| Helpful Backstory on Beyond Creation Science and the Growing Covenant Creation View
September, 2024
“What has bothered me about the Creation Science movement for almost two decades is that its leaders will not admit that they have mixed together a particular view of eschatology that has nothing to do with the categories or content of physical science. They refuse to tell their followers, ‘This part of the essay is based on premillennialism, and the empirically verifiable facts of physical science don't have anything to do with it.’”
-Dr. Gary North, Letter to ICE subscribers dated May 19, 2001.
[Ed. Note: This was the year of publication for the first edition of what later became Beyond Creation Science]
The last few weeks and months have been chocked full with developments related to Covenant Creation. I have fielded numerous questions in private correspondence from individuals now seriously examining Beyond Creation Science and the material posted on Covenant Creation on YouTube recently. The interest seems to be accelerating.
In thinking about these questions, many of which come from new preterists currently examining Genesis creation issues for the first time, it occurs to me that my own explanation and personal story might help others to understand where we are today… and why. I have not spoken previously about how some some key concepts of the relationship between eschatology and Genesis were first introduced to me decades ago, even while I was a dedicated Young-Earth Creationist student and advocate.
I spent three summers (1992-94) on staff at Summit Ministries, a Christian Worldview summer camp located Manitou Springs, Colorado. I had previously been a student at Summit in 1988, as a young teenager (14 years old) and was blown away at the environment and goals fostered at Summit. That’s why I wanted to work there later in my teens.
Summit Ministries hosted their last annual ICR (Institute for Creation Research) week-long seminar toward the end of the summer in 1992 when I was 18 years old. I was told this was an annual event held at the Summit hotel for many years, but Summit had decided to use the schedule time to add another regular 2-week session that could draw homeschoolers. But at this one last ICR “Creation Science Week” at Summit, I was able to listen to the lectures presented and even sit down with Henry Morris and his son, John Morris, in the Summit cafeteria over lunches during the week to ask questions and learn how to promote Young-Earth Creationism.
By this time, and just as significant to me, I had already spent a few years reading material published by Dr. Gary North and those who were known as “Reconstructionist” authors. This assortment of authors included Gary DeMar, Peter Leithart, Greg Bahnsen, Ray Sutton, David Chilton, James B. Jordan, Douglas Wilson, Kenneth Gentry and others. Dr. Gary North was President of ICE (Institute for Christian Economics) which published many reconstructionist books through Dominion Press. I mention those names and this history to give you an idea of my theological commitment at the time as a Young-Earth Creationist, partial-preterist Postmillennialist from a general Reformed Theology perspective.
One of the most fascinating books to come out of “Tyler, Texas” during this era was a 1988 book by Dr. Gary North which outlined a critique of Henry Morris and the Creation Science movement, from an eschatological angle. The book is titled Is the World Running Down? Crisis in the Christian Worldview and the full text of the book is available free online.
I don’t believe that book received nearly enough attention at the time, and it is almost as if the book has been lost to history as the "Reconstructionist" group of the 1980s splintered and seemed to go bust in the 1990s. I should also add here that some conversations with Jeff Vaughn in the early 2000s, after he stumbled across an early, first edition of Beyond Creation Science somehow brought up North’s Is the World Running Down?. Jeff Vaughn had also read Gary North and many other reconstructionist books “back in the day” even though Jeff comes from a different theological tradition than myself.
Jeff had also read North’s book years earlier, probably about the same time that I had read it. We were both surprised that other person knew what we were talking about! It was shocking to meet someone else who had been influenced by the obscure book, Is the World Running Down?, let alone agree with the profound significance of the eschatological connections to Genesis creation issues that Dr. North raised. The rest is history as Jeff Vaughn joined me as co-author to complete the 3rd edition of Beyond Creation Science where we proposed Covenant Creation in print in 2007.
I offer that lengthy context and explanation to the interested reader so you can see that these issues go back to published material from 1988, and my motivated Christian Worldview studies and activities at Summit Ministries. Later, in studying out preterism, it became apparent to me that the original author to suggest key elements of Covenant Creation was none other than Milton Terry in his 1898 book titled Biblical Apocalyptics, which is footnoted heavily in Beyond Creation Science for obvious reasons.
I recently found my old copy of Gary North’s explosive book from 1988 and took a look at it fresh, all over again. The details did not disappoint me. The book remains powerfully relevant, even if a bit dated, to anyone interested in understanding why eschatology necessarily relates to Genesis creation issues.
Gary North is a Postmillennialist who tried to convince the Creation Science leaders to abandon the Premillennialism that was always integrated into young-earth creationist doctrine and ideology from the beginning. He was never broadly successful in this attempt. You can see his frustration in the original citation of his 2001 newsletter at the top of this article. My conclusion is that Gary North’s critique of Creation Science doctrine simply did not go deep enough either historically or theologically, which is ironic given that Gary North was a trained historian. If you want to understand why I say that, please see Chapter 6 of Beyond Creation Science titled “Worlds Collide: Lyell vs. Darby” available for free online here.
The thoughtful reader of Is the World Running Down? will understand the logical transformation from Postmillennialist Futurism to Full Preterism matches the logical transformation from Young-Earth Creationism to Covenant Creation conclusions. For those who are new preterists, or those who want to examine Genesis creation issues in the context of covenant eschatology, I think the exercise of reading these selections below will prove to be beneficial. I will offer brief comment to each selection to provide more context and detail to consider.
My expectation is these citations will provide educational aid that just might make a lot of things regarding the Covenant Creation debate within preterism suddenly make perfect sense to the interested student. The issues raised in Is the World Running Down? continue to have relevant application in today's full preterist world of discussion about the full implications of fulfillment, beginning in Genesis 1:1.
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Excerpts from Is the World Running Down? Crisis in the Christian Worldview by Gary North (1988).
“This book asks and then attempts to answer one question: Which is more important, Adam's Fall or the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ? It seems like such a simple question for a Christian to answer. The answer seems so easy. Obviously, the resurrection is more important, now and in eternity. If there had been no resurrection of Christ, our faith would be vain. But this answer immediately raises a second question: Which is more important, the effects of Christ's resurrection in history or the effects of Adam's Fall (God's curse of the ground) in history? My answer to this corollary question is going to make a lot of very dedicated Christians unhappy. I answer that the effects of Christ's resurrection are more important, as time goes by, than the effects of Adam's Fall. The implications of this statement, if believed and put into daily practice, would revolutionize the Christian world. In fact, they would revolutionize the entire fallen world. I will go farther: the implications will revolutionize the fallen world. Yet this is what most Christians categorically deny today. They deny it because they have been taught, implicitly and explicitly, that the effects of Adam's Fall are overwhelmingly, inevitably more powerful in history than Christ's resurrection. This book is my answer to this denial.
I wish this book were not necessary. It will alienate some very dedicated Christians who have devoted their careers to refuting the fundamental world-and-life view of our age: Darwinian evolution.
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, p. ix.
The key to the whole book is that eschatology has implications for properly understanding Genesis creation issues. A particular interpretation of the fall of Genesis 3 continues to be the sine qua non of Young-Earth Creationism as taught by leaders and organizations today such as Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis.
“Without Christ's resurrection, Paul says, Christians' faith is vain (1 Cor. 15:14-17). Yet it is this doctrine, the touchstone of Christianity and the primary offense to the fallen world, that Scientific Creationism relegates to secondary (or less) importance, preferring instead to emphasize the scientific importance of God's curse of the ground after Adam's rebellion, which they equate with the second law of thermodynamics. Until Scientific Creationists self-consciously begin to re-examine their worldview in terms of the doctrine of Christ's resurrection, its members will be hampered in their efforts to persuade Christians and non-Christians concerning the importance of the doctrine of the six-day creation. A doctrine of creation without a doctrine of the resurrection is as erroneous as a doctrine of the resurrection without a doctrine of creation.”
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, p. xi.
What happens when the full-preterist realizes that not only has the resurrection of Christ taken place in history, but the resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15 was also fulfilled in the first century by AD 70? In fact, both Revelation 21:1 and Hebrews 1:10-12 state plainly that it was the Genesis 1 creation which passed away by AD 70. Could there be a more profound implication for full preterism than the realization that Genesis 1 is the beginning of the Old Covenant Creation rather than the physical universe or material creation?
"Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea."
Revelation 21:1 NKJ
“You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You remain;
And they will all grow old like a garment;
Like a cloak You will fold them up,
And they will be changed.
But You are the same,
And Your years will not fail.”
Hebrews 1:10-12 NKJ
The Covenant Creation view offers a covenant context to the detail in Genesis 3 regarding the curse. See the “Thorns and Thistles” episode in the 2024 Covenant Creation Curriculum for more information on how a covenant context to resurrection is logically related to a covenant context for Creation, the Garden scene, death of Adam, curse on the ground, etc.
“I read and generally accepted The Genesis Flood in 1963. I even used the libraries of Christian Heritage College and the Creation Research Society to gather information that I used in writing this book.”
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, p. xi-xii.
Gary North, born in 1942, was convinced of Young-Earth Creationism as a young man (21 years of age) who worked with R.J. Rushdoony. Rushdoony was instrumental in getting The Genesis Flood published after some major Christian publishing houses rejected it. Conservative Christians before this time generally held to the Gap Theory (promoted by the Scofield Reference Bible) or the Day-Age Theory of Genesis creation.
Christian Heritage College was formed in 1970 by partnership between Henry Morris and Tim LaHaye, famous premillennialist author of the “Left Behind” series of novels. When you understand this context, you can probably appreciate more fully the frustration Gary North faced trying to convince the Creation Scientists of partial-preterist Postmillennialism.
See Chapter 6 of Beyond Creation Science titled “Worlds Collide: Lyell vs. Darby” to see more detail about this historical development.
This indicates that the vast majority of Christians still do not believe that the doctrine of the six-day creation is relevant for Christian spiritual life. There is a reason for this: Scientific Creationists have written virtually nothing on how and why the doctrine of the six-day creation must reshape all of modern Christian theology and the en- tire Christian way of life….
Worse, they have not been shown why and how six-day creationism leads to a fundamentally unique worldview that encompasses things other than academic topics like historical geology and biology.6
[Footnote 6] If six-day creationism could be used to locate oil and mineral deposits less expensively than the methodology of evolutionism does, we would begin to see the abandonment of evolutionism, and also see last ditch efforts of university evolutionists to explain the creationists' success in terms of some other evolutionist theory. What we need is for evolutionism to start drilling more dry holes than we do. If nothing else, we could at least afford to fund a lot more creationist research projects.
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, pp. xiv-xv.
This is still true. But the fact also remains that oil and mineral deposits are not found due to the six-day creationism paradigm being applied.
“I think there are two glaring weaknesses in Creation Science: 1) reliance on the traditional apologetic method of empiricism rather than on Cornelius Van Til's biblical presuppositionalism; 2) an excessive reliance on the Fall of Adam and the resultant curses of God rather than on the resurrection of Christ and the resultant blessings of God. This second error is reflected in Creation Science's heavy reliance on the second law of thermodynamics as the basis of its case for creationism….
It has also created a kind of blindness on the part of the Creation Science movement. Creation Science has been needlessly yet so visibly dependent on this appeal to the second law that its leaders have neglected to discuss what should be an obvious point: the resurrection of Christ has in principle altered redeemed man's relationship with God and nature, and it has therefore altered God's relationship with man and nature, for man is God's covenantal representative over the earth (Gen. 1:26-28).”
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, pp. xvi-xvii.
This was the first experience I had of reading a criticism of Young-Earth Creationism as related to an improper understanding of the fall of Adam and curse, as opposed to the power of the resurrection of Christ.
North is a Postmillennial futurist, so he views the consummation and the defeat of death remains to be future to his perspective. That being said, he clearly understood that logic of Postmillennial eschatology would inevitably end up in conflict with Creation Science teaching regarding the primacy of the fall of Adam, understood in biological terms, from Genesis 3.
“It is not random that there has yet to be written a single book by any Scientific Creationist in the social sciences or humanities that comprehensively exposes the Darwinian principles that govern his field, and which then offers a comprehensive, specific, detailed, Bible-based alternative to Darwinism. Yet the Scientific Creation movement is over a quarter century old.
Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859. A quarter century later, the whole academic world had been reshaped in terms of his worldview. Darwinism dominated discussions in every academic dis- cipline by 1885, all over the world. Scientific Creationism has yet to produce its first scholarly book in any field outside of natural science. This should warn us that there is a fundamental problem with Scien- tific Creationism. It is the problem of the resurrection. Scientific Creationists ignore it.”
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, p. xix.
Note how Gary North characterizes the “Scientific Creationism” movement as just over 25 years old, dating its rise to the 1961 publication of The Genesis Flood. Here is his explanation from a later presentation at an American Vision conference:
“[Bryan] was not a six-day creationist. Because, in 1922 there weren't any six-day creationists in the Protestant religion. There was only one guy anyone had heard of who held the position and that was a man by the name of George McCready Price.”
-Gary North's recorded presentation, The Scopes Trial and the Great Turning Point: 1925-1975, delivered at American Vision's 2006 "Creation to Revelation" Conference. These recordings are available through http://www.americanvision.org/.
“Jesus Christ's resurrection in principle restored redeemed man's ethical relationship to God, thereby overcoming the break in man kind's personal relationship to God that took place when Adam rebelled. Creation Scientists understand that Christ's resurrection restored individual men to God, but they have not pursued another crucial implication of this altered ethical relationship: that nature’s relationship to man and God has also been altered in principle by the resurrection, just as this relationship was altered by the curse which God placed on the cosmos when Adam rebelled. Creation Scientists never discuss Christ's resurrection as the foundation of progressive cosmic restoration.
The earth was brought under a curse by God in Genesis 3:17-19. This is the key biblical passage in the Creation Scientists' argument based on the second law of thermodynamics. But what about the resurrection? The resurrection was the great healing event in history. It definitively restored redeemed mankind as the legitimate heir of God. This new ethical and legal relationship is to be worked out progressively in history. Therefore, these questions must be raised: What effects on the cosmos did Christ's resurrection produce? None? If not, then why not? If God's visible curses were placed on the cosmos because ofAdam's covenantal rebellion, then why were there no blessings placed on the cosmos as a result of the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ? Was Adam's rebellion of greater consequence historically and cosmically than the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God? Why did the covenantal restoration of the resurrection produce no healing cosmic effects? Why is the curse of God in Genesis 3 still in full force in history?
The answer is: it isn't. There has been a progressive healing of the earth since Calvary. This has come sporadically in response to the sporadic covenantal faithfulness of God's people. There have been major scientific advances, remarkable medical progress, and economic growth, especially since the Protestant Reformation. Western civilization has brought these wonders to the common man -the first civilization to do so- and Christianity was originally the foundation of the West. Redeemed men have been the primary agents of this healing. It is their responsibility self-consciously to carry out the dominion assignment of Genesis 1:26-28, which is why Christ delivered the Great Commission to the church (Matt. 28:18-20). The effects of death and decay are progressively rolled back when God's people faithfully transform their lives, institutions, and physical environments to conform to God's revealed laws.”
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, pp. xx-xxi.
This is the Postmillennial futurist view of planet Earth history. Note the connection between the nature of the curse and the nature of redemption that is assumed in this symmetrical doctrine. Full preterism, of course, leads to quite different conclusions.
Gary DeMar and Kim Burgess recently published a book titled The Hope of Israel and the Nations that attempts to synthesize this Postmillennial futurist view of redemption with a Preterist view of Bible prophecy. The key concept of a material curse and matching future material redemption is retained, even while claiming that “the creation” in “bondage” of Romans 8 does not reference the biological world at all!
"In other words, and this is precisely what throws a monkey wrench into the traditional futurist, end-of-world-time interpretation in Romans 8: Paul was not talking about 'soil, rocks, trees, and birds.' He was talking, throughout, about animate human creation in these three categories -- Jews, Gentiles, and Christians -- just as he did in 1 Corinthians 10:32. But, yes, for sure, people will respond, 'Well, are you saying there is no redemptive hope, then, for the physical/material creation?' No, I am not saying that at all....
As part of the curse upon and punishment of Adam because of his sin, the physical creation was moved by God to bring forth 'thorns and thistles' so as to frustrate Adam in his efforts to provide food for himself. All of this speaks of the 'fall' side of these matters...
The point here is that the curse on the physical creation is rolled back for those who are in Christ.
What I am saying, as the Gospel of the Kingdom goes forth to the Gentile nations, as kingdom 'leaven' (Matt. 13:33) permeates the nations, as more and more people in the world repent and come to Christ and enter His New Covenant Kingdom, then what could one expect to see happen as a result or consequence? One would expect to see the slow, but sure, reversal of the curse of Genesis 3:17-18 in the world. One would expect to see the curse being progressively lifted from the Genesis 1 creation. One would expect covenant blessings to flow out into the world, including to the physical creation itself (cf. Ezek. 47:1-12)."
-Kim Burgess, The Hope of Israel and the Nations, Vol. 1, pp. 220-222.
Have we now come to Postmillennialism fulfilled... but not yet? The reader should note here that Tim Martin issued a public debate challenge to Kim Burgess about these issues in 2023.
What Gary DeMar and Kim Burgess present in their book is a new form of partial preterism. It is preterism in relation to the fulfillment of the promises given to Israel, but it is futurism in relation to the redemption of the physical world curse and material redemption. It presents an Israel-Only eschatology as the focus of Bible prophecy.
See this YouTube video for a full book review of The Hope of Israel and the Nations, Volume 1 by Gary DeMar and Kim Burgess.
“Did the sun shine in the garden? Of course! Did the atomic explosions that make a star possible operate then? We have no reason to suspect that they didn't. How God intended to sustain the sun as an energy source the Bible does not say. No doubt because of the curse, some aspect of God's providential sustaining of this energy source was removed. But this does not mean that atomic energy did not operate in terms of the second law, with the sun's randomly distributed energy cascading into the garden. It means that after the universe was cursed, what had been a helpful law of nature became, along with all other aspects of nature, a potential threat to man. Gardens now produce weeds (a weed is best defined as an unwanted plant); our plans produce unwanted side effects (a side effect is an effect we did not plan for, and usually one that we do not like); the sun is dying; and so are we. It is God's curse on our environment that is our burden, not the second law of thermodynamics.
All of this is obvious, isn't it? Then why have Creation Scientists refused to discuss what is obvious for over a quarter century? I believe that the answer is that they have become wedded to a particular defense of creationism that is tied too closely to their pessimistic eschatological presuppositions. Pessimism colors their every discussion of entropy. They find it nearly impossible to say a good word about entropy. They cannot discuss entropy without returning to the Fall of man. They are hypnotized by the curse of God on nature…
How could Henry Morris have made such a serious mistake for over thirty years in identifying the origin of the second law as the Fall of man?”
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, pp. 126-127.
Note well how this explanation of a material curse definition matches the recent book by Gary DeMar and Kim Burgess published by American Vision.
This criticism by Dr. North of Henry Morris flows from an eschatological perspective that North does not share with the premillennial dispensational founders and promoters of Young-Earth Creationism. This observation remains relevant today with Ken Ham and the published work from Answers in Genesis, which also base their theology on Adam’s curse and the fall of man. Modern Young-Earth Creationism is not only incompatible with Preterism. It also is on a collision course with all forms of Postmillennial futurism.
“We see a similar problem for Creation Science. History to them is necessarily a process of degeneration.”
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, p. 152.
Eschatology is one key aspect of Creation Science ideology -- always has been, always will be.
“Let me give an example. Smallpox is communicated only from human to human. Once someone gets smallpox and recovers, he ceases to be a carrier. If he has an innate immunity to smallpox, he does not transmit the disease after his exposure to it. Thus, scientists have stamped out the disease by locating outbreaks of smallpox and rushing in to quarantine the victims and immunizing everyone in the vicinity. The spread of the disease is halted, for the germs die in their hosts and fail to be transmitted. Region by region, the germs are exterminated. This scientific strategy has worked; except inside that one British laboratory, the smallpox species is gone. It is only because of the species' (presently) fixed epidemiological characteristics that it has been stamped out by science.
This raises a very curious question: What about Noah's family? For six months they were on the ark, alone. How did smallpox germs survive this isolation period? How did the disease ever get started again? We know that it did, but our knowledge of how the disease is transmitted tells us that it should have been wiped out in the "quarantine" period on the ark.”
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, pp. 184-185.
Would this not be an argument for a local flood in covenant context as shown by chapters 7-10 of Beyond Creation Science?
“I have made a series of very serious accusations. I have said that dispensationalists believe that the Christian gospel that saves men's souls will have no long-term positive effects in society at large. They therefore are forced to deny that the progressive sanctification of the church in history will produce positive results in society that will then lead to long-term social transformation of society at large. They therefore deny the cause-and-effect relationship between the church's progressive faithfulness and the progressive healing of society…
In short, when Creation Scientists abandon the dispensational theology of either John Walvoord or Dave Hunt, they will find it far easier to do battle with the New Age theology of Jeremy Rifkin.”
Dr. Gary North, Is the World Running Down?, p. 280.
North fully understands that dispensational premillennialism is inescapably tied to Creation Science ideology and Young-Earth Creationism doctrine. He opposed it as a partial-preterist Postmillennialist. To promote Young-Earth Creationist doctrine and ideology as a Postmillennialist is to fall into intellectual schizophrenia.
Full Preterism will have revolutionary implications for Genesis 1-3 and the entire Genesis Debate as explored by Beyond Creation Science.
Honorable mention, see for yourself: Is the World Running Down? pp. 219-223.
Here is a link to the Gary North book available free online for those interested to investigate the details more in depth:
https://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/pdf/is_the_world_running_down.pdf
-Tim Martin
Co-author, Beyond Creation Science
BeyondCreationScience.com
Covenant Creation on YouTube
October, 2024
Kim Burgess and Gary DeMar Offer a Brand New Version of Partial Preterism
Watch how Genesis 1 Drives their Futurism
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