A Creation Conversation: The Adventist Agenda

MARTIN CAREY | Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Life Assurance Ministries Board Member |

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” —Romans 1:19-20

In my last article, “A Creation Conversation: Moving Beyond Adventism,” we looked at the history of the creationist movement over the last 200 years. We looked at how thoughtful and faithful Christians have often held various views on the days of creation, even after the arrival of modern geology and Darwin (for a detailed discussion, Matthew Levering, Engaging the Doctrine of Creation, Baker Academic). Faithful Christian scholars such as B.B. Warfield, Reverend James Douglas, and C.H. Spurgeon were comfortable with long ages for earth. We should remember that many of the greatest scientists over the last 400 years were Christians, including Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and Kepler. Understood rightly, their discoveries have enhanced our appreciation of God’s creative power and eternal nature. To help us understand the contemporary Christian debates over Genesis, let’s look at some key events in the nineteenth century.

On Saturday, June 30^th, 1860, a debate took place at the Oxford University Museum that would affect the evolution vs. creation discussion for many decades. The main contenders included British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley and science philosopher John William Draper on one side, arguing for Darwin’s evolution, versus Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Captain Robert Fitzroy arguing for the Biblical account of creation. Many in that room had already written their opinions on the subject, and the battle lines were drawn. Huxley had the well-earned reputation as “Darwin’s bulldog,” and by several accounts, his opponents were not well prepared. 

The debate began with a discussion about the scientific evidence for Darwin’s theory of evolution. Was God’s supernatural creative power needed to explain the development of plant and animal species? As expected, the debate did not change opinions, and it soon descended into personal insults. At one point Bishop Wilberforce asked Huxley if he had descended from an ape from his mother’s or his father’s side. Huxley famously answered that he would rather be descended from an ape than be a man who wasted his great talents to suppress debate. 

Huxley’s fame grew as a great proponent of evolution and all things rational, and as a champion of unbelief. He coined the term “agnostic,” describing a person who holds that nothing can be known about God’s existence or attributes and is skeptical of the supernatural. Scientist Draper later wrote a book that added fuel to the popular notion that religion and science have always been in conflict (Wikipedia, John William Draper), and that religion is the enemy of liberty. Agnosticism grew steadily to dominate respectable intellectual circles, along with the conviction that Bible-believing Christians are ignorant and will always suppress intellectual freedom. A growing contempt for Christianity spread throughout western culture. A secular worldview was gaining dominance, led by Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, and many others.  

Atheism had gained a stronghold among the educated class long before Lyell’s geological long ages, or Darwin’s The Origin of Species. Darwin and Huxley did much to make atheism more respectable. As I pointed out in my last article, “A Creation Conversation: Moving Beyond Adventism,” there were various views among Christian leaders on the age of the earth, and not all felt threatened by Darwin. The supposed conflict between science and faith was not initiated by Christians, but by hostile secularism. The anti-Christian movement gained much strength from Darwin’s theory, generating the conflict between faith and science. Secular hostility to faith in the Bible had come to a head by the time the Scopes “Monkey Trial” met in 1925.

It was out of that hostility to Christianity that George McCready Price staked out his territory with young-earth geology. As a devout Seventh-day Adventist, Price believed that secular science had become thoroughly corrupted with unbiblical ideas, and the Christian church had lost its way by rejecting the seventh-day Sabbath. Price believed that the Adventist church had a message of “present truth” for the last days to teach the world and to judge the church. Price believed that Ellen White was that messenger. 

Creation According to Adventism

Price wrote 30 books and published over 800 articles arguing for a literal six-day creation week, a young earth, and geology that attributed nearly all geologic formations as caused by a worldwide flood. These three points were not new to Christians. What was unique to Price were his Adventist theological underpinnings for these positions, and the methods and spirit of his polemical style. For Price, his creationist views were given by God as an essential piece of His final message for the world. 

We will examine how Price’s Adventist theology influenced his creationist arguments in three aspects. These three include the Sabbath, physicalism, and the Adventist testing truth. 

The Sabbath 

At the center of Price’s Adventist creation story stood the seventh-day Sabbath, and all else he taught was controlled by that doctrine. Without 6 literal, 24-hour days of creation, there could by no Sabbath command in Exodus 20. Price made it his mission in life to defend the Sabbath by founding its physical observance in the creation story. Any attempt by Christians to deny a literal six-day creation was not only a denial of the Sabbath, but also a denial of God’s word. Price taught that Genesis is foundational to interpreting all of Scripture, and central to that foundation is Sabbath day observance. Therefore, a six-day creation is essential to Christian sanctification and to salvation.

Physicalism

Within Adventist theology, the philosophy of physicalism pervades all of its doctrines. Basically, this teaching holds that we are fundamentally only physical beings, and that our souls have no immaterial aspect. All our thoughts and desires, even our spiritual experiences, are aspects of our bodies, our anatomy, physiology and chemistry. That is why Adventists will say, human life has only two elements: body + breath. At death, nothing of us survives, except in God’s memory. 

How does Adventist physicalism shape its theology of Genesis? Ellen White described Adam and Eve in very physical terms: their physical perfections, their size and beauty, their physical abilities, their robes of light. When they obeyed the serpent, ate the fruit and fell, there is no mention of spiritual death, only their physical degradation. Consequently, our salvation must focus on the physical: our diets, health habits, and keeping a certain day marked by planet rotations. 

Adventist physicalism must deny the possibility that the fall affected animals differently from humans. In the context of Adventism, however, the issue of animal death is important because of Adventism’s view of the body. If we don’t have immaterial human souls, then there is little difference between human and animal death. 

If we are only physical and our spiritual connection with God is all about what the brain does, salvation becomes merely a deliverance from physical weakness and death. Ellen White taught that the health message was the “right arm of the gospel.” Therefore, a physicalist salvation is equivalent to a breathing body in good physical health.

Testing Truths

The Adventist movement began with William Miller’s prediction of Christ’s coming in 1843, then 1844. Ellen White called his message a “testing truth,” meaning that if Christians and the world rejected Miller’s message, the Gospel was no longer available to them. The door of salvation was shut, even for Christians. Modern Adventists will generally deny the shut door as they actively evangelize other churches. However, Adventists also will remember Ellen White’s warnings about the eternal consequences for rejecting the Sabbath. 

Adventist Arguments in Creationism

Now that we have briefly looked at those core Adventist teachings, let’s turn our attention to the modern creationist movement. I am confident that the creationist movement is a Christian movement, and that its followers are zealous for the Gospel and for God’s word. However, they are unaware of the Adventist artifacts that have crept into their movement. Prominent among those Adventist artifacts is the insistence that creation week consisted of six literal days followed by a seventh literal day—a doctrine necessary for Adventists to prop up their teaching that the seventh-day Sabbath is a creation ordinance.

Here is a quote from Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis regarding those Christians who do not accept young-earth creation in six literal days:

“What is at stake is nothing less than the authority of scripture, the character of God, the doctrine of death, and the very foundation of the gospel. If the early chapters of Genesis are not true literal history, then faith in the rest of the Bible is undermined, including its teaching about salvation and morality.”—(Ken Ham, Are We Wrong to Call Out Compromise? Answers in Genesis.org)

Let’s look at this statement closely. For Ken Ham and many others, there is only one strict interpretation for the days of creation. If you “compromise” on the length of the days, you are “adding long ages and evolutionary ideas into the Genesis text” (ibid) and destroying the authority of God’s word. Ham states that the first 11 chapters are “foundational” for the major doctrines of the Bible, including the Gospel. 

Ham’s dogmatism about Genesis days and the age of the earth has a striking resemblance to Adventist dogmatism about its “testing truths.” He allows that Christians can be wrong about Genesis 1 and still be saved, but they are eroding the truth and the Bible’s authority. 

What is Essential for Genesis?

Francis Schaefer asks, what is the least that we must make of Genesis in order for the rest of the Bible to be coherent and true (quoted by D.A. Carson, A Theology of Creation in 12 Points, Desiring God)? Dr. Carson has a helpful list of essential doctrines in the early chapters of Genesis:

1. God comes first. Nothing preceded Him.
2. God needs nothing, we can’t give Him anything, He is not served by human hands. 
3. Creation introduces the doctrine of Grace: He made us, we are accountable, and we cannot buy his favor. 
4. God speaks; His words have power; everything came into being by His word. His words are understandable.
5. God made everything that is not God. He is separate, not part of the creation He made.
6. God’s creation is good, because He created it for Himself (Colossians 1:16). There is no opposite evil force that can thwart God. 
7. We are made in His image – we show Him, we are like Him, and we relate to Him.                        
8. We are made of dust – We are part of creation. Being made of dust, we are weak, needy, transient, and fragile. That is God’s good design.
9. We are created to be stewards of creation, rulers and keepers.
10. Creation is orderly and structured, and God’s purposes are built-in. Included in that order He made man as both male and female.

Christians differ about the age of the earth, but the age of the earth is a secondary issue. Believers do not divide over this issue but come together around their common trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus. Yet while we are studying these subjects, it’s important to realize how dogma may be influenced by ideas from non-Christian sources. In this case, the length of creation week must not be argued from a need to support a belief in a perpetual seventh-day Sabbath. 

Happily, there are humble and knowledgeable scientist writers, both young earth and old earth, who demonstrate a humble Christian spirit. I recommend these two websites:  newcreation.blog for a young earth perspective, and geochristian.com for an old earth perspective. 

While this question may be significant enough for believers to take strong differing positions, still we are united in Christ and remain submitted to His word. We are never permitted to marginalize a true brother or sister over these debatable issues, as Paul reminds us in Romans 14:10–12:

But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you view your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, TO ME EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW, AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL CONFESS TO GOD.” So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.—Romans 14:10–12 LSB

As we talk about God’s word, we need to remember that Scripture has one foundation that all doctrines must be built upon. That foundation is Christ and the Gospel of His cross. When we keep Him at our center and foundation, we will not make our special interpretations into dogma to judge each other. The gospel of Jesus Christ and His cross is the key to Biblical knowledge, and is our testing truth, now and forever. †

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Martin Carey

Martin Carey is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who lives in Southern California. Raised Adventist and a product of Adventist schools, he often struggled with agnosticism. He and his wife came to life in 2006. He is married to Sharon and they have two sons, Nick and Matthew. They live with joyful but messy lives with Beethoven's music and several rescued animals.

Latest posts by Martin Carey (see all)

• A Creation Conversation: The Adventist Agenda - July 31, 2025
• A Creation Conversation: Moving Beyond Adventism - May 29, 2025
• Adventism Begins and Continues in Error - March 27, 2025