Is Hugh Ross’s “Progressive Creation Theory” credible?

Dr. Hugh Ross has a genuine PhD in astronomy and issued his book The Finger of God in 1989. In this he attempted to reconcile Scripture with the theory of evolution. His ministry in the U.S. is called Reasons to Believe and, while he has also appeared on many Christian TV and radio talk shows, his message is aimed principally at university students. Many of these would be young Christians.

While he vigorously denies that he teaches evolution, he chooses rather to use the words “Progressive Creation.” His teaching method is based upon the “blind-’em-with-science” and “hide-behind-the Hebrew-words” technique, shamelessly bending Hebrew words to his own meaning and confident that not one in a thousand will challenge him. When cornered with a real language expert, he will pour out scientific data well larded with specialist words from the more arcane avenues of nuclear physics or cosmology. Undoubtedly clever, Ross may even be a Christian, but his message perfectly fits Paul’s “grievous wolves” warning [Acts 20:29] and probably represents one of the greatest dangers to the North American Church today.

Hugh Ross subscribes to the Big Bang Theory for the creation of the universe and states that it took place at least 15 billion years ago. Using this same line of reasoning, he claims that the sun was created, not on the fourth day but before the first day, and he then claims that each “day” of creation was actually millions of years. We might be reminded that a “day” of millions of years makes nonsense of God’s fourth commandment [Exodus 20:8-11] that requires us to work six days and rest on the seventh! Incredibly, Ross then argues that the Genesis account is from God’s perspective standing on the surface of the Earth. The Earth itself is said to have been under a heavy cloud layer, obscuring the sun, moon and stars from His sight until the fourth day … but recall that these “days” are millions of years long!

This is Hugh Ross’s brainchild, and one might wonder how big is Ross’s “god” who had to remain standing under the clouds all that time! Ross also claims that Adam was formed by God from a member of a previously existing race of soul-less men, but this makes God responsible for death and not Adam, and it denies Genesis 3:19, Romans 5:14-19 and 8:20-21.

He also argues that the Genesis Flood was local rather than global, but this makes Noah a fool to have built the Ark in the first place, and it makes Jesus and Peter equally as foolish to have believed the tale [Matthew 24:36-39 and 2 Peter 2:5]. Worse, God made a covenant with mankind never to flood the Earth again [Genesis 9:8-17]; yet Ross makes God a covenant breaker, since there have been many local floods that have taken thousands of lives. Finally, while the committed evolutionist will likely dismiss “Progressive Creationism” as pure nonsense, the Christian community should also dismiss it for the same reason.