This is a debate in the modern church  that is unfortunately divisive.  Both sides are quite sincere and bring their evidence and logic to bear, seeking that others might understand and agree.

Must one believe in the literal understanding of the Genesis tales? That human life really started in a garden with a talking serpent, and a day when God decided to drown all the earth and start over with the one man who trusted Him and seven immediate family members?  Can you get to Heaven without believing in Noah’s Ark?

The answer to this question is both yes and no…. it’s one of those topics that begs exploration and honest discussion, with a willingness to show both grace and truth to those who disagree.

We’ll go with “yes, you can” first, as the accuracy of it is simpler to explain.  When Jesus told the thief on the cross that he would join Him in paradise that very day, they didn’t bother with a discussion of old testament lore.  The man declared his faith that Jesus was Lord and Savior with the power to advocate for his eternal soul, and like Abraham’s faith, it was credited to him as righteousness.  Done deal.

The answer is also “no”.  There are those who go through life with an unquestioning faith, and then there are those who must test and explore every truth, like biting a nugget to prove it is gold.  It is right to prove the credibility of ideas – and yet such exploration can lead us to take more than a bite of the fruit of human knowledge.  It is that insistence on disproving God’s word that lies at the heart of original sin, and that is what we risk when we begin to discount what is written in favor of what we conclude by our own rationale.  As creationists, or literalists, have declared: we cannot begin down the trail of discounting the tales of our earthly existence without inadvertently discounting the story of our eternal hope.  It is for this reason that we must believe and support all of what God has declared by inspiration and preserved since the days of Moses, including the stories of the beginning.

To bow to human understanding among those who don’t have an established faith in the work of Christ is to become agents of the original serpent himself, inviting them to reject the faith that would save them.

And yet, those who struggle to reconcile science with scripture are not necessarily without hope simply for disbelieving explanations we cannot prove.  When each person faces eternity, the only question is whether he/she individually has a personal obedient faith relationship with Jesus Christ alone as Lord and Savior. Is He the Son of God, who died and rose again as the only way to satisfy the penalty of human sin?  Ultimately, no other question matters.