The Genesis Debate

I'm riding the train to work these days, so there is lots of reading time. I just finished an interesting book called The Genesis Debate. The book is an actual debate. It presents three views on the days of creation, allows the opposing views to respond to each view, and then has a response to the opposition. Interesting stuff. There are, of course, more than three views on the days of creation. The "rules" of this debate, however, eliminate most of them. First and foremost, all views presented in this debate had to agree to the doctrine of the Inspiration of Scripture. The view "It's just a myth" was eliminated at the outset. All the views agreed with the fact of creation (that is, none favored theistic evolution). And the question at hand was very narrow: What does the Bible mean in Genesis 1-2 when it speaks of "day". The three views, then, are the 24-hour position, the "day-age" theory, and the framework view. The question, then, was not "Did God actually create the world and all that is in it?" The question was purely on the topic of "day". Ligon Duncan and David Hall defended the 24-hour view. Hugh Ross and Gleason Archer held out for the Day-Age view. Lee Irons and Meredith Kline explained the Framework view.

I'm not writing to say which is right. I've read the book, seen the arguments, and concluded ... that I have no conclusion. I think I have to reject the Framework View. In this view the primary approach about the days of Creation is "They aren't days at all." That's not entirely fair, I know. This view says that the "day" structure of Genesis 1 is a literary tool to frame certain events. They aren't actual days or even ages. They're just structures. They don't even occur in sequence. They're kind of ... parallel. I found the exegetical evidence weak and the ramifications frightening and the value low, so I'm not too high on that one. The 24-hour and day-age views were more compelling. I knew the 24-hour view at the outset. I thought I knew the day-age view as well, but I wasn't quite accurate in my understanding. In this view, the "days" of Creation are actually unknown periods of time in which God goes about creating. No, not through evolution. It's more like ... making lasagna (my analogy). God prepared certain components here, laid down other components there, stirred up certain mixtures over here, created and then eliminated certain creatures there to replace them with others. His goal was to create a habitat for His ultimate creation, Man -- you know, kind of like a good lasagna. (Okay, maybe not a good analogy.)

Now, to be honest, the 24-hour view is the most obvious. "It says 'day' so it means 'day'." Even more, "These days are numbered and bounded by 'morning and evening'." There is also the consideration of other factors, like the sense in Exodus 20:8-11 where the Sabbath is commanded based on an apparent 24-hour view of the Creation days or the fact that the bulk of Church history weighs most heavily on the 24-hour view. These are all compelling considerations. In fact, I would say that the primary reason for the day-age view at all is the conflict of the Creation story with science. Science is quite certain that the universe and the Earth are much older than 10,000 or even 100,000 years old, and no amount of twisting on the 24-hour view will get much more than that out of it despite Duncan and Hall's best efforts to disconnect the argument from the age-of-the-Earth discussion. The day-age view, then, gives a better connection to scientific evidence. According to Ross and Archer, in fact, there isn't any contradiction at all with current scientific data, and that data continues to add to that position rather than detract from it.

Okay, fine. I won't give the primary arguments for these views. Read the book. They do a decent job. I was a bit disappointed with the debate. I know that it is really difficult to separate argument/idea from arguer/person with idea. It's difficult for humans to split between intellect and emotion. Press someone on their favorite point and you'll likely not get a reasoned response; you'll get an emotional one. From my perspective, despite the intentions of this book, there were too many emotional responses from all sides, resulting in debaters talking past each other and not addressing real issues. Still, they all did a fair job. Nor will I offer my final conclusions because, as I said, I have no conclusion. What I will do is offer the questions that arose when I read it that no one seemed to answer. These questions were for all sides.

First, given that all sides reject macroevolution and all sides accept the Bible as God's Word, where did all the animals come from? There are about 1.3 million known specied of animals on Earth. We can be pretty sure that Noah didn't take 1.3 million pairs with him on the ark. Since macroevolution doesn't occur, where did they come from? The 24-hour view doesn't answer it. Neither does the day-age view. Hugh Ross argues that the Flood wasn't actually a worldwide flood, but a localized one in which God, who could have simply told Noah to move (It took Noah something like 100 years to build that ark. He could have traveled out of the flood zone in that time.), instead had Noah build a boat and store animals on it who were elsewhere as well, so there was no particular reason for the ark-and-animal approach. It's a weak argument in my view. So no one has an answer for me on that one.

To the 24-hour view (which has always been a favorite of mine because it is so obvious), how do you deal with the age of the universe? Yeah, yeah, there are all the questions about the accuracy of carbon dating and all, but the age of the universe is determined by the speed of light. Figure it this way. In 1987, a star went supernova. To be more accurate, observers on Earth saw a star go supernova. The star itself was some 168,000 light years away, so the star actually went supernova 168,000 years before. So here's the problem. If the universe is actually between 10,000 and 100,000 years old, then this event never actually happened. Apparently God put an event that never occurred into the light stream as if it had occurred, but it didn't actually occur because it didn't exist that far back. This is a problem. Saying that Adam appeared as an adult when he was created is not "misleading". To say that rocks, when they were created, appeared to be old is not "misleading". It is apparent age. I don't have a problem with that. But putting an event in the record that never actually happened -- that would appear to be misleading. So ... what's up with that?

Something that none of the views addressed is a puzzle I happened across in Genesis 2. Everyone agrees (everyone who agrees that the Bible is the Word of God) that the accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 are parallel accounts. That is, Genesis 1:1-2:4 is the "overview" account of Creation and Genesis 2:5-25 is a specific account of the creation of Man. (There are skeptics who argue that the accounts contradict simply because there are two. Leave it alone.) What I found puzzling was the statement of Gen 2:5.

Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.

This account appears to be about Day Six alone -- the creation of Man. Apparently on Day Six plants existed; they hust hadn't sprouted yet. But in the Genesis 1 account, that occurred on the third day. This presents a problem for the day-age theory. This would mean that plants didn't grow (to support life) over 3 eras. The animals of Day Five would have had nothing to eat. It also presents a problem to the 24-hour view since the standard view is that God spoke plants into existence on Day Three and they were there in full bloom, so to speak, at that moment. Of course, maybe I'm the one with the problem. Maybe Genesis 2:5ff is not just about Day Six. Who knows?

One question I wished I could have asked that no one addressed was to the day-age folks. No one in the history of the Church has ever suggested that the Creation account could have lasted for millions, nay, billions of years. Ross and Archer suggest (and Duncan and Hall deny) that there were those in Church history who thought perhaps the days of creation were up to a thousand years each, but no one ever suggested anything approximating billions. My question, then, is this. If Christ promised that the Holy Spirit would lead His people into all truth ... what took Him so long? You see, I am extremely skeptical of new views. I guess I just hold a higher view of the efficiency of the Holy Spirit than that. Why did He wait nearly 2 millennia (longer if you start with Moses) to finally get across the truth He intended to get across at the beginning? Because, you see, it begs the question -- what other "new truth" is out there undiscovered awaiting science or some other new thing to edge us away from the millennia of false understanding to the right one? That makes me uneasy.

I found things in both the 24-hour view and day-age view to commend them. I did appreciate that no one was arguing for science over the Word or suggesting fantasy/myth over literal truth. The debate was not "Is this literally true?" but "What exactly was meant by the words they used?" It was not over orthodoxy but interpretation. And it gave me much to think about. I have to admit that Ross's argument did have much to commend it -- more than I had anticipated. Still ... I have no conclusion.