Attempts to reconcile
the Bible
with naturalistic
origin models.
Starting in the late 1700’s, in the name of science, some
men started to claim that the Bible is wrong about the age
of the Earth. Instead of theologians questioning the bases
for these claims, most started looking for ways to place those
theoretical timescales into the Bible.
The problem is: where do you place these millions and billions of
years? Some of the proposals that have been made include:
- Theistic Evolution. This is
the view that God used evolution to "create" the world by directing the
process. It considers the Genesis account to be nothing more than a
metaphor. This is the most umbiblical of the proposals, and is held by
the most liberal of theologians.
- Progressive Creation. This is
a small improvement over Theistic evolution. In this view God actually
creates things, but He supposedly did it in steps that mimicked
evolution but leaving definite gaps. This view at least recognizes that
evolution theory is not a proven fact and man is still recognized as a
special creation. The days of creation are viewed as metaphorically
representing this process. It is still unbiblical.
- The Age Day Theory. This view
claims that the days of creation represent vast periods of time rather
than real Earth days. It is basically a simplified version of progressive creation.
- Gap theory. This is the most
Biblical of the compromise views. This view, simply stated, claims that
there was a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Unlike the other three it
takes the creation week a literal and the days as literal Earth days.
Those who hold to this view at least know what Evening and morning
mean. The big problem with this view is that there is no scriptural
reason for the alleged gap.
Most those who hold the views of Theistic Evolution,
Progressive Creation, or The Age Day Theory
also claim that the Flood was just a local flood.
The main problem with these views is that the Bible plus
nothing leads to only a few thousand years since creation. This
is even admitted to by their adherents. A literal
interpretation of the Bible shows that death came after sin
and that man is responsible for death.
However, when one takes the Bible plus man's theoretical dating
methods, allowing for millions of years, then death come before
sin and God is responsible for death. This is a big difference and
it is a problem for Theistic Evolutionists, Progressive
Creationists, Day Age theorists, Gap theorists and all
others holding compromise positions. The simple fact is that these
reinterpretations destroy the credibility of the Bible.