Doctrine of Creation

All right, so this is day two of our Doctrine of Creation course.

We are going to start today by talking about, well, the plan for today is to talk about the days of creation, different views of the days of creation, what do we make of this amazing text that we found.

But before we get into that, I'd like to start by talking a little bit about speech, communication generally.

If we think about in academic jargon, in speech act theory, they divide communication into three parts.

You have locution, illocution, and perlocution.

Okay?

Locution is the form of the communication.

The grammar, the syntax, the context, that kind of thing.

The illocution refers to the meaning that is meant to be conveyed by the communication.

And the perlocution refers to what the audience actually receives from the communication.

So before we get, actually, before we get started, do you have the time?

No.

No? You don't have the time?

No.

Does anybody have the time?

It's 9.

9.

9.

9.

10.

10.

So when I ask, do you have the time, most of us are looking for our watch.

Right?

We're looking for, well, nowadays, we're looking for our phone to try to figure out what the

time is.

Because when I ask, do you have the time, most people are not going to answer yes or no.

No, you did actually answer no.

That's technically the correct answer.

Right?

If you take the actual form of the sentence and say, the correct answer to, do you have

the time, is either what?

Yes or no.

Right?

If you take the literal meaning.

But when I ask, do you have the time, you understand that what I'm asking really is, can

you give me, can you tell me what time it is?

Right?

Does that make sense?

So in this sense, the locution of the sentence is, do you have the time?

Right?

Or do you know the time?

The illocution is, can you tell me what time it is?

Right?

And the perlocution is hopefully, oh, I will get the time for you.

Right?

Responding to the meaning of what is meant to be conveyed.

And then this can change, using the exact same phrase, I can change the illocution.

Right?

Like, do you know what time it is?

Oh, do you know what time it is?

You know, oh, check your watch.

And like, do you know what time it is?

Right?

Again, the correct answer from your kids is not, oh, no.

No, I don't know what time.

You know?

No, the correct answer is, I'm sorry.

I'm up too late.

I need to go to bed.

Right?

Or, do you know what time it is?

And it's, you're like, yes, it's time for football.

Right?

And so, what's important about the speech act theory here is that the illocution, the meaning

that is meant to be conveyed, is in part based on the locution, the form of the sentence,

but also surrounding context.

Right?

Other elements of embedded meaning that we pick up when we're doing communication.

So, why am I talking about this?

This is actually really important because of biblical inerrancy.

Right?

We as Christians believe that the Bible is the word of God.

And it's therefore inerrant, meaning it's without error.

All the truth claims it affirms are true.

That's what the doctrine means.

Right?

And so, when we apply our principles of communication that I just talked about, that means that the

illocution, the meaning that is meant to be conveyed by the text, is always true.

Okay?

And so, when we, the goal then of our hermeneutics and exegesis then is to take our perlocution,

the way that we're receiving the text, the way we understand it, and aligning it with the

illocution, the way, the meaning that's meant to be conveyed by the text.

But, as anybody who's spent any time in the church knows, there's about 10 perlocutions,

per locution, that is out there.

Okay?

For every text, there seems to be a good number of ways that the audience has received it.

And so, this is definitely true.

So, what, what, I guess my question is, why?

Right?

Why?

I mean, if the, if the locution is there, we're all reading the same text, you know, maybe

in different translations, right?

But, we're all reading the same locution.

Why do we get different perlocutions?

Yeah?

Perspective.

Yeah.

Maybe there's, yeah, maybe there's different perspectives.

Maybe there's different philosophical presuppositions that we're bringing to the text that help

explain why one person gets one perlocution and another person gets another.

Okay?

Ultimately, we're all trying to do the same thing, which is get the correct meaning from

the text.

So, I submit to you that when it comes to reading Genesis 1, especially the days of creation,

the biggest philosophical underpinning background that we're bringing to the text that is going

to color the way we understand it is what I call one of the major tensions in biblical interpretation.

And, that major tension is how do we balance general and special revelation?

So, generally, when we talk about revelation, meaning God's self-expression, we, a lot, historically,

we've broken that up into two major groups.

Okay?

Sometimes, it's described as two books.

We have the book of nature, also called general revelation.

It's called general revelation because the general public has access to it.

Everybody, in principle, has access to the book of nature, that revelation of God.

And, it's properly understood as revelation of God, right?

Because God creating ex nihilo could have created in multiple different ways.

Right?

And, so, the creation that we have is actually a self-revelation of God.

He has created it this way for a reason or has actually communicated himself in the creation.

So, that's general revelation.

The other one, not the book of nature, but the book of scripture.

The book of scripture.

We know this one.

Special revelation.

It's called special revelation because it has a smaller scope.

Not everyone in the whole history of the world has received special revelation.

We know from redemption history there was a small, you know, relatively small group of people

who were directly communicated to by God.

And, this is what we treasure as the Bible.

So, when it comes to understanding nature, understanding the world, how do we balance general revelation,

that communication of God that we get from nature, and special revelation?

Now, it might be easy just to say, well, look, special revelation, God's active speech in the Bible,

boom, clear.

We just rely on that only.

However, if we pay attention closely to what scripture says,

scripture says for us to go out and see God in nature.

That God has revealed himself in nature.

And so, if we take special revelation seriously, we also have to take general revelation seriously.

That's the rub.

So, now we're all sort of in this position of trying to balance what we learn from nature

and what we learn from scripture, especially as it involves understanding the natural world.

So, I've sort of put together a rough spectrum of what I believe are sort of different buckets

that we can put different people who have weighed general and special revelation differently.

Okay?

Okay?

This first bucket, I'll, I call, and then, okay, so for the record, I'm going to use a lot of names here.

I'm going to be naming a lot of things.

Wherever possible, I have used names that the people who support that view use.

Okay?

I'm not trying to label people.

Some of these names, you might think, sound derogatory.

But, for the people who use the term for themselves, they do not mean it derogatorily, right?

So, just as reference, try to, try to, like, let's try to remove all of our preconceived notions of this language

just so we can come to understand this topic.

Again, not trying to, to color anybody's, anybody's reading.

Okay?

Except for the first one here.

I call them, the first one and the last one.

You'll see.

I'm equally harsh.

So, the first one I call science skeptics.

And the science skeptic is someone who takes special revelation here, and it's super weighty,

and general revelation is really not doing anything.

Okay?

And this view, basically, is saying they don't believe science or studying nature at all is capable of giving reliable information about the world.

Okay?

Okay?

And so, they, they would say that special revelation is really the only way we can get any knowledge.

Now, this is actually, isn't a very common view.

Okay?

So, but there are people out there who, who would support this, say that we really can't trust anything we see other than what we read in Scripture.

And the reason I don't think this is, I'm going to say I don't think this is a tenable view for us to hold as Christians,

and for the reasons I said before.

It's kind of a, it could be a circular problem.

Because if you say, special revelation is my only authority, that's the only thing I trust, I can't trust anything I see with my eyes,

then you're going to have to deal with those passages of Scripture that tell you that you must look out on creation and learn things.

That we're expected to know things about God from creation.

Right?

I just think, I always think of Genesis 1.

I mean, Genesis 1, Romans 1.

Right?

Right?

God's eternal attributes, namely His divine power, is clearly seen through nature.

Right?

So we are expected to be able to learn things about God from nature, and special revelation says so.

So I don't think science skeptics, or this posture of being super flippant about anything in nature, is something that really we can hold.

But this is a view, I want to highlight, this is a view, this is a way of balancing it.

Basically not balancing it all.

General revelation is not even on the scale.

Another view we can look at I call concordists, or they call themselves concordists.

Concordists take special revelation and general revelation, and they weigh it sort of like this.

Where special revelation is the driver's seat, but general revelation is bringing something to the table in terms of what we can learn about the world.

Okay?

Basically, if you imagine, the Bible sets the table.

The Bible is saying, this is what we see in nature.

And then the concordists would then look at the world and say, I need to take this information I'm getting from the world and fit it in to this table that's set by Scripture.

So they would emphasize special revelation, but they also have a high view of general revelation.

And in general, these Christians that believe that the Bible is intending to communicate scientific information at some level,

and therefore it's our job to fit what we learn from nature into this biblical framework.

Okay.

Concordists.

Boom.

Right smack dab in the middle, we have what I call the harmonists.

Again, not all of these terms are my terms.

But a harmonist, and a harmonist would say they believe that science and Scripture interpretation done correctly will produce a coherent worldview.

Saying stuff like, all truth is God's truth.

Right?

Anything we learn correctly from nature and anything we learn correctly from Scripture are going to harmonize.

Right?

This is why we call them harmonists.

So they, in this view, they don't really privilege special or general revelation when it comes to looking out at nature.

Now, I want to be clear, every Orthodox Christian believes that special revelation is the highest authority.

But we're talking specifically about how we understand the natural world.

Right?

And in understanding the natural world, a harmonist would say, we take the observational data that we have, and we take the scriptural data that we have, and we take them on their own terms.

And then, if there's any apparent conflict there, we try to smooth those over.

Either by re-appropriate, re-understanding our interpretation of science, or re-interpreting Scripture, whichever one is more appropriate given the apparent conflict.

That's the harmonists.

Next, as you might imagine, the scale tips this way.

We call these accommodationists.

Accommodationists say that Scripture interpretation done correctly will fit into the scientific consensus in detail.

So this is sort of the flip side of the concordance, where accommodationists would say, scientific knowledge is really setting the table.

It's really setting the parameters.

And when we correctly understand Scripture, it should fit in to what we see in the scientific data.

Okay?

They'll often de-emphasize the scientific information expressed in Scripture, and focus more on sort of the spiritual and moral import of the Bible.

Does that make sense?

Okay.

And then now we're going to do the last group, which is general revelation way down here, super way down, and special revelations up there, not really doing much of anything.

I call these biblical skeptics.

They don't believe that Scripture is capable of providing reliable information about the world at all.

Basically, the Bible is only there to convey moral truths, and shouldn't really be relied on to convey anything what we would call scientific information at all.

Okay?

That general revelation, science, observation, whatever, those are really the only reliable ways to get information.

That's about the natural world.

Okay?

And equally, I don't think this is something that we can hold as Orthodox Christians.

Okay?

I don't really think the Bible will accept this parameter of saying, yes, I'm only here to give you moral truths.

It sounds a lot like I'm giving you history sometimes.

It sounds a lot like I'm trying to tell you something that actually happened.

But, you know, don't worry about that.

Like, no, no, no.

I don't think Scripture is going to, and I think we should accept Scripture being demoted into that level.

Okay?

I think we should allow Scripture to speak on the areas that it speaks on.

Right?

And so, equally, I think a biblical skeptic, a scientific skeptic, these two poles are things we want to avoid.

So we're all, I think most of us as Orthodox Christians find ourselves somewhere in between.

Somewhere in between.

And you can take any of these different categories that I've made, and you can find a spectrum within the spectrum.

And so it all gets very complicated.

But you can imagine, as a accommodationist or a concordist come to the text of Genesis 1,

they may be expecting to see different things.

They may be asking different questions of the text, and therefore getting different answers.

Does that make sense?

So I think this is the philosophical background that all of us are bringing to our reading of Genesis.

And I think this is mostly the biggest driver of the different perlocutions that we bring to the same text.

Okay?

All right.

With that being said, why don't we actually go to the text?

Anybody have their Bible open?

We're just going to read all of Genesis 1 to 2-3.

Who feels confident enough to read a large portion of Scripture?

Richard, you want to go?

Go for it.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty.

Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, let there be light.

And there was light.

God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.

And God said, let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.

So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it.

And it was so.

God called the vault sky.

And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day.

And God said, let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.

And it was so.

God called the dry ground land, and the gathered waters he called seas.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, let the land produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants and trees,

on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.

And it was so.

The land produced vegetation, plants bearing seed according to their kinds,

and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.

And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day.

And God said, let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night,

and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times and days and years,

and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.

And it was so.

And God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day,

and the lesser light to govern the night.

He also made the stars.

God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on earth,

to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.

And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day.

And God said, let the water team with living creatures,

and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.

So God created the great creatures of the sea,

and every living thing with which the water teems,

and that moves about in it according to their kinds.

And every winged bird according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good.

God blessed them and said,

be fruitful and increase in number,

and fill the water in the seas,

and let the birds increase on the earth.

And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day.

And God said,

let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds,

the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground,

and the wild animals,

each according to its kind.

And it was so.

God made the wild animals according to their kinds,

the livestock according to their kinds,

and all the creatures that move along the ground

according to their kinds.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God said,

let us make mankind in our image,

in our likeness,

so that they may rule over the fish in the sea,

and the birds in the sky,

over the livestock,

and all the wild animals,

and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

So God created mankind in his own image.

In the image of God he created them,

male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them,

be fruitful and increase in number.

Fill the earth and subdue it.

Rule over the fish in the sea,

and the birds in the sky,

and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

Then God said,

I give you every seed-bearing plant

on the face of the whole earth,

and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.

They will be yours for food.

And to all the beasts of the earth,

and all the birds in the sky,

and all the creatures that move along the ground,

everything that has the breath of life in it,

I give every green plant for food.

And it was so.

God saw all that he had made,

and it was very good.

And there was evening,

and there was morning,

the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed

in all their vast array.

By the seventh day,

God had finished the work he had been doing.

So on the seventh day,

he rested from all his work.

Then God blessed the seventh day

and made it holy.

Because on it,

he rested from all the work of creating

that he had done.

All right.

Wow.

There's something special about reading Scripture

when it's snowing outside.

I don't know.

Isn't that just beautiful?

It never gets old.

But let's step back.

Let's zoom out a little bit

and get kind of a bird's eye view

of this whole creation account that we have.

As you can see,

there's sort of a pattern,

a lot of Christians over time

have seen sort of a pattern

in the creation days.

You have two sets of three.

You have a set of forming,

forming spaces,

and then you have a set of filling,

the filling of those spaces.

So you can imagine,

day one,

we have the creation of light and dark,

and in day four,

we have the creation of the luminaries.

Those things that are going to be shining

in the light and the dark.

We're creating,

we're shining, basically,

with the light and the dark.

Day two,

we have the separation of the water from the sky.

Day five,

we have the creation of sea creatures

and flying creatures.

Right?

Day three,

we have the creation of the land,

and then a special creation event

of vegetation on the land.

Day six,

we have the creation of the land animals,

and a special creation event

of human beings.

Each one of these six days

ends with the same phrase,

and there was evening,

and there was morning,

X day.

Technically,

there is no definite article.

Right?

So we say the first day,

but it's technically like first day.

Day one.

Day two.

A lot of,

a lot,

some people make a big deal out of that.

I'm,

take it for what you will.

But,

day seven

does not have that phrase.

Day seven is a special day.

Day seven is where God rests

from all his creation.

It has no parallel

in the forming

or in the filling.

It's its own thing.

It's the capstone,

and there is no evening,

and there is no morning.

Everything is very good.

Good,

good,

good,

good,

good,

very good.

Very good.

That's the,

that's the data.

So,

there it is.

That's the low,

that's the locution,

everybody.

We all have the same thing.

We're all working off

of the same thing,

and we are,

hopefully,

we're all working

and striving together

to get at

the correct illocution.

What are we supposed to be receiving

in this text?

Okay?

But,

there are quite a few

different per locutions,

and you can imagine

if we take our philosophical

predispositions in mind,

those different ways

of weighing general

and special revelation,

you can imagine

we come to this text

with different questions.

So,

if we imagine

we have a very heavy

view of special revelation

in terms of what it's supposed

to explain about nature,

we might be asking questions

of like,

how did God create?

In what manner?

What was the mechanism

by which God created things?

And,

expecting to receive

that information in the text.

Whereas,

maybe if you go

the other direction,

weighing general revelation

more,

and special revelation

at a different level,

you might be saying,

okay,

what is it that the Bible

is trying to convey

in its own context

to us?

Were the original audience

asking those kinds

of questions?

Were they asking questions

of like,

how exactly

did God create?

So,

what are the different views?

Well,

luckily for us,

there's only like 17.

17.

No,

I'm joking.

There's not 17.

By my count,

there is

only 12.

So,

we're going to go

through these.

You know,

I have taught this class

before,

a few years back,

and I had,

basically I had an overview

of all the modern views

of Genesis 1.

and I spread them out

and I was very,

still,

I'm going to present

those today too.

So,

I haven't given up

on those.

But I've been really

interested in church history

and I've been wanting to,

so I wanted to go through

the ones I had made before

and I wanted to slot in

different examples

of church fathers

who held the different views.

And,

as it turns out,

I failed

spectacularly

because,

as is often the case,

the patristic views

are very different

than the ones we have today.

They're harder

to categorize

in the way,

in the common

understandings we have

in today.

So,

I decided to make

a whole new section

starting just with

what I call

the patristic views

of early Genesis.

And they generally

fall into three

different categories.

The first one

is

the world weak

hypothesis.

World weak.

So,

what this view

holds is that

the creation account

is actually

a prophecy,

a forward-looking

prophecy

of six

eras

of human history.

Six,

each one of the days

is a thousand years.

The understanding here

is that

with the Lord,

a thousand years

is like a day

and a day

is like a thousand years.

And the patristics

are like,

well,

good.

It says here,

day,

therefore a thousand years.

Right?

Equals.

And so,

they said,

oh,

there's six thousand years

of human history

being prophesied

in this early

interpretation.

With the seventh day

representing the

eschatological

millennium

of Jesus.

Of Jesus'

reign on earth

as we see in Revelation.

The millennium,

the millennial reign.

And then some fathers

actually talking about

the future eighth day,

which is the

recreation of the

heavens and the earth.

Right?

As far as I know,

there is

no one today

who holds this view.

Okay?

But this was actually

a really,

really common

popular view

in the early church.

People like,

yeah.

Richard?

This view is

a lot more popular

than you might suspect.

Even today.

Even today.

All right.

All right.

I'm willing to be wrong

about this.

You can easily go to

YouTube or the internet

in general

and you can find

this view

espoused by

living,

breathing human beings.

Wow.

Well,

there you go.

I mean,

look,

I was actually going

to point out

that as often

as strange

as this view sounds,

this has actually

had a long shelf life.

church fathers

like Irenaeus,

Hippolytus,

Cyprian,

John of Damascus,

and Bede

all held

some version

of this view.

And through people

like John of Damascus

and Bede,

this continued on

through the Middle Ages

where even people

like Anselm

and Thomas of Aquinas,

they would

reference people

holding this view.

Okay?

So,

one patristic view

is the world

weak hypothesis.

Another view,

which is a little bit

more

maybe familiar

to some of us,

is what I will call

Alexandrian allegory.

Alexandrian allegory

is the view

of a lot of

church fathers

in North Africa

who believed that

based on what they

understood about

the natural world

and based on

interesting facts,

interesting facets

of the Genesis

narrative itself,

believed that

actually

God created

instantaneously.

Everything.

All at once.

Boom.

Okay?

There was no time,

there was no sequence

in reality

in the actual

act of creation

and that the

creation narrative

we get here

is either an allegory

talking about

moral and spiritual

truths

or the different

natures of the

created world

or it's

an accommodation

to human

understanding

being where

it's really hard

for us to understand

God creating

everything in an instant.

So,

for instance,

church fathers

like Clement

and Origen

and Athanasius

all held

something like

this instantaneous

creation

with an allegorical

understanding of

Genesis 1.

Famously,

Augustine

held this view

to a certain extent

and he believed

that actually

the days of creation

were not days of

God creating

the physical world

were actually

were days

were moments

by which

the angelic

host

were being

exposed

to

what was

about to

happen

in creation.

Right?

Have anybody

ever read

the Silmarillion?

Anybody ever

read the Silmarillion?

Well,

okay,

two people.

So,

it's hard to get

through,

but if you

started the Silmarillion

you probably

read this part

because it's

literally the

first two pages.

in the Silmarillion

you have

this is the

deep cut

of J.R.

Tolkien

his creation

myth

of his

Middle Earth.

And Iluvatar

is singing

this is the

God

this is the

one God

of the

Middle Earth

he's singing

a song

and his

different

angelic hosts

are harmonizing

with him

and Melkor

the devil

character

he's doing

disharmony

and Iluvatar

keeps on

bringing his

disharmony

back into

harmony

and Melkor

is like

ah man

you know

and then

boom

it's done

and what

Iluvatar

does

is he

shows

the angels

like

what you

just

sang

is the

story

of this

world

is the

story

of this

world

and he's

showing

them

human

history

or

the

history

of

Middle

Earth

right

and I

think

this is

Tolkien

hearkening

back to

this view

of Augustine

that in

creation

God

is

sorry

I should

say

then Iluvatar

just goes

boom

there it is

the world

is created

right

and then

those

angelic hosts

can enter

the creation

it gets

very confusing

after that

but I

think this

is hearkening

back to

that

where

God

is

presaging

what is

about to

occur

to the

angelic

host

and then

the actual

act of

creation

is

instantaneous

so that's

Alexandrian

allegory

we have

another view

called

Cappadocian

literalism

this is

closer to

what we

are familiar

with today

these

fathers

centered around

Antioch

took a more

straightforward

reading of

the text

they said

that

basically

it is

what it

is

these

are

24

hour

days

right

however

this is

different

than

modern

views

of

24

hour

day

because

they

believed

that

this

creation

as we

receive

it

now

is

the

creation

that

God

made

in

those

24

hour

days

so

including

predation

including

animal

death

all of

these

things

are

facets

of

God's

good

creation

which

distinguishes

it

from

modern

creation

views

of

24

hour

days

and

they

also

engage

in a lot

of

allegory

in those

first

chapters

too

so

they

wouldn't

have

taken

everything

as straight

journalistic

history

but it

was closer

to

some of

the more

common

views

today

so

those

are

the

patristic

views

now

actually

as

time

went

on

in the

west

there

was

an

attempt

to

merge

these

two

views

together

you had

the idea

of

instantaneous

creation

followed

by

a

sequence

of

forming

that

kind

of

emerged

and if

you

think

about

it

we

all

sort

of

hold

something

like

this

view

today

right

we

all

believe

that

at

some

point

God

created

everything

and

we

all

believe

in

some

sort

of

sequence

of

forming

of

the

natural

world

whether

we

believe

that

the

sequence

of

forming

is

24

hour

literal

days

solar

days

of

the

forming

and

special

creation

of

every

single

thing

or

we

believe

in

some

sort

of

development

we

all

sort

of

in

the

west

believe

in

this

kind

of

sequence

instantaneous

sequence

!

proponents

of

this

Cappadocian

view

would be

Basil

of

Caesarea

famously

he has

this book

called

the

Hexamarin

which is

an interpretation

of the

six days

of creation

Gregory

of Nyssa

and Gregory

of

Nazianzus

okay

that's

the

patristic

views

let's

jump

into

the

modern

views

we

have

young

earth

creationism

I'm

sure

a lot

of

us

are

familiar

with

this

this

is

basically

taking

Genesis

as

a

face

face

value

literal

journalistic

history

of

what's

going

on

and

it's

meant

to

be

understood

as

24

hour

solar

days

that

creation

is

occurring

I'm

sure

a lot

of

us

are

familiar

with

this

view

they

also

believe

a

facet

of

young

creationism

is

they

believe

that

science

done

correctly

will

reveal

that

the

earth

and

the

universe

are

actually

6,000

to

10,000

years

old

right

and

they

get

that

number

6,000

to

10,000

by

taking

the

Genesis

narrative

right

Adam

was born

in the

sixth

day

and

then

we

have

a

genealogy

of

Adam

later

in

Genesis

a

genealogy

of

Adam's

descendants

how long

they lived

etc

and

actually

a man

named

Usher

I'm forgetting

his first

name

James

James

Usher

that's

right

he

was the

first

one

in

church

history

to

really

line

all of

these

genealogies

up

I think

this was

in the

16th

century

line

all

these

genealogies

up

and

count

out

the

time

and

he

got

to

a

number

like

6,000

to

10,000

depending

on

how you

interpret

the

genealogies

so that's

young earth

creationism

there's another

little basket

of views

that I like

to call

ancient

science

interpretations

okay

what hold

these views

together

is that

they all

share a

common belief

that the

Genesis

account

is intending

to convey

not just

what God

did

but how

he created

and that

understanding

it correctly

these

understanding

the Genesis

narrative

correctly

it will

fit

with

modern

science

okay

so one

of these

views

is

the

appearance

of age

view

where it's

basically

the same

as young

earth

creationism

except

they don't

believe

that science

done correctly

will show

that the

earth is

young

they believe

that the

earth was

created in

24 hour

solar days

but it was

created mature

much like

we believe

Adam was

created fully

formed

the earth

and the

universe

were created

fully formed

so it has

the appearance

of age

but not

actually

a long

period of

time

so they

would believe

if you go

out

scientifically

and look

at rocks

they're going

to look

really old

but in fact

they actually

are not

that old

okay

so that

is closer

to young

earth

creationism

where they're

saying we

can explain

the appearance

of age

here based

on this

understanding

of science

but they

would say

now with

that in

mind you

can actually

see that

it's really

young

yeah

age

yeah

yeah

so the

appearance

of age

and young

earth

creationism

kind of

there's a

little bit

of melding

in between

there

where they

can go

back and

forth

another one

of these

ancient

science

interpretations

is the

gap theory

so this

believes

that the

days of

creation

are 24

hours

solar days

but

between

Genesis 1

1 and 2

and Genesis

1 3

we have

a long

we have

eons of

history

that occur

right

God created

the universe

and then

actually was

the fall

of Satan

and the

angels

that brought

the earth

into formlessness

and voidness

thereby God

recreating the

world in

six 24

hour solar

days in the

way that we

experience it

now and so

any earlier

age of

you know

any dinosaurs

or anything

like that

that we

find is

evidence of

this earlier

eons of

history

or even

age of the

universe

of the

earth

this is all

contained in

that gap

so this was

actually a pretty

popular view

in the early

20th century

it's kind of

gone out of

favor because

a lot of

there's a lot

of grammatical

arguments against

it

that there

really isn't

a gap

understood

in the

text

but that

was a very

common view

and there

are people

who still

defend it

today

and then

the last

of our

ancient science

interpretations

is the

day age

theory

so

the

Genesis

account is

describing how

God created

but they

understand the

word day

not to mean

24 hour

solar day

but to mean

day in the

more generic

term like

in the day

of the Lord

right

in the day

of the Lord

is not 24 hour

period right

it's just this

period of time

and they would

say okay

we can understand

the word day

to mean a period

of time

and so each

one of the

creation days

is a long

age

but

the account

of what goes

on in that

age is basically

how it's described

so that is

sort of a

very common

view of

old earth

creationism

okay

alright

those are the

ancient science

interpretations

those ones are

trying to take

the biblical text

on how

the

take the

biblical text

and learn how

creation happened

and there's

different ways of

fitting that with

modern science

we now have

creation poem

interpretations

these

say

that what

brings these

together is that

there are

they would believe

that there are

figures of speech

literary conventions

in the text

and that

the text is not

trying to explain

to us how

God created

as much as

what God did

when he created

and why

okay

so views like

this

views

under this category

would be

stuff like

the analogical

day theory

this view says

that the Bible

is actually using

analogical language

to describe God's

creative activity

as if he was a

craftsman in his

regular work week

right

the crowd

you know

God the craftsman

wakes up

day one he works

evening and morning

day two he works

evening and morning

and then day seven

is his sabbath rest

right

so just kind of like

the

the regular work week

of a person

so it's using an

analogy

so the days

in this situation

would be 24 hour

solar days

but they're

not meant to be

taken literally

they're meant to be

taken as an

analogy of

God's activity

the framework

view

is another one

of these

creation poem

interpretations

they see that

forming and

filling pattern

that we see in

Genesis 1

and then we say

oh

this framework

then

is indicating

to us

there's a

disc chronology

here

we're not

supposed to be

meant to be

taking these

days

sequence literally

and so

that gives

them a lot

of play

in how

God created

they're saying

this is telling

us what

but the

sequence isn't

meant to be

taken as a

history

it's meant to

be taken as

a poem

or a

literary convention

that's supposed

to be conveying

what God

did but

not exactly

how he did

it

finally

we have our

religion only

interpretations

these views

they're connected

by the belief

that the

Genesis narrative

is not meant

to be understood

what God's

creating

or

what God

did in

creation

or even

how

not how

not even

what

but just

who

created

and why

so you're

not really

meant to

take any

knowledge about

the natural

world from

this first

chapter

you're meant

to learn

about God

and so

they'll point

to

for instance

in the

proclamation

day view

they'll say

that this

is God's

proclamation

of his

creative

act

in the

throne

room

this is

him

describing

how

how

you know

a view

of creation

but in reality

it happened

in a completely

different way

right

sort of

God saying

this

sort of like

Augustine's view

in a way

this is what

is going to

happen

and then

creation happens

but not in

that way

okay

yeah

kind of like

a decree

another one

is the

kingdom

temple

view

where it

says

this isn't

describing

God's

creation

at all

it's

describing

God's

naming

of the

creation

and their

purposes

and functions

right

I'm

separating

light

from

darkness

light

is going

to be

called

light

darkness

to be

called

dark

the

luminaries

are going

to be

meant

for

signs

and

seasons

animals

this is

your

role

fish

this is

your

role

you see

how

that

we

understand

in the

ancient