“You can’t think the Bible is true with its unscientific story for the creation of the universe.” Many people think the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. They think this is a scientific fact because most scientists attest it as a fact. Furthermore, many academics including believers assert that the first book of the Bible speaks of how God created the universe in figurative details. Old-earth creationists perceive that the Bible teaches certain facts including that God created the universe, a habitable earth, life, and humanity in His image. However, they claim little beyond these points in the Genesis account.
Both young-earth and old-earth views of creation have difficulty understanding the other position. Both old-earth and young-earth creationists recognize science as observations of God’s creation. The apostle Paul revealed, “For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom 1:20). Paul appears to have spoken from a young-earth perspective that humanity has been able to perceive God’s nature and power from the Creation.
One of the problems that old-earth creationists must address is Jesus’s affirmation: “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’” (Mark 10:6; cf. Matt 19:4). The reader can see that Jesus referenced Genesis as factual and that God created humanity from the beginning of creation. Other problems for old-earth creationists include Moses’s interpretation of his creation account in Genesis: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day” (Exod 20:11; cf. 31:17). Furthermore, old-earth creationists need to explain the 9 billion year gap between the creation of heaven and earth in Genesis 1:1. The Bible does not say God created the heavens and 9 billion years later the earth. They see Genesis 1:1 of God creating “the heavens and the earth” as an idiom for God creating the universe and eventually forming the earth through natural processes. Old-earth creationists see these passages as figurative rather than literal.
The problems that young-earth creationists must account are the age of rocks on the Earth, the distance of starlight, and geologic layers. However, most young creationists see these as supporting the Genesis account of creation. From a literal interpretation, Genesis 1 reveals that God created a mature and habitable Earth, used rapid formative processes on creation Days 1–4 to form the atmosphere, formations of land, and develope vegetation. God set the natural laws for each day of creation in its completion. From the creation days forward, God’s creation followed its God-given natural order and laws. Today, the details in Genesis account for a young universe explaining any assumptions of long ages from radiometric dating of rocks and the arrival of distant starlight. With modern advances in science, Genesis still accounts for the apparent nature and state of the Earth.
The scientific revolution began via creationists, and today’s biblical creationist has nothing to fear. The biblical account of Creation between 6300 and 7500 years ago stands. No need exists to reinterpret the biblical text to harmonize God’s creation with secular assumptions about the universe. Because God is the best explanation for the universe, scientists advance the more they recognize God’s power and causality in the existence of the universe and life by natural laws that God set and upholds by His Word (Heb 1:3; 11:3). Thank God for the Bible! No biblical creationist needs to accept secular assumptions for the origin and formation of the universe.
[This article was posted originally at ThomasvillechurchofChrist.org/articles]
Matthew is the first gospel. Mark is non-apostolic. You quote Mark which is materially different than the Genesis account and from Matthew which in your source link reads consistent with Genesis “He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,
“https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Matt%2019.4. Thus, Jesus in Matthew says God who created “them [Adam and Eve] from the beginning” made them m/f. But
if the Mark translation were relied upon, as you do, it sounds like on day one God created Adam and Eve, which is not even consistent with Genesis: “6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them gmale and female.’” This means literally when creation began, God made them M/F. This is untrue in Genesis.
Also, you say your view is “literal.” The view can only be literal if “day” is solely a 24 hour period. But it is not. In fact, in Gen. 1:5, day is defined as the “light” – he called the light “day.” “Evening” when it first happened before the first “light” is not defined. No light yet existed, and there was no “day” and “night” cycle. This “evening” is not just a gap prior to day one, but means each “light” (12 hours) versus “evening” (not “night”) that follows means 12 hours is followed by an undefined period called “evening” which we know was not 12 hours the first time it was mentioned. This means that the Genesis account can fit into modern science. Why not go that way rather than insist the literal meaning of day defined in Gen. 1:5 – 12 hours of “light” – cannot fit modern science?
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If you add billions of years into the creation account, as the old-earth creationists do, then you have a serious problem: the Bible is clear that death is in the world because of sin. If there there were billions of years prior to the creation of Adam and Eve in which all manner of animals evolved and died (I know you did not say this, but this is usually what the old-earth creationists claim), then death was part of the original creation. If death was part of the original creation, then sin must have been also, and was therefore also part of God’s plan, since He said it was “very good”. Then I put it to you: why did Jesus die on the cross? There is no reason and His death is essentially meaningless in such a worldview, since sin would have been part of the plan all along….
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Hi Jan:
I agree. Excellent points.
However, many perceive that death and decay existed for nature apart from man living without death by eating from the Tree of Life. That is how old-earth creationists see the death of humanity coming through Adam’s sin unto death for all humanity who could not partake of the Tree of Life. I don’t hold this position, but it looks reasonable.
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom 5:12).
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The Creation account is revealed by God and accounts for the nature of the universe today. No need to include secular assumptions about science into God’s Creation. That would be concordism.
The whole creation of the heavens and the earth was in six days. There is no room and no need for a gap as the creation of the heavens and the earth in verses 1-2 are included in the did days. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day (Exod 20:11).
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