Edward J. Young vs. Meredith Kline on Genesis 1-2.5
Meredith Kline for over 40 years was an advocate of what has come to be known as the "framework hypothesis." This interpretation of Genesis 1 rejects the historical and sequential account of creation.
The obvious sequence of days in Genesis 1 has nothing to do with a sequence -- first, second, third, etc. -- say the defenders of the framework hypothesis. They say that the days were three sets of pairs: duration-indefinite days 1, 4; days 2, 5; days 3, 6. There is a framework; there is no sequence. Thus, Genesis 1 is in no way related to any proposed sequence or chronology of scientific cosmology.
This was an old idea when he presented it in 1958, although Kline did not mention this. He especially did not mention G. C. Aalders, who had refuted it in 1932. Kline wrote only one additional article on this topic. That was in 1996. His total output on this topic was 30 pages, maximum. Yet within Calvinistic academic circles, he remains the most prominent defender of this thesis. Career-wise, he got a lot of mileage out of two short articles, one of them self-published late in his career.
His premier critic, beginning in 1961, was Edward J. Young. Young was one of the two most respected academic Protestant defenders of the reliability of the Old Testament in the late 1940's through the 1960's. The other was Oswald T. Allis. Young taught at Westminster from 1936 (replacing Allis) until his death in 1968. He was the author of many books, including Old Testament Introduction (1949), The Prophecy of Daniel (commentary, 1949), My Servants the Prophets (1952), Thy Word is Truth (1957), and The Book of Isaiah (commentary, 1965-1972).
A CHALLENGE WITHOUT A RESPONSE
In 1958, Kline published an 11-page article in The Westminster Theological Journal: "Because It Had Not Rained." It is online here. He argued that the first chapter of Genesis is not historical, because the days were not sequential. This idea had been around for almost a century when he wrote it. He relied on an exegesis of Genesis 2:5 to refute the idea that the six days of creation were sequential. In support of this thesis, he offered nine footnotes.
At that time, he was a junior member of the faculty at Westminster.
Young responded in a series of three articles in the Westminster Theological Journal. The first was "The Interpretation of Genesis 2:5" (1961). The second was "The Days of Genesis" (1962/63). It is online here. The third was "The Days of Genesis: Second Article." It is online here. The total number of footnotes in these three articles was 241. In 1964, they were published by Presbyterian & Reformed as Studies in Genesis One.
Young's primary argument was this, which had been brought against the framework hypothesis by Aalders in 1932. The commandment on the sabbath in Exodus 20 is specific: the sabbath followed six days of creation. It was the seventh day in a sequence of seven. Kline had not acknowledged this argument or Aalders in his article. In "The Days of Genesis," Young wrote:
In reply to this interpretation, the late Professor G. C. Aalders of the Free University of Amsterdam had some cogent remarks to make [1932]. Desirous as he was of being completely fair to Noordtzij [1924], Aalders nevertheless declared that he was compelled to understand Noordtzij as holding that as far as the days of Genesis are concerned, there was no reality with respect to the divine creative activity. Aalders then adduced two considerations which must guide every serious interpreter of the first chapter of Genesis. (1) In the text of Genesis itself, he affirmed, there is not a single allusion to suggest that the days are to be regarded as a form or mere manner of representation and hence of no significance for the essential knowledge of the divine creative activity. (2) In Exodus 20:11 the activity of God is presented to man as a pattern, and this fact presupposes that there was a reality in the activity of God which man is to follow. How could man be held accountable for working six days if God himself had not actually worked for six days? To the best of the present writer's knowledge no one has ever answered these two considerations of Aalders.
Kline then went mute for 33 years. He did not write about his view of Genesis 1 again until he wrote a short article in 1996, "Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony." It is online here. This was 28 years after Young's death.
Here is his sole reference in 1996 to Young's three articles and his 1964 book:
[Footnote 45:] Endorsing my argument as originally published, H. Blocher examines the criticism of it by E. J. Young (Studies in Genesis One [Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1964], pp. 58-65) and concludes that Young "misses the main point (In the Beginning, p. 56, n. 56).
He did not respond to any argument that Young had raised. He did not even bother to identify what the main point was that Young supposedly had missed.
Kline had been challenged, line by line, argument by argument, by one of the two premier conservative Old Testament scholars in the world, and this was all that he could muster in response . . . 33 years later. (If you count Young's first article, published in 1961, it was 35 years.)
Here is a classic case of a young, unknown scholar whose radical thesis was publicly challenged by an internationally renowned scholar, published in the same academic journal in which he had presented his case. What was unheard of was Kline's subsequent silence until 1996. "Young? Who's he?"
Kline used rhetoric that bordered on invective. This is from his 1996 article.
The scenario conjured by the literalists' solar-day interpretation is, in fact, utterly alien to the climate and tenor of Gen. 2:5.. . . I regard the widespread insistence on a young earth to be a deplorable disservice to the cause of biblical truth. . . . [final footnote]
Far be it from me to deplore confrontational rhetoric. But if you use it, be prepared to defend your position publicly -- logically and rhetorically. Kline was prepared to do neither.
A CALCULATED SILENCE
His was a calculated silence. Kline for over three decades counted on the fact that most of his seminary students would not read Young's essays or his book. He was correct; they didn't. Kline remained on the faculty of Westminster, then joined the faculty of the Gordon-Conwell Divinity School, and then taught until his retirement at Westminster Seminary West in California. He recruited disciples who either did not know of his silence, or else did not care. They then entered the pastorate. They were only rarely challenged by their presbyteries or synods.
Kline's influence in the lives of his students was considerable, although he never had many students who majored in Old Testament. He did not gain more than a handful of followers who ever bothered to defend in print his 11-page thesis. (His most articulate defender and co-author, Lee Irons, was censured and suspended from the ministry in 2003 by the General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The issue was not his views on Genesis 1.)
Most Christians have never heard of the framework hypothesis. They would not accept it if they did hear of it. But there has been a generation of Presbyterian pastors who have accepted it. But they remain mute about it in the pulpit, just as Kline remained mute regarding Young's detailed refutations.
This leads me to a conclusion. Young men in seminary accept the framework hypothesis, but not because they intend to put their careers on the line by preaching it. They adopt it in their youth so that they do not have to think about the inescapable conflict between the sequence of days in Genesis 1 and the Big Bang cosmology, historical geology, paleontology, and the doctrine of evolution. They accept it for psychological reasons, and they do not pursue the matter in public. They believe that it gets them off the hook. They need not attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. The opening words of Kline's 1996 essay delivers them from internal conflict.
To rebut the literalist interpretation of the Genesis creation week propounded by the young-earth theorists is a central concern of this article. At the same time, the exegetical evidence adduced also refutes the harmonistic day-age view. The conclusion is that as far as the time frame is concerned, with respect to both the duration and sequence of events, the scientist is left free of biblical constraints in hypothesizing about cosmic origins.
He refused to answer Young. He pretended that there had never been such a detailed critique of his position. In academic circles, this strategy rarely works. A man who attempts it will be the subject of a career of snickering colleagues and chortling graduate students. But academic standards are lower in American Protestant evangelical circles. A man can get away with this sort of thing.
Kline did this more than once. In 1978, he persuaded the editor of the Westminster Theological Journal to let him publish a highly negative review of Greg Bahnsen's Theonomy in Christian Ethics (1977). That book was an extension of Bahnsen's Westminster Theological Seminary Th.M. thesis (1973). Kline's review is here. Bahnsen was not allowed to reply in the WTJ. I let him respond in the journal I edited. His response is a classic. It simply destroys Kline's review. Rarely will you read anything so devastating. You can read it here.
Kline never responded.
CONCLUSION
On the issue of Genesis 1, Kline had little influence outside the tiny world of Calvinist seminary students. He surely had no influence in the Christian community. Today, over 40% of Americans believe in the six-day creation. Over 150 years of Darwinism have not persuaded them. Kline's two obscure articles, totaling 30 pages, surely have had no effect on them.