All In a Day's Work - for God! Pt. 1 of 2

Did God create the world in six twenty-four hour days? How do I know, I wasn't there? No one was. Even my (and your) great-great grandfather, Adam, didn't come on the scene until 90% of the creative work was completed. So our only reliable first-hand field report is going to come from God. He is well-qualified to file this account. He wasn't just THERE. He was the One making it all happen. So when He tells me what went down in "creation week," I can take His summary as gospel.

Had he chosen to keep it all a secret, I would be consigned to grope for the truth on my own. But He has not been silent! A comprehensive overview of the process has been provided in Gen. 1:1-2:3. God zooms in to allow us a close-up view of day six in Gen. 2:4-25. And there are numerous references to creation week scattered throughout the Bible in passages like Job 38:1-11. Obviously God WANTS us to know what He did. He hasn't told us all we would LIKE to know, but He has fully supplied what we NEED to know.

This doesn't mean God is opposed to our doing some additional study. He has provided an unassailable  framework for understanding creation in the biblical account, but invites us to "do science" to supplement this understanding. The thesis of Privileged Planet (book and DVD both highly recommended) is intriguing - earth has been ideally designed and positioned in the Milky Way to serve as a celestial observation platform. From it's transparent gas atmosphere to its position in galactic "open space" - it is as if God wants us to check out what He has done. Here is one caveat: The biblical account of creation provides guard-rails to protect us when "good science goes bad." The quality, purity, and reliability of information from the Bible is superior to what science can deliver.

Some may not like this, thinking that science must be "unfettered from religious presuppositions." This notion is at the heart of the objections to intelligent design. It is OK to examine a piece of flint and declare, "This is an arrowhead made by an ancient hunter." It is NOT OK to examine our planet and declare, "This is the work of an intelligent designer." The first statement is about science, but the latter is treated as a religious statement and, therefore, unsuited for scientific examination. This is the kind of compartmentalization that drives me bonkers.

The man who believes there is some great divide between science and the Bible and who refuses to allow the Bible to provide guidance to his scientific studies is in a "catch-22." The more his studies lead him to the truth, the closer he gets to the God of truth whom He wants to avoid. Such a man will not be helped by understanding the biblical account of creation.

But for those who understand that the pursuit of truth is best left unconstrained by this kind of compartmentalized thinking, we can learn much by asking, "What does the Bible say about how the world came into existence?" To do this, we must understand how language works as an instrument of communication. Some critics of a twenty-four hour day viewpoint think it relies on what they term a "literal" or "wooden literal" approach to interpretation. "Literal" interpretation sounds like, and "wooden-literal" interpretation undoubtedly is, an approach to Scripture that does not recognize metaphors and figures of speech. A "wooden-literal" interpretive method would not recognize this statement from Jesus as a figure of speech called hyperbole: “If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you” (Matt. 18:9). Before we start gouging eyeballs (creepy!), might I propose an alternative?

I find it helpful to distinguish between literal interpretation and normal interpretation. Normal interpretation proposes that normal language behaves, well, normally. (This is the kind of profound insight you have come to expect at Light-work! Never underestimate our power to discern the obvious!) Normal interpretation treats the language of the Bible as a normal mode of human communication, one which, at times, is intended to be understood literally. At other times, it may employ a figure of speech  or a literary device like an extended metaphor. (The extended metaphor is one of my personal favorites - I probably rely on it way too much, like the two buses in the previous post.)

The key to interpreting normal language is identifying the literary markers which tell us when something is supposed to be understood literally, when it is to be understood figuratively, or when it is a joke. So when we look at Genesis one, we must pay attention to words and the connections between them. But we also must pay attention to literary markers which tell us if the author wants to be taken literally.

Comments

[Jeff]

Would you mind if I posted this (and the two buses post) on a message board that I'm at? The creation of earth and life has been a heated topic of conversation there (with me in the minority--SHOCKER) and I think (hope, pray) that it might lead to deeper things.

[GABR13L]

How do you distinguish between what is "obviously hyperbolic" and what is not...? Sounds like the kinda thing an atheist would rip me to shreds about if I didn't have a solid answer :\

[Jim Fleming]

Jeff - feel free to spread the word as you think most profitable.
GABR - Someone says, "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse." Do you bring him a pony on a platter or does he mean something else? How do you know?

[GABR13L]

I get the point you're trying to make, but don't you also agree that there are some other commandments/instructions/etc in the bible that a non-believer might find just as "strange" as poking out eyes over sin? However, in those other cases, we are seemingly told to follow through regardless of perceived normalcy or relevance. I am a bit pressed for time at the moment, but I will try to provide some solid examples later.

[Doug Matthews]

Hi Jim

thanks for the thoughts here. So, with this in mind, I'd like to reask my first question based on the other post (the hippo one). Based on this, does andything in Genesis or the rest of the Bible for that matter give insights into Walkte's thoughts that Genesis 1 1-2 discusses the creation as it relates to man and not discussing an initial creation that was destroyed somehow due to an angelic fall and how this might interact with the scientific age issue.
thanks

[Jim Fleming]

This question is one I will address in tomorrow's post - it is one of two critical questions that flow from my contention that the "days" of creation week were 24 hour days. Stay tuned!