Genesis 1
Teaching 2-18-10
Genesis 1
The Creation Narrative
- The View Points
- Evolution:
- Atheistic
- Everything is a matter of coincidence and chance
- Prebiotic soup- matter and energy in random chemical reactions
- Theistic
- There was this prebiotic soup and God started the explosion
- Atheistic
- Creation:
- Progressive
- Creation went on and God kept intervening at certain points
- Mature
- Earth is only about 10,000 years old
- Progressive
- Atheistic Evolution
- Darwin
- Natural Selection
- There are a few problems:
- 4.5 million years
- Abiogenesis
- The process of how we got organic life out of inorganic
- Fossil Records
- The fossils should go on into a gradually diagonal line
- BUT they go up like stairs
- AND there are missing links on the stairs
- Darwin’s tree doesn’t exist
- There is no gradual change or punctual equilibrium
- There is no natural selection!
Theistic Views
Genesis 1
- Genesis 1:1-2
- “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
- Fideism or “HOPE”?
- See my buddy Dawkins…
- Christianity isn’t a “FAITH”
- In the common sense of the world
- 2 Timothy 2:15
- “HOPE” is a better word
- Theistic Evolution
- Essentially “atheistic” at a practical level
- “Bora” means “create”
- Problems: same as Mechanical Darwinism
- Progressive Creation
- God created in stages
- Supported by the fossil record
- Punctual equilibrium
- Not gradualism
- It’s sharp! (paper)
- Punctual equilibrium
- YOM: “day” or “age”
- Genesis 2:4
- “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens-”
- Genesis 2:4
- Gap Theory
- In between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2
- There is a gap of time
- “The Rebellion”
- Isaiah 45:18
- “For this is what the LORD says— he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited— he says: “I am the LORD, and there is no other.”
- Mature Earth
- The earth is 6,000 years old
- Research by Bishop Usher (1600s)
- Problems:
- “Genealogies” are incomplete
- Disregards all science
- The Proper Approach
- Possible interpretations + Practical consideration → Most favored interpretation
- Conclusions
- Theistic views are NOT refuted!
- Theistic views DO NOT contradict science
- “Intelligent Design” is NOT “Mature Earth”!!!
- Mechanical Darwinism is a Faith Position
- The Point of Genesis 1
- “And he saw it was good…”
- God has good intentions for His Creation
- God has great intentions for you
- 1 Corinthians 2:9
- “However, as it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him’”
- 1 Corinthians 2:9