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Night and Day (Pt 2)

Genesis 1:3-31
2008.10.26
one28 Sunday worship

See Night and Day (Pt 1) here.

4. Defined Days

The hope of theistic evolutionists hinges on the word “day.” In order for evolution to fit in Genesis one, “day” must represent long periods of undefined time, more than likely covering millions of years.

The Hebrew word for “day” is yom. The question is, does yom ever refer to a period of time other than 24 hours? The answer is yes. Even in the first two chapters of Genesis, “day” is used at least three different ways.¹

1. “God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.” (1:5) Here, Moses uses yom to indicate a 12-ish hour period.
2. “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” (1:14). Here, Moses uses yom to indicate 24-hour days as they make up years.
3. “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens” (2:4). Here, Moses uses yom to indicate the entire creative week.

But note first of all, that even though there are different definitions, none of them involve ages or eons.

Second, the context establishes how long a day is in Genesis one. Every single (stinking) day in the chapter is defined. It starts in verses 3-5, God creates light, separates it from darkness, calls the light Day and the darkness Night. And there was evening and there was morning the first day. The light/darkness, evening/morning, the [ X ] day formula is repeated for each of the first six days (verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31).

Third, day can’t be figurative, a metaphor or symbol of something else. Nothing else in the chapter is figurative. If “day” doesn’t mean “day,” why does “earth” mean “earth”? Why doesn’t “vegetation” represent something else? How can “man” mean “man”? It is strange, and inconsistent to suggest “day” means something other than what it typically does.

How do theistic evolutionists answer this?

According to young earth theory, the Sun was not created until Day Four, thus there could be no sunrise or sunset for the first three days of creation. However, God uses the terms evening and morning for those first three days. Therefore, they cannot be actual evenings and mornings. We are left with only one option. The words for Evening and Morning can only represent the beginning and ending of the creative period, and not actual sunrise and sunsets. (See Answers in Creation)

As if God could not create light or establish light/dark cycles apart from the sun, they simply ignore Moses’ account and force their assumptions into Genesis one.

Days are defined as solar days, 24 hour days as we know them today. It wasn’t millions of light/dark transitions in verse five that made the first “day.” Saying that a “day” represents long ages casts suspicion on every word in the account. The only reason to even suggest a day isn’t a day is because of presuppositions outside the text, and is the worst kind of eisegesis.²

5. Breeding Boundaries

This shoots as big a hole in theistic evolution as any of the previous bullets. Everything that reproduces, every plant, every animal, every fish, every bird, every insect, (even every human in a similar way), all reproduce according to their kinds.

On day three (verses 11-12), God created vegetation (remember that in the evolutionary timeline plants are not the first sort of organic life), and the phrase according to its kind is repeated three times. Apple trees produce apple seeds that grow into little apple trees. Orange trees produce orange seed that don’t grow into oak trees.

On day five (verses 20-23), God established that each individual type of water creature would reproduce according to their kinds (demonstrating that there were multiple kinds in the water), and every winged bird multiplied according to its kind.

Then on day six (verses 24-25), God established that livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth all would multiply according to their kinds. God made them distinct, and made them to reproduce keeping those distinctions. Humans may have successfully bred cocker spaniels and poodles into cockapoos, but i. We’ve never mated mosquitos with goldfish or squirrels into mosquish or squirritos.

And even though the phrase “according to their kind” isn’t included when God made men and women, they were the only creatures fashioned in the likeness of God’s image. Men are of a different kind altogether.

No kind jumps out its kind, there is no mutating across breeds or progression up the food chain. God placed limits and boundaries on the light and darkness, on the sea and the seashores, and on living creatures breeding according to their kinds. Fish belong in the water; flying is for the birds; men and animals were made for land. God creates, God separates, God distinguishes and defines and sets boundaries.

6. Bad Good

At multiple points throughout week one, God declared His work “good.” When He gathered the waters together to make dry land, God saw that it was good (verse 10). When He made plants and trees yielding seed and bearing fruit, God saw that it was good (verse 12). When He set the sun and moon to rule the day and night, God saw that it was good (verse 18). When He created fish and fowl, God saw that it was good (verse 21). When He made livestock and insects, God saw that it was good (verse 25).

As He prepared the earth for life, specifically life for His image-bearers, God pronounced His own approving evaluation of creation’s goodness. That is, God declared creation’s beauty and quality and acceptability and desirability. (As a side-note, setting up the earth for life is not the same as making little-life and causing it to mutate into more complex life.)

Then, God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good (verse 31). There was nothing about His creation that was deficient or defective or hurtful. So here’s the question: if killing and death prevailed on the planet, with weak and mutant and in-between-stages creatures, as evolution requires, how could God claim “everything was very good”? Theistic evolution must imply that death is an acceptable good, that as long as the fittest survive and overall progress is being made, everything is okay. But in biblical terms, that is a very bad kind of good, and really no good at all.

Conclusion

All six bullets I’ve mentioned come from observation of the biblical story itself. In light of how obviously they refute theistic evolution, let alone naturalistic, I wonder if Darwin didn’t concoct his theory by sitting down with Genesis one in front of him and consciously writing an anti-Genesis story. Since he grew up in a professing Christian home, I think it’s reasonable to suppose he knew exactly the truth he was rejecting.

And while we’re wondering out loud, could Moses have written the story in any other way that would have been more beyond doubt that he was referring to six 24 hour days? Henry Morris put it this way:

If the reader asks himself this question: “Suppose the writer of Genesis wished to teach his readers that all things were created and made in six literal days, then what words would he use to best convey this thought?” he would have to answer that the writer would have used the actual words in Genesis 1. If he wished to convey the idea of long geological ages, however, he surely could have done it far more clearly and effectively in other words than those in which he selected. (The Genesis Record, p. 54)

If the assignment was to leave open the possibility of evolution in chapter one, Moses failed.

No matter how a person might attempt to fit evolution into Genesis by saying that God is responsible for it, he still must deny the Bible on some level. Either Scripture or “science” is wrong. We cannot eat evolution cake with Genesis one icing.

Finally, let me acknowledge that our belief in a literal six-day creation is built and framed by revelation. But belief in God’s Word is not the same thing as belief based on never seen, never proven guesswork. Those are blind beliefs, nothing better than stabs in the dark. God’s Word, on the other hand, is light in the darkness. The biblical account of creation is night and day from theistic evolution.