Christian Perspectives on Creation (and Evolution)

Handout

What is the doctrine of creation?

“It is the view that everything that exists and is not God is created by God.”
Christians affirm that creation is ex nihilo (not from anything), good (contra Gnosticism), and free (contra pantheism).

The creation of abstract objects?

Gould, ed. Beyond the Control of God?: Six Views on the Problem of God and Abstract Objects. Bloomsbury, 2014.
Aseity-sovereignty doctrine: “(i) God does not depend on anything distinct from Himself for his existing, and (ii) everything distinct from God depends on God’s creative activity for its existing.” (2)
Do abstract objects exist?

Image: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/are-there-uncreated-abstract-objects/

See: Craig, William Lane. God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism. Oxford University Press, 2016.

The Doctrine of Creation – Why Does it Matter?

Genesis is the foundation of the Bible.
Jesus comes to fix Eden.
All areas of our lives are to be surrendered to God.
The Bible, the Word of God, if inerrant, means whatever it affirms is true, be that history or science (although it is not primarily a history or science textbook).
Ultimately, Christianity depends on Jesus’ resurrection; in a way, other things are secondary.

Texts on Creation (OT)

Two creation narratives (Gen 1:1–2:3; 2:4–3:24)
Nine creation poems (Job 26:7–13; 38:4–11; Prov 3:19–20; 8:22–31; Psa 8:1–10; 33:6–9; 74:12–17; 89:5–12; 104:2–32)
Narrative (Gen 5:1–2; 6:7; 14:19, 22; Exod 20:11; 31:17; Deut 4:32; 2 Kgs 19:15; 2 Chron 2:12; Neh 9:6)
Poetry (e.g., Pss 19:4; 24:2; 65:6; 95:5; 96:5; 102:25; 115:15; 119:90; 121:2; 124:8; 134:3; 136:5; 146:6; 148:5)
Wisdom (Job 4:17; 9:8; 32:22; 35:10; 36:3; Prov 14:31; 17:5; 22:2; Eccl 12:1)
Prophets (Isa 37:16; 40:12, 22, 26, 28; 42:5; 44:24; 45:7, 12, 18; 48:13; 51:13; Jer 5:22; 10:12; 27:5; 32:17; 51:15; Amos 4:13; 9:6; Jon 1:9; Zech 12:1)

Some NT Creation Passages

John 1:3, 10; 17:5; Acts 4:24; 14:15; 17:24; Rom 4:17; 11:36; 1 Cor 8:6; Eph 3:9; Col 1:16–17; Heb 1:2–3; 11:3; Rev 4:11; 10:6

Unity/Diversity in Creation Accounts

These creation accounts/texts display unity in their most common central assertion: YHWH, the one true God, created all that exists: heaven, earth, sea, land, plants, trees, animals, and humans.
When some creation accounts/texts offer additional details, we find diversity in their presentations of:
the means God used to create
the order of events in creation
the length of time that transpired in creation

(Johnston, OT104 – Hebrew Exegesis & OT Intro II, Dallas Theological Seminary, 2011 lecture notes.)

Non-Negotiables Regarding Creation?

“The Sovereign God of the Bible created all things and created them ‘very good.’
God uniquely created Adam and Eve as the first human beings; God created them sinless, perfect, and in relationship to him.
Adam and Eve deliberately sinned against God and brought judgment upon the world; both humanity and nature are broken and abnormal.”

(Winslow, THS 502 – Theology 1: God, Bible, Humanity and Christ, East Asia School of Theology, Singapore, 2012).

Uses of the term Evolution

Biological change and diversity
Life forms came from earlier ones (descent with modification)
Genetic variation and natural selection (microevolution)
Common ancestry – a [single] tree of life (macroevolution)
Naturalistic/atheistic evolution: that the universe and all life came to be without God

How/When God Created?

The Positions	Biological Macroevolution	Cosmic Evolution
Young Earth Creation http://creation.com/ https://answersingenesis.org	No	No
Progressive Creationist / Old Earth Creation http://www.reasons.org/	No	Yes
Evolutionary Creation / Theistic Evolution http://biologos.org/	Yes	Yes

Explaining the views (YEC)

Young earth creationism is the view that the best interpretation of the Bible is that God created in six consecutive literal 24-hour days and that the genealogies in the Bible have minimal gaps, such that when one adds up the genealogies, creation occurred around 6000 years ago (as measured by clocks on earth). The young-earth creationist also usually affirms a global flood at the time of Noah, and there was no vertebrate animal death before the fall of the historical Adam.

Explaining the views (OEC)

The old Earth position says that the Bible need not be interpreted as being in six consecutive literal 24-hour days about 6000 years ago. Instead, the days of the creation texts could be metaphorical, or there could be gaps before or after literal days, or the days could be ages, such that Big Bang cosmology and biological evolution, while not necessarily correct, are nonetheless compatible with the Bible (this view usually holds that big bang cosmology is roughly correct, but not biological macroevolution).

Explaining the views (EC)

The evolutionary creation position says that, in some manner, God used evolution (understood in the sense of macroevolution) either by directing each step or having planned how it would all work out by itself from the start.

Recommended Resources

Stump, ed. Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design. Zondervan, 2017.
Keathley, ed. Perspectives on the Historical Adam and Eve: Four Views. Broadman & Holman, 2024.

The Syntax of Gen 1:1–2

Option 1: God made an original creation (taking Gen 1:1 as before the other days), it lapsed into chaos (Gen 1:2), and then God recreated things (Gen 1:3–) (The Gap Theory)
Option 2: Taking Gen 1:1 as a title, and so when God begins to create there is already a primeval chaos out of which God creates an organized cosmos.
Option 3: Gen 1:1 is the beginning of creation, with Gen 1:2 describing how God was beginning to create. (i.e., Gen 1:1–1:5 are all events on the first day).

Science

There are different views, but science generally involves studying the natural world through observations, formulating hypotheses, and testing them through experiments.
Christians are free to investigate how they think God has made the world, and when rightly interpreted, this should match with rightly interpreted scripture.
Both general and special revelations can inform each other, but one should be careful when dictating to the other.
Not everything falls into the domain of science.

See McGrath, Alister E. Science and Religion: A New Introduction, 3^rd ed. Wiley-Blackwell, 2020.

Under-determination

For any “finite set of observational data, there will always be a potentially infinite number of general laws consistent with those data.” Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 2^nd ed. Inter Varsity, 2017, 340.

See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/

Some Presuppositions of Science

“The existence of a theory-independent, external world
The orderly nature of the external world;
The knowability of the external world
The existence of truth;
The laws of logic;
The reliability of our cognitive and sensory faculties to serve as truth gatherers and as a source of justified beliefs in our intellectual environment;
The adequacy of language to describe the world;
The existence of values used in science (e.g., “test theories fairly and report test results honestly”);
The uniformity of nature and induction;
The existence of numbers.” Craig and Moreland, PFCW, 372.

Scientific Realism or Anti-Realism

Realism: “science progressively secures true, or approximately true, theories about the real, theory-independent world “out there.” Craig and Moreland, PFCW, 352.
Non-realism, two forms: rational non-realism (or instrumentalism), and non-rational non-realism, which basically sees science as a game played by a community with shared paradigms.

Changes

Evolution requires that there is some form of mechanism that increases the amount of information within an organism (mutations, a third way…).
When is the extrapolation valid?

Image: http://creation.com/mutant-parade-purebred-dogs

Geologic Column

OC and EC take this as a record of the life that existed in different ages, basically as taught in the public.
YEC’s as a burial record, most of it during the flood. See: http://creation.com/fossils-questions-and-answers

Image: https://creation.com/fossils-wrong-place

Radiometric Dating

Rocks (and organic matter) have certain values of various atoms in them, and these decay over time. So, if we know how much there was, to begin with, the rate at which it decays and the present amount, then the age can be determined.
EC’s and OEC’s basically accept the standard position.
YEC’s say that dating methods are known not to work on rocks of known age, so why should they be trusted on rocks of unknown age (such as the 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens). Further, some dating methods, such as the amount of salt in the ocean or the amount of helium in the earth’s atmosphere, indicate a younger age of the earth. But YEC’s (as far as I know) have not been able to show, if you changed the assumptions, that radiometric dates could give a young earth result. (See Batten, Catchpoole, Sarfati, and Wieland. “Chapter 4 What about carbon dating?” In The Creation Answers Book. 11^th ed. Creation Book Publisher, 2025. Freely available at: http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter4.pdf

Genealogies

Are there gaps?
Gen 5:1–32 (1656 years Adam to Flood by MT)
Gen 11:10–26 (290 years Flood to Abraham by MT)
Exo 6:14–25; Num 26:1-65; 1 Chron 1:1–9:44; Matt 1:1–17; Luke 3:23–38
YEC: Jonathan Sarfati. “Biblical chronogenealogies.” Journal of Creation 17, no. 3 (2003): 14–18. http://creation.com/biblical-chronogenealogies
OEC: Daniel J. Dyke and Hugh Henry. “From Noah to Abraham to Moses: Evidence of Genealogical Gaps in Genesis, Part 1-5.” Reasons to Believe. 2012. https://reasons.org/explore/publications/articles/from-noah-to-abraham-to-moses-evidence-of-genealogical-gaps-in-mosaic-literature-part-1

Where did Cain get his wife from?

Genesis 4:1–2; 4:14–17; 4:25; 5:3–4
YEC’s generally say it was his sister. See: Ham, Ken. “Chapter 6 Cain’s Wife—Who Was She?” in The New Answers Book 1. Master Books, 2007. https://answersingenesis.org/bible-characters/cain/cains-wife-who-was-she/
EC and OEC’s can adopt the young earth view but generally say there were other people around (the issue is, are those outside of Adam fallen?)

Dinosaurs and the Bible

Genesis 1:24–25 (cf. Gen 1:20–23) (also Job 40:15–24; 41)
YEC’s reason that dinosaurs are sea, air, and land animals, and so were made on days 5–6 of creation week, meaning Adam would have lived beside dinosaurs. See Batten, Catchpoole, Sarfati, and Wieland. “Chapter 19 What about dinosaurs?” In The Creation Answers Book, Creation Book Publisher, 2007. http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter19.pdf
OEC’s that dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago (before humans) and do not think that modern birds evolved from theropods.
EC’s basically take the view as taught in the public.

Noah’s Ark

YEC’s generally say it was a global flood, and two of every animal kind went on board (that there weren’t that many animal kinds compared to present-day species). See: Sarfati, Jonathan D. “How did all the animals fit on Noah’s Ark?” Creation 19, no. 2 (1997): 16–19. http://creation.com/how-did-all-the-animals-fit-on-noahs-ark
OEC’s and EC’s can, in theory, adopt the YEC’s view but generally say the flood was local; hence, only a few animals were on board. Some might suggest the dimensions of the ark should not be interpreted as per the YEC view. See: Ross, Hugh. “Does the Bible Say Noah’s Flood Was Global or Universal?” Reasons to Believe, 2016. https://reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/does-the-bible-say-noah-s-flood-was-global-or-universal

How can people live 900+ years?

Gen 5. I don’t think any of the positions have to take a specific approach here, but generally YEC’s say it means 900+ years of our standard 365 days. Perhaps due to the changed climate/environment after the flood, genetic defects in Noah’s line resulting in shortened life spans. See: Wieland, Carl. “Living for 900 Years.” Creation 20, no. 4(1998): 10–13. http://creation.com/living-for-900-years
OEC’s and EC’s could do something similar to the YEC or suggest it isn’t 900+ years of 365 days. See: Ross, Hugh, Fazale Rana, and Richard Deem. “Long Life Spans: ‘Adam Lived 930 Years and Then He Died’.” Reasons to Believe Jan 1, 2001. https://reasons.org/explore/publications/articles/long-life-spans-adam-lived-930-years-and-then-he-died

What about anthropology? (alleged ape-men)

What is a human? What does it mean to be made in the “Image of God”(Gen 1:26–27)?
YEC and OEC’s: either these fossils are extinct apes or extinct humans. See Batten, Don, and Warren Nunn. “Did humans evolve from apes?” CMI 2017. https://creation.com/did-humans-evolve-from-apes. Rana, Fazale, and Hugh Ross. Who Was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man. RTB Press, 2015.
EC’s basically take the view as taught in the public.
DNA similarities could be evidence of either a common designer or a common ancestor.

How can we see distant stars in a young universe?

The issue for the YEC position: scientists have measured light from stars a long way away. Assuming the speed of light has been constant this would mean light from these stars has taken up to billions of years to reach the earth (and it is not likely humans are seeing an illusion).
YEC:
- Mature creation (i.e., made old-looking)
- Relativistic models
  - White hole cosmology (Humphreys, Starlight and Time, 1996).
  - A 5D universe (with velocity as another dimension) (Hartnett, Starlight, Time and the New Physics, 2^nd ed., 2010).
OEC’s and EC’s take the view that the universe/earth is old but are faced with the horizon problem:
- The horizon problem is that the universe’s temperature is too even for radiation to have travelled to create an equilibrium in the given time. One solution is inflation.

Conclusion

Central to Christians is Jesus – his death and resurrection. Other important matters include God’s world, which includes the doctrine that God is the creator, that he created things good and that humans are sinners.
As finite beings, we should attempt to understand both general and special revelations rightly and humbly accept all Christians.
YEC, OEC, and EC are distinct positions that are part of Christian discipleship to think through (though they are often also barriers for non-Christians).

Biblical Interpretation

There are different hermeneutical principles to interpretation, including literal, allegorical, and anagogical.
Grammatical-historical exegesis seeks to follow the rules of grammar within the historical context of the text in question in order to interpret meaning from the text (rather than eisegesis, which is to read one’s ideas into the text).

See Klein, William W., Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard. Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. 3^rd ed. Zondervan, 2017.