For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. | Romans 1:20
In order to get our heads wrapped around the varied theories, I am going to use some categories and organizing ideas. Most people who hold views do not like to be categorized as they feel it takes away from their viewpoint through generalization. It is, however, the only way to cover the vast amount of information in anything less than a book-length document.
The categories that I will use are borrowed from theologian Herman Bavinck: harmonizing theories and anti-geological theories. Anti-geological does not mean against geology, but simply that these models are not primarily concerned with trying to make Genesis 1 fit with observable science.
I am going to go over the three harmonizing ideas today; then cover two anti-geological ideas in my next blog; I will wrap it up with one final view and some final thoughts. The three harmonizing models that are most common today are known as: Day Age View, Gap theory, and theistic evolution.
DAY AGE
The day age view suggests that the days of creation are not 24 hour days, but ages of time in which God does His work. While God lays this out as days in order to form the structure for the 7 day week and the Sabbath rest, the work was done over much larger spans of time. This view has been around for a long time and was held even by some of those who helped lead the fundamentalist movement in the first half of the twentieth century that made creation theology a central issue. J Gresham Machen described it this way in his book, The Christian View of Man:
The meaning of “day” in Gen 1 has been debated in the church at least since the days of Augustine. The literary form of the passage in its relation to other scriptures is important for its interpretation. Responsible Reformed theologians have differed as to whether Gen 1 teaches a young earth or allows for an old earth. While one of these interpretations must be mistaken, we believe that either position can be held by faithful Reformed people. | J Gresham Machen
This view tends to still read the days chronologically, which has created some debate about how exactly many years passed with vegetation and no sun (as if a creative God couldn’t hold that together). It provides a way for Genesis 1 to be read literally and still fit into an old earth model. Another view that attempts to do this is:
GAP THEORY
The Gap Theory sees a long gap of time existing between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. The idea is that God created the heavens and the earth and that it went through numerous cycles of destruction before finding itself in the formless void of verse 2. The six following days, then, are acts of recreation, restoring the earth to its original glory. Charles Spurgeon leans into this idea when he says:
But if you will look in the first chapter of Genesis, you will see there more particularly set forth that peculiar operation of power upon the universe which was put forth by the Holy Spirit; you will then discover what was his special work. In Ge 1:2, we read, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” We do not know how remote the period of the creation of this globe may be—certainly many millions of years before the time of Adam. Our planet has passed through various stages of existence, and different kinds of creatures have lived on its surface, all of which have been fashioned by God. | Charles Spurgeon
While a large gap of time helps make sense of the observable age of the earth and the skeletal remains of creatures that seemingly did not co-exist with people, it does make death a reality BEFORE the original sin. In attempting to solve one problem it creates a new contradiction in the text. As does the third of our harmonizing theories:
THEISTIC EVOLUTION
This view has become much more popular with Christians in the GenX and later generations. It is the idea that God created the world through an evolutionary process that He was fully in control of. It removes the random chance aspects of evolution – but maintains that God created through a process over time. One older theologian who left the door open to this view was BB Warfield, who said:
I do not think that there is any general statement in the Bible or any part of the account of creation, either as given in Genesis 1 and 2 or elsewhere alluded to, that need be opposed to evolution…There is no necessary antagonism of Christianity to evolution, provided that we do not hold to too extreme a form of evolution.
The Biblical description of creation remains true, as God is the one forming and creating, but this view does not believe that the way He did this is laid out in Scripture. The biggest challenge for theistic evolution is the formation of Adam and Eve. The way that the Bible describes the first man and woman does not fit easily into an evolutionary process. It also has the same death problem as the Gap Theory.
We have three different ideas here, some of which were developed from the text, before the scientific consensus on an old earth; all of which are trying to harmonize God’s general revelation in the world with His special revelation in Scripture. While they each have their own ‘problems,’ as long as they keep the affirmations I ended the last blog post with, they are not incompatible with the Christian faith. They are, however, just theories. They should always be held with the humility that comes with any unproven theory.
As theories, they are not strong enough to hold your faith. The foundational truths that can give you a solid ground to build your life upon are found in the very same verses that these theories are about.