The idea that everything was created in six days seems almost impossible to reconcile with what we observe.
I was raised on science with a little faith on the side. When I got serious about my faith, it tried to move science completely off the plate. Science claimed that the universe was vast and very old, but Genesis 1 seemed to teach that everything was created in six days about 6000 years ago. When I confronted my preacher about it, he provided some materials which taught that science was wrong and that the earth was, in fact, 6000 years old.
I chose to believe him, but questions still lingered.
How can we see the light from galaxies which are very far away?
Late in high school, I heard Kent Hovind, aka Dr. Dino, speak at a church in my town. His alternative explanations for seeming evidence of an old cosmos addressed many of my concerns. I went to him after his presentation to thank him and ask him about something he hadn’t addressed.
I asked him how light from very distant heavenly bodies could reach us in only 6000 years. He became agitated and provided some implausibilities. That light perhaps traveled faster at the beginning of creation for example. His on-stage bravado had become defensive, and it troubled me. Could it be that he had only been answering a straw man?
Why are kangaroos only found in Australia?
What happened when all the animals got off Noah’s Ark? Did God somehow inspire all the kangaroos to hop all the way to Australia and only then begin to multiply? I suppose this could be possible, but it’s highly unlikely.
How would a young-earther explain the Wallace Line which depicts the boundary below which we find 240 species of marsupials and all monotremes with only placental mammals above it? They might have an answer, but it will need to be more plausible than the one offered by evolutionary biology. Now, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
If the Bible has been disproven, there’s nothing to gain by holding on to it.
Suppose you were indicted for murder and had no alibi. Even though you were innocent the verdict was looking uncertain because of a strong case the prosecution had built against you. How would you feel if before you could make your defense, a “friend” of yours came forward to say that you had been with her at the time in question? Would her lie help your defense or invalidate it?
What if when you confronted her about her false statement, she said that you indeed had been with her, but not literally. She had been thinking about you that night, so she was with you in thought. What if she pointed out that no one had asked her if she was physically in your presence, so she hadn’t lied? Would that convince you to go with her strategy?
And why would she make up this lie if she really believed you were innocent? Might her attempt to defend you suggest doubt on her part of your ability to defend yourself?
I can’t speak to the motives behind some of the arguments made by young-earth creationists, but they don’t always sound intellectually honest. I wish I could say I’ve only heard one person say that dinosaur bones were planted by the devil to cause unbelief. That’s an extreme example, but the very notion that all of science is run by an anti-God conspiracy is just untenable. Such a far-fetched notion belies an unbiblical belief that God is under siege.
By the same token, revisionist interpretations of Genesis 1 sound a lot like “your friend’s” attempt to rationalize her lie. I understand wanting to have the best of both worlds by accepting the discoveries of science and holding to a semblance of faith. But trying to interpret the Bible in light of science creates a lose-lose scenario.
Did God mislead primitive people?
If the “correct interpretation” of Genesis 1 has only recently arisen to coincide with scientific discovery, doesn’t that mean God mislead previous generations? Indeed, he not only misled them but produced an obstacle to scientific discovery. Hasn’t it always been literalist Christians standing against scientific inquiry? I sympathize with cynics who interpret updated biblical interpretations as Christians changing their story once heretical ideas become established theories.
Did God give us a description of creation that would hamper discovery until a few scientists braved the wrath of the church? Wouldn’t that suggest that God wanted to keep people ignorant but not take the blame for their ignorance? Doesn’t it seem simpler to just admit that Genesis 1 presents an antiquated cosmology because it arose from archaic minds?
The God of the Gaps is Science.
Some might admit that Genesis 1 is archaic but redirect the argument to other questions about the origin of life or the nature of the universe. They might agree that the ancients got the details wrong but that they were ultimately right about where everything came from.
To be sure, there are many questions that science has yet to answer about origins. Yet, if it’s clear that Genesis 1 is wrong, we no longer credit the Bible with any legitimacy as a source of truth. What help could this book provide when it’s been corrected by science? Why not simply toss it on the scrap pile and just look to science? If there is a God, let him reveal himself through means that have proven trustworthy. But what use would we have for a god when science has given us the ability to expose him?
Genesis 1 Was Always Figurative.
It’s intellectually dishonest to update our interpretation of Genesis 1 to fit modern scientific understanding unless we can show that Genesis 1 was never intended to be understood literally. We can’t interpret coincidence as evidence. For instance, we can’t say that Genesis 1 accurately depicts aquatic life coming before land-dwellers since that point would have been lost on pre-Darwinian people. Also, it speaks of birds popping literally out of thin air before the first lizard crawled on dry land. The text itself must point us towards a more figurative interpretation.
In fact, it does.
Two poetic elements feature throughout Genesis 1.
Ancient songwriters used repetition just like modern songwriters do to keep rhythm and cadence. Go look at Genesis 1. What phrases do you see repeated? “And God said.” “God saw that it was good.” “There was evening and there was morning.” Compare that to Harry Styles’ As It Was, “In this world, it’s just us. You know it’s not the same as it was. In this world, it’s just us. You know it’s not the same as it was. As it was, as it was. You know it’s not the same.” Now go read a scientific journal article. I bet you won’t find a lot of repetition there. In fact, you’ll find linguistic thrift. What’s the difference? Surely, Mr. Styles is attempting to convey a message he finds true, but he’s not making scientific claims.
In addition to repetition, Genesis 1 employs another poetic device called “parallelism.” Ancient poetry needed not only to evoke emotion; it also had to demonstrate intentional structure. In Genesis 1, scene 1 corresponds to scene 4, scene 2 to scene 5, and scene 3 to scene 6. So, Day 1 provides day and night as the environment for the inhabitants (sun, moon, and stars) created on Day 4. Day 2 provides the sea and sky for the birds and fish of Day 5. On Day 3 a verdant landscape is produced in preparation for land-dwellers from bugs to people on Day 6.
Since Genesis 1 is clearly a song or poem, why do we expect it to make scientific claims? Could the problem with Genesis 1 be a problem with our expectations of inspiration rather than a problem with inspiration itself?
The people who put Genesis together weren’t complete idiots.
Did you notice that according to Genesis 1 God created day and night three days before creating the sun, moon, and stars? Do we really think ancient people thought the rising of the sun coincided with daybreak rather than causing it? Did they envision God telling the sun, “Hey, it’s first light, you better get up there”? I can’t help but be amused by modern skeptics who congratulate themselves for knowing the light of day comes from the sun. Such thinking belies a modernist bias that humanity lived in ooga booga stupidity until the so-called Enlightenment. As we’ve seen, Genesis 1 places day and night before the sun, moon, and stars to serve the parallel structure and not to explain why that fiery ball always comes up at daytime.
The same could be said for the glaring contradictions between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Do we think that nobody until the mid-nineteenth century noticed that humans were created last in the Genesis 1 account and first in Genesis 2? Surely whoever compiled Genesis into a single volume noticed? If not that person, it must have been the first person to hand copy the manuscript. Why would those ancients not attempt to reconcile the accounts if they were both meant to be taken literally? I can see someone failing to get their story straight, but placing contradictory accounts back-to-back seems unlikely. Unless they understood the text differently than we tend to.
Genesis 1 is a work of art dedicated to the superlative Artist.
Why do artists create? The reasons are different from those of other tradesmen. Carpenters, coders, and journalists create to perform a function. Not that there isn’t an element of artistry in those other disciplines, but pure art exists entirely for aesthetic reasons. The artist creates for enjoyment. He or she must have skill to be sure, but the quality of their work will be judged less by its utility and more by symmetry (or other features).
Genesis 1 is an ode to the artist who created the canvas upon which we paint our lives. Like other artists, he seems to have made everything from self-expression and for his own enjoyment. Like other artists, he displays his works for others to enjoy. Made in his image, we are his magnum opus and some of those invited to walk his gallery.
Genesis 1 invites us to twirl in childlike joy at the beauty of creation rather than stodgily analyze it into another issue for debate. Let’s allow Genesis 1 to invite us to explore all of creation and to agree with its creator that “It is good.”