How should Christians understand the first two chapters of Genesis? How did God create the "heavens and the earth"?
The first two chapters of Genesis are perhaps the most contested passages in all of ancient literature, save perhaps for the resurrection accounts of Jesus. As discussed in a previous article, there are three broad schools of thought in dealing with Genesis (or, for that matter, the entire Bible). Traditional monotheists, by and large, hold Genesis to be inspired by God and thereby instructive and beneficial. Agnostics and atheists largely dismiss Genesis. Spiritualists and polytheists may recognize some literary value to Genesis, but put little stock in its specific content.
The three most dominant religions in the world (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) all stem from the monotheistic school of thought. Since this site is focused on the Protestant Christian community, this article and the entire series will address the debate over Genesis and the origins of the universe from the Christian perspective.
Christians are far from united in their understanding of Moses’ account of God creating the “heavens and the earth.” (This article assumes the traditional view that Moses authored Genesis, however this writer concedes that some scholars dispute mosaic authorship of the Torah). There are three primary interpretations of the Genesis account of Creation prevalent in the Christian community today. They are Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, and Theistic Evolution. We will now look at each in turn.
Theistic Evolution
Sometimes known as evolutionary creationism, Theistic Evolution (TE) is the belief that God presided over the evolutionary process to bring about the “heavens and the earth.” According to this view, Genesis 1-2 need not be interpreted literally, but rather figuratively or allegorically. TE is popular with Roman Catholics, Jews, and liberal Protestants.
The appeal of Theistic Evolution is that it allows adherents to maintain their general religious faith without coming into conflict with the modern scientific community. Wikipedia explains: “Theistic evolution is not a theory in the scientific sense, but a particular view about how the science of evolution relates to some religious interpretations.”
Young Earth Creationism
Directly counter to Theistic Evolution, Young Earth Creationists (YEC) hold that God created the universe and all basic life forms approximately 6,000 to 12,000 years ago in six 24-hour days.
The baseline YEC chronology stems from James Ussher, a medieval archbishop who calculated the age of the Earth based on Old Testament genealogies. Ussher dated the Creation to 4004 BC. Many YECs have correctly pointed out, however, that the Bible sometimes skips generations in its recorded genealogies. Thus, revisionist YECs have opined that Earth may be older than 6,000 years – perhaps as much as 10,000 or 12,000 years.
YEC fell out of favor in the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth centuries due to developments in scientific dating methodology as well as geology. The latter has been particularly difficult for YEC adherents, since geologists today overwhelmingly consider the apparent displacements and changes in the earth’s layers to be the result of incremental change and erosion over millions of years rather than sudden catastrophe (such as Noah’s Flood). Moreover, fossil remains of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures have seriously challenged the YEC chronology.
Old Earth Creationism
Old Earth Creationism (OEC) is basically an umbrella term that incorporates a number of alternative Creationist perspectives – alternative, that is, to Young Earth Creationism. The unifying theme amongst these perspectives is that Genesis 1-2 need not be interpreted in a tight manner to restrict the age of the Earth to a mere 6,000 years. Early church fathers that held this understanding include Origen, Augustine, and Eusebius. They and others believed that the days of Genesis were not necessarily solar days.
OEC Christians generally believe that God created the universe through a combination of natural processes and direct intervention. The two leading OEC perspectives are Progressive Creationism and Gap Theory Creationism.
The Debate Continues
The modern scientific consensus tilts heavily in favor of Theistic Evolution or Old Earth Creationism. Young Earth Creationists, however, remain firm in their conviction that the Creation account in Genesis is divinely inspired and authoritative. Moreover, they argue (correctly) that the modern scientific community has based much of its dating methodology on certain assumptions and presuppositions that have not been factually established.
Science cannot authoritatively establish the origin of the universe for the simple fact that no human was present to directly observe it. And the re-creation of a new universe is not possible to test the theory of evolution. The scientific community therefore is limited to holding evolution as a theory. It cannot establish it as a fact.
The origin of the universe therefore remains in the arena of faith. Accordingly, even Young Earth Creationists (YEC) can lay claim to the possibility that their explanation for the universe’s origins may, in fact, be true.
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