Saturday, January 20, 2007

A Creation Discussion with a Seeker

Recently I had the opportunity to discuss some Creation Science with a genuine seeker. I quote him out below:

I think there must have been a gap between the 6th day creation of man and woman and Adam and Eve who I think may have been created on the 8th day or sometime thereafter.

The "gap" is only implied (and it is a very subtle implication indeed) between verse 1 and 2 of Genesis 1. There is no room for any other interpretation of the rest of the chapter other than the days being contiguous with no gaps. We can debate how long the days were but there are no gaps, subtly implied or otherwise, in the text. Now, to be clear, I do accept the possibility of a gap of time between verse one and two but this would only affect the age of the universe and would have nothing to do with how long life itself took to be created.

But why do you think that we need to find one? I can tell you that you do not need to search for a gap to explain modern scientific findings. And for sure the Bible says that life did not evolve.

We have no knowledge of God’s measurement of time since it is on a scale of eternity.

Actually we do have knowledge of his measurement of time. He created the system of time we use (even in secular society) today. For example, there is no natural cycle of 7 days yet that is our week. The Bible talks in several places about the creation week as a literal week. While many people like to dismiss Genesis they forget that Exodus has a very specific reference to the creation week as being literal.

Right there in the middle of the ten commandments we read in Exodus 20:11: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

If the days are of indeterminate length then this command makes no sense. Indeed, it makes no sense if they are anything other than 24 hour periods of time.

Feel free to say that both Genesis and Exodus are wrong from a scientific perspective (I personally believe they harmonize with science perfectly) but please don't claim that God has not given us specific information on the timing of creation.

Perhaps the women were from the first creation though there are no human remains in the fossil record during the period of dinosaurs that I know of.

Here's the thing. There is no need to look for a gap in Genesis for where the fossils came from. First, if there was a preCreation it is said that it was utterly destroyed. We see no evidence of it today. Everything, at least on earth, was made new starting in Gen. 1:2. Secondly, the Bible is very specific that no death occured until after Adam sinned. I think you may have noticed something very salient about fossils... they're dead.

This is central to the doctrine of Christianity. The savvy anti-Christianist will know that if he can undermine Corinthians 15:21, he can undermine the basic teaching of the Bible:


Christ died physically (not just figurativly or spiritually) because Adam brought physical death into the world.

If there was death before Adam then Adam was not responsible and therefore, Christ died for nothing and the whole of the Bible is a fable.

Evolution is based on the notion that death has been going on long before Adam came along (if he ever came along at all). The promotion of the idea of death being a natural process rather than the result of the entropic principle that came as a result of Adam's disobedience is central to atheistic evolutionism. The realty that Christians buy into evolution is a sad commentary on the general understanding of the teachings of Scripture.

I have a hard time believing God scattered fossils about after the time of Adam and Eve.

Fossils are the dead remains of creatures instantly covered by mud, sand, and debris. God did not "scatter" them but rather, the animals (and some people but not a lot) were caught in some kind of deluge that trapped them. Fossils do not occur unless the creature was quickly buried in mud or sand. You think that fossils take a long time to form because the evolutionists have promoted this disinformation for a long time. In fact, fossils, sedementary layers, crustal uplifts, erosion, and so on are better explained by catastrophism and not uniformitarianism. Fossils have been found that were formed in just a few hundred years.

That would only confuse the issue and God is not a God of confusion but of order.

I agree. But we can look down through the history of science where the Bible said one thing and contemporary scientists said another and the Bible turned out to be correct and scientists wrong. You ask, Why would God write the Bible with incorrect information? But realize, the Bible is confirmed all the time as new research is done and as a result we realize that God was not trying to confuse anyone. He was seeking to enlighten them.

If we tell a kid looking out a skyscraper window that those are actually people below and not ants, does the kid wonder if we are lying? Why would we deceive him when he can tell that those are just little tiny insects.

Only later does he realize that we were right. His subsequent observations tell him that we were not trying to confuse him but to inform him.

One of my favorite examples of this from the Bible is Paul's description of the elements that make up all that we see. He explained in Romans that the universe is made up of things too small to observe with the naked eye. At the time, the scientists reading his letters surely would have scoffed given that it was commonly understood that the elements were obviously Earth, Wind, and Fire.

But we know this was a fantasy.

But place ourselves in the shoes of the secular scientists of the day. Why would God claim that the physical universe was made up of things that were invisible when everyone knew that it was made up of earth, wind, and fire? Was God just being figurative or trying to confuse us?

Just because we don't understand why God says he created in 6 days even though it appears that the earth is much older doesn't mean there isn't a scientifically knowable explanation. Just as the Psalmist wrote there are currents in the oceans (and he wrote this at a time when people thought that the oceans were just big lakes) doesn't mean that the Psalmist was wrong. In fact, there are currents and scientists first made conjectures about such currents from reading Scripture.

God is not joking with us and he is not putting out false clues. How about if we just assume we don't know everything and take him at his Word?


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