Dr. Terry Mortenson, Philadelphia College of the Bible

My wife's almamater Philadelphia College of the Bible (PCB) - now known as Philadelphia Biblical University (PBU) has an interview with Dr. Terry Mortenson of Answers in Genesis in their recent College magazine (Summer 2005 issue). I know the PBU has creationist speakers occasionally on campus, and they are 98% YEC.

Dr. Terry Mortenson has a PhD in "history of geology" from University of Coventry (UK). Does anyone know about that school (Michael) ?

Dr. Mortenson's comments in the interview seem pretty poor. He claims that the Christian geologists of years before Darwin were "leading the church into accepting the millions of years..." No discussion of why they felt that the accumulating data was convincing them of the truth of great age. Mortenson talks often about finches beaks as if that was the sum total of Darwin's findings. Mortenson talks about "varieties" of finches rather than "species" - "finches changing into finches is not evolution."

He also states that all fossil hominds are just "bone size variation, but none of it outside the range that we see in humans... "Some people have very heavy, bony eyebrow ridges that jut out over their eyes..."

In addition, he states that the DNA similarity between humans and ape is of no consequence: "evolutionary arguments from DNA similarity are ... ridiculous."

As for transition fossils, "[They are] not there... So the evolutionists, after 150 years of looking, can only point to a handful of transitional forms to support their theory, and every one of those claimed examples are highly debatable, even among evolutionists."

His primary motivation for demanding a young earth is Biblical interpretation. I feel that I can sympathize with (but not accept) that position (as opposed to stating that the evidence clearly demands it).

The school that supply Godly, intelligent, loving pastors for evangelical churches continues to equate Biblical faith with YEC.

Al McCarrick
Received on Thu Jul 28 14:59:21 2005