Tag Archives: young earth creation

Creation

What is the Meaning of the Word "Day" in Genesis? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

The Hebrew word yom is used eleven times in Genesis, chapter 1.  When you read Genesis 1 (and you should before proceeding to read this post), it is clear that the author is describing the creation of the heavens and earth by God.  As the author describes this process, he uses the word yom to denote periods of time that pass between each major creation event.  Here are a few verses (Gen 1:3-8) to show what I mean:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it.  And it was so. God called the expanse “sky.”  And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

This pattern continues through the sixth “day” until the initial creation account ends with Gen 2:1-3:
 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
 The word yom can mean several things in Hebrew.  It can refer to a 24-hour period or it can refer to longer periods of time.  Which is the correct interpretation in Genesis 1?
As Norman Geisler records, those who argue that the “days” are 24-hour periods argue like this:
 It is contended that the usual meaning of the Hebrew word yom (“day”) is twenty-four hours unless the context indicates otherwise. The context does not indicate anything but a twenty-four-hour-day in Genesis 1; hence, the days should be taken as solar days.
 (Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Two: God, Creation (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2003), 637.)
The response to this view is as follows:
 It is true that most often the Hebrew word yom (“day”) means “twenty-four hours.” However, this is not definitive for its meaning in Genesis 1 for several reasons.
First, the meaning of a term is not determined by majority vote, but by the context in which it is used. It is not important how many times it is used elsewhere, but how it is used here.
Second, even in the creation story in Genesis 1–2, “day” (yom) is used of more than a twenty-four-hour period. Speaking of the whole six “days” of creation, Genesis 2:4 refers to it as “the day” (yom) when all things were created.
Third, and finally, yom is elsewhere used of long periods of time, as in Psalm 90:4, which is cited in 2 Peter 3:8: “A day is like a thousand years.”

(Norman L. Geisler, 639)

These are the just the basic introductory arguments for these views, and much more could be said.  But we have to start somewhere and we will continue batting these views back and forth in future posts.

Creation

My Views On the Age of the Earth

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Over the past several years, I have moved from believing in a young earth (6,000-10,000 years) to an older earth (4.5 billion years).  I wouldn’t say that I’m totally convinced, but I do think that the biblical and scientific evidence is much stronger for an old earth.  This position, unfortunately, alienates me from some of my evangelical brothers and sisters, but I cannot claim to believe something that I don’t believe any more.

For those who wonder about my views on the Bible, I am a strong believer in the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible.  I am not, however, convinced that every human interpretation of the Bible is infallible.  We make mistakes and sometimes misinterpret.  Some passages in the Bible are more difficult to interpret than others.  I believe that correct interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis is not obvious.  Intelligent and conservative Christians disagree on the meaning of these passages. 

In addition, I affirm the historical-grammatical method of Bible interpretation.  I believe that we should read the Bible as the original author intended it to be understood in the historical context within which he wrote.

The issue of interpreting the “days” of Genesis is a fascinating and important issue, but it is not one of the essentials of the faith.  The age of the the earth is not a test for orthodoxy and there are several literal views  of the “days” in Genesis.

Consider this post to be an introduction to several more posts on the age of the earth.  It is my fervent prayer that we will have fruitful and respectful conversations about these issues.  As always, I will welcome comments from all sides.  I look forward to the discussion and I hope I can learn along with everyone else.

Creation

What Do Evangelicals Think About Creation?

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Som people believe that if you are an evangelical, then you must believe that God created the earth and the entire universe in a six day period of time, about 6,000 – 10,000 years ago.  In addition, you must believe that the entire universe was also created 6,000 – 10,000 years ago.  This view is known as young-earth creation, and it is certainly popular with many evangelicals.

However, it is not true that this is the only position that evangelicals take.  There are several other positions, such as the literary-framework view, revelatory-day view, alternate-day-age view, and gap theory.

Perhaps the leading contender to the young-earth view, among evangelicals,  is the old-earth or progressive creation view.  Proponents of old-earth creation view the events in Genesis 1 and 2 as real, historical occurrences, but they interpret the “days” in Genesis as long periods of time.  They endorse the findings of geology, astronomy, and physics, which date the earth at about 4.5 billion years old and the entire universe at about 13.8 billion years old.

Some evangelicals dismiss old-earth creation (truth be told, many aren’t even aware of it) because they believe it does not interpret Genesis literally, but that is not the case.  A literal interpretation simply means that a person interprets the meaning of a writing as the original author intended, taking into account the literary style and structure of the writing.

For example, almost all evangelical scholars believe that the events depicted in Genesis were written in the form of historical narrative, and not in the form of mythology or allegory.  Writers of mythology and allegory often provide clear textual queues that indicate those genres.   The text of Genesis, however, reads like a historical narrative.

Many well-known evangelical scholars, who believe that the creation events of Genesis are part of a historical narrative, have interpreted the “days” in Genesis as long periods of time, and not 24-hour days.   It is simply not true to claim that young-earth creationists are the only ones interpreting Genesis literally.  There are several possible literal interpretations of Genesis 1-2, and young-earth creation represents one of those possible interpretations.

There is a further point that needs making.  The age of the earth is not an issue that divides Christian from non-Christian.  It does not determine anyone’s salvation.  All of the views mentioned above assert that God created the universe in a supernatural way and that He created the first human beings in a supernatural way.  So let’s keep these disagreements in perspective.

Intelligent Design

How Do We Distinguish Between Young Earth Creation, Theistic Science, and Intelligent Design? – Part 3

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Intelligent Design

Theistic science calls for Christians to search for signs of God’s intervention in the history of the cosmos, but how?  The scientific program of intelligent design (ID) answers this question.  In reality, ID is not a creation hypothesis, but a scientific method used to discover signs of intelligence in the natural world.  According to William Dembski, an ID theorist, “Intelligent Design is the science that studies signs of intelligence.”[1]  ID is not about studying the source of intelligence, the creator behind the design.  It is about studying the signs or the effects of intelligence.  Dembski explains that “as a theory of biological origins and development, intelligent design’s central claim is that only intelligent causes adequately explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable.   To say intelligent causes are empirically detectable is to say there exist well-defined methods that, based on observable features of the world, can reliably distinguish intelligent causes from undirected natural causes.”[2]  One sign of intelligence that ID attempts to detect is called specified complexity.  An event exhibits “specified complexity if it is contingent and therefore not necessary; if it is complex and therefore not readily repeatable by chance; and if it is specified in the sense of exhibiting an independently given pattern.”[3]

ID differs from young earth creation in that it does not presuppose biblical accounts of creation and it is not a creation hypothesis as such.  ID provides a scientific toolset to creation theorists who want to detect signs of intelligence in nature, but as a scientific tool ID cannot be used to draw conclusions about the source of any intelligence it might discover.  Those conclusions must be left to theology and philosophy.

Conclusion

Theistic science is a philosophy of science that integrates Christian theology and primary agent causation with the modern scientific method.  A person practicing theistic science is free to draw upon all that they know, including propositions of theology, to conduct their investigations into the natural world.  Intelligent design provides mathematical and scientific tools for the theistic scientist to detect signs of intelligent agent causation in the natural world.  ID, as such, cannot identify that agent, nor does it try.  Young earth creation is a creation hypothesis which fits comfortably under the theistic science umbrella, but does not exhaust all possible creation hypotheses that a theistic scientist may want to explore.

[1] William A. Dembski, The Design Revolution (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 33.

[2] Ibid., 34.

[3] Ibid., 35.

Intelligent Design

How Do We Distinguish Between Young Earth Creation, Theistic Science, and Intelligent Design? – Part 1

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There are at least three distinct systems which interact with each other and are often confused when discussion of the creation hypothesis emerges.  First, creation science is often assumed to be referring to a particular set of origin beliefs promoted by Christian fundamentalists – a set of beliefs popularized in the twentieth century.  This creation hypothesis is also commonly called young earth or six day creation because its proponents assert a recent creation of the earth in a literal six day period. 

Second, in order to allow theistic creation hypotheses (including, but not limited to young earth creation) to flourish, promoters of theistic science attempt to define a general philosophy of science inclusive of Christian theology.  Theistic science opens up science to the propositions of theology in a way that furthers scientific inquiry. 

A third set of ideas which is often conflated with the creation hypothesis, but is not itself a creation hypothesis, is captured in the modern intelligent design movement, a movement which can provide scientific tools to creation theorists.  I will introduce and give brief overviews of each of these views that relate to the creation hypothesis and explain how they relate to each other.

 Young Earth Creation

Charles Darwin’s ideas, popularized in 1859, submerged creationists for almost one hundred years, but in 1961 Henry Morris and John Whitcomb published The Genesis Flood, a work which would sell over one hundred thousand copies by 1980.[1]  In this work and in numerous subsequent works written by creationists in the 1960s and 1970s, the position of young earth creation solidified into a concrete program which in turned spawned the emergence of several institutions and organizations chartered to spread the ideas originated in Morris and Whitcomb’s seminal book. 

In 1981 the state of Arkansas passed a law mandating that the public school curriculum include both the teaching of creation science (young earth creation) and the theory of evolution.  In this law, creation science was defined as “the scientific evidences and related inferences that indicate: (1) Sudden creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing; (2) The insufficiency of mutation and natural selection  in bringing about development of all living kinds from a single organism; (3) Changes only within fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals; (4) Separate ancestry for man and apes; (5) Explanation of the earth’s geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of a worldwide flood; and (6) A relatively recent inception of the earth and living kinds.”[2]

Young earth creationists presuppose the scientific accuracy of a particular interpretation of the biblical book of Genesis.  According to this theory, the age of the earth is typically believed to be on the order of six thousand to ten thousand years as opposed to the 4.5 billion years proposed by most geologists.  In addition, a literal six, twenty-four hour day creation period is mandated by the opening verses of Genesis.  The key to understanding young earth creation is that it starts with biblical texts which are understood in a specific literal manner, it applies that understanding to the origins of  the universe, earth, and life, and then it attempts to match the empirical scientific data to those facts based on the Bible. 

The next posts in this series will explain theistic science and intelligent design.  Stay tuned!!

[1]Norman L. Geisler and J. Kerby Anderson, Origin Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 19.

[2] Ibid., 20.