Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - May/85

Contributor - Wm. L. Little

Title - More Questions Than Answers

Topic - Creation

As you can well imagine, the subject of Evolution is a most complex and difficult subject with which to deal.

If it were as simple as stating one, s belief in a Christian stand and universally accepted standard concerning evolution vs creation, there would of course, be no question whatsoever regarding our answer.

God Created

As a Christian we emphatically believe, "God created the heaven and the earth ... and God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." There is no question about it.

The Nicene Creed states: "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible."

The Apostle's Creed states once again, the basic belief of all Christians, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth."

Maker

This then is the accepted Christian stand on the subject of our beginnings ... God created. And this is my stand.

It is necessary to establish my " credentials" early in this article, because you will find there are many different schools of thought concerning this subject even within the Christian church as we know it.

Contrary to common belief, there are different categories of thought concerning evolution as well:

- Atheistic Evolution

- Deistic Evolution

- Theistic Evolution.

Now as I have already mentioned, there are various schools of thought and theology associated with the creationist's viewpoint:

- Long Chaos

- Gap Theory

- Day/Age Theory

- Pictorial Day

- Literal

God Did It!

Dr. Wm. Smith summarized the Genesis record in this way: "The first chapter of Genesis is placed at the beginning of our bible to show mankind that the world in which we live, originally proceeded from the creative activity of God We can never know when God created the universe, nor exactly how He did it. We have faith to believe that God had the power to create the universe instantaneously, by first creation, if that is the way he wanted to do it The exact details of creation are not revealed to us, but we can know God did it and that is the important thing.

Differing Views

I stated my faith in God and in His creative ability at the very beginning of this hypotheses, because as you can now see, with at least five schools of thought coming from the creationist camp and even one (the Theistic) school of thought from the evolutionist camp ... to all of which a Christian can relate, you may not agree with this article at all. In fact in a room full of believing Christians, even from the same church, chances are that there will not be total agreement on this very complex subject

But remember what Dr. Smith said, "The exact details of creation are not revealed to us, but can know that God did it, and that is the important thing."

Now let us review our theology as it pertains to the Scriptures.

Truth

As Christians we believe that the Bible is God's Word to man, we further believe that the Scriptures were divinely inspired, and within its pages we find truth.. . Divine Truth. We can find 165 passages of Scripture in the New Testament referring back to the Book of Genesis alone.

For a few moments, let's just take a look at some of the verses and, indeed, words, which make this task so difficult

First Day

In the King James version of the Bible, Genesis 1: 5 reads: "And the evening and the morning were the first DAY."

The Amplified Bible replaces the phrase "first day" to "one day", as does the New American Bible.

Yom

The original Hebrew word is yom. Moses used this word. Now if s very important that we take special notice of this next statement. The word yom appears in the Old Testament 1,480 times and has 54 different meanings!

The word yom is translated into English in our Bible in this way:

1181 times as the word "day"

67 times as the word "time

1930 times as the word "today',

18 times as the word "forever

10 times as the word " continually"

6 times as the word "age"

4 times as the word "life"

2 times as the word" perpetually"

24 Hours?

Now, with this background knowledge in just the area of Hebrew translations, it becomes more and more difficult to emphatically state, when Moses used the word yom that he meant 24 hours.

Most of the traditional thought concerning the age of our earth, is a direct result of a chronological system attributed to Archbishop James Ussher (15 1656). He computed the date of creation as 4004 B.C.; which of course makes the world approximately 6,000 years old.

6,000 Years

This hypotheses also lends credence to the belief of many Christians who proclaim the world is very near its end, i.e. 2,000 years before the flood; 2,000 years after the flood; 2,000 years after Christ.

At this point I must say to you, I am not suggesting this line of thinking is without merit: only I would agree that man could well be 6,000 years old ... man, but not the world in which we live.

Darwin

There are two or three main Christian theories which we must take into consideration when dealing with creation. Later, we will take a brief look at Darwin's theory. I say brief, because we are more or less aware of his thinking and within this article we have set out to deal with the Christian's concept of creation and the Genesis record.

The Gap Theory

The Gap Theory is one held by many fundamentalists and teaches that Genesis 1:1 may have taken place billions of years ago (pre-Cambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic). These various ages may well have fit into the time slot between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.

This theory was revived by Scottish Theologian Thomas Chalmers and has been taught in some seminaries in North America over the last 100 years.

You will also recognize the Gap Theory in the notes of the Scofield Bible.

Now this theory admits to a universe many thousands of years old, but stands true to the concept of a day being 24 hours (". . . and God created ... on the first day"). Here is where we run into a problem.

A Re-Creation

The Gap Theory states that the earth was without form and void, as we read in Genesis 1:2. However, they believe this void happened after the various ages had run their billion year course.

... then God re-created the earth.

The problem is this. Science and Christian scientists can now prove without a shadow of a doubt the geological age system is a system built on a succession of fossils preserved in the sedimentary rocks of the earth's crust. This would seem to intimate, God did not recreate the earth, He continued to build upon it.

Seven Yoms

Let us retrace our steps for a moment. Reading the Word of God from the original we read, ". . . and God created the earth in seven yoms". Now stay with me for a few more minutes.

As believers can we in all faith consider the fact that God could have created the earth over many thousands or millions of years? My own personal answer to that statement is Yes.

NO!

As believers can we in all faith consider the fact that we evolved into man as we know him today? My answer to that statement is an emphatic NO!

And God created man .... We are created in His likeness ... God breathed into us a living soul....

Evolution

There can be no question - but you see, the hackles on our Christian backs go up immediately when we hear the word evolution. And so they should, when we are confronted with Darwin's "Origin of the Species" theory (or the like), but should they when we hear evolution"?

If we are to believe the world is millions of years old and not 6,000, many fossils etc. could have evolved, and there is that difficult word again.

Theory

Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace among others believed in the following theory: Individuals of the same species differ (variation). More individuals are born than can survive (overproduction). Individuals must compete with one another to survive (survival of the fittest).

This means that individuals best adapted to the environment survive and reproduce by natural selection. Darwin believed all organisms are in a constant state of flux and that life as we know it (man) evolved from a minute organic cell.

Of course we discount Darwin's theory . . . "and God said, 'Let us now make man in our own image'."

God created!

When I started this volume, I meant to take each of the theories mentioned earlier and comment on each, but now I find I am running out of space.

Questions

It appears I have asked more questions than given answers, and that may well be the case.

You see, when I started this assignment I said it was a difficult subject and it is! I said there are many Christian schools of thought - and there are! I said very few Christians even from the same denomination would agree - and that's true!

Complex

What I didn't mention however, was that his introduction to creation might cause you to do a little background study on a subject which is a bit more complex and open to interpretation than first realized.

Remember what Dr. Smith said, "but we can know, God did it." There is no definitive Christian answer to this age-old question, but we must not be confused in areas which touch our faith and theology.

Fossils

I, for one, am not going to argue with a Christian scientist who proves to me that a piece of rock is 15,000 years old. It could be ... but it is God's handiwork.

Dinosaurs

I am not going to argue that dinosaurs did not exist thousands of years ago, as I stand dwarfed by skeletons in the London or New York City museums. They may have . . . but they are God's handiwork.

Missing Link

But in God's Word to man in the Book of Genesis, it tells me that God created Adam, and to this date no scientist or theorist has found the "link" between the evolutionary cell growth and man.

There are many questions still unanswered, but one very important fact remains:

I Believe!

I believe in "one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible."

How and when God did it ... I'm sorry, but I don't know.

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