Isaac Asimov's book "In the Beginning": Part One- The Introduction

With this post I am starting a series of articles about the book In the Beginning by Isaac Asimov. Asimov was a well known science fiction writer.  In addition to science fiction, he also wrote over 200 books of both fiction and non-fiction and edited hundreds more.  He was president of the American Humanist Association, a college professor, and a self-proclaimed atheist.  The book has eleven chapters, an introduction, and an appendix.  It is my intention at this point to discuss each part of the book, making for a 13-part series.

photo courtesy of www.freeimages.com

I hope to accomplish several things by reviewing Asimov's book.  First, I expect that we will discover that Asimov, though an atheist, was in reality a person of blind faith.  His religion was secular humanism. Therefore he viewed the world through the belief system that presupposed that there is no God.  Secondly, I think we will find that Asimov had a wrong view of science, constantly pitting the so-called facts of science against the so-called myths of the Bible and making the two mutually exclusive.  Finally, I hope to demonstrate that the atheist Asimov believed that the Bible taught a young-earth, a literal six-day creation week, and a world-wide flood.  Although he vehemently disagreed with these teachings, at least he was honest enough to recognize that this is what the Bible clearly teaches.  Contrast Asimov with Hugh Ross. Ross, a Christian, believes that the earth is very old, that the days of creation are very long periods of time, and that the flood was local and not global.  I can almost hear an astounded Asimov saying, "What Bible are you reading, Dr. Ross?" For more on Ross, see the sidebar for my page entitled Critique of Hugh Ross's Hermeneutics.



Asimov starts his Introduction with the recognition that there are millions of people today who believe that the Bible is the inerrant, inspired word of God with no mistakes in the original manuscripts.  He then makes the following statement:

Against these strong, unwavering, and undeviating beliefs, the slowly developing views of scientists have always had to fight.[1]

Here we clearly see that Asimov pits science against belief in the inerrancy of Scripture.  He portrays belief in the Bible as something that is anti-scientific and that must be fought against because it hinders scientific advancement.  With this unfounded statement, Asimov disregards many of the greatest scientists the world has ever known, scientists who happened to be Christians.  Famous men like Newton, Herschel, Kepler, and Joule were brilliant scientists as well as men of faith in God and the Bible. (See article Famous Scientists Believed in Creator )

Evolution is a belief system based not on facts but on presuppositions as is evidenced by Asimov's statement regarding biological evolution.  He says:

Biological evolution, for instance, is considered a fact of nature by almost all biologists.  There may be and, indeed, are many arguments over the details of the mechanics of evolution, but none over the fact...[2]

Asimov and fellow evolutionists believe in spite of lack of evidence.  There are arguments over the mechanics of biological evolution because no one has ever figured out how it could work.  Among other things, no transitional life-forms have ever been found, no evolution from one kind to another has ever been observed, the mathematical odds are against evolution, DNA is against it, the complexity of the most simple cells argues against it, and the question of where and how life initially started has never been satisfactorily answered apart from Scripture.  Faith in the "fact" of evolution truly is a blind faith. See Ken Ham's article Does It Really Take More "Faith" to Believe Evolutionary Ideas? for more on this subject.

The atheist Asimov understood what many Christians today seem to be oblivious to, i.e. the foundational importance of the first eleven chapters of Genesis.  Asimov knew that this is where the battle between the humanistic and Christian worldviews lies.  He says:

... the chief area of dispute lies in the very beginning of the Bible- the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis.[3]

The first chapters of Genesis are the foundation to all further Biblical revelation.  If these chapters cannot be trusted, then why trust the rest of the Bible?  Refer to the following article for more on the importance of Genesis 1-11: Chapter 6: Genesis Does Matter.

Taking a cue from the liberal higher critics, Asimov espouses as fact the J and P documents theory.  He says that these two hypothetical documents form the basis for the historical content of Genesis 1-11.  He accepts this theory based on the authority of "those who have most carefully studied the Bible".[4]  This theory denies the Mosaic authorship of Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch and instead posits that Genesis is really a compilation of two to four different documents.  Asimov has readily accepted this theory as fact.  For a discussion and refutation of this theory see: Did Moses Write Genesis?. One of the most compelling reasons to accept Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is because Jesus did.

Asimov condescends to us who ignorantly hold on to our belief in creationism.  He assures us creationism was good for its time, but now it is time to move on.

If the primeval history of the Book of Genesis falls short of what science now believes to be the truth, the fault cannot lie with the Biblical writers, who did the best they could with the material available to them.  If they had written those early chapters of Genesis knowing what we know today, we can be certain they would have written it completely differently.[5] 

In my next post I will discuss chapter one of the book.  Feel free to leave any comments you have for me.  I appreciate the feedback.

NOTES:
[1] Isaac Asimov, In the Beginning...(New York: Crown Publishers, Inc, 1981), 1.
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid, 2.
[4] Ibid, 2.
[5] Ibid, 3.