and that would free us from having to use the overhead. I'll be referring to this handout and you are welcome to take it with you. It's not terribly new. It was posted in November. Some of you may have copies of it. My discussion this afternoon assumes four things that I want to state up front that should be without dispute. The long history of biblical interpretation, specifically the Westminster Divine's written comments, endorse only one of the major cosmological views considered in this conference. They, that is, the divines, thought that creation happened neither in an instant nor over a long period, but in the space of six normally understood days. Moderns living after certain scientific revolutions may wish to retreat from that history or even change their views, but that historical record is now abundantly clear. And amazingly, I can report to you that there is no primary evidence to date, contradicting the historical fact that the Westminster Divines exclusively endorsed only one view, if they commented at all in their published writings or commentaries. And since I have published those findings, this is the revision of that. I'll not repeat every part of that. To summarize, there are up to 19 witnesses and the list, I believe, is growing with at least eight explicit testaments. Now we'll start the clock. Thank you. Good. Part of what I want to do is discuss with you my own pilgrimage and also the various attempts to revise the views of the divines on this topic. A mendicant apologetic may in the long run do more to push people toward the classical position when history is consulted than anything I could positively say. As my subtitle suggests, when one ponders the considerable evolution of myth on this subject serendipitously, the classic view of creation becomes strengthened the more it is attacked by defective theories. And while our view, like all other views, has weaknesses, we would rather face the future and the past in conformity with the long stream of historic exegesis than champion a position which only finds exegetical shade in post-1800 theology and exegesis. My second assumption is that Bible believers do, in fact, differ on the subject. That descriptive fact, however, should not exclude normative development on this issue. We embrace our brothers here and it is such a joy for this former student to see Dr. Laird Harris, one to whom I gladly pay tribute as a revered father in the faith and one of the most godly men I have ever met, one who certainly, should we ever have a colloquy of divines, would have to be included. And yet we may have differences with our brothers. Our attempts to avoid personal attacks or the scholarship of prejudice, however, does not mean that we may not sincerely differ with them or with seminary positions on these important points. We understand that good men may differ, and we also understand that good men can and do learn from one another. We have learned much from our friends who differ with us. Thirdly, the scientific consensus is changing its mind. Scientific revolutions do come and go following a rapid ascent and then dominance. There is also of late some descent within one of the most virile worldviews of our century. One of the more potent analyses of the progress of science has been provided by Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn's thesis is that scientific worldviews, or paradigms as he calls them, are constantly formed, amended, and then disregarded, and he documents an ongoing progress in which a revolution may occur in the worldview of scientists. When a sufficient number of anomalies are found, if the meta-theory cannot be amended to account for those facts which cannot be accounted for, then eventually a new paradigm will form. Mid-19th century theorizing about evolution was one such scientific revolution in the history of theology. But it appears to be in the process of being replaced itself by a superior paradigm. While it is not yet clear what that forthcoming paradigm will be, the anomalies of mid-19th century evolutionary schemes are mounting and a Cunean crisis appears imminent even as it is dogmatically resisted by the fading orthodoxies among certain scientific adherents. It would be unseemly, to say the least, for evangelicals to become the main defenders of an orthodoxy rejected by anti-theists. Our view encourages other evangelicals not to board the train driven by what we think is a secular engine just as the engineers themselves are disembarking. There is, in other words, good and sufficient reason to hold to the classic view. And those who wish to move us from this view of our insightful grandparents in the faith must do a better job not only exegetically but also historically, theologically, and practically to persuade us to depart from the truths understood by Moses' and Jesus' audiences. We would rather expect the fluctuating theories of modernity to change. My fourth assumption is that believers may change their mind and grow. Some, particularly in our communion, appear to argue that the sentiments written or unwritten by a small group of men in 1973 may serve as a functional veto against any growth in doctrinal formulation, even if those 1973 states of mind contradict the much longer flow of biblical and confessional history. I rather think that we may make progress, and this present debate offers us the luxury of refining our theology in stronger terms as a secular paradigm is leaking through the fingers of those who squeeze it so desperately. I, for one, and I sense many around us, am as unwilling to enshrine our fathers with a Protestant type of infallibility as I am to reject centuries of the analogy of faith. What I mean in this present context is this. A commitment to honor our heritage does not imply that we can never grow in theological maturity. That is part of sanctification, even if some resist theological progress in certain areas. When asked, for example, about the relationship to evangelical traditions of recent times, Or more pointedly, can we condemn earlier evangelicals like Hodge, Shedd, Warfield, and Schaeffer? I admit no interest whatsoever in condemning them. We should benefit by all of the good that they taught, but we should not follow them in mistaken paths. Neither am I convinced that earlier doctrinal formulations are unimprovable, particularly when secular theories collapse, communions mature, or error becomes more clearly focused. To resist this type of doctrinal advance merely because we've never done this before, is to enshrine a standard incorrectly. We must remain vigilant not only to ask what did our fathers believe, but also what ought our children believe. And many of us remain unconvinced that merely because a particular strain of American Presbyterianism did not declare an opinion on every conceivable issue in its early years that therefore no subsequent doctrinal advance or clarification can occur. That is part And the biblical presumption is in favor of sanctification's progress that will even affect doctrinal life and formal declarations of faith. If we can progress in orthodoxy in some area beyond our fathers, Warfield and Schaeffer, wouldn't it gain their approval for our church to grow in adherence to God's truth? Now with those four assumptions and the previously published information, I would like to review some of my own pilgrimage on this subject and how and why I have changed my mind. I will call this for this occasion, it takes a seminary. I'll rehearse the three views that I have personally held to at various times. I grew up in the Bible Belt and heard as much as any college student listens, institution of creation research talks and prior to college with those exceptions. The only orthodoxy I ever heard was the orthodoxy from a secular community that was monolithically committed to a very old earth and millions of years of creation. if they embrace creation at all, the bulk of information I received prior to attending seminary then was of one form of evolutionary thought or other. Prior to attending seminary, I studied at Swiss-Libre, and while there, Dr. Francis Schaefer taught us to think presuppositionally and to engage in a variety of critiques of secular theory. Not only did we take issue with modern philosophy from a distinctively and radically biblical point of view, But we are also encouraged to think of science, art, literature, law, politics, the whole of culture, unafraid to employ a distinctively Christian method and reach radically biblical conclusions. In the process, we learned that many moderns, including evangelicals, were tempted to follow the shifting winds of modernity and that not always, but frequently, the older voices were more orthodox. And it was also at Labrie that I had my first withering critique of evolutionary cosmology from Dr. Charles Thaxton. His critique of evolutionary paradigms supported by Fran Schaefer and reaching thousands led the next generation of apologists to sport a hermeneutic of suspicion toward evolutionary cosmology and accommodations in this area like a badge of honor. After studying at Covenant Theological Seminary, Dr. Laird Harris and others sealed my rejection of any macro-evolutionary paradigm. Still, I was agnostic on many other issues such as the age of the universe, the length of days, how much of Genesis 1 was poetic, and whether the special revelation of Genesis should be conformed or not to natural science. Thus, I completed my theological training in other graduate philosophies. philosophy work, being dogmatically committed to a null set. I was on apologetic and philosophic grounds, dogmatically opposed to macroevolutionary cosmology, while believing that I also had an obligation to be agnostic on all other specific questions of the nexus. Primarily, it was argued because there was a difference of opinion on the subject within the Reformed theological community. And while there was a difference within the modern communion, I was also told that it always had been that way and that one might as well accept diversity in this loci. Being a dogmatist about an empty set also allowed me to puff my chest out and boast a brave orthodoxy, a type which sounded a clarion call in the abstract, but upon each particular, since it confessed very little, permitted my view to be as elastic and malleable as the next scientific bestseller. I remained a functional agnostic in dogmatician's clothing until the fusion of two other trends. First, I moved to a highly scientific community and after ministering there for a decade, Dr. Patterson, please don't take offense, I was startled to find that most practicing scientists were as philosophically sophisticated as most NFL players. NBA, fine. Certainly there were a few Sagan's and Hawking's, but most laboratory scientists in our community ardently refused to interact with theoretical issues. They were practicing a positivist, whether they used that term or not. And I discovered that many scientists not only had not thought through certain presuppositional issues, indeed they were loath to. And most of us would repudiate such a principled approach among theologians who do the same. The second intersection that changed my opinion was when I observed a recurring mendacity of argument among the non-classical views in the area of history. I along with many others have found myself almost irresistibly driven toward the classical position when those who dogmatically propound modern twist at the same time have so little evidence from the long history of theology or the quality of their textual support is impoverished or they are unwilling to compare their method on this issue to others. And that troubled me over a long period of time. I could have said day but didn't. That gradually caused me to change. clarify and to some calcify my view. What follows then is a story of evolution. And I tell it because I believe it is typical, not atypical. It may not be every man, but it is a lot of men. And indeed over the next decades, many more may have the same experience. The third time horizon in my pilgrimage occurred a little over the year ago, as our chairman referred to when I sat on a judicial panel. adjudicating a case that eventually rose to the General Assembly. About 18 months ago, the Reverend Don Clements called me and asked me what, if anything, did the Westminster Divines indicate as their view on the length of Creation Days, and I answered him on all honesty, having studied a little of the Westminster Assembly, that to my knowledge they had not commented whatsoever on the subject. We both, I am sure, thought there was no compelling evidence for either position and that only shows how wrong and uninformed our agnostic position had been. Had I known then what I know now, I could have made a fortune on baseball tickets. Mark, this was from our General Assembly. You probably didn't hear this in the ERP Senate. Indeed, I have offered tickets to the Cardinal Games for any site of a Westminster Divine who held anything other than 24 hours in writing, and I have yet to surrender a ticket except to Will Barker, who I gave one gratis because he found one for my site, and I thought he deserved that. When I claimed 18 months ago that there was no evidence, save Alexander Mitchell's unsupportable comment, little did I realize how wrong I was. Many of us have been wrong. And I've been pushed to the view I hold now largely against my will by the confluence of two things. First, the spurious claims that many prior exegetes held to long ages. And secondly, the clear testimony of the Westminster fathers that they did hold a definite position. And it is an amazing year. I have good news to report that Will Barker now agrees with me that at least five Westminster divines explicitly affirmed their understanding of creation as 24-hour days, and there have been none found expressing support for any view to the contrary, and I suggest that is stunning and compelling. First, in my pilgrimage, though, as we go back, my eyes were opened as I read Hugh Ross and Howard Vantill, not to be confused with Cornelius Vantill. Howard Vantill teaches at Calvin College. And both of these claim that one could hold the views of Augustine and fit perfectly well with any modern view. And while that was perfectly tailored for my null set dogmatism, eventually I found that I had to face the unavoidable task, and that is if I were to depend on Augustine, I would have to read him for myself. Howard Vantill argues that one can find shade under St. Augustine's branches to hold to long periods of creation. Seeking to collapse continuing creation, however, under the umbrella of providence is a different notion. Vantill and others would have us believe that Calvin and Augustine were cosmological hipsters writing far ahead of their time who allowed for evolutionary constructs. And unfortunately, B.B. Warfield and the Hodges uttered similar things earlier. I take slight exception with Dr. Smith. He was a little more charitable. than my reading of Warfield last night. It was perfectly all right with me, mind you, that if we held these view and there was some comfort in knowing that our elder brother from Hippo had blazed the trail. Unfortunately, Augustine did not blaze the trail that some who merely consult secondary sources think. Augustine did not write in support of long days, as Professor Collins is so helpful to admit. He believed in creation in a nanosecond, and many others have confirmed that. I would just encourage you to read Augustine for yourself, and I think you will find that Augustine had a very strong view, and lest one think that he was arguing for an expanded period of creation so as to permit lengthy development, let me read you one quote from Augustine's literal meaning of Genesis, where he said, perhaps we should say that God created only one day. So that by its recurrence, many periods called days would pass by, all creation then was finished by the six-fold recurrence of this day, whose evening and morning we may interpret as explained above. Augustine believed that creation occurred in an indivisible instant. So far from allowing for long ages, in all honesty, if we wish to have Augustine's support, we should be fair to his written record and understand that he believed in an ever so short period of creation, indeed a collapsed one, and I would say one that does not bear up to the best exegesis, and that's why the Westminster Divines very clearly repudiated it. And I would suggest to you, which I'll try to defend later, that not only did they repudiate it, but they meant that to be understood in only one sense, and that is that their confession stated orthodoxy, and the contraries of that would not be understood as orthodox. Athanasius is one of the earliest witnesses for our period of creation, although some will even in desperation seek to solicit him in their army. Ambrose of Milan specifically said that scripture has established a law that 24 hours, including both day and night, should be given the name of day only. We may want to add him to the list of earlier advocates. I don't know if you had him, Jack, or not on 24 hour days. Augustine is often misunderstood, so let's see if we can't do something to correct that. Throughout the history of theology, and I do want to commend Professor Collins' work to you in his article on Presbyterian, which I've told him for years is, in my opinion, the most honest reporting of some of the ancient theologians. And Jack confirms that Augustine and Anselm do not actually discuss the length of the days. Certainly Augustine and Anselm cannot be called as witnesses in favor of a day-age series, and neither did Aquinas, who in one place in his Summa said the following, the words one day are used when day is first instituted to denote that one day is made up of 24 hours. It is a desperate attempt also to try to draft Anselm from his cur deus homo to support either a long day age view or a framework view. Interestingly in this, Luther is never cited by those who wish to hold to expansive views. And there are a number of other theologians who are selectively skipped over. And I would say the fact that such a great theologian as Luther, who has not mentioned this, because his view is so clear, perhaps suggests that we not be too selective. John Calvin, had he wanted to lobby for long days, had two ideal verses to present themselves to him in his commentaries. On Psalm 90 verse 4 and on 2 Peter 3.8, Calvin refrained from injecting the idea that the first days of creation could be as long as millennia in either passage. And interestingly, it's also helpful, I think, to go back and review John Calvin's commentary on John 5.17. I think you will find that Calvin, far from taking the view of Sabbath, that the Sabbath would be continuing as some have suggested, makes it very clear that the Son is about the continuing work of redemption, as the Father is in John 5.17. And if we interpret John 5.17 to refer to creation, then we take away from parts of the Trinity the continuing work of redemption, which indeed is the heart of that passage. So I encourage you to read Calvin on Genesis 1. Calvin even dealt centuries ahead of the objection with the discussion of the phrase evening and morning and said, yes, according to the custom of his nation, Moses accommodated his discourse to the received custom. But listen carefully what accommodation Calvin has in mind. Calvin goes further to clarify this. He said, God, let us rather conclude that God himself took the space of six days for the purpose of accommodating his works to the capacity of men. And on the fourth day, Calvin explicitly refers to that as a natural day. Well, as I've indicated, there are a few theologians prior to the year 1800 who are appealed to, usually it is a misunderstanding of Augustine, some attempt to appeal to Philo, who is not exactly an exemplar for the reformed community, as possibly holding expansive views. And among the other two major, and there's a third one I'll mention shortly who's been thrown into the hopper, the two others are John Collette, as alleged by Alexander Mitchell, and William Ames, as fabricated by John McPherson. And if those are the best candidates for influence wielders over the Westminster divines, the case is considerably weaker than most imagine. Now, I don't want to go into Collette's view in detail here because of time. This will be in our written version. But let me read you a few things that trouble me about Collette and summarize that he was simply following Augustine with a more, as one commentator said, a more eccentric dose of Platonism. in the early 16th century, said that the Mosaic records can be understood by no one. This is a view I really don't think the divines followed. He said that it was written to an uninstructed people, a foolish multitude, a homely and an ill-instructed people, country people who observe nothing beyond the heavens above them. Homely and uncultivated, he repeated, and his claim that Moses made a grave blunder in presenting the creation account goes far beyond legitimate criticism. and calls into question the ability of God to ensure his own revolution. One of our earlier speakers mentioned the subject of the perspicuity of scripture and I have to say that we may face a choice between embracing the perspicuity of scripture or else we will have to at some point require such an extraordinary general literary intent of the original audiences that we ourselves cannot relate. to that high sophisticated level of literary intent. Certainly John Collette followed Augustine in a non-literal approach, but he was so far from calling for expansive geologic creation that one cannot even find in this incomplete fragment a passage that discusses the topic. Hence Alexander Mitchell's comment that the Westminster Divines, quote, may have been acquainted with Collette's discussion mistakenly assumes that Collette is a character witness for their case when all along, and I'll list five things. One, it is not certain that this work spoken of was even in circulation prior to 1876. Two, it is not even certain that Collette is the author of the manuscript, which was abruptly cut off and bound together with another work in the original, and the editor J. H. Lupton in his introduction to this work informs that a memo from Archbishop Parker associates the manuscript with Cuthbert Tunstall, a totally different character of the Bishop of Durham. Thirdly, there is no reference to any of the divines esteeming this work, regardless of authorship as a model to emulate. Fourth, even if the above could be demonstrated, there is no passage in Colette that vaguely posits a long period of creation. And fifthly, Alexander Mitchell's claim notwithstanding, all Colette does is follow Augustine with that even more generous portion of Platonism and asserts that creation in a single moment, explicitly not over a long period of time, but in a nanosecond, it would be imprudent in the extreme. to alter confessional understandings only upon the hope that contemporaries should depend on Mitchell's citation, which depends on Collette, which is a misappropriation of Augustine, who is not the confessional authority on this issue when the Westminster divines clearly did not follow Collette. Recall that he is not an authority for the Reformed tradition. A second Puritan giant is called on William Ames and for over a century his record has been distorted. One thing I can say favorably about a recent revision to the Westminster Theological Seminary faculty statement on this subject is that they have come down and freed Ames from the mistranslations that were proffered earlier. William Ames, of course, might be an appropriate authority for reformed orthodoxy, living a century later than Collette and a short time before the Westminster Assembly, and yet he denied this very Augustinian scheme and certainly was more dominant influence on the divines than Collette. John MacPherson, in 1882, claimed that William Ames held to long intervening ages between the creation days, although this misstatement of fact has been widely and uncritically repeated, it provides no foundation for the desideratum when Ames himself is consulted. The table below, or I'll read you just the quotes, shows how Macpherson misappropriated Ames on the subject. Here's what Ames actually said in regard to creation. The creation of these parts of the world did not occur at one and the same moment, you can hear his rejection of Augustinianism, but was accomplished part by part in the space of six days. Now, Jack Collins suggests that Ames was certainly not under the pressure from modernism to allow for six days with intervening spaces between the days. While it is certainly true that Ames was not under modernistic pressure. The fatal flaw in appeals to him is that Ames did not actually write what MacPherson alleges. Moreover, when section 28 of Ames's Marrow is compared with the previous paragraph, it is clear that the reference is not to creation in toto, but to creation of various parts of the cosmos. Thus, what Ames asserted was that contrary to Augustine, the entire creation was created Simul and uno momento, simultaneously in one moment, rather the various parts were created, each in turn succeeding in the space of six days. Upon careful reflection and research, Ames should only be understood as opposing the Augustine and Alexandrian view that all of six days of creation occurred in a regular instant. Further, insofar as Ames was never commonly understood in his own time or shortly thereafter, as holding to long periods of creation much more than McPherson's redaction is needed to prove that Ames held such a modern view. Ames actually agrees with the divines on this subject rather than opposing them. And the third man who has been mentioned recently is William Perkins. Professor Pike has a copy in his office of Perkins' work on the source and you can see very clearly. that not only does Perkins believe in six 24-hour days and uses the phrase the space of six days, but he even numbers the years following the Usher chronology, a very clear signature of his intent. Lightfoot has been used recently in our PCA judicial procedures as one who perhaps knew of these long views. And I have this information on at least five different sources. Lightfoot made his view clear. And although Lightfoot was, as my friend David Kaufman has reminded, a minority party on ecclesiastical debates, his superiority as an Old Testament scholar has never been castigated. Lightfoot, like Usher and many others, long before Darwin did not dream of the interpretations that are suggested by modern exponents, the divines wrote explicitly to the contrary. These modern views are simply not in the pre-1800 commentaries, sermons, creeds, and confessions. Indeed, some want us to believe, even though no single citation has been produced, that despite an ample number of professional researchers and graduate assistants mining for primary source gold, that the Westminster Divines agreed with Augustine's hermeneutic and they disagreed with Augustine's hermeneutic. However, the evidence in the handout lies unrefuted by leading historians of opposing views. They simply may choose to overlook the evidence or shift the argument to other platforms. Now, I had a very good talk with my friend David last week, and I hope to end early and allow him to refute this and ask more questions. But I told him I would speak to at least two things he raised that I think were two of the best and most challenging comments I've heard. One was, how shall we weight the testimony of individual divines writing outside of the context of the assembly? After all, some divines may have written and been a wild hair or said different unguarded thoughts. He has a very good point in the abstract. Unfortunately, in this particular case, there is no contradiction among the divines. All, anywhere they wrote, if they wrote at all, not all common, but everywhere they comment, they specifically adopted the Usher approach The light foot approach, the 24-hour day approach, and use the terms normal or natural day, and a few others perhaps outside of the assembly may have followed Augustine, but none of the Puritans embraced long geologic ages or framework theories. Those two options arose largely in the 19th and 20th century. Most recently, a fellow minister, tried to claim his baseball ticket by telling me that Zankeus or Ersinus or someone prior to the Westminster Assembly held to long periods of creation. Neither did, and when the reference was checked, the claimant meant Witsius, who lived a century later. However, I'll let you read Witsius on the Apostles' Creed, because the alleged text support fails upon inspection. Indeed, Witsius took the same view as did Perkins and Ames, and he is very clear about that. With the rabbinic tradition, the apostolic preaching, the consensus of the Church Fathers, the Reformation and Puritan exemplars, indeed, in concert with the uniform testimony of the Church until recent ideas, we believe, that the biblical theology of future generations will agree more with those interpretations of Vitsias, Usher, and the classic hermeneutical approach than the short half-life of post-Darwinian exegesis. Out of all who lived and fellowshiped with or within a generation of the Westminster divines, all who wrote on this subject testified to their belief in the 24 hour days or the Augustinian position, no Westminster divine has been produced who supported a long period of creation and the Westminster documents specifically reject the Augustinian formulations. It is breathtaking. to see so much distortion so consistently applied in the face of clear documentary trails. One cannot help but ask, is history on the verge of becoming propaganda? Why? If one has preconceptions that he will dogmatically support, even if contrary to the record of history, then such a priori dogma should be admitted as an article of faith. that one will not surrender regardless of facticity. It would especially be difficult to defend if one held anti-biblical dogmas as a priori immune from correction. That would be a formula and a method for creating heterodoxy. However, I have found in the year that I have wrestled with this that even after the history is presented and corrected, there is still for some unexplained reason a mammoth resistance And even after this information is laid out, many may seem unwilling to follow the historical facts. One has to wonder where the scriptures are so dogmatic as to compel one to reject the history of theology prior to the 19th century on this subject. A recent statement has been adopted. I'll share parts of it with you and my critique of it from the Westminster Theological Seminary faculty because it illustrates virtually all of the examples I've cited. And I want you to note that this statement is from a faculty that I have personally held in the highest of regards ever since I knew anything about Reformed theology. A statement was adopted on June 1st and parts of it were shared with our General Assembly. Then it was revised and a second version was adopted October 12, 1998, some three months after I had presented and circulated a study showing that the Westminster divines, what they held on this subject. In that earlier piece, I specifically refuted some of the key conclusions of the original Westminster Seminary faculty statement. Among them, these four. Number one, that Augustine's view was contoned by the Westminster confession. That was in the earlier version. Number two, that William Ames wrote that long intervening spaces separated the creation days. They have revised that, thankfully. Number three, that John Collette was an exemplar of the divines following the subject. Unfortunately, they have not revised that. Number four, that the divines are somehow vague as to their opinion. Notwithstanding, the faculty concluded an October draft that was revised and they just issued March 1st, so this may be new to many of you. This is all in my written comments, by the way. And unfortunately, they did not revise much in terms of substance and left the following that deserve criticism or are highly questionable. They state that as if Augustine's view cannot be learned, i.e. that creation was instantaneous, the faculty affirmed the following, that Augustine himself, as is well known, states in connection with the days of Genesis, quote, what kind of days these were, it is extremely difficult or perhaps impossible for us to conceive. Yet Augustine is clear that the length of creation was in a blink of an eye. They refuse to interpret Anselm, as this context insists, and when they admit that the Reformers, it is true, seem to have generally interpreted the days as 24-hour days in duration, still this statement flies in the face of the obvious wording of the Westminster Confession and, I might add, the annotations of the Senate of Dort, a near-contemporary document, which were not creating pluralistic statements of faith when they tried to persuade, quote, yet this position consciously distanced from Augustine's view never seems to have been regarded as a test of orthodoxy in the Reformed churches. If the confession is not a standard of orthodoxy for the Reformed churches, especially when it repudiates the views of Augustine, what is its purpose? One wonders, what evidence to the contrary do they have to support their claims that the Vines did not regard the statements in the Confession as test of orthodoxy? That methodological question is this, does one view the Confession as only presenting nebulous ranges of ideas or as affirming specific propositions thought to be derived from Scripture? When a leading faculty affirms after this many rounds the following, quote, a striking illustration of the way in which biblical scholars wrestle with this issue is found in the work of John Collette, who in the end of the 15th century held to a position approximating to a day, age, or even framework interpretation of the days of Genesis, they cannot have read Collette for themselves. It is clear from reading him. that he was following Augustine at best or was an eccentric Platonist at worst. Although Alexander Mitchell speculates support for long ages in his quixotic reference to Colette, sounder historians will not find such. When a premier seminary refers to, quote, others maintain that at this point the standards are simply paraphrasing the language of scripture, which was held by Hodge earlier, and do not address the question of the length of the day, they might want to produce a single English version of the Bible that paraphrases Genesis 1 in the language of the Westminster Confession. Assertion without support, no matter how many have invoked the same fallacy. is not the method most want to embrace. Later, the Westminster Statement is more honest than most in its pursuit to bury this inefficient argument as they aver, quote, the word space of, as the other view about recognizes seem deliberately chosen as an interpretive or clarifying addition that functions both to affirm and to exclude or negate. However, they only begrudgingly admit the following. Though the framers of the standards may have held personally to the 24 hour day view, this view is not the point of their confessional affirmation. The March 1st revision thankfully corrects, and I want to be on record about this, the misimpression about Ames. And yet, even in this very correction, the faculty simultaneously affirms, quote, that Calvin, Ames, and the authors of the Westminster Standards, with few exceptions, my editorial note is none are cited, with few exceptions, if any, undoubtedly understood the days to be ordinaries, while they then go to embrace a stunning discontinuity in the next word's viz, there is no ground for supposing that they intended to exclude any and all other views, in particular the view that the days may be longer. Such conclusion from the clear record of history is not strong evidence for this statement's sense of continuity with the earlier history. The statement begs that the proof of original intent exceed the following standard, quote, more than demonstrating that the divines, perhaps even to a man held at the days were ordinary days, to demonstrate that of itself establishes nothing. With that, it appears that normal historical documentation is no longer the standard. Now, my good friend and mentor, Will Barker, in his latest communication, suggests five others who might be helpful in showing the errors of my thesis. One of those is William Perkins, who I've already talked to, and I simply refer you to Professor Piper for that. Secondly, an appeal is made to the non-canonical book of Jubilees, suggesting that Adam's 930-year lifespan was 70 years shy of 1,000 years, quote, because 1,000 years are one day in the testimony of heaven. You will note that besides being apocalyptic and non-inherent, the content makes no claim about the length of creation days. Instead, it actually refers to real chronological years. And William Whiston is claimed as regarding the days as years. And a 1698 work, which I have yet to verify, and I believe if it were verified, would be the initial known formulation of this view, making his both a very novel view and in opposition to the views of Isaac Newton at the time and the Westminster Assembly. And finally, Dr. Barker suggests that John Milton and Thomas Brown Contemporaries of the assembly, however, neither members of the assembly are reported as holding to the Augustinian instantaneous view, even though both were known to exhibit consistent antipathy toward the assembly. Barker notes that contemporaries of the assembly rapidly critiqued those views of Brown. And he is correct when he says that belief of instantaneous creation may have been fostered by others outside of the assembly, lacking, however, in explanation. for why the divines would so rapidly critique Milton and Brown in the 1640s only to allow William Whiston's putative view some 50 years later to be acceptable. And what he has not yet shown is that, number one, any of the assembly members held to any view other than a 24-hour view, and number two, that any of the assembly members held to either a long age or framework view. And as Dr. Barker, an excellent historian, has been helpful to remind me, in a study of original intent, only those commissioned, sitting, and voting, and none of the above meet that rigorous standard, should be considered as indicative of the views of the Westminster Assembly. For there are, indeed, far more contemporaries who hold to the 24-hour view. I need to move on because of time and let me summarize then the handout that I've given you. You have that, you can take that, that's posted on our website. Even with resistant arguments to exclude original voices, still there is compelling, overwhelming, and uncontradicted testimony by the divines. The only question for historians, and again, let me admit, I understand this is a historical exercise. The whole matters of exegesis, we still have to debate. History alone decides this matter. That's why I so appreciate the other presentations, because if we could ever clear the deck and get our history straight, then perhaps we could really wrestle with the original languages and the text of scripture. But as a historical question, the present number of compelling witnesses is either 5, 7, 8, 14, 16, or 19, and I personally believe that at least 16 are beyond dispute. However, I am willing to accept a revision of my thesis in the light of others' fine research, And it is as follows, at least eight divines explicitly wrote primary materials indicating their uniform understanding of the creation day. And even though Usher was not present at the assembly, the weight and significance of his influence and explicit writing should not be minimized without proof that it was discounted at the time. Another five, Marshall, Gouge, Aerosmith, Wallace, and Byfield implicitly endorsed the same view, but some may wish to discount their statements of original intent since two of them were scribes. who actually documented, mind you, the contemporaneous proceedings of the assembly. Another six implicitly endorsed the same view by lending their names and reputations to similar expositions. These at least cannot be counted as silent, plus there are other numerous near contemporaries, Dort, Ames, Turretin, Luther, Calvin, and others who held to a 24-hour view and repudiated Augustine's instantaneous and short creation. I either misspoke at our General Assembly last year or was misunderstood as saying that there were 20 explicit references to the Divine's view. That is not correct and I wish to be on record as correcting that. The truth is there are 19 explicit and implicit. Some are implicit, I grant you, but they're not silent and there are zero for the others. Count these others if you wish as implicit, but their record is not invisible nor mute. Implicit written testimony is at the very least, when consistent with all other evidence, stronger than ex post facto speculation of the motive without primary sourcing to support. At present, it is fair to report all primary evidence points to date to the divines holding to an ordinary or 24-hour day, and despite the many claims, we have turned up zero of Westminster divines who explicitly held to a long day or a framework view. The material point seems clear. Despite other research and recent tradition, there is no primary evidence yet that a majority of divines held to, supported or exegeted scripture to endorse long days or other theories and when we see a greater number of Westminster divines supporting long age or framework theories than the number of divines who explicitly endorsed a 24-hour view. Then the debate may begin. If the divines were as willing to support expansive views as is purported, citations either of their explicit exegesis advocating such or their stated design not to express a standard of orthodoxy for the Reformed churches on this matter should be easy to locate. And I have been surprised at how slow such evidence is surfacing. Thankfully, and I come in this seminary, some seminary faculties are changing in response to the discoveries why even Dr. Morton Smith has grown in his orthodoxy in this area over where he was 40 years ago, and that is a model to follow, and in all truthfulness, I hereby deputize all of you, if you hear that he holds a wide open view, please correct that you heard him from his own lips voluntarily last night. I have several final questions for discussions in other forums. First, what other issue do we treat in this same fashion? I have to tell you, as I've discussed with brothers in all honesty, should one wish to press a judicial case or should one wish to press the language of the confession, the phrase virgin birth appears nowhere in the Westminster Standards. The E word, evolution, is not condemned by the Westminster Standards. It is not mentioned. The historicity of Adam and Eve is not, as a phrase, anywhere in the Westminster standards. And so I have to ask, as a methodological consideration, if we cannot take at face value the phrase, in the space of six days, within its historical context, to specifically repudiate Augustine, how can we interpret the Confession on any other point? Secondly, I ask, what is so wrong about the previous exegesis? Once it is admitted that the modern geologic views and framework theories deviate from the Westminster views, then we may begin a debate over which exegesis is superior. But first, it needs to be proven how the earlier exegesis of our grandparents and the faith was defective, and on what enduring authority we deem it to be deficient. Another very important and timely question lurks in the wings. Is recent tradition more important than truth? Hodge, Warfield, Shedd, and Schaeffer may well comprise a modern Presbyterian tradition, but it is one carved after the crumbs of Darwinianism, and if a tradition, it is far different from the patristic Reformation and Westminster traditions. We are not willing, automatically, to grant the assumption of accommodation if suggested that the Church's theology must fit with the world's theorizing. Not only would that method be unfaithful to the authority of Scripture, but it would also conform to what secular science says about itself. The Hodges wanted to tell people, so did Albert Barnes, that when they were changing the historic They, too, held to scripture and deed and fallibility as much as anyone, and yet it is a striking historical fact that no one seemed to have the questions occur to them that occurred to those who lived after 1800. The presupposition that modernity is superior is, I will admit, a definite possibility. A church or an individual, after studying certain issues, may indeed discover that they have disagreed all along with their forefathers, and dating back at least to the Reformation, Protestant churches have acknowledged the legitimacy of differing with tradition. And where tradition is wrong, it becomes the responsibility of those who seek to be true to the scriptures to reform their tradition by correcting it In this case, that may be one option. Those who now see that the Westminster divines did intend 24-hour days may wish to amend the confession and catechisms contrary to their original intent. That is an honest method. Notwithstanding, we would hate to see an effort presupposed, apart from some compelling proof, that our modern biases and studies are automatically superior to those studies and biases of the 1640s. Specifically, it is methodologically unproven that our ministers and theologians are more capable than the likes of Calvin, Luther, Ames, Perkins, Twist. Twist, by the way, answered early on in your handout the question about so much happening on the sixth day to name the animals. And Twist's opinion, Twist was the moderator of the Westminster Assembly, said that it certainly could have happened before noon and still have allowed Eve plenty of time to converse with the serpent. Our belief in the one holy catholic and apostolic church precludes us from assuming that modern conclusions are automatically advances in doctrine. The doctrine of creation may be a mirror for us moderns. It may be held up and used to reflect our image, which we often cannot see unless we have such a reflecting glass. We like to tell ourselves that we are not tainted by worldly theories, but the history of this question, particularly among evangelicals, seems to tell the opposite story, one of increasing conformity to the world's philosophy. This loci is a good test for method. As one differs with the ancient consensus on this issue, one is called to defend that aberration. As we do, we discover that we are forced, in order to defend this Trojan horse, to adopt or embrace methodological principles that we would hesitate to adopt on similar issues. The doctrine of creation challenges us either to reshape a particular doctrine to conform to modern substance or to reshape our method to conform to the substance of modern theory. Might we not be wiser, not to mention simpler and more defensible, to simply retain a sturdy theological method and established exegesis if all we lose is companionship with the modern. In desperation some have sought to call Dabney, Thornwell, I dare say no old school Presbyterian has been unsolicited for this cause, but when the record is scoured, indeed they did not support these modern views. I have five minutes left and I'm going to leave my dear brother and any others time for questions because I will not be here. I have one minute of text remaining if you'll allow me. I'm giving you a minute notice. We've got 60 seconds. In all sincere respect, even though some claim the likes of Hodge, Warfield, and Moderns, we feel safer standing with Luther, Calvin, Ambrose, the Westminster Divines, and the long history of the church. The simple reason, in my opinion, why so little testimony is found and why such paucity itself has prevented certain people from convincing us is because it is not there. Except in the most unusual cases, for yes, Lightfoot, Selden, and the other Westminster divines were likely aware of the earlier teaching. They merely chose to reject it. If held at all, it was held only recently and seldom. And the issue for scholarship is not, or never should be, can some obscure theologian, or few if we search with zeal, or those only after a certain philosophical revolution, determine the confession and morals of the Church. For theologians can always cite sources. The issue is, from an honest study of scripture and the history of interpretation, did our forefathers, unless we brave the opinion that we are instinctively smarter than they, or that we possess more insight living in some scientific era, understand the Word of God to teach an expansive and undefined age of creation? Or do the catechisms teach, even to the embarrassment of the modern age, yes, God did just as he said? We believe God's word is clear, and we will not follow Charles Hodge on this particular who said, with the utmost alacrity, we will change our views if the winds of science suggest to the contrary. Nor would we want to tie the church to a flat world theory, nor to Newtonian mechanics, pre-Copernican cosmology, or even the optical theory of 200 years ago. Neither do we wish our theology in the future to be reviewed as having followed a flawed 19th century fad. It is now clear that the Westminster Divines did have a view on the subject they repudiated, Augustine, and held to a 24-hour day view, and that will no longer come as a shock to many except to those who have studiously hoped to see other meaning for the words in the space of six days. The longer they offer exegetical or historical arguments that are ill-founded and prove to be unsubstantiated, the more many are driven toward a view that is capable of weathering more ideological storms. In the end, the classic view may survive because it is the fittest. And I apologize, I have to miss tomorrow morning's session, but if I have five minutes, may I take questions now, Joey? Thank you. Yes. You ready? Afternoon. Questioner 2 I'm just wondering if you did not say anything about the phrase or sentence that says, in the text of this assertion, that he doesn't use the phrase in the sentence. I mean, if he has seen that that issue is forthcoming, that phrase wasn't there. It is a phrase that is found explicitly in the quote by H.R. Cowdery, a French writer. It is a phrase that is not a product of the Christian faith. And that phrase is thick and stringent in the Irish language. As we work with others, we're so constrained to be in a place. And that's because we're not trying to turn our arguments around as though we were supposed to or opposed to. In fact, it's really a self-defeating thing. Because the Irish language has a security doctrine, we conform into that thing. And so the phrase is strict. Thank you. That's a very good question. And I obviously agree with your answer, but I want to supplement that not only is that the case, but there are abundance of other catechisms written from the period 1600 to 1660 by other Puritans. And it is interesting to see how far they go out of their way to repudiate Augustine. And they do it specifically with that phrase. And that phrase seems, from a comparison to other confessions written at the time, to be the phrase that was the signature identifying they were disagreeing with the only other extant view of the day, the Augustinian view. And I have to say in all candor, I don't know, I really don't know how they could have made it any clearer, specifically in the context of the other clauses. by the word of his power out of nothing in the space of six days and all very good. And so anyway, would you like to? I won't rebuke you, though. I've already I got you set up. Go ahead. Come on. You had great questions. I want this group to hear them. They were very, very insightful if you if you wish to. May I rephrase it to see if I understand? Do I believe that the extra assembly writings by the actual assembly divines Can authoritatively tell us what they meant or that they served as an authority? You're going to have to try one more time, but the device to who are these? Colette, Colette. Oh, no, I strongly disagree with Mitchell. The assembly in no place specifies that Colette was an authority. I don't want to make a statement, but I mean, in my judgment, Mitchell does not argue that Augustine, for the time it's been used, very humorously said he was hardly a model for reform as Jesus and so on. He wasn't suggesting that they were. He wasn't saying that these were authorities. Therefore, it seems to me that since that wasn't his argument, to show that these aren't authorities doesn't touch his argument. I would say two things he suggests, and then I've got to stop. He suggests that the divines were aware of their writings, which leads the indication that they somehow followed them or did not refute them. The divine specifically showed where they disagreed with him. So and also I think you've got to remember the amazing consistency of pattern. If you had three divines outside of Westminster saying it's framework and three saying long days and three saying it's 24 hour days, I have no case. We would say absolutely at the time there was diversity on this issue. The facts of the matter is that none of them were saying that in any writing. Help me. The offer is still there. Get your tickets. But there were votes on ecclesiology and there were winners and losers. There was a majority of you and a minority of you. That's certainly the case. But we could say that their intent was not clear. It's interesting, though, that nobody did say that until after 1800. As a historian, these questions interest me. You just have to say, well, what is it? I guess the issue is, what have we learned now that all of a sudden makes us ask that question that nobody else figured out? And I rather agree with Professor Shaw that one could interpret things that way, but why? I think part of what David's doing though is that the challenges come back until you can show us that no Westminster divine disagree with the position. We're not going to accept that as intent. And that's been said, no, that's been said by scholars. That's been said off the study committee. And so there's the problem. You see, that's why he's taking that tack. I would agree with you. If you found some, that still would not in any way interpret the language. But David's trying to deal with that challenge. Thank you very much, Mark, you hit a home run. But I do think it's important that we understand what he said. The confession doesn't settle the issue. Actually, Jesus will settle the issue. But it's our commitment, and this is an appeal we make here at the conference, that let's not teach the non-confessional issues. We hold to them. Let's have scholarly discourse about that and then come. and change the language of the standards, if you've got exegesis that can bear that weight. But let's be honest with the standards at this point. I had an attorney tell me last week that intent, burden of proof, is on those that disagree. Dale Peacock told you that. That it begins if there's ambiguity in the document, then it's on the burden of the proof of those that say there's ambiguity to prove ambiguity. And that's how you get to original incent in a law court. And that's why I think that what you've done is very, very important. It doesn't settle the issue exegetically, and David's been clear about that, but I think he's done a masterful work of history.