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Thursday, January 19, 2006

"Starter" for February 19

"Here's the part you won't get told in church - and don't tell them you heard it from us"

Is closure a myth? Is there some list of facts and figures we could lay out on a chalk board that makes such a solid case for what we believe that almost everyone else will have to believe it, too?

There is almost always another side to the story. I think we all have to admit that there are great people out there - just as smart as us that have found really good reasons to believe something different than us. Not everyone who finds themselves outside Christianity is “deceived”, “dumb” or about to become one of us.

So can we admit that there are other plausible explanations for our universe beyond Genesis? Or would that cause our system to come crashing down like a house of cards? What do you think about “closure” and “certainty”? How much of each is possible?

Does “faith” mean one has leapt over missing evidence to draw a conclusion which isn’t fully supported?

I’d love to hear your reaction to the following statement: “Christianity is not the only thing you can or need to believe.” And, if closure isn’t possible, then is there good cause to believe anyway? You’d think God would leave at least enough evidence behind to make it harder to miss. Or do you think He has made it hard to miss?

posted by CSW at 1:38 PM

15 Comments:

  • See...this is where the craziness comes in...I don't have the answer but I'm walking down the same road. If I were to bring this up in the church I currently serve in, I fear I would be fired! However, we've just launched a young adult community and this is the road we're walking down. The tag is "Where who you are...is okay", meaning that if you come in and believe something totally different, that's okay. You are more than welcome to journey with us. For so long the approach has been to just tell everyone that Jesus is "The Truth". And that is true without a shadow of a doubt. I think it just comes down to our approach in communicating that. At this time, my belief is that our generation what to see why they would want to become like us, not hear why they should. They need to see that the truth is exciting, adventurous and filled with risk and mystery. They need to know that we don't have all the answers even though we like to think we have them all. I think this is going to have to germinate in my "grey matter" for a while.

    By Blogger Dan Richardson, at 2:27 PM  

  • Certainty involves omniscience.

    There is positively nothing omniscient about Christianity....which, would be good reason to call it faith.

    CS Says
    “Christianity is not the only thing you can or need to believe.”

    What kind of ego would chrisitainity need to suggest we have the whole corner on truth or knowing? Apparently an ego outside of the rhelm humility.

    Another question I might submit: "What happens when some learning, knowing, or truth confronts you that contradicts Christianity?"



    CS > is this communication "starter" open to anyone or are you hoping it will be more Ask the Question people?

    By Blogger jeremy postal, at 12:23 PM  

  • It's open to anyone! Absolutely - it's as open as the church should be! Nothing to fear from an honest process...

    By Blogger CSW, at 2:25 PM  

  • yo,

    I think the definition of 'christianity' needs to be defined. Is it the modern church, the PAOC, anyone who says there is a God? me?

    Certainty - If you are involved in relations with someone you think that you would learn more as time goes on. I am never certain. I could also say I am not narrow minded. I believe I will always learn something new. That said- I have realized years later how narrow minded I was about certain issues. I have not learnt anything yet that would sway my faith in Jesus Christ or God. I sometimes wish I could read a fact sheet about all faiths with a completely empty mind. Just to see how I would view my faith from a viewpoint of a stranger. And then compare it... and make graphs and charts...

    I heard a guy talk once- I wish I knew his name- that said - I always encourage my muslim friends to actively seek out spiritual questions. I walked away wondering exactly what you said CS-" Does “faith” mean one has leapt over missing evidence to draw a conclusion which isn’t fully supported? "

    And about God making it hard to notice him- maybe through the eye of a needle a camel must enter, would fit. Maybe only rich people are blind? Good thing I pay tithe.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 7:06 PM  

  • Always a mixture of bubble gum and asparagus, Cody.

    By Blogger CSW, at 10:54 PM  

  • I consider it to be meat and potatoes... oh well

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:25 PM  

  • CS says
    " Does “faith” mean one has leapt over missing evidence to draw a conclusion which isn’t fully supported? "

    Is experience enough evidence to come to a conclusion? Sometimes God just isn't explainable. I've come to grips with the fact that I'm never gonna fully understand God because he's God and I'm human. I'm not sure if everything about God is meant to have the ability to be explained away. Maybe some of the attraction for people would be the mystery of God if we would stop telling people that we have all the answers.

    By Blogger Dan Richardson, at 2:21 PM  

  • The mention of certainty and closure leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I honestly believe that it has been a major injustice by christians, and in particular, preachers, that we try and finish off these well writen pieces of witty rhetoric all wrapped up in a package and handed to the masses with a pretty pink bow on top.

    Maybe, instead of conclusions we should offer anti-conclusions. Credible faith doesn't mean zip-locked arguments with pointed conclusions.

    By Blogger jeremy postal, at 10:36 PM  

  • What is credible faith? What is required to have it?

    By Blogger Dan Richardson, at 11:36 PM  

  • However, this so-called proof is based on argument (a) which proves argument (b) which proves argument (c) and so on....until....eventually this line of logic proves argument (a) again which proves argument (b), etc...

    Maybe, and I say this with a deep and sexy sarcastic voice, if we make the circle large enough people won't be able to get far enough away from the circle of "proofs" in order to get a more objective perspective? That'd be a better trick then pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

    Certainly worth more.

    By Blogger jeremy postal, at 1:35 AM  

  • I have thought about your questions for the last several days and have realized in the process of attempting to articulate my views, that giving a precise answer is difficult. These questions are non-trivial.

    First I think it is important to define what exactly we mean by "certainty" and "closure". From the context of your post I assume that you are using these words as they relate to our interpretations of reality; you are discussing these words in how they relate to our theories of the word. Not just scientific theories, but any theory of reality, which includes both moral and religious quadrants.

    In this sense "closure" seems to me to be the limit of "certainty" in that "closure" is equal to "absolute certainty". When "closure" is achieved then we elevate our theory to a fact, an undeniably authentic description of reality. The idea of having closure is incredibly alluring to humanity. Certainly to any inquiring mind, concrete answers are lusted after, but sadly I do not think that our knowledge can ever be pure enough for us to achieve closure.

    Closure is not possible because all of our theories are based on unprovable axioms. Some of these we never even notice as assumptions. For example, how do we know that any of this world is real? The popular movie "The Matrix", borrowing heavily from the philosopher Descartes, begs its audience to ask this question. It's an unanswerable question.

    The matter of achieving closure is further complicated by our limited evidence of reality which stems from both our presence in the systems which we try to explore, and our limited knowledge of the areas of the system we can explore. All these limitations prevent us from ever achieving closure on our theories. Therefore no matter how compelling the evidence for our ideas about this world we most always leave the door open for modification, and even sometimes revolution.

    In some cases faith attempts to cross the divide between certainty and closure. It allows us to elevate our theories to facts, and to me that is the primary danger of certain beliefs when taken on faith. It is difficult to reason with a person who believes that they know THE TRUTH, no matter how crazy and/or damaging that truth may be. In my opinion faith which creates the illusionary bridge between certainty and closure should be avoided, and instead a person should understand their faith as an expression of what they hope or feel to be true, not what is true. A person of faith should also not be closed minded to the world around him and follow his hopes and feelings regardless of evidence in all cases. Which brings me to my final point.

    Although closure is not possible a high level of certainty is possible for the theories we construct about this world. Our confidence in a theory of the world increases with its explanative power to the evidence at hand, and its predictive ability, especially so when those predictions are tested to be true. There comes a point when so much evidence is built up around a theory that a rational, informed person would have to at least agree that it is correct, at least as far as our human capacity allows us to say something is correct. The option for dissent is still open however, and a person could contend that the currently held theory is not complete and that something more must be awaiting discovery. But they cannot propose acceptance of a theory which is counter to the evidence. To do so would be irrational, and if we are going to act irrationally then pursuit of knowledge is a pointless endeavor.

    Is there good cause to believe? Personally I have not found any arguments or evidence that would sway my opinion that way as of yet, but I continue to look. It would seem to me that a God that merely desires a relationship with us, as the Christian God professes He does, that it would not be so hard to discover his existence. After-all it is rather difficult to a have a relationship with a being you do not even know exists. What does relationship even mean in this context? Does God want to be my friend? Does he want to tell me jokes and make me laugh? Does he want to tell me about the places he's been and the adventures he's been on, like a human friend would? What does this God even want out of a relationship with me? I do not know the answer to any of these questions, and I profess I do not even know where to begin to find the answers.

    By Blogger Josh, at 7:37 PM  

  • Here's a quote from Stephan Gay Gould that is on topic.

    In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

    By Blogger Josh, at 1:36 PM  

  • Josh - I love that! Not every possibility we can imagine merits equal time investigating. Beautiful.

    By Blogger CSW, at 3:11 PM  

  • Hi everyone, I am new to this chat, and I am very happy that it is open for all to participate.

    CS you have picked some great topics let me start with “closure”. Mankind has recorded thousand of testimonies of how Jesus has changed lives. Yes there are testimonies of all kinds stating how man has overcome countless obstacles when they rely on Jesus. Victory after victory dwells in Jesus, in Him there is “life”. I would like to testify about some of the things He has conquered in my life.

    The greatest thing He did in my life was to give me “life”. Let me explain, I was raised in a good family with loving parents. We were Catholics, I can remember praying with my mother many hours every week. We never ate meat on Fridays, and I went to confession and church two to three times each week. Some of my aunts and uncles were nuns and priests. Our family activities and life revolved around the church and its’ teachings. The administration of the schools I attended were priests and nuns, one could say I was totally immersed in Catholicism. I truly believed that Catholics were the only chosen ones of God. Religion is a very powerful thing; it empowers us to feel righteous, superior and secure. The attributes of religion blinded me from truth, and life with Jesus.

    Allow me to put the spotlight on another super evil attribute of religion. Trust, you trust your religion to protect from false teaching, and you believe these teachings will get you heaven. You put your faith in religion, you say to yourself this many people can’t be wrong. And than you say to yourself (I could be wrong, but not these highly schooled leaders). They are way smarter then I am and the Pope he could not be wrong also. I came to realize that these leads are wrong. The foundation of ones faith should be on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ not religion.

    My faith was predicated on this huge system of man made dogma, mixed with some biblical doctrine, rules, protocol, and tradition. There is a huge difference between religion and intimacy with Jesus the giver of “life”.

    • In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
    • “He who believes in the Son has eternal

    I was 28 years old when one of my friend’s dad invited me to a dinner function at very nice hotel. There was no way that I was going to pass up a free dinner at a great hotel so I agreed to go. He then informed me that there would men talking about God, I told him I didn’t care as long as the food was good.

    The food was good and then a man started taking about what Jesus had done in his life and what He was continuing to do in his life. Then a second man shared about his relationship, and intimacy he had with Jesus and the awesome friendship they shared. These men offered to pray with anyone who wanted to know Jesus; we only had to come forward. I was on my feet and almost ran to the front of the hall where these men were standing. In fact there was a group of about 30 men wanting prayer. No one prayed for me there was just too many of us. It did not matter because Jesus was standing in front of me. Jesus is not a religion, and He is not some story that you read in a book, Jesus is alive. He was offering me life, relationship, intimacy, friendship and best of all love. He is so awesome, He changed me forever and ever, and He gave me “life eternal”.

    I returned to the Hotel the following night to hear some other men speak. I returned to the front for prayer and again there was too many of us so no one prayed for me. Just like the prior night Jesus was there and He asked me if I would like to be filled with the Holy Spirit. My reply was simple, (yes Jesus I want what you want for me) Words cannot explain the experience of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. That night I went home with Him and 22 years later life with Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit, is so great. I am never alone; they teach me, empower me, and love me. John 14:23 ¶ Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

    I started attending a Pentecostal PAOC church. The pastor at the time was truly a man of God and loved Jesus. And you could see the Holy Spirit in him and his ministry. There is a scripture that better says what I am trying to say: 1Cor. 2:4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
    1Cor. 2:5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

    However this pastor died at the very young age of 46. The young man that replaced him was not the same kind of man. He was a believer in programs, organization, philosophy, and psychology. Very subtly he continued to move this church in this direction. When this happens you end up with religion. Religion can be found in any denomination. So I encourage your reads to focus on Christ.

    Many people today have had their fill of religion, and the ways of man. Churches today are run like businesses and they practice the same psychologies. This technique does work and it will grow you a business or a church. But it does come up very short for those who are truly looking for “life” and intimacy with Jesus.

    Church should be more interested in pleasing Jesus and following His teaching than growing numbers. So many people today only want to hear what pleases them, so churches hire preachers that fulfill this requirement. 2Tim. 4:1 ¶ I solemnly charge [you] in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:
    2Tim. 4:2 preach the word; be ready in season [and] out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
    2Tim. 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but [wanting] to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,

    I have complete certainty that Jesus is alive and I know that closure excites

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:52 PM  

  • Regarding Genesis: It has always bothered me the way church people have caused divisions on this subject. They’re teaching have been based on what they want the scriptures to say not on what the scriptures are saying. I hope this will be helpful to everyone.


    Genesis 1:1: How can Genesis 1 be reconciled with the immense periods of time indicated by fossil strata?

    One of the most frequently argued objections to the trustworthiness of Scripture is found in the apparent discrepancy between the account of creation given in Genesis 1 and the supposed evidence from the fossils and fissionable minerals in the geological strata that indicate Earth is billions of years old. Yet Genesis 1 allegedly teaches that creation took place in six twenty-four-hour days, at the end of which man was already on the earth. But this conflict between Genesis 1 and the factual data of science (in contradistinction to the theories of some scientists who draw inferences from their data that are capable of quite another interpretation by those equally proficient in geology) is only apparent, not real.

    To be sure, if we were to understand Genesis 1 in a completely literal fashion—which some suppose to be the only proper principle of interpretation if the Bible is truly inerrant and completely trustworthy—then there would be no possibility of reconciliation between modern scientific theory and the Genesis account. But a true and proper belief in the inerrancy of Scripture involves neither a literal nor a figurative rule of interpretation. What it does require is a belief in whatever the biblical author (human and divine) actually meant by the words he used.

    An absolute literalism would, for example, commit us to the proposition that in Matthew 19:24 (and parallel passages) Christ actually meant to teach that a camel could go through the eye of a needle. But it is abundantly clear that Christ was simply using the familiar rhetorical figure of hyperbole in order to emphasize how difficult it is spiritually for a rich man (because of his pride in his material wealth) to come to repentance and saving faith in God. To construe that passage literally would amount to blatant heresy, or at least a perversity that has nothing to do with orthodoxy. Or again, when Jesus said to the multitude that challenged Him to work some miracle, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), they grievously erred when they interpreted His remarks literally. John 2:21 goes to explain that Jesus did not mean this prediction literally but spiritually: “But He was speaking about the temple of His body. Therefore when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this, and they believed the Scripture.” In this case, then, literal interpretation was dead wrong because that was not what Jesus meant by the language He used; He was actually referring to the far greater miracle of His bodily resurrection.

    It thus becomes clear in this present case, as we study the text of Genesis 1, that we must not short-circuit our responsibility of careful exegesis in order to ascertain as clearly as possible what the divine author meant by the language His inspired prophet (in this case probably Moses) was guided to employ. Is the true purpose of Genesis 1 to teach that all creation began just six twenty-four-hour days before Adam was “born”? Or is this just a mistaken inference that overlooks other biblical data having a direct bearing on this passage? To answer this question we must take careful note of what is said in Genesis 1:27 concerning the creation of man as the closing act of the sixth creative day. There it is stated that on that sixth day (apparently toward the end of the day, after all the animals had been fashioned and placed on the earth—therefore not long before sundown at the end of that same day), “God created man in His own image; He created them male and female.” This can only mean that Eve was created in the closing hour of Day Six, along with Adam.

    As we turn to Genesis 2, however, we find that a considerable interval of time must have intervened between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve. In Gen. 2:15 we are told that Yahweh Elohim (i.e., the LORD God) put Adam in the garden of Eden as the idle environment for his development, and there he was to cultivate and keep the enormous park, with all its goodly trees, abundant fruit crop, and four mighty rivers that flowed from Eden to other regions of the Near East. In Gen 2:18 we read, “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.’” This statement clearly implies that Adam had been diligently occupied in his responsible task of pruning, harvesting fruit, and keeping the ground free of brush and undergrowth for a long enough period to lose his initial excitement and sense of thrill at this wonderful occupation in the beautiful paradise of Eden. He had begun to feel a certain lonesomeness and inward dissatisfaction.

    In order to compensate for this lonesomeness, God then gave Adam a major assignment in natural history. He was to classify every species of animal and bird found in the preserve. With its five mighty rivers and broad expanse, the garden must have had hundreds of species of mammal, reptile, insect, and bird, to say nothing of the flying insects that also are indicated by the basic Hebrew term ‘op (“bird”) (2:19). It took the Swedish scientist Linnaeus several decades to classify all the species known to European scientists in the eighteenth century. Doubtless there were considerably more by that time than in Adam’s day; and, of course, the range of fauna in Eden may have been more limited than those available to Linnaeus. But at the same time it must have taken a good deal of study for Adam to examine each specimen and decide on an appropriate name for it, especially in view of the fact that he had absolutely no human tradition behind him, so far as nomenclature was concerned. It must have required some years, or, at the very least, a considerable number of months for him to complete this comprehensive inventory of all the birds, beasts, and insects that populated the Garden of Eden.

    Finally, after this assignment with all its absorbing interest had been completed, Adam felt a renewed sense of emptiness. Genesis 2:20 ends with the words “but for Adam no suitable helper was found.” After this long and unsatisfying experience as a lonely bachelor, God saw that Adam was emotionally prepared for a wife—a “suitable helper.” God, therefore, subjected him to a deep sleep, removed from his body the bone that was closest to his heart, and from that physical core of man fashioned the first woman. Finally God presented woman to Adam in all her fresh, unspoiled beauty, and Adam was ecstatic with joy.

    As we have compared Scripture with Scripture (Gen. 1:27 with 2:15-22), it has become very apparent that Genesis 1 was never intended to teach that the sixth creative day, when Adam and Eve were both created, lasted a mere twenty-four hours. In view of the long interval of time between these two, it would seem to border on sheer irrationality to insist that all of Adam’s experiences in Genesis 2:15-22 could have been crowded into the last hour or two of a literal twenty-four-hour day. The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the purpose of Genesis 1 is not to tell how fast God performed His work of creation (though, of course, some of His acts, such as the creation of light on the first day, must have been instantaneous). Rather, its true purpose was to reveal that the Lord God who had revealed Himself to the Hebrew race and entered into personal covenant relationship with them was indeed the only true God, the Creator of all things that are. This stood in direct opposition to the religious notions of the heathen around them, who assumed the emergence of pantheon of gods in successive stages out of preexistent matter of unknown origin, actuated by forces for which there was no accounting.

    Genesis 1 is a sublime manifesto, totally rejecting all the cosmogonies of the pagan cultures of the ancient world as nothing but baseless superstition. The Lord God Almighty existed before all matter, and by His own word of command He brought the entire physical universe into existence, governing all the great forces of wind, rain, sun, and sea according to His sovereign will. This stood in stark contrast to the clashing, quarreling, capricious little deities and godlets spawned by the corrupt imagination of the heathen. The message and purpose of Genesis 1 is the revelation of the one true God who created all things out of nothing and ever keeps the universe under His sovereign control.

    The second major aspect of Genesis 1 is the revelation that God brought forth His creation in an orderly and systematic manner. There were six major stages in this work of formation, and these stages are represented by successive days of a week. In this connection it is important to observe that none of the six creative days bears a definite article in the Hebrew text; the translations “the first day,” “the second day,” etc., are in error. The Hebrew says, “And the evening took place, and the morning took place, day one” (Gen. 1:5). Hebrew expresses “the first day” by hayyom hari’son, but this text says simply yom ‘ehad (“day one”). Again, in v.8 we read not hayyom hasseni (“the second day”) but yom seni (“a second day”). In Hebrew prose of this genre, the definite article was generally used where the noun was intended to be definite; only in poetic style could it be omitted. The same is true with the rest of the six days; they all lack the definite article. Thus they are well adapted to a sequential pattern, rather than to strictly delimited units of time.

    Genesis 1:2-5 thus sets forth the first stage of creation: the formation of light. This must have meant primarily the light of the sun and the other heavenly bodies. Sunlight is a necessary precondition to the development of plant life and animal life, generally speaking (though there are some subterranean forms of life that manage to do without it).

    Genesis 1:6-8 presents the second stage: the formation of an “expanse” (raqia‘) that separated between moisture in suspension in the sky and moisture condensed enough to remain on the earth’s surface. The term raqia‘ does not mean a beaten-out metal canopy, as some writers have alleged—no ancient culture ever taught such a notion in its concept of the sky—but simply means “a stretched-out expanse.” This is quite evident from Isaiah 42:5, where the cognate verb raqa‘ is used: “Thus says the God Yahweh, the Creator of the heavens, and the one who stretched them out [from the verb natah, ‘to extend’ curtains or tent cords], the one who extended [roqa‘] the earth and that which it produces [the noun se’esaim refers always to plants and animals].” Obviously raqa‘ could not here mean “beat out,” “stamp out” (though it is often used that way in connection with metal working); the parallelism with natah (noted above) proves that here it has the force of extend or expand. Therefore, the noun raqia‘ can mean only “expanse,” without any connotation of a hard metal plate.

    Genesis 1:9-13 relates the third stage in God’s creative work, the receding of the waters of the oceans, seas, and lakes to a lower altitude than the masses of land that emerged above them and thus were allowed to become dry. Doubtless the gradual cooling of the planet Earth led to the condensation of water necessary to bring about this result; seismic pressures producing mountains and hills doubtless contributed to this separation between land and sea. Once this dry land (hayyabbasah) appeared, it became possible for plant life and trees to spring up on the earth’s surface, aided by photosynthesis from the still beclouded sky.

    Genesis 1:14-19 reveals that in the fourth creative stage God parted the cloud cover enough for direct sunlight to fall on the earth and for accurate observation of the movements of the sun, moon, and stars to take place. Verse 16 should not be understood as indicating the creation of the heavenly bodies for the first time on the fourth creative day; rather it informs us that the sun, moon, and stars created on Day One as the source of light had been placed in their appointed places by God with a view to their eventually functioning as indicators of time (“signs, seasons, days, years”) to terrestrial observers. The Hebrew verb wayya‘as in v.16 should better be rendered “Now [God] had made the two great luminaries, etc.,” rather than as simple past tense, “[God] made.” (Hebrew has no special form for the pluperfect tense but uses the perfect tense, or the conversive imperfect as here, to express either the English past or the English pluperfect, depending on the context.)

    Genesis 1:20-23 relates that on the fifth creative day God fully developed marine life, freshwater life, and introduced flying creatures (whether insects, lizards, or winged birds). It is interesting to observe that the fossil-bearing strata of the Paleozoic era contain the first evidence of invertebrate animal life with startling suddenness in the Cambrian period. There is no indication in the pre-Cambrian strata of how the five thousand species of marine and terrestrial animal life of the Paleozoic era may have developed, for there is no record of them whatever prior to the Cambrian levels (cf. D. Dewar, “The Earliest Known Animals,” Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 80 [1948]: 22–29).

    Genesis 1:24-26 records that in the sixth and final stage of the creative process, God brought forth all the land animals after their various species (leminah in v.2 and leminehu in v.25 mean “according to its kind,” whether the antecedent was male or female in grammatical gender), culminating finally in the creation of man, as discussed more extensively above.

    In this connection, a comment is in order concerning the recurring formula at the end of each creative: “And it was/became evening, and it became/was morning, a second day” (or whatever ordinal it might be). The reason for this closing statement seems to have been twofold. First, it was necessary to make clear whether the symbolic unit involved was a mere sunrise-to-sundown day, or whether it was a twenty-four-hour day. The term yom (“day”) could mean either. In fact, the first time yom occurs is in v.5: “And He called the light day, and the darkness He called night.” Therefore, it was necessary to show that each of the creative days was symbolized by a complete twenty-four-hour cycle, beginning at sunset of the previous day (according to our reckoning) and ending with the daylight portion, down to the setting of the sun, on the following day (as we would reckon it).

    Second, the twenty-four-hour day serves as a better symbol than a mere daylight day in regard to the commencement and completion of one stage of creation before the next stage began. There were definite and distinct stages in God’s creational procedure. If this be the true intention of the formula, then it serves as no real evidence for a literal twenty-four-hour-day concept on the part of the biblical author.

    Some have argued that the reference in the Decalogue (commandment four) to God’s resting on the seventh day as a a basis for honoring the seventh day of each week strongly suggests the literal nature of “day” in Genesis 1. This is not at all compelling, however, in view of the fact that if there was to be any day of the week especially set aside from labor to center on the worship and service of the Lord, then it would have to be a twenty-four-hour day (Saturday) in any event. As a matter of fact, Scripture does not at all teach that Yahweh rested only one twenty-four-hour day at the conclusion of His creative work. No closing formula occurs at the close of the seventh day, referred to in Genesis 2:2-3. And, in fact, the New Testament teaches (in Heb. 4:1-11) that that seventh day, that “Sabbath rest,” in a very definite sense has continued on right into the church age. If so, it would be quite impossible to line up the seventh-day Sabbath with the Seventh Day that concluded God’s original work of creation!

    One last observation concerning the word yom as used in Genesis 2:4. Unlike some of the modern versions, KJV correctly renders this verse “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” Since the previous chapter has indicated that there were at least six days involved in creating the heavens and the earth, it is abundantly evident that yom in Genesis 2:4 cannot possibly be meant as a twenty-four-hour day—unless perchance the Scripture contradicts itself! (For a good discussion of this topic by a Christian professor of geology, see Davis A. Young, Creation and the Flood and Theistic Evolution [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977]. Some details of his treatment are open to question, and he is not always precise in his terminology; but in the main his work furnishes a solid contribution to this area of debate.)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:05 PM  

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