Creationism points to Jesus

It is a reflection on how sensitive the issues I now stand between Creationist and Intelligent Design postures.

I agree that a literal interpretation of Genesis is over simplistic.

I find it hard to believe that the worlds as we know them were created in seven calendar days. More than that I don't think the bible makes that point - so much for literalism. We read elsewhere that a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, so we could then argue for a seven thousand year period of creative wonder, but that still doesn't fit the evidence.

The bible also refers to a week as a period of seven years and alludes to the tribulation as a time, times and half a time. In all that there is enough to question whether a literal interpretation was ever intended, because the bible is so multi-layered and multi-faceted that it simply refuses to bow to simplistic interpretation. Besides when Jesus said, "Say to this mountain, "be cast into the sea", He surely did not have a literal outcome in mind - for rabbinical theology is layered from a superficial or factual level, called Psach, through deeper levels as in Remez and Danesh, to a mystical level, Sod. 

A more balanced position, which fits both biblical and empirical arguments, is that the creation happened over seven discrete epochs. That would have followed the environmental conditions necessary for each phase to reach stability, whilst in turn creating a sufficiently stable basis for subsequent phases. For example, the earth had to cool before it could support the genesis of life and evidence of a high degree of water vapor in the garden confirms that it was so.  

I also agree with the Creationists.

Aside from technical disputes about what day-measure was implied by Genesis 1, I still believe that Genesis offers a remarkeably accurate record of the formation of the universe. The Big Bang model agrees with what Genesis describes as a burst of light that flooded a dark void. The same model also tells that the initial second of radiant energy introduced all the vital laws that were the building blocks for the rest of creation. How Moses knew all that is a miracle in its own right. Maybe his access to the libraries of Egypt and their relatively sophisticated ways, helped to inform Moses' perspectives.

Moses also got two other things right. As evolutionists also argue, there had to be an order of events. That in itself suggests a longer time period for creation, for God clearly chose to outwork the creation in discrete phases. However, more remarkeable is the fact that he got the order right. Even evolutionists agree that sea life preceded land life and that land life preceded human life. Scientists have also confirmed that cooling of the earth would have resulted in the separation of land and seas. 

However, too much of a swing away from a literal posture is problematic for many reasons. Firstly it risks displacing the role of the creator, which then makes the garden rebellion and the interactions between God and man of little consequence, even though it is the key to the entire creation event. God confirmed that knowledge of sin preceded creation, which then tells us that sin had already polluted His domain. The creation was, therefore, triggered by sin or at least by God's need to resolve sin. Thus Christ was set aside from before the foundations of the the world, to underwrite that creation whilst using the platform so created to free this world and the entire domain of God, from the stench of sin.

It also worries me that, having already discounted a literal interpretation of Genesis, as such, alternative schools of thought are now seeking to extend that rationale further. For example, now that many theistic scientists have accepted the Big Bang and old earth arguments, some now want to dispute the flood. The same people want to bundle that and who knows what else inside an old earth model, which risks distancing the bible from its original raison détre, which would ultimately invalidate Christ.

So, my position is clear. I believe the worlds were created. I accept that the creation event was phased over billions of years and I further accept that the Big Bang event is what Genesis 1:1-2 meant when it referred to the dawning light of creation. But I still hold to the point that God's Word is altogether Holy that Jesus is the key to every door, the lamb who has prevailed to open the seals of history. He is the key to all logic, to all higher reason, to every dilemma. By Him all things consist and without Him nothing was made.   

(c) Peter Eleazar @ http://www.4u2live.net/