Progressive creationism is a form of old earth creationism which attempts to harmonize the Bible account of creation with the conclusions of modern science while still leaving God in the picture. A thorough description of progressive creationism is available at "Reasons to Believe," a website by Dr. Hugh Ross. Progressive creationists believe that their position on creation will help people over the “hurdle” of young earth creationism, which is believed and taught by most fundamentalist Christians.
They also believe that progressive creationism will make it easier for people
to come to salvation through Christ. Sadly, many of their arguments for
progressive creationism are exactly the same arguments used for atheistic
evolution, with the main difference being that they would say that God did
it through new creative acts along the way.
Some
have claimed that Christians turn off unbelievers by belief in literal Genesis,
including a literal six-day creation and a young earth. The thought is that
Christians believe too much “by faith” instead of considering “science” in
their conclusions, and quite often the term “blind faith” is used. While it is
true that unbelievers are basically repulsed by faith and spiritual truth
because of their sinful nature, they fail to recognize that the claims of
“science” are often not science at all and must be likewise accepted by faith.
In this case, it is truly “blind faith,” because their faith has no object
other than the words of men who have an agenda.
I
have a friend who has a Ph.D. in biology from a major university. He used to be
an evolutionist, but when he began to think for himself instead of swallowing
without question what his college professors taught about evolution, he had his
eyes opened to the truth of creation, and he now accepts a literal six-day
creation and a young earth. He was a professor for many years and later worked
with the Creation Research Society. I many times had him speak to my Sunday
school class when he was in town visiting his son and daughter-in-law. He is
extremely knowledgeable in the areas of his expertise, but he brings it down to
a level where non-scientists can understand what he is talking about. He is
living proof of the foolishness of so many evolutionists who say, “No
scientists are creationists, and no creationists are scientists.” He said a
very profound thing in class. While I cannot remember the exact words, it was
something like the following: “I am very glad that all of the evidence
points to creation, but I don’t believe in creation just because of the
evidence. I believe in creation because I believe the Word of God.” “By faith we understand that the worlds
were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made
of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3, NKJV).
The
Christian’s faith has an object – The Lord Jesus Christ. We know about Him
through the Word of God. If we cannot trust the first book of the Bible, the
first eleven chapters of that book, and the first verse of that book, then how
can we trust the rest of it? That is what some try to do, but the inconsistency
of such a view of Scripture soon undermines it all.
Even
though it is quite possible that someone who is already entrenched in evolution
might hear the arguments for progressive creationism and be convinced to move
away from atheism, it is also true that progressive creationism has the
potential to and sometimes does lead people astray through its teachings.
Progressive creationism is one step away from theistic evolution, which can
naturally lead to atheistic evolution, and ultimately to atheism. I have
personal knowledge of someone who went that route. It does us well to heed Paul's warning to Timothy: "O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge — by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith" (1 Timothy 6:19-20, NKJV).
It is
not possible to write a complete answer to all of progressive creationism’s
positions. That has been done in a number of books. My purpose is not to
attempt to write a book, but to present just a few of those positions and give
brief, biblical answers to them so as to write a brief, simple summary of the
situation. This has been done by many others, and I have read a number of them.
I am neither trying to come up with something new, nor am I simply repeating
what others have said. Instead, I am making an effort to state the case in a
clear and straightforward manner that is consistent with the Scriptures.
Therefore, any similarity between my answers and those of other writers is due
to the fact that answers based on a literal reading of Scripture tend to agree.
I
should further point out that, if someone is a skeptic and does not believe the
Bible, the arguments I present will have no impact until they come to the place
of acceptance of the Bible as the infallible, inerrant, eternal Word of God. Of
course, most progressive creationists will say that is true, so we have common
ground other than the area of literal vs. figurative interpretation of
Scripture.
Progressive
creationists claim to be Christians, and I will not question that. I believe that
most of them are my brothers and sisters in Christ and I will someday see them
in Heaven. Further, I neither doubt their sincerity or their
integrity nor do I question their motives. I believe they really
believe the things they teach, and I believe they are trying to use their
beliefs to lead people to Christ. However, I also believe they are wrong on the
issue of creation and that their teaching in this area can be very detrimental.
Many or even most of them claim to believe the Bible to be the
infallible Word of God. This claim seems to be inconsistent with many
of the things they believe and teach. Two contradictory things cannot both be
true, regardless of how sincerely they are stated.
Following
are a few of the positions of progressive creationists and brief answers to
them:
Nature is the 67th book of
Scripture and carries equal weight with the written Word.
There
is an element of truth in this. Nature, the creation, speaks of the glory of
the Creator. Psalm 19:1 says, “The
heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork”
(NKJV). Since God is not a deceiver, the “book of nature” must be consistent
with His written book, the Bible. The problem comes when humans decide to place
nature above the written Word. This inevitably leads to problems and to
perceived contradictions. The Scriptures make it clear that unbelieving man
does not come to the correct conclusion when he observes creation. Men look at
the creation, and instead of saying, “There is obviously an all-powerful God
who created all of this, and I want to know Him,” they instead ask, “Where did
this all come from?” and then proceed to try and find a naturalistic
explanation for what God already told us He did. They tend to leave God out of
the equation and assume a naturalistic explanation is the only acceptable
answer.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the
truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them,
for God has shown it to them.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that
are made, even His eternal
power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew
God, they did not glorify Him
as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their
foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and
changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible
man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things” (Romans 1:18-23, NKJV).
The
big problem is that fallen, sinful man looks at a fallen universe, which is
under the curse of sin, and comes to faulty conclusions about the original,
perfect creation. If someone claims to believe the Bible is literally true and
then buys into the faulty conclusions of fallen man, a terrible conflict
occurs. All of creation is in complete harmony with the Bible, but attempts to
harmonize the Bible to the conclusions of men, no matter how educated they may
be, will only lead to disaster and ultimately to denial of God’s written Word.
While
nature (“the creation”) can teach us a great deal about God if we view it
through the lens of Scripture, we cannot give a fallen creation equal
status with the 66 books of Scripture, nor can we consider it as reliable as
Scripture. We must always interpret our observations and conclusions in light
of Truth, not the other way around. God’s word never changes – science does.
The universe started with the “Big Bang.”
I
once heard it said that the big bang is biblical. “God spoke, and BANG, it
happened.” While that is true, this is obviously not what the “big bang”
advocates are saying. This theory is an effort to explain how the universe
began. Those who hold to this theory claim that all of the matter in the entire
universe was once concentrated into a small area, and that area has been
getting smaller all the time. At first it was thought to be many light years in
diameter, but over the years scientists determined it was much smaller, deciding
it was a few million miles across, then a few thousand miles, and finally it
shrunk to a region as small as a period on this page, and in more recent times
it has been theorized to be nothing at all. So in other words, nothing
exploded, and the universe came out of that explosion. Some call it an
“explosion,” while others call it an “expansion.”
The
general consensus is that this event took place between ten and twenty billion
years ago, settling in around fourteen billion years. No one offers an explanation
of where the matter came from, except, of course, the progressive creationists
would say that God made the matter. I would have to question why God, who is
all-powerful and all-knowing, would use such an inefficient and random method
to bring the universe into existence. Nothing in His nature indicates that He
operates like that.
Some
even say that eventually the expansion of the universe will reverse and there
will be a “big crunch” or a “big squish.” All of the matter will again be
concentrated into that little dot or that little nothing, and once it gets hot
enough, there will be another big bang, and the whole thing will start over
again. Some have even theorized that a new big bang happens every 80 billion
years or so. This is all nothing but a big fantasy based on wishful thinking.
Atheists desperately want it to be true in order to remove God from the
picture. Progressive creationists are compromising with it because they
actually believe that legitimate science has proven it to be true.
It is
interesting to note that in recent years the big bang theory has begun to fall
into disrepute. Should it someday become generally rejected by the scientific
community, then progressive creationists will be forced to revise their ideas
in order to stay current and to maintain the scientific credibility they
believe they have. On the other hand, those who accept the literal account of
Genesis will not have to change anything. “Forever,
O Lord, Your word is settled in
heaven. Your faithfulness endures
to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides” (Psalm
119:89-90, NKJV).
The universe is billions of years old.
I
watched a video in which a progressive creationist stated that God
could not have possibly put life on an earth that is less than 14 billion years
old. Limiting God like that is dangerous ground. The only limits on God are
those placed on Him by his own nature.
"But our God is in Heaven; He does whatever He pleases"
(Psalm 115:3, NKJV). Someone recently challenged me on that by asking if that
was really what he meant. It can sometimes be difficult to determine what
someone means, but failing the ability to read minds, I tend to accept
what someone says to be what they actually mean. See my post entitled "I Know What it Says, but What Does it Mean?"
Further
research on this revealed the following from Tim Chaffey:
He
said that a prominent progressive creationist “…repeatedly makes the claim that
life COULD NOT exist unless the universe was about 14 billion years old. ...
Those who believe in a young earth are often ridiculed for limiting God;
however, the shoe is actually on the other foot. We limit ourselves to
taking God at His Word.” He further said, “…it is impossible for God to
have created everything in six days of approximately 24 hours each – even
though His Word clearly teaches that He did. Who is really placing limits
on God?” (“The ‘God’ of the Big Bang is NOT the God of the Bible!” by Tim
Chaffey).
The creation days were long periods of
time, not 24-hour days.
A
straightforward reading of Genesis leads one to believe that the writer (Moses)
intended to convey that the universe and all that it contains was created in
six literal 24-hour days. Exodus 20:9-11 certainly reinforces this. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day..." (NKJV). There is no reason to believe
it means anything other than what it says, especially in light of the context
of verses 9 and 10, unless there is some sort of agenda that demands a
reinterpretation of the obvious meaning. What possible reason would there be to
use two different meanings of the word "day" in the same passage of
Scripture? If the days had indeed been eons of time, and if the universe is
billions of years old, does it not seem extremely likely that God would have
told us so?
It
must be pointed out that Genesis was written in Hebrew, not in English. Some
have looked to the original language to establish justification for long ages
instead of literal days. However, it turns out that many if not most Hebrew
scholars, even those who do not accept the Genesis account of creation as
literal history, tend to agree that the plain meaning that the writer intended
to convey is that the creation week consisted of seven literal 24-hour days and
that the flood was worldwide. Those who choose to interpret it in another way
almost always have accepted a very old earth ahead of time. We are all biased
by our beliefs, and it is very easy to interpret things as we expect or hope
for them to be.
Jud
Davis of “Answers in Genesis” states the following: “Hugh Williamson is
the current Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University.
Oxford is
perhaps the most prestigious university in the world, and Williamson is one of
the top Hebraists anywhere. In an email he responded, 'So far as the days of
Genesis 1 are concerned … I have not met any Hebrew professors who had the
slightest doubt about this unless they were already committed to some
alternative by other considerations that do not arise from a straightforward
reading of the Hebrew text as it stands.' ... Nobody has provided me with
answers that point to anything but a traditional view of the original meaning.
Anyone who says that a closer study of the Hebrew leads elsewhere is simply
incorrect. The original intent is plain — a day was a day, from the very first
miraculous day." (Answers in Genesis. “24 Hours – Plain as Day,” March 16,
2012).
If God created a world that appears to be
old when it isn’t, then He is a deceiver.
The
appearance of age is an obvious interpretation of the evidence for those
who desire for the world to be old. For example, evolutionary scientists look
at things such as the Grand Canyon and think
it is obvious that it took millions of years to form. They willingly ignore the
after effects of Noah’s flood.
“…knowing this first: that scoffers will
come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where
is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things
continue as they were from the
beginning of creation.’ For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God
the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water,
by which the world that then
existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word,
are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." (2 Peter 3:3-7).
If we
didn’t have pictures and eyewitness accounts of the aftermath of Mount St. Helens, it is quite conceivable that in a few
hundred years, some “scientist” would look down on the canyon that was formed
in a very short time and say, “Look – it’s obvious – this took millions of
years to form.” Wishful thinking, “willfully forgetting,” being “willingly
ignorant,” or, as one creationist speaker said, being “dumb on purpose,” should
never be a replacement for real science, common sense, and belief in the Truth.
Other
things are not really appearance of age but are just how God did things. For
example, Adam was created as a man, not as a baby. When he was one minute old,
he was a fully-grown man. God brought Eve to Adam as a woman, not as a baby.
For God to have done otherwise would have been an absurdity, and while God can
do the impossible, He does not deal in absurdity. People like to
fight over such questions as “Did newly-created trees have rings?” “Did Adam
and Eve have navels?” I plead guilty in this case to the two big problems in
our culture – ignorance and apathy – I don’t know, and I don’t care. It doesn’t
matter, and we have no way to know.
In
reality, what would be deceptive of God would be to take billions of years to
bring the universe as we know it into existence but then to tell us in His Word
that He did it in six days. “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the
sea, and all that is in them,
and rested the seventh day” (Exodus 20:11, NKJV). God is not a deceiver. We
must understand natural revelation (the creation) in light of special
revelation (the Bible).
There were man-like animals long before
Adam and Eve. They did not have spirits.
This
is used to explain the fossil evidence for so-called “ape men” (“hominids”). Of
course, the vast majority of such “evidence” is of little or no value because
of its fragmentary nature and its agenda-driven interpretation. Some
evolutionists even say it is important to have imagination when thinking about
our evolutionary past. Imagination seems to be a big part of it. Remember Nebraska Man – nothing
but the tooth of a pig. And then there is Piltdown Man – a total, intentional
hoax. It only fooled the scientific community for about 40 years. Why? Because
they were so desperate to find a “missing link” that they were blinded by their
bias. The truth is that both creationists and evolutionists have the exact same
evidence, and all of the evidence can be interpreted either in light of God’s
Word or in light of man’s bias. Real wisdom would dictate the former.
Christians
should never fear that any evidence will ever be discovered that will undermine
God’s Word, and they should also remember that their inability to explain every
new idea brought up by skeptics does not mean there is not an explanation that
will yet be found. Truth is not determined on the basis of winning or losing a
debate. Faith is not a matter of knowing everything there is to know. Rather,
it is trust in the One who does know everything there is to know. The most
clever of man’s ideas are foolishness in His sight.
I
don’t know specifically where this idea among progressive creationists of
pre-Adam humans or human-like animals came from, but it is obvious that
someone simply made it up. This is a fantasy which has no purpose other than to
meet an agenda. There is no evidence in Scripture for such an idea. The
Scriptures make it very clear that Adam was the first man and Eve was the mother
of all the living.
“…it is written, “The first man Adam
became a living being”
(I Corinthians 15:45, NKJV). “And Adam
called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living”
(Genesis 3:20, NKJV). Neither of these statements could be true if there were
“spiritless men” living before the creation of Adam and Eve.
Of
even greater concern is the fact that this idea puts the entrance of death in
the world before the creation of Adam and Eve and before the fall of man into
sin. The Scripture is very clear that death came by sin by one man, Adam. Death
before sin destroys the penalty for sin and also destroys the gospel message.
If sin did not result in death, then there is no conceivable reason for Christ
to come and deal with sin and its penalty. “Therefore,
just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus
death spread to all men, because all sinned…” (Romans 5:12, NKJV). When sin
entered, death followed.
It is
also important to note that, not only man, but also all of creation, was made
subject to the fall of man into sin and the resultant curse. “For the creation was subjected to futility,
not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of
God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs
together until now” (Romans 8:20-22, NKJV). This is why we must not and
cannot rely on the conclusions of sinful man based on his observations of a
sin-cursed universe. All such observations must be interpreted in light of the
fallen nature of the entire creation and in light of the truth of God’s Word.
The
Bible makes it clear that, before the fall of man, the creation was perfect.
There was no sin. There was no death and suffering. This includes both humans
and the animals. “Then God saw everything
that He had made, and indeed it was
very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day” (Genesis
1:31, NKJV). It makes no sense that God would say this if Adam and Eve were
standing on top of fossils from millions of years of death and suffering. Such
a scenario would mean that the Garden of Eden was not a paradise, and that
death came before sin.
“Answers
in Genesis” offers the following concerning the idea of death before sin: “This
is perhaps the biggest problem created by each of the compromising views. The
Bible makes it very clear that there was absolutely no death before Adam sinned
… it is also clear from Romans 8
that sin affected all of creation. Scripture is clear that animal death was
instituted when Adam sinned ... Each of the old-earth views places death,
bloodshed, disease, and suffering before Adam’s sin. However, the Bible teaches
that all was “very good” (Gen. 1:31)
when God made it. Would God have called everything that He had made “very good”
if it were full of death and suffering? Absolutely not!”
“Besides
the fact that it contradicts the Bible, the reason that this problem is so
severe is because it undermines the very meaning of the atonement. When Adam
sinned, the Bible states that God made coats of skins for Adam and Eve … God
killed an animal … to make these coats … Adam would have seen blood being shed
for the first time in atonement for sin … if the world were already full of
death and bloodshed … then this action would be meaningless. Adam would
certainly not infer that the wages of sin is death. If death and suffering were
already in the world, then sin did virtually nothing. If the foundations for
the gospel are undermined, then why did Jesus Christ come to earth to die on
the cross for our sins? He was the ultimate sacrifice, the Lamb of God who
takes away the sins of the world. But if there was death before sin, what did
sin do? If it was part of the original creation, then why did Jesus need to
shed His blood?" (Answers in Genesis, "Old Earth Creationism on Trial: The Verdict is In." Tim Chaffey and Jason Lisle). There is a great deal of additional important information
on this page and throughout the "Answers in Genesis" website.
The flood was “universal” (meaning
“local”) but not global.
The
claim is that Noah built an ark that carried him, his family, and the animals
on an inland lake that was big enough to drown all of the humans who lived at
that time. This is what is meant by a “universal” flood – it was just as
widespread as humanity had migrated by that time, and there was no necessity
for it to be any larger, since its purpose was to wipe out the human race other
than Noah and his family.
There
are several flaws in this thinking. I will address those with a series of
questions and brief answers.
If
the flood was local, why did Noah need to build an ark? Could he not have
just moved elsewhere? God is neither stupid nor is He inefficient. He knows
what He is doing. There would have been no reason for God to tell Noah to spend
120 years building an ark when he could have simply taken his family to another
area of the earth away from the flood.
Why
take animals on the ark when there would have been large numbers of most, if
not all, of the same species of animals outside the area of the flood? But God
had said He was going to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life. Are
we to believe that not only all humans but also all animals lived in the area
where this supposed local flood took place?
“And all flesh died that moved on the
earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the
earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. So He destroyed all
living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle,
creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only
Noah and those who were with
him in the ark remained alive.” (Genesis 7:21-23, NKJV).
How
could a local flood cover the tops of all the mountains? Even though it appears
that the mountains were not as high before the flood as they are now (Psalm
104), it would still be impossible for a local flood to cover all of the
mountains by 15 cubits (22½ feet, assuming an 18-inch cubit). “And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the
earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The waters
prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered” (Genesis
7:19-20, NKJV).
Would
not a local flood make God a liar when He said he would never again flood the
entire earth as He had done? There have been many local floods since Noah’s
time, and each and every one of them would underscore God’s dishonesty if they
were like Noah’s flood.
“Then the Lord
said in His heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake,
although the imagination of man’s heart is
evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have
done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day
and night shall not cease’” (Genesis
8:21-22, NKJV).
"And
God said: ‘This is the sign of
the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual
generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be
for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. It shall be, when I
bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and
I will remember My covenant which is
between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall
never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the
cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God
and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.’ And God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant which I
have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth’” (Genesis 9:12-17, NKJV).
“For this is like the waters of Noah to Me; For as I have sworn that the
waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, so have I sworn that I would
not be angry with you, nor rebuke you” (Isaiah 54:9, NKJV).
If
Noah’s flood was only a local flood, every time we see a rainbow, we should
consider that to be a sign of God’s dishonesty. Clearly, that is absurd. God
gave that sign to humans and to the animals as a token of His promise that He
would never again destroy the world in the same way He already did, and that
promise is just as valid today as it was in the days of Noah.
“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He
should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He
not make it good?”
(Numbers 23:19, NKJV).
“…it is impossible for God to lie…” (Hebrews 6:18, NKJV).
“…in hope of eternal life which God, who
cannot lie, promised before time began…” (Titus 1:2, NKJV).
The
bottom line is that both evolutionists and progressive creationists need a
local flood, because a truly global flood explains the many fossil-containing
rock layers without any need for millions or billions of years. A global flood
would certainly change the topography of the earth. It is interesting to note
that some scientists who have observed Mars have concluded that the only
possible cause of its topography would be a global flood. Of course, the fact
that Mars has little or no water does not seem to be an issue for them. On the
other hand, when the topography of the earth is observed, there is immediate
rejection of a global flood and the question, “If there was a global flood,
where did all the water go?” Why do they ask this? The answer is obvious – a
global flood would make the Bible true, and we obviously can’t have that
because it would destroy evolution and progressive creationism. So “scientists”
who are willing to accept a global flood on a planet with little or no water
are not willing to accept the possibility of a global flood on a planet that is
covered 70% by water.
Christian Answers.net in an article entitled "Where did the Flood Waters Go?" offers the following:
“If
the waters are still here, why are the highest mountains not still covered with
water, as they were in Noah’s day? Psalm 104 suggests an answer. After the
waters covered the mountains (verse 6), God rebuked them and they fled (verse
7); the mountains rose, the valleys sank down (verse 8) and God set a boundary
so that they will never again cover the Earth (verse 9). They are the same
waters!”
“Isaiah
gives this same statement that the waters of Noah would never again cover the
Earth (Isaiah 54:9). Clearly, what the Bible is telling us is that God acted to
alter the Earth's topography. New continental landmasses bearing new mountain
chains of folded rock strata were uplifted from below the globe-encircling
waters that had eroded and leveled the pre-Flood topography, while large deep
ocean basins were formed to receive and accommodate the Flood waters that then
drained off the emerging continents.”
“That
is why the oceans are so deep, and why there are folded mountain ranges.
Indeed, if the entire Earth's surface were leveled by smoothing out the
topography of not only the land surface but also the rock surface on the ocean
floor, the waters of the ocean would cover the Earth's surface to a depth of
1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers). We need to remember that nearly 70 percent of the
Earth's surface is still covered by water. Quite clearly, then, the waters of
Noah's Flood are in today's ocean basins.”
We are still in Day 7 of creation week.
God is still “resting.”
This
idea is primarily used to demonstrate that the days of creation week were not
24-hour days, since the seventh day is already thousands of years
old. As with much of this belief system, conclusions are made to support the
premise. There is no reason to believe this idea except that it is necessary to
support long periods of time for the creation days. That makes this nothing
more than a convenient assumption.
When
the Scripture says that God “rested” on the seventh day, it has nothing to do
with His being tired and needing to take a break from all of His hard work. It
simply means that He ceased from His creative activity after the sixth day,
which would obviously be on the seventh day. Newton’s First Law of Motion is summarized as
follows: “A body in motion tends to remain in motion, and a body at rest
tends to remain at rest.” A body at rest is a body that has ceased its motion
or activity. God was at rest. He had ceased his creative activity. There is no
reason to assume that God is still resting. As a matter of fact, we see God
working throughout history. There are many examples in Scripture. Following are
just a few:
God
“prepared” a fish to swallow Jonah. Did He motivate an already existing sea
creature into the area so it would be there to swallow Jonah? Was it a sperm
whale? That is possible, because even though a whale is a mammal and not a
fish, it is certainly part of the large category of a “sea monster,” “whale,”
or “huge fish.” Was it a great white shark? Who knows? Did He create that
“fish” specifically for the task at hand? It is very possible that He did. If
this fish (“sea monster”) was a special creation, was it one of a kind, or was
it one of an already existing species? These questions cannot be answered, but
one thing is certain – God was “working” throughout this event to make it
happen just as He determined.
Jesus
made water into wine. This was clearly a creative act.
Jesus
had fish cooking on a fire when His disciples came ashore. Where did He get the
fish? Did he create them? Did he net them? Did He command them to jump out of
the water? We don’t know, but He certainly did something to get them.
“But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father has
been working until now, and I have been working’” (John 5:17, NKJV).
The
Scriptures are full of accounts of God’s “working” throughout history to bring
about His purpose. He has never ceased being God and doing what God does. The
idea that we are in the seventh day and that God is still “resting” is a very
flimsy argument, at best.
Conclusion
I
have only scratched the surface of all the things believed and taught by
progressive creationists. There is much information available online if you
wish to pursue it further. The bottom line on all of this is that we must place
our faith in the Truth as God has revealed it in His Word rather than trusting
in fallen men who observe a sin-cursed universe through eyes that have been
tainted by sin. We will never come to a knowledge of the truth through human
reason. Such is not possible. The Scripture makes it very clear where faith
comes from: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the
word of God” (Romans 10:17, NKJV).
Ken Ham of “Answers in Genesis” sends out regular emails under the heading, “Around
the World with Ken Ham.” Following is a timely excerpt from one of them.
“Many
of us would love to have the final proof that evolution is a lie — the right
scientific evidence that will silence those opposed to biblical creation
forever, right? Well, no. You see, Romans chapter 1 tells us that God has
revealed Himself to man in nature, so there’s no excuse for denying the witness
of creation. In fact, we have solid proof in our hands that evolution is a lie:
the Bible. We can’t depend solely on our reasoning ability to convince
skeptics. We present the evidence — and do the best we can — to convince people
of the truth of God by always pointing them to the Bible. After all, ‘faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
Word of God.’ Are you trusting in Jesus Christ for your faith?”
