Thoughts on Creation: Part 2 - The Genesis Story

 

Continuing with a write-up I did in response to a conversation I was having with a couple of skeptics.

Based on the email by Matt G recently, I thought I’d address Part 2 to the specific question of the Genesis account and see if it can be shown to agree with current scientific understanding.  Before I jump into this, however, I want to make a couple of initial points:

 

·       I heard recently a comparison that I found to be very meaningful.  There was a discussion taking place of how non-theists were resisting the logical conclusion that the universe had an intelligent cause (this discussion was focusing on the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which has been discussed previously).  The point was made that non-theists say “just because we don’t know how the universe got started doesn’t mean that an intelligence did it.  We will likely have a naturalistic explanation for this in the future”.

·       The problem with this position is that these same non-theists immediately seize on any naturalistic explanation for an event if it seems to offer a way to overturn the theist’s position.

·       The point is that when science points away from God, they rely on it.  When science points toward God, they reject it.  An example of this is when non-theists invent the concept of a multiverse to escape the fine-tuning of our present universe.

·       Below are some scientific arguments that point toward God.  We can only hope that the non-theists reading this won’t reject the science below simply because it isn’t pointing the way they want it to.

 

The claim by non-theists is that the Genesis story disproves the Bible as being reliable, but is this true? 

 

One thing I find interesting is how the non-theists seem to circle back constantly to the idea that all Christians hold the universe to be only 6000 years old.  I find this especially interesting because it’s a classic example of the straw man fallacy.  It’s much easier to dismiss a theist if you view him as an “uneducated young-earther”.  I have personally had conversations on this DL in which it was demanded that I adopt a young-earth belief, presumably because this is a much easier position to defeat.  So before going any further on this topic, I want to encourage everyone to focus on the arguments we’re making rather than inventing your own.

 

The question from Matt, in part, is as follows:

 

Finally, I would like it if you could explain the order of creation described in the Bible

 

There are two sources which I’ve found to be excellent for dealing with this question.  The first is Gerald Schroeder’s books “The Science of God” and “Genesis and the Big Bang”.  The second is several books and articles by Hugh Ross.  You can go to his website (www.reasons.org) where you’ll find dozens of articles, or you can get his books “Creation and Time” and “A Matter of Days”.  But, because I don’t want to just point people to books and articles, I thought I’d present a table of information that demonstrates one view on how science is compatible with Genesis.  

The table below is taken from Dr. Gerald Schroeder’s excellent book “The Science of God”:

 

The Six Days of Genesis
Day Number	Events of Day (Biblical Description)	Events of Day (Scientific Description)
One	The creation of the universe; light separates from dark (Gen 1:1-5)	The big bang marks the creation of the universe; light literally breaks free as electrons bond to atomic nuclei; galaxies start to form
Two	The heavenly firmament forms (Gen 1:6-8)	Disk of Milky Way forms; Sun, a main sequence star, forms
Three	Oceans and dry land appear; the first life, plants, appear (Gen 1:9-13)	The earth has cooled and liquid water appears 3.8 billion years ago followed almost immediately by the first forms of life: bacteria and photosynthetic algae
Four	Sun, Moon, and stars become visible in heavens (Gen 1:14-19)	Earth's atmosphere becomes transparent; photosynthesis produces oxygen-rich atmosphere
Five	First animal life swarms abundantly in waters; followed by reptiles and winged animals (Gen 1:20-23)	First multicellular animals; waters swarm with animal life having the basic body plans of all future animals; winged insects appear
Six	Land animals; mammals; humankind (Gen 1:24-31)	Massive extenction destroys over 90% of life.  Land is repopulated: hominids and then humans.

 

The point of providing this table is not to say “this is the exact way thing happened”.  Instead, the goal is to demonstrate that the Genesis account is not hostile to science (and vice versa).  Different people have different specific interpretations.  The point is that they are able to leverage their scientific knowledge to show that the Genesis story is not incompatible with findings of modern science.