The Creation Account – chris cribari blog

The Creation Account: The Days of Creation

August 21, 2016March 7, 2019Posted in The Creation AccountTagged Apologetics, Bible, Chris Cribari, Chris Cribari Blog, Christianity, Creation, Creation Account, Creation vs Evolution, Days of Creation, Genesis, John C. Lennox, Judeo-Christianity, Old Earth, Seven Days That Divide The World, The Creation Account, The Days of Creation, Theism, Theistic Evolution, Young EarthLeave a comment

Photo Cred: (1) | Updated: 3/7/2019

Now that we have addressed the blistering debate of the Creation Account amid Christian circles very briefly, what do I believe regarding all of these differing viewpoints? What view do I affirm? For the answer to those questions, let me start off at the beginning, specifically “in the beginning God.”

When studying the Creation Account, I find the best way is to properly understand the context of and usage for the phraseology of the word “day(s)” in the first three chapters of Genesis. This is a great place to start and this is where I am going to begin with what I perceive as the most consistent interpretation in light of Scripture. As I read through John C. Lennox’s book, Seven Days That Divide The World, I took the time to pinpoint every reference to the word “day(s)” and interpret them as best as I could with what I know. Researching their meaning to the best of my ability.

What I found in my investigation is that within the context of Genesis chapter 1, the usage of the word “day(s)” is very basic and properly to be understood as either a) “daytime” = roughly a 12-hour earth day (2) or b) a literal 24-hour earth day (3). This was not the passage that had problems, yet chapter 2 was quite the struggle to interpret because of the context that the word “day(s)” is used. For instance, in Genesis 2:4b the word “when” is actually meant to be correctly translated as “in the day,” but translators thought it too confusing to have the phrase “in the day” appear twice in the same verse, so it was translated into the English word “when.”

There is also the wording surrounding the usage of the word “day(s)” in reference to the seventh day in the Creation Account that differs from the other six days. For example, a possible translation of the series of days based off the work of OT scholar David Gooding revealed the nature of the Hebrew indefinite article alan (4) translated into English would be either a) “day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, the sixth day, the seventh day” or b) “a first day, a second day, a third day, a fourth day, a fifth day, the sixth day, the seventh day.” In other words, there is a special significance to both day six and day seven of the Creation Account that separates them from the first five days.

For the sixth day, mankind was made in the image of the one true, triune God (5). Cattle, creeping things, and beasts of the field were also made according to their kinds (or types) (6), God gave mankind dominion over Earth (7), gave humanity food that they may eat (8), and “it was very good.” Put succinctly, the climax of Creation was the creation of humanity. The whole of Creation was building up to the moment when the entire Universe was fine-tuned for me, you, and humanity too. For the seventh day, God completed Creation (9) and He rested (10) as He declared His “work” to be finished.

Not to say that creating everything was hard for God so it meant He had to work hard, rather God put time into his Creation because of His love for us as we were the heart of it all along. Plus, this does not infer some twisted form of deism where God started the engine, yet never drove the car. Indeed, God has been extremely active in Creation and because of that, it was very good. Why was Creation good? Because the Source of Creation is good. Therefore, everything in Creation was good before the Fall.

While it would appear that the first six days are 24-hour earth days, the seventh day does not appear to be so. In fact, as some have already argued the seventh day could still be going and is not over quite yet. In other words, while the first six days are literal 24-hour earth days, the seventh day is an undefined period of “rest” for God as he creates nothing new after the sixth day of the Creation Account.

Adding to this idea is the fact that in numerology, the study of numbers within the Bible, the number six represents man and the number seven represents perfection. God had perfected his masterpiece. Does this mean God is done creating things? No, He has created things later on in history and will create things in the future. It is just that nothing compares to when Creation first took place.

Wait, what will God create in the future? Here is one example. In Revelation chapters 21-22, we see God re-creating everything that was created: the new heavens and the new earth for He will “make all things new (11).” What this entails is that God will be at work once more for one final time when the creation of the new heavens and a new earth are made as recorded in Revelation chapters 21-22, as well as mentioned in 2 Peter 3:3-13.

Plus, there is the fact that the number eight represents new beginnings or a restart in numerology, which further develops this viewpoint. On the eighth day, everything will be made new by God. To reiterate, from what I have investigated so far regarding the interpretation of the days, here is a bullet-point outline of the Creation Account timeline leading to the 8th day:

Days 1-5 (Creation’s Construction: 24-hour literal earth days)
Day 6 (Creation’s Climax: special 24-hour literal earth day)
Day 7 (Creation’s Calm: period of time between the 6th and 8th day)
Day 8 (Creation’s Conversion: the new heavens and the new earth)

So what about the age of the Earth and the age of the Universe? Well, what about them? The Bible doesn’t say, “in the beginning, about 6,000 years ago, God created the heavens and the earth,” or even “in the beginning, about 14.6 billion years ago, God created the heavens and the earth,” but “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Bible doesn’t answer this question regarding age, rather we do based off of the latest discoveries of our era and the beliefs of our time.

Could I take a stab at it? Sure, but that’s not the point. Leave the arguing over genealogies and timelines to the cults. Let’s stick to understanding the intention behind God’s magnificent invention. We simply cannot derive that answer for the aging of both Earth and Universe from the Biblical text. And if you are, then you have abused the text. For the Biblical text offers no date whatsoever of when it all took place in the past.

There are my thoughts on the days of Creation. Next, I will tackle the Big Bang and its implications concerning preconceived notions of the Creation Account. With that Godspeed and Jesus bless!

Footnotes

https://www.pexels.com/
Genesis 1:5a, 14a, 16a, 18a
Genesis 1:5b, 8b, 13b, 14b, 19b, 23b, 31b
Seven Days That Divide The World (P. 52)
Genesis 1:26-27
Genesis 1:24-25
Genesis 1:26b, 28b
Genesis 1:29-30
Genesis 2:1-2a
Genesis 2:2b-3
Revelation 21:5

The Creation Account: The Birth of Death and the Long Fall Back to Earth

August 21, 2016March 8, 2019Posted in The Creation AccountTagged Adam and Eve, Angels, Apologetics, Bible, C. S. Lewis, Christianity, Creation Account, Death, Demons, Fallen Angels, Genesis, Judeo-Christianity, Lucifer, Old Earth, Satan, The Creation Account, The Devil, The Long Fall Back To Earth, Theism, Theistic Evolution, Why do we die?, Young EarthLeave a comment

Photo Cred: (1) | Updated: 3/7/2019

Lastly in this discussion of the Creation Account and my view of it, I would like to touch on the subject of death. How it is quite the wrench within most views of the Creation Account and can simply knock some views down altogether. But before we acknowledge any of that, what does Genesis chapter 3 actually say regarding death? Let’s find out.

For the first time in the Bible, death is introduced and a whole lot of stuff goes down because of its collateral damage on all things good and godly. After the events of the Creation Account and by the end of chapter 2 in Genesis, everything seems to be dandy. Adam and Eve are nude and chill, God is done making Creation, and the whole Universe has been perfectly fine-tuned to a tee for the centerpiece of Creation: mankind. Yet what follows in chapter 3 is a different type of epilogue because the story is not done yet. In light of the rest of Scripture, the story has actually just begun for the serpent has slithered onto the scene with sin in mind.

Now who is the serpent mentioned here exactly? Short answer, Satan. Long answer, definitely Satan (2). Wait, so then what is Satan doing in the Garden of Eden if he is evil and everything else is good? How did he get there? To answer that we need to backtrack a bit to understand who exactly Satan is and pinpoint his role in this story.

Satan was a prominent angel that was once named Lucifer before his fall from grace (3) and is technically the first to sin (4), but not the one who brought sin into the world as Adam takes the fall for that one (5). In actuality, Satan’s sin tainted the heavens (the Universe), while Adam’s sin tainted our world (the Earth). When he sinned, God cast the formerly known Lucifer, along with a third of the angels that rebelled with him, out of Heaven as sin can have no part with God’s goodness. Satan’s attempted coup d’é·tat to take God’s throne as his own failed miserably (6) and Hell became the new home for the fallen angels (7).

This moment in history took place sometime after Genesis 1:31 and before Genesis 3:1 because we have evidence to believe that the heavenly creatures watched the Creation Account (8). As my father, Mark Cribari, put it simply: “The creation of the spiritual must have preceded the creation of the physical, in order for the angels to observe God’s work.” With this framework of Satan’s history and his placement in it, let’s pick up where chapter 3 starts with the serpent of old.

What I find peculiar about Ch. 3 is the very fact that Satan is just there. He has no explanation or backstory besides that he was “crafty,” “more cunning than any other beast,” and God made him. There is no mention of his part in the Creation Account, except what is revealed in the rest of the Canon of Scripture. In a way, Satan’s story in the Bible is told in a nonlinear way with flashbacks here and there to fill in gaps of his own timeline in the grand scheme of things.

From this strange introduction to a stranger being, we find this fascinating encounter between a crafty creature and the femme fatale. The conversation immediately begins with Satan questioning God’s word (9), transitions to Satan’s truth-layered lie (10), and leads to the first sin. But was it the first death? Now that is the point of contention.

As one man put it, the first few chapters of Genesis are semi-poetic history and that is part of the struggle with grasping the truth in relation to this tough portion of Scripture. But back to the question of contention: was this the first death or was there death before the end of mankind’s goodness? Let’s look further.

From what I understand from this text, I believe this to be an open-ended issue, but I very much favor the idea that as Romans 5:12 infamously states that “death through sin, and so death spread to all men.” Later on in Romans 5:14, it supports the idea that death is a direct result of Adam’s offense before our perfect God and that death was not present among God’s Creation in the beginning. For if death did exist before the Fall, to what capacity?

The best argument I’ve heard is that everything could die physically, although Adam and Eve later died spiritually and this is what corrupted Creation. We humans are the centerpiece of Creation and as imagers of God, we represent Him here on Earth. We are God’s ambassadors who are designed to glorify God in all that we do, including taking care of Creation.

If we think about it logically, we realize that Adam and Eve didn’t die physically from their disobedience. The text doesn’t say they physically died until years later after being banished from the Garden of Eden. Rather, they died spiritually and ruined their covenant with God. Because of sin, Adam and Eve’s souls were stripped of their spiritual connection and this left them scarred. From then on, every human now has that same scar on their soul.

From this viewpoint, natural death occurring before the Fall is different than the disease of sin corrupting the souls of men as this type of death is the gradual decay of God’s image bearers, which is us humans. As C.S. Lewis put it nicely (11),

“It is impossible at this point not to remember a certain sacred story which, though never included in the creeds, has been widely believed in the Church and seems to be implied… I mean the story that man was not the first creature to rebel against the Creator, but that some older, mightier being long since became apostate and is now the emperor of darkness and (significantly) the Lord of this world… It seems to me, therefore, a reasonable supposition, that some mighty created power had already been at work for ill on the material universe, or the solar system, or, at least, the planet Earth, before ever man came on the scene; and that when man fell, someone had, indeed tempted him… If there is such a power, as I myself believe, it may well have corrupted the animal creation before man appeared.”

Suffice to say, the Creation Account is a tough topic to perfectly get a handle on because of all of the various ideas we have to consider when talking about it. The current debate at hand in regards to our origins will continue long after we are all gone, so don’t get too worked up on something we will never know until we die. This blog series was meant to simply explain very plainly what I believe in relation to the Creation Account and some main points of heated disagreement within the body of Christ that needed to be addressed. With that, Godspeed and Jesus bless!

Footnotes

http://www.graphite-art.com/blog/the-fall-of-lucifer
http://www.gotquestions.org/Satan-serpent.html
Isaiah 14:12
Isaiah 14:13-14.
Romans 5:12, 1 Corinthians 15:22a
Revelation 12:3-9
Matthew 25:41b
This argument was originally from my Dad who quoted the first two passages below in support of this notion in one of our infamous late night discussions. He argues that in Scripture, the spiritual always comes before the physical. Therefore, the spiritual Creation preceded the physical Creation. Hence, Satan was created and fell before Adam and Eve were created. The last passage noted here is from my own research that solidifies, in my mind, his theory as full-proof. Job 38:4-7, Psalm 8, and Hebrews 2:5-9 (key phrase: “the world to come.”).
Genesis 3:1b
Genesis 3:4-5
The Problem of Pain (P. 119, 122-123)

The Creation Account: The Current Debate

July 9, 2016March 7, 2019Posted in The Creation AccountTagged Alister McGrath, Apologetics, Ark Encounter, Bible, C. S. Lewis, Chris Cribari, Chris Cribari Blog, Christianity, Creation, Creation Account, Creation Museum, Creation vs Evolution, Francis Collins, Genesis, Henry Morris, Judeo-Christianity, Ken Ham, N. T. Wright, Norman Geisler, Old Earth, R. C. Sproul, The Creation Account, Theism, Theistic Evolution, William Lane Craig, Young Earth1 Comment

Photo Cred: (1)| Updated: 3/7/2019

When talking about the Flood, the Fall, or really anything from the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis, the topic of the age of the Earth eventually comes into the discussion. When the age of the Earth is discussed, so too the age of the Universe must be discussed because of their direct correlation in the Creation Account in Scripture. But when speaking on such matters there always will remain an aura of controversy and tension among theistic circles, especially within Christianity.

For when it comes to this debate, there are some very strong sides etched out by Christians from various branches within Christianity. These various stances include, but are not limited to old-earth creationists (i.e. C.S. Lewis, Norman Geisler, William Lane Craig)(2), young-earth creationists (i.e. Ken Ham, Henry Morris, R.C. Sproul?), theistic-evolutionists (i.e. Francis Collins, Alister McGrath, N.T. Wright), and so on. Now the issue goes even deeper when considering different interpretations of the days within the Creation Account like the 24-hour view (seven literal days of a single earth week), the day-age view (seven time periods of unspecified length), the framework view (a logical, rather than chronological framework to perceive Creation), etc. In short, there are a lot of people with a lot of views regarding the Creation Account.

In recent years, the friction between differing stances has only grown stronger as the issue has been a hot-button topic for most Christians and has resulted in a lot of harm. More so than the help that Christianity claims to offer to the world through the message of the Gospel, yet lacks among its own adherents and followers. Talk about hypocrisy. This tension can be seen from Ken Ham’s mentality of the “us vs. them” philosophy plastered throughout Answers In Genesis materials to the not so subtle statements of analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga who, on the subject of widespread doubt in the existence of God (3), accounts as the following:

“In this connection [on cognitive consequences of sin and doubt concerning God’s existence], consider the despised [young-earth] creationists, who believe that the world is only ten thousand years old: they are ignorant, pitifully ignorant about when God created the world. From the point of view of the model [the Aquinas/Calvin Model, i.e. the A/C Model], this ignorance pales into utter insignificance compared with that of many of their cultured detractors, who foolishly believe that there is no God and thus (naturally enough) are ignorant of the vastly more important fact that the world was, indeed, created by God.”

There is also the esteemed apologist William Lane Craig who agrees with Plantinga as he refers to “young-earthers” as an “embarrassment” to theistic thought and Christianity in particular within the academic community (4). Yet the question remains: why is there so much bitter antagonism within Christianity concerning the timing of the Creation Account among its most prominent leaders? Since when did pastors, scholars, and theologians become so confrontational towards one another on this specific issue?

I would argue that this is because they have raised up the -logy (logic) of theology while diminishing the very theos (God) that inspired their theology to begin with and in my mind, this is spiritually immature to say the least. It’s foolish to build up such matters as bearing more weight than other more important things like the Essentials (5). Not to say these figures within the faith do not know what they are talking about or are uninformed on the subject, rather the way they express their sentiments in a demeaning fashion to other Christians is childish.

In fact, William Lane Craig has helped me, through his debates and literary work, in some of the spiritually roughest times of my high school years. All the people mentioned above are not fools or lack logic concerning the truths of the Christian message, rather they lack the love that is grounded within our belief system when it comes to this particular issue. In my mind, we must be open to differing viewpoints on this touchy, non-essential subject since, in all honesty, all hold at least a little water when all things are considered.

I find that John C. Lennox, professor of mathematics at Oxford University, agrees with me on this point when he states that:

“We also need to be prepared to distinguish between what Scripture actually says and what we think it means. It is Scripture that has the final authority, not our understanding of it. It is a sad spectacle, and one that brings discredit on the Christian message, when those who profess to believe that message belie their profession by fighting among themselves or caricaturing others, rather than engaging in respectful discussion through which all sides might just learn something (6).”

You see it is not an “us vs. them” issue or an issue of blind ignorance either, as every view and stance has set out to accomplish the same goal. To answer how the Universe and everything within it came to be according to the Bible’s Creation Account and in light of new discoveries. The truth of the matter is that every viewpoint and stance does share a few commonalities under the Christian banner.

For instance, we believe God caused everything into existence from nothing and into something. This is commonly referred to within theological circles as ex nihilo creation where no pre-existing materials were present before the Creation Account to build the Universe and all within it. God simply spoke to construct the Universe as written famously in the first few chapters of Genesis.

We then must believe, as it is an Essential, in the inspiration of the Bible (whatever the Bible affirms to be true is true). That what is written about Creation in Genesis is true regardless of the interpretation of what is written. That any interpretation that tries to mishandle the text is in direct contradiction with that Christian Essential.

The problem lies not within what is written in Genesis, but the way it played out in reality because no one was there to witness Creation. Presumably, God told Adam and Eve who must have passed this information of our origins down through the generations by way of oral tradition until Moses was able to write about it in Genesis or God directly told Moses the Creation Account through whatever means God could reveal that information.

Lastly, there is the simple truth that Scripture interprets Scripture. So the parameters are set even higher and tighter as other books within the Bible narrow down what may or may not be a plausible interpretation of the Creation Account. Such as Jesus affirming the model for marriage displayed between Adam and Eve (7), Jesus causing the Universe into existence (8) the structure of the days of the Creation Account ending with a Sabbath like day of rest for God (9), the origin of sin’s expansion into the hearts of every human (10), and taking the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy) as completely true (11) are just a few examples of when Scripture correctly interprets Scripture to guide us to the mysterious truths regarding the Creation Account.

Now this little backdrop to the current debate concerning the Creation Account may not do justice to the various sides of the argument, but hopefully we can move forward with charity as we continue this discussion in Part 2 of this blog series. Next time, we will read my particular view of the Creation Account. Starting with interpreting the days of the Creation Account, next the Standard Model for the Big Bang Theory in relation to Creation, and then end with how the Fall’s aftermath ends in death. With that, Godspeed and Jesus bless!

Footnotes

https://www.pexels.com/
http://www.reasons.org/articles/notable-christians-open-to-an-old-universe-old-earth-perspective#smith_jr
Warranted Christian Belief (P. 217, fn. 25); bracketed sections are mine for context sake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHye8EABbEc
2 Timothy 2:23, Titus 3:9-11 *All Biblical references are used with the NASB translation, unless otherwise noted in the footnotes below.*
Seven Days That Divide The World (P. 32)
Matthew 19:3-6, Mark 10:3-6
John 1:1-5, Acts 17:24-31, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:10
Exodus 20:11, Hebrews 4:3-5, 9-11
Romans 5:12-14
John 5:45-47

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