Mysteries of Creation (Part 5)

Age of the world

The French scientist Comte de Buffon theorized in his 1779 book Epochs of Nature that the Earth was once a hot molten ball that took around 75,000 years to cool down (the figure was 3 million years in his unpublished manuscript).⁸³ In 1899. Lord Kelvin calculated the age of the earth, based on the cooling rate of a molten sphere, at 20 to 40 million years (revised from his 1862 computation of 100 million years). With the advent of radiometric dating, in 1913 Arthur Holmes made an estimate of 1.6 billion years in his book The Age of the Earth. In 1956, Claire Patterson published her calculations for a 4.5-billion-year age of the earth, extremely close to the 4.6 billion years widely acknowledged in the scientific community today.⁸⁴

Cosmological calculations. When Edwin Hubble discovered in the mid-1920s that the universe was expanding, he suggested that finding out how fast the universe was expanding and how large it was would reveal its age.

The density of the mass or quantity of matter the cosmos contains determines how the gravitational force slows down the expansion rate, which in turn depends on the age and density of the universe.  Cosmologists measure the cosmic expansion rate by establishing the relationship between the distance of an object from Earth and the rate at which it is moving away, revealed by redshift (stretched wavelengths of light). They then assess the density of the universe to calculate its age.⁸⁵

14-16 billion years?

Scientists have variously placed the age of the universe at between 10 to 20 billion years. The wide range is the result of the uncertain expansion rate of the universe and the age of the oldest stars. Both depend on the extrapolation of available data, which are inadequate. Astronomers use the Hubble constant, a measure of the expansion rate of the universe, whose value scientists have not agreed on.⁸⁶

The NASA has nonetheless officially placed the age of the universe at 16 billion years, with a potential error of plus or minus 15%. Thus, the universe could be at least 13.5 billion years old, or 18.5 billion years old at the most. Some scientists use a figure of 12-18 billion years, but the most common estimate is 14-16 billion years.⁸⁷

Big Bang “echo.” In the 1940s George Gamow and his students Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman formed a theory that, since elements heavier than hydrogen can be formed only at a high temperature, the universe must have been supremely hot at its birth.⁸⁸ Their calculations showed temperatures of billions of degrees around one second after the Big Bang. After a few hundred thousand years of expansion, the radiant heat would have gone down to just thousands of degrees.⁸⁹

They concluded that the Big Bang produced a blackbody or thermal radiation and predicted that a trace or “echo” left by the blast still exists, pervading the universe. In 1965 American physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected by radio telescopes a uniform background of microwave radiation in space, which has since been called “cosmic microwave background radiation” (CMBR). Coming from all directions, the CMBR’s temperature is almost the same everywhere, approximately 2.7^o Celsius above absolute zero (-459.67 °F, or -273.15 °C) -- very close to what Gamow and his students had calculated.⁹⁰

15 billion years?

According to the World Book: “Observations of supernovae and the CMB radiation suggest that the present age of the universe is about 13.7 billion years. This estimate agrees with studies of the ages of stars in groups called globular star clusters, which contain the oldest stars found in the Milky Way.”⁹¹

A news report in early 2006 stated: “The latest data from NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe is based on three years of continuous observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the afterglow light produced when the universe was less than a million years old.”⁹² If the CMBR appeared sometime during the first million years of the Big Bang, the universe may be somewhat older than 13.7 billion years. The Encyclopedia Britannica notes: “The discovery of the 2.7 K background radiation… is regarded as convincing evidence that the universe originated approximately 15 billion years ago...”⁹³

The shape of time

In a novel concept, M.I.T. physicist and author Gerald Schroeder (Genesis and the Big Bang, The Science of God, God According to God, etc.) likewise equates the six “days” of Creation to some 15 billion years.

The “cosmic clock.”

Schroeder based his calculations on the CMBR, which he calls the “clock” of the cosmos. He explains that about “0.00001 seconds after the big bang… (t)he universe was approximately a million million times smaller and hotter than it is today… the temperature… is not a value extrapolated or estimated from conditions in the distant past or far out in space. It is measured right here on Earth in the most advanced physics laboratories and corresponds to a temperature approximately a million million times hotter than the current 3^oK black of space. That radiant energy had a frequency a million million times greater than the radiation of today’s cosmic background radiation.”⁹⁴ This translates to a ratio of 1,000,000,000,000 to 1 in the perception of earth time vis-à-vis cosmic time. Thus, at the Big Bang, one second in cosmic time was equivalent to about one trillion seconds in Earth time.

However, he points out that as the universe rapidly expanded and cooled, cosmic time would have slowed down. Frequency, wavelength, and temperature are all directly related: when temperature goes down, so too the frequency, and wavelength becomes longer (and vice-versa). So, as the radiant energy cooled, its wavelengths were stretched and its frequency became lower – as measured today in light coming from the Sun. “Waves of sunlight reaching Earth are stretched longer 2.12 parts in a million relative to similar light waves generated on Earth. This stretching of the light waves means that the rate at which they reach us is lowered by 2.12 parts per million. This lowering of the light wave frequency is the measure of the slowing of time. For every million Earth seconds, the Sun’s clock would ‘lose’ 2.12 seconds relative to our clocks here on Earth. The 2.12 parts per million equals 67 seconds per year, exactly the amount predicted by the laws of relativity.”⁹⁵

The CMBR reveals how much cosmic time has slowed down since the Big Bang. “The radiation… has been stretched a million million fold… That stretching of the light waves has slowed the frequency of the cosmic clock – expanded the perceived time between ticks of that clock – by a million million.”⁹⁶ In simple terms, time passed at a much slower rate at the edges of the expansion compared to time on Earth. Whereas an imaginary clock at the edge of the cosmos would have shown only days, a clock on earth would have already recorded billions of years. (It is the exact opposite of Humphreys’s Starlight and Time hypothesis.)

Exponential regression.

The redshift observed in galaxies suggests an expansion factor of 10¹² or 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion).⁹⁷ As the universe expanded, the waves of radiant energy stretched in the same ratio as the expansion.⁹⁸

“Each doubling in size ‘slowed’ the cosmic clock by a factor of 2.”⁹⁹ In the mathematical equations Schroeder presented, each succeeding Creation “day” was equivalent to just a half-period.¹⁰⁰ “Each successive Genesis day exponentially represents fewer years as perceived from our earthly vantage…”¹⁰¹ In other words, each “day” following Day One was only one-half the length of the “day” immediately preceding it.

Schroeder noted that the “opening chapter of Genesis acts like the zoom lens of a camera. Day by day it focuses with increasing detail on less and less time and space. The first day of Genesis encompasses the entire universe. By the third day, only earth is discussed. After day six, only that line of humanity leading to the patriarch Abraham… This narrowing of perspective… each successive day presents in greater detail a smaller scope of time and space…”¹⁰²

In Schroeder’s calculations, Day One was 8 billion years long, Day Two 4 billion years, Day Three 2 billion years, Day Four 1 billion years, Day Five ½ billion years, Day Six ¼ billion years – for a total of 15.75 billion years – i.e., the age of the universe.¹⁰³ This closely matches a 16-billion-year age estimate for the oldest stars. Schroeder suggests a plus or minus 20% margin of error.¹⁰⁴

Spiral structure.

We usually think of time as a straight line, proceeding from the past through the present to the future. However, it looks like the Designer of the universe had drawn up a Creation scheme of time that is much more elegant than just a simple straight line.

The exponentially regressing scenarios of Creation, diminishing day after day, seem to display a structural design. Schroeder notes: “Genesis has chosen a base that occurs throughout the universe, a base known in mathematics as the natural log e.”¹⁰⁵ He is referring to a figure that occurs more often in nature than any other shape: the spiral.¹⁰⁶ We see it from the macrocosm to the microcosm -- in the shape of galaxies, hurricanes and tornados, whirlpools, breaking waves, animal horns, snail shells, seahorses’ tails, mammalian ears, human cochleae, flower seed-heads, emerging fern leaves, DNA molecules. The spiral, Schroeder  hypothesizes, was the structure of time at the Creation.

In a simplified version of Schroeder’s CMBR-based timeline below, we can see an intriguing “day”-by-“day” correspondence between the Biblical account of creation and the scientific version of the birth of the universe.¹⁰⁷ (Schroeder notes that if corrections are made based on the recently observed increase in the rate of expansion of the universe, the start of Day One would be approximately 15 billion years ago.)¹⁰⁸

Schroeder’s CMBR-Based Timeline

(6 “Days” of Creation = 15.75 Billion Years)

Day	Start b.p.*	Duration	End b.p.	Bible	Science
1	15¾billion	8 billion	7¾billion	Light	Big Bang, light, electrons, atoms, galaxies
2	7 ¾ billion	4 billion	3¾billion	Firmament	Milky Way, Sun
3	3 ¾ billion	2 billion	1¾billion	Oceans, dry land, plants	Earth cooled, bodies of water, bacteria, algae
4	1 ¾ billion	1 billion	¾ billion	Sun, moon, stars	Clear, oxygen-rich atmosphere
5	¾ billion	½billion	¼ billion	Aquatic animals, reptiles, winged animals	Multi-cellular, aquatic animals, winged insects
6	¼ billion	¼ billion	ca. 6,000	Land animals, mammals, humankind	90% extinction, hominids, humans
		15¾billion

*before present

Science-Scripture match-up.

In Schroeder’s timeline, the scientific data basically parallel the day-by-day Genesis account from Day One to Day Four; but the match-up is broken on Day Five, when reptiles and insects appeared. His Day Five supposedly began 750 million years ago and ended 250 million years ago. It agrees with the fossil record, which places the age of amphibians at 417 million years, insects 350 million years, and reptiles 323 million years; but it does not conform with the Bible, which says God created “creeping things” (amphibians, reptiles, insects) on Day Six.

Moreover, God’s “seventh-day” Sabbath rest does not form part of the timeline after Day Six, which he says ended about 6,000 years ago. Did the “days” stop their exponentially regressing rate? How long was God’s Sabbath? Did it suddenly shorten to a 24-hour day?

Framework Hypothesis.

A third theory, unconnected to either Young Earth Creationism or Old Earth Creationism, does not involve any timeline of “days” at all. Known as the Framework Hypothesis (also “framework interpretation” or “literary framework view”), it proposes that the six “days” of creation in Genesis are neither literal nor figurative “days,” but literary or symbolically artistic descriptions of the origin of the universe.

The idea first appeared in the writings of the early Church father Augustine (354-430). It has gained acceptance among many theistic evolutionists and some progressive creationists through the works of modern scholars like Meredith Kline, Henri Blocher, Bruce Waltke, and Gordon Wenham, who contend that the Genesis account is so full of repetitive formulas and figurative language that the wording of the text cannot be taken literally.¹⁰⁹

For instance, they say the first and fourth “days” of creation closely resemble each other, like two descriptions of just one event. On the first day God "divided the light from the darkness” and “called the light day and the darkness… night.” This is repeated on the fourth “day” when God created two great lights "to divide the light from the darkness" and "the day from the night." The Genesis writer is said to have used the literary device of parallelism. The only difference is the introduction of “two great lights… to rule” over the realm or dominion of light on the fourth “day.” The same realm-ruler relationship pattern recurs between the second and fifth “days,” and the third and sixth “days.”

Thus, Framework theologians divide the six “days” of Creation into two triads. The first three “days” depict the creation of the first triad of realms: (1) darkness and light, night and day; (2) the firmament, waters under and above; and (3) dry land, grass, herbs, trees. The next three “days” portray the creation of the second triad of rulers: (4) the sun, moon, and stars to rule the day and the night; (5) living creatures in the waters and fowl that fly in the firmament; and (6) beasts of the earth, cattle, creeping things, and man on dry land.

Hence, the six “days” of Creation advanced according to topics, instead of chronological sequence, as illustrated in the table below:

Framework Hypothesis

(Creation “days” not literal; but figurative literary devices)

Day	First Triad: “Realms”	Second Triad: “Rulers”	Day
1	Darkness and light, night and day	Sun, moon, and stars – to rule the day and the night	4
2	The firmament, waters under and above	Creatures in the waters, fowl that fly in the firmament	5
3	Waters and dry land; grass, herbs, trees	Beasts of the earth, cattle, creeping things, man	6

⁸³Terry Mortenson, “Where Did the Idea of ‘Millions of Years’ Come From?”, The New Answers Book 2, 2008, p. 12

^84.Bodie Hodge, “How Old Is the Earth?”, The New Answers Book 2, 2008, p. 48

⁸⁵Cosmology, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

⁸⁶Hubble Constant, World Book 2005 (Deluxe)

⁸⁷Age of the Universe, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

⁸⁸Big Bang Theory, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

⁸⁹Cosmology, Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Student and Home Edition

⁹⁰Big Bang, World Book 2005 (Deluxe)

⁹¹Universe, op. cit.

⁹²“Astronomers detect new clues…”, op. cit.

⁹³Expanding Universe, Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Student and Home Edition

⁹⁴Gerald Schroeder, The Science of God, 1997, p. 59

⁹⁵Op. cit., p. 52

⁹⁶Op. cit., p. 59

⁹⁷Ibid.

⁹⁸Op. cit., p. 55

⁹⁹Op. cit., p. 65

¹⁰⁰Op. cit., p. 69

¹⁰¹Op. cit., p. 66

¹⁰²Op. cit., p. 65

¹⁰³Op. cit., p. 63

¹⁰⁴Op. cit., p. 69

¹⁰⁵Op. cit., p. 66

¹⁰⁶Ibid.

¹⁰⁷Op. cit., pp. 63-74

¹⁰⁸Op. cit., p. 70

¹⁰⁹Framework Interpretation, Wikipedia, Internet

(Excerpted from Chapter 3, Conundrums of Creation, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)

Mysteries of Creation (Part 4)

First day of Creation

“And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day” (Gen 1:4-5).

The phrase “first day” was translated from the Hebrew yom echad, which literally signifies “day one” or “one day.” (“First day” is yom hari’shon.) The succeeding days of creation, though, have been written in Hebrew as “second day,” “third day,” and so forth.

The course of the first day is exactly the opposite of the way we reckon the passage of a day today, which begins in the morning. The first day began in the evening. For this reason, and in obedience to the commandments of God (Lev 23:32; Ex 12:18), Jews have always marked the start of a 24-hour day at sunset, ending at sunset of the following day.

However, the first day, if we reread the passage, ended in the morning. It did not continue through noon and finally come to a close at the start of another evening. So, the first “day” was just a 12-hour period from evening to morning, a time of darkness. It is logical that God did His first creative act in darkness, because there was darkness before light, but did He also work in darkness for the next several days of the Creation “week”? Scripture suggests that ever since He created light, God has always worked in the light (1 John 1:5-7).

Period of inactivity?

Ralph Woodrow’s research clarifies things for us: “The word that is translated ‘were’ in the expression ‘the evening and the morning were the first day’, the second day, the third day, etc., is hayah (Strong’s Concordance, #1961). It appears many times in the Bible and has been translated a variety of ways. In the references (that follow) it is translated ‘follow’ or ‘followed’: Ex 21:22 – ‘yet no mischief follow’; 21:23 – ‘if any mischief follow’; 23:2 – ‘thou shalt not follow a multitude’; Deut. 18:22 – ‘if the thing follow not’; 2 Sam. 2:10 – ‘Judah followed David’; 1 Kings 16:21 – ‘the people followed Tibni.’

“If we apply this translation in Genesis 1, we would have: ‘And the evening and the morning followed the first day… and the evening and the morning followed the second day… and the evening and the morning followed the third day.’ This would give a good sense to the passage and allow it to flow in a logical sequence.”⁶²

It becomes clear as day, pardon the expression, that the phrase “the evening and the morning” does not denote a full Creation “day,” but instead indicates an inactive second period following the active first half of each of God’s creative “days.” Thus, the creation of light made up the daylight half of the first day, followed by a second half of darkness – a time of inactivity. The next five “days” apparently followed this pattern: God worked during daylight, then stopped when evening came.  

When was the first “day”?

According to some Jewish rabbis, Adam was created on the first day of Tishri -- the first month of the Jewish civil year, which begins in the evening of the first new moon of autumn in late September or early October.

Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656) of Armagh, Ireland, regarded as the preeminent Bible chronologist to this day, drew up a timeline based on the Biblical genealogy of the first men, starting from Adam. He pinpointed the actual time of the beginning of creation to have been in autumn, in the morning of October 23, 4004 B.C.⁶⁴ The astronomer Johannes Kepler disagreed, he believed creation began in the spring.

In 1654 John Lightfoot refined Archbishop Ussher's calculation of the first day of creation to an extreme degree of precision: 9:00 A.M., October 26, 4004 B.C. in the Julian calendar, in Mesopotamia.⁶⁵

In 2005, Prophecy in the News editor-publisher J.R. Church used a Starry Night Pro astronomy computer program to search for the first new moon in the fall of 4004 B.C., which ushered in Rosh HaShanah, the start of the civil new year in the Jewish calendar. He saw that the year, and perhaps creation, astronomically began on September 25, 4004 B.C., a Sunday, the first day of the week.⁶⁶

How long is a “day”?

The Genesis account narrates that God began to create heaven and earth on the first “day.” However, interpretations of the word “day” vary considerably. The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia informs us, “the word is used in several different senses in the English Bible…

“(1) It sometimes means the time from daylight till dark…

“(2) Day also means a period of 24 hours, or the time from sunset to sunset… (…where night is put before day)…

“(3) The word ‘day’ is also used of an indefinite period, e.g ‘the day’ or ‘day that’ means in general ‘that time’ (see Gen 2:4; Lev 14:2); ‘day of trouble’ (Ps 20:1); ‘day of his wrath’ (Job 20:28); ‘day of (the LORD,’ Isa 2:12); ‘day of the Lord’ (1 Cor 5:5; 1 Thess 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10); ‘day of salvation’ (2 Cor 6:2); ‘day of Jesus Christ’ (Phil 1:6).

“(4) It is used figuratively also in John 9:4, where ‘while it is day’ means ‘while I have opportunity to work, as daytime is the time for work’…

“(5) We must also bear in mind that with God time is not reckoned as with us (see Ps 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8).

“(6) The apocalyptic use of the word ‘day’ in Dan 12:11; Rev 2:10, etc., is difficult to define. It evidently does not mean a natural day…

“(7) On the meaning of ‘day’ in the story of Creation we note (a) the word ‘day’ is used of the whole period of creation (Gen 2:4); (b) these days are days of God… the whole age or period of salvation is called ‘the day of salvation’; see above. So we believe that in harmony with Bible usage we may understand the creative days as creative periods…”⁶⁷ (Underscoring by the author.)

The wise men of Israel are said to have known that the six “days” of creation were not literal 24-hour days. Nachmanides, the 13^th century Jewish philosopher, cryptically said that the six ”days” contain “all the secrets and ages of the universe.”⁶⁸

Over the last two hundred years, differing schools of thought have polarized believers concerning the actual length of each “day” of the Creation “week,” leading to the formation of separate camps: Young Earth and Old Earth Creationists…

Young Earth Creationism

Young Earth Creationists are traditionalists who believe that, based on the Biblical narrative, the universe today is no older than a little over 6,000 or 12,000 years. They advocate two different interpretations of Creation “days”: Literal 24-Hour Days and Thousand-Year “Days.”

Literal 24-Hour Days.

Adherents of this belief hold that each set of “evening and morning” in the Genesis account constituted one literal 24-hour day. Hence, if we add the six days of creation to the time that has elapsed from 4004 B.C. until the present, the universe today is just a little over 6,000 years old.

No sunset, no sunrise. Detractors argue that the “evening and morning” cannot possibly be literal, since they are characterized by the setting and rising of the sun, which had not yet been created on the first “day.” The rotation of the earth around its axis cannot be cited, either, because Genesis 1:6-8 infers that the Earth’s sphere formed only on the second “day,” with the appearance of the firmament or vault of the sky. Besides, the earth has not always rotated around its axis in 24 hours. In conformity with the laws of nature, after gravitational attraction caused the gases and dust that would form the Earth to agglomerate, the planetesimals rotated very slowly at first, before gradually gaining momentum as the new planet solidified.

Further, if those were literal 24-hour days, why were no parts of the day ever mentioned when several entities were created in succession – say, grass in the morning, herbs at noon, trees in the afternoon?

Thousand-Year “Days.”

A second Young Earth belief holds that each creation “day” is one millennium, or a period of 1,000 years, based on two passages in the Bible: (1) “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night” (Ps 90:4); and (2) “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet 3:8).

If we add the 6,000 years of the first six “days” to the 6,000 years that have gone by since the creation of Adam in 4004 B.C., the universe would be about 12,000 years old today, as illustrated below:

Thousand-Year “Days” Chronology

(1 Creation “Day” = 1,000 Years)

Day	Years ago	Period (approx.)/Entity(ies) created
1	12,000-11,000	10,000-9000 B.C.; light
2	11,000-10,000	9000-8000 B.C.; firmament, waters above/below
3	10,000-9,000	8000-7000 B.C.; grass, herbs, trees
4	9,000-8,000	7000-6000 B.C.; sun, moon, stars
5	8,000-7,000	6000-5000 B.C.; sea creatures, flying creatures
6	7,000-6,000	5000-4000 B.C.; land animals, creeping things, man
7	6,000-5,000	4000-3000 B.C. (God’s day of rest)
8	5,000-4,000	3000-2000 B.C.
9	4,000-3,000	2000-1000 B.C.
10	3,000-2,000	1000-1 B.C.
11	2,000-1,000	1-1000 A.D.
12	1,000-recent	1000-2000 A.D.
	Total: 12,000
13	Present-	2000-3000 A.D. (man’s Millennium rest)
14		3000-4000 A.D. (God’s next day of rest)

NOTE: God created Adam in 4004 B.C., part of Day 6 (Ussher’s Chronology).

Out-of-place Sabbath. The Thousand-Year “Days” Chronology entails at least one major difficulty: God’s Sabbath rest on the seventh “day” (the seventh 1,000 years after the first six “days” or 6,000 years). During that supposed period of rest, God actively interacted with Cain and Abel, Enoch, and others. God’s seventh-day Sabbath thus appears out-of-place in the Thousand-Year “Days” timeline. Further, God’s next Sabbath rest would not coincide with man’s coming Millennial rest (about 2000-3000 A.D.). God’s rest would be in the next 1,000-year period yet (around 3000-4000 A.D.). This means God would not have any active dealings with man during that 1,000-year period, contrary to Biblical prophecy.

Light from the stars. If the Earth is only 6,000–12,000 years old, we cannot see light from stars hundreds of thousands or millions of light-years away. Although light is the fastest thing in the universe, it covers less than 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km.) in one year (1 light-year). Light from a star that is, say, one million light-years away will become visible on Earth only after one million years. In 1987, astronomers spotted a supernova (exploding star, SN 1987A) about 170,000 light-years away. That means the explosion took place 170,000 years ago, something they could not have seen if the Earth is just 6,000-12,000 years old.

“Time dilation.” In 1994, nuclear physicist D. Russell Humphreys, a Young Earth Creationist, published his book Starlight and Time to prove otherwise. He built his case around “an effect in general relativity called gravitational time dilation…” He explains: “Experiment and Einstein's theory agree that time and all physical processes run more slowly in areas which are lower in a gravitational field than in areas which are higher… the expanding universe was at a critical size (about fifty times smaller than it is now)… during the fourth day of Creation Week. While one ordinary day was elapsing on earth, billions of years worth of physical processes were taking place in distant parts of the universe.” Humphreys postulates that time elapsed very rapidly at the outer edges, but was virtually at a standstill at and near the center.⁶⁹ “This allows starlight from even the most distant star to arrive during or soon after the fourth day, the same day God created all the stars.”⁷⁰

Bottom line: Relativity allows us to choose by which clock to tell the age of the universe, as well as the time events occurred in it. Humphreys chose the one that tells time in terms of the "earth's frame of reference, not some other frame." He concludes that “the universe is young as measured by clocks on earth.”⁷¹

One problem with the Humphreys scenario is its having two different locales. The six 24-hour “days” transpired on Earth, while the billions of years elapsed in the outermost reaches of the universe. The Starlight and Time hypothesis falls short of explaining the apparent old age of fossils and the Earth’s geological rock layers.

Billions of years?

Some 300 years ago, the new science of geology began shaking the foundations of Young Earth Creationism by stating that the Earth is much older than 6,000 years, or even 12,000 years. Two landmark books were at the frontline: A New Theory of the Earth (1696) by William Whiston and Theory of the Earth (1785) by James Hutton, called the father of modern geology. By the end of the 1800s, estimates of the age of the Earth were in hundreds of millions of years.⁷²

Catastrophism vs. Uniformitarianism.

Until the 19^th century, most geologists explained the origins of rock layers and other geological formations by saying that the earth had gone through many sudden catastrophes -- the most recent being the Biblical Flood. The doctrine was called “catastrophism.” In line with this view, the majority of fossilized plants and animals being unearthed today were buried during the Deluge about 4,350 years ago.

In 1830-1833, Scottish lawyer-turned-geologist Charles Lyell formed the idea of “uniformitarianism,” explained in his Principles of Geology. Based on the concepts he laid out, the Earth’s surface is constantly changing, and geological features are the result of natural forces working slowly, but uniformly, over vast ages. The idea has since become the cornerstone of the modern science of geology.

“Stones and bones.”

By the 20^th century, cosmologists theorized, based on the estimated age of the oldest rocks, that the Earth and its moon came from the same materials that formed the solar system around 4.6 billion years ago.

In addition, paleontologists have unearthed numerous petrified plants and animals estimated to be millions and even billions of years old. Some of the most spectacular bones are those of dinosaurs, which are thought to have dominated the planet for some 120 million years before becoming extinct approximately 65 million years ago.

And then there are the manlike remains in the fossil collection. If God created the perfect man Adam on the sixth “day,” just 6,000-7,000 years ago, did He create the evidently inferior subhumans just a few hours, or even a few hundred years, earlier on the same “day”?

Sheep and dinosaurs. The first land animal specifically mentioned in the Bible is the sheep: “And Abel was a keeper of sheep…” (Gen 4:2b). If God created all land animals on the same “day” 6,000-7,000 years ago, sheep and dinosaurs would have lived alongside each other. But while there are still millions of sheep today, dinosaurs (which should have devoured the sheep) have disappeared long ago. And, because they have proven to be the more durable species, more sheep than dinosaurs should be in the fossil record. But no sheep fossil has been reported vis-à-vis numerous dinosaur remains.

Besides, God gave all animals plants for food (Gen 1:30), allowing flesh-eating only after the Flood (Gen 9:3). When did some reptiles develop sharp teeth, claws, and other predatory features to become carnivorous dinosaurs? Were some 1½ thousand years from Creation enough for all those physical changes to develop before the dinosaurs supposedly became extinct in the Flood? In contrast, there is no record of the sheep ever having changed in the last 6,000 years. It looks clear the dinosaurs appeared long before the sheep.

Old Earth Creationism

Scientific estimates pointing to an old Earth that was billions of years old divided Bible-believers. Many worried 19^th century churchmen felt the pressing need to harmonize the Biblical six-day creation story and the scientifically reckoned ancient age of the Earth.

Old Earth Creationism emerged from the confusion. Its advocates hold that God created the universe over immense ages spanning billions of years. By 1852, American commentator William Hayden estimated that about 50% of all Christians, to accept an old Earth without giving up their faith in the Bible, had adopted either one of two teachings: (1) the “Gap Theory”; and (2) the “Day-Age Theory.”⁷³

“Gap Theory.”

“Gappists” claim there is a “gap” or time interval between the first two sentences of the Bible: “1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” and “2 And the earth was without form, and void…” (Gen 1:1-2a). Their theory hinges upon one simple word in verse 2, “was,” the past tense of the verb “to be” (Hebrew hayah). They argue that “hayah” can also be translated “became.” Thus, verse 2 should read, “And the earth became without form, and void…” In short, the earth was created in verse 1, but after an untold period was found in a ruined state in verse 2. The unspecified span of time between verses 1 and 2 are taken to be the geological ages arrived at by scientists. God then recreated the earth in the next verses. 

The recent popularity of the Gap Theory is credited to 19^th century Scotsman Thomas Chalmers, who wrote about it in 1814. The concept, though, has been around as early as the 2^nd century A.D. when the Hebrew scribes who composed the Onkelos Targum translated Genesis 1:2 as “and the earth was laid waste.”⁷⁴ Church theologian Origen (186-254) wrote in his commentary De Principiis that in Genesis 1:2 the original earth had been “cast downwards.”⁷⁵ Medieval scholars, such as Dionysius Peavius and Pererius, also seriously considered a time gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.”⁷⁶ The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge states that “the Dutch scholar Simon Episcopius (1583-1643) taught that the earth had originally been created before the six days of creation described in Genesis. This was roughly 200 years before geology discovered evidence for the ancient origin of earth.”⁷⁷ In 1876, George Pember further publicized the theory in his book, Earth’s Earliest Ages.

Cyrus Scofield (1843-1921), in his Scofield Reference Bible, said the verb “was” in Genesis 1:2 can also be written as “became.” The 1973-79 New International Version (NIV) had a note in the margin saying, “Now the earth was (or possibly became) formless and empty…” The inclusion of a hint supporting the Gap Theory in Bibles used by millions all over the world facilitated the widespread acceptance of the theory. 

Many scenarios. The Gap scenario has many versions.  For lack of any proof text in the Bible, anyone can come up with his or her own story of what happened. The Gappists have conjured many fantastic tableaux. The freewheeling models present a world that pre-existed in the distant, dateless past before verse 2, inhabited by manlike, but soul-less beings whose fossils are being unearthed today. One elaborate narrative tells of a technologically advanced civilization of angels and supermen who became evil under the influence of Satan. After many ages, God destroyed their world in a cataclysm called “Lucifer’s Flood.” The destruction is said to have produced the earth’s geological strata and all the plant and animal fossils.  

No Biblical basis. Hebrew expert Charles Taylor, in an article entitled “The First 100 Words," explains that the word "was" has been translated from the Hebrew verb form haythah. According to the rules of Hebrew grammar, the word cannot be correctly rendered "became" as in the Gap version. For haythah to be translated as "became" it must be preceded by a Hebrew preposition meaning "to."⁷⁸

Further, The Complete Word Study: Old Testament, KJV says that the Hebrew construction of “verse two is disjunctive and is describing the result of the creation described in verse one. It is not describing the result of any judgment.”⁷⁹

The Gap Theory, based on a single presumed word (“became”), requires God to recreate everything from light to stars to man. If a prior and original Creation truly took place, does not such a grand act of the Creator deserve a richly detailed account? Evidently, all the bizarre scenarios engendered by the Gap Theory have no Biblical basis.

“Day-Age” Theory.

In 1823, Anglican theologian George Stanley Faber introduced the Day-Age Theory, which proposed that, while the creation account in the Bible is true, the “days” were mere figures of speech and not ordinary 24-hour days – because the Hebrew word for "day" (yom) can be interpreted to mean an “age” or a long stretch of time. As the theory's name suggests, each "day" was an “age.”

Day-Agers claim that the sequence of events during the six Biblical “days" of Creation generally match the cosmic and terrestrial stages that scientists today theorize occurred during the birth and early development of the universe. The Genesis account, they contend, is a simplified summary of the discoveries of modern science, written in advance for an ancient, pre-scientific audience.

No death before sin? Some of the most telling evidences cited for an old Earth are the fossilized plants and animals estimated to be tens, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of years old. Young Earthers reject the age estimates for fossils on the belief that death was unknown before Adam sinned, based on Paul’s epistles: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom 5:12). He even stressed: “For the wages of sin is death…” (Rom 6:23a). Adam’s disobedience was the sin that brought death into the world. Since then, sinners must pay for their sins with their lives. Even plants and animals, which cannot sin, supposedly started dying only after sin came in about 6,000 years ago. Hence, no fossils are supposed to be older than 6,000 years.

Two kinds of death. Let us examine the context of Romans 5:12 in a following verse: “Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam…” (Rom 5:14a, NIV). If “death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses” death should have ceased when Moses came! Yet, men continued to die even after Moses, who himself died. What “death” was Paul talking about?

Christ clarifies things for us: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). So, men can die two kinds of death. Paul was talking about spiritual death, not physical death! Plants and animals, which have no spirits and cannot sin, are exempt from spiritual death. Author Hugh Ross (The Fingerprint of God, 1989) notes that by the word “death” Paul meant human spiritual death; not biological death of either of humans or animals.⁸⁰

A fact of life. God gave Adam and the animals “every herb bearing seed” and “fruit of a tree yielding seed” (Gen 1:29-30) for food. What are the implications? When man and animals ate herbs, the plants they ate died. And why did God tell man and the animals to eat in the first place? Was not the reason for them to become strong and healthy, and live long? Without eating they would, according to the laws of nature God Himself had established, grow weak, become sickly, and eventually die. Otherwise, God would not have told them to eat at all. Plants also have to “eat” moisture and nutrients from the soil, and light from the sun, or they, too, would waste away, wither, and die.

Furthermore, why did God plant the tree of life in Eden? After Adam sinned, he had to be cast out of the Garden, “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever” (Gen 3:22). This reveals Adam had not been created immortal; he would have to eat from the tree of life to avoid dying. Death appears to have been a fact of life from the very beginning -- even in Paradise.

Natural cycle. Birth and death, growth and decay, creation and destruction seem to be the natural rhythmic cycle of the universe. Matter and antimatter appear and mutually annihilate. Stars are born and die. Oxford scholar Arthur Peacocke wrote: “Biological death was present on the earth long before human beings arrived. It is the prerequisite of our coming into existence through the creative processes of biology which God himself has installed in the world... God had already made biological death the means of his creating new forms of life. This has to be accepted, difficult though it may be for some theologies.”⁸¹

The wisdom of the Holy Scriptures declares: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:  A time to be born, and a time to die… (Eccl 3:1-2a).

Non-salvation issue

Belief in either a Young Earth or an Old Earth is a non-salvation issue. Charles Hodge (1779-1878), Presbyterian theologian at Princeton Seminary, taught that one’s belief in the age of the earth was of no consequence to spiritual salvation. He first embraced the Gap Theory, then shifted to the Day-Age doctrine towards the end of his life.⁸² Therefore, you may believe that the universe has been created in just six 24-hour days, or 6,000 years, or over millions and billions of years, and still be saved spiritually. Whatever timeline we believe in, at the end of the day, no pun intended, we are saved if we “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev 12:17; cf. 14:12).

The two camps, and their sub-groups, should not be regarded as adversaries. They are actually on the same side – defending the faith in one God who created heaven and earth.

Same timeline from Adam. Actually, the Young Earthers and Old Earthers, particularly Day-Agers, hold the same Biblical chronology for mankind. Both groups generally believe that God created Adam 6,000 years ago, as calculated from the life spans of his descendants. The dispute lies in the length of time involved in the other Creation events before Adam...

⁶²D. Russell Humphreys, “Seven Years of Starlight and Time,” Internet

⁶³Ralph Woodrow, “Three Days and Three Nights,” p. 42; cited in “When Is The Evening, In Scripture?”, tract, Last Day Ministries, undated

⁶⁴James Ussher, The Annals of the World, 1658; translated by Larry and Marion Pierce; book review by Bob Ulrich, Prophecy in the News, March 2004, p. 18

⁶⁵Lawrence Badash, “The Age-of-the-Earth Debate,” Scientific American, August 1989; in Dating Methods, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

⁶⁶J.R. Church, “Creation Week,” Prophecy in the News, Nov. 2005, p. 3

⁶⁷Day, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, 1996

⁶⁸Quoted by Schroeder, op. cit., p. 45

⁶⁹Creation Science Evangelism, Internet

⁷⁰D. Russell Humphreys, “Seven Years of Starlight and Time,” Institute for Creation Research, Internet

⁷¹Ibid.

⁷²Terry Mortenson, “Where Did the Idea of ‘Millions of Years’ Come From?”, The New Answers Book 2, 2008, pp. 114-117

⁷³Creationism, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

⁷⁴“Earth’s Age: Does Genesis 1 Indicate a Time Interval?”, Creation or Evolution, 2002, p. 29

⁷⁵Ante-Nicene Fathers, 1917, p. 342

⁷⁶“Earth’s Age…”, loc. cit.

⁷⁷The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1952, Vol. 3, p. 302; quoted in “Earth’s Age…”, loc. cit.

⁷⁸Charles Taylor, "The First 100 Words," undated

⁷⁹The Complete Word Study: Old Testament, KJV, 1994, p. 3

⁸⁰Hugh Ross, The Fingerprint of God, 1989, p. 154

⁸¹Arthur Peacocke, “The Challenge of Science to Theology and the Church,” The New Faith-Science Debate, 1989, p. 16

⁸²Mortenson, loc. cit.  

(Excerpted from Chapter 3, Conundrums of Creation, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)

Mysteries of Creation (3)

MYSTERIES OF CREATION

(Part 3)

An orderly universe

Astrophysicist Paul Davies marvels that “the universe conforms to an orderly scheme and is not an arbitrary muddle of events”⁶⁰ But of course. The world was not created in a random manner. Albert Einstein once sagely said: “God does not play dice with the universe.” That truth has been in Scripture for some 3,000 years: “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD” (Prov 16:33).

A new field of mathematics called “Chaos Theory” is devoted to the study of random effects. “Mathematicians, however, have been unable to prove the physical existence of randomness,” according to author Chuck Missler (Cosmic Codes, 2004). The search for randomness may prove to be a futile pursuit. The apostle Paul tells us: “For God is not a God of disorder…” (1 Cor 14:33-34a, NIV).

Solomon knew that heaven and earth had been intelligently created and arranged in certain ways for certain reasons. “By wisdom the LORD laid the earth's foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place…” (Prov 3:19, NIV).

Size of the universe

On a clear night, a person with good eyesight may be able to count about 1,029 stars in the sky. With a pair of binoculars or a low-power telescope, he or she can raise the number to some 3,300 stars. As late as 1915, astronomers thought the Milky Way made up the entire universe. Then, in 1925, Edwin Hubble, using his new 100-inch mirror telescope, reported there were as many galaxies as there were stars in the Milky Way, our home galaxy. Current observations indicate there are at least 100 billion galaxies in observable space – each having no less than 100 billion stars – totaling some 10,000 billion billion stars in the universe.

Estimates place the diameter of the cosmos at no less than 40 billion light years; the Milky Way, 80-100 thousand light years wide and 6,000 light years thick. Earth is 25,000-30,000 light years from the galactic center and about 100,000 light years from the center of the universe.

However, University of Arizona astronomer Chris Impey says there are parts of the universe that we cannot observe, because light from extremely distant areas has not yet reached Earth. "We know that our own physical universe is substantially, maybe enormously larger, than the visible universe," he says.⁶¹

Cosmic shape.

Most scientists assume that after the Big Bang matter agglomerated into stars and galaxies, forming an "island universe" in a "sea" of space.

In Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the universe is spherical in shape and finite, with boundaries. He had built his concept around a system by German mathematician Georg Riemann, who said that three-dimensional space curved in every direction in a constant curvature. Thus, a ray of light always curved back on itself over the same path, endlessly. Could there be anything “outside” that spherical universe?

Other cosmological models assume that the universe has no edges. D. Russell Humphreys explains: “In the big bang's mathematical model, space itself expanded outward with the ball of hot matter, with the matter completely filling space at all times. There would never be a large empty part. In the most favored version of the big bang, if you traveled very fast in any given direction, you would arrive back at your starting point without ever encountering a large region of empty space. That makes it impossible to define a boundary around the matter.”⁶² Hence, a border cannot outline the shape of the universe because, without any space around it, the universe has no outer edges.

How many dimensions?

The Bible says God can do many things with the heavens (space): “I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens…” (Isa 44:24b); “Which alone spreadeth out the heavens” (Job 9:8a); “He bowed the heavens…” (2 Sam 22:10a); “the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll…” (Isa 34:4b); “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens…” (Isa 64:1a); “I will shake the heavens…” (Hag 2:6b); “And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up…” (Heb 1:12a); “The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up…” (Rev 6:14, NASU).

If all those things can be done to the “heavens,” there must be some sort of “room” around space wherein it can be manipulated – another dimension or dimensions conjoined to space! There are several known, as well as theorized, numbers of dimensions:

3 dimensions. Greek mathematician Euclid (d. 270 B.C.), the “father of geometry,” measured objects according to length, width, and height or depth. Paul named these three dimensions in an epistle: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height…” (Eph 3:17-18a).

4 dimensions. In 1854, Georg Riemann proposed that “forces” were the result of a distortion of geometry. Almost sixty years later, Albert Einstein published his famous Theory of Relativity, making use of a four-dimensional Riemannian geometry, with “time” as the fourth physical dimension.

5 dimensions. Scientists seek a “theory of everything” (General Unified Theory) that would integrate all the forces in the cosmos. Albert Einstein tried, but failed to unify gravity and electromagnetism. About 1915 the German-Polish mathematician Theodor Kaluza and Swedish physicist Oskar Klein proposed that the two could be mathematically unified if the universe had five dimensions. As a result, many particle scientists now treat light as a vibration in the fifth dimension.

6 dimensions. Philosophers during the Middle Ages taught their students that there were no less than six visually perceptible physical dimensions: before, behind, left, right, above, and below.

10 dimensions. Thirteenth century Jewish sage Nachmanides concluded from his study of Genesis chapter 1 that the universe had ten dimensions – four are knowable, six indiscernible. Quantum scientists arrived at the same numbers after British physicist Paul Dirac developed the “string theory” in 1950. Quantum particles like quarks, electrons, and neutrinos, usually considered "points" without length, width, or height, are more easily described when viewed as “strings,” which have only one dimension -- length. Their particular vibrations give different particles their appearances. But strings are said to occur outside the four dimensions of space-time, curled up within themselves, so at least six additional dimensions are needed to detect them.

Interestingly, the number “10” is the gematria or numerical value of the Hebrew letter yod (“Y”), the initial of the sacred Name of God.

26 dimensions. The addition of “supersymmetry” to the String Theory has led to even more novel “superstring” theories, which are now the frontrunners in the quest to unify the four fundamental forces of nature. Some variations of “superstring” theories require as many as 26 dimensions to explain particle properties and interactions.

Coincidentally, “26” is also the sum of the four Hebrew letters that spell the Tetragrammaton (Y/10+H/5+W/6+H/5=26).

⁶⁰Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma, 2006, pp. 15-16

⁶¹Quoted by Andrew Chaikin, “Are There Other Universes?”, Science Tuesday, 05 February 2002, Internet

⁶²D. Russell Humphreys, “Seven Years of Starlight and Time,” Internet

(Excerpted from Chapter 3, Conundrums of Creation, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)