Wellspring Church: Pacific Grove

#9 - CRF - Different Views on Genesis 1

Aaron and Tony sit down to briefly chat about different views on Genesis 1. While many faithful followers of Jesus who take the Scriptures seriously might disagree, we can still learn and grow together from other viewpoints. I.Models of Creation In all these models there is agreement that “God created the heavens and the earth” means He created the universe. There is disagreement on how He did this work. 1Historic Creationism (Preparing the Garden + Promised Land): Genesis 1 & 2 is the record of the God who created the sun, moon, stars, planet earth, plants, animals, etc. in the beginning (a period of time before our story begins) shaping the unpopulated uncultivated land of Israel into a luxuriant garden for Him to dwell with the first humans, His image bearers and covenant partners. The days are six 24 hour periods of God's working to prepare Eden. (John Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound) 2Young Earth Creation: God created all things less than 10,000 years ago. The Genesis 1 days are six, sequential twenty-four-hour days. Stars, moon, earth, trees, and animals were created essentially as we see them today. Adam & Eve were created as mature adults. Often associated with flood geology, the theory that dinosaurs were killed, fossils, canyons, mountains were formed by the flood. Randy Guliuzza, Institute for Creation Research [http://www.icr.org]; Ken Hamm, Answers in Genesis [https://answersingenesis.org], Creation Ministries International [http://creation.com]; Young Earth interpretation of the Grand Canyon is here [https://answersingenesis.org/store/product/geology/?sku=40-1-309]) a. Some Evidence for a Young Universe/Earth (Humphreys, Creation Matters 4:4 (July, 1999), (1) Comets disintegrate in tens of thousands, not billions, of years Short-Lived Comets [https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/comets/8-short-lived-comets/] (2) Rivers deposit 25-28 billion tons of sediments onto the ocean floor each year. If the earth is 4.5 billion years old, the sediment layers should be far deeper and the oceans far saltier than they are. Very Little Sediment on the Seafloor [https://answersingenesis.org/geology/sedimentation/1-very-little-sediment-on-the-seafloor/] (3) The earth's magnetic field and rotational velocity decays at a rate that indicates it is only a few tens of thousands of years old. Rapidly Decaying Magnetic Field [https://answersingenesis.org/evidence-for-creation/5-rapidly-decaying-magnetic-field/] (4) The observed rate of radioactive decay would produce all observed helium in a few tens of thousands of years. Helium in Radioactive Rocks [https://answersingenesis.org/age-of-the-earth/6-helium-in-radioactive-rocks/] More evidence here: https://answersingenesis.org/evidence-for-creation/the-10-best-evidences-from-science-that-confirm-a-young-earth/ [https://answersingenesis.org/evidence-for-creation/the-10-best-evidences-from-science-that-confirm-a-young-earth/] 3Evolutionary Creationism (used to be called Theistic Evolution): God created mass/energy, space/time, and the laws of nature in the beginning. He providentially guided the natural processes of evolution to produce the universe, life and humanity as we see it today. However this is quite different than naturalistic evolution (Biologos, Francis Collins, The Language of God, John Lennox, Philip Johnson, Tim Keller, Michael Behe, William Dembski, Dennis Lamoureux’s explanation is here [http://biologos.org/uploads/projects/Lamoureux_Scholarly_Essay.pdf]. Ancient Earth interpretation of the Grand Canyon is here [http://grandcanyonancientearth.com/]) God’s Temple (but this also can be lumped in w/ Historic Creationism above) God inspired Moses to use the metaphor of the Sabbath week to narrate God’s acts of creation. Thus, God’s supernatural creative words or fiats are real and historical but their timing is unspecified. The purpose of the metaphor is to call Adam to imitate God in work, with the promise of entering His Sabbath rest. The days are in the Genesis narrative not in the act of Creation. (John Walton, Lost World of Genesis 1. Walton’s summary is here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afr8NGMYmSU&feature=youtu.be]. Video of Walton, Polkinghorne, McGrath and others discussing the topic is here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&client=mv-google&gl=US&v=5bKa92eLkQM]) 4“Day Age” / Old Earth Creation or Intelligent Design (no evolution involved). The "days" of Genesis 1 are analogies of God’s workdays, setting a pattern for our rhythm of work and rest. They are understood in the same sense as "in that day" of Isaiah 11:10-11.  They represent periods of God’s historical supernatural activity in preparing and populating the earth as a place for humans to live, love, work, and worship. These days are broadly consecutive periods of unspecified length. (Hugh Ross, Reasons to Believe [https://www.reasons.org/], Stephen Meyer, Discovery Institute [https://www.discovery.org/]) a. Progressive Creation (1) Apocalyptic creative days followed by long periods of "normal" life (2) Akin to Punctuated Equilibria b. Day-Age Theory 1. Each day is akin to a geologic age

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