There are four questions that every worldview must answer, these consist of: Origins, Meaning, Morality and Destiny. As it concerns Origins, there has been a lack of consensus amongst the modern Christian community, and thus a plethora of different interpretations of the Genesis creation narrative have emerged. Out of all those differing perspectives, I have been kindly asked to explain why many Christians, including myself, believe in young earth creationism. I trust that what I have written here is sufficient in spite of the limitations of writing in an article format.
Hermeneutics Applied
The place to begin must be Scripture itself, for if we believe in the authority of the Bible, and that the Bible is the only authoritative interpretation of created reality (that is, that God’s special revelation interprets God’s general revelation), then we must preserve the Bible as our ultimate starting point for all thinking. While the Bible is not a science textbook, as God’s revelation it nonetheless provides us with the parameters by which we may view, understand and interpret our world.
One of the most common, and perhaps most pivotal, points of disagreement as it concerns biblical origins is in the interpretation of the Hebrew word yom in reference to the days of the creation account. According to biblical scholars, the semantic range of yom, translated as “day,” is restricted to only five meanings:[1]
- A period of light in a day/night cycle;
- A period of 24 hours;
- A general or vague concept of time;
- A specific point of time; and
- A period of a year.
As to what meaning is ascribed to yom in Genesis 1-3, the answer is found in its literary context. Far too often those who discard young earth creationism dismiss the literal meaning of the word yom in its proper context because it does not align with their presuppositions, and instead seek out the use of the word in a different context so as to support their position, whether that be progressive creationism or theistic evolution.
However, it needs to be said from the outset that the genre of Genesis is, in fact and unmistakably, historical, it is not poetic or allegorical.[2] If the book of Genesis, and this includes the beginning chapters (1-11), were to be compared to the other historical books of the Old Testament, such as Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, etc., it would be evident that the same literary style is employed by its author. Sarfati, in his Commentary on Genesis, writes that “Genesis frequently uses the construction called the ‘waw consecutive’ (or wayyiqtol or preterite), a singular mark of sequential narrative,”[3] which is in fact a common trait of ancient Hebraic history.[4] Sarfati also notes “other trademarks of historical narrative, such as ‘accusative particles’ (‘et) that mark the objects of verbs, and many terms that are carefully defined.”[5] These other “trademarks” include Hebrew verbs exhibiting features that are expected for recounting past historical events, where, for example, bara (create) is qatal, and subsequent verbs are wayyiqtols, forming the sequentiality of the narrative. This is affirmed by German Hebraist H.F. Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842), who wrote:
One of the most striking peculiarities in the Hebrew consecution of tenses is the phenomenon that, in representing a series of past events, only the first verb stands in the perfect, and the narration is continued in the imperfect.[6]
The very notion of Genesis 1-3 being in any form poetic or allegorical is contrary to the clear literary style of the text, most particularly considering the absence of parallelism which is common in poetic Hebrew literature. Though it is true that the creation narrative has a repetitive structure which can be confused for poetry, consisting of (1) God’s command, (2) its fulfillment, (3) its assessment, and (4) the closure of the day, there is no literary or historical evidence that would suggest that this text is non-historical.[7] In fact, such repetition is a common literary device for the memorization of oral traditions.
Also consider that the words boqer (morning) and erebs (evening) denotes a literal day; and contrary to those who claim that these are ‘figurative’ terms, outside of Genesis 1, these words are combined with yom for a total of nineteen times, always meaning a literal day.[8] Even without the word yom, the words boqer and erebs together always mean a 24-hour period, and this occurs “38 times outside of Genesis 1, including 25 in historical narrative.”[9] Essentially, when comparing the word usage of yom (day) with other biblical passages (i.e, Num. 9:15; Deut. 16:4; Dan. 8:26), particularly when accompanied by a number, or by the Hebrew words boqer and erebs, it can only mean “an ordinary day, never a long period of time,” according to Safarti.[10]
When we consider all these indicators, the word usage and meanings of yom, boqer, and erebs, the literary genre and accompanying literary devices, the absence of allegorical or figurative language, and the fact that the Hebrews used what words they could in the understanding of their day to describe the comprehensiveness of God’s creative work (v. 1, “God created the heavens and the earth”)[11], it is abundantly clear that to deny the historical and literal nature of Genesis would be to deny the obvious meaning of the text. And if any attempt were made to ‘extract’ a meaning that is otherwise different than the intended meaning of the text, not only should we evaluate the underlying motives for that person’s distortion of God’s Word, but be weary of the fact that such an attempt would cause structural and directional damage to the rest of our understanding of Scripture.
Implications
It is only by interpreting the Genesis creation narrative according to the testimony of Scripture, and according to hermeneutical principles which uphold biblical authority, that we can affirm the true attributes and character of God. This being the holiness, justice, omnipotence, omniscience, perfection, truthfulness, goodness, sovereignty, transcendence, providence and mercy of the personal, creator God. And it is precisely this that we see reflected in the Genesis creation narrative, for as H. and J. Morris write:
Surely an omniscient God [would] devise a better process of creation than the random, wasteful, inefficient trial-and-error charade of the so-called geological ages, and certainly a loving, merciful God would never be guilty of a creative process that would involve the suffering and death of multitudes of innocent animals in the process of arriving at man millions of years later.[12]
The original state of creation reflected the goodness of God, goodness in terms of God’s law-word, and it is precisely because of the goodness of God that creation will be restored to its original state again. John Calvin (1509-1564), the Genevan reformer, wrote in relation to the goodness of God and creation that God pronounced His creation as “perfectly good, that we may know that there is in the symmetry of God’s works the highest perfection, to which nothing can be added.”[13] Matthew Henry (1662-1714), the puritan, also commented that:
The work of creation was a very good work. All that God made was well-made, and there was no flaw nor defect in it…. Good, for it is all agreeable to the mind of the Creator, just as he would have it be… Good, for it is all for God’s glory; there is that in the whole visible creation which is a demonstration of God’s being and perfections…[14]
Patristic Commentaries
As difficult as it may be to believe, both progressive creationists and theistic evolutionists argue that the literal six-day, young-earth interpretation is a novel, reactionary development to the more recent ‘scientific’ understanding of natural origins, and that, as it relates to history, the early church fathers sided with an old-earth interpretation as opposed to the supposedly ‘modern’ reactionary creationism.[15] As Mook elaborates, “They propose that prominent early Church exegetes pursued theological meaning as of the highest priority (rather than historical meaning), and would not [thus] identify with modern young-earth theses.”[16]
This notion, however, of the literal, six-day interpretation of Genesis 1-2 as “novel” and “reactionary” is not only false but a scholarly embarrassment.[17] Though it is true that naturalism dates back to ancient Greek philosophy, with Hippasus, Anaximander, Thales the Milesian, and Xenophanes, teaching that all things originated from a single entity (fire, air, water, or earth), the early church patristics rejected said naturalism in their theology of cosmological origins.[18] Hippolytus (c. AD. 170-235), a presbyter of Rome, for example, cites and rejects many of these Greek naturalistic teachings in his book Refutation of all Heresies.[19]
The Bishop Basil of Caesarea (AD. 329-379) likewise rejected the naturalism of the Greeks, stating:
Some had recourse to material principles and attributed the origin of the Universe to the elements of the world… A true spider’s web woven by these writers who give to heaven, to earth, and to sea so weak an origin and so little consistency!… Deceived by their inherent atheism it appeared to them that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that all was given up to chance.[20]
Both progressive and biblical creationists may agree with St. Basil’s assessment, after all, both reject the atheistic worldview, but this is as far as the agreement goes, for the patristics go on to state their interpretations of the Genesis creation narrative as ‘creation in six literal days and as not that long ago.’ Lactantius (ad 250-325), for example, advisor to the Roman Emperor Constantine I and tutor of his son, wrote that the naturalistic philosophers, those “who enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, [should] know that the six thousandth year is not yet completed… God completed the world and this admirable work of nature in the space of six days.”[21] The bishop Victorinus of Pettau (c. ad 304) taught that each day of creation was divided into twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of night, stating “God produced that entire mass for the adornment of His majesty in six days; on the seventh to which He consecrated it.”[22] And one of the few patristics who mastered the Hebrew language, Ephrem the Syrian (c. AD. 306-373), wrote: “So let no one think that there is anything allegorical in the works of the six days. No one can rightly say that the things pertaining to these days were symbolic.”[23]
Now, it may well be countered that these citations were of the patristic literalists, but what about the allegorists? Perhaps they held to a “day-age” perspective on cosmological origins. Not quite. In fact, Origen (c. AD 185-254) wrote that “the Mosaic account of creation… teaches that the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that.”[24] His predecessor, the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, St. Clement (c. AD 150-211), wrote: “For the creations on the different days followed in a most important succession; so that all things brought into existence might have honor from priority, created together in thought…”[25] Mook, in his contributing chapter to the book Coming to Grips with Genesis, collects the citations of various patristics to demonstrate that these aforementioned fathers, and others such as Athanasius,[26] St. Augustine,[27] and Ambrose,[28] hold to a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative.[29] Though there may be differences in their interpretations, as should be expected between the literalists and allegorists, they nonetheless rejected the notion of an old earth, resisting the influence of Greek natural philosophy in this area of thought.
This fact is significant, because progressive creationism (old earth creationism) certainly is not a modern idea (though it is novel in the church), it has in fact been the tendency of ancient civilizations to “impose a theistic meaning upon the almost universal pagan evolutionary philosophies of antiquity”[30] In most cases, the material universe was perceived to be in some way eternal, a belief which sought to discard the need for an omnipotent, holy, eternal, personal, creator God. And thus, what we witness is that, based on early church history, progressive creationists are actually on the wrong side. This is due to the fact that the historical support that they seek are with the ancient pagan nations, while biblical creationists find that the teachings of the early church affirm the right and true interpretation of Genesis 1-3, agreeing with the self-witness of Scripture as creation in six days, and only a few thousands of years ago.
Real World Correspondence
Taking progressive creationism and theistic evolution into account, in truth, it would be illogical to posit that death could have pre-existed the creation of mankind when Paul specifically refers to death “as the last enemy to be defeated” in God’s great unfolding plan of redemptive and restorative history (1 Cor. 15:26). And that is what death is, an enemy of God, an opposing force that will be vanquished from creation upon the consummation of all things (Rev. 21:4). This, of course, raises questions as to the facts and evidences of our natural world, for how does the Christian then make sense of the millions of dead organisms found in the fossil record?
If Scripture provides no room for the Gap Theory, for example, and if there was no such geological uniformitarian timeline (Charles Lyell’s millions of years), then what does Scripture teach that might help us in our interpretation of our created world? The answer to this question can be found in the account of the post-fall, global flood of Noah’s day (Gen. 6-9), when God poured out His judgment upon the earth for mankind’s wickedness. This historical event communicated to us that the whole of creation suffers when those who have been given dominion over the earth rebel against their Creator. And, as a result, the fossil record now serves as a testament to man of his own sinfulness, and of God’s righteous judgment which never fails; it also affirms the biblical timeline and the written revelation of God, for what we expect to see is in fact what we find, that is, millions of dead organisms buried in rock layers all around the world.[31] Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis, writes here that the Genesis flood “has made the earth’s geology, geography, biology, etc., what they are today… the global devastation caused by Noah’s Flood must therefore have a part in any explanation of the fossil record.”[32]
It is only by adopting the same presuppositions of Scripture, viewing and interpreting the world according to the authoritative written revelation of God, that we can make sense of what we see in the world, and that means, also, affirming that what we expect to see (in terms of a young earth) is, in fact, what we witness. Whether it be the lunar recession rate,[33] preserved dinosaur hemoglobin (which has been empirically proven impossible to survive for millions of years),[34] the increased salt levels in the sea,[35] earth’s magnetic field decay,[36] or any other fact or evidence of God’s creation, it is only by thinking God’s thoughts after Him, that is to say, presupposing His revealed truth, or allowing His propositional revelation to shape our thinking, that we are able to make sense of such things, all while the natural man ponders to himself in the dark, lost in his intellectual inconsistency and futility. The Christian world-and-life view is the only philosophy of life which provides the preconditions of intelligibility for the predication of reality, or in other words, what must be presupposed in order to make sense of our reality, that being the very same presuppositions of Scripture.
[1] Sarfati, Refuting Compromise, 67-68.
[2] Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A Theological, Historical and Scientific Commentary on Genesis 1-11 (Powder Springs, GA.: Creation Book Publishers, 2015), 34.
[3] Ibid., 48.
[4] See J. Weingreen, A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew (Oxford, UK.: Oxford University Press, 1967), 90-92.
[5] Sarfati, The Genesis Account, 48.
[6] Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, 2nd edition, trans. Arthur Ernest Cowley (Oxford, UK.: Oxford University Press, 1910), 132-133.
[7] Sarfati, The Genesis Account, 50-51.
[8] Sarfati, Refuting Compromise, 81.
[10] Ibid., 67.
[11] Currid, “The Hebrew World-and-Life View,” 51.
[12] Morris and Morris, The Modern Creation Trilogy, Vol. 1, 76.
[13] John Calvin, Genesis, 1554 (Edinburgh, UK.: Banner of Truth, 1984), 100.
[14] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 7.
[15] Ross, for example, stated that “Many of the early church fathers and other Biblical scholars interpreted the creation days Genesis 1 as long periods of time. The list of such proponents includes the Jewish historian Josephus (1st century); Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, apologist, and martyr (2nd century); Origen, who rebutted heathen attacks on Christian doctrine (3rd century); Basil (4th century); Augustine (5th century); and, later, Aquinas (13th century), to name a few” in Biblical Evidence for Long Creation Days, reasons.org, 1 December 2002.; See also Sarfati, “Hugh Ross Church Fathers: Old earther admits ‘poor quality’ research by other old-earthers,” Creation.com, accessed November 30, 2017. https://creation.com/hugh-ross-church-fathers/.
[16] Mook, “The Church Fathers on Genesis, the Flood, and the Age of the Earth,” in Coming to Grips with Genesis, 25.
[17] See Don Stoner, A New Look at an Old Earth (Eugene, OR.: Harvest House Publishers, 1997), 37-41.
[18] Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies 10.2, in Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, Philip Schaff, Henry Wace, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols. (Peabody, MA.: Hendrickson, 1994), vol. 5.
[19] Ibid., 10.2-10.3
[20] Basil of Caesarea, Hexaemeron 1.2 in Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, Philip Schaff, Henry Wace, eds., The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2 (Peabody, MA.: Hendrickson, 1994) vol. 8.
[21] Lactantius, Institutes 7.14, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7.
[22] Victorinus, On the Creation of the World, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, 341.
[23] Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 1.1, in Kathleen E. McVey, ed., Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works, trans. Edward G. Mathews and Joseph P. Amar, in The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC.: Catholic Univ. of Amer. Pr., 1961), 91:74.
[24] Origen, De Principiis 1.19, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4.
[25] Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.16, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2.
[26] See Thomas G. Weinandy, Athanasius: A Theological Introduction, in Great Theologians (Burlington, UK.: Ashgate, 2007).
[27] Augustine, The City of God 12.10, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series 1, vol. 2.
[28] Ambrose, Hexaemeron 1.10.3-7, in Ambrose, Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain and Abel, trans. John J. Savage, in The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC.: Catholic Univ. of Amer. Pr., 1961), 42:42-43.
[29] See Mook, “The Church Fathers on Genesis, the Flood, and the Age of the Earth,” in Coming to Grips with Genesis, 23-52.
[30] Morris and Morris, The Modern Creation Trilogy, Vol. 1, 75.
[31] A more comprehensive study of the flood and the fossil record are provided in Henry M. Morris’ and John C. Whitcomb’s The Genesis Flood, John Woodmorappe’s Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, and Andrew Snelling’s two volumes of Earth’s Catastrophic Past, all which are arguably the most definitive publications on the subject matter.
[32] Ken Ham, “Creation, Flood and Coming Fire,” Answers in Genesis, accessed December 1, 2017. https://answersingenesis.org/bible-history/creation-flood-and-coming-fire/.
[33] See D. DeYoung, “The Earth-Moon System,” in eds., R.E. Walsh and C.L. Brooks, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism 2:79-84 (1990).
[34] See Mary Schweitzer and T. Staedter, “The Real Jurassic Park,” Earth (June 1997), 55-57.
[35] See S.A. Austin and D.R. Humphreys, “The Sea’s Missing Salt: A Dilemma for Evolutionists,” in Ibid., 17-33.
[36] See Sarfati, “The Earth’s Magnetic Field: Evidence That the Earth is Young,” Creation 20(2):15-19 (March-May 1998).