What of the days of creation?

Lowell TenClay 10/21/2011

The other day, I read an article from an author who claimed to be “a parent who holds a biblical view of Creation…”. The obvious implication in the piece was that everything was created in six, twenty-four-hour days, and therefore, the idea that dinosaurs could have existed millions of years ago was an absurdity and a myth devised by the evil proponents of “Evolution” who obviously couldn’t connect with the truth of “Intelligent design.”

This perception wasn’t the point of the article, and her other thoughts were commendable, so I don’t want to dismiss her completely, but I am saddened by the thoughtless dismissal of us “unbelievers” as not having a “biblical view of creation”

If one were to examine the biblical accounts of creation, the first thing (s)he might notice is that it wasn’t until the fourth day that the greater and lesser lights, the sun and moon, were placed to rule the day and the night. Since the hours of the day and night are computed according to the rotation of the earth and measured by the alternation of light and darkness, it would follow that hours had no finite length until they were defined by the fourth day’s work.

My point is this. The biblical accounts of creation do not give us inarguable evidence to substantiate the perspectives that many people want to use to discount other’s ideas and interpretations. If God didn’t give us that information, perhaps it is because He doesn’t think we need it.

The biblical perspective is that God created the universe. The biblical perspective is that He is and was capable of doing it any way He wanted. The biblical perspective is that we should unite with one another to preach the Gospel, not separate into little groups to fight each other over something that, from the perspective of salvation by grace, has no bearing on anything.

Jesus said, no house divided against itself can stand, so why are we dividing ourselves over the interpretation of words. Why do we make ourselves appear petty, divisive, and argumentative to unbelievers when we ought to appear united, confident and sound in our belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, just and loving God who is over all?

I also, am “a parent who holds a biblical view of Creation…”. I believe that an unchanging God probably didn’t change His method of bringing about change in His universe in the last six thousand years. He probably used the same methods of building mountains and mutating viruses, germinating seeds and pollinating plants in His days of creation as He uses now.

He is the same God who says that a thousand years is as a day. I suspect He wasn’t saying that it took him either 144 hours or 8,766,000 hours to set the sun and moon in place to rule the day and night.