Before
I begin properly this particular article and the necessity that I believe it
has, in that this article is in need of writing to formally combat the heresies
and the inerrant fallacies of Ken Ham, I would like to offer my sincerest
apology for anyone I might offend. My goal through this article, is not offend,
rather it is to instruct and guide. While the methods behind the things I will
discuss in this article are sound, the methods and the theology are not. We as
Orthodox Christians, having the fullness of the faith handed down to us from
the church fathers since the beginning of the church, must stand firm and
proclaim the truth to all people, regardless of the consequences. What I am
going to discuss may not be contained all in one article, or rather in several.
It is up to the reader to do more research and digging into the various topics I
am going to present and whether they choose to accept what the church has
handed down and proclaimed for 2000 years.
First, Ken Ham is the
founder of Answers in Genesis, a ministry devoted to the cause of proclaiming a
young earth creationism movement within the church and the world. For many
evangelical Christians, and Christians in general, who do not ascribe to the
evolutionary explanation for creation, this is a welcomed sight. He has become
a champion for the marginalized and forgotten Christian of the world and many
people flock to his beliefs in a hope to identify with something that is left
missing in their own lives. However, and I say this with the most amount of
respect, that leading astray those who are already going astray simply leads
people hell. It is not the belief in a young earth, or whether it was by
instant creation of the various animals that is the problem. In fact, many
Orthodox Christians are not theistic evolutionists and do believe in such a way
as to how God created the world. Rather it is the fact that he is adamant that
no other way for Creation to have taken place and his addition to the gospel
through this belief that is the problem. By openly stating that Christians must
and have to conclude that the earth is no more than 6,000 years old, and that
we must believe that it was a literal 6 days, 24 hour periods of creation, he
has violated the scriptures that he holds dear. Now this might not be clear to
some, but let me clarify. The process of creation, rather than the how of the
creation is what is most important. The how of creation is important to a
rational mind, lacking the history and teachings of the church fathers. By trying
to solve every detail about God, we learn that he is unknowable and yet we can
know about him through the Church. God gave us the scriptures to point to
Christ. He gave us the scriptures not as the end of all authority, but rather
as a part of the authority. As one will see later, Ken Ham rejects the teachings
of the church fathers, and considers them irrelevant outside the Bible. For an
Orthodox Christian, the teachings of the Church Fathers and the Bible go hand
in hand. Without one, there is not the other, and vice versa. By his strong
belief that a Christian must believe in the literal six days and twenty four
hour periods, he has in turn changed the scriptures, which does not give us the
details of the how process, but rather that God created the world and that is
enough. Therefore I believe that he has violated scriptures, because oth Deuteronomy
4:2 and Revelation 22:18-19 warn against adding anything to the scriptures. While great ascetics of the Orthodox Faith,
like Father Seraphim Rose, of whom I have written extensively about, also
proclaim a young earth, it is not completely accepted by all the Orthodox
writers and saints. For many, including
St. Maximus the Confessor and St. Gregory of Nyssa, the process of creation is
less important than the result of creation.
Furthermore I would like to add, that even Charles
Darwin the so called “father of evolution” believed in a creator. He stated in
his writing, “Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with
the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it
accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator…” Thus, we understand that God created the world, and
how he created the world is not necessary for our salvation. The focal point is
that of Jesus Christ and anything outside of Christ is non important to
Christianity. Whether or not God created the world in 6, 24 hour periods or whether
it was over a period several thousands or millions of years does not matter to
us as Christians. We should be focused on growing strong people of faith. Trying
to determine the exact methods by which God created the world and each process and
each moment leads us down rabbit holes and retracts from the gospel. It defeats
the purpose of developing Christians into defenders of the faith and
practitioners of the sacraments of the Church. Which leads me to my next point.
Father Thomas Hopko of blessed memory once said, “Protestantism
generally tried to rediscover the ancient faith but it didn’t rediscover the
ancient faith, it made a brand new one that was absolutely more unacceptable in
many, many ways than what they thought they were fighting against.” Having recently toured the grounds of both the
Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum, I can safely say that from an Orthodox
perspective, the museum is incompatible with Orthodoxy. For example, Ken Ham’s lies and blatant disrespect
for the church fathers is clear when he makes broad statements regarding the
canon of the Bible, which was formulated and established by the church fathers
at the ecumenical councils. Proclaiming that only protestants have the true
canon because everything can be backed up by the other books of the bible thus removes
the Church Fathers and the unbroken line of succession of the bishops out of the
teachings of the Church. If Ken Ham violated both Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation
22:18-19 because he added to the scriptures through his own beliefs and
teachings, then he has violated them again by removing from the scriptures
those books and teachings from Christianity that have been taught and expounded
on since the formation of the Church. One of the most blatant lies I found
within the Creation Museum was that none of the books of the Bible discuss
prayers for the dead. One only must look at the practices of early Christians,
and the book of Job (which is accepted by Protestants), to find that prayers
for the dead have been a part of the tradition of the Church since the
beginning. Luke, Matthew, Hebrews, Psalms, 1 and 2 Timothy, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah,
Revelation, Romans, Ezekiel, Mark, 1 John, 2 Corinthians, Acts, the list would
be ten pages long if I included every instance where prayers for the dead were
mentioned in the Bible. Some are harder to understand than others, but it is
there in scripture and was understood by the early church to be a pious practice.
Denying the practice is removing from the teachings of the Church. Thus, it is
teaching a different Gospel than what has been given to us. St. Paul says, “But even if we or
an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we
preached to you, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8) So Ken Ham is
teaching a different Gospel than what is taught by the established Church of
Jesus Christ, and should not be accepted on that alone. If his addition to the
Gospel, and his removal of the teachings from the Gospel aren’t already enough his
theology on man seals the deal.
Finally,
I would like to point out that his theology is distinctly Calvinistic or at
least he preaches a depravity of man. Orthodox view the world in a way that as
being the created image of God, we are thus like God in many ways. For people such
as a Ken Ham, and his protestant brethren, we lost that image at the Fall. This
is contrary to Orthodox teaching in which sin and death are foreign to the
nature of humanity, not a part of it. The total depravity of man implies and
states that because of the fall our nature was changed. While we accept that
sin became a part of us, it is no more than how cold becomes a part of us when we
get sick. It is a sickness that has effected the human race, rather than become
an inherent part of our very being. Furthermore we do not teach that humans
cannot come to God on their own. The Orthodox view on the total depravity of
man is this, if because God created man in his image and then instantly changed
it after the fall, this makes God the creator and author of sin, and God cannot
be anything that he is not. Ken Ham openly promulgates in his Ark Encounter and
the Creation Museum that we are totally depraved and completely helpless in the
eyes of God. In doing so, he once again teaches a foreign gospel to the one
that has been taught and handed down to us from the Church Fathers and the
apostles. Violating the own scriptures that he so wishes to protect. One
article that I found while doing research to defend the church’s teaching on
this puts it this way, “Humans are bound by sin and corruption, but this is
like burying a gold bar in a pile of horse manure—it doesn't change the fact
that there is gold” It doesn’t mean that anything about us changed, simply the
situation. We must live with sin, but it does not become a part of us, unless
we let it. Furthermore the same article states, “Early Greek-speaking
Christians used the terms hypostasis (ὑπόστασις) for "person" and
ousia (οὐσία) for essence (or nature). The word "person" and the
Latin concept is part of the problem here, compared to the Greek word and
concept of hypostasis, but there isn't time nor space to elaborate on this
here. As a notable example of this, the doctrine of the Trinity was formulated
in early Christianity stating that God is one in essence (ousia), but with
three persons (hypostases). Choice is a function of personhood, not nature. As
such, it is incorrect to say that human beings have a corrupt nature that makes
us unable to choose anything other than sin.” Thus by using the early
church and the teachings of the early church, we see that Ken Ham is no more
than a schismatic heretic, who is deceiving the people, whether out of
ignorance or out of actual disdain for the church fathers I do not know. I ask
all Orthodox Christians to pray for Ken Ham. I do not believe the man is trying
to openly deceive. I believe rather that it is out of ignorance and lack of
education in the Church as it has been handed down to us from the Church
Fathers that he is doing this. I believe that if properly educated on what the
Orthodox Church of Jesus Christ teaches he would come to realize that it is the
same faith that Jesus established, the apostles taught and the church fathers
proclaimed. I have already said too much for one article and hopefully will be
able to formulate some other thoughts in a future article. May God have mercy
on us, and on Ken Ham.
Amen.
