Old Earth creationism

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Old Earth creationism is an umbrella term for a number of types of creationism, including Gap creationism and Progressive creationism. As hypotheses of origins they are typically more compatible with mainstream scientific thought on the issues of geology, cosmology and the age of the Earth, in comparison to Young Earth creationism, however, they still generally take the accounts of creation in Genesis more literally than theistic evolution, also known as evolutionary creationism.

Contents 1 Types of Old Earth Creationism 1.1 Gap Creationism 1.2 Progressive Creationism 2 Approaches to Genesis 1 2.1 The Framework interpretation 2.2 Day-Age Creationism 2.3 Cosmic Time 3 The Biblical Flood according to Old Earth Creationism 4 See also 5 External links 6 Further reading 7 References

[edit] Types of Old Earth Creationism

[edit] Gap Creationism

Main article: Gap creationism

Gap creationism states that life was immediately and recently created on a pre-existing old Earth. One variant rests on a rendering of Genesis 1:1-2 as:

"In the beginning ... [when] the earth became formless and void." (It is argued that the word 'was', hayah, can also be correctly translated as 'became'.)

This is taken by Gap creationists to imply that the earth already existed, but had passed into decay during an earlier age of existence, and was now being "shaped anew". This view is more consistent with mainstream science with respect to the age of the Earth, but still often resembles Young Earth creationism in many respects (often seeing the "days" of Genesis 1 as 24-hour days). This view was popularized in 1909 by the Scofield Reference Bible.

[edit] Progressive Creationism

Main article: Progressive creationism

Progressive Creationism is the religious belief that God allows certain natural process (such as gene mutation and natural selection) to affect the development of life, but has also directly intervened at key moments in life’s history to guide those processes or, in some views, create new species altogether (often to replenish the earth).

This view of creationism allows for and accepts fluctuation within defined species but rejects transitional evolution as a viable mechanism to create a gradual descent from unicellular organisms to advanced life. Progressive creationists point to multiple destructive events in the earth's history (such as meteoric impacts and large-scale global volcanic activity) and geological evidence for rapid subsequent speciation as evidence for distinct, typically limited intervention by a Creator. This view can be applied (as it often is) to virtually any of the other Old Earth views.

[edit] Approaches to Genesis 1

Old Earth creationists may approach the creation accounts of Genesis in a number of different ways.

[edit] The Framework interpretation

Summary of the Genesis 6-day creation account, showing the pattern according to the framework hypothesis. Days of creation Days of creation Day 1: Light; day and night Day 4: Sun, moon and stars Day 2: Sea and Heavens Day 5: Sea creatures; birds Day 3: Land and vegetation Day 6: Land creatures; man

Main article: Framework interpretation (Genesis)

The framework interpretation (or framework hypothesis) notes that there is a pattern or "framework" present in the Genesis account and that, because of this, the account may not have been intended as a strict chronological record of creation. Instead, the creative events may be presented in a topical order. This view is broad enough that proponents of other old earth views (such as many Day-Age creationists) have no problem with many of the key points put forward by the hypothesis, though they might believe that there is a certain degree of chronology present.

[edit] Day-Age Creationism

Main article: Day-Age Creationism

Day-Age Creationism is an effort to reconcile the literal Genesis account of Creation with modern scientific theories on the age of the Universe, the Earth, life, and humans. It holds that the six days referred to in the Genesis account of creation are not ordinary 24-hour days, but rather are much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years). The Genesis account is then interpreted as an account of the process of cosmic evolution, providing a broad base on which any number of theories and interpretations are built. Proponents of the Day-Age Theory can be found among theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists.

The Day-Age Theory tries to reconcile these views by arguing that the Creation "days" were not ordinary 24-hour days, but actually lasted for long periods of time—or as the theory's name implies: the "days" each lasted an age. Most advocates of Old Earth creationism hold that the six days referred to in the creation account given in Genesis are not ordinary 24-hour days, as the Hebrew word for "day" (yom) can be interpreted in this context to mean a long period of time (thousands or millions of years) rather than a 24-hour day.^[1] According to this view, the sequence and duration of the Creation "days" is representative or symbolic of the sequence and duration of events that scientists theorize to have happened, such that Genesis can be read as a summary of modern science, simplified for the benefit of pre-scientific humans.

Critics of this old Earth view of Creationism state that the order of the days of creation are inconsistent with modern scientific interpretation.^[2]

[edit] Cosmic Time

Gerald Schroeder puts forth a view which tries to reconcile 24-hour creation days with an age of billions of years for the universe by noting, as creationist Phillip E. Johnson summarizes in his article What Would Newton Do?: "the Bible speaks of time from the viewpoint of the universe as a whole, which Schroeder interprets to mean at the moment of 'quark confinement,' when stable matter formed from energy early in the first second of the big bang."^[3] Schroeder calculates that a period of six days under the conditions of quark confinement, when the universe was approximately a million times smaller and hotter than it is today, is equal to fifteen billion years of earth time. Thus Genesis and modern physics are reconciled. One problem with this approach is that it puts the creation of the Earth approximately eight billion years earlier than modern scientific theories and it may be incorrect with respect to the viewpoint of creation.^[4]

[edit] The Biblical Flood according to Old Earth Creationism

Old Earth Creationists cite many science-based reasons for rejecting flood geology.^[5][6] The accusation often levelled at Old Earth creationists in rejecting a global deluge is that they reject the infallibility of scripture which suggests that the Genesis flood covered the whole of the earth.^[7] In response, Old Earth Creationists cite references in the Bible where the words "whole" and "all" clearly require a contextual interpretation.^[8][9] Old Earth creationists generally believe that the human race was localised around the Middle East at the time of the Genesis flood.^[10]

[edit] See also

• American Scientific Affiliation, an affiliation of Christians who are also scientists
• Answers in Creation, supports old earth creationism
• Young Earth Creationism, a competing viewpoint
• Day-Age Creationism
• Progressive creationism
• Gap Creationism
• Timeline of the Universe
• Theistic evolution
• Biblical cosmology
• Creator god
• Creation science
• Dating Creation
• Cosmogony
• Cosmological argument
• Theism
• Rare Earth hypothesis

[edit] External links

• Reasons to Believe An Old-Earth, Day-Age site with a number of resources
• God and Science An Old-Earth, Day-Age site with scriptural and scientific rebuttals to Young-Earth Creationism
• Answers In Creation An Old Earth site purporting to demonstrate the flaws in young earth creationism
• ‘Progressive creationism’: why is it wrong to add billions of years to the Bible? from Answers in Genesis, A Young-Earth site purporting to demonstrate the theological flaws in old-earth creationism
• New Creationism.org Old-Earth Creationism Site
• Does God Exist?
• Notable Christians Open to an Old Earth Interpretation
• Genesis 2:5 and the Framework Hypothesis, by Michael Butler

[edit] Further reading

• Schroeder, Gerald, Genesis and the Big Bang Theory: The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and the Bible, 1991, ISBN 0-553-35413-2 (articulates Old Earth Creationism)
• Ross, Hugh, A Matter of Days: Resolving a Creation Controversy, 2004, ISBN 1-57683-375-5 (Details why Old Earth Creationism is the literal Biblical view)
• Ross, Hugh, The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis, 2001, ISBN 1-57683-230-9 (Details the agreement of science with Old Earth Creationism]
• Elder, Samuel A., The God Who Makes Things Happen: Physical Reality and the Word of God, iUniverse, 2007, ISBN 0-59542-236-5 (Harmonization of the Biblical six 24-hour days of creation and the estimated 13.7 billion years observed in nature; quantum mechanics theory demonstrates God's sovereignty over chance; law of entropy identifies Jesus Christ as "anchor of time" bringing salvation "once for all").
• David G. Hagopian, editor, The Genesis Debate: Three Views on the Days of Creation, 2000, ISBN 0-9702245-0-8 (Three pairs of scholars present and debate the three most widespread evangelical interpretations of the creation days)
• Refuting Compromise (ISBN 0-89051-411-9) 2004 (critique of old-earth creationism, in particular that of Ross, Hugh)

Introductory chapter and some reviews

• Alan Hayward, Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible, 1995, ISBN 1-55661-679-1 (by a Christadelphian old-earth creationist)

[edit] References