Some Thoughts on Creation
G. I. Williamson
Extracted from Ordained Servant vol. 9, no. 1 (January 2000), pp. 24-26
As one who has been in the ministry for nearly half a century, I still don't have all the answers on the subject of creation. But, at the same time, there are some things in this debate that have become more and more firm in my thinking. Here they are:
1. I cannot accept a view of creation that is so highly technical and involved—maybe I should say 'convoluted'—that the rank and file of the people of God are simply bewildered by it. I believe it was the truth that the Lord revealed to Moses on the subject of creation. I believe it was intended for all the people of God in all ages. I therefore cannot accept the idea that it was never understood until the 20th century. The truth of God is not simple in the sense that it is not profound. But it is simple in that by the work of the holy Spirit it is intelligible even to those who are not erudite scholars.
2. I cannot accept any view of creation that requires me to redefine the meaning of words. Any view of creation, therefore, that requires me to change the word 'day' into—not merely 'year'—but millions and millions of years, is simply unacceptable. God, who gave the revelation of his work of creation to Moses, certainly could have said 'age' or 'ages' if that is what he intended us to understand as the time-periods of creation. That he did not do so, and instead used the universally familiar word 'day' makes it impossible for me to make that shift in meaning.
3. I believe David Hall has decisively demonstrated that the framers of the Westminster Confession of Faith meant 'days'—not years, not ages, but days—when they said creation was accomplished by God 'in the space of six days.' I also think Dr. Hall is right when he says our starting point in any discussion of creation in the church today should begin with the acknowledgement that anything other than (1) instant creation (Augustine), or (2) six day creation—whether it be defensible or not—never has had a recognized place in the historic Christian church before the rise of the modern theory of evolution.
4. In much of the discussion of creation that I' ve been reading I also find a shared assumption that I am not at all persuaded of. I speak of the uniformitarian assumption. (a) It seems to me that those who advocate the framework hypothesis build much of their argument on this very assumption. (b) But I also think this is the case with at least some who defend the more traditional view of six-day creation. What else can they mean when they speak of the creation days as 'ordinary' or 'normal?' It seems to me that, in using these terms, they are assuming that things were operating then just as they are now. And of this I am not at all certain. Doesn't the Bible tell me that the world that then was (that is, the world as it existed before the flood) perished by means of the flood? How do I know, then, that those days were exactly like they are today—normal, ordinary, usual etc. I do not think the day Hezekiah saw the sun dial move backwards was just another 'ordinary' day, nor that the day when the sun stood still in the valley of Aijalon was just another 'ordinary' day. I do not think that it is Scriptural to just assume a uniformitarianism. The very use of such terms as 'ordinary' or 'normal' with respect to the days of creation is therefore, for me, a problem. How do I know those days were of exactly the same duration as they are today? But—at the same time—I hasten to add that it was God himself who describes the six time-periods used in creation as days—not ages or eons. I believe he used that term to convey accurate information to ordinary people in all ages of history. It would therefore seem to me that the time-periods used in creation were more like our days, today, than any other time period with which we are familiar. I cannot see, in other words, how they can legitimately be stretched out so as to extend not only for years, but even thousands and millions of years.
5. I also think it is a mistake to use scientific terminology in our theological definitions of those days. To speak of creation as something that occurred in precisely 144 hours (for example) strikes me as an example of being what John Murray called 'pedantic.' A much better way to deal with this matter, in my judgment, is that which was exhibited a few years ago in the work of the Confessional Conference that spoke this way about the days of creation:
Article VII. WE AFFIRM that the numerically sequential days of the creation week in Genesis 1, consisting of an evening and a morning, were the very first chronological days of genuine history, of the same general duration of days in a conventionally understood week, and that step by step through these days God made the heavens and earth a well ordered cosmos, inhabitable for man, after which God ceased His work of physical creation.
WE DENY that the "days" of Genesis 1 were ages or long periods of time.
WE DENY that the six days of creation in Genesis 1 represent a reconstruction of the world subsequent to God's original act of creation and a catastrophe which befell the world.
WE DENY that ages or long periods of time intervened between the separate days mentioned in the creation week of Genesis 1.
WE DENY that the days of the creation week in Genesis 1 are merely a literary figure of speech or poetic device providing a pedagogical framework for affirming that God created all things.
WE DENY that believers may, in a faithful handling of God's word, espouse non-chronological views of the days mentioned in Genesis 1 out of a desire to escape the difficulties which might exist between Genesis 1 and the alleged findings of natural science.
WE DENY that the diversity, order, harmony and inhabitable quality of the world can be attributed to any inherent features or forces within the world itself, or to any other factor but the resplendent wisdom and supreme power of God Himself.
6. I remain convinced of the analogy between the work of creation (as recorded in Genesis 1 and 2) and the miracles of Jesus. In a cogent article by the late Oswald T. Allis (reproduced in Vol. 4, Issue # 4 of Ordained Servant) Dr. Allis wrote:
"The miracle of the changing of the water into wine (John 2:1-10) is a most striking example of almighty power dispensing with time and with process. How long would it take to change water into wine by natural processes? Even if there had been a grape seed or a handful of seeds in the water, it would have been a long, time-consuming process involving months and even years. But there was nothing there but water; and it became wine in a period of time so brief as to be practically instantaneous.
The same applies to the feeding of the five thousand, a conspicuous and amazing miracle which is recorded by all four of the Evangelists (e.g. Matthew 14:15-21). The Lord blessed and broke the five loaves and two fishes and five thousand men besides women and children were fed. It is characteristic of these and of other miracles (e.g. 2 Kings 4:1-7) that the time factor is negligible if not entirely lacking. In them we have examples of fiat creation as in Genesis 1. Omnipotence is not dependent on or limited by time.
A second feature of great importance for our discussion which is illustrated by the last miracles referred to is the naturalness of the product. The wine of the marriage feast was not merely wine. It was better wine than that which the bridegroom had provided. The loaves and the fishes were multiplied into loaves and fishes sufficient to feed five thousand men; and John tells us that 12 basketfuls of the fragments of the loaves were collected. The real bread and the real fish which formed the little lad's lunch became thousands of real loaves and thousands of real fishes under the creative hand of the Lord."
If the Reformation doctrine of the analogy of Scripture is right—and I believe it is—then the most important thing to study is that which is analogous to the original work of creation. I believe this is what we have in the creation miracles of the Lord Jesus. John tells us that all things were created by him in the first place. Who, then, can give us a better exhibition of what creation is? If I can believe that some of the best wine ever was created instantly by Jesus, then how can it be a problem for me to believe in six-day creation?
7. The bottom line—in my opinion—is, and will remain, this: do I believe in a wonder working God? I claim to believe in an instantaneous new creation (or, more accurately, re-creation) of my body at the second coming of Jesus—in other words the bodily resurrection. Why, then, should it be too much for me to believe in an original six-day creation?
8. Therefore I continue to believe in six-day creation.
G. I. Williamson is editor of Ordained Servant.