What I Believe About Origins

Since there has been some request for this, I will lay forth the extent of my convictions regarding the origin of our world. I feel, though, that in part doing so now is putting the cart before the horse, so to speak, and therefore I share my views only after this exhortation. Origins is a hotly contested topic, and it is often a make-or-break view to hold. As such, I sense the temptation arising to first hear the particulars of my view, compare it against the particulars of your own views, evaluate how closely the two are in agreement, and afterwards attribute me credence in proportion to my agreement with you on this one issue. Put simply, if I make a claim about how we came to be, and you think it's preposterous to even think that way, you will call me crazy and assume everything else I say is crazy, too. This is common practice, and often the principle holds true, but I claim it is not always that simple, and I request that you hear me out even so.

What do I believe? I believe the Bible is inerrant as originally written, and I furthermore believe that the Bible as we have it is close enough to its original writing to be relied upon. Inerrancy means that it is true and free from error in its primary purposes--to demonstrate the character of God and His relationship to His world--and in its secondary purposes, including describing historical events. Therefore, anything which God's Word says is true must be, and any claim which contradicts His Words must be false.

We begin with Genesis 1, which says that God created the heavens and the earth. Right away we see that the world is a creation of God's, and is therefore subject to Him. It came into being, it is temporal, it is finite, it is not eternal, it is not co-existent with God, and furthermore it is not the same as God. The account goes on to describe how features of the world were created, and five evenings and mornings occurred between them, and after the sixth evening and morning we are told God rested from His work. Many claim that the use of days is figurative in this passage, and could actually refer to eons; the use of the word, not to mention the emphasis placed on evenings and mornings, seems to rule out this possibility from critical analysis. Many claim that the whole passage is figurative, such as the poetry found elsewhere in the Bible. There is poetry in the Bible which should be read as poetry; if you compare this passage with other poetry, you see that they are not at all the same in style. The Genesis account is written much like the history accounts. So yes, I hold to six-day creationism.

I am a little less concerned about the particular age of the world, that is, the amount of time spanning between the beginning of history and now. Whether God created the world or the world created itself has incredible theological and philosophical consequences which cannot be taken lightly. A couple thousand years, on the other hand, don't add up to that much. From what I understand, the estimate of 6,000 years was derived from genuine Biblical scholarship, and for that I tend to prefer that estimate.

As was hinted, I hold that God is eternal, and by eternal I mean not only that which is without beginning nor end, but that which is atemporal: God does not flow with time, as we do, but transcends time itself. In the act of creation, God created time itself with a definite, historical beginning. The created world is finite, and God alone is infinite. The finite is separate from the infinite--not to say that they have no communion between them, but they are not the same essence.

When humankind was created, we were created in the image of God, possessing many His qualities in a finite instantiation. We were without sin but not incapable of sin, with the freedom to choose either dependence upon our Creator or rebellion against Him. Having chosen to assert our own authority over our lives, we became enslaved to this decision, and thus humanity is fully separated from God.

While this is probably not the "scientific" beliefs you were expecting to hear, I nevertheless consider these truths to be of the utmost importance in understanding ourselves and the world around us.

Returning to "scientific" beliefs, some time following all of this, God caused a great flood to cover the earth. Now, there has been not a little speculation about the nature of the earth prior to man's fall, between the fall and this flood, and following the flood. I suspend judgment on much of these details. However, I will say that this flood was a catastrophe the likes of which was never seen before or since, and would naturally cause great changes to the earth. Regarding the ark which Noah was commanded to build and fill with the creatures of the earth, it seems reasonable to suspect that Noah brought on board a pair from every high-level classification of animals, and from these the mechanisms of speciation have produced the diversity we find today. As for the dinosaurs, a lot could be explained by simply claiming, "They were not permitted on the ark and so became extinct in the floodwaters." There is no indication of this at all, so we are led to believe that the extinction must have happened either prior to the flood or after it, but not as a result of it.

I am sure you will not be satisfied with the account I have laid forth. However, as I said at first, I did not want to lay all of this out all at once at this time.