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commonest view of the origin of the cosmos is "theistic creationism,"
the belief that the Cosmos is the product of a divine supernatural
action at the begi
The creationist debate, therefore, has not generally been
between strictly natural processes and strictly supernatural ones, but
over *how much* supernaturalism or naturalism one is willing to
admit into one's worldview.
How does one deal successfully with the dissonance between
the word of God and the evidence in the physical world? Or the
struggle, as Stephen Jay Gould puts it, between the Rock of Ages and
the age of rocks?
Let us assume, as a given, that the Bible as we know it today is
divinely inspired and that there are no mistranslations, errors,
ellipses, or deceptions within the text. Let us further assume that
the account in Genesis is entirely factual and not metaphorical, poetic
or mythical.
Genesis says that the universe was created in six days. This
divine process followed a well-defined schedule.
Day 1. God created a dark, formless void of deep waters, then
created light and separated light from darkness.
Day 2. God established the vault of Heaven over the formless watery
void.
Day 3. God created dry land amidst the waters and established
vegetation on the land.
Day 4. God created the sun, the moon, and the stars, and set them
into the vault of heaven.
Day 5. God created the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air.
Day 6. God created the beasts of the earth and created one male and
one female human being.
On Day 7, God rested.
Humanity thus began on the sixth day of creation. Mankind is
one day younger than birds, two days younger than plants, and
slightly younger than mammals. How are we to reconcile this with
scientific evidence suggesting that the earth is over 4 billion years
old and that life started as a single-celled ooze some three billion
years ago?
The first method of reconciliation is known as "gap theory."
The very first verse of Genesis declares that God created the heaven
and the earth, but God did not establish "Day" and "Night" until the
fifth verse. This suggests that there may have been an immense
span of time, perhaps eons, between the creation of matter and life,
and the begi
multiple creations and cataclysms during this period, accounting for
the presence of oddities such as trilobites and dinosaurs, before a
standard six-day Edenic "restoration" around 4,000 BC.
"Gap theory" was favored by Biblical scholar Charles Scofield,
prominent '30s barnstorming evangelist Harry Rimmer, and well-
known modern televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, among others.
The second method of reconciliation is "day-age theory." In
this interpretation, the individual "days" of the Bible are considered
not modern twenty-four hour days, but enormous spans of time.
Day-age theorists point out that the sun was not created until Day 4,
more than halfway through the process. It's difficult to understand
how or why the Earth would have a contemporary 24-hour "day"
without a Sun. The Begi
with matter created on the first "day," life emerging on the third
"day," the fossil record forming during the eons of "days" four five
and six. Humanity, however, was created directly by divine fiat and
did not "evolve" from lesser animals.
Perhaps the best-known "day-age" theorist was William
Je
prominent figure in the Scopes evolution trial in 1925.
In modern creation-science, however, both gap theory and
day-age theory are in eclipse, supplanted and dominated by "flood
geology." The most vigorous and influential creation-scientists
today are flood geologists, and their views (though not the only
views in creationist doctrine), have become synonymous with the
terms "creation science" and "scientific creationism."
"Flood geology" suggests that this planet is somewhere between
6,000 and 15,000 years old. The Earth was entirely lifeless until the
six literal 24-hour days that created Eden and Adam and Eve. Adam
and Eve were the direct ancestors of all human beings. All fossils,
including so-called pre-human fossils, were created about 3,000 BC
during Noah's Flood, which submerged the entire surface of the Earth
and destroyed all air-breathing life that was not in the Ark (with the
possible exception of air-breathing mammalian sea life). Dinosaurs,
which did exist but are probably badly misinterpreted by geologists,
are only slightly older than the human race and were co-existent
with the patriarchs of the Old Testament. Actually, the Biblical
patriarchs were contemporaries with all the creatures in the fossil
record, including trilobites, pterosaurs, giant ferns, nine-foot sea
scorpions, dragonflies two feet across, tyra
The world before the Deluge had a very rich ecology.
Modern flood geology creation-science is a stern and radical
school. Its advocates have not hesitated to carry the war to their
theological rivals. The best known creation-science text (among
hundreds) is probably *The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and
its Scientific Implications* by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M.
Morris (1961). Much of this book's argumentative energy is devoted
to demolishing gap theory, and especially, the more popular and
therefore more pernicious day-age theory.
Whitcomb and Morris point out with devastating logic that
plants, created on Day Three, could hardly have been expected to
survive for "eons" without any daylight from the Sun, created on Day
Four. Nor could plants pollinate without bees, moths and butterflies
-- winged creatures that were products of Day Five.
Whitcomb and Morris marshal a great deal of internal Biblical
testimony for the everyday, non-metaphorical, entirely real-life
existence of Adam, Eve, Eden, and Noah's Flood. Jesus Christ Himself
refers to the reality of the Flood in Luke 17, and to the reality of
Adam, Eve, and Eden in Matthew 19.
Creationists have pointed out that without Adam, there is no
Fall; with no Fall, there is no Atonement for original sin; without
Atonement, there can be no Savior. To lack faith in the historical
existence and the crucial role of Adam, therefore, is necessarily to
lack faith in the historical existence and the crucial role of Jesus.
Taken on its own terms, this is a difficult piece of reasoning to refute,
and is typical of Creation-Science analysis.
To these creation-scientists, the Bible is very much all of a
piece. To begin pridefully picking and choosing within God's Word
about what one may or may not choose to believe is to risk an utter
collapse of faith that can only result in apostasy -- "going to the
apes." These scholars are utterly and soberly determined to believe
every word of the Bible, and to use their considerable intelligence to
prove that it is the literal truth about our world and our history as a
species.
Cynics might wonder if this activity were some kind of
elaborate joke, or perhaps a wicked attempt by clever men to garner
money and fame at the expense of gullible fundamentalist
supporters. Any serious study of the lives of prominent Creationists
establishes that this is simply not so. Creation scientists are not