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REFLECTIONS ON CREATION PART 1 9/13/2016 12:26:45 PM
These are personal reflections on creation as imagined by a Christian. I am not a scientist but share suggestions that make sense to me in the controversy between ID and Darwinian belief. I suggest Dr. Doug Axe's recent book UNDENIABLE for interested persons. REFLECTIONS ON CREATION - Part 1
A Biblical Interpretation
The Creator God concept of beginnings comes from the Bible. Those first words-- “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”-- are a summary of all that comes next. Whether one believes it literal or not, Genesis is written as prose in Hebrew thought patterns.
The creation story is based on what God revealed to humans in their nonscientific worldview, an obviously different one from ours. Though some disagree with it, most scholars believe the ancients envisioned a flat earth with a dome over it. Why would it be important for them to have a scientific description they wouldn’t understand? God presents us with what we need to know where we are. And it always has to do with our love relationship to Him. The creation story is all about God’s love for us.
It was God’s objective to impart spiritual knowledge. What does the creation story mean? He is our creator. The Bible also uses a divine numerology. Seven means complete or perfect throughout the Bible. The Sabbath rest ultimately points to Jesus.
Christians see the Bible as the manual for all we call life on this earth. It tells us what constitutes sin and shows us how sin makes individual and corporate life miserable. It is a document to accept as a whole with guiding principles evident in every story. While the rejection of its principles ultimately leads to death, its theme ultimately leads to Christ the Judeo-Christian Messiah who brings the offer of life to all who have ever lived or will live. It serves as a letter from God, dwelling on the spiritual and relational in life rather than the material which is irrelevant to our destiny.
I do not believe in total inerrancy of the Bible as a verbal transcription from God. Its numerous translations, the world views of its writers, and changes in terminology have to be considered. But none of these problems discredit the Bible and its God. Moses may or may not have written Genesis, but if he did, he used prior writings and verbal traditions under inspiration. Biblical writers addressed their contemporaries and used inspired stories future generations could understand, because human experience does not change with circumstances. The Ten Commandments as basic law tell us what we need to know for a healthy happy relationship with God and other humans.
Creation--Literal or Not?
Creation—was it six literal days as Genesis 1 indicates but Genesis 2 does not? For many the creation story lacks credibility because it can’t fit it into the evidence for macro-evolution. Micro-evolution or adaptation is a proven concept seen everywhere in the world. Darwinian evolution doesn’t seem to know where to draw the line between the two.
Zealous Christian scientists often use material evidence to prove the reality of intelligent design. When they debate atheists, some of them try to persuade the opposition to accept a God neither would actually want, and both offer ingenious ideas lacking credibility or rationality.
No one knows what happened before Genesis 1:2 and the rest of the chapter. We merely speculate according to our world view. By God’s Word the earth and heavens were created. John 1-5 infers that Christ is the Word and the Light and the Creator. Christ brought the light that dispelled the darkness and with light came life. Genesis 1 and John 1 go together.
Other material creations?
The only way material macro-evolution can be credible in a Christian worldview is if it developed in the adversary’s lab when he was tossed to the earth. Could it have been before God’s creation? Probably not since only God can create life, at least in its completed form. There was a large part of the planet uninhabited by humans before and after the time of Noah, and perhaps the adversary mutated life from the original creatures after sin. Cain could have been part of that group. But the devil is not popular today.
The world spoken of by our spiritual ancestors included the inhabited world around the Mediterranean; so we can see why some think the flood was only in that area. This material notion is irrelevant to the meaning of the story, even though I personally believe in a worldwide flood.
There are alternatives for interpreting the creation story without acknowledging macro-evolution. It would be arrogant to claim any of them as true or false. The literal concept, however, is based on a world view quite different from our own and not in sync with what we know about the cosmos. It seems based on a flat earth with a dome covering and no matter how we try, it doesn’t fit the creation story; neither does the morning and evening as one day before the sun was set afire. These texts must be interpreted by what they mean and what they say about God. Is he love or not? Did he create through love or through long eons of violent deaths? I suppose it is possible that God created through a limited and rapid evolution in which nothing died, but like the evolutionary theory it’s speculation.
What about time?
God does not exist in human time. No one knows the mystery of time or space. Astrophysicists know time is not the same all over the universe. Maybe earth time differed at creation; the Bible doesn’t tell us. On something so far from our knowledge, it is dogmatic to insist that everyone believe it was a 24-hour day or even a day, since days are symbolic in the Bible. The term “day” is used throughout scripture in other ways
Concerning the term “morning and evening,” better biblical scholars than I have interpreted it, but I do notice that Daniel 8 refers to “the vision of the mornings and evening” (v. 28) after writing about the 2300-day prophecy which some interpret as years.
The story is recorded to tell us God created the world perfect. The number seven means complete, perfect, finished, after a work has been done. The seventh-day or Sabbath means rest. First it meant rest after creation (Ex 20:8); next it meant the finishing of slavery in Egypt and a new start in a promised land (Deut 5:15): today it also means the perfected work of Christ on the cross and our resting in his forgiveness from our works. It means a new start in a new earth because of his resurrection (see Heb. 4).
