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 | One approach would be to believe that when God when created the trees in 4004 BCE, he would have formed them complete with growth rings. So too with other plants, animals and minerals. Some flattened mountain ranges would look like the eroded remains of once-high mountains. Everything in the world would then appear as if they had existed in the period of time prior to creation. That would include artifacts left over from the Old European culture, such as Goddess figures that have been dated at 30,000 years of age. In other words, God created the world as if it had had a continuous past. One would interpret the evidence to show that the world was created only a few thousand years ago, but that it was created looking as if it had evolved over billions of years. Of course, as one of our readers commented in an Email, the universe might really have no real history at all: "You can equally argue that this god created the universe 2 seconds ago, and you did not write the essay, this god did and placed in your mind two seconds ago a memory so that you think you did. He is so good deception and hiding of his creation that he even put a copy of the file on your hard drive when he created that too!!" Assuming the existence of a God with infinite powers, there is no logical argument that can refute this scenario. |
| A second approach would involve a relatively small change in the belief system of the
"Genesis believing" creation scientists. The change would be to accept the
Genesis account of creation as God's initial creation message which He revealed to
the ancient Israelites who lived in a pre-scientific age. This would have been the only
type of explanation that they could understand at the time. After all, as Geologist
Richard W Berry stated 4
This would require one to abandon the literal interpretation of Genesis in favor of the belief that it is a historical myth. One could argue that Jesus followed a similar pattern when he used parables to make a point about human nature. His parables did not necessarily describe real people. Perhaps the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures adopted some existing parables about creation and the flood from nearby Pagan cultures in order to make a point about God's creative power and rejection of evil behavior. Perhaps God gave humanity the intelligence to eventually develop the skills to find out the reality of evolution. Most Christians believe that God's revelation has been gradually released to humans. There is ample evidence in the Bible for this. Evolution may be one more example. |
| A third approach would be to define the "days" in the first chapter of Genesis as hundreds or thousands of millions of years in duration. This would allow time for the various evolutionary processes to occur. However, this concept has some serious flaws. As described elsewhere in this series of essays, some plants which depend upon birds, ants, etc. for pollination could not survive the hundreds of millions of years between the creation of plants and the creation of birds and animals. |
| A final approach is to accept the established findings of science. This requires that the first few chapters in Genesis be seen as creation myths - similar to myths of many other religions worldwide. This approach obviously requires that one abandon Biblical inerrancy (freedom from error). |
Reference
- "Faith & Reason Ministries" attempts to reconcile "Christianity with Accepted Science." See: http://www.faithreason.org/
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