The Bible's View on Origins
In as much as there are strong di?erences that disallow any signi?cant agreement between the scienti?c and biblical viewpoints regarding origins of the Universe, it is time to address what the Bible has to say about the question. Assuming the Judeo/Christian Scriptures can be viewed with a certain sense of perspicuity — meaning they were meant to be understood and are not, overly couched in metaphor — it should be relatively painless to discern their teachings since, although snippets of information can be found throughout many of the Bible’s pages, the majority of the data regarding Creation comes from Genesis. Excursions outside this framework may indeed provide answers to other questions regarding extraterrestrial occurrences (i.e., the arrival of the Devil and his minions), but for now we will settle for dealing with the formation of the Universe and man’s life here on earth.
From the onset it seems evident that the Bible teaches an ex-nihilo (out of nothing) creation.[i] This should not be thought of as all that astounding in that logic requires there be only one first cause (by de?nition) rather than multiple factors involved. Subsequently, it is suf?cient to understand that in the beginning, there was only the Triune Godhead.[ii] As to how or why this is the case, His eternal presence is no more or less problematic than positing a theory that supports an extremely dense singularity existing in eternity past. It can therefore be assumed that God Himself was this very same singularity simply residing outside the physical universe, which did not as of yet exist. His e?orts in this area seem somewhat in tune with the theory of the big bang itself, for there should be little doubt that the explosive act posited by that latter hypothesis would have created light, as it is similarly declared to be God’s ?rst mighty act of creation. The events of the ?rst day should therefore raise no eyebrows even within the scienti?c community.
Sadly, this agreement, if it exists, cannot be sustained for long. The main reason for this is that it is equally clear from the Genesis record that man is meant to understand the creation of all things as having taken place in six literal days. Had God wanted man to believe that eons were required for the process, it would have not only been relatively undemanding to explain, but it would also have been just as easily comprehended by the original listening (assuming an initial oral transmission) audience. Nomadic herders were well acquainted with the time required for the gestation of animals (analogous to creation itself). Therefore, had God expressed the acts of His creation not as “and the evening and the morning”[iii] but rather as “and it came to pass after these things,”[iv] it is highly unlikely that He would have been thought of as any less godlike. In fact, many pagan myths allow the gods of their fancy to take signi?cant amounts of time to form man and his world. Or they simply refuse to deal with the question of timeliness at all.[v] The Micmac legends of the indigenous North American peoples propose that “creation itself [is] ?uid [and] in a continuous state of transformation. Reality [as such, is] not [to be thought of as] rigid, set forever into form.”[vi] Therefore, the need to express time as a pivotal element in the story would not have necessarily been considered vital. Consequently, we should assume that God recorded the information given in the Genesis account regarding this day-and-night sequence for a reason.
As to God’s order of creation apparently being out of sync with preconceived notions as to how the planet operates (plants on the third day and the sun and moon on the fourth), let us not forget to whom we are ascribing this mighty act. Although this is di?cult for man to fathom, it is hardly beyond the capabilities of the one who claims omnipotence to perform such a task. As recorded in Revelation 22:5, such conditions will exist again when the New Jerusalem is established on earth. At that time “there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.”
The Genesis account also gives readers some insights into the world’s antediluvian (pre-?ood) condition, which was substantially altered on several occasions during that formative period. It appears that when the earth was initially created, there was one singular land mass, as is also heralded by those of the scienti?c community today, who presently refer to this preexisting supercontinent as Pangaea.[vii] Prior to the worldwide ?ood and the disruption of this landmass, there was no rainfall, for the Scripture says, “The LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”[viii] Once again, this might be thought of as unusual in light of current meteorological conditions, but it should not be considered outside the realm of possibility when dealing with deity. It also ties in nicely with other aspects spoken of in the dual narratives, for when we return to Genesis 1:7–8, we read, “God made the ?rmament, and divided the waters which were under the ?rmament from the waters which were above the ?rmament … and God called the ?rmament Heaven.”
You may be wondering what bearing this has on the case, so let us digress for a moment and determine what God means when He uses the term heaven. The heaven referred to at this point is not the heaven where God Himself resides, for God resides outside of the physical universe He created. The heaven spoken of here is simply a loosely combined description of the sky and what is referred to as outer space (inclusive of not only our solar system but also the myriad of solar systems and galaxies that exist elsewhere). This can be substantiated by looking more closely at two verses in the chapter. In Genesis 1:14 we are told God placed the stars, sun, and moon in “the ?rmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and [to] be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years … and to give light upon the earth.” This, then, is the location of the second heaven.
If we follow this thought through to fruition, we see another distinct di?erence between scienti?c and biblical thinking. It appears that God wants man to understand that the earth was formed before the surrounding cosmos was fully able to bring the light of the night sky into his vision. Or it might even more reasonably suggest that earth is not a derivative of the big bang at all but rather a separate act of creation entirely. In either case, this accounts for one biblical de?nition of heaven. The ?rst heaven is then referred to in verse 20, where it states that the fowls “may ?y above the earth in the open ?rmament of heaven.” It is described as an open ?rmament and is comparable to our own atmospheric sky. Then in 2 Corinthians 12:2–4, the apostle Paul speaks of one who was “caught up to the third heaven.” This we can reasonably assume is the heaven in which God dwells. It is unassociated with what we know of as the physical universe but is in a supernatural realm, and it is an area of which we have little knowledge. Paul refers to this as paradise where he “heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”
You may be still asking, “So what?” so let me explain. It seems that one of these ?rmaments (presumably a near portion of the second) was meant to hold back the waters that were above the ?rmament from the waters that were beneath it.[ix] Since, as we already discussed, there was no rain during this phase in earth’s history, this implies that during the antediluvian period, “there was a great body of water vapor surrounding the earth above its atmosphere.”[x] This would further account for the absence of a rainbow until the unleashing of this devastating force during the global ?ood. The rainbow was not a mystical sign in the sky indicating God would no longer destroy the earth by water but rather a physical sign signifying He had forever altered the circumstances that made such an act possible. With the vapor canopy removed, the normal reciprocal process of evaporation and rainfall (the drops of which would pass through the sun’s rays, causing refraction of light and thus creating the e?ect) would now be the norm. Therefore, the rainbow was a sign speaking to this truth.
This view of the pre-?ood world creates some even more interesting scenarios regarding scienti?c dating. It proposes an all-embracing amount of celestial coverage that would have prohibited the intrusion of signi?cant quantities of C14 into the atmosphere. Assuming that a substantial number of animals and humans existed prior to the cataclysmic flood, there would be numerous bones remaining carrying only trace amounts of C14. This would invariably lead to an inaccurate, albeit unintentional, dating of these creatures. Even a cursory look at human population growth potentials o?er rather remarkable possibilities for believing in a large population accumulating during the 1,632 to 1,656 years prior to the ?ood. This would leave plenty of room for a great number of scienti?c miscalculations in the area.
Keeping in mind that presently the average human life span is about 70-80 years and for the antediluvians it was far greater, with Adam living to 930 years of age and Methuselah living 969 years, the statistics o?ered will in all reality be on the low side.[xi] Currently, the “worldwide rate of annual increase of about 1.3 % will double the human population in roughly 54 years.”[xii] This is of course a considerable change in growth rates from previous centuries. This equivalent doubling process, from 1800 to 1930, required 130 years, not to double again in 1975.[xiii] This more rapid rate of doubling can undoubtedly be credited largely to advances made in the medical sciences. It is estimated that the present population may double again to a total of eight billion by 2025.[xiv] As most are aware, we are almost there now.
It is apparent from the Genesis record that sin took a greater toll on man’s mind in those early years than it did his body. Even though humans were able to live to highly advanced ages, due to lack of decay and lower disease ratios, Scripture says, “The wickedness of man was great in the earth … [and] that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”[xv] Still, this innate reduction in physical deterioration, coupled with a shielded atmosphere, increased man’s growth potential well beyond our own. Settling, however, for the present standard, in 1,656 years (the years biblically listed between creation and the ?ood), a population of 2,147,483,648 people +/- 300,000, could have arisen that were less a?ected than those in postdiluvian years by the presence of C14 in their systems, thus greatly impacting carbon dating accuracy. As to other dating methods, they have already been discussed in earlier posts.
[i] Hebrews 11:3; 2 Maccabees 7:28.
[ii] Genesis 1:1; John 1:1.
[iii] Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31.
[iv] Genesis 15:1; 22:1; 22:20; 39:7; 40:1; 48:1.
[v] Barbara C. Sproul, Primal Myths. (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991).
[vi] Ruth Holmes Whitehead, Stories from the Six Worlds: Micmac Legends, (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Nimbus Publishing Limited, 1988), 2.
[vii] Kent C. Condie, Plate Tectonics and Crustal Evolution, 3rd Edition, (Headington Hill Hall, Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1989).
[viii] Genesis 2:5–6.
[ix] Genesis 1:7.
[x] Henry M. Morris, That You Might Believe (Westchester, IL: Good News Publishers, 1978), 88.
[xi] Genesis 5:5, 27.
[xii] Eldon D. Enger and Bradley F. Smith, Environmental Science: A Study of Interrelationships. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006), 141.
[xiii] Ibid.
[xiv] Ibid.
[xv] Genesis 6:5.
Copyright ? 2013 Laird S. Ballard.
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