It's like my head

To visit China today as an American is to compare and to be compared. And from the very opening session of this year’s World Economic Forum here in Tianjin, our Chinese hosts did not hesitate to do some comparing. China’s CCTV aired a skit showing four children — one wearing the Chinese flag, another the American, another the Indian, and another the Brazilian — getting ready to run a race. Before they take off, the American child, “Anthony,” boasts that he will win “because I always win,” and he jumps out to a big lead. But soon Anthony doubles over with cramps. “Now is our chance to overtake him for the first time!” shouts the Chinese child. “What’s wrong with Anthony?” asks another. “He is overweight and flabby,” says another child. “He ate too many hamburgers.”

That is how they see us.

It is not enough to show that A is compatible with or can be reconciled with B - because there are two ways that this can be done. One way is to claim that A is the same as B, while the other is to say that A has no content relevant to B.

One of the first implications of the first option is that if you claim that A has substantive content, and that substantive content is the same as B, then must also be saying that A is incompatible with not-B.

So, if the Bible has substantive content, and this substantive content can be reconciled with the theory of evolution, then the Bible must be unreconcilable with the theory of non-evolutionary creation. That is to say, it would be unreasonable to interpret scripture as saying, for example, the Earth was created in 6 days and that light came into existence after the Earth was created.

If, instead, you want to argue that scripture is compatible with and can be reconciled with that view, then you either have to give up the position that it is compatible with evolution, or you must hold that the Bible contains no relevant content on the subject matter.