HUGH ROSS, ICR, AND THE BIBLE
- IMPACT No. 217
February 1996
by James S. Stambaugh, M.L.S., M.Div.*
Many Christians have
been raising questions about the teachings of Dr. Hugh Ross, especially his
criticisms of the Institute for Creation Research and its advocacy of literal
Biblical creationism. Dr. Ross is the founder and president of an organization
called Reasons to Believe. Apparently, some are being told by him that
the only difference between the Biblical interpretations held by the two
organizations is the date for the creation of the universe and the Earth --the
date only. But in reality, this point is not a trivial point,
because this carries implications that affect other Biblical teaching, nor
is it the only difference. We trust that our readers are aware of ICR's literal Biblical interpretation regarding creation,
Noah's Flood, the origin of death through sin, etc. The need, then, is an
understanding of how Dr. Ross interprets these same doctrines. As the reader
sees what Dr. Ross believes, then he should be able to discern the wide
differences between the two teachings. I make occasional comments on Dr. Ross's
beliefs, but most of the following are direct quotations from Reasons to
Believe.
Days of Creation
Dr. Ross accepts the
idea that the days of Genesis 1 were not literal days, but were indeterminately
long periods of time. Dr. Ross notes:
The
Earth's 24-hour day (verses 14-18) took on temporal significance only when the
signs, the heavenly reference points (sun, moon, and stars), became visible.
There is no a priori reason to assume that the Earth's day and each of
God's creation days represent the same period of time....In the strictest
sense, a day is the rotation period of a heavenly body. In the time of Moses
people were familiar with only one such day. But, God had some 10^26 spinning
bodies in the universe from which to choose. Based on scientific dating
records, each of God's creation days is several hundred millions years long.[1]
To compare this
position to ICR's position, see my article, The
Meaning of `Day' in Genesis ("Impact" No. 184).
Noah's Flood
Dr. Ross and his Reasons
to Believe organization teach that the extent of the flood was only local,
around the Mesopotamian plain. They state:
Despite
this consideration, (that a worldwide flood would require more water than the
earth and the atmosphere can hold) the description of the flood does read as if
the water covered the entire globe. Perhaps, however, we are forgetting that
the writer would have had no concept of planet or globe. "The
whole earth" or "the face of the whole earth" to an ancient
might mean something like "from horizon to horizon," or, "as far
as anyone has ever ventured." The size and sphericity
of the earth are relatively recent discoveries.[2]
One of the reasons
that Dr. Ross believes in a local flood is that he believes only the birds and
mammals were killed. He says:
A
close examination of the text reveals that only two Hebrew words are used in
the Genesis flood account to refer to the animals destroyed by the flood, and
to those taken aboard the ark. The words are nephesh
and basar. The word nephesh
translates as "soulish" animals and refers
to those creatures endowed with characteristics of mind, will, and emotions,
creatures with a unique capacity to relate to humans. We call them mammals and
birds. It is their soulishness which makes them
particularly susceptible to the effects of man's sin. The word basar refers more specifically to those birds and
mammals that are part of man's economic system, that is, to livestock, poultry,
game animals, any birds or mammals that have had contact with man.[3]
Origin of Death and
Carnivorous Activity
Dr. Ross teaches that
man's spiritual death originated when Adam fell. Commenting on Romans 5:12, Dr.
Ross observes:
The
key point is that Romans 5:12 is addressing neither
physical nor soulish death. When Adam sinned, he
instantly "died," just as God said he would ("In the day that
you eat of it, you shall surely die" [Genesis 2:17]). Yet, he remained
alive physically and soulishly. He died spiritually.
He lost fellowship with God and gained a natural inclination to defy God.[4]
ICR agrees that
Adam's sin inaugurated spiritual death. However, Adam's sin (Romans 5:12-21,
8:18-25, I Corinthians 15:21-22) inaugurated more than just spiritual death.
Yet Dr. Ross teaches that Adam's sin had nothing at all to do with physical
death. He also relates human and animal meat eating to the natural order of
God's creation. Dr. Ross comments:
Since
overwhelming scientific evidence shows that plants and animals died before
Adam, the Bible seems to contradict the facts of nature. It is difficult for us
to see physical death as something good since a spiritual being's death implies
so much more than it does for plants and animals. All organisms are like
engines in that they only can operate through the consumption of energy. Plants
convert solar energies into sugars, starches and fats that they later draw upon
for life functions. But it is physically impossible for any photosynthetic
system to sustain the large energy expenditures common for advanced animals.
For these animals to engage in their activities, they must consume the stored
solar energy available in plant tissue. This requires the physical death of
that plant tissue. For greater energy efficiency, animals will need to consume
the tissue of other animals. Physical death, then, for creatures that possess
neither the soul or spirit is simply the processing of energy into more
concentrated forms and is essential for the existence of all highly active
animals.[5]
One might compare
this statement with my article entitled Death Before
Sin? ("Impact" No. 191), in which the relevant Biblical doctrines
are shown to contradict Ross's position, and in which plants, while alive in
the biological sense are not "living" in the Biblical sense, (which
requires "breath," "spirit," and "blood") and the
eating of plants does not constitute Biblical death.
Suffering and Evil
Many have denied
God's goodness and love by what they see in the world. In a recent radio
interview, Dr. Ross gave his view on the origin of suffering and evil in the
following dialogue:
Question: Let me ask you a really tough question, one that I
don't know the answer to. But death and suffering, and sorrow and pain were
introduced into this earth by Adam's and Eve's sin. So how could there have
been billions of years of animals eating each other, and the stronger devouring
the weaker and dominating the weaker, and so on? How could there have been all
of that suffering and pain prior to Adam's sin?
Ross: Well, I think we're putting a human perspective on it. It looks
bad, from our perspective - as does physical death.
But the Bible says that the physical death we experience is a gift, it's not a
punishment - it's a gift. That's one of the first things that God did was to
remove from us the tree of life. Now God is using physical death as a tool for
our redemption. Now when you talk about animals eating one another, we tend to
think of that as bad. But what does it tell us in Romans 5:12 - what Adam
introduced was not death generally, but death through sin. The only animals
that can experience death through sin are sinners, human beings. We're the only
ones that the Bible labels as sinners, the animals are not part of that. The
other animals, as Ecclesiastes points out, when they die, they go to dust....
So, I think, if we stand back and try to gain God's
perspective on the suffering, on the death, you know, just like eternal torment
in hell. That doesn't seem to jive with God's love. Yet the Bible declares that
that's an expression of God's love. That should challenge us, as we study the
Bible, I want to dig deeper in this, and see how love is revealed through
torment in hell, through animals and plants dying....[6]
Dr. Ross is saying,
then, that God created the world with death, pain, and suffering from the very
beginning, and that such things did not come as a result of Adam's rebellion
against God's created order.
Gospel According to
Creation
Dr. Ross teaches that
nature reveals God's plan of salvation to mankind. He sees Job as an example of
one who is saved by his examination of nature alone. Dr. Ross says:
The
Bible is the only religious text that teaches a cosmology in full agreement
with the latest astrophysical discoveries. The plan of salvation as stated in
the Bible can be seen through observation of the universe around us. Thus, all
human beings have a chance to discover it. The Bible is the only one of all
religious writings which declares a message in full agreement with (and, of
course, amplification of) the gospel message seen in creation....
More than speaking
merely of God's existence, the creation, according to Romans 1, also reveals
essential truths about God's character, which would include His desire and
means to form a relationship with man. As an illustration of the accessibility
of that information, the Bible includes Job (Job 7-19), who without the
aid of scriptures, and in opposition to the religion of his peers, discerned
all the elements of "the gospel," the good news of how man can find
eternal life in God.[7]
The teaching that the
natural man, with his unregenerate mind, can come to salvation, simply by
observing nature, places Dr. Ross outside the mainstream of evangelical
theology on this most important point.
Conclusion
We trust that our
readers will observe the wide differences between Reasons to Believe and
the Institute for Creation Research. These differences deal with the
interpretation of Scripture, and the theological implications of that
interpretation. This difference then directly affects our interpretation of the
scientific data. Dr. Ross claims to believe in the fundamental truths of
Christianity, but he is undermining the very integrity of the Bible itself,
which teaches these truths, when he rejects the clear teachings of Scripture on
the foundational doctrines of special creation in six solar days, the entrance
of suffering and death into the world through Adam's sin, and the global
cataclysmic flood - all in order to try to harmonize the Bible with the
discredited uniformitarian theories of the
evolutionary philosophers. This will all be discussed further in a future
"Impact" article.
-- References --
1. [1] Hugh Ross, Genesis
1: A Scientific Perspective, Revised Edition, Sierra
2. [2] Mal Scharer, "Readers Ask Q & A," Facts and
Faith, Vol. 3, Spring 1989, p. 4.
3. [3] Hugh Ross,
"Noah's Floating Zoo," Facts and Faith, Vol. 4, Fall 1990, pp.
4,5. During our debate (October 1990), Dr. Ross
referred to Gleason Archer as the source of his information. This would be
unusual, for Archer believes in a global flood. See Encyclopedia of Bible
Difficulties, pp. 82-84.
4. [4] Hugh Ross, Fingerprint
of God, Orange, California, Promise Publishing, 1989, pp. 154,155.
5. [5] Hugh Ross,
"90 Second Radio News Spot", Reasons to Believe
No. 48, 8th spot for February 1991.
6. [6] Focus on the
Family, April 18, 1991.
7. [7] Hugh Ross, Fingerprint
of God, pp. 179, 181. After our debate I called some of those who endorsed
this book. One admitted that he simply skimmed the book. I read for him the
above quotation. His response was: "This view is a danger to
evangelicalism."
*James Stambaugh,
Librarian, ICR Research Library