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houghts on reconciling the conflict between science and the Bible regarding creation
The next six topics on proof of the existence of God and the truth of the Bible, relate directly to the Biblical account of the creation of the earth and the universe. More specifically, I will try to show that science supports the Biblical account of creation. To me, this account is yet more evidence of God’s existence, and that the Bible is his word. It may seem in some instances that I am bending over backwards to find compatibility between the Bible and Science. This is because I am. You see, the main point for me is that there is a possible compatibility between the two. Not a definite one.
Before I begin I would like to address a preliminary issue. This is the apparent conflict between the Biblical account of creation, and scientific evidence. The main conflict is that the Bible says that the universe, and everything in it including the earth, was created by God in six days. This according to many believers makes the earth about between 6,000 and 10,000 years old. This figure is reached by taking literally the creation of the earth in six days, and then counting the generation of humans from Adam until today, this would start the counting from the literal day six of creation. So, if counting generations from Adam to today6,000 years have elapsed, the earth and in fact the whole universe, cannot be more than 6000 years + 6 days old, give or take.
Science on the other hand claims that the earth is over 4 billion years old, and creation of the universe started about 15 billion years ago. Science is quite certain of this figure and backs it up with facts and figures constituting scientific evidence.
I’m not going to question the validity of the evidence presented by science as I have neither the intellectual capability, nor the tools necessary to prove or disprove these scientific assertions. My intent is to simply see if what appears to be an insurmountable conflict between the two may actually be reconciled. In other words, are there any scenarios were both can be correct? Again the thoughts I am advancing are not absolutes but rather, possibilities which may explain and encompass both the Biblical and scientific views.
The first thought I would like to propose is that we may not have the same concept of a day that God does in Genesis. This I find possible due to the fact that according to the Bible, the yardstick for measuring time, including days and years, was not created until the fourth day of creation. Genesis 1:14-19, in referring to the fourth day of creation states:
If God did not create the mechanisms we use today to measure time, until the fourth day of creation, then it is possible that in this account God is using a different form of reference than the 24 hour day we are used to. In fact it would be impossible to use the same reference used today i.e. the rising and setting of the sun, since there was no sun prior to the fourth day. This thought is given support by the fact that the length of a day on some planets is different than it is on earth. For example the length of a day on the planet Uranus is 17 hours; on Saturn and Jupiter it is 10 hours; on Pluto 1 day is equivalent to 6 Earth days; and on Venus, it is a whopping 243 Earth days. The point of this is that we cannot presume to know what is exactly the length of a day, when we are trying to understand the Biblical account of creation. One day in creation may be one literal 24 hour day as we know it, or 6 million years, or any other figure.
Another scientific fact that may support the notion that the length of a day at the time of creation may be different from the length of a day today, is the fact that on the moon the length of a day is different today from what it was 400 million years ago. This is due to the fact that the moon is receding from the earth at the rate of 38 mm a year. In conjunction with this recession, the length of a day is changing. Over millions of years, this adds up. For example during the Devonian period, approximately 410 million years ago, there were 400 days in a year, with each day lasting 21.8 hours. It seems to me that during the first seconds or even minutes of the Big Bang, when the universe was expanding from a dot to eventually its present size, at a speed that could well be greater than the speed of light, God’s reference to a day could well be something much different than our present understanding.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth#Formation . See under Moon.
Am I saying that I believe that the six days of creation are not literally six days? No. Not necessarily. All I’m saying is that it is possible that they may not be literally six days, and therefore not necessarily in conflict with “scientific evidence”. Likewise, I am not necessarily saying that the scientific evidence is absolutely correct. Just that even if it was, there still may not be a conflict with the Biblical account.
Another possibility could be that God may have created the earth and everything in it in six 24-hour days, but all of these creations lay dormant until a set time for them to be activated. For example on day 1 God created light; on day 2 the firmament of heaven and earth; on day 3 the gathering of land and seas, and vegetation; on day 4 the sun, moon, and stars; on day 5 animal life in the seas and the air; on day 6 animal life on earth, and man. However after having created these things he may have kept them dormant for a number of years, even billions of years, before activating them on earth, in his own good time.
In addition all we know is that he created the end product as we know it but his plan might have been that to get to the final stage as we know it, it may have gone through millions of years of evolution. An example could be that God created the apple tree on the third day. But he might have decreed that it will not be an apple tree until 1 billion years later, and to get to the final form of an apple tree as we know it today, it would have to go through millions or even billions of years of evolution. Evolving from a basic life form to the final form and shape of an apple tree. The same could be true of the creation of humans, or any other forms of life on this earth. This could be a possible explanation for the science/evidence behind evolution as well.
As an example, I would equate this to paying our bills online. For example on the first of each month I log onto my computer and I make payments on all my bills designating the actual posting of these bills to correspond their respective due dates. The visa credit card bill would be posted on the 5th; the MasterCard on the 10th; mortgage on the 15th; student loans on the 16th; etc. As far as I am concerned on the first of the month I did all I needed to do to satisfy my monthly bills, but they did not actually post until the assigned date. Could it be possible that God created everything in six literal days, but they were dormant (like my bill payments) until the designated day? It is possible. In this way the conflict between the biblical narration and the scientific evidence could be overcome.
This is further supported by the following arguments. There may be more, but I would like to point this one out in particular. In the narrative of creation in the Bible, the Bible explicitly says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, Genesis 1:1 and 2. However, when narrating the six days of creation, the Bible specifically says that God said “let there be light”, 1st day of creation; “Let there be a firmament”, 2nd day; “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered in one place and the dry land appear”, 3rd day; “Let there be lights in the firmaments of the heavens”, 4th day; “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the living creatures…”, 5th day; “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind… Let us make man”, 6th day. In all of these cases he just said let these things exist. He did not actually say when. It could be that God said let there be these things be, but did not actually activate them until many years later. Neither does it say anything about the manner in which the final product is first formed. Much like I said at the beginning of the month, “let my Visa bill be paid, let my Master Card bill be paid, let my mortgage be paid, etc., the actual payment is not until the designated posting day.
In short, instead of focusing on the length of a day with respect to the 6 days of creation, I look at the sequence of events in the Biblical account . What was created first, what was created second, and so forth. In doing so, I found that the sequence of events in the Biblical account, correlates to the sequence of events of creation/formation of the universe and everything in it, as understood by science.
In conclusion, my point is not that the scientific facts are necessarily correct, or for that matter incorrect, for I do not know whether or not the science behind the measuring of the age of the earth and the universe is correct. Nor do I know for a certainty whether the science behind evolution is sound, as even the proponents of evolution will readily admit that there are many things missing in that theory . As I said earlier I have neither the intellectual capacity, nor the tools necessary, to prove or disprove the science. However my point is that even if the science is correct, it still does not necessarily contradict the Biblical account. My aim is to show that the Biblical account is possible even if science is correct. This is enough for me, because given the other evidence I have of God’s existence, all I need is to be certain that the evidence behind the science, does not definitively disprove the neither existence of God, nor the biblical account of creation. It is also important to me that I be assured in accepting the Biblical account, I am not dogmatically ignoring scientific evidence which could well be accurate. Given this assurance I can proceed to try and layout what to me is good evidence of God’s existence.
