We have been dealing with Luke Nix' response to Ken Ham in his debate with Jeff Zweerink on Unbelievable, and we have been responding to him accordingly. Luke Nix had maintained throughout the course of an article, 20 Myths About Old Earth Creationism, that Ken Ham had strawman Zweerink and other old-earth creationists (OECs) on a debate on Unbelievable which can be viewed here. So, far Nix's "myths", which read more like objections than they do strawman arguments that Ken Ham had allegedly made. So far none of Nix's arguments had panned out. We have gone over 15 of these responses by Nix, which he, consistently, misrepresented the young-earth creationists (YECs) position. Today, we are going to be covering the last five of these responses. As I said on the last post, given his previous responses I don't have high hopes for these, but let's find out how he does on his last five responses to Ken Ham and other YEC arguments.
As always, Nix's response is in red, mine are in blue. I have placed each point of the "Myths" he posted in all caps and boldfaced to distinguish them from our responses. I won't be dealing with every word that he said in his article or with every link he mentions. My main goal is to primarily deal with the arguments that he presents.
MYTH #16: ALLOWING NATURE TO INTERPRET SCRIPTURE UNDERMINES THE AUTHORITY OF GOD'S WORD.
Nix: If it is not clear from the previous fifteen myths that this myth, too, is false, then allow me to offer these additional points. First, if Christians who affirm OEC did not believe that God’s Word was both true and authoritative, they would not bother with trying to find the correct interpretation. Nobody looks at a work of fiction (on a page or on-screen) and attempts to reconcile its claims with the real world. We simply do not do that for stories that we believe are false and have no moral authority over our lives. The very fact that Christians take so much time to dig into biblical and scientific scholarship (the “solid food” of 1 Corinthians 3:2) to find the correct understanding (what the author and Author intended to communicate to their respective audiences) demonstrates their respect, belief, and submission to the content of Scripture.
Second, the only thing that is undermined by deeper scholarship is falsehood. Unlike God, man is not infallible, so his interpretations can be incorrect. It is through deeper scholarship that these incorrect interpretations are discovered and can be rejected. While it is important to study God’s Word to discover the range of possible interpretations that are compatible with an inerrant (and reliably transmitted) text, it would be irresponsible of us to neglect God’s actions (His creation) to rule out possible interpretations or even positively identify the correct interpretation. To refuse to conduct such a study and submit ourselves to God’s actions (as well as God’s Word), and even encourage others not to as well, is to affirm one’s own infallibility- something that no humble Christian should do, even implicitly. This is not to say that deeper scholarship will always lead to what is true (many scholars hold many different views about origins, many of them are mutually exclusive), but the more knowledge we have from the sources of truth that God has given us, the more information we have to reason with and come nearer to the correct view in the details.
Brian: The first thing you noticed if you've been keeping up with the last three responses I've done is that Nix likes elephant hurtling these objections at us. In doing so, he takes the same objections, split it up into multiple objections, rewords it, and then sends it back out as if he's dealing with a separate "myth" rather than the same objection. This is what he did with this response as well. His title is another reification fallacy sense "nature" is abstract, and cannot interpret anything. Nature does not have personhood. A person can interpret nature, but their interpretation will be subjective.
His first statement in his first paragraph had assumed that he has demonstrated what he was claiming the last fifteen times. However, his presumption was premature. He has not demonstrate anything thus far in any of his last fifteen responses. We saw as he straw-manned Ken Ham's arguments, elephant hurtle his objections, conflated categories, misrepresented our position, made false allegations, misinterpreted and misapplied Scripture, and much more. So far, his responses haven't been very satisfying.
Next, Nix throws out a series of points which he thinks demonstrates an OEC not undermining God's Word by using their subjective interpretations of nature. Let's review each of these points in turn. 1) His first point here appears to be a strawman of us. He thinks by claiming the word "undermine" we mean that he is intentionally trying to dishonor God's Word, but no one thinks they are doing it on purpose. When we say "undermining" we mean the person in question is questioning or challenging what God has said explicitly in His Word. I also think his reply has another flaw in it. OECs try to reinterpret the Bible to fit the big-bang model because this model disagrees with the Bible from everything from the order of the events to the timescale, so OECs are forced to reinterpret the Scriptures accordingly. Sure, as we've seen, they will tweak the big-bang model a bit to allow for a theistic interpretation, but it is the Bible that gets tweaked the most.
He brings up 1 Cor. 3:2 again, which we've already dealt with and established that he took the passages out of context (see Part 3 of my response to Nix). Since OECs don't attempt to find the "correct meaning" anyhow, instead only to come up with the meaning that's best suited for the big-bang model. Besides, most OECs won't even touch the Genesis issue. In fact, they get upset with us because we make too much of a "big deal" out of it.
2) His second point is used to reiterate his strawman of our position from earlier, thinking that we're against scholarship. However, what Nix is calling "deeper scholarship" isn't scholarship, but whether the opinions of secular scientists which are being taken as infallible, and it has become Nix's way of justifying his continuous appeals to authority. Nix argues that, "Unlike God, man is not infallible, so his interpretations can be incorrect. It is through deeper scholarship that these incorrect interpretations are discovered and can be rejected." This is a self-refuting argument. He admits that Man, unlike God, is fallible, but then assumes the infallibility of scholarship, which is made up of fallible, fallen human beings!
He continues from that point claiming that one should use "God's actions" which he says is Creation to rule out possible interpretations. Nix, has he had before, is confusing natural revelation with special revelation and propositional statements with what can be revealed through Creation. Propositional statements are truth statements about reality that are either written or spoken. Nature and Creation in general are neither of these. It is true that certain information can be ascertained from Creation, but that information is very limited and cannot replace the gospel nor the written Word of God. At best, one can know that God exist, what his character is like, and that He loves His Creation. However, there is nothing in Scripture that claims one can know the history of the universe or how the universe is from Creation. What it, ultimately, boils down to is that Nix wants Man's interpretation of nature to be regarded as infallible as His Word is considered, but that's not going to happen. We live in a fallen Creation, and we, ourselves, are fallen human beings. And what's more, Creation is not propositional, so it is not literally a "book" which can be read like the Bible. OECs need to stop confusing natural revelation with special revelation. These are not the same things.
MYTH #17: OEC IS A COMPROMISE IN THE CHURCH.
Nix: By this time, one should see how this myth is completely unfounded. OEC has compromised, nothing true nor important. OEC does not compromise the truth of God’s Word nor its authority in the Christian’s life. OEC only compromises the YEC interpretation, which is a human interpretation that is not infallible anyway. What has been compromised is falsehood, which is precisely what the Christian wants to compromise! This myth may have rhetorical power on the surface, but when we dig deeper into the scholarship (again, the “solid food” of 1 Cor 3:2), we find that the myth loses its rhetorical power with us because it is a lie.
Brian: He equivocates on the word "compromise." This is what is called the equivocation fallacy. Compromise can have a number of definitions. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary online, it can mean: "1a. settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions; 1b. something intermediate between or blending qualities of two different things; 2. a concession to something derogatory or prejudicial // a compromise of principles" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compromise). When YECs talk about theories of compromises, we mean definition 1b because OECs try to "harmonize" the deep-time views, the big-bang model, and sometimes the theory of evolution and Scripture, but such compromises are forced since Scripture doesn't support any of these views. However, he equivocated on the word "compromise" a number of times. He went, for example, what YECs actually claim (definition 1b), to definition 2 claiming, "OEC does not compromise the truth of God’s Word nor its authority in the Christian’s life." This is not what the YEC means by the word "compromise" which Nix doesn't seem to get.
Then he says, "OEC only compromises the YEC interpretation, which is a human interpretation that is not infallible anyway." However, this equivocates on the word "interpretation." Interpreting propositional statements is different than interpreting nature. In the latter, any such interpretations is subjective, and therefore cannot be properly ascertain, and any dependent of such must rely on the person being infallible, which they are not. However, whenever the word "interpretation" is used on propositional statements there is an objective truth to be discovered, and such truths are discoverable through proper hermeneutics, exegesis, and the historical-grammatical approach. You could argue that the writer is not inerrant nor infallible, but God is. Since the Bible is the Inerrant, Inspired, and Infallible Word of God, it is neither fallible nor capable of containing errors. Even if the OEC wishes to maintain the same thing with nature (and given the way in which Nix has argued, I would reasonably presumed so), nature is not propositional and therefore it is not the same thing!
Nix ends this response by appealing to the same Bible verses we have already establish that he was taken out of context, namely, 1 Cor. 3:2, which he continues to take out of context. 1 Cor. 3:2 isn't talking about appeals to authority, but rather, spiritual maturity vs. spiritual immaturity in the Church (see Part 3 of my response to Nix where I cite directly from the passage in context). Nix, finally, ends his brief response on a strawman. He had equivocated on the word "compromise" and then attacked a different term that we were not leveling at the OEC, and then assumed that he was, somehow, vindicated. At every turn Nix has shown that he doesn't understand the arguments of either Ken Ham or other YECs.
MYTH #18: OECS TALK ABOUT NATURE AS THE 67TH BOOK OF THE BIBLE.
Nix: This myth originates from a claim made by Dr. Hugh Ross back in the 90s (if I recall the timing correctly) that was misunderstood. He stated that nature, as a trustworthy and infallible source of truth (since it is from the infallible God), was akin to a 67th book in the inerrant Bible. But many Christians misunderstood and misrepresented his analogy as his attempt to “add to Scripture” and was trying to say that nature can provide enough information to save a person. Of course, Dr. Ross never intended for either of these to be communicated by his analogy because he does not believe them, nor does his view logically imply or even indicate them. His attempts to correct the misunderstandings over several years were not accepted by his critics, so because of these misunderstandings and to attempt to avoid further misunderstandings of his view, Dr. Ross abandoned this analogy in the mid-2000s. Ken Ham was one of these critics and, to this day, still claims that OECs use this analogy. Today, OECs do not talk about nature as a 67th book of the Bible and have not for well over a decade precisely because we do not wish to be further misunderstood and misrepresented. Because the myth is dependent upon a misunderstanding of an analogy, and that analogy is no longer even used, the myth is false on two counts.
Brian: This has several problems, including some major factual errors. But before we get into that let's discuss a more obvious bit. If OECs and Hugh Ross still believed that nature is a 67th books of the Bible, then how is this a "myth", nevertheless a strawman? One of the issues may arise from Nix using the word "akin" and calling this "an analogy" when neither Hugh Ross nor any OEC uses it as an analogy. In fact, neither did Nix during his entire article whereby he defended the idea that nature was infallible and should be used to "interpret" the Scriptures. Hugh Ross had said:
"For simplicity's sake, one may be tempted to limit God's revelation to the words of the Bible. Since the Bible declares God and His Word to be truth, information from any source outside the Bible might be considered inferior and suspect. If that were the case, however, no extra biblical data would hold value for clarifying what the Bible teaches on an issue or for the prompting correction of faulty interpretations. The Bible itself removes any confusion at this point. According to Psalm 19:1-4, God speaks reliably through creation, revealing His character and other truth [cites Psalm 19:1-4, Job 12:7-8, Psalm 50:1-6, and Psalm 97:6]…The Bible teaches a diel, consistent revelation...Thus, when science appears to conflict with theology, we have no reason to reexamine our interpretation, because the facts of nature and Scripture will always agree" (Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days, 2nd ed., 2015, pp. 79-81).
Hugh Ross believes such "analogy" is on par with Scripture. Btw, the verses he used were all from poetic literature. Reifications can be used in poetic literatures, and when it is it really is a beautiful thing to behold, but not in a logical argument. Also, keep in mind, this is natural revelation, not special revelation. Natural revelation can you give some information about the Creator, the same way my computer can give me some information about its creator, but such information is very limited and is not on par with propositional information.
Also, this is the second edition of Ross' work which is dated to the mid-2000s. If Ross had abandoned this "analogy" by the mid-2000s then why is it still in his book? Also, it is a factual error to claim that Ross had abandoned this claim. Earth this year, from the date of this article (2022), Dr. Ross had a debate with Eric Hovind in which he, not only presented his view of this multiple times throughout the debate, but he even tried to defend it! You can find their debate on YouTube here. Lots of OECs have used this "analogy" since including Frank Turek of Cross Examined, the very organization that Luke Nix is writing for!
Although I am not aware of any Christians that think this regarding this claim, but I wouldn't be surprise if even this is being misrepresented by Nix, but why would that stop someone from claiming or believing their position simply because others have misinterpret, misused, or misapplied their claim? OECs have strawman YEC positions on a multitude of times, as did Nix, but that doesn't stop us from presenting, claiming, and defending our actual positions. There is no telling how many times there were OECs, including Nix, who straw-manned us by saying that we either believe in, or are arguments and models call for, the changing of the laws of physics. That was one of Nix's strawman arguments that I had to deal with (see Part One of my response to Nix).
MYTH #19: THE CREATION IS CURSED; THEREFORE, IT CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO REVEAL THE TRUTH.
Nix: If we refer back to myth #3, we see that this myth is false already on that count alone. However, when we further study the Bible, specifically Psalm 19 and Romans 1, we see that the authors affirm (through divine inspiration) that the creation can be trusted to reveal the truth. This is not a debate about over whether God’s creation reveals the truth or whether or not the creation is cursed (as also affirmed by the Bible). The debate is over the nature and extent of the curse. Since Jeremiah 33:25-26 affirms constant laws of physics, we must exclude limitations on the creation’s ability to reveal the truth (again, see Myth #3 above). If we are to include limitations of the creation’s ability to reveal the truth as part of the curse, then we essentially must deny biblical inerrancy since Psalm 19’s and Romans 1’s (along with the numerous other passages that affirm creation’s revelation of truth) would be false. The creation was not cursed in a way that prevents it from revealing the truth. Creation was indeed cursed, but its ability to reveal truth being removed was not part of that curse. The creation’s ability to reveal truth remains intact despite the curse.
While this myth is incorrect on biblical grounds, let’s also not forget that Ken Ham attempts to use the creation to demonstrate the truth that it was created by a Designer. Old-earth creationists agree with this; however, if the creation cannot reveal the truth, then Ken Ham’s appeal to it to tell us something true about its origins is a pointless appeal- why would Ken Ham use an untrustworthy source to reveal truth? The reality is that Ken Ham’s own defense of his view using God’s creation is logically incompatible with his view of the curse in Genesis- every “scientific” critique that he offers against big bang cosmology is without a foundation. If God’s creation cannot reveal truth, then it also cannot reveal a defeater or even a mere challenge to any view of reality because it would be challenging a truth-claim. Challenges to truth claims, based upon God’s creation, is philosophically off-limits on Ken Ham’s view of the curse. But, lucky for Ken Ham, this myth has been biblically demonstrated to be false, so he can continue to bring his critiques, see them undermined, and be faced with what God’s creation actually reveals about its supernatural and awesome history.
Brian: He starts off by pointing back at "myth #3" but this "myth" of Nix's was based upon a strawman fallacy, and assuming that rates and conditions are regulated by the laws of physics (see Part One of my response to Nix). Romans 1 and 19, along with others are what we call natural revelation, as opposed to special revelation (see above). Natural revelation, also called general revelation, can only give you enough information to know that you need special revelation, because only special revelation can save a person. Natural revelation cannot contain the gospel, it cannot give you information about the second person of the Trinity, it cannot tell you theological truths, it cannot preach a sermon to you, and it cannot reveal to you the age of the universe nor tell you about the history of the universe. This is why we need special revelation, because natural revelation cannot do those things. All it can do is give you enough information to point you to special revelation which can save a person. This means that the information that can be known through general revelation is very limited.
I think OECs (including Nix) has two problems regarding this: 1) Nix (and other OECs) must conflate natural revelation with special revelation in order to assumed the kind of content that one can find in a propositional text like the Bible (which we've already dealt with), and 2) They are forced to expand on the information that natural revelation is able to give you, and go further than the Scripture says it can give you. For example, none of those passages that Nix gave said anything about being able know the history or age of the universe, but look at how he ends this response. This information is not apart of natural revelation, and must go beyond it. Even if it was apart of it, then we wouldn't expect such God-given information to go against the Bible or God would be divided against Himself, but the Bible makes it clear that God created everything in six days, and resting the seventh day (Gen. 1 and Ex. 20:11), and that only six thousand years had passed (by adding up the generations of Gen. 5 and 11 which adds up to 2000 years before Abraham, Abraham was 2000 years before Christ, & the present was 2000 years after that, adding up to approximately 6,000 years old). So, this claim would be problematic for multiple reasons.
I'm glad to see, at least, that Nix doesn't deny the fact that Creation has been cursed. There are OECs, like Hugh Ross, that has been known to deny the cursing of Creation like Ross does in his debate with Eric Hovind (see above for the link to that debate), and if he did, I had Rom. 8 ready, because the cursing of Creation is explicit. However, his next statement is a leap in logic. Nix said: "Since Jeremiah 33:25-26 affirms constant laws of physics, we must exclude limitations on the creation’s ability to reveal the truth (again, see Myth #3 above)." The laws of physics, nor their unchangeableness, has nothing to do with natural revelation. This appears to be a non sequitur. The argument is invalid. It is like arguing that because my biology is fixed this means the information that I can know about my body (such as what disease I might have) is unlimited. All the fixed physiology of my body can do is show that the processes inside of me is the same, but it does not make my knowledge about my body limitless.
Then Next had said: "If we are to include limitations of the creation’s ability to reveal the truth as part of the curse, then we essentially must deny biblical inerrancy since Psalm 19’s and Romans 1’s (along with the numerous other passages that affirm creation’s revelation of truth) would be false." I don't think Nix understands whenever YECs talk about Creation being cursed. We don't mean that no information from God is found in Creation. YECs acknowledge the existence of natural revelation for example. We mean when God cursed Creation He cursed it physically and spiritually as we saw in Gen. 3. In fact, Paul writes:
"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Rom. 8:18-23, ESV).
In addition to this, and because of Nix's strawman argument, he challenges with whether one can even believe in Inerrancy (because of the passages that he cites) if he denies this information revealed in nature. Except that the information revealed in Creation is limited, and does not pertain to the history of the universe. This kind of information must be propositional. I mean it's not like the Moon has "Made 4.5 billion years ago" tattooed on its face! Nix has now begged the question. He has assumed that this information is expanded and limitless, and then argued that such a denial of this information means you don't trust Scripture when it tells us that Creation reveals things to us, even though the Bible never says that such information as the history of the universe is revealed in nature!
In Nix's second paragraph, working off his previous strawman of attacking Ken Ham's argument concerning the Creation being cursed, and Nix assuming that Ham's argument was to claim because of the Curse we can never obtain any information about God (essentially accusing him of denying general revelation), he then begins to accuse Ken Ham of inconsistencies in his own argumentation. Nix writes:
"While this myth is incorrect on biblical grounds, let’s also not forget that Ken Ham attempts to use the creation to demonstrate the truth that it was created by a Designer. Old-earth creationists agree with this; however, if the creation cannot reveal the truth, then Ken Ham’s appeal to it to tell us something true about its origins is a pointless appeal- why would Ken Ham use an untrustworthy source to reveal truth? The reality is that Ken Ham’s own defense of his view using God’s creation is logically incompatible with his view of the curse in Genesis- every “scientific” critique that he offers against big bang cosmology is without a foundation. If God’s creation cannot reveal truth, then it also cannot reveal a defeater or even a mere challenge to any view of reality because it would be challenging a truth-claim. Challenges to truth claims, based upon God’s creation, is philosophically off-limits on Ken Ham’s view of the curse" (Luke Nix, 20 Myths About Old Earth Creationism, found at https://crossexamined.org/20-myths-about-old-earth-creationism/).
This is why philosophers and logicians always say it is easier to attack a strawman as the reasons that such misrepresentations may be appealing and tempting. This is a prime example of this. Also keep in mind, Ken Ham's scientific critique of the big-bang model is not the main reason that he rejects it. He rejects it primarily because the Bible rejects its claims, and so do all YECs as well. At any rate, Ken Ham isn't adopting some extreme position that we cannot know anything at all. In fact, Ken Ham, like myself, is a presuppositional, and presuppositional, like myself, would say that without Biblical-Christian worldview you can't know anything at all. In fact, science can't be done apart from a Biblical-Christian worldview.
As far as that last point, God's Creation reveals nothing about the history of the universe. Once again, this is beyond the scope of general revelation. He also seems to have been demonstrating his "myths" but so far he hasn't demonstrated a thing. We are almost to his last "myth" and he has not, yet, produced anything of promise. In fact, with every strawman against our position, the only thing that he has "demonstrated" was that he does not understand the YEC position, and so he shouldn't be responding to a position he lacks this much understanding of it.
MYTH #20: CHILDREN ARE LEAVING THE CHURCH BECAUSE THEY SEE THE CONFLICT BETWEEN MILLIONS OF YEARS AND THE BIBLE.
Nix: This myth capitalizes on Christian parents’ greatest fear: that their children will reject Christ. As we’ve seen, though, there is no actual conflict between the universe being billions of years old and the Bible. The reason children see conflict is because Ken Ham still perpetuates the idea that there is a conflict by consistently presenting these myths as fact. By perpetuating these myths, Ham is essentially presenting children the false dichotomy of “accept YEC or deny Christ.” God’s creation denies YEC (both deductively and abductively), yet God’s Word (and history) affirms Christ, so our children are caught between a rock and a hard place. Their sinful nature tends to make this decision easy, though: deny Christ. By presenting the false dichotomy of “YEC or atheism,” Ken Ham is unwittingly setting up our children for spiritual failure; it is this false dichotomy combined with their sin nature that is the reason our children are leaving the Church. Ken Ham perpetuates this problem then complains about it saying that his view is the cure, but if he is perpetuating the problem using a false dichotomy, false accusations against competing views, and a scientifically (the testimony of God’s creation, itself) demonstrably false alternative, how in the world can he hold the cure? Are our children leaving the Church because they see this conflict? Yep! But the conflict they see is a false conflict, perpetuated by Ken Ham. This is the only myth in this list that is true, but the myth testifies not against old-earth creationism but against the false dichotomy of “believe YEC or reject Christ” that Ken Ham claims that logically consistent people must choose between.
Brian: Wow! We've made it to Nix's last "myth" response, and his arguments, if possible, had gotten worse. Before I dive into the details of Nix's response, I do want to say that I am at least content that I see that Nix, at least, isn't trying to deny the empirical study that Ken Ham had backed up during his debate with Zweerink. I had half-expected for Nix to deny the study entirely, but since it worked out better for him to respond the way he did, he admitted to the results of this study. However, in spite admitting this wasn't a "myth" at the end of his response, he still referred it as such.
He starts his response by, essentially, accusing Ken Ham of a scare tactic. Although it is possible that Ham could be using it as such, during the course of the debate it was to make a point, namely, that these conflicting claims to Scripture regarding Genesis is the main reason that children were leaving the Church. It was not to "capitalize on it" nor was to claim if they don't accept Genesis they would reject Christ. However, the evidence seems to show once you start rejecting things in the plain text of Scripture, other Christian doctrines, theologies, and practices start going, although that's not always the case.
Nix's next statement is bit of a mystery to me. Where, in any of his responses to Ken Ham, does he ever demonstrated that there was no actual conflict between Genesis and the big-bang model and deep time? The Big Bang Theory gives a different order of events from Genesis 1. For example, Gen. 1:3 has the Earth before the Sun on day 4 (Gen. 1:16). The big-bang model reverses that order. Same thing with the stars (Gen. 1:14). Where in any of Nix's responses that he dealt with this? Timescale is also different between the Bible and the big-bang model. The "Big Bang" claims the universe evolved over billions of years, and Gen. 1 showed that everything was created in 6 days, and these days were 24-hour periods long since they were companied by "evening" and "morning" as well as by a cardinal and a ordinal number. In addition to this, Ex. 20:11 has God testifying to a six-day Creation combined by one day of rest which was used as a pattern for our work week. How did any of Nix's responses showed that such texts in the Bible was compatible with the big-bang model or deep-time? He didn't. He might be assuming that from his first few responses where he tried to pull a "theistic" implication out of the big-bang model, and then made a leap that Evil Kinevil couldn't do, assumed that the Big Bang led to the Christian God, but there was nothing about the model itself that would do this, nor anything about it that would lead even to a "theistic" conclusion, so even this assumption had failed (see Part One of my response to Nix). So, no, in spite his claim to the contrary, Nix has not shown in any of his responses how these views are compatible with the Genesis account.
Nix goes further, commenting on Ken Ham's argument, "The reason children see conflict is because Ken Ham still perpetuates the idea that there is a conflict by consistently presenting these myths as fact." This is an ad hominem fallacy because he attacks Ken Ham direct rather than just deal with his arguments. Also, this is factually incorrect. People who left the Church saw the conflict between the plain reading of Scripture and these secular ideas. When people read the Bible they can tell it is significantly different from what is claimed by these secular ideas. They don't need Ken Ham to tell them about that. What we need in the Church is more people like Ken Ham who are willing to stand up to these secular views that infiltrated some of the churches in Christianity. He seems to have assumed if Ken Ham hadn't exposed the conflict then none of these children would have thought there was one, which is the genetic fallacy, but this is not the case since it is the conflict between what is claimed by Genesis versus what is claimed by evolutionists, the big-bang model, OECs, and people with deep-time assumptions. In fact, Ken Ham isn't the problem, but he is a part of the solution, as all YECs are.
His next statement was quite disturbing. Nix argued, "By perpetuating these myths, Ham is essentially presenting children the false dichotomy of 'accept YEC or deny Christ.'" Nix just straw-manned Ken Ham. Ken Ham is not claiming that people must accept Christ only if they accept YEC views and interpretations. This is a common strawman fallacy among OECs, but the vast majority of YECs, along with mainstream Young-Earth Creationists, would argue that this is not a salvation issue, as would most OECs as well would argue. But some statements made by YECs get redirected by OECs to make them think that YECs must believe in order to be a Christian, saved, or even a disciple of Christ you must believe in young-earth creationism, but I am not even aware of any YEC, including Ken Ham, who believes that. Apparently, Nix has, fundamentally, misunderstood Ken's argument. The point of his argument was to show the consequences of this view in the Church, and the range of its influence, not to suggest in order to be onboard with Christ you must take YEC positions.
Nix continues his attack, "God’s creation denies YEC (both deductively and abductively), yet God’s Word (and history) affirms Christ, so our children are caught between a rock and a hard place. Their sinful nature tends to make this decision easy, though: deny Christ. By presenting the false dichotomy of 'YEC or atheism,' Ken Ham is unwittingly setting up our children for spiritual failure; it is this false dichotomy combined with their sin nature that is the reason our children are leaving the Church." Nix continues his strawman, reiterating it this time as "YEC or atheism" and claiming Ken Ham is setting up a false dichotomy (the either/or fallacy). Nix is right in pointing out that this is a false dichotomy, if that's what Ken Ham was doing, but its not what he was arguing, and neither does this reflect his position nor any YEC that I am aware of.
In addition to these points, Nix had also made the reification fallacy again. God's Creation doesn't deny YEC anymore than it denies OEC, but I do think the evidence favors the YEC position over the OEC position. So far, Nix hasn't produced nor demonstrated anything in his response that indicated otherwise. And, again, you can't get at the past deductively since that involves deriving at a necessarily true conclusion unless you argue from a general hypothesis, and even then such deductions cannot make empirical observations, and are, therefore, beyond the scope of empirical science. However, abductively, and inductively, the YEC position makes best sense of the evidence. This is why evolutionists and OECs have to come up with a number of ad hoc explanations in order to account for things that their worldview and deep-time assumptions can't account for such as Inflation, Wave Densities, the Ort Cloud, Dynamo Theories, etc. YECs are not really in a position to do that because our presuppositions make best sense of the evidence. Btw, a person's nature may make a person more prone to accept a false view (both YECs and OECs agree on this), but the influence of these secular views are still present. Although Nix tries to give all the credit to Ken Ham's influence, in reality that's not what the statics show.
Nix tries to lay it on strong the closer he get's to the end of his response. Unfortunately, for him, his argument wasn't as strong as his words. He said, "...false accusations against competing views, and a scientifically (the testimony of God’s creation, itself) demonstrably false alternative, how in the world can he hold the cure? Are our children leaving the Church because they see this conflict? Yep! But the conflict they see is a false conflict, perpetuated by Ken Ham. " Ken Ham, although part of the solution, never claims that he's the cure, but rather believing in and practicing Biblical authority is. Most people are just unaware of the problems with these alternative views. By Nix claiming "the testimony of God's creation" he's committing the reification fallacy again. Creation can't testify to anything. Btw, the YEC is not "the scientifically...demonstrably false alternative" anyway. It logically flows from Biblical Creationism, which is based upon the plain reading of the text. OEC positions are based off of non-Biblical, uniformitarian assumptions.
The conflict, also, isn't a false conflict, and neither is it because of Ken Ham's arguments either (which, btw, commits the genetic fallacy anyway). The conflict is between the plain reading of Scripture and secular claims about the past. The conflict is real, with only one alternative being true, and this is not a false dichotomy sense the claims made by Scripture and those made by evolutionists and OECs regarding the Creation account are directly contradictory to each other (see above), therefore, according to the Law of Excluded Middle, only one of these alternatives can be true, while the other must be false!
Nix ends his last response, unfortunately, on the same strawman that he claimed and repeated throughout the course of this response. In spite presenting these alleged "myths" as if they were Strawman that Ken Ham had committed, in reality the strawman arguments was on the other foot. Not with Zweerink, but with Luke Nix who continued to strawman Ken Ham, and other YECs, throughout his article, and now we've come to Nix's conclusion, and he has not even presented us with a cogent argument nor demonstrate anything he was advocating throughout the course of his article.
NIX'S CONCLUSION
Nix: None of these myths are new. I remember hearing many of them in my teens when I first became aware of the origins debate within the Church. What is really disheartening, though, is that while Ken Ham has been corrected numerous times over the decades, he still insists on using these strawmen to argue against a view he disagrees with.
I recently finished reading the book “Time for Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin” by Os Guinness. As I was reading through the part of this book where Guinness talks about the importance to the post-modernist of controlling the narrative (whether with truth or falsehood) in order to preserve and promote a relative or subjective “greater good,” I couldn’t help but think of how so many Christians misrepresent and communicate myths about views they disagree with, in an effort to defeat that view in the market place of ideas. As Christians, when we refuse to correct our own misrepresentations of a view we’re critical about, we treat truth with no more respect than does the post-modernist. Let’s ensure that we are not guilty of this ourselves.
Brian: Strangely enough, I agree with Nix's conclusion, but I contend that the issue is on the other foot, and the only "myths" and "strawman" were the ones presented by Luke Nix throughout the course of this article. Numerous times we found Nix straw-manning Ken Ham's, and YECs, arguments. I truly do not think he understands what YEC believes, and if he thought these things since he was a teenager like he said, then that's a long time to reject a view you don't fully understand in the first place.
Honestly, just to reiterate Nix's point here, I do think truth is being undervalued, and disrespected. I also think we all should try and do a better job of listening to each other. However, in my experience, young-earth creationists do a better job of understanding old-earth arguments than they do in trying to understand our arguments. In fact, in many cases, such as believing that we either believed the laws of physics had changed or our arguments and models require it (which is, as I said before, a strawman argument), they're not even trying to understand what we actually believe and argue. For the purpose of clear communication, such strawman is a prevention of rational discussion which, in my opinion, ought to be removed from anyone's arguments.
Well, we've gone through four parts, and completed Luke Nix's article on the "20 Myth About Old Earth Creationism" and finished it. Overall, it was very depressing to see this many strawman arguments and misrepresentations from Luke Nix, who authored this article on the website of Cross Examined. It was loaded down, also, with numerous other logical fallacies and factual inaccuracies as well. I found equivocations, reifications, the genetic fallacy, an ad hominem, etc. (and those are the things I could think of off the top of my head!). Throughout the course of his article, in spite claiming him "demonstrating" his position, we found no demonstrations. Instead, we were loaded down with non sequiturs, misrepresentations, logical fallacies, factual inaccuracies, and him assuming his position rather than demonstrating it. It really was hard going through having to cringe every time Nix made a blunder, which was quite often.
I am absolutely convinced at this point that Luke Nix really doesn't know and understand YEC positions, and shouldn't have been allowed to write an article on a popular website. In fact, if he doesn't understand our arguments, he has no business responding to what we say. He isn't going to actually understand what we're trying to argue, or even made any attempt. If Nix, at least, had made genuine attempts at trying to understand our arguments, I might be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, but nothing in his article gave the impression that such a reasonable attempt to understand our position was even made, therefore, I found the article, overall, unpersuasive.
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