2 Peter 3:1-7 - Implications for the Creation Debate

1Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. 2I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.
3First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." 5But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

This text is future oriented, teaching believers to be certain of Christ's second coming, even in the face of scoffers. However, Peter points to 2 events from the beginning of Genesis, linking their reality to the reality of the second coming. Those events are: the creation of the world by the mere word of God (He spoke it into existence and He did this by dividing the land from the waters, exactly as it is described in Genesis 1) and the destruction of the world by a global flood. It seems clear that Peter believed these events to be historical fact, interpreting Genesis as history and not fable or parable.

Peter also clearly is addressing an argument we now understand as a bedrock of Naturalism - that all things have gone on like they are now since the beginning (if there was one). This is known as Uniformitarianism. Peter tells us that those who deny that there will be a second coming of Christ, and the attendant resurrection and judgment, will also deny the creation and the flood. (Concepts remarkably like modern ideas of evolution existed in some Greek philosophy well before the time of Christ.) Interestingly, Darwin, in his On the Origin of Species, claimed that evolution would inexorably lead to a perfection of humankind that negates the need for Christ's second coming, and, in the same breath, he denies that any cataclysm like the biblical flood has ever occurred. This would also lead to a destruction of any meaningful understanding of Genesis.

"As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection." Charles Darwin, Origin, p459

Now, the second coming of Christ is an absolute necessity for Christian orthodoxy (and just for the faith to make any sense at all). If we reject His coming, what do we have left? Only an ethical rule for today, but certainly no hope of escape from the grave. (Or possibly some sort of heretical thought in which physical matter is considered evil and it is thought that believers will live on only in spirit after death. However, this has been rejected down through the ages and neglects the fact that man was always meant to live in a body - I'll deal with this issue of the nature of man in another post later.)

Also, if you think on it at all, you will easily see that Christ's second coming will eclipse by far these other two events (creation and flood) in enormity and effect on the world. So, if you hold to orthodoxy and believe in His coming again, what could keep you from believing in the Bible's testimony of these lesser events? It is inconsistent to believe in the one and not the other.

The First Air War, 1914-1918

Kennett, Lee B. The First Air War, 1914-1918. New York: Free Press, 1991. $20.

This book attempts to focus in on the aviation elements of the First World War. While acknowledging that the air war truly played a small role in the conflict (far less than that predicted by its pre-war proponents), Kennett argues successfully that the Great War was the birthplace of air power. This is true because of the technological and doctrinal developments that came fast and furious during the war. To illustrate, in 1914 aircraft were few and primarily used for observation (which remained their most successful use throughout the war), but by the Armistice the various powers all had large air forces of thousands of aircraft, which had specialized roles (such as: fighter, bomber, torpedo bomber, close air support, etc.) and the specialized aircraft models to fit.

It is easy, after reading this book, to trace the lines of development from these early aircraft to those of the Second World War and even today. This alone makes this book an important starting point in studying the militarization of the skies.

Is the book well written? Yes and no. Kennett has delved into most aspects of the air war in some detail and has given a very good general overview of the larger events. However, it is not written in an enthralling style at all. It is often overly factual and seems to lose much of the emotion involved in the subject. This may have been a conscious decision, in order to write free of the hero-worship and celebrity which pilots enjoyed at the time. However, one often misses the human elements because of that decision.

The Faith Given Once for All

Colson, Charles W., and Harold Fickett. The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and Why It Matters. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2008. $18.99

The Faith is an excellent, modern-day addendum to C.S. Lewis' famous Mere Christianity. Colson and Fickett have tried to steer clear of the divisive secondary issues that Christians often fight about and touch base with the core beliefs that make us Christian. In addition, this books is a call for Christians of all traditions to get back to those core doctrines, primarily so we can better be Christian bust also so we can work together because of this common ground.

I believe that the authors do a wonderful job of both informing the reader as to the bedrock doctrines of the Christian faith and challenging Christians to take the logical next step of engaging and transforming the culture. The powerful use of true stories of Christians, past and present, who have acted on their orthodoxy is one of the best aspects of this book. I do still think that Mere Christianity is the stronger book of this sort, but the modern language and style of The Faith make it a better tool for teaching younger believers and non-believers about what it truly is to be a Christian. This is an excellent book for college classrooms or small group studies.

Finally, this book is built on the premise that many so-called Christians do not know these fundamental doctrines or the implications that spring from them. From my own experience, I would have to agree that this is a dire problem in the church, which is part of why liberal, non-biblical concepts have come to be accepted in many mainline churches. If there is, as the New Testament books repeatedly suggest, a core Apostolic teaching about Jesus that must be held for a person to be a believer, then not knowing could easily cost many people for eternity. If the culture were not being horribly debased, this would still be a good enough reason to teach doctrine, but it is and this fast increases the need for Christians to live according to their beliefs.