To have death and destruction before this key verse is to introduce a serious theological error. The scripture in Genesis 1:31 "And God saw every thing that he hadmade, and, behold, it was very good" is stated AFTER the 6 days of Creation. This clearly shows that any fossils, which are full of death and suffering (many creatures show evidence of disease apart from the examples of violent death) could not have existed at that point. Furthermore Romans 8:22 shows that the whole of creation groans waiting for the completion of man's redemption - that comes when the saved in Christ receive their new resurrection bodies.

Adam's sin brought death on the human race and consequently on the whole of Creation. As Genesis 3 teaches, the curse came on the earth as a result of man's sin. Theologically any notion that God used evolution cannot fit with the Scriptural teaching of sin and redemption. Christ died to take the price of sin which is not only spiritual but physical death. Thus 1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" shows that the physical resurrection of Christ and in the future all believers which follows the spiritual death (separation from God the Father) and physical death (separation of soul and body) taken by Christ on the Cross, reverses the equally momentous death that came by Adam's sin. 

The death that Adam brought on the human race was spiritual (immediate loss of fellowship with God) and physical (when he died 930 years or so later) and followed his sin of taking a real fruit in a real garden of Eden which was a perfect fossil-free paradise. If 1 Corinthians 15 teaches the real physical resurrection to come, then one cannot escape the force of Paul's argument that death and a marred creation came AFTER Adam's fall. Alexander’s statement (see ref 1) that ‘God bestowed His image on a representative Homo Sapiens’ presupposes much death beforehand of some pre hominid creature, and undermines the clear teaching of Genesis 1 that Adam was made from dust by the creative act of God.

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 Science or World view?

Many propose the idea that God used evolution to make the world in great sincerity because they really feel that that is what the science is saying. But the science itself is in fact perfectly compatible with a Creation position. The collision is not between science and a straightforward understanding of Genesis 1, it is between two worldviews – that which insists on looking at the scientific evidence from naturalistic presuppositions (where the Creator is ignored or sidelined) and that which looks at the evidence expecting exquisite design in original kinds (albeit limited by genetic loss of information and marred by the effect of genetic deterioration). Biblically this latter approach is the straightforward approach to take and has no ‘God of the gaps’ implications as alleged by Alexander. Rather such an approach leads one to marvel at the Mind behind intricate mechanisms such as the bacterial flagellum or the digital precision of nucleotide sequence programming of DNA. Much as one would immediately associate mind behind the invention of an aircraft engine, it is not the gaps in knowledge that get attributed to the Creator, but the vastness of the knowledge revealed by discoveries that increases the worship of the One who made us. John 1:1 states ‘In the beginning was the Word [Gk ‘logos’], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’. It is the logos that underpins the whole created order. (Hebrews 1:3 ‘upholding all things by the word of His power’).

A fact little appreciated is that genetic variation within the descendants of original kinds leads to less information in the subgroups of an ancestral pair of animals not more. So it has rightly been pointed out that natural selection is no friend to molecules to man evolution which requires an increase in information at every step in the rung of the evolutionary ladder.

Lastly there are scientific problems with theistic evolution. On Day 3 the plants were made. If this day were a long period of time, then light and heat for 1/2 a million years followed by cold and darkness for another 1/2 million years is a sure recipe for disaster. The inescapable conclusion from the 6 statements of evening and morning is that there was certainly a series of nights. Scripture also states that the sun moon and stars were made on the 4th day which does not fit Miller's argument of a slowly progressive creation. 

The position of the Creation of the celestial bodies in Genesis 1 is no accident, for it instructs us to realise that the whole creation is not to be interpreted naturally. Rather the whole week is supernatural with God providing the light on an encircling earth for the first 3 days, and undermining any idea that our world and universe is fundamentally governed by the first appearance of the sun and other stars. Scripture teaches that God made the world first - the implications for astronomy are discussed in John Byl's recent book 'God and Cosmos'. He and other scientists who take a 6 literal day Creation view are no obscurantists and maintain that the Creation is a singular event which cannot be interpreted in terms of natural processes today. And even today it is still true (Hebrews 1:3) that were it not for the fact that God 'upholds all things by the Word of His power' all would collapse, as indeed Hebrews 1:11 and 2 Peter 3:7 teaches it will do. 

Furthermore the science of a worldwide Flood is completely consistent with the fossil record. Right through the fossil record are fossils of both extinct creatures and those like today, sometimes in the same strata. The fish found in the old red sandstone of Scotland were not so different to fish today. Some were exactly the same as those today. The sedimentary geology of Scotland and around the world bears testimony to the geological power not 'of the vestiges of an antique past' but of recent events 4,500 years ago. Indeed some strata can only be explained by catastrophic deposition. For instance the coal seams all over the world, in places miles thick, are formed from vegetation, but the high rank coal that is often found in these seams can only be explained by catastrophic deposition, since high rank coal needs oxygen exclusion of the vegetation that would otherwise only form a low grade peat. Other evidence of polystrate fossil trees running right across strata again indicate rapid deposition and burial - all consistent with a worldwide Flood and which we have no excuse not to believe in. The rocks all around us testify to this, and we do well to heed, for God states (2 Peter 3) that the same Word that brought in the ferocity of worldwide judgement at the flood, will usher in the last days when every knee shall bow before the Creator and Judge - none other than our Saviour in all His glory. 

Not a few Bible believing Christians working in the scientific community find no problem in simply sticking to what the Scripture actually says. In the end it is the authority of Scripture which is at stake if we try to say that Genesis 1 means anything other than the straightforward. As the little girl said "Mommy, if God did not mean what He said, then why didn't He say what He meant?" If Scripture needs a fleet of theologians to be understood on the first few pages, then where does one stop and begin to just read and believe it? Scripture was written primarily to be simply accepted and believed (Luke 16:31). We should all bow before the might of God's Word for behind the simple words of Genesis 1-3 is God Himself. We either believe Him or we don't. It was the enemy of souls who subtlety said to Eve (Geneses 3:1) "Hath God said...?" Scripture needs no extra interpreter - it is its own interpreter.

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Question and response

Question posted on 26-6-2006 from Michael to the Guestbook - see above for points (a), (b) etc.

I support your comments against evolution and theistic evolution- well done. May I refute, though, your points regarding 24-hour days in Gen 1.

(a) The word 'yom' in Genesis 1:3 surely refers to a 12-hour period; it says (using the  NIV Interlinear) "God called the light "day" and the darkness he called "night".

In 2:4 it means a far longer time period (quite consistent with, as you acknowledge, the normal Hebrew understanding of 'yom' as any period of time) when it says in the actual interlinear text, "God Yahweh to-make in-day when-to-be created-them and-the-earth". This could mean any period of time, concatenating all the individual 'days' together as a 'yom'.  It would be easy to miss this reference to 'yom' if you only read the English translations such as NIV or KJ, instead of the underlying [original] text.

Standing back from the textual argument, there is overwhelming evidence (as some of your other posters have mentioned) that the 'days' of creation were far longer than 24 hours; light-years; tree rings; geology; etc!  Your God would effectively be a confidence trickster if he had falsely made these things only appear to be as old as they evidently are.

(b) not an issue.

(d) 'Sabbath/savot' actually means any period of 6+1, as the Israelites maintained a weekly, 7-yearly, and 7x7 yearly 'sabbath'. Christians surely are also interested in the 'greater sabbath' or real sabbath (of which the Israelite one was only a prophetic pattern) referred to in Christian Scripture at Heb 4:9.

Response posted 26-6-2006 to the Guestbook.

Michael, please see below response on behalf of Andy McIntosh, and he regrets that he has not time to respond to future posts on this subject.

Michael - Thank you for the posting at the ‘Was Darwin right?’ web site. We would refer you to Dr. McIntosh’s book Genesis for Today (2001, Day One) where these arguments are developed in detail. The word ‘Yom’ from its context can always be ascertained as to what is being referred to. Gen 1:3 would certainly mean the daylight part of the normal solar day. Gen 2:4 is referring to the time when God made the heavens and the earth. The word ‘yom’ is indeed used similarly as we would use ‘day’ in English. the context always makes it clear. The references to evening and morning, first day. evening and morning, 2nd day and so on in Gen 1 are undoubtedly referring to normal 24 hour solar days since all other passages in scripture where the word ‘yom’ with a list, or with evening, or with morning, or with both, mean a normal 24 hour solar day. Thus 1 Sam 17 when the children of Israel are challenged by Goliath. It says that he came morning and evening for 40 days challenging the Israelites. The context immediately shows that this guy was coming every day at sunrise and sunset to challenge them for a duel. Check in your concordance and you will find no exception in all the OT. Take a look at the web site https://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i1/days.asp for further details here. On the Sabbath in Ex 20:11 there is no doubt that this is to do with the institution of the weekly Sabbath and not to do with the 7 yearly cycle or 7X7 yearly cycle. It is simply saying that God rested on the 7th day (agreed that it does not expressly say that this must be Sat, hence later the change to Sunday carried the principle over) and so man needs to do the same. The word ‘yom’ in that sentence has to mean an ordinary day to make sense of what even liberal scholars acknowledge is the institution of the weekly Sabbath. The fact that the 7th day is not recorded as having a signing off ‘evening and morning the 7th day’ is not relevant when it comes to Ex 20:11 which is certainly referring to something happening every week. Granted that there is certainly a heavenly rest of Heb 4:9 and a rest for believers to come – all this is allowed, but the original Sabbath of Ex 20:11 was every week on a Saturday as every Jew has testified to for millennia. Thus the import of Ex 20:11 as to the reason for this is always that God worked for 6 normal solar days and rested the 7th day and that man should also.

As regards the scientific evidence that you say gives the appearance of age, in all the investigations of rocks and fossils, there is nothing that suggests great ages. Rather the more evidence that is produced the more it strongly suggest rapid burial a few thousand years ago – you cannot get large creatures fossilized slowly! We encourage you to get hold of the books which look at the same evidence and show it fits very well with a young earth scenario. The recent findings concerning Helium in the rocks are a strong indicator of the rocks only being a few thousand years ago - see https://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i2/helium.asp. 

God has given us minds to think carefully and the rocks properly understood speak of the Flood judgment 4-5000 years ago, and warn us of the impending judgment by fire to come. The confidence tricksters are in the camp of those who try to make out the earth is millions of years old, and remove the teaching of the worldwide flood. God would have us have confidence in the book of Genesis and its strong connection with the coming judgment (2 Peter 3) and the importance of believing in God’s word the Bible, and the living Word – Christ.” To top

References