S2 E12 TRANSCRIPT
NATURALISM AND BIBLICAL CREATION COMPARED—PART 4
INTRODUCTION
Hello everyone and welcome to Spirit-Led Hope. My name is Glenn Erichsen, and in this episode, we are looking at:
NATURALISM AND BIBLICAL CREATION COMPARED—PART 4
When I begin to prepare an episode, I rarely know at the beginning what I am going to cover, and how many episodes it might take for me to finish off a thought. Here we are at Part 4 where we are comparing the days of Creation listed in the Bible to the account provided by scientific naturalism. I did not think it would take this long. If I had known that we would need four episodes to get through Day 5, I might have given the episodes different names. As it is, please accept my apologies for a lack of creativity in using Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and now Part 4.
As a reminder, in our comparison we are focusing on the sequence of Creation listed in the Bible and the sequence of origins according to naturalism (or I might also say materialism). We have been constructing a virtual comparison chart over the last few episodes and we will continue developing that chart in this episode. If you have a hard time picturing the chart while I speak, be sure and check out the transcripts that I release with each podcast episode. Be sure and listen to the prior episodes so you get the complete picture of what we are doing.
DAY FOUR
Up until now we have seen a remarkably good agreement between the Creation sequence presented in the Bible and the materialistic account. As we look at Day 4, we will see a big deviation, depending on which Christian viewpoint you accept.
Let us read the Genesis account for the fourth day, and then talk about two very different Christian interpretations for what these verses mean.
Let’s read:
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
Genesis 1:14-19
The first Christian interpretation we will discuss, is that prior to now, the sun, moon, and stars, did not exist. The light mentioned on Day 1, came from something else.
This is the interpretation I was taught as a child. In Sunday School, I remember the teacher using a flannelgraph to show the different days of Creation. (By the way, if you do not know what a flannelgraph is, just picture sticking paper cutouts on a background using Velcro…except, when I was a child, Velcro had not yet been invented so a flannel material kind of like felt, was used to achieve the same effect.)
But I remember on Day 4, the Sunday School teacher would stick a picture of the sun, moon, and stars, onto the blue flannel background of the sky. I remember even as a young boy, wondering how there could be vegetation on Day 3 if the sun did not appear until Day 4. That did not make any sense to me. If there was light on Day 1, where did that come from? Those details bothered me.
As I got older and learned about things like electromagnetic radiation, then I realized there could be a source of light different from the visible light we see from the sun. Today, proponents of this belief typically do not try to describe what that first light source was, they just accept that it was there.
However, Christians over the centuries have tried to explain the light as being anything from a manifestation of God himself, to the presence of angels, or sun-like objects. But all of that is speculation which is why most people with this interpretation simply accept the verses at their face value and move on. If you believe this first interpretation, outer space was empty until God filled it with the sun, moon, and stars, and other objects, on the fourth day.
The second interpretation of Day 4 is that the sun, moon, and stars already existed before Day 4. The sun provided the light for plants to grow, but it was not fully visible because the atmosphere was so dense. Where I live in Washington State, we can go several weeks without seeing the sun. In November, December, and January, we can have cloud cover that seems to never lift. It may get lighter during the day, but the sun is not seen. That is the idea with this interpretation. On Day 4, the atmosphere clears and the sun, moon, and stars are distinctly seen for the first time from the surface of the Earth.
Christians taking this viewpoint for Day 4 base their conclusions on a couple of key factors. The first is that the Hebrew text does not say the sun and moon were created on the fourth day, rather, that they were made. In this interpretation, the mentioning of the sun, moon, and stars becomes a parenthetical statement referring to a past completed action. The sun, moon, and stars were then either created in the beginning or on the first day.
The Day 4 verses that we just read explain that God created the sun, moon, and stars, as signs, to show the passage of time, and to have seasons. The verses then explain that in the sequence of Creation, this is the moment when they were finally visible to fully serve their purpose.
These two interpretations are quite different and the focal point for a lot of disagreement. They are so different; I do not see this as a case where they could both be right. One could be correct, or both could be wrong, but I do not see them as both being right.
On the left side of our imaginary chart, under the heading of Day 4, let us list two bullet points and further label them as Interpretation 1 and Interpretation 2.
· Interpretation 1: God made the sun, moon, and stars.
· Interpretation 2: God made the sun, moon, and stars visible from the Earth for the first time.
These two bullet points summarize the two most common Christian interpretations of Day 4.
Now let us make bullet points for the naturalistic account that corresponds to Day 4. To do this, we go back to Episode 6. Near the end of that Episode, I mentioned that scientific models of the Earth’s atmosphere state that at some point in time the atmosphere transitioned from translucent to transparent.
The tricky part is that the models cannot exactly identify when this transition occurred. The most likely time is associated with the Great Oxygenation Event. You may recall from Episodes 6 and 7, that the Great Oxygenation event is when early life in the form of cyanobacteria started consuming carbon dioxide and the bacteria produced large amounts of oxygen. This would turn the atmosphere into what we see today. It is believed this began around 2.3 to 2.5 billion years ago. Because this is after the initiation of plate tectonics which we assigned to Day 3, I have chosen to place the transparency of the atmosphere on Day 4. Remember, we are looking at the sequence of events.
On the right side of our chart under Day 4, where we list the naturalistic account, we now have these two bullet points:
· Beginning 2.3 to 2.5 billion years ago or sometime after that, the atmosphere transitioned from translucent to transparent.
· The sun, moon, and stars became visible for the first time.
When we compare these Day 4 naturalistic bullet points to the Day 4 Biblical account the results are obvious. Interpretation 1 of the Biblical account is vastly different from the naturalistic account, but Interpretation 2 is pretty much an exact match.
Before we go on to Day 5, I want to make something clear. Just because one interpretation of the Bible matches the naturalistic account, it does not mean that it is automatically the correct interpretation. As we have discussed in past episodes, the Bible accurately stated the universe had a beginning, even though scientific models said otherwise. So, for Day 4, we simply note the agreements and disagreements, and now move on to Day 5.
DAY FIVE
For Day 5, let us go ahead and read what it says in Genesis.
And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning the fifth day.
Genesis 1:20-23
These verses are rather self-explanatory, and there is very little disagreement among Christians as to what these verses mean. Day 5 represents a rapid increase in the amount and complexity of life. Here we see birds and sea life beginning to fill the earth and ocean. There may be some debate about which animals are included by the Hebrew words used. In fact, depending on your translation, your Bible might say that on this Day God created whales. But the main point is that this Day really establishes the Earth as a hospitable place for advanced life.
There are a couple of important things to note in these verses. Did you notice that here, the word “create” is used again? This indicates that God directly did something unique here. And it centers around the Hebrew word that is translated in what we just read as “creatures.” The Hebrew word used implies that some of these creatures have attributes partly like what we might call a soul. In other words, some capacity for intellect, volition, and emotion. Not quite like a human, but with similarities.
And we see this soulish attribute in many of the more advanced birds and sea mammals. For many years we had in our family Henry the parrot. Henry was undeniably intelligent and capable of some thought and emotion. He had a crush on my wife Monica, and I have the scars to prove that he was jealous of me.
We also see in these verses what we saw on the third Day, and that is an emphasis that these animals reproduced according to their kind. Birds produce baby birds and crabs produce baby crabs. The Bible again makes a point of saying that one type of life continues to produce the same type of life. It seems like a strange emphasis for something written thousands of years ago. For such a short Creation account, this emphasis takes up a lot of textual space. I find that interesting.
Let us keep this simple…on the left side of our virtual chart, under the heading of Day 5, we will include one bullet point for what the Bible says.
· God created sea life and birds.
To summarize the naturalistic account, we need to consider what we talked about in Episode 7. There I mentioned that the Cambrian explosion took place around 530 million years ago. It was during this time that all sorts of animal types began to appear in the fossil record, including many types of fish. As time went on, the animals became more complex, and we began to see amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. The first birds appeared around 150 million years ago.
Keep in mind that all these dates have some uncertainty because of the vast ages involved, and the reality that fossil classification is not always straightforward.
On the right side of our chart for naturalism we will have two bullet points.
· About 530 million years ago, vast new types of sea life and other animals appeared in the Cambrian explosion.
· Life became more complex as amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds appeared from 150 to 360 million years ago.
When we look at both sides of our virtual chart for Day 5, we see a strong agreement. Both accounts say that sea life and birds are now present. You might argue that the verses we read earlier do not mention things like reptiles and amphibians, but this is very tricky. The Hebrew words for creatures used for Day 5 can mean a lot of different things, and sea life can cover mollusks, crustaceans, and amphibians, which is what we see in the Cambrian explosion. I have even heard Christian scholars make a case that the fifth day includes dinosaurs. While other Christian scholars say that dinosaurs are included on Day 6 which we will cover in the next episode.
By the way, I am not sure how much I am going to talk about dinosaurs, other than to say that the Hebrew words do allow for an interpretation of large reptiles. And maybe this is a good place for me to say that I do not intend in this Season to answer every question about the Creation account. If you are interested, there are many good ministries and resources that focus on this topic. Maybe if I get enough emails, I will tackle a few questions like that, but we shall see.
DARWIN’S DOUBT
As we wrap up this episode, I think it is important to talk briefly about the Cambrian explosion. Darwin himself was concerned about the rapid appearance of new animal types that seemed to appear in the fossil record. According to his theory, the fossil record should contain clear evidence of transitional life forms.
For example, if a geological period contains fossils of new animal types, one should find precursors to these animals in fossils from older geological periods. Unfortunately for him, the fossil evidence at the time of Darwin did not support his theory, and this did give him pause. It was an area which created doubt for him.
Since the time of Darwin, many more fossils have been found to make the fossil record more complete. For example, spectacular fossils have been found at Burgess Shale in British Columbia, Canada. These fossils even show some of the soft tissue from animals appearing during the Cambrian explosion.
Here is the question…Has the increase in the number of fossils found supported the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin?
As you might guess, it depends on who you ask! A devoted naturalist may say “yes,” while others may say “no.” I am not going to answer that question here, but I will point you to a book that says “no.” In earlier episodes I mentioned “Return of the God Hypothesis” by Stephen Meyer. In 2013 Meyer published a book called “Darwin’s Doubt” which looks more closely at the Cambrian explosion. The book is well written, but some may find it too technical. Stephen Myer is a proponent of intelligent design, so if that is something you are interested in, it is worth checking out. I will put the name of the book in the Episode notes.
CLOSING
In our next episode we move on to the critically important Day 6, which will be the final Part 5 of our comparison between Biblical Creation and naturalism.
As always, if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions, please email me at glenn@spiritledhope.com, or simply use the Contact Form at spiritledhope.com. That is spiritLEDhope.com.
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As we close…
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Until next episode, take care.
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