Creation Controversy

I believe as Christians we should place the authoritative word of God first and foremost. Yet, at the same time we also know God has given us nature and the world we see to understand evidential truth. Understanding God through nature is Biblical (Psalm 19:1-6, Romans 1:20) and certainly we must take this into account.

When analyzing the Genesis text we must consider the literary genre. Not surprisingly so, there is some debate about this. Some approach Genesis 1-2 as an allegory and see it only as metaphorical language. C. John Collins takes an historical and literary approach. He notes, “the author was talking about what he thought were actual events, using rhetorical and literary techniques to shape the readers’ attitudes toward these events.” (Collins, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Who They Were and Why You Should Care).

First I would like to think about the historical approaches to Genesis, then we will consider the more modern views. From historical Christianity we have 3 main views – Epoch Day View, Allegorical Day View, and the 24-Hour View.

Epoch Day View

The early church father, Irenaeus (c. 120-200 A.D.), suggested that the sixth day of creation could have been 1,000 years. Now there are probably a couple of reasons for this. One is that in Genesis 2:17, God warns Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yahweh says that if Adam does eat from the tree he will die, “in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.” Adam lived for 930 years according to the Bible so he died within 1,000 years. So, the idea is he died the same day he ate of the tree. Irenaeus also references Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 which states that with God 1,000 years are like one day. So, according to this view the 6th day of creation was a 1,000 year epoch. Justin Martyr (100-165) also suggests this same idea in his work, Dialogue with Trypho. While these early writers do not necessarily approach all creations days in this manner, I believe it can be concluded that the word “day” in this view represents a long period of time or epoch.

Allegorical View

Several early church fathers did not see the creation days as literal 24-hour days, particularly the first 3 days. St. Augustine (354-430) is known for his allegorical interpretation of the Genesis account. Augustine viewed the days as spiritual and believed God made everything all at once. He suggested that the six days of creation were not literal but a way to show progressive knowledge. In Augustine’s famous work, The City of God, he writes that all of creation was made ‘one day.’ “The same ‘one’ day is repeated to complete the number six or seven, so that there should be knowledge both of God’s works and of his rest.”(Augustine, The City of God) So the evening and morning routine seen in the days of creation is expressing progressive knowledge of divine creation. As we can see this view is highly symbolic and spiritualizes the text.

24-Hour Days View

As is the case today, throughout history there have been many scholars who believed the creation days were literal 24-hour days. We should note that some of this is refuting that the universe is eternal. Basil of Caesarea (329-379) is noted for making this comparison because of the Greek influence and concept of an eternal universe governed by chance. Tatian writes, “Matter is not, like God, without beginning, nor, as having no beginning … rather, it is begotten … brought into existence by the Framer of all things alone.” (Tatian, Address to the Greeks) And many others in the church also took a strong stance against Greek philosophy (matter is eternal) due to its influence. And so we can understand from this that while the 24-hour day view may be very viable, its beginnings were largely motivated by efforts to stop pagan philosophies.

Modern Interpretations

Modern interpretations are basically divided into 2 main categories, concordist and nonconcordist. Concordism means there is a harmonization of the Biblical record and scientific facts. Nonconcordism does not attempt this harmony because proponents of this view do not feel this is the intent of the Bible. There are several views within each category and I will not cover them all but will address the main systems.

Old-Earth Creationism

Within Concordism there are two main views, what is called Old-Earth Creationism and Young-Earth Creationism. Old-Earth Creationism espouses the belief that the universe and the earth are ancient. Proponents of this view ascribe to the scientific dating of the universe. I should point out that some in this camp do believe in evolution while others do not. But OEC itself does not mean evolution is also true. Under OEC there are a few theories. The gap view has been around a long time and was popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible. The gap view advocates that the world and universe were originally created perfectly (Gen. 1:1). But after this there is a gap in time (between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2, or possibly between 1:2 and 1:3). Supporters of the view believe the gap represents when Satan rebelled and is cast down to earth. This leaves the earth in the condition we find in Genesis 1:2. So, there is a gap between the first two verses of the Bible and the time period could be immense (millions of years).

Another system within OEC is what is termed the day-age view, which has been popularized by Hugh Ross. I would suggest that when it comes to some of the OEC views we must be very careful not to equate science with the Bible – this is very dangerous. I am not saying those in this camp are doing that necessarily, but I do think there is a real danger and some of the content comes very close to doing that. The day-age view basically means the creation days are long “ages”. The proponents of this group talk about the Hebrew word for “day” and suggest the timeframe can be long or short depending on the context. Further, they suggest in Genesis, citing Genesis 2:4, that the word “day” can be a long, finite period of time. Advocates for this view suggest the activity of the 6th day could not be accomplished in 24 hours. In addition, there is no “end” to the 7th day (evening and morning), suggesting that we are still in that day now. This group extensively uses scientific dating of the universe and earth to estimate the length of the creation days. Again, I would reiterate that we must use caution here. I certainly believe on the whole the motives are good and they are attempting to bring people together and harmonize faith and science. Proponents of this view are also using the theories as a tool to bring people of science to God and the Bible. However, we must be very careful when dealing with God’s word and I would suggest there are times when OEC can take us out of God’s word and leave us in a very naturalistic setting, whether purposeful or not.

The next view within OEC is called intermittent day view. This is espoused by Robert Newman, Perry Phillips, and Herman Eckelmann. Their idea is that the creation was a long period of time that is divided into 6 parts. Each part begins with a literal 24-hour day. Again, this is way to provide harmony between the Bible and science. A similar view has been suggested by physicist Alan Hayward, which is the days of divine fiat view. Hayward states that the days of creation are not the days when God is actually doing the work of creation, but when he issued the creative commands, or fiats. What this means is that God spoke the command for creation to come into being (over 6 days), but the time it took for the work to be done or accomplished can actually be what science describes with its dating systems. Keep in mind, all of these views are trying to harmonize science with Scripture. That is a worthy goal, however, my question is, have we gone too far?

Young-Earth Creationism

The second category in the concordian views is Young-Earth Creationism. Most of us in the Christian community are probably most familiar with this due to its prominence and popularity. This group believes the Hebrew word for “day” in Genesis 1 is a literal 24-hour day. The proponents of this view point to the “evening and morning” in the text which would imply a literal day, and Exodus 20:9, which states, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work.” They say both of these point to literal calendar days, and that God never said anything to indicate that the “day” is anything other than a normal, 24-hour day.

Supporters of the view also suggest that if the earth is old, then this means that death and decay would have preceded the original sin by Adam and Eve, which they claim is impossible since God’s original creation was perfect. YEC is not against science, but they believe most of the scientific community is biased toward an ancient earth and naturalistic explanations. They have made great strides in synthesizing science with a literal 6-day creation week. For example, The Genesis Flood, by John Whitcomb and Henry Morris explains how the flood of Genesis 6-8 is evident in the geological and fossil record.

Most in the YEC camp believe the universe and earth are young, typically between 6-10,000 years old. Since this is totally against the scientific dating of the universe, which typically dates the universe between 14-16 billion years and the earth around 4.6 billion years, several theories have been proposed. One is by Gerald Schroeder, who claims that the six literal creation days are also 15 billion years using time dilation. Basically this means the time frame depends on where you are in the universe. On earth, what is 6 days could be millions of years from another reference point. According to the theory of relativity there is truth in what Schroeder is suggesting. However, getting the math to line up accurately for this theory might be a challenge.

Another idea that has been proposed is that the universe appears to have “age” when in fact it doesn’t. This theory is called the mature creation view. Proponents of this view believe the creation days are literal 24-hour days and that the earth is young but has an appearance of age. For example, Adam and Eve were created fully grown, we could say around the age of 20 or 25, yet they were only a day old. So, God created them already mature. By the same token, this view suggests other things may have been created this way as well (full grown trees, stars, etc.) So, objects appear to have age when in fact they do not.

Framework View

Next, we will talk about nonconcordist views, which is a perspective where we are trying to understand the author’s intent (context), considering the original audience and in general are not trying to harmonize the Bible and science. There are several different nonconcordist views, but we will only consider a couple of them. The first one is the framework view, which is a figurative framework that describes real events in history. The framework view breaks down the creation week into two triads. The first triad is days one to three, which is about the creation of 3 “kingdoms”. The heavens (light), the sky and water, and the earth (land). The second triad is day four to six, which discusses the “kings” who rule the kingdoms. For instance, the sun, moon and stars (heavens), sea creatures and birds (sky and water), and land animals and humans (land). The view also typically maintains there are 2 parts of creation, an upper part (invisible) and a lower part (visible). In other words, there is a heavenly creation week that has an earthly parallel.

Analogical Days View

The last view we will discuss is called the analogical days view. It was developed by C. John Collins and focuses on a literary and historical-theological method. Collins is looking for the author’s intent in the original Hebrew text and the literary devices used to communicate these ideas. The basic thought of this position is that the creation days are God’s work days. There is no specified length of time for the days. Collins asserts that after the initial creation event (Gen. 1:1), there is an unspecified time that elapses before the first day, and the creation days likely overlap each other. What Collins is saying is that the days are divine and are an analogy for human work days. Six days of work and one day of rest. There is not a timeframe to the creations days, but they are an analogy so we can understand working and rest. This line of thinking also makes it possible for anyone to understand the meaning no matter the time or culture. God’s workdays are not the same as ours, but we can understand the principle of working and rest from the creation story.

In looking at all these views, I would ask a simple question. Is there a right answer? Well, I believe all are within orthodoxy with one exception. If any of the views espouses evolution in the sense that we (humans) came from a single cell, animals, etc., then that is absolutely NOT within what the Bible teaches. Outside of that, I think most of the views can be considered and allowed within the Christian community. However, as I have mentioned before we have to be very careful when dealing with the Bible and make sure it is the highest authority and not science. I know putting science on equal footing with the Bible is not the intent of most, but just as a frog is slowly cooked; we can be duped into comparisons that are not helpful to the Christian community or for evangelistic purposes.

Now in closing I want to give you some final thoughts. First of all, I am going to give you my take on the creation account, generally speaking. But I want to say this is only to be honest and transparent because I do not think our differing views should divide us. None of us were there at the beginning, it was only God himself.

I believe Genesis 1:1 is the initial creation event by God just as the Bible states. I think when you get to verse 2, it is describing the next stage of creation, or God “preparing” to do more creative acts. However, in the first two verses of the Bible there is no time element. And we know God is outside of time. So, it is possible the creation account of Genesis 1-2 was a long period of time. Now, when we get to verses 3-5, there is a time element because now we have day 1. So, what am I saying? From the beginning there could be a very long period of time – we don’t know because there is no time reference, however, when you get to day 1, there is an apparent time element. Which means the creation days do not have to be millions of years, they could be 24-hours or longer periods such as 1,000 years. Going all the way back to Irenaeus, I think there is much evidence for long creation days. Now, that does not mean that literal 24-hour days are not possible – they are. I just think based on day 6 and the 1,000 years as one day to God reference seal this for long creation days. Now, let me be clear about what I am not saying. I am not saying the creation days are millions of years. I am not sure how long they were. I am also not saying that man is ancient. He is NOT! While the universe and the earth may be ancient, man most definitely is not. The Bible makes this clear with the genealogies. While there could be some “gaps” in the genealogies (instead of father to son, it could be grandfather or ancestor), it is clear that man is recently created. This is why it is imperative to follow the Bible and not science. The genealogies show us man did not evolve and was created by God in recent times, probably 6-10,000 years ago. I also believe the creation week is an analogy for work and rest as stated by the analogical days view. And this concept is certainly stated other places in Scripture. Well, in a nutshell that is my take on Genesis 1. I will leave you with some final thoughts by Francis Schaeffer.

Shaeffer wrote a book called No Final Conflict. The main point of the book is that our understanding of the Bible and nature is not perfect. But when all the facts of the Bible and science are understood correctly, then there is no conflict. The fact is nature and the Bible do not contradict each other, we just may not understand all the facts yet. Shaeffer makes the following points about the Genesis account. There is a possibility that –

· God created a “grown up” universe

· There is a gap in time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 or between 1:2 and 1:3

· Genesis 1 has long creation days

· The flood affected the geological and fossil record

· There was death before the fall

At the end of the day we are confident in this – we can disagree within orthodoxy. God created the heavens and earth perfectly and it was good. The story of creation lays the foundation for all philosophy, theology and science.

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In addition to the works cited in this article, the following resources were used –

Josh and Sean McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine