LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
The Theological Significance of the Doctrine of Creation: The Theological Bedrock of Early Creation in Genesis 1:1-2
Submitted to Matthew Wireman
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of
THEO 525 – D02
Survey of Theology
by
Robert Beanblossom
25 August 2017
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Contents
Introduction..…………………….…………………..……………………………………….…..1
Scope …………………………………………………………………………………………….……2
Introductory Matters …………………………………………………………….…………..3
Authorship ……………………………………………………………………………….………….3
Date and Place of Writing ………………………………………………………….……….3
Destination and Occasion ……………………………………………..………….………..4
Purpose ………………………………………………………………………………………………..4
Creation: Genesis 1:1-2……………….……………………………………….……..…..….4
Exegetical Considerations .…………………………………………….………..…………5
Genesis 1:1-2 and Science ..………………………………………………………..………9
The Scientific Method ………………………………………………………………….………9
Cosmology …………………………………………………………………………………….……10
Physics ………………………………………………………………………………………………..11
Geology ………………………………………………………………………………………………12
Theological Considerations …………………………………….………………………..14
Summary and Conclusions ……………………………………………….……………….15
Bibliography …..……………………………………….…………………………..……………16
Publication Note: This paper was originally published on 25 August 2017 as partial fulfillment of the requirements of THEO 525 at Liberty University Rawlings School of Divinity.
Citation: Beanblossom, Robert. 2017. “The Theological Significance of the Doctrine of Creation: The Theological Bedrock of Early Creation in Genesis 1:1-2.” https://learn.liberty.edu/webapps/
assignment/uploadAssignment?content_id=_18078564_1&course_id=_370689_1&assign_group_id=&mode=view.
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Introduction
Creation: is it fact or fiction? Is Genesis 1-21 the God-breathed account of actual events, or a fable fabricated to teach religious principles? Biblical creation is “widely debated . . . today.”2 Jews since Moses, and Christians since the time of Jesus, have believed Genesis 1-2 to be literal accounts of God’s creation. Today, doubts prevail. Andrew Snelling remarks:
(For) Bible-believing churchgoers, an alarming number of Christian leaders and teachers . . . believe that God ‘created’ through evolutionary processes . . . (and) that Adam and Eve are the names of a human pair who descended from a hominid population . . . .3
Antecedent to the discussion of man’s creation is the consideration of the origin of the cosmos: aspects of beginnings that sometimes seem to be firmly settled by science outside of any need for a god. Images of the cosmos, popularized by vivid space photographs, make man appear infinitesimal in an evolutionary world where chance “creates” and man is his own god. Biblical creation is considered by liberal Christians and humanists to be fable, probably derivative of ancient creation myths. Daniel C. Harlow, considering the literary genre of Genesis 1-11, states that, “the narratives . . .were probably written and read as both paradigmatic and protohistoric—imaginative portrayals of an actual epoch in a never-to-be-repeated past that also bears archetypal significance for the ongoing human situation.4 For Cornelis van der Kooi, however, “the world is . . . in the midst of a universe that God willingly created for his glory, and
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1 All references to the Bible are from the King James Version unless otherwise noted.
2 Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Guide to Systematic Theology (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1986), 195.
3 Andrew A. Snelling, Earth’s Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation & the Flood, Vol. 1. (Dallas: Institute for Creation Research, 2009), 10.
4 Daniel C. Harlow, “After Adam: Reading Genesis in an Age of Evolutionary Science,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 62, no. 3 (September 2010), 182. (Emphasis Harlow’s).
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for the wellbeing of human(s).”5 The entire OT is a “revelation from God in view of His earthly people,” states William Kelly.6 It is a “story of one race, on one planet, in one age,” says F. A. Filby.7
James C. Peterson recognizes that “science and theology will sometimes interact . . . . (since) They are . . . ultimately studying different aspects of one reality.”8 The biblical account of Creation, as the essential bedrock of conservative evangelical theology, is unassailable by modern science.
Scope
The boundaries of Genesis 1:1-2 and its relationship to science will be reviewed, evaluating the strengths and limitations of each, encompassing the general revelation of God “which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9b). We will not attempt to prove the biblical account of creation, but rather to show the positive relationship between the Bible and the facts of science, if not popular dogma. The place of creation in conservative evangelical theology will be discussed, with input from conservative and liberal theologians in a meaningful manner for Christians today. This will be approached from a conservative evangelical worldview that accepts the Word of God as inspired, accurate, and complete.
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5 Cornelis van der Kooi, “International Journal of Systematic Theology,” Volume 18, Number 1, January 2016, 47-48.
6 Kelly, William Kelly, In the Beginning and the Adamic Earth: An Exposition of, texts Genesis I-II, New Edition, Revised (London: Bible Treasury, 1894), 1.
7 F. A. Filby, Creation Revealed: A Study of Genesis Chapter One in the Light of Modern Science (Westwood, NJ: Fleming H Revell, Co., 1963), 13.
8 James C. Peterson, “Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith,” Vol. 68, Number 1, March 2016, 1.
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Introductory Matters
Authorship
Genesis does not explicitly state who wrote it. For early Jews this was a settled issue: God directed and Moses wrote.9 “The early church, the church of later centuries, and the Jews almost unanimously accepted Mosaic authorship,”10 on the authority of tradition and Scripture.11 Higher criticism in the 19th century investigated the Bible in new ways, leading to the conclusion that the entire Pentateuch was of much later origin: Moses could not be the author.12 The traditional position, however, was “too strongly supported to be dismissed by liberal rationalization.”13 This is not to dismiss the idea that Moses compiled Genesis using earlier sources.14 H. C. Leupold writes, “it seems highly probable that godly men preserved a reliable record of God’s revelation and dealings . . . with the most painstaking care.”15 This is consistent with Luke’s methodology in the NT (e.g. Luke 1:1-2).
Date and Place
The book was probably written between the beginning of the Exodus and Moses’ death just prior to the invasion of Canaan under Joshua. The date could be pushed back subsequent to
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9 H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis, Vol. 1, Chapters 1-19 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1945), 6. See Luke 16:31 and 24:27.
10 Snelling, 16.
11 Leupold, 6. See also: Exodus 17:14; 24:4; 34:27; Lev 1:1; 4:1; 6:1, 8, 19, 24; 7:22, 28; 9:1, etc.; Deut 1:1; 17:18, 19; 27:1-8; 31:9; 31:24.
12 Snelling, 16.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Leupold, 8.
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his call in the desert at the burning bush without prejudice (cf. Ex 3). Scripture is silent on the issue. The location would, in either case, be the wilderness of Mesopotamia south of the Dead Sea. Revisionists would have the book written as late as the Exile, or during the United Monarchy by multiple authors, but these positions show little consensus and no prior articulation by early Judaism.16
Destination and Occasion
The message is universal, but the intended destination is the Chosen People of God, Israel, perhaps as an introduction to the God of Moses who led them out of Egypt, gave them the Law, and would lead them into the Promised Land of Abraham.
Purpose
The purpose of Genesis is to establish a relationship between God and His Chosen People.17 Genesis 1:1-2 establishes YHWH as the sole, unique, sovereign Creator.18
Creation: Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters
Genesis 1:1-2 describes the creation of the physical universe including the great bodies of the cosmos, the earth, and the natural laws that govern the behavior of matter, energy, and space.
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16 Andrew E. Hill and John H. Walton, Survey of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991), 90.
17 Leupold, 9.
18 Hill, 94-95.
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The natural laws and the matter that they regulate define the ordinary; they set the boundaries of the miraculous. Creation was not within those bounds. Ryrie acknowledges that the account “does not answer every question . . . but what it does reveal must be recognized as truth.”19 Millard J. Erickson elaborates: rather than constituting a science or history textbook, God’s special revelation is “relational, . . . knowledge about . . . for the purpose of the knowledge of.”20
Genesis begins with the beginning, distinguishing it from Mesopotamian accounts that are often compared with it. Uniquely, the singular pre-existing god elohiym creatio ex nihilo.21 “The opening pericope of Genesis . . . describes God’s work of making the world and everything in it in six days followed by a Sabbath,” states C. John Collins.22 Nowhere is a “defense given concerning the existence of God.”23 Erickson suggests that it was “virtually inconceivable” to the early Jews that anything could happen independently of this God.24 Collins affirms that the Masoretic Text is in agreement with the “oldest versions, in Greek and Latin”25
Exegetical Considerations
Re’shiyth ‘elohiym bara [7225, 430,1254]:26 this is the familiar and powerful “In the
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19 Ryrie, 206.
20 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 145. (Emphasis added).
21 Ryrie, 207.
22 C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, PA: P and R Publications, 2006), 39.
23 Paul Enns, The Moody Handbook of Theology, Revised and Expanded (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014), 41.
24 Erickson, 320.
25 Collins, 45.
26 The Hebrew will be transliterated and transposed to the English word order, and referenced to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance in-text in brackets unless otherwise noted.
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beginning God created.” Re’shiyth here conveys beginning, a period with both a starting and an ending point, according to E. E. Vine.27 Kelly disagrees, arguing that the absence of an article makes it undefined; more correctly rendered, “in beginning,” pointing not to a fixed point, but “of old.”28 Translated 19 times in KJV as “beginning(s),” the noun is “substantively firstfruits.”29 Translated thus 12 times, this nuance suggests a sense of: “The firstfruits of God’s creation . . . ,”30 foreshadowing the first recorded sacrifice to this god by Cain, whose indiscriminate “fruit of the ground” was rejected (4:3), while Able’s, drawn from the “firstlings of his flock,” was accepted (1:4); and the Law, requiring the best sacrifice for sin offerings (i.e. Lev 2:14): both pointing to Jesus Christ, the firstfruits of those “made alive” through His sacrifice (1 Cor 15:20). The unity of Scripture begins with the beginning.
‘Elohiym [430], the Hebrew supreme God, “has the peculiarity of a plural substantive with a singular verb.”31 In contrast to the Mesopotamian creation myths, He proclaims: “I am God, and there is none else” (Is 46:9a). It is rendered gods for pagan deities, “who have not made the heavens and the earth” (Jer 10:11).32 ‘Elohiym offers neither history nor provenance, yet for the inspired writer, there was no question: ‘elohiym is who He says He is: Hayah Hayah [1961]: “I AM THAT I AM” (Ex 3:14).
When translated create in the Hebrew Bible, bara is always an act of God, referring to
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27 E. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, William White, Jr., Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1996), 107.
28 Kelly, 10.
29 Ibid.
30 Author’s rendition.
31 Kelly, 7.
32 Filby, 22
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the object created rather than tools and materials. Textually, the verb bara is in the perfect tense rather than an infinitive construct. Grammatically, the normal use of the perfect in the opening of a pericope (1:1) is to designate an “event that took place earlier,” (cf. 12:1); and while it is “possible that this tense denotes a summary of the account,” it is inconsistent with the newer reading; and theologically, the Jewish understanding of creation ex nihilo (cf. Is 45:12).33 Here the object of bara is everything: shamayim ‘eth ‘erets [8064, 853, 776], “the heaven and the earth” (1:1b).34 Shamayim is a dual that carries the connotation of both the heaven where the birds fly and clouds roam as well as the habitat of the celestial bodies.35 It is translated as both singular and plural in KJV (e.g. 2:4). ‘Eth is used to point out the object of the verb bara.36 ‘Erets throughout the OT is used in the common sense of Earth or its surface, the ground, providing continuity with the sixth day summary in 2:1, and with erets bara in 2:4.37
Collins cautions that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo should be based upon the text as a whole, that does imply creation from nothing, rather than just bara alone, since the same verb appears in 1:27, in which God “created” the man, and in 2:7, where He “formed” the man.38
Creation at this point is tohuw bohuw [8414, 922], “without form and void” (1:2a), a disorganized emptiness, reflected by Jeremiah (4:23), and Isaiah (Is 34:11). Earth, tohuw bohuw, was choshek [2822], without light, in literal darkness, but with overtones of figurative death and
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33 Collins, 54-55.
34 See Genesis 1:1, 21, 27; 2:3, 4; 5:1, 2; 6:7; Is 45:7, 12; Is 41:20; 42:5, 43:1, 7; 45:7; 45:8, etc.
35 Collins, 42.
36 Strong’s, [853].
37 Ibid., 41
38 Ibid., 55.
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destruction, of sorrow and wickedness, according to Strong’s. David Tsumura disagrees, concluding that Earth was not in “chaos,” but “unproductive and uninhabited.”39 Kelly adopts the “Gap Theory” arguing that the second sentence is separated in time and effect from the first: bara was created complete and perfect, but degenerated into the state of tohuw bohuw before Day One began (1:3.)40 KJV translators were consistent in using “dark” or “darkness,” although rendering it “night” and “obscurity” once each. This is the same choshek that we see in 1:2 where God spoke light into existence, and in 1:4 where he called the darkness night. This darkness was tehom [8415], “upon the face of the deep, which “simply means ‘the depths of the sea,'” according to Collins.41 Attempts made to link this to Mesopotamian creation myths have been refuted by Tsumura42 and Alexander Heidel.43 The verse concludes: ruakh ‘elohiym rachaoh mayim [7307, 430, 7363, 4325], the “Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Gordon J. Wenham reads ruakh ‘elohiym as “wind,” or “wind of God.”44 This is disputed by Collins who considers it a composite expression consistently rendered as “Spirit of God” in the OT.”45 Rachaph [7363] suggests that this Spirit flutters (Deut 32:11), moves (Gen 1:2), or shakes (Jer 23:9) over the “face of the waters” in a proprietary or nurturing manner.
The English rendering in KJV is fully consistent with the Hebrew Masoretic text.
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39 David Tsumura, The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1and 2: A Linguistic Investigation, (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), 41-43.
40 Kelly, 10-19.
41 Collins, 45.
42 Tsumura, 45-47.
43 Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 98-101.
44 Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, World Bible Commentary (Waco: Word Publishing, 1987),16-17.
45 Collins, 45.
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Genesis 1:1-2 and Science
A basic question is, “Should the universe look like it had a beginning?”46 Aquinas argued that philosophy, which then included the sciences, was not able to prove that the universe did or did not have a beginning.47 This has not changed. Process Theology, largely parallel with evolutionary theory, argues that creation (rather than evolution) is an ongoing low-frequency process that provides an infinite and expanding variety of the created, explains Erickson.48 Immanuel Velekovsky asserts that, “By the end of the nineteenth century the war between the theory of evolution and the theory of creation in six days, less than six thousand years ago, was concluded, with victory to the theory of evolution.”49 Current scientific theories are based upon the principle of uniformitarianism. This doctrine holds that matter, energy, and space function today exactly as they always have, without changes or variations. There is a trend for Christians to accept or adapt current theories into their theologies to conform to the reality claimed for those theories.
The Scientific Method
Many disciplines claim to be scientific, but fail the litmus test: the classical scientific method is a rigorous protocol that requires: (1) physical observation, (2) development of a hypothesis, (3) experimental testing, (4) repetition and refinement, (5) peer review and
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46 Collins, 256.
47 Aquinas, Suma Theologica, 1.46.
48 Erickson, 342.
49 Immanuel Velekovsky, Earth in Upheaval (NY: Dell Publishing Company, 1955), 270.
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replication.50 Today, processes that do not meet these characteristics are considered scientific, including “proof” generated by mathematical models. Jose Wuda acknowledges “many ‘pseudo-scientific’ theories which wrap themselves in a mantle of apparent experimental evidence but are nothing but statements of faith.”51 John L. Casti candidly notes that “There are no universal, absolute, unchangeable ‘truths’ in science.”52 Alone in history, the biblical account of Creation is unchanging.
Cosmology
One cannot look at the night skies without a sense of awe. For the Christian, it is a display created by God. For the humanist, it is an expanding universe that promises the discovery-to-come of life on other worlds. Ancient Mesopotamian astronomers have left many tables that recorded the movements of visible stars and planets. Science postulates that the entirety of existing matter, energy and space was once compressed within a singularity, a black hole, that exploded in a Big Bang, distributing all into an expanding cosmos. Celestial mechanics, the study of that expanding universe emanating from a single point,53 is not disputed by the Genesis account, although the time proposed leaves room for discussion. Casti acknowledges that “no one knows how a new star is formed.”54 Wuda sums up the problem: “we
cannot perform experiments” replicating past cosmological events.55 Computer simulations are
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50 Jose Wuda, “The Scientific Method.” UCR Physics, 1998. Acc. 3 August 2017. http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node6.html, npn.
51 Ibid.
52 John L. Casti, Paradigms Lost (NY: William Morrow and Company, 1989), 12.
53 Gilluly, James, Aaron C Waters, C. Waters, and A. O. Woodford, Principles of Geology, 3rd ed. (SF: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1968), 565.
54 Wuda, npn.
55 Ibid.
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substituted for the scientific method. An example would be the daily weather forecast, where accuracy is not a hallmark. Extend the forecast backward, increasing the timespan from hours and days to millennia and eons, and an idea of the diminishing accuracy appears. This approach provides statistical results within specified degrees of certainty, and has valid applications when the limits are not disregarded. The Genesis account eliminates these problems without requiring any adaptation or “revision” of doctrine or facts.
Physics
The interface of physics and Genesis embraces both philosophical and practical aspects. Philosophically, physics seeks the “grand verification of everything, . . . the unity of reality,” according to J. T. Fraser.56 Consistent with contemporary science, this quest rejects the miraculous, therefore any creator. Instead of a unified theory, limited solutions are proposed and replaced. 57 The Bible announced the unification theory 2,000 years ago (cf. Heb 1:9-17).
Of particular interest is the practical application of the decay of radioactive elements to the measurement of time. Radioactive “parent” elements decay into “child” elements at a statistically regular rate called a half-life that can be viewed as a clock. The application of this phenomenon by Bertram Boltwood in 1907 to historical geology allowed scientists to “date” rocks that contain the appropriate elements.58 From this application, the age of the earth is given in billions of years. Up to this point, there has been no problem between physics and Genesis 1,
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56 Fraser, J. T. Fraser, The Genesis and Evolution of Time: A Critique of Interpretation in Physics (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982), 176.
57 Jefferson Hane Weaver, The World of Physics: The Evolutionary Cosmos and the Limits of Science, Vol. 2. (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 191-194.
58 Bertram Boltwood, 1907, “The Ultimate Disintegration Products of the Radio-active Elements, Part 3: The Disintrigation Products of Uranium.” American Journal of Science 4. 23 (134). Accessed 9 August 2017. http://www.ajsonline.org/content/s4-23/134/78, 77-88.
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but radiometric dating ages are clearly at odds with a creation period of six days some 6,000 years ago. The answer lies in preconceptions and interpretation rather than the evidence. Age is interpolated from the ratio between the parent and the child elements. The original ratio is crucial to accuracy. The ratios adopted are speculation: they cannot be tested. Not only are igneous rocks in the mantle and core being constantly renewed and mixed, but natural radiation in the atmosphere “contaminates” samples at uneven rates. Calculations based on these assumptions are repeatable, giving them an appearance of fact, but only through the repetition of the same unverified assumptions. A far different date results if we were to use Bishop Ussher’s date of Creation of 4004 BC,57 backing up parent-child ratios from current measured amounts. This would yield dates compatible with Genesis 1. In either case, there is room for discussion of circularity. The problem is not with the data, but with the presuppositions.
Geology
The observations of physical geology are little disputed. The construct of core, mantle, and crust are well documented.58 The crust, the layer that includes the continents and the great seas, is the most accessible, and most diverse in composition and geologic activity.59 Immanuel Velekovsky observed, “To the surprise of many scientists . . . mountains have travelled, since older formations have been pushed up over the top of younger ones.”60 Specialists who study volcanoes and movements in the earth’s crust describe violent activity, past and present. This activity supports a unique and momentous initial creation (1:1-2) and Third Day when God
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57 S. J. Gould, Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History (NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 1993), 181.
58 Gilluly, 473.
59 Ibid., 475.
60 Velekovsky, 70.
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commanded the dry land to appear (1:9-10) as well as the later global flood of Genesis 6-8. The world tohuw bohuw was one grand sea (1:2, 6). The crust was either not formed, or was being formed (1:9-10). Some scientists suggest that all that God created was mature, having the appearance of age.61 This theory would have the submerged crust with initial sedimentary features and fossils formed in 1:1-2.
Historical Geology is the discipline that deals with geological events in time, drawing “virtually all knowledge” from the physical sciences, states Raymond C. Moore,62 filtering the facts through an evolutionary lens. This discipline minimally explores the age of non-sedimentary rocks, concentrating its efforts in fossiliferous depositions that, from a creationist viewpoint, would begin with Day Three (1:9-13), unless one understands 1:1 to include “aged” sedimentary strata as part of the initial creation.63 These acts of creation challenge the propositional assumptions of radiometric dating, causing the extremely old dates that we commonly see, as does the evidence of catastrophic beginnings that include lesser events today, when attempts are made to fit them into uniformitarian philosophy.64 Facts accepted by other disciplines within geology are often in concert with God’s account of creation, but the precepts of Historical Geology place it in the same philosophical category as evolution. None of the facts are in conflict with the Genesis account.
In this necessarily brief summary of science and the biblical account, we see that facts agree with the Word. Apparent discrepancies continue to exist, but history shown that additional
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61 Ryrie, 210
62 Raymond C. Moore, Introduction to Historical Geology, 2nd ed. (NY: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1958), 1.
63 Ryrie, 209-211
64 Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, Vol. 1, 12th ed. (London: John Murray, 1875), 298
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investigation will continue with a progressive harmonizing without compromise of those facts with Scripture.
Theological Considerations
We can only survey a few key doctrines in this paper. Warren Wiersbe muses that the question of beginnings “may seem like an impractical hypothetical question . . . (but) the fact that He created something suggests that he must have had some magnificent purpose in mind;” raising the question, “what does it teach us about God and ourselves?”65 God’s first recorded act is explicitly documented, and is grandly exhibited by the very existence, magnificence, and orderliness of that act.66 With this opening, ‘elohiym lays the cornerstone for the doctrine of Progressive Revelation that continues through The Revelation.67 The doctrine of Creatio ex Nihilo establishes the infinitude of the Creator who is distinct and separate from His creation, according to Louis Berkhof.68 Calvin articulated the doctrine of His Sufficiency when he advised that in everything, we both acknowledge our dependence upon Him and His sufficiency in providing and upholding all of His creation.”69 From these foundations Jesus both acknowledged the triune Godhead and commanded His followers to evangelize the world with the assurance that He would be with them (and us) “always, even to the end of the age” (Matt 28:18-20) with redemption and great power (Eph 1).
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65 Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary: Pentateuch (Colorado Springs: Victor, 2001), 10.
66 Enns, 154.
67 Ibid., 24.
68 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology: New Combined Edition (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1938), 134-135.
69 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 1.1.22.
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Summary and Conclusions
Our thesis is that the biblical account of Creation is foundational for doctrine and is supported, or at least not refuted, by the data of science. Knowledge of God is derived from the Bible, whose trustworthiness depends on the validity of its parts. Creation as described in Genesis and affirmed throughout the Bible must be true and accurate in order to justify the faith of the believer. Attempts to explain creation in naturalistic terms are incomplete and short-lived. Alvin Plantinga requires a deeper understanding that conforms the world to God rather than a lesser god to the world: it is the difference between “having proof,” and “having knowledge of the truth.”70 Science cannot consider the very beginning: theories of origins of the cosmos and life all rest upon pre-existing matter, energy, and space from an unknown source. Creation according to God has never been proven wrong by man, even if not accepted by him.
Scripture supports the Genesis account. Jesus and others refer to it as a historical event. Bible stands upon that foundation, a structure upon which theologians can confidently build sound doctrine. When the scriptural mandate to investigate (2 Tim 2:15) is heeded, we learn that the popularly accepted rift between science and the Bible is not based upon the facts of science, but on a worldly philosophy that rejects God, the Bible, and the miraculous in the quest for the rational by man separated from his Maker (Eph 4:17-19).
Re’shiyth ‘elohiym bara is not a myth taken from others and adapted to a new god, but an introduction by the Almighty God of Himself to mankind.
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70 James K. Beilby, Thinking about Apologetics: What It Is and Why We Do It (Downe’s Grove, Il: InterVarsity Press, 2011). 81.
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Weaver, Jefferson Hane. The World of Physics: The Evolutionary Cosmos and the Limits of Science. Vol. 2. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
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