The Seven Days of Creation – Part 1 – Introduction

Since Darwin’s Origin of the Species was published in 1859, the Biblical account of creation has been under fire. To be fair, the fire hasn’t just come from science; liberal theologians have waffled under pressure and tripped over each other to make excuses for Scripture. As a result, science and liberal theologians immediately dismiss any Biblical account that includes the supernatural (miracles). As Walter Bradley points out in his contribution to Why I Am a Christian, this hasn’t necessarily driven people away from God … many scientists admit that God remains a possibility; however, the God of the Bible has often been called into question. While science immediately dismisses statements about the existence of God as philosophy rather than science, many proponents of evolution have no problem making the equally philosophical statement that God does not exist. While this year marks the 200^th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150^th anniversary of his book, the controversy surrounding this debate shows no signs of abating.

In the midst of all this hoopla, I thought it would be refreshing to start a series of posts that actually studied the Biblical account of creation. Because of the raging debate surrounding creation, the opening versus of Genesis has become the most controversial in all of Scripture (with the possible exception of the accounts of Christ’s resurrection). We’re going to go through Genesis 1:1-2:3 verse by verse and see what the Bible actually says. Hopefully, along the way we’ll be able to dismiss some of the controversy and educate ourselves at the same time.

Before we begin though, I thought it would be profitable to take a look at the three lenses view creation as taken from Walter Bradley’s article Why I Believe the Bible is Scientifically Reliable:

1. Young Earth Creationists: Young earth creationists believe that God completed His creation in six, literal solar days. Occasionally, proponents of this view believe there is a long gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 that accounts for an older age of the earth. Most feel there is reason to believe that while the earth appears old to science it is actually only around 6,000 years old.  Young earth creationists believe that God worked through nothing but miracles to complete His creation. This view makes young earth creationism the hardest to mesh with science which rejects anything other than natural processes.
2. Progressive Creationism: Progressive creationists believe that God used a combination of miracles and natural processes to complete His creation. There are a couple of different ways progressive creationists view the 6 days of creation but what is important for this summary is that they do not view them as literal solar days. Much like young earth creationists, progressive creationists believe that major plants, animal life and human beings are special creations of God. Because of its acceptance of natural processes in creation, progressive creationism is easier to harmonize with science than young earth creation.
3. Theistic Evolutionism: Proponents of this view believe that God things into motion and ten stepped back and allowed natural processes do all the work. Natural processes are to be thanked for all life. While this viewpoint attributes creation to God, it sees the entire Genesis account of creation as a sort of non-literal parable. Because it attributes the development of life to nothing but natural processes, this view point is very easy to harmonize with science.

Unlike Bradley, I will not divulge which of the three camps I belong to as we study the Genesis account of creation, however, I will encourage the reader to ask himself which camp he leans towards. Do you believe God used nothing but miracles to create life? Do believe it was a combination of miracle and natural process? Is life as we know the result of nothing but natural processes? Are the seven days of creation in the Book of Genesis literal or just a parable? Ask yourselves these questions as we go through our study.

The next entry in this series will take a look at the opening verse of Scripture: Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.