Let's Ask Phil

How Was the Earth Made?

Did God make the earth just appear or did he make it from a process like the “big bang” or “black hole” just to keep the evolutionists guessing and does evolution play some part in the way the earth is (except us Humans) or was everything we have now, instantly created on the earth?

I will write separately about my scientific disagreements with the theory of evolution, which, to me, cuts across some basic scientific principles, and ignores much of the fossil evidence that it says it uses as its own support.

I will also write at that point about the scientific support for the origin of modern humans from a single couple.

But here is the start of my answer from the point of view of the Bible and cosmological origins.

OK.
This is it.
This is the time to stand up and be counted.

I am a Creationist. Not an Evolutionist. I think the Bible has all the answers we need. I believe that God is the originator of all that exists, and, as a scientist, which I am, that the “Godless development” spoken of by people like Richard Dawkins, is a total unscientific myth, an erroneous belief, as religious as the religions they claim to criticise.

But there is another point:
I’d LIKE to say, as a scientist, that I think that the Bible gives us all the scientific evidence we need to prove to the world that God made the whole Universe in six 24 hour periods about 4000BC.

There is a problem right about here.

It doesn’t.

Give us all the evidence we want, that is.

WHY NOT? I hear you thunder.

OK. Now, PAY ATTENTION AT THE BACK, THERE! If you really want to know, you are going to have to read the following s l o w l y a n d c a r e f u l l y.

*******************************
Basics

Let’s do some basics.
A. It is entirely possible that God could have created this earth 6000 years ago with all the fossils and Geology “built in”, and this is an entirely credible Christian view. I am comfortable with this.

B. Or we might wonder if that was the only permissible biblical position. So, here is one of several different points of view. This one is held by other equally committed and Bible believing Christians called “Gap Theorists”. They wear clothing from a well known modern clothing retailer. NO THEY DON’T! I’M JUST BEING SILLY!

They point out:

  1. the Bible is given to us to be God’s transmission of all that we need to be saved and pursue Godly and spiritually productive lives. (I am comfortable with this, too.)
  2. the Bible clearly tells us that God is entirely responsible for the whole of what exists. None of it happened without Him.
  3. the Bible was given for a readership of the whole of humanity: a research scientist at Oxford, a cave dweller in the 4th century AD, and (relevant parts only) great men of the Old Testament, like Daniel, who obviously was very familiar with the writings of Jeremiah and Isaiah. Oh, and Jesus, who read all he needed to know about himself and his mission in those same pages that you and I see..
  4. the words in the Bible are written by human beings, inspired by God to write what they did, but always writing from the perspective of a human upon the earth. [So, on this basis, we see the Sun going round the earth. Ecclesiastes 1 4 says that the sun rises and sets, and then “hurries back to where it rises”.Oh no it doesn’t! The Earth is turning, and the Sun is staying still (relatively). So the Bible is wrong and we can all go home and stop trying so hard? Nope. The Bible is absolutely correct if you take as your yardstick the observation point of an ordinary human being upon the earth. This is exactly how it looks. From this perspective, the Bible is accurate, and can be trusted.]
  5. in Gen 1 1, categorically, God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. . However, if you look at the early words of Genesis carefully, these people point out that the Bible does NOT say that nothing at all existed before the six days of the Creation of the world that WE know.

Verse 2 tells us that a seven day period started when “the earth was formless and empty”. It actually does not say that this seven-day-period included the origination of the cosmos. It does insist that the seven-day-period starts at a point of “emptiness” and “formlessness” of the state of the earth itself.

These people conclude that there existed a “Gap” between Gen 1 1 and Gen 1 2 during which it is also possible that a whole lot of things could have happened AFTER the earth was in being, but BEFORE it reached the point where our modern earth creation was started.

Conclusions:

So, Some Christians believe that God started with zilch and formed the whole bang shoot in six days.
And other Christians believe that he formed the modern earth in six days, but things had happened before. (God was still responsible for these things, but as they were not part of the perspective of a Human Being upon the earth, they were not included.)

Does the Bible say which of these two positions is correct? Well actually, I don’t think it does.

And as we are told very categorically not to require of anyone that they believe more than the Bible requires.

So, what are we to teach in church?

GO AND READ YOUR BIBLE!

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