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by Charlie Wolcott

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
~Matthew 7:24-27

Last week, I talked about how we build the houses of our lives and how we need to have it on a firm foundation. But once we have our foundation, how do we build? Little makes this aspect clearer than the Young Earth/Old Earth Creation debate. One of the greatest misconceptions among non-YEC folk is the very nature of what “creation science” is. I have never heard a non-YEC get it right. Creation science is not “science dealing with creation.” It is rather, “science based off a Creation worldview.” Let me use the foundation and home analogy Jesus used to get a deeper understanding.

To the Bible-believer, the Bible gives us the foundation for how we live our lives and how we view and use that at our disposal. It is the foundation upon which we build our ‘home.’ It is the framework we use to base everything else off. We understand science is a process, just one means of learning about the world around us. But we do so with the framework that what the Bible says is true. What we learn from Scripture is that God upholds the universe. That means we should expect to see uniformity of nature (this is a very different thing than uniformitarianism). Yes, we still consider miracles, but like in reading any document, the specific is always used to interpret the general case. The exception is precisely that: an exception. God did set up the laws of science that we have discovered to be consistent, but God is not bound to those laws because he is transcendent of the Creation.

We do not use miracles as a “We don’t know, therefore God.” Though that is often an accusation, that is not what we say. We do not use God as a gap-filler for that which science cannot explain, where if we were to figure out a natural explanation then God takes a back-seat. That is the “God of the gaps argument,” but that is not what we do. Even if a natural explanation is provided, we still recognize God as the one performing the act. What our arguments actually are (and yes we need to make it more clear) is “The worldview of naturalism cannot account for this, but our Biblical worldview can.” It is coming from a position of knowledge from a different paradigm rather than just one of “I have no idea how to explain this, so I’m just using God to fill the gap.”

As a Bible believer, God is still in the center of the stage. He is still the foundation of what I believe and why. Science is an awesome thing, but it is not foundational to who I am and what I believe. I use it, in part, to decorate the interior of my ‘house.’ If a particular model falls through, I won’t lose my ‘house’ over it.

But what about those who think both science and the Bible can be foundational? This is the Old Earth crowd in all their forms. Reality is this: the Bible is not their foundation. Jesus said you cannot serve two masters. You can attempt to mix your foundations but in reality, you are only going to use one thing for it. The Old Earther will claim to support both, but look at what they really do. They do not use Scripture for their foundation. They do not get their position from Scripture. They look at Scripture to back up their position. This is like putting the best material you have into your walls, but not your foundation. Any architect would tell you this is foolishness and Jesus says the same thing. Because in order to make this work, one must twist Scripture to make it look like it aligns with a philosophy that does not come from God.

One can easily quote Scripture to make it say whatever you want. One person I know is an angry person and he justifies his anger by saying “God is emotional, he gave us his emotions, and he can be angry, therefore I have a right to be angry.” Yet, in reality his argument is totally taken out of context. He does not consider that we can be angry but we must have a righteous anger and when we get angry we must be angry and not sin. He did not get this position from Scripture. He started with his position that he has a right to be angry and then looked for Scripture to back it up. So it is not just those in the origins debate. This can happen to anyone if they are not careful. Do we build our position from Scripture, or do we start with our position (whatever it may be) and look for whatever we can to back it up?

Let me wrap up by bringing us back to what Jesus said about the wise and foolish builder. Those who listen to and obey Jesus’ words are like a wise builder, building his house on a rock, a foundation that is not going to change and will withstand the storms of life. But the one who rejects his words is like a builder who builds his house on the sand, a broken down rock that constantly shifts with water and wind. Such a house will not stand and when it crumbles (when, not if) it will be sudden. Some are finding out that their house is not going to stand and they are getting out. Some think the crumbling is just an illusion or think that their house will stand and when the house falls, they will go down with it. The only house that will stand is one build upon Scripture. This is proven time and time again. The storms that have come against Christianity should have long destroyed it, yet it still remains. I will close with a quote from Josh McDowell in A Ready Defense that reveals that no matter what is thrown at us, the Bible is a foundation that will withstand it. Let us trust in its Words as they are backed by the Almighty One who will carry through what he said he’d do.
“The Bible has withstood vicious attacks of its enemies as no other book. Many have tried to burn it, ban it, and outlaw it from the days of Roman Emperors to present-day Communist-dominated countries. Voltair, the noted French infidel who died in 1778, said that in one hundred years from his time, Christianity would be swept from existence and passed into history. But what has happened? Voltair has passed into history, while the circulation of the Bible continues to increase in almost all parts of the world, carrying blessing wherever it goes. For example, the English cathedral in Zanzibar is built on the side of the old slave market, and the communion table stands on the very spot where the whipping post once stood! The world abounds with such instances as one has truly said. “We might as well put our shoulder into the burning wheel of the sun and try to stop it on is flaming course as attempt to stop the circulation of the Bible.”

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