There are basically 3 ways to approach this question: Scripturally, Logically, and Scientifically. I’d like to look at each one and then contrast that with the major arguments for Evolution.
Scripturally
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and The earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the face of The waters and God said let there be light and there was light and God saw the light that it was good and divided the light from the darkness and the darkness He called night and the light he called the light day and the darkness he called night and the evening in the morning with the first day.” Genesis 1:1-5
We come down to chapter 2 in the first three verses.
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Genesis 2:1-3
Now here we’re dealing with a Six and finally a seventh day.
Notice we’ve got the word day; this word day is used in the Old Testament in some places to refer to a period of time that’s relatively indeterminate. Such as in the next verse where it says:
“These are the generations of the heaven and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 2:4
Here We see day referring to what we were just told was a period of seven days. So sometimes you have an indeterminate period of time represented by the word day.
The overwhelming majority of places in the in the Old Testament where the word translated day appears It means a 24-hour day.
Not only that but from the very first verses we’ve got the evening and the morning… the evening and the morning. Notice the diurnal rotation of the earth here, the day night rotation coupled with the word day which usually means a 24-hour period.
Thirdly we have the ordinal Adjectives first, second, third, fourth, fifth. It has been noted by grammarians of the Hebrew that whenever you have this type of Construction in the language it cannot mean anything other than a 24-hour period. It says if the writer of Genesis so expressed himself in Hebrew that we could not mistakenly draw any other conclusion than seven 24-hour days.
What I want you to see is that from the facts I pointed out to you about the that the Hebrew word translated day meaning 24 hours the fact that we have the diurnal rotation day and night with each of the six creation days and the fact that we have the ordinal adjectives, the this language does not permit of anything except a 24-hour day.
Now we have another problem why this must needs to be understood and that is the evolutionary argument against creation.
Evolution is simply argued that regardless of what the grammar or logic or anything else that Genesis chapter 1 says, they just don’t believe it happened that way. They don’t believe that God, if he even exists, approached creation in that way. They think that matter is in time, or eternal, and that throughout this eternal duration, things just sort of happen by themselves and chains of cause and effect were set into motion and we all got here by accident
Well regardless of who’s right or wrong, it’s necessary for us to notice from the very beginning that the Bible does not leave any room for what’s been called theistic evolution. Theistic evolutionists are people that believe in the Bible and God or profess to do so, but they argue that the scientific evidence of evolution is just so overwhelming to them that they believe what actually happened is that God used evolution, used the forces and the powers of nature to gradually, over Millions or even billions of years, slowly guide the evolution of matter to produce the form that we have today.
Now I Logically grant that this puts God as much in the sovereign driver’s seat as an instantaneous creation. If he is controlling all the way the process of evolution so that exactly what comes about what he wants to be then he’s as much in control that way as the other way.
The question however, is not whether or not God is in control, but whether or not he said he did it that way in his book. Again, when we pay attention to the grammar and thus the logic that comes from the grammar of Genesis chapters 1 and 2, it is manifestly evident that we are being told that God did not use evolution in creation, He used instantaneous creation. Over a six-day period. He simply made things the way they are and that’s how they got here.
That’s what the book says, now the question is: was the world made in six days or was the world made in six billion years by evolutionary accident?
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