian faith, was not of him.  It was a gift of God.  And it is to the Lord we must look for the courage to fight the good fight of faith in these difficult days as well.    

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

-          Genesis 1:1

In his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis wrote, “The right to private property can only be considered a secondary natural right, derived from the principle of the universal destination of created goods.” 

Listed under the heading “Re-Envisaging The Social Role of Property,” Francis’ comments are not, as some of his more free market critics suppose, out of the mainstream of Roman Catholic economic thought.  Rather, the Pope’s attack on private property is simply a restatement of Rome’s long-held unchristian, erroneous, and socialist understanding of private property. 

To underscore Francis hostility to private property, we need look no further than the paragraph quoted at the top of this post, “The principle of the common use of created goods is the ‘first principle of the whole ethical and social order; it is a natural and inherent right that takes priority over others.’”  In Pope Francis view, collectivism is “ethical” while holding to the Bible’s view of private property, that it is lawful for a man to do what he wishes with his own things, is not. 

Contrary to Pope Francis, the common use of created goods, far from being the “first principle of the whole ethical and social order,” is a guarantor of poverty and tyranny.  One would think the many failed socialist states over the past 100 years, and the economic and political disasters suffered by those unfortunate enough to live in them, would make this clear.  But far from slowing them down, it’s almost as if the economic disasters suffered by the Soviet Union, Venezuela and a host of other nations embolden the socialists, including Pope Francis, to double down on calling evil good and good evil by pushing for more economic collectivism.     

In one of his lectures, John Robbins made the important point that systems of thought tend to go wrong from the g

very beginning. That is to say, systems of thought, in this case economic thought, tend to begin with faulty premises which then lead their adherents to faulty conclusions. 

This can be seen in the economic thinking of Pope Francis, who begins with the unbiblical notion of the “the principle of the universal destination of created goods” which in turn leads him to attack private property and capitalism – God’s economics – and to promote the form of coveting we know as socialism or collectivism. 

But while at least some Christians understand that capitalism is the economic system of the Bible, it may come as a surprise even to them that one must begin in Genesis to have a sound understanding of economics, specifically, the origin of private property. 

The Universal Destination of Goods   

In the first paragraph above, I quoted Pope Francis writing about the “universal destination of created goods.”  Unless you’ve previously studied Roman Catholic economic thought, this may be a new term for you.  As is often the case with new terms, it’s easy to read past them and instead focus on more familiar ideas.  But “the universal destination of created goods” – sometimes this same idea is expressed as “the universal destination of all goods” or simply “the universal destination of goods” – is the most important concept in Roman Catholic economic thought.  As such, it’s worth pausing here to discuss it.

In Ecclesiastical Megalomania, John Robbins wrote the following about the universal destination of goods,

The Thomistic notion of original communism – the denial that private property is part of the natural law, but that common property is both natural and divine – is foundational to all the Roman Catholic arguments for various forms of collectivism, from medieval feudalism and guild socialism to twentieth century fascism and liberation theology.  The popes refer to this original communism as the “universal destination of all goods” (38).

Robbins went on to note that the principle of the universal destination of goods is so important in Roman Catholic social thought that “all rights are to be subordinated to it.”  Robbins quotes Pope Paul VI writing, “All other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle [the universal destination of goods].”

This quote from Pope Paul VI, found in his 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio, exposes as false the contention that Pope Francis is somehow, of all the popes, uniquely anti-capitalist.  Responding to charges of Marxism stemming from his anti-capitalist 2013 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis denied the charge and added that, “there is nothing in the exhortation that cannot be found in the social doctrine of the church.”  In this case, Francis is telling the truth.  One can go a step further and say that there is nothing in Francis’ subsequent writing which cannot be found in the social teaching of the church.  This includes Francis’ statement about the fundamental importance of the principle of the universal destination of created goods from his encyclical Fratelli Tutti.  Far from being uniquely anti-capitalist, Pope Francis’ hatred of free markets and his love of collectivism puts him solidly within the tradition of Rome’s social teaching. 

Original Communism or Original Capitalism

Rome’s doctrine of the universal destination of goods, as important as it is in the Church-State’s system of social teaching, itself rests on a prior erroneous idea, that communism, not private property, was the original pre-fall economic order.

According to Rome, God gave the world to man collectively, not severally, to each man individually.  In his Trinity Review “Ronald Sider – Contra Deum,” John Robbins refutes this idea as expressed in the work of Ronald Sider, an ersatz Evangelical whose economic thought has more in common with the Popes of Rome than with the Bible.  Writes Robbins,

Sider would have us believe that when God put man on Earth, he gave the Earth to men corporately, not severally. Nowhere does he present any evidence for this idea. God, holding ultimate ownership of the Earth, gave it to men severally, not collectively. The argument for this may be found in the works of the seventeenth-century Christian thinker, Robert Filmer, of whom, presumably, Sider has heard. 

What Robbins is saying here is that contrary to the false teaching of Rome, the original economic order was one of private property, capitalism, not communism, that is to say, collective ownership. 

Since Robbins cites Robert Filmer, it is worth noting that Robbins’ 1973 doctoral dissertation from Johns Hopkins University is titled The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer.  With that in mind, let’s take a look at what Filmer had to say about the original, pre-fall property order. 

Wrote Filmer,

[F]or it is not possible for the wit of man to search out the first grounds or principles of government (which necessarily depend upon the original [origin] of property) except he know that at the creation one man alone was made, to whom the dominion of all things was given, and from whom all men derive their title (203-204, Patriarchy and Other Political Works, emphasis mine).

The idea here is that God, being the ultimate owner of all things, gave ownership of all the world to Adam, who parceled out his dominion to his sons, who did likewise for their descendants and so on and so forth.  Writes Robbins,

Filmer argues for private property in the state of innocence in the same way that he argues that paternal and regal power are one:  first, both power and property, which in effect are but different names for the same thing, were granted by God in Genesis.  Second, respect for both power and property is commanded in the moral law.  Just as obedience to governors is subsumed under the Fifth Commandment, so private property is established by the Eight Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” In a sense, Filmer is much more loyal to the Scriptural account than the Fathers, who posit a “natural” community of goods before the Fall, despite the fact that, as Filmer points out, this would make the law changeable.  All other commandments are acknowledged to be valid both before and after the Fall; indeed, the Patristic doctrine was that the Ten Commandments were given because of the perverting effect sin had had on the law written in the hearts of men, and were not an addition to the effaced innate law.  It is the divine law as revealed in the Ten Commandments which Filmer substitutes for the natural law regarding community of goods [the universal destination of goods] which the Fathers had evidently adopted from the Stoics (Robbins, The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer, 277).

As did Adam, so too did Noah who, as Robbins notes, “was more or less a second Adam,” dividing the world among his three sons after the flood.  

In summary, both Robert Filmer and John Robbins taught, and taught correctly, that the original economic system at the founding of the world was capitalism, not communism. 

The Pivotal Role of Genesis

As noted in Part 1, the goal of this series is to apply the lessons of Genesis to the many, serious, and seemingly insoluble problems America, and more broadly, the nations of the West, face in the early 21st century.  And one of the most important lessons we can learn from Genesis is that the original economic system of the world, before the Fall, was, contrary to general consensus of the church Fathers and the teaching of the Popes of Rome, one of original private property, not original communism. 

It is said that the worse fate than can befall and idea is not to be brilliantly attacked, but to be incompetently defended.  By tracing the private property order back to the foundation of the world, one can establish that capitalism is the economic expression of Christianity and thus and idea that can and must be defended against those who would push communism, fascism or any other economic system that attacks the institution of private property. 

But private property has suffered at the hands of incompetent defense.  John Locke, for example, believed in private property but struggled to account for it.  For example, in his Second Treatise on Civil Government Locke explicitly denied Filmer’s contention that all titles to private property originated in Adam and agreed with the church Fathers that God gave the world to mankind collectively.  As such, he had to find some way to get from collective ownership to individual ownership. Locke solved this problem by arguing that collective property became private property when men mixed their labor with it.  “Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property” (Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government, 288, Laslett, ed.). 

So for Locke, it is the mixing of one’s labor with property held in common that makes it one’s own.  But where, we may ask, does one get the permission to mix his labor with property held in common?  Would this not be stealing from the commons?  Locke cites no Scripture for his argument. 

This is not a competent defense of private property, but it is a very common notion among those who would seek to defend capitalism against the predations of the Popes and other socialists. 

Reprove, Correct, Instruct

In his second letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul wrote that all Scripture is God breathed and, “Profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”  This includes the good work of defending private property and limited government, what John Robbins called constitutional capitalism, “the economic and political consequent and counterpart of Christian theology.”

Whether it is the Antichrist Popes of Rome, a president, prime minister, or member of Congress, anyone who teaches a form of economics that undermines private property and seeks to use government to steal from one man in order to give to another, Christians have a moral obligation to rebuke, correct and instruct them in the truth of the Word of God. 

Economics is not an independent science.  It is a branch of theology. But, unfortunately, many Christians today are nearly as in the dark concerning what the Bible says about private property as unbelievers.  This needs to change.    

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

-          Genesis 1:1

“Words cannot express how I feel.”  Many of us have probably said this or something like it.  I know I have. 

But as common as it is to hear people say that words cannot express this or that, this is a mistake.  Words are entirely adequate to express all thoughts. 

One lesson in the adequacy of language is found right in Genesis 1, where we see God speak the heavens the earth and all that is in them into existence.  If words are adequate to bring about the creation of the universe, by implication words are certainly capable of expressing whatever occurs within the universe.  This seems like an obvious point, yet for those of us who live in the irrational and emotional 21st century, it’s a point that must be emphasized. 

And God said, Let there be light….

It was mentioned earlier in this series that the Westminster Shorter Catechism provides a brilliant definition of the work of creation.  Question 9 asks, “What is the work of creation?,” the answer being, “The work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” 

It was by the “word of his power” that God spoke the world into existence in Genesis.  That same expression “the word of his power” occurs in the New Testament, where the Author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is, at this very moment, “upholding all things by the word of his power.”  The term “the word of his power” sounds a bit unusual in English.  In his commentary on Hebrews, John Owen makes the point that one can change the order of the words from “the word of his power” to “the power of his word” with no difference in meaning.  Owen notes that one can even express the same idea by saying “his powerful word.”  Regardless of how one states the idea, in her Trinity Review “Linguistics and the Bible,” Marla Perkins Bevin noted that one implication of Genesis 1:1-3 is, “that what God says happens.”

Language, Neither Evolved nor Created

Most of us are familiar with the Darwinian explanation of the origin of the various forms of life we see.  Sometimes called “molecules to man” evolution, Darwinism posits that all life has evolved over billions of years through a process called natural selection.

But while Darwinism’s influence in biology is well known, less well known is its influence in other fields of study.  Modern linguistics – linguistics is the analysis of language – use Darwinist assumptions when discussing the origin of language.       

In Wikipedia’s entry “Origin of Language,” we read that famed linguist Noam Chomsky holds that language arose from a single chance mutation in one individual about 100,000 years ago, and that the language faculty was installed in perfect or near-perfect form.  It’s almost as if Chomsky is saying that the ability to use language was installed into a specific individual as one would install a program onto a computer.  In this respect, Chomsky is closer to the truth than some of his linguist colleagues who hold that language developed slowly over time from animal grunts and squeals. 

According to Bevin,

Language was not created and did not evolve from animal grunts or mews. God eternally has language as part of His rationality. Human beings have language because it is part of the image of God. Thus, God's use of language is an exemplar for human use of language, and it can be used to provide information about human language (“Linguistics and the Bible”).

Language is eternally part of God’s rationality, and men use language because by virtue of their rationality they are the image of God. Language is neither the result of evolution nor creation but precedes creation itself.  “When God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light, the word (and therefore the idea) chronologically and logically preceded the visible light. God's idea of light and God's language about light preceded visible light.”

The Origin of Different Languages

Just as the origin of language itself is an impenetrable mystery to those who deny the Word of God, so too is the origin of the multitude of languages that now, and for some time past, exist in the world.  That some languages are related to one another more closely than others is evident.  For example, there are many cognate words between English and German.  On the other hand, some languages have nothing in common, compare Chinese and English for one such example.

Where do all these languages come from?  As the Newsweek article “Why Are There So Many Different Languages in the World?” conceded, secular linguists struggle to answer this question.  “Why is it that humans speak so many languages?  And why are they so unevenly spread across the planet?,” asks the article.  As Newsweek puts it, “we have few clear answers to these fundamental questions about how humanity communicates.”

Now if the author of the Newsweek article had said, “I have few clear answers to these fundamental questions,” then this would have been a true statement.  But such is not the case for everyone.  For some of us know very well the origin of the multitude of languages that are spoken in the world.  But the establishment intellectuals of our day will not hear it. 

As with all other knowledge, Christians know the origin of the multitude of languages because it is, as all other knowledge, revealed to them in the Word of God.  In Genesis 11 we read God’s account of the origin of the multitude of language, that it was punishment for the disobedience of the men who built the Tower of Babel.     

Of course, if one were to present this argument in an academic setting, he would be immediately denounced as a quack and a fool and given the bum’s rush out of the ivory tower.  I remember one of my Latin professors in college dismissing the Tower of Babel preemptively before anyone even brought it up in class.  He was a brilliant man and gifted teacher, holding a Ph.D. from Cambridge.  But on this fundamental question about language, not only did he not know the truth, but he was actively hostile to it.

As Christians, we need not be embarrassed of the truth revealed to us in the Scriptures.  As Paul wrote, “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.”  There was a time in the West when arguing from the Scriptures was respected among academics.  Not anymore.  There’s probably no way to be dismissed faster by academe than by accepting the Bible as inerrant and true.  But then, that’s the world’s problem, not the Christian’s. 

Our Words Matter   

Somewhere in one of his lectures, I don’t have the reference handy, John Robbins made the point that people today tend to dismiss words as unimportant.  Indeed, they do.  One can see this in the way many politicians breath lies as easily as most of us breathe air, or in the crude insults some people wield so casually on social media platforms. 

But the Bible says our words, the words you and I use, matter in eternity.  This may seem shocking to some, focused as we are in our time on actions and material things rather than words.  But given that it was words that created the material things around us, and not material things that created words, it should come as no surprise that words matter to God. 

Said Jesus, “But I say to you that for every idle word that men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.  For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36-37).  Why is this?  Because our words show what we are in our hearts.  In another place Jesus said, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil.  For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks (Luke 6:45). Our words are revealers of who we are.  They show whether we are wise men or fools. Whether we are saved or lost. 

God prohibits lying and went so far as to list bearing false witness as one of the Ten Commandments.  Wrote Bevin,

God's abhorrence of lying makes sense because when God speaks, He describes or creates reality, and when people speak, God commands that human language should express the truth. God did not capriciously decide that human beings should not lie; He objects to lying because He is Truth itself, and His own use of language is truthful. If anyone fails to understand the pragmatics of first-words-then-things in Genesis 1, the significance of "Thus says the Lord" and God's abhorrence of lying might also be missed (“Linguistics”).

Jesus told his hearers that liars have the devil as their father.  “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.  He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44). 

Words matter.  It was words that God used to create the heavens and the earth.  It is our words, spoken and unspoken, by which we will be judged.  Let us take care to respect the power of words, both those of others and our own. 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

-          Genesis 1:1

On March 24, 2021, ABC News ran the headline “Rachel Levine confirmed by Senate, become highest ranking openly transgender official.“ 

It wasn’t many years ago that such a thing – the Senate confirmation of a transgendered person for high government office - would have been impossible.  But in 2021 America, Levine’s confirmation was inevitable. 

A month earlier, the conservative website Revolver ran an article correctly predicting Levine’s confirmation.  The piece stated that, “Rachel Levine’s imminent confirmation proves Transgenderism is America’s new state religion.   The article went on to note,

Fifty years ago, the cult of transgenderism didn’t even exist. Merely ten years ago, it was still so obscure most Americans knew nothing about it. But over the past decade, transgenderism has been accepted en masse by the centers of power in America, which are now imposing them on the whole country. The core parts of its doctrine are easy to list:

·         Physical sex and “gender identity” are completely unrelated to one another.

·         Being “cisgender” and “transgender” are equally ordinary.

·         Gender is “fluid” and there are far more genders than merely “male” and “female.” In fact, there may be infinite genders.

·         Gender roles are socially constructed, and there is no biological basis for behavioral differences between males and females.

·         Despite the above, a person can also innately know that they were assigned the “wrong” gender, even if this is based on their failure to conform to gender norms that are, supposedly, only social constructs.

·         A person can know he is transgender at any age. It is completely normal for teenagers, preteens, and even toddlers to become “transgender,” with potentially invasive treatments like puberty-blocking pills and even surgery.

·         A person has the right to choose their own pronouns, to demand that others “state their pronouns,” and to demand punishment when their pronouns are not respected.

·         Not only may a person change his name at any time, but it is “deadnaming” to use or even mention a prior name.

By this time, you may be wondering why, in a post about the Biblical account of the creation of man, I’m writing about transgenderism.  My reason for doing so stems from the stated purpose of this series.  As I wrote in Part 1, “It is my intention in this series to apply the revealed history found in Genesis to the current moral, political, scientific, and economic problems of our day, refuting the contemporary confusion and setting forth the mind of God on these issues.” 

Nowhere is the confusion of our age more evident than in the matter of transgenderism, and nowhere is the mind of God in more desperate need of application. 

Male and Female He Created Them

In Genesis 1:27 we read, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

This one verse goes a long way to clearing up our present-day transgender confusion.  In combination with other passages, it decisively refutes the transgender agenda which, as the Revolver article quoted above notes, has been accepted en masse by the centers of power in America, which are now imposing them on the whole country.”

For example, there is no hint that, “Physical sex and ‘gender identity’ are completely unrelated to one another.”  There are men and there are women.  In Genesis 2:7 we read, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”  Later in Genesis 2, we read, “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him an help meet for him…And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”

Someone may object at this point that the first core premise of transgenderism listed above – physical sex and “gender identity” are completely unrelated to one another – has not been refuted.  “After all,” they may argue, “the text speaks only of Adam and Eve’s physical sex, not their gender identity.”

Yes, that’s true.  But we’re not done yet.

Genesis 2:23-24 help to build the case against transgenderism.  There we read, “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

There is no hint whatsoever in this passage that the terms “man and woman” mean anything other than the standard definition of the terms.  Adam was physically a man and understood himself to be so.  Likewise, Eve was physically a woman and understood herself to be so. 

Further, in Deuteronomy 22:5 we read, “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.”

This knocks out the idea that “physical sex and ‘gender identity’ are completely unrelated to one another.”  Very clearly, they are related to one another, otherwise the prohibition of men dressing as women and women dressing as men would make no sense.  Trans women – trans woman is a biological male who identifies as a woman – are not women.  They are men who are deceiving themselves and others. 

In the New Testament, there are several passages that clearly condemn homosexuality and, by implication, also condemn transgenderism.  Of these passages, the one offering the clearest condemnation of transgenderism is 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.  Writes Paul, “Be not deceived:  neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind…shall inherit the kingdom of God.”  In place of the terms “effeminate” and “abusers of themselves with mankind,” the New King James Version uses “homosexuals” and “sodomites.” 

The Greek word translated as “effeminate” by the KJV and “homosexuals” by the NKJV is malakos, the basic meaning of which is soft or effeminate. This word can also be used to refer to passive male homosexuals, that is, those who submit to acts of homosexuality.  The NKJV provides “catamite” as an alternate translation of malakos.  Put another way, a malakos is someone who plays the female part in a male, same-sex relationship.  That is to say, the malakos is a man pretending to be a woman.  This is exactly what transgenderism is.  Such people, says Paul, “shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

These passages also eliminate the third point of transgenderism – gender is “fluid” and there are far more genders than merely “male” and “female.” In fact, there may be many genders.  For that matter, they eliminate all the basic tenants of transgenderism, including the bizarre pronouns that have been invented by transgender advocates to avoid the use of standard male and female ones.   

The Scriptures teach that there are two sexes, male and female.  The notion that there is a thing called “gender” which is divorced from one’s physical sex is unknown in the word of God.  Because of sin, many confused people behave in ways that are sexually deviant and the Bible lists these out in some detail.  Among the deviant sexual behaviors listed in the Bible are: adultery, fornication, homosexuality, crossdressing, bestiality and incest. But simply because some confused people make claims about their gender, this in no way obligates Christians to believe them. 

Hated by the World, Rewarded by God

As Christians, we are told to test all things and hold fast what is good.  The standard for Christian testing is, and always has been, the 66 books of the Bible, the revealed, infallible, and inerrant Word of God.  And these 66 books deny every one of the claims of the transgender advocates. 

In our own time, the world appears to be spiraling into madness of the sort that we seen occur from time to time in history.  This is a dangerous time for Christians, as the man who holds to a Biblical understanding of men, women and marriage is bound to run headlong into the evil agenda that is being imposed upon society from above.  As the Revolver article noted, the tenants of transgenderism have, “been accepted en masse by the centers of power in America which are now imposing them on the whole country.”  And what is happening in America is happening throughout the formerly Christian West. 

But as Christians, we are called to be salt and light in this dark and dying world.  We do not have the option to ignore sin.  We do not have the right to call good evil and evil good.  We do not have the choice of remaining silent.  But condemning sin is only part of the job of being salt and light.  We also have the Gospel, the good news, of Jesus Christ to declare.  Through faith in him, sinful men and women can have their sins forgiven.  They can have their debased mind removed and a sound mind restored to them, much as the Gadarene demoniac.  Luke 8:26-39 records how Jesus cleansed this madman – Luke records for us that he wore no clothes and lived among the tombs - of demons.  When the men of the city heard what had happened and came to see for themselves, Luke tell us that they, “found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind” (emphasis added).  You and I live in a civilization that is losing its mind.  But we have the cure.  By God’s grace, some will listen.  As Paul noted in his epistle to the Corinthians cited above, “such were some of you.”    

But as the Scriptures also make clear, Christians will not always receive a warm reception when preaching the Law and the Gospel.  The world is going to hate us.  Jesus promised this would happen.  We can count on it.  “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.  If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.  Remember the word that I said to you, The servant is not greater than his lord.  If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you (John 15:18-20).  

But Jesus said this as well, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12).

But whether we as Christians are heard or hated, let us be found faithful to our calling.  For as Jesus himself said, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:  Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever  I have commanded you:  and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

-          Genesis 1:1

“The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.”  Thus reads Chapter 1, Section 4 of The Westminster Confession of Faith. 

Last week it was mentioned that it would be both foolish and impious of me to attempt to prove that the 66 books of the Bible are the infallible and inerrant Word of God.  The foolishness of this project, as you may recall, was found in the axiomatic position the Bible plays in the Christian system of thought. 

An axiom is a first principle, an unproven and unprovable first principle.  The reason an axiom is unproven and unprovable lies in the very definition of the term “axiom” itself.  If one were to prove a first principle, then it would no longer be a first principle.  Whatever argument used to prove the axiom would take the original axiom’s place as the new first principle.  

Some Christians may be concerned by the assertion that we do not prove the axiom of Christianity – The Bible Alone is the Word of God – supposing that somehow this puts Christianity on a shaky footing.  But this concern can be assuaged by remembering that all systems of thought – and this includes all secular systems of thought of the sort the world delights to throw at Christians – have their axioms.  In this case, the Christian with his axiom is no worse off than the secular scientist or philosopher with his axioms.  The Christian begins his thinking in one place, the 66 books of the Bible.  On the other hand, the scientist begins his thinking in another place, perhaps on the axiom of the general reliability of the senses.

In addition to it being foolish to attempt to prove that the Bible is the infallible and inerrant Word of God, it was also mentioned that it would be impious to do so.  “Impious” is not a term we use often, so perhaps a definition is in order.  Merriam Webster defies it as irreverent or profane.  The notion that the fallible words of sinful man are better testimony of the truth than God’s Word itself is the very definition of impiety.  

The Westminster Confession citation above refers to several passages from Scripture to supports its claims.   

-          1 Peter 1:19, 21 And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

-          2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

-          1 John 5:9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.

It was Augustine who famously wrote, “For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that you may understand” (Tractate 29 on John 7:14-18).  In this statement, Augustine shows himself a Scripturalist.  He attempts not to prove the Bible is the Word of God, but accepts it as true – that is, he accepts the Bible as his axiom - and his understanding of God and his works follows from this.

With all this said, let us turn to the subject at hand, which is Genesis as history.

Genesis as History  

Accepting that Genesis is history – all of Genesis is, of course, history; but in our study the special emphasis is on Genesis chapters 1-11 – is fundamental to a correct understanding of the whole of Scripture.    

The stance of this author on the doctrine of creation is that Genesis 1 teaches, and teaches clearly, that the Lord created all things of nothing by speaking them into existence in the space of six literal, 24-hour days, and that the creation was all very good.

Among Christians, this was doctrine was not seriously challenged, “until,” as Gary Crampton noted in his Trinity Review “The Days of Creation,” “the late 18th and early 19th centuries with the onslaught of evolutionary thinking.” 

In reading the works of the Reformers of the 16th century and the Puritans, one will find, as far as this author is aware, no hint of a question about the historicity of the events recorded in Genesis 1-11.

In his Annals of the World published in 1650, James Ussher began by writing, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. {Ge 1:1} The beginning of time, according to our chronology, happened at the start of the evening preceding the 23rd day of October (on the Julian calendar), 4004 BC or 710 JP [Julian Period]…On the first day {Ge 1:1-5} of the world (Sunday, October 23), God created the highest heaven and the angels.” 

It may be that Ussher is right about the day on which the world was created.  But whether he is right about this or not, this is not the main reason I quote this passage from his book.  The reason I cite it is to illustrate the point that Ussher, as was typical of those in his day, accepted without question that Genesis teaches not only that God created the world in six, literal 24-hour days, but also the closely connected point that the earth itself is about 6,000 years old.  Note that Ussher gives 4004 BC as the year of creation. 

Above it was mentioned that the doctrine of creation out of nothing, in the space of six, literal 24-hour days, and all very good, was, as far as this author is aware, the universal, or near universal testimony of the church until the about 200 years ago.  With that said, it’s worth noting that there were some in the days of John Calvin who did not accept this teaching.  This may come as a surprise to some, but the challenge to the doctrine of creation in six 24-hour days made the opposite error of today’s scientists or theistic evolutionists.  In the 21st century, we’re used to hearing theologians attempt to square the Bible with modern science by coming up with various schemes to reinterpret the creation account in Genesis to accommodate long periods of time.   For example, the day-age theory posits that the days of Genesis 1 are long periods of time, perhaps millions or billions of years. 

But those who went astray in John Calvin’s time did not do so with the day-age theory.  No.  They made the opposite error.  Instead of making the days of Genesis into millions/billions of years, they erred by claiming that God created the whole world in an instant! Writes Calvin,

Here the error of those is manifestly refuted, who maintain that the world was made in a moment.  For it is too violent a cavil to contend that Moses distributes the work which God perfected at once into six days, for the mere purpose of conveying instruction (Commentaries, Genesis).

In reading Calvin’s remarks, I am reminded of a colorful quote, often attributed to Martin Luther, which reads, “History is like a drunk man on a horse.  No sooner does he fall off on the left side, does he mount again and fall off on the right.”  Modern scholars fall on the horse on one side by positing millions or billions of years in the place of the days of Genesis, while 500 years ago scholars fell off the horse on the other by claiming that God created the world in a moment. 

Both groups are wrong.  For both have failed in their duty of taking God at his word. 

The Westminster divines, on the other hand, got it right.  In their words, “The work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

-          Genesis 1:1

“The work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” That’s the answer the Westminster Shorter Catechism gives to the question, “What is the work of creation?’ 

It’s one of my favorite question and answer sets from the Shorter Catechism, for the same reason as the passage in Genesis on which it is based is one of my favorite passages of Scripture: it captures elegantly, and in a few words, the astonishing work of the creation of all things.

In the introduction to his commentary on Genesis, John Gill wrote,  “In the Syriac and Arabic versions, the title of this book is "The Book of the Creation", because it begins with an account of the creation of all things; and is such an account, and so good an one, as is not to be met with anywhere else.”

Genesis is, as Gill implies in the quote above, not the only account of creation from the ancient world. The Greeks had a creation mythology, as did the Babylonians and numerous other cultures. 

But creation mythology is not limited to the ancient world.  In modern times, we have our own mythological creation account known as the Big Bang.  This account, just like the ones from the ancient world, is a garbled version of the true account of the creation of the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them as set forth in Genesis chapter 1.     

At this point, some may ask how it is I can prove that the Biblical account of creation is true and that the others are mythological and false.  The short answer to this question is that the creation account given in Genesis is part of the inerrant, infallible, 66 books that comprise the revealed Word of God.

If you ask me to prove that the 66 books of the Bible are the revealed Word of God, my answer is that not only can I not prove to you that the 66 books of the Bible are the inerrant and revealed Word of God, but also that it would be impious for me to even attempt to do so.    

Now before you think I’ve thrown in the intellectual towel and am simply trying to dodge a serious question about why I believe what I believe, let me explain this a bit further. 

The reason that I cannot and will not attempt to prove that “the Bible alone is the Word of God” is that this is the axiom of Christianity.  It would be both foolish and impious of me to attempt to prove the axiom of Christianity. 

Why would this be foolish?

Because trying to prove an axiom is absurd.  The reason it’s absurd lies in the definition of the term “axiom.” 

In his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster defined “axiom” as, “a principle received without new proof.”  Therefore, if one proves an axiom is true, it is no longer an axiom.

Another way of thinking about the axioms is to understand them as a first principle in a system of thought.  Christianity is a system of thought.  Platonism and Aristotelianism are systems of thought.  Darwinism is a system of thought.  All systems of thought, whether Christian or pagan, have one thing in common.  They all have a beginning point, a first principle.  As John Robbins once put it in an email to this author, all thinking must begin somewhere.  The proposition that stands first in a system of thought is called an axiom.  It is a first principle.     

This may seem like an obvious point, but one of the most important things to remember about first principles is that they are, by definition, first.  If a first principle could be proven, it would no longer be a first principle.  The proof of the original axiom would then become the new first principle.

Gordon Clark well understood the necessity of unproven and unprovable first principles, writing about them in God’s Hammer,

Christianity is often repudiated on the ground that it is circular: The Bible is authoritative because the Bible authoritatively says so.  But this objection applies no more to Christianity than to any philosophic system or even to geometry.  Every system of organized propositions depends of necessity on some indemonstrable premises, and every system must make an attempt to explain how these primary premises come to be accepted.

The axiom of Christianity is, “the Bible alone is the Word of God.”  As Christians, we begin all our thinking with this proposition.    

As Clark indicated in the quote above, this leads us to another important question for Christians, why do we accept the premise that the Bible alone is the Word of God?  There are, after all, other texts that many people believe hold divine authority.  The Koran is one such example.  There are others.  The pronouncements of modern-day scientists hold much the same authority in the minds of many people in our time.  Think about the how the climate change advocates present their case.  “The science is settled,” they frequently tell us.  If you don’t agree, you’re a “science denier,” a 21st century version of a heretic.  

If you were to ask me why I believe the account of creation as set forth in Genesis – and just to be clear, when I say that I believe the account in Genesis, I do not mean this in some qualified way, such as those who advocate theistic evolution or some other scheme that denies what the Word of God plainly teaches; I believe it in the common sense that it was understood by Christians before the age of Darwinism; that is to say, I believe that God spoke the universe into existence out of nothing, in the space of six literal twenty-four hour days, and all very good -  I could provide several subordinate reasons.

One I’ve already given above.  The account of creation found in Genesis is astonishingly well written.  It is at once simple enough for a child to grasp, yet profound in its implications such that Job was reduced to silence when the Lord questioned him, asking, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”    

A second argument I could give for believing what the Bible teaches about creation is that it fits remarkably well with the rest of the Scriptures.  Above it was mentioned that Christianity is a system of thought.  This is an important point in the thought of both Gordon Clark and John Robbins.  Christianity is not, as some seem to think in our own time, a grab bag of ideas all thrown together in a heap.  Christianity is a logical system of thought.

Because Christianity is a system of thought, denying the account of creation as set forth in Genesis necessarily calls into question other Biblical doctrines which depend on a proper understanding of Genesis. For example, if we disbelieve Genesis, we call into question God’s character.  In essence, we’re calling him a liar and saying to him that he really didn’t do the things he said he did.  And if God lied to us about his work of creation, why would we trust him in other matters?     

When we say that the various parts of the Bible fit together into a nicely consistent whole, and that this is proof that it is the Word of God, we’re using what is called the coherence theory of truth.  That is to say, a system of thought is true because its various parts fit together much as a jigsaw puzzle does.  The Westminster Confession calls this the “consent of all the parts” in Chapter 1.VI. 

The two reasons I’ve laid out here for why I believe the 66 books of the Bible, including Genesis chapter 1, are true are, I think, good reasons.  But they are not in themselves conclusive. 

Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church-State did not find such arguments conclusive at the time of the Reformation, nor does it now.  According to Gordon Clark,

At the time of the Reformation when Luther and Calvin appealed to the Scriptures, the Roman Church argued that it and it alone accredited the Scriptures, and that therefore the Protestants could not legitimately use the Scriptures without first submitting to Rome.  People were supposed to accept God’s Word only on the authority of the church (God’s Hammer, 16). 

But if the majesty of the style of Scripture – for example the remarkable literary skill already mentioned that one finds in Genesis – or the way the doctrines of the Bible fit together so well despite the many authors, circumstances and even languages in which it was written are not conclusive reason for believing the Bible is the Word of God.  What is? 

Clark answers,

Against this claim [that the Church-State’s authority was needed to authenticate the Scriptures] the reformers developed the doctrine of the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The belief that the Bible is the Word of God, so they taught, is neither the result of a papal pronouncement nor a conclusion inferred from prior premises; it is a belief which the holy Spirit himself produces in our minds (16).

Or as the Westminster Confession puts it,

Our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth [of Scripture] and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

That is to say, saving faith, which consists of both understanding and consenting to the doctrines of Scripture, is a gift of God, is produced by of the God the Holy Spirit regenerating our hearts. 

Why do Christians accept what the Bible teaches about creation in Genesis 1 and reject the accounts of the ancient creation myths, the secular philosophers, and the modern Darwinists?  Because God the Holy Spirit has caused them to believe the Bible and to reject other truth claims. 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

-          Genesis 1:1

“Republicans and Evangelicals are stupid.”  So proclaimed a work colleague of mine one day, seemingly out of the blue. 

Since I fell into both groups and was a bit curious as to what prompted his outburst, I asked him, “Why do you say that?” 

My colleague pointed me to an article he was reading in a newspaper he had brought with him – yes this was way back in 2007 before everyone had smartphones and still read physical newspapers.  The article was about the opening of the Creation Museum here in the Cincinnati area.    

Having lived in Cincinnati, I was well aware of the Creation Museum project.  Several years in the making, the museum had garnered extensive press coverage both locally and nationally.  Most of it was negative.  Denunciations galore poured forth from various mainstream news organizations about the mass enstupification of the of the American public that was nigh upon our doorstep because of museum’s opening. 

One example of that hostility is a Los Angeles Times editorial from May 24, 2007 title “Yabba-dabba science,” which, as you may gather from the title, makes great fun of the Creation Museum, likening it to an episode of “The Flintstones.”   

Apparently, my work colleague bought the propaganda.

Science, we are told by the L.A. Times and other voices of “reason,” is all about hard facts and logic.  All which, we are confidently told, militate against any possibility that the earth is a mere 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs and men walked the terra firma at the same time.     

But is science so-called really the arbiter of truth?  Think about just the past year and all the contradictory science we’ve heard.  Some of the most blatantly contradictory statements have come from the same supposed scientific experts.  For example, in a March 2020 interview with 60 Minutes, Dr. Anthony Fauci said,

Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks….there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is, and often there are unintended consequences – people keep fiddling with the masks and they’re touching their face.

Now, this same Dr. Fauci is out there saying that we may have to wear masks until 2022.  And not only that, he’s stated on the record that double-masking makes “common sense”!  And all this despite a great deal of scientific evidence that mask mandates do nothing to slow the spread of Covid. 

Clearly, Dr. Fauci has contradicted himself.  In fact, his statements often seem to be driven by some hidden political agenda rather than the scientific facts at hand.  Yet we are told that he is a coolly rational scientific mind and that anyone who doubts him is, in the words of Joe Biden, a Neanderthal.  

Or take the matter of the uber trendy cause of Transgenderism.  Facebook offers members a palette of 58 gender options.  Fifty-eight!  Supporters of transgenderism are often the same people who loudly announce their love of science and are quick to denigrate those who disagree with them as “science deniers.” Yet it is the progressives themselves who are the science deniers.   

If we consider the most up-to-date scientific opinion, the most reasonable conclusion is that there are only two sexes, and that the notion that there can be 58 genders is an absurdity.  Yet, the transgender folks will argue that one’s gender identity is not tied to one’s biological sex, and that a biological man really can reasonably identify as a woman and a biological woman really can identify as a man.  And yet, even if a man successfully “transitions” to a woman, every cell in his body is still genetically coded as male, with a both an X and a Y chromosome.  This seems like a hard case of science denialism on the part of transgender activists, but it’s rare for anyone to point this out. 

As Christians, we don’t rest our argument that there are only two sexes, male and female, on the findings of geneticists.  We believe this, because it’s revealed in the Word of God.  But it is interesting that today’s ideologically confused progressives will, on the one hand, lecture Christians about their supposed “science denialism,” while on the other hand, denying the science they claim to love so they can indulge their transgender fantasies.  

The Reason for This Series

I think of this series on Genesis as an example of root cause analysis. 

When I was in business school a few years back, they brought in a couple of speakers from Toyota to talk about the Toyota Production System (TPS).  Toyota, of course, is famous the world over for producing consistently high-quality cars are reasonable prices. 

One of the secrets of TPS is what the speakers called root cause analysis.  That is, to really address a quality problem in the manufacturing process, it’s necessary to determine the root cause of the problem.  There’s always a temptation to fix things ad hoc.  But if you really want to permanently solve a recurring quality issue, you have to pursue the problem to find its source.  Once you’ve traced the problem back to its source, you can then fix whatever the issue is.  Doing this will correct the downstream quality problems. 

It is my conviction that moral, political, and economic confusion we face in the 21st century is that we, like the me of Judah in Isaiah’s time, have turned away backwards from the revealed truth of God.  Even many Christians confused about these things.  And the root of much of this confusion is that they are confused about Genesis.  Either they have never been explicitly taught Genesis as history or have been instructed by modern misinterpretations of the book that present it as something other than what it is, history. 

Genesis – and by Genesis, I’m referring to the whole book, including the first eleven chapters - is not myth.  It is not metaphor.  It is history revealed to us by God himself. 

It is my intention in this series to apply the revealed history found in Genesis to the current moral, political, scientific, and economic problems of our day, refuting the contemporary confusion and setting forth the mind of God on these issues. 

The Scope of This Series    

It is my intention to focus on the first eleven chapters of Genesis in this series.  Not because the remaining chapters are not worthwhile studying, but in an effort to limit the length of this study to something manageable. 

A second reason for focusing on the first eleven chapters is that in them are found the origins of, and the answers to, many of the most vexing problems we face here in the early 21st century. 

A third reason for focusing on Genesis 1-11 is that these are the chapters that are the most controversial and the ones most likely to be explained away, even by professing Christians.  Genesis, we are told by many serious Bible scholars, really doesn’t require that we believe the world was created in 6 literal twenty-four-hour periods.  This is foolishness.  Very clearly, that is exactly what Genesis teaches.  And if we deny this.  If we soft peddle this.  We’re falling into the trap that Eve fell into when the serpent tempted her by asking, “Yea, hath God said?” 

God indeed hath said! He has revealed to us the creation of the universe, and of all things in it, including man himself.  As the Shorter Catechism puts it, "God's work or creation is his making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six [literal 24 hour] days, and all very good."

A fourth reason for focusing on the first eleven chapters of Genesis is that they are absolutely fascinating.  If we take God at his word and understand these chapters as history, we become the wisest people on the face of the earth.  As the psalmist wrote, “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.”  The smartest scientists strain and yearn to understand the origin of the universe.  But in the end, the most they can say is this or that may be true, but we can’t know for sure.  But you and I can know for sure.  For while science never can furnish us with knowledge, the Christian understands knowledge is a gift of God, freely given to those who trust in him. 

One last item regarding scope.  It is not my intention that this series exhaust all important implications of Genesis chapters 1-11.  Such is the depth of the Word of God that, I suppose, a lifetime of dedicated study would not exhaust everything from even a small portion of Scripture.  With that said, it is my prayer that in this series I can bring to the surface at least a few of the treasures found in this portion of Scripture and to impart them to my readers.