Evolution or Creation
Let me start off by quoting Genesis 1:1-2, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was veering over the waters.” (NIV) If we stop right there we have no basis for time other than it was the beginning of time. If you move onto verse 3 of Genesis, we begin to read the account of how God formed everything by His word and life leapt into existence. The reason I started with Genesis 1:1-2 is to show that some believe something called the GAP theory. We can see that God created the heavens and the earth, but we have no idea how much time passed before he began to bring order to the formless deep.
Starting at Genesis 1:3-31 we read the account of what I believe to be a literal description of the creation of the earth. They can be separated into six segments, and those six can be combined into three. On Day one God created light and separated it from darkness. On the second day, God created the expanse between the water and the sky. The third day brought the oceans and dry land and vegetation. Day four the sun and moon were created along with the stars, and gave order to the rotation of the planets and the sun in order to govern the day and night. Day five brings the creation of land animals and those of the sea and air. On day six, God created man and woman to rule over and govern the earth and everything in it.
Day one and four can be coupled in that God created light and gave it purpose on day four. Day two and five, God created water and sky and then filled it with living creatures on day five. Day three God created land and vegetation and then created ground bound animals as well as man and woman on day six, each day for a purpose and specific reason. I included this because it gives leverage to my argument for order in creation.
So I obviously hinge on creation as to how the earth was formed and how man and woman came to be. But there are many who look at evolution as the answer and the form in which we have to this place in time. Evolutionist, specifically biological evolutionists believe that over millions and millions of years we have evolved from bacteria through processes of natural selection and genetic trait separations into just a small part of a huge tree of other living organisms. Some would assume that through this process Homo sapiens have climbed the ladder to the top and reside over all know living forms of life. They would be quickly corrected and told that in the eye of a biological evolutionist, Homo sapiens are just another leaf on a very large tree, and that we are not any more advanced than our cousins the primates.
According to Understanding Evolution, (2008). “Humans are not “higher” or “more evolved” than other living lineages. Since our lineages split, human and chimpanzees have each evolved traits unique to their own languages.” I take issue with this primarily because the Bible tells us that God created man and told him to rule over the fish of the sea and the livestock of all the earth. Besides that, how can they make a serious claim that we are not more advanced than the chimpanzees are when we are the ones teaching them how to talk, add and or subtract and function in ways that they were obviously not created to function in, maybe that is a mistake on our part.
Evolutionists also use Carbon14 dating in order to help underscore their claims of the earth being millions of years old, which gives their theory the time needed for evolution to take place. The only problem with this is that Carbon14 dating is flawed. “Carbon-14 dating is a way of determining the age of certain archeological artifacts of a biological origin up to about 50,000 years old.” (http://howstuffworks.com)
Having done some more research, I found that Carbon14 Dating is only good for approximately 30,000 years, which according to the Bible might be too old for this earth. There is also a large amount of guesswork and extrapolation that is done when reaching the answer of something that has been dated using this method.
There is a theory that exists that might coincide with this issue and that is The GAP Theory. It would say that in Genesis 1:1-2, it says that God created the heavens and the earth. Then we stop, without any idea of how much time lapses’ between verse two and three. This could be millions of years, but the flaw with this is that God hadn’t created anything other than the earth at this point. No living creature is yet made.
One other very interesting and ironic item I found in the evolutionists theory is that all of life can come from or be broken down into three areas, Eukaryote, Archaea, and Bacteria. Funny how there is a trinity of life, even in the evolutionist viewpoint. Ultimately I believe that God created the heavens and the earth and is the author of all life. I believe that God created the earth in six literal days as well. “Genesis 1 defines the days of creation to be literal days (a number with the word “day” always means a normal day in the Old Testament, and the phrase “evening and morning” further defines the days as literal days).” (Riddle, 2007.)
I also would argue that the bible gives us very clear clues as to the age of the earth, that being 7,000-10,000 years old. Will we ever know for sure, I don’t believe so, and I don’t think it really matters if we know. What will that do for us in the long run? It’s been a long time since time began, that is for sure, but I think the most important thing to focus on is what we’re going to do with the time God gave us here on the earth.
References
Angel Fire. (n.d.) The Bible and Radiometric dating, (the problem with Carbon 14 and other dating methods.). Retrieved September 26, 2011 from www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/carbondating.html
Answers in Genesis. (2007). Doesn’t Carbon -14 Dating Disprove the Bible?. Retrieved October 4, 2011 from http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible
How Stuff Works. (2011) How Carbon-14 Dating Works. Retrieved October 4, 2011 from http://science.howstuffworks.com/enviornmental/earth/geology/carbon-14.htm
Understanding Evolution. (n.d.). Evolution 101. Retrieved September 26, 2011 from www.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_07
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