Over the years I’ve met people on both sides of the argument, some who claim that everything was created in six 24 hour days, and that this clearly demonstrates God’s creational power, but I’ve also met people that have deeply analyzed the text and reached the conclusion that the process of creation lasted billions of years.
I know most of us have heard people say, especially non-Christians, that Creationism is scientifically inaccurate because it says that everything existed in the same time period, and we know for a fact that many species did not co-exist with each other, because fossil records prove this, we didn’t have poodles and dinosaurs on the earth at the same time! In fact the time frame from one to another is of millions of years. Unfortunately however, studies show that the most common interpretation of Genesis in the United States is ‘Young Earth Creationism’ which claims that the earth and the entire universe was created within the last 10,000 years. If you've face-palmed yourself, you are not alone. Needless to say, I personally think this interpretation is both biblically and scientifically incorrect.
For years, I've had problems with Christians that believe that scientists make up the facts about the age of the universe (13.7 billion years old), or are skeptic when told the earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old. I'm not quite sure if they think it's all an elaborate hoax in which all the scientific community both past and present decided to participate in, or exactly how far they think this conspiracy goes, but by going up against these facts most Christians make the rest of us look like illiterate fanatics. When in fact there are those whom try to rationalize and reconcile what we believe is the truth of the bible, with the facts that science provides us. There is such a thing as an informed theist! I would like to point out that this isn't because we have little faith in God, on the contrary, we do this because the complexity of the world around us only makes us more astonished at its Creator. It also saddens me however, when atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawkins, use their intelligence to insult those that believe in the notion of a Divine Creator, let's be honest shall we? When looking at it from a mathematical point of view, the odds of life arising spontaneously due to a seemingly improbable string of unbelievably lucky and precise coincidences and the idea of a Higher Intellect in our universe are quite on the same level: virtually impossible ... and yet here we are.
In this article we’re going to analyze and read Genesis chapter 1 with more detail. The first thing you’ll find is that God created progressively, whether or not you believe He populated the earth using 24 hour days or long periods of time, the fact is He did NOT create everything instantaneously.
Now as we all know the creation of the universe, the earth and all of biological life is described in the first chapter of Genesis in an ordered account describing what God did every single day. For starters I'd like to begin by analyzing the word used to describe a “day” in Genesis. The Hebrew word ‘Yom,’ can be interpreted in many different ways and can refer to a long period of time, such as a year, or even a lifetime.
Now on our previous article we mentioned Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” from this we talked about how God created time, space and all the matter of the universe through the Big Bang and how science tells us how this process came into existence in fractions of a second. Now we’re going to analyze from Genesis chapter 1 verse 2, here we see that it starts with a conjunction, is says: “AND the earth was formless and void [...]” this fact tells us that Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 are part of a continuous thought, this is still part of the FIRST day of creation, so from verse 1 to verse 2 the universe aged 9.1 billion years! That's the amount of time estimated between the creation of time, space and matter, to the formation of the earth itself. Amazing isn't it? Now verse 2 goes on to say: “and the darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters,” many people ask why was the earth dark? Now both science and the bible tell us that at the beginning of time when the earth was forming, it was covered with a dense layer of clouds and gases which would have made it’s surface dark. God himself tells us this in Job 38:4 when He says, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? When I made a cloud it’s garment and wrapped it in thick darkness.” Interesting how only in the 21st century science came to appreciate a fact that dates back to the 6th century BCE.
Genesis 1:3 also begins with another conjunction, so we know it’s still part of the continuing action: “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light,” so here the light reaches the surface of the earth for the first time, this was the light of the sun which had been previously created, and then in verse 4 and 5 it says: “and God separated the light from darkness, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night, AND there was evening, and there was morning, one day.” So from these verses we know that the earth was already rotating on its axis and receiving partial sunlight, and that God accomplished all these things in a single day.
On the second day, God creates a stable water cycle, as we read in verse 6 onward: God said, “And God made the expanse and separated the waters which were above the expanse, and God called the expanse heaven, and there was the evening and the morning, a second day.” The texts explains how the waters above (the clouds) are separated from the waters below (or the deep mentioned in verse 2) and the separation is called heavens (also translated to skies). So this is the day where God creates all the different atmospheres.
On the third day, God begins with the formation of continents through tectonic activity, we can see that He “let” the dry land appear so it already existed underneath the surface of the waters, we read this in verse 9, and in the same day plant life was created, in verse 11 and 12 where it says: “Then God says, “Let the earth sprout vegetation plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, and the earth brought forth vegetation, seeds after their kind and trees bearing fruit,”
This verse quite literally says that the earth sprouted vegetation and fruit trees which bared fruit, and as we know, for a tree to bear fruit it takes years, even recent scientific evidence shows that plant life began approximately 1 billion years ago on earth, so we for sure know that this third day couldn’t possibly have been of 24 hours.
Now on the fourth day, many people believe that God created the Sun, Moon and Stars, but that is not what the text actually says:
“Then God said “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and for season and for days and years” so in this verse we see the words “let there be,” which is not a statement of creation but a statement of appearance, in this moment the clouds that had been partially removed in the second day were completely removed so that the sun and moon could be visibly seen from earth, it tells us that this was so the season days and years could be established.
And on the fifth day, God created the first life on earth, aquatic beings, which is also consistent with science, in verse 20 we read: “Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures that move,” and later on in verse 22 He tells all the creates He’s created to: “Be fruitful and MULTIPLY, and FILL the waters of the seas and multiply on the EARTH.”
Now for these creatures to fulfill God’s word, to be able to reproduce themselves and multiply enough to populate and fill the waters of the seas around the earth, they would need a bit more than 24 hours. It took these species millions of years to develop, science tells us that there is a 650 million year time frame from the first biological life forms to human beings, in that time frame things lived, died, and became extinct.
And finally we arrive on the sixth day of creation, where God begins by creating the more domesticated animals, the ones we are familiar with, land mammals that interact with humans; and last but not least, after all this process that took billions of years, his last act was to create mankind, in his own image.
“Then God said: “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, creeping things and beasts of the earth, and it was so,” and in verse 26 he finishes his work by creating his masterpiece “Then God said, “Let us make man in OUR image, according to OUR likeness, .. and God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
What we sometimes fail to appreciate is that God's timeframe is not the same as ours. The Bible clearly states that with God a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day (Psalm 90:4). God's power is in no way limited because it took billions of years to create the universe, on the other hand it just shows, that not being limited by space nor time, He was there present at every moment, up close and personal, detailing everything to make sure it was perfect for our arrival. As King David once quoted, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
No comments:
Post a Comment