GIRS syllabus index: Survey Studies in Reformed Theology Unit Index: Theology Proper: Unit 5 - Creation

Creation - Lesson 5 (reference material)
PCA Creation Committee report
by the PCA ©2000

Table of Contents

I. Introductory Statement
II. Background to the Current Discussion of the Creation Days
III. Brief Definitions
IV. Description of the Main Interpretations of Genesis 1-3 and the Creation Days
A The Calendar Day Interpretation
B. The Day-Age Interpretation
C. The Framework Interpretation
D. The Analogical Days Interpretation
E. Other Interpretations of the Creation Days
V. Original Intent of the Westminster Assembly
VI. Advice and Counsel of the Committee
A. Proposal for Reporting to the 28th General Assembly
B. Recommendations
VII Appendices
A. Definitions (fuller version)
B. The New Testament’s View of the Historicity of Genesis 1-3
C. General Revelation

REPORT OF THE CREATION STUDY COMMITTEE

I. Introductory Statement

We thank our God for the blessings of the last two years. We have profited personally and together by the study of God’s Word, discussion and hard work together.

We have found a profound unity among ourselves on the issues of vital importance to our Reformed testimony. We believe that the Scriptures, and hence Genesis 1-3, are the inerrant word of God. We affirm that Genesis 1-3 is a coherent account from the hand of Moses. We believe that history, not myth, is the proper category for describing these chapters; and furthermore that their history is true. In these chapters we find the record of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth ex nihilo; of the special creation of Adam and Eve as actual human beings, the parents of all humanity (hence they are not the products of evolution from lower forms of life). We further find the account of an historical fall, that brought all humanity into an estate of sin and misery, and of God’s sure promise of a Redeemer. Because the Bible is the word of the Creator and Governor of all there is, it is right for us to find it speaking authoritatively to matters studied by historical and scientific research. We also believe that acceptance of, say, non-geocentric astronomy is consistent with full submission to Biblical authority. We recognize that a naturalistic worldview and true Christian faith are impossible to reconcile, and gladly take our stand with Biblical supernaturalism.

The Committee has been unable to come to unanimity over the nature and duration of the creation days. Nevertheless, our goal has been to enhance the unity, integrity, faithfulness and proclamation of the Church. Therefore we are presenting a unanimous report with the understanding that the members hold to different exegetical viewpoints. As to the rest we are at one. It is our hope and prayer that the Church at large can join us in a principled, Biblical recognition of both the unity and diversity we have regarding this doctrine, and that all are seeking properly to understand biblical revelation. It is our earnest desire not to see our beloved church divide over this issue.

II. Background to the Current Discussion of the Creation Days

The debate over the nature of the creation days is, theologically speaking, a humble one. It cannot rank with the significant theological debates of our time (within Protestant and evangelical circles) such as whether there can be such a thing as legitimate, biblical Systematic Theology, whether human language is capable of conveying absolute truth, whether truth is propositional, what ought to be the church’s doctrine of scripture, can the church’s traditional doctrine of divine impassibility be biblically sustained, is it time to jettison the historic Christian formulation of the doctrine of God, does the church need to modify its commitment to the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith, and more.

Nevertheless, behind this matter of the Genesis days, and connected with it, are issues of some significance to the Bible-believing Christian community. Most obviously, the discussion of the nature of the creation days is a part of what has been one of the most important sustained theological issues in the Western world over the last century or so: the resolution of the conflicting truth claims of historic Christianity and modern secularism which uses a naturalistic view of evolution as its prop. The doctrine of creation undergirds all truth. Creation and providence are a constant revelation of God, rendering all men inexcusable before him. The issues among us are more specific than the doctrine of creation as such. Among the vast number of biblical texts about creation, we are primarily discussing the exegesis of Genesis 1. For these reasons a sane and restrained discussion of the creation days is warranted, and may prove to be helpful to the whole Christian community as we seek to take every thought captive and make ourselves ready to give an apologia for the hope that is in us.

In this light, it seems wise to offer an historical assessment of the church’s views on the creation days, in order to provide a helpful framework for the current debate. We do not appeal to this history as finally authoritative; the Bible alone must have the final word. But a recounting of history may provide for us some helpful boundaries in this debate and give us a sense of what the best theological minds of the ages have done with this issue.

In the fourteen centuries prior to the Westminster Assembly numerous commentaries on the days of creation in Genesis 1-2 were produced. Frank Egleston Robbins in his The Hexaemeral Literature: A Study of the Greek and Latin Commentaries on Genesis (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1912) lists more than 130 authors of works on the six days of creation from Origen in the 3rd century to John Milton in the 17th century. Robert Letham in his more recent article ‘In the Space of Six Days’: The Days of Creation from Origen to the Westminster Assembly, Westminster Theological Journal 61:2 (Fall 1999), adds several more to the list, including many whose writings the Westminster Divines would have known.

Out of all of this literature it is possible to distinguish two general schools of thought on the nature of the six days. One class of interpreters tends to interpret the days figuratively or allegorically (e.g., Origen and Augustine), while another class interprets the days as normal calendar days (e.g., Basil, Ambrose, Bede and Calvin). From the early church, however, the views of Origen, Basil, Augustine and Bede seem to have had the greatest influence on later thinking. While they vary in their interpretation of the days, all recognize the difficulty presented by the creation of the sun on the fourth day.

Origen (c. 185-254), in answering Celsus’ complaint that Genesis has some days before the creation of the sun, moon, and stars, and some days after, replies that Genesis 2:4 refers to the day in which God made the heaven and the earth and that God can have days without the sun providing the light (Contra Celsum, VI: 50-51). Referring to his earlier Commentary on Genesis (now lost), Origen says, In what we said earlier we criticized those who follow the superficial interpretation and say that the creation of the world happened during a period of time six days long…. (Contra Celsum, VI: 60). In his De Principiis IV, 3, 1 he says, What person of any intelligence would think that there existed a first, second, and third day, and evening and morning, without sun, moon, and stars?

Basil (330-379) opposes the allegorical tendencies of Origen and takes a more straightforward approach to the days of creation. He regards them as 24-hour days, but he acknowledges the problem of the sun being created only on the fourth day. His solution: Before the luminaries were created as its vehicles the light caused day and night by being drawn back and sent forth. This explanation drew some criticism, with the result that Basil’s brother, Gregory of Nyssa, later wrote a treatise defending his brother against those critics who alleged obscurity in the explanation of the making of the light and the later creation of the luminaries.

Although Ambrose (c. 339-397) largely followed Basil’s treatment of the six days as 24-hour days, Augustine (354-430) found Basil’s explanation of the light and darkness on the first three days before the creation of the sun too difficult to accept. It is partly for this reason that Augustine says in The City of God XI, 6, What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive… Puzzled as to when God created time, with the sun (by which our normal days are measured) created only on the fourth day, Augustine opted for instantaneous creation, with the days of Genesis 1 being treated as six repetitions of a single day or days of angelic knowledge or some other symbolic representation. Augustine’s view, with its emphasis on instantaneous creation, would have an influence through the Middle Ages and still be held by some, such as Sir Thomas Browne, at the time of the Westminster Assembly.

With the Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) there begins a trend in which commentators preferred to understand the six days to be real days, explaining Gen 2:4 by asserting that in the latter passage dies means space of time, not day, and that all things were created at once in the sense that the first heaven and earth contained the substance of all things, i.e., matter, which with Augustine they would not admit was made wholly without form, and which was formed in six days into this world.

Bede does hold to 24-hour days, but realizes that an explanation is needed for the alternation of light and darkness in the first three days before the creation of the sun. He says that the light was divided so as to shine in the upper and not the lower parts of the earth, and that it passed under the earth, making a day of twenty-four hours with morning and evening, precisely as the sun does. In the western or Latin church some commentators, such as John Scotus Erigena, followed Augustine’s views, but most followed Bede’s approach, sometimes combining various elements from both views as in the case of Robert Grossteste (c. 1168-1253), who also emphasized the literary structure of Genesis 1 with three days of ordering and three days of parallel adornment.

On the question of the nature of the light before the creation of the sun, the Greek church, following Basil, tended to have a different explanation from the Latin church:

One school, which Bonaventure [13th century] . . .had suggested was that of the Greeks rather than the Latins, maintained that light originally came into the world in an ebb-and-flow-like manner. Day was made when light flowed into the world, night, when the light was drawn back . . .The more common opinion of the Latins was that the first light, when it came into being, had diurnal or twenty-four-hour rotation; it moved around the universe in twenty-four hours, just as the sun will when it comes into being three days hence. . .

Although the first three days might be 24-hour days, in either view they were not solar days. The eastern or Greek church also entertained a variety of views on the days of creation, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Diodore of Tarsus, and Theodoret teaching more fanciful versions than that of Basil.

In the 16th century the Protestant Reformers mainly wanted to distance themselves from fanciful allegorizations of the days of creation-which is how they regarded Augustine’s solution to the problem of the nature of the days. Martin Luther acknowledged some of the difficulties in Genesis 1, alluding to Jerome’s comment that the Rabbis prohibited anyone under thirty from expounding this chapter, but he clearly held to six 24-hour days. The issue of the sun being created on the fourth day lingered in the interpretation of the Reformers and Puritans. John Calvin in his Commentary on Genesis 1:14 says of the fourth day:

God had before created the light, but he now institutes a new order in nature, that the sun should be dispenser of diurnal light, and the moon and stars should shine by night. And he assigns them this office, to teach us that all creatures are subject to his will, and execute what he enjoins upon them.

Commenting on the creation of light on the first day in Genesis 1:3, Calvin pursues the same theme of God’s sovereignty:

It did not, however, happen from inconsideration or by accident, that the light preceded the sun and the moon. To nothing are we more prone than to tie down the power of God to those instruments, the agency of which he employs. The sun and moon supply us with light: and, according to our notions, we so include this power to give light in them, that if they were taken away from the world, it would seem impossible for any light to remain. Therefore the Lord, by the very order of the creation, bears witness that he holds in his hand the light, which he is able to impart to us without the sun and the moon.

Then he goes on to say:

Further, it is certain, from the context, that the light was so created as to be interchanged with darkness. But it may be asked, whether light and darkness succeeded each other in turn through the whole circuit of the world; or whether the darkness occupied one half of the circle, while light shone in the other. There is, however, no doubt that the order of their succession was alternate, but whether it was everywhere day at the same time, and everywhere night also, I would rather leave undecided; nor is it very necessary to be known.

Calvin does not directly address the issue of the exact nature of the days of creation in the 1559 edition of his Institutes but rather, discouraging speculation, refers his readers in a straightforward manner to the text of Genesis and to the help of such earlier commentaries as Basil’s Hexaemeron and the Hexaemeron of Ambrose. It should be noted that these commentators are explicit in their endorsement of a 24-hour view of the Genesis days.

Calvin, along with the other Reformers, rejected the Augustinian approach to the Genesis days. For Calvin, God did not merely accommodate himself to his people in the way he explained his creative work, God actually accommodated himself in the way he performed his creative work: it is too violent a cavil to contend that Moses distributes the work which God perfected at once into six days, for the mere purpose of conveying instruction. Let us rather conclude that God himself took the space of six days, for the purpose of accommodating his works to the capacity of men.

The implication of the sun’s being created on the fourth day apparently was lurking in the mind of the great Puritan theologian of the late Elizabethan period, William Perkins, who wrote in his Exposition of …the Creede:

some may aske in what space of time did God make the world? I answer, God could have made the world, and all things in it in one moment: but hee beganne and finished the whole worke in sixe distinct daies. In the first day hee made the matter of all things and the light: …in the fourth day hee made the Sunne, the Moone, and the Starres in heaven: …and in the ende of the sixth day hee made man. Thus in sixe distinct spaces of time, the Lord did make all things…

Some have seen in Perkins’ paraphrasing of six distinct days with six distinct spaces of time an acknowledgment that the nature of at least the first three days may not be clear, while others view him as holding the view of the Genesis days as normal calendar days.

With that background for the Westminster Assembly, whose members were well acquainted with the works of Calvin and of Perkins as well as of William Ames and their respected contemporary Anglican Archbishop of Ireland James Ussher, what are we to make of their incorporation of the phrase in the space of six days in The Confession of Faith and Catechisms? Clearly the use of in the space of six days, and not simply in six days, is intended at least to differ with the view of instantaneous creation as advocated by Augustine and those like him. The specific language appears to be picked up from the Irish Articles of Ussher, who like Perkins and Ames may have derived the terminology from Calvin.

Brief commentaries on Genesis 1 or on creation have come down to us from only a few of the Westminster Divines. John White, John Ley, John Lightfoot, George Walker, and William Twisse-all prominent members of the Westminster Assembly-held to six 24-hour days of creation. Lightfoot and Walker also expressed even more specific views on the days of creation; they wrote that creation must have occurred on the equinox, but Lightfoot claimed on the autumnal equinox, while Walker said on the vernal equinox. Lightfoot also asserted that the first day was 36 hours long and that the fall of Adam and Eve occurred on the sixth day, Adam having been created around 9 a.m. and Eve having been tempted around 12 noon. Such specific speculation was not incorporated into the confessional documents. Nor was the expression in the space of six 24-hour days, a specific qualifier that was proposed with regard to the Sabbath, but rejected by the Assembly.

Two differing interpretations of the Assembly’s meaning are currently being articulated by historians of Westminster. One view says that the Assembly shows the same reticence as Calvin and the caution of Perkins with his use of six distinct days or six distinct spaces of time and that, therefore, the Confession supports an understanding of the creative days of Genesis as representing a real ordered sequence, over against instantaneous creation, but the question remains whether the phrase in the space of six days is necessarily to be understood as six 24-hour days. The other view is that the Confession’s phrase in the space of six days actually means six normal calendar days. This view grants that the Assembly meant to rule out the Augustinian instantaneous view, but not merely to do that. Those who hold this position note that there is no evidence that any member of the Assembly held to a view other than the 24-hour view of the Genesis days and that the only primary evidence that we currently possess from the writings of the Divines or from the Irish Articles indicates that the phrase was an affirmation of the Calendar Day view.

Before we move on to review the history of the interpretation of the Genesis days to the present, it seems appropriate to draw some conclusions from the first half of our study. First, it is apparent that there existed in the church prior to the Reformation two broad tendencies in the interpretation of the Genesis days: one more figurative, the other more literal-the Calendar Day view. Second, the Calendar Day view was advocated in both the eastern and western parts of the church (Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose and Bede), as was the figurative view (Origen, John Scotus Erigena and Augustine). Third, the Calendar Day view appears to be the majority view amongst influential commentators. Certainly, it is the only view held by contemporary Reformed theologians that is explicitly articulated in early Christianity. Fourth, the issue of the length of the creation days was apparently not taken up in any ecclesiastical council and never became a part of any of the early ecumenical creedal statements. Fifth, the Reformers explicitly rejected the Augustinian figurative or allegorical approach to the Genesis days on hermeneutical grounds. Sixth, the Westminster Assembly codified this rejection, following Calvin, Perkins and Ussher, in the Westminster Confession. Seventh, there is no primary evidence of diversity within the Westminster Assembly on the specific issue of whether the creation days are to be interpreted as calendar days or figurative days. Such primary witnesses as we have either say nothing (the majority) or else specify that the days are calendar days.

As we look at views of the creation days after Westminster, we find little if any difference over the matter within the Reformed community until the nineteenth century. The earliest commentators on the Confession and Catechisms (Watson, Vincent, Ridgeley, Henry, Fisher, Doolittle, Willison, Boston, Brown and others) affirm six days without the kind of specificity that John Lightfoot provides, reject the Augustinian view, and generally concentrate more on the assertion of creation ex nihilo. This suggests that there was no significant diversity on the matter of the nature of the creation days in the Reformed community between 1650 and 1800. Indeed, it would be 1845 before a commentary on the Confession or Catechisms would explicitly discuss varying views of the Genesis days.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, prior to Darwin and in the wake of the new geology, Reformed Christians began to take a different look at the Genesis days. It was during this time that the two oldest alternatives to the Calendar Day view were developed: the Gap Theory and the Day-Age view. The Gap Theory was held by Thomas Chalmers and for a time by Charles Hodge. It is found in the original Scofield Bible. The Day-Age view, in varying forms and with varying emphases was adopted by orthodox Reformed divines on both sides of the Atlantic: Charles and A. A. Hodge, Warfield, Shedd and others in America, Shaw, Miller, James Orr, and Donald MacDonald in Britain. Kuyper and Bavinck in the Netherlands did not hold to the Calendar Day view, but are difficult to categorize in our terms. Meanwhile, the Calendar Day view continued to be articulated alongside these newer views by significant theologians and educators in Britain and America: Hugh Martin in Scotland, Ashbel Green, Robert L. Dabney, John L. Girardeau in the United States.

Several things ought to be noted about this transition. First, the propounding of these newer views apparently did not provoke ecclesiastical sanctions by the various Presbyterian bodies in which these men held membership. Second, the most famous nineteenth-century commentators on the Confession (Shaw, Hodge, Beattie and Warfield) all held day-age views and asserted that the Confession was unspecific on the matter. Beattie succinctly articulates their view:

It is not necessary to discuss at length the meaning of the term days here used. The term found in the Standards is precisely that which occurs in Scripture. Hence, if the word used in Scripture is not inconsistent with the idea of twenty-four hours, or that of a long period of time, the language of the Standards cannot be out of harmony with either idea. There is little doubt that the framers of the Standards meant a literal day of twenty-four hours, but the caution of the teaching on this point in simply reproducing Scripture is worthy of all praise. The door is open in the Standards for either interpretation, and the utmost care should be taken not to shut that door at the bidding of a scientific theory against either view.

Third, there were however a number of voices of concern raised by nineteenth-century Calvinists about these newer views. Ashbel Green, for instance, could say in his Lectures on the Shorter Catechism (1841):

Some recent attempts have been made to show that the days of creation, mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis, should be considered not as days which consist of a single revolution of the earth, but as periods comprehending several centuries. But all such ideas, however learned or ingeniously advocated, I cannot but regard as fanciful in the extreme; and what is worse, as introducing such a method of treating the plain language of Scripture, as is calculated to destroy all confidence in the volume of inspiration.

Dabney added his own expressions of concern in his Lectures on Systematic Theology (1871). Fourth, while Hodge, Shaw, Mitchell, Warfield, Samuel Baird and Beattie held that the Confession is non-committal on the issue of the nature of the creation days, James Woodrow and Edward Morris (neither of whom held to a Calendar Day view) both held that the Confession did teach a Calendar Day view, and Woodrow declared his view to be an exception to the Confession. Woodrow continued to teach his view until he became an advocate of theistic evolution-a position which led to his removal from his teaching post.

In the latter part of the nineteenth-century, there were vigorous theological discussions about evolution and the Genesis account, but none of them was primarily focused on the nature of the creation days. General assemblies of the Southern Presbyterian church declared theistic evolution to be out of accord with Scripture and the Confession on four occasions (1886, 1888, 1889, 1924). This position was renounced by the PCUS in 1969. Meanwhile, in the Northern Presbyterian church, most notably old school Princeton, there was a greater openness to integration of dominant biological theories of the day. During the twentieth century, there has generally been an allowed diversity, if not without controversy, among the various conservative Presbyterian churches on the matter of the creation days. Many Reformed stalwarts have held to some form of the Day-Age view (Machen, Allis, Buswell, Harris and Schaeffer among them). Additionally, by the 1960s the Framework view was growing in popularity in the Reformed community. The following declaration of the Presbytery of Central Mississippi (PCUS 1970) is representative of some conservative Presbyterians that founded the PCA:

God performed his creative work in six days. (We recognize different interpretations of the word day and do not feel that one interpretation is to be insisted upon to the exclusion of all others.)

At the same time the Calendar Day view was likely the most widely held view in the church.

What then accounts for the current state of controversy? There was a diversity of opinion on the nature of the creation days at the inception of the PCA in 1973, and when Joining and Receiving was accomplished with the RPCES in 1982 an even greater diversity existed amongst the teaching eldership, without its being a controversial issue. Why then are we now experiencing serious tensions over the issue of the creation days?

That is a difficult question to answer, but we offer the following surmises:

First, the four most prominent views of the creation days in the PCA are (in no particular order) the 24-hour view, the Day-Age view, the Framework view and the Analogical Day view. The Framework view was not widely held at the founding of the PCA, although it does not seem to have become controversial until recently. The Analogical Day view in its most recent expression was not circulated broadly until the 1990s. Presbyterians do not like to be surprised and that probably accounts for some of the unfriendly reactions to these views.

Second, the Christian Reconstructionist community has heavily emphasized the doctrine of creation in general and the 24-hour Day view in particular as a test of orthodoxy. Their arguments have been widely read and are influential in PCA circles.

Third, the home-schooling curricula used by many in the PCA often come from a young-earth creationist perspective, with its attendant polemic against non-literal views. This has been influential in PCA homes and congregations.

Fourth, there is a conviction among many that Christians are engaged in culture wars for the very survival of the Christian heritage and worldview. Reformed Christians rightly agree that the doctrine of creation lies at the basis of the Christian worldview. Criticisms or questions about the calendar-day exegesis may be perceived as questioning the doctrine of creation itself. Calendar-day proponents are used to this coming from outside the church, but not from within and therefore have labeled the non-Calendar Day proponents as accommodating the secular culture. The mutual trading of accusations has certainly raised the temperature of the debate.

Fifth, there have always been men in the PCA who held similar sentiments to Ashbel Green, Dabney, Girardeau and others, that is, they feared that non-literal approaches to the Genesis days undercut the inspiration and authority of Scripture. As these men and their disciples have become aware of the increasing numbers of men in the PCA who hold non-Calendar Day views of the Genesis days, they have-not surprisingly-become more concerned.

Sixth, the advent of the Intelligent Design Movement has put the matter of the Bible and Science back on the front pages of theological discussion. The leadership of the Intelligent Design Movement makes it a point to be non-committal on the age of the earth or the nature of the Genesis days. Thus, Calendar Day proponents are taking pains to reassert their view.

Seventh, the proponents of the newer non-Calendar Day views of the creation days (Kline, Futato, Irons, Collins and others) believe that they have significant hermeneutical insights into Genesis 1 that have not been sufficiently addressed by those who hold to a Calendar Day view. This may be so. However, as has been the case with other issues some of their students and disciples have gone before presbyteries without sufficient knowledge or humility and sought to criticize the Calendar Day view. Thus these licensure and ordination examinations have provoked adverse reactions. On the other hand the motives of those holding the non-Calendar Day views have sometimes been uncharitably judged.

Eighth and finally, it is probably fair to say that the PCA is more self-consciously, consistently and thoroughly committed to Reformed theology now than it was at its inception. The major contributing factor to this is that most PCA ordinands are now educated in theological seminaries that are explicitly evangelical and Reformed in apologetic approach, biblical studies, and theology whereas the ministry of the PCA in the early 1970's had been largely educated in neo-orthodox denominational institutions where they had to struggle just to keep their evangelical convictions intact. Hence, there are higher expectations in examinations and more wide-ranging questioning in presbyteries-including the area of creation. Rather than being a sign of theological downgrade, the tension is an indicator of greater theological awareness.

Conclusion

A survey of recent PCA history and practice yields the following. First, it has been assumed in the conservative Reformed community for more than 150 years (on the strength of the witness of Shaw, Hodge, Mitchell and Warfield) that the Confession articulates no particular position on the nature and duration of the creation days and that one’s position on the subject is a matter of indifference. Second, and in that light, many of the founding fathers of the PCA took their ordination vows in good conscience while holding to non-literal views of the creation days or while holding to that issue as a matter of indifference. It would be less than charitable for any of us to view them as unprincipled. Third, recent primary evidence uncovered by David Hall and others has convinced many that what the Westminster Assembly meant by its phrase in the space of six days was six calendar days. Fourth, one hears from some the complaint that the PCA has ‘broadened’ and from others that it has ‘narrowed’ in its tolerance of positions on the days of creation. There is, perhaps, something to be said for both these perceptions since there appears to be advocacy for change in the PCA in both broader and narrower directions.

For instance, in light of the discovery and/or interpretation of new historical evidence regarding the Confession’s teaching on creation, some who hold to an exclusive Calendar Day view have been encouraged to press vigorously for the whole denomination to adhere to that view and that view only. This would be, irrefutably, a change in the practice of the PCA. But those who hold this view justify the change on constitutional and biblical grounds. Their argument goes like this: we now know that the constitution explicitly expounds a 24-hour day view and thus any deviation from that is a contradiction of it, no matter what our past practice has been. Furthermore, they say, the acceptance of the Calendar Day view is an indication of one’s commitment to Scriptural authority. Hence, when this or like views are advanced, some rightly perceive a move to bring about a narrowing change in the PCA.

On the other hand, others advocate that the PCA now make explicit what they consider to have been its implicit allowance of latitude on this issue. That is, they believe that because the PCA has had a limited but broadly practiced implicit latitude on the matter of the nature and length of the creation days we should now make that latitude explicit and more uniform and comprehensive. This, too, entails an advocacy for change. For instance, the only widely held alternative to the Calendar Day view held at the beginnings of the PCA was the Day-Age view. The Framework view was not widely embraced or understood by the PCA ministry in 1973, and the Analogical view of the Genesis days, as it is now promulgated, was unknown. Thus, those who advocate that we make explicit our implicit latitude intend that we acknowledge as legitimate and consistent with the Confession views that were either generally unknown or non-extant at the time of the PCA’s formation. Furthermore, they do not want presbyteries to note such views or consider them exceptions or restrict their being taught. Hence, when this or like views are expressed, some rightly perceive a move to bring about a broadening change in the PCA.

There is a third way to avoid such potentially provocative changes from our earlier practice in 1973, declining the more extreme wishes of both the exclusive 24-hour side and the totally inclusivist side. Retaining our practice of 1973 would be to retain the original boundaries of that widely held earlier understanding of the PCA’s constitution, receiving both the Six Calendar Day and the Day-Age interpretations without constitutional objection, as was the habit in 1973, but noting that any other views were different and ought to be considered carefully by the Presbyteries in light of their historic patterns. This is the only way to both protect the rights of Presbyteries to set the terms of licensure and ordination and at the same time preclude either a narrowing or a broadening of our historic 1973 practice. It should be acknowledged, however, that there are presbyteries that do in fact receive men holding other views without requiring an exception, provided the men can affirm the historicity of Gen 1-3 and do reject evolution.

III. Brief Definitions

The CSC recognizes that definition of terms has been a significant problem in this particular debate. Often those asking questions and those giving answers have misunderstood one another because they did not share a common understanding of the specialized terminology connected with the interpretation of Genesis 1-3 and the issue of origins. We are far from claiming that the debate is only a matter of semantics and that it would be diffused if we merely clarified our usages. Nevertheless, we unanimously agree that a better grasp of the nuances of meanings of certain terms could greatly help our current discussion of this matter. Thus, the CSC has developed the following working definitions to help sharpen the denotation and connotation of those who engage in debate upon these matters.

We here summarize the definitions of key terms in our own discussions: literal, historical, creationism, evolution, science, and harmonization. We also define some key linguistic and philosophical terms that clarify some of the issues. For more detailed treatment of these matters, please see the Appendices.

1. Literal

Hermeneutical sense: the meaning the author intended (focuses on communication from author to original audience). Does not exclude beforehand figurative descriptions, anthropomorphisms, hyperbole.

Literalistic sense: take the text in its most physical terms, without allowance for figures of speech (focuses on surface meaning). This tends to equate surface meaning with intended meaning.

When we pursue a properly literal interpretation, only the hermeneutical sense of literal has priority for us.

2. Historical

A record of something the author wants us to believe actually happened in the space-time world.

This does not decide ahead of time such things as whether the manner of description is free from figurative elements, or whether the account is complete in detail, or whether things must be narrated in the order in which they occurred (unless the author himself claims it).

3. Linguistic terms

a. Poetical.

Popular definition: poetical language does not require an historical referent for its power.

Linguistic/literary definition: the focus is on the kind of language and literary style-there may be rhythm; but especially there will be imaginative descriptions and attempts to enable the reader to feel what it was like to be there. Does not of itself oppose historicity.

Those who would employ the term poetical for the creation account should clarify the sense in which they are using the term and the conclusions they wish to draw from it.

b. Analogy.

Similarity in some respects between things otherwise unlike. The key to understanding an analogy is therefore discerning the points of similarity and of difference.

Two kinds of analogy that are important for theology are:

Metaphor: an implicit analogy, that is, we do not find the words like or as in the statement, we infer them (e.g. you are the salt of the earth; the tongue is a fire).

Anthropomorphism: speaking about God as if he had human form or attributes (e.g., let your ears be attentive and your eyes be open to hear the prayer of your servant [Neh 1:6]; in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he ceased from labor and was refreshed [Exod 31:17]).

We must carefully resist any notion that a statement containing a metaphor or anthropomorphism is only a metaphor, as if this sort of language is unsuited to God, or as if such figures are contrary to historicity.

4. Philosophical terms

Equivocation (technical sense): a fallacy committed if we use words in different senses without distinction; or if we assume that what is true for one sense is true of the other senses.

Equivocation (popular usage): the use of a word in a different sense than the hearer is likely to understand it, or to be deliberately ambiguous.

Metaphysics: one’s convictions as to what the world is like, how its parts interact with one another, and what role God has in it all.

Naturalism: a metaphysical position that the world exists on its own, and that God exerts no influence on any object or event in the world.

Deism: the view that God made the world, but that he no longer involves himself in its workings.

Catastrophism: the view that geological phenomena were caused by catastrophic disturbances of nature, rather than by continuous and uniform processes. Flood geology is a form of catastrophism, which explains many features of the world by the catastrophic flood of Noah’s time. Although geological catastrophism is generally connected with young earth geology, the connection is not a necessary one.

Uniformitarianism: the view that, since natural laws do not change, the processes now operating are sufficient to explain the geological history of the earth. There are two forms of uniformitarianism:

Methodological uniformitarianism: the view that, though the processes have always been the same, nevertheless their rates and intensities may have varied over the earth’s history (and therefore the earth’s history may in fact include catastrophic upheavals). This is a very common position in modern geology. This position of itself does not deny the possibility of an historical flood in Noah’s day, or of miracles.

Substantive uniformitarianism: the view that, over the course of the earth’s history, the intensities and rates of the geological processes have remained the same. This position, associated with Charles Lyell’s 1830 Principles of Geology, is not widely held by modern geologists.

5. Creationism.

General meaning: affirms that the universe is a creation of God, and hence that a world-view such as naturalism is untrue.

Young earth creationism: the belief that the earth and universe are less than about 15,000 years old. This is commonly connected with the calendar day interpretation of Genesis 1. Some adherents of the Calendar Day view, however, do not take a position on the age of the earth; and some adherents of the other views do not require that the earth be old.

Old earth creationism: creationism that allows that the natural sciences accurately conclude that the universe is old (i.e. millions or even billions of years).

Two sub-categories of old-earth creationism:

- theistic evolution: belief that natural processes sustained by God’s ordinary providence are God’s means of bringing about life and humanity.

- progressive creationism: belief that second causes sustained by God’s providence are not the whole story, but that instead God has added supernatural, creative actions to the process, corresponding to the fiats of Genesis 1.

Some confusion can arise because progressive creationists vary in the degree of biological change they are willing to countenance in between the creative events.

The progressive creationists and the young earth creationists agree on a key point: namely that natural processes and ordinary providence are not adequate to explain the world. They both fall into the category of supernatural creationists or special creationists.

6. Evolution

Basic meaning: change over time. (Simply a descriptive claim, with no comment on how the change took place.)

Biological evolution (neutral sense): genetic change over time. (This makes no comment on where those changes came from, or on how extensive they can be.)

Naturalistic evolution (neo-Darwinism): The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments (National Association of Biology Teachers). This rules out any supernatural activity of God in the origin and development of life and of humans, and hence makes a naturalistic metaphysic the basis of science.

Theistic evolution:

- precise sense: God designed a world which has within itself all the capacities to develop life and its diversity.

- broader senses: some apply the term to all brands of old-earth creationism; some apply it to versions of old-earth creationism that allow large-scale biological development (e.g. all mammals share a common ancestor); some apply it to any view that allows common ancestry for all living things.

- Woodrow/Warfield theistic evolution: Adam’s body was the product of evolutionary development (second causes working alone), and his special creation involved the imparting of a rational soul to a highly-developed hominid.

We employ the precise sense of theistic evolution because of its clarity and its relation to Darwinism.

Micro-evolution: genetic variations over time (or evolution) within certain limits (i.e. within a type or kind).

Macro-evolution: evolution that crosses the boundary of kinds.

7. Science

Loaded definition: science is limited to explaining the natural world by means of natural processes (National Science Teachers Association).

Proposed replacement: The sciences are disciplines that study features of the world around us, looking for regularities as well as attempting to account for causal relations. In the causal chains we allow all relevant factors (including supernatural ones) to be considered.

8. Harmonization

When we speak of finding a harmonization of two accounts, we mean that though they have the appearance of being at odds, we want to find a way of adjusting our understanding of one or both of them so as to allow them to agree. At its heart, this enterprise assumes that the data from the two sources are true, but our interpretations of the data may need adjustment.

This revision of interpretations works both ways: a theological conviction may properly be used to reject a natural science position. However, we do not seriously consider core Christian doctrines as open to revision on the basis of natural science.

Harmonization of our interpretation of the Bible and our interpretation of the natural world is proper when:

• the scientific result in question does not require a world-view antithetical to the Biblical one;
• the concerns of the scientific result are the same as those of the Biblical passage;
• the scientific interpretation will stand the test of time.

The result of all this is that we cannot make a blanket statement about harmonizations, other than be careful! We should be cautious about trumpeting our harmonization as proving the Bible is right, in view of the factors mentioned here; on the other hand, under certain circumstances we can show that a harmonization is plausible so the disputer cannot say that he has proved the Bible wrong. Nor should we reject out of hand efforts to integrate the results of exegesis with the tentative conclusions of the sciences.

9. General Revelation

Definition of General Revelation

In its very first sentence, the Westminster Confession of Faith recognizes a source of revelation from the light of nature and the works of creation and providence. Numerous Reformed theologians have discussed this revelation using the term general revelation, to distinguish it from the special revelation of Holy Scripture. This revelation is general because it comes to all men everywhere, and is sufficient, as the Confession states, to leave men inexcusable because of its testimony to the goodness, wisdom and power of God.

Berkhof in his well-known Systematic Theology comments:

The Bible testifies to a twofold revelation of God: a revelation in nature round about us, in human consciousness, and in the providential government of the world; and a revelation embodied in the Bible as the Word of God.

With regard to the former he references the following passages of Scripture: Ps. 19:1,2; Acts 14:17; Rom 1: 19,20. He goes on to quote Benjamin Warfield, who distinguishes between general and special revelation in these words:

The one is addressed generally to all intelligent creatures, and is therefore accessible to all men; the other is addressed to a special class of sinners, to whom God would make known His salvation. The one has in view to meet and supply the natural need of creatures for knowledge of their God; the other to rescue broken and deformed sinners from their sin and its consequences.

With this foundation, Berkhof then defines general revelation in the following words:

General revelation is rooted in creation, is addressed to man as man, and more particularly to human reason, and finds its purpose in the realization of the end of his creation, to know God and thus enjoy communion with Him.

IV. Description of the main interpretations of Genesis 1-3 and the Creation Days

One of the difficulties in the current discussion regarding the proper interpretation of the Genesis account of creation is understanding the various views. With the exception of the Calendar Day view and the Day-Age view, other views are often misunderstood. Friend and foe alike struggle to describe and explain the nuances of some of these views. Consequently, confusion and suspicion often result. In order to address this problem, the CSC has determined to provide a brief description of the main views represented in the PCA, as well as a few other lesser known views. We have attempted to state the views in such a way that its proponents would approve, while at the same time avoiding a polemical tone. The Objections section gathered objections from opposing positions, and in some cases offers responses to them. Such an objective presentation of the various views or interpretations may thus prove useful to the church in bringing a satisfactory resolution to the current controversy.

A. The Calendar-Day Interpretation

Definition of the Position

The Bible teaches that God created of nothing all things in six days, by which Moses meant six calendar days. The view is often called the literal view, the traditional view, or the twenty-four-hour view.

Description of the Position

Those holding the Calendar-Day view are fully committed to Bavinck’s affirmation regarding the importance of the doctrine of creation. There is no existence apart from God, and the Creator can only be known truly through revelation. Elsewhere he says, The doctrine of creation, affirming the distinction between the Creator and His creatures, is the starting point of true religion. Creation is thus more than just about the age of the earth and the evolutionary origins of humanity, important as these questions are.

It is often suggested that the important thing to learn from Genesis 1 is that God is the creator, but not the details about creation. It is the conviction of those holding the Calendar-Day view that the length of the days is a detail that is ‘truthful and exact’ and is thus an essential part of the creation account.

The Lutheran scholar H. C. Leupold speaks very pointedly to this subject. It is not a case of either - or, but of both - and.

The details are truthful, exact and essential, being in all their parts truth itself. Only since this is the case, are the broad, basic truths conveyed by the account also of infinite moment and in themselves divinely revealed truth. Faith in inspiration, as taught by the Scriptures, allows for no other possibility.

The words of Dr. Sid Dyer speak of the importance of accepting Genesis 1 in a literal sense:

Forsaking the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 reduces its revelatory significance. The literary framework hypothesis reduces the entire chapter to a general statement that God created everything in an orderly fashion. How God actually did create is left unanswered. We end up with too much saying too little. The literal interpretation, on the other hand, takes the entire chapter in its full revelatory significance. Rather than seeing Genesis 1 as presenting God as a creative author, it sees God as the author of creation, who brought it into being by His spoken word.

We thus look upon the Church’s shrinking from acceptance of the plain meaning of the creation account, no matter how innocent the intent, as opening the door to the undermining of the credibility of her gospel message

The Calendar-Day view may be described very simply. It accepts the first chapter of Genesis as historical and chronological in character, and views the creation week as consisting of six twenty-four hour days, followed by a twenty-four hour Sabbath. Since Adam and Eve were created as mature adults, so the rest of creation came forth from its maker. The Garden included full-grown trees and animals, which Adam named. Those holding this view believe this is the normal understanding of the creation account, and that this has been the most commonly held understanding of this account both in Jewish and Christian history.

This view accepts the Genesis account of creation as historical narrative. In answer to the claims of some evangelicals that Genesis 1 is poetical in character, the late Dr. Edward J. Young of Westminster Seminary says:

To escape from the plain factual statements of Genesis some Evangelicals are saying that the early chapters of Genesis are poetry or myth, by which they mean that they are not to be taken as straightforward accounts, and that the acceptance of such a view removes the difficulties…To adopt such a view, they say, removes all troubles with modern science…Genesis is not poetry. There are poetical accounts of creation in the Bible-Psalm 104, and certain chapters in Job-and they differ completely from the first chapter of Genesis. Hebrew poetry had certain characteristics, and they are not found in the first chapter of Genesis. So the claim that Genesis One is poetry is no solution to the question.

The literary structure of Genesis 1-3 favors the calendar-day understanding of the text. Typical of Hebrew narrative one finds in Genesis 1:1, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, a general introductory statement regarding all of creation. As Douglas Kelly says,

The writer of Genesis could not have made a broader statement than that. ‘Heavens and the earth’ is a way of saying ‘everything that exists’, whether galaxies, nebulae or solar systems, all things from the farthest reaches of outer space to the smallest grain of sand or bacterial microbe on planet earth; absolutely everything was created by God.

Having thus introduced the subject of creation the remainder of the chapter speaks more particularly of how God created the heavens and the earth, with particular reference to the earth. This whole account stands as an introduction to the rest of the Book of Genesis and of the whole Bible. The very next verse, Genesis 2:4, is important for the structure of Genesis, it stands in the Hebrew text like a great signpost on a major highway, pointing the way forward into the rest of the book. Its words ‘These are the generations’ (in Hebrew toledoth) offers a clue that this is where the second part of Genesis begins, with a great narrowing down of emphasis from the whole creation to one selected area, namely, the story of mankind.

Genesis 2 is thus not seen as a second account of creation, but rather as a detailing of the particulars regarding man, his creation, the Garden of Eden, the creation of woman, the probation and fall. In chapter 3 we are brought to the purpose of the rest of the Bible, namely, the account of God’s redemption of sinners.

The Calendar-Day view takes at face value the words of the text of Genesis 1. There is a three-fold usage of the word day (yôm ) in the Genesis account. In each case the context is so clear that there is no question as to which meaning is intended. For example, the light is called day (verse 5) and the darkness is called night, and in the same verse the phrase there was evening and there was morning, one day. Also the whole week of creation is called the day in which the Lord created (Genesis 2:4). The meaning of the word day in each case is clear from the context.

The length of the creation days is the same as the length of any other day (yôm) found elsewhere in Scripture. That this is the proper understanding of the length of the day is to be seen in the fact that everywhere that the Bible uses the word day (yôm) as modified by an ordinal (as ‘Day One’ and ‘Day Two’) it always means normal solar day.

Having created light and separated the day and night, God had completed His first day’s work. The evening and the morning were the first day. This same formula is used at the conclusion of each of the six days of creation. It is thus obvious that the duration of each of the days, including the first, was the same. Beginning with the first day and continuing through the sixth day, there was established a cyclical succession of days and nights-periods of light and periods of darkness. The formula there was evening and there was morning is used as a connective between the days of the creation week, and thus does not occur following the seventh day, because a description of the eighth day does not follow. That obviously does not mean there was not an eighth day, or that the seventh day continues indefinitely. Adam and Eve in the Garden observed their first full day as a Sabbath of rest and communion with God.

Henry Morris says:

In the first chapter of Genesis, the termination of each day’s work is noted by the formula: ‘And the evening and the morning were the first [or second, etc.] day.’ Thus each ‘day’ had distinct boundaries and was one in a series of days, both of which criteria are never present in the Old Testament writings unless literal days are intended. The writer of Genesis was trying to guard in every way possible against any of his readers deriving the notion of non-literal days from his record.

Though the creation of the sun and moon did not occur until the fourth day, this is not a problem for the Calendar-Day view. The Book of Revelation indicates that there will not be sun or moon, but God will be the light of the new heavens and the new earth. Thus, for God, the sun and moon are not necessary as light bearers. The first three days were not technically solar days (not governed by the position of the earth in relation to the sun), but the Bible indicates that their lengths are measured in the same way as the last three, which are true solar days.

The New Testament in its various citations of and allusions to Genesis 1-11 clearly assumes the plain, historical/chronological understanding of the creation, the establishment of the family, the fall, the curse and the unfolding of the coming redemption. This favors the Calendar-Day view of Genesis 1. Douglas Kelly cites Hubert Thomas, who has examined the New Testament allusions to the creation as follows:

In effect three main points are demonstrated by reading the list we provide. These three points confirm that the New Testament can in no case whatsoever be appealed to in order to sustain any sort of evolutionary theory. First, without exception, references to creation and especially the citations of Genesis 1 to 11 point to historical events. It is no different than the historical death of the Lord Jesus Christ on Golgotha. As far as the New Testament is concerned, creation ex-nihilo and the creation of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, there is no legend and no parable; all deal with persons and events of historical and universal significance.

Second, without exception creation is always mentioned as a unique event which took place at a particular moment in past time. Creation took place; it was accomplished. Events occurred which corrupted the world, and now it awaits a new creation which will take place in the future at a given moment. Third, the details and recitations of the creation given in Genesis 1 to 3 are considered to be literally true, historical and also of surpassing importance. The New Testament doctrine based upon these citations would be without validity and even erroneous if the primeval events were not historically true. For instance: consider the entry of sin into the world. If Adam were not the head of the whole human race, then Jesus Christ [the last Adam] is not head of the new creation.

Documentation of the Position

David G. Hagopian, ed., The Genesis Debate (Crux Press, forthcoming in May). This work includes a defense of the Calendar-Day View by Ligon Duncan and David Hall, in addition to presentations of the Day-Age Interpretation (by Hugh Ross and Gleason Archer) and of the Framework Theory (by Lee Irons and Meredith Kline).

Joseph A. Pipa and David W. Hall, Eds., Did God Create in Six Days? (Greenville, SC: Southern Presbyterian Press and Kuyper Institute, 1999). This work is the proceedings of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s 1999 Spring Theology Conference and includes articles defining the Calendar-Day View by Morton Smith, Joey Pipa, Ben Shaw, Sid Dyer, Stuart Patterson, David Hall, and Duncan Rankin and Steve Berry. In addition, alternative positions are defended by Jack Collins, Mark Ross, and R. Laird Harris.

Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Nelson, 1998), 392-398.

Douglas F. Kelly, Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1-2.4 in the Light of Changing Scientific Paradigms (Fearn-Tain: Mentor, 1997).

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: IVP/Zondervan, 1994), 262-314.

Ken Gentry, Reformed Theology and Six Day Creationism (private, 1994).

Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Evolution and the Authority of the Bible (London: Paternoster, 1983,), 46-98.

E. J. Young, The Days of Genesis, Westminster Theological Journal 25 (1962-63): 1-34, 143-171.

R. L. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Richmond, VA: Committee of Publication, 1871), 247-256.

Strengths:

1. The Calendar-Day view is the obvious, first-impression reading of Genesis 1-3, in which each of the words is given its most common, plain meaning. This is the meaning that the author has gone to great lengths to convey. It is undoubtedly the meaning that the unsophisticated (by today’s standards) initial audience would have understood the account to have. The view is neither difficult to explain nor to justify because of its simple and straightforward relationship to the text. This fact is vitally important, for it means that the average believer today can read the Word of God and understand it without the benefit of some higher level of learning reserved only to the scholars. Thus this view best preserves the perspicuity of Scripture (WCF I.7; Psalm 119:130).

2. The Calendar-Day view raises no questions and leaves no doubt as to the historicity of Genesis 1-3.

3. The Calendar-Day view provides the basis for the theological logic of and is confirmed by the Fourth Commandment as recorded in Exodus 20:11, in which the seven-day cycle of work and rest is affirmed. The Sabbath was made for man, said our Lord Jesus (Mark 2:27).

4. The Calendar-Day view comports with the concept that Adam was the peak of God’s creation, the covenantal head and steward over all creation. It affirms that death is penal, entering the created order upon the fall (Romans 5:12). Thus, before man’s sin and the resulting curse of God, there was no death among Adam’s animal kingdom (Genesis 1:28, Genesis 2:21). Cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field (Genesis 3:14). For the creation, which God had announced to be very good, was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. (Romans 8:20-22).

5. The Calendar-Day view was that of the earliest post-canonical commentaries (e.g., Basil, Ambrose), of the medieval Scholastics (e.g., Aquinas, Lombard), of the magisterial Reformers (e.g., Luther, Calvin, Beza), and of the Puritans (e.g., Ainsworth, Ussher, Ames, Perkins, Owen, Edwards). It is the only view known to be espoused by any of the Westminster divines, which the Assembly affirmed over against the instantaneous view (e.g., Augustine, Anselm, and Colet).

6. The Calendar-Day view stands on the basis of special revelation, rather than being indebted to or dependent upon any particular ancient or modern scientific worldview, whether it be that of uniformitarian geology, Darwinian evolution, Big Bang cosmology, or even creation science. A theology wed to the science of one age is a widow in the next.

7. The Genesis 1 account builds in a logical manner from the inanimate to the animate, finally climaxing with man as the focus of creation. The use of ordinals with yôm, which is always an indication of sequence, reinforces this development. Elsewhere in the Bible, every use of the ordinal with yôm correlates with its normal-day meaning, nor has any contrary example been found in extra-biblical writings.

8. The Calendar-Day view is that of the Southern Presbyterian tap root of the PCA (e.g., Dabney, Thornwell, Girardeau), which strongly resisted attempts from abroad (e.g., Chalmers, Miller), from her Northern cousins (e.g., Hodge, Warfield), and even from within (e.g., Adger) to broaden the church on this point, as is documented in the Woodrow Evolution Controversy last century and the Continuing Church movement’s resistance to the action of the 1969 PCUS General Assembly.

Calendar-Day proponents welcome structural and linguistic analyses of the Genesis account, as long as these new tools are used in the light of analogy of Scripture and the rule of faith. Critical care, informed by a full appreciation for the exegetical and theological complexities involved, is required in order not to cast doubt on the truth, historicity, chronology, and ultimately on the meaning of the text. Far from demanding some alternative meaning, the context and markers all support the plain reading. Indeed, the author seems to have gone to great lengths to make it clear that it is this and no other meaning that he is trying to convey. Therefore, unfolding the theological and apologetical richness of the passage is not at odds with, nor does it raise any necessary objections to, the Calendar-Day view.

Objections:

1. Because of the prevailing spirit of this scientific age, the traditional view is easily caricatured as anti-intellectual and classed along with those of geo-centrists and flat-earthers. An objective study of contemporary works by scholars such as Walt Brown and Henry Morris and numerous papers in journals such as the Creation Research Society Quarterly will readily demonstrate the fallacy of this characterization.

2. Some argue that creation of the sun and moon on the fourth day provides a decisive case against the calendar-day meaning of the first through third days. The argument is that whatever the nature of the first three days, they could not have been ordinary solar days since there was no sun. This argument-first made by the ancient pagan Celsus-fails to recognize the anti-mythological polemic of Moses. Since the sun and moon were worshiped by both the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, Moses reports that God did not even create them until the fourth day, clearly demonstrating that they were therefore not necessary for the establishment of day and night, thus strongly asserting their creatureliness and the utter contingency of the created order. God Himself determines the nature of a day on the first (and every other) day, not celestial bodies or pagan objects of worship. [He also made the stars. Gen 1:16] God alone rules all of His creation, including time, which is ultimately contingent upon Him alone.

This argument against ordinary days usually focuses on the absence of solar illumination on those days, and various proposals have been put forward for alternative sources of light that could mimic solar illumination. The argument and its rebuttals are exercises in futility for a number of reasons. The first and most fundamental is that there was no observer of the light on those days except God Himself, and Scripture tells us that light and darkness are alike to Him (Psalm 139:12). Therefore, besides the irrelevance of the sun’s presence or absence, we can know nothing of the nature of those days except what God has chosen to reveal to us. And He has done that in this account in Genesis 1. Far from calling God’s veracity into question (to quote another objection lodged against the Calendar-Day view), this view simply takes God at His word. It is attempts to devise alternatives to the days He describes that question what He is able to do and what He has told us He has done. [Hath God really said?] Origen is quoted in the history section of this paper as asking the question: What person of any intelligence would think that there existed a first, second, and third day, and evening and morning, without sun, moon, and stars? The obvious answer is that the author of Genesis did, and we have no hesitation in accepting his account. After all, we all believe he wrote under the direct inspiration of the only Witness of these momentous events.

The argument concerning light before the sun was created suffers exactly the failing that the calendar-day proponents are often accused of, namely, insistence on understanding the creation account in technical, mechanistic terms. [Some attempts to rebut the objection err similarly.] Those pursuing these arguments fret over an alternative source of light, while the absence of the sun on the first three days would pose much more serious problems for any naturalistic explanation than merely the absence of its illumination would. For example, absent the gravitational potential of the sun, what determined the disposition of the earth in space? The answer is obvious: God, through the working of His supernatural providence, must have sustained the components of His as-yet-incomplete creation however He wished and set them in their natural orbits as each took its place in the incomplete creation. He is free to work without, above, or against second causes. Obviously, He chose to sustain this portion of His creation without the intermediary of secondary causes or agents.

The light issue seems to be superficial in yet another respect. What we call light, and what the early readers of this account no doubt would have understood it to mean, is visible light, which we know is but a minute fraction of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. When God created light (Gen 1:3), we surely are to understand that He created the entire panoply of wave phenomena that make possible all of the interactions that hold the components of the universe together and serve as the vehicle for all nuclear, chemical, and gravitational phenomena.

There have been various attempts to resolve the dilemma of solar days without the sun. One suggestion is that perhaps the light bearers were actually created on the first day and only appointed to their respective roles on the fourth day. Those who pursue this line of argument usually propose that these heavenly bodies were hidden (from whom?) by some sort of cloud cover until the fourth day. Except for the fact that this assumption contradicts the clear statement in verses 14-19, such a scenario would pose no difficulty to the Calendar-Day view, as it clearly does to those who posit days of eons in length. An alternative view (dating back at least as far as Basil), that is much more consistent with that proposed above, is that the light of the first three days was light emanating from God Himself, just as the description of the final state indicates that God will be the light, not the sun or moon. And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. (Rev 21:22) Thus the Bible opens with God shedding His light upon the creation and closes with the same.

3. Some have asserted that this view seems not to take science seriously and impugns the veracity of God because, on the one hand, it dismisses central conclusions of the current scientific consensus on cosmogony and, on the other hand, it supposedly requires one to view the general-revelation evidence as to the age of the earth as misleading. This criticism is based on the assumption that man is able to interpret general revelation correctly without the light of special revelation. That assumption reverses the proper principle of Biblical interpretation, which is, that special revelation must govern our understanding of general revelation. Those of us who hold the Calendar-Day view make no apology for arriving, after careful consideration of the facts, at conclusions that differ from this so-called consensus. It is not the veracity of God which is impugned but the evolutionary presuppositions of the majority (not consensus) of the scientific community whose assumptions are regularly passed off as facts. Furthermore, it seems disingenuous to fault the Calendar-Day view for differing with current scientific dogma when creationists of all stripes claim to reject the most dominant aspect of that dogma, namely, evolutionary origins of the species. One unique strength of the Calendar-Day view is that it leaves no room to accommodate any version of evolutionism, Theistic or otherwise, while some other theories seem bent on finding some common ground with it.

4. The view tends to read the text only against the background of a modern world and life view, with its interest in timing and mechanisms. This obscures the fact that the precise form as well as the content of Genesis 1 was predestined by God to be a means of grace first to Israel (and, of course, no less to us), which had a very different world view. If we are rightly to interpret the text, we must take full account of the historical process of revelation.

In answer, we contend that, if this account is historical, then it had timing and mechanisms. The only question of interest to us is whether God has chosen to reveal anything of that timing to us. We believe He went to great lengths to do so. And the only mechanism we propose is God’s speaking all things into existence and then sustaining them by means known only to Himself. As explained in section 2 above, this had to involve the exercise of supernatural providence.

As to Israel’s different world view, it would seem to us that the world view of a technically primitive people would have far more in common with our plain reading of the record than with views requiring 20th century scientific and linguistic tools. And, of course, it is views such as Day-Age that rely on mechanistic details (such as overlapping long days) that have far more in common with the prevailing scientific paradigm than with the simple picture unfolded in Genesis.

5. God created the luminaries on the fourth day ‘to serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years’ (Genesis1:14). These bodies are a kind of standard so that human beings can identify days and years. Trying to give a timing for the first three days ignores this role which Genesis 1 gives to the sun in governing the day (Genesis 1:16). This should make us hesitate to offer a timing for the first three days.

This seems to be in the character of a straw-man issue in that the sun could not have served in this assigned role during the first three days, even if it were already there, since there were no human beings present to be concerned with identifying days and years. We too would hesitate to invent or impose a timing for the first three or any other days. But we have no hesitation about accepting, at face value, what God says about them. Doing so in no way diminishes the significance of the roles for which these bodies were created nor our affirmation of those purposes.

6. Several similar objections have been expressed. They all have to do with the relationship between the account in Genesis 1 and that in the early verses of chapter 2. It is claimed that the Calendar-Day view presents a difficulty in harmonizing the accounts of Genesis 1:1-2:3 and 2:4-25 because Genesis 2:5 offers an ordinary-providence based reason for there being no shrub or herb, namely that there was no rain. The Calendar-Day view offers no explanation for the different order of narration found in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. And, In creating the garden of Eden, God caused trees to grow up (Genesis 2:9). The specific language indicates not creation in a moment, but rather a process of growth. The text gives no indication that an extraordinarily quick growth of trees is intended. The Israelite would understand the words in terms of his experience of the growth of trees. The Calendar-Day view does not explain this timing in relation to Genesis 1.

Genesis 2:9 refers to God’s causing trees to grow out of the ground while the preceding verse refers to the garden He had planted and the man He had created (NIV). While the tenses of the verbs in chapter 1 are unambiguous, those here in chapter 2 can be understood as either past or past perfect. The principle of interpretation that says one should interpret obscure passages in terms of clearer ones would suggest that it is the past perfect tense that is indicated here. Assuming the simple past tense unnecessarily introduces an apparent conflict with the timing and sequence of the account in chapter 1. This seems to be what Bavinck had in mind when he said, In the first chapter, therefore, the story of the creation of all other things (i.e., other than humanity) is told at some length and in a regular order, but the creation of humanity is reported succinctly; the second chapter presupposes the creation of heaven and earth, follows no chronological but only a topical order, and does not say when the plants and animals are created but only describes the relation in which they basically stand to human beings.

As for what the first audience would have understood, they surely would have known that Genesis 1 was an account of God’s supernatural creation of all things and would have had no difficulty in accepting this account in chapter 2 of His equally miraculous preparation of a special place for the crown of His creation. Genesis 2:4b-9 does not imply that the plants were formed after human creation, but only that the garden of Eden was planted after that event. And they surely understood that He initially created trees and not merely seeds that eventually grew into trees. If Genesis 2:4-25 is complementary to Genesis 1:1-2:3, the creation week should be longer than six calendar-days. It is only on insisting that all of the developments taking place in this extraordinary time had to have occurred via natural processes that a timing problem arises that needs to be explained. In our view there is no timing problem and we don’t feel obligated to try to explain problems inherent in others’ views.

B. The Day-Age Interpretation

In attempting to produce a template document about the Day-Age interpretation of creation for the Committee to discuss, edit, append and adopt, we divided the discussion into eight sections which we introduce with the following eight questions, the answers to which are, for us, fundamental to a fuller understanding of this view.

1. What is the ‘Day-Age’ interpretation?
2. What is the meaning of the Hebrew word Yôm?
3. Who has held a view that allows for creative days of unspecified length?
4. Is the Day-Age interpretation just a reaction to Darwinism?
5. How do you deal with the issue of death within this view?
6. How do you deal with the issue of time within this view?
7. What are the strengths of the Day-Age interpretation?
8. What are the difficulties for the Day-Age interpretation?

1. What is the ‘Day-Age’ interpretation?

The ‘Day-Age’ interpretation of the creative days in Genesis 1 has taken various forms in its contemporary expressions, and those which have been held within conservative Reformed circles are outlined below and contain certain common features. This view has been held by such conservative Reformed theologians as those from the Old Princeton Seminary tradition of the Hodges and Warfield and more recently as expressed by J. Oliver Buswell, Jr. and R. Laird Harris, both of whom were on the original faculty of Covenant Theological Seminary and taught there for many years.

The ‘six days’ are understood in the same sense as in that day of Isaiah 11:10-11 -that is, as periods of indefinite length and not necessarily of 24 hours duration. There are other similar uses of the Hebrew word for day (yôm) in Scripture to support this view of periods longer than 24 hours including that in the very context of Genesis 2:4. Another argument for this approach is that the seventh day in Genesis 1 is not concluded with the boundary phrase, and there was evening, and there was morning as with the other days, and therefore it continues, as indicated by Hebrews 4:1-11's quotation of Psalm 95:11.

The six days are taken as sequential, but as overlapping and merging into one another, much as an expression like the day of the Protestant Reformation might have only a proximate meaning and might overlap with the day of the Renaissance. While exponents of this view might be willing to concede a rough parallel between day one and day four, day two and day five, day three and day six, they would tend to deny that this is an intended parallel by Moses as author, as is commonly claimed in the Framework interpretation.

The Day-Age interpretation claims that the narrative of Genesis 1 is from the point of view of the earth as being prepared for the habitation of man. In this context, the explanation of day four is often that the sun only became visible on that day, as atmospheric conditions allowed the previous alternation of light and darkness to be perceived from the earth to have its source from the position of the previously created sun and other heavenly bodies. However day four is understood, the point is made that only on that day is the diurnal cycle of days governed by the sun begun, so that it is difficult to know the nature of the first three days.

2. What is the meaning of the Hebrew word Yôm?

The Hebrew word yôm, day, is obviously used in the Bible, like our English word ‘day,’ to mean a period of 24 hours, however, also like its English counterpart, it may be used to distinguish from the night and therefore represent a period less than 24 hours, such as in the cool of the day, and it is capable of meaning a period of unspecified length, as in the prophetic references to the day of the Lord. In fact, in Genesis 2:4 the word yôm is used in the singular to describe all that transpired in God’s creation as described as a period of six days in Genesis 1. As linguist Dr. Robert B. Longacre has communicated to the committee concerning the range of meaning of yôm:

As for the Hebrew words, yôm in the immediate vicinity of Gen 1 there occurs an obviously figurative use of the term: And these are the generations of the heavens and the earth in the day when the Lord God made the heavens and the earth (Gen 2:4). Here it is evident that all six days of creation-however conceived-are summarized as the day when the Lord God made the heavens and the earth-where the NIV simply translates the day as when.

The time of the taking of Jerusalem, sacking the City, burning its palaces, breaking up and salvaging the massive bronzeware of the temple, destroying the walls of the City, and taking people exile is referred to in Lamentations 1:20 and 2:21 as the day of God’s anger. Obviously, the events described in II Kings 25 and Jeremiah 39 took place over a period of time; and, in fact, the actual capture of the City may have spread over a month because the City then and in Roman times was cleft by the Tyropoeon valley. The taking of the newer part of the City with the wall built in Hezekiah’s time evidently occurred first. Then the Babylonian army, after catching its breath, advanced to the rest of the city where the temple mount and public buildings were located and reduced that. Pillage, burning, and consolidation of the conquest probably took even longer. The Romans in their later reduction of the City attacked first the older part and then the Western hill-in opposite order from the Babylonians. But the sacking and pillaging, as we have said above, is all referred to as the day of God’s anger in Lamentations (Lam 1:2 1)-even as those same nations rejoiced saying This is the day we have waited for (Lam 2:16).

It would be laboring the point to argue that the eschatological day of the Lord likewise most probably indicates a period of God’s judgement not a single calendar day.

It is interesting to note that two of the five Westminster Divines who are known to explicitly support 24-hour days of creation acknowledge this range of interpretation for yôm. John White in his commentary says about Genesis 2:4 in the day: That is, in that Time that it pleased God to take up in forming them, which we know was in Six days, and not in One. But we find the Word, Day, in Scripture is used commonly to signifie Time Indefinitely. John Ley in the 1645 Westminster Annotations on Genesis 2:4 in the day: The day is not here taken (as in the first Chapter and in the beginning of this) for the seventh part of the week, but with more latitude for time in general wherein a thing is done, or to be done; as verse 17 & Luke 19.42. 2 Cor 6.2. Ruth 4.5.

The interpretation of the creative days as 24-hour days is not to be determined merely by the use of the word yôm in Genesis 1.

3. Who has held a view that allows for creative days of unspecified length?

The Day-Age approach is not merely of 19th-century origin as a response to Charles Darwin and evolutionary science. From ancient times there was a recognition that the word day could mean an extended period of time, although there is no formal evidence of a ‘Day-Age’ view in orthodox Reformed circles before the time of such figures as Hugh Miller and Robert Shaw in the Free Church of Scotland. There may have been other fragmentary antecedent views that treated the creative days as longer periods, but not a thoroughly formulated Day-Age system of interpretation.

The Jewish apocalyptic Book of Jubilees, written most likely in the 2nd century B.C., says in 4:29-30: At the end of the nineteenth jubilee, during the seventh week-in its sixth year [930.]-Adam died. All his children buried him in the land where he had been created. He was the first to be buried in the ground. He lacked 70 years from 1000 years because 1000 years are one day in the testimony of heaven. For this reason it was written regarding the tree of knowledge: ‘On the day that you eat from it you will die.’ Therefore he did not complete the years of this day because he died during it.

Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430) discussed creation in five or six different places, speculating in various ways as to the meaning of the six days, but advocating mainly a position of instantaneous creation taking place in Genesis 1:1. In the City of God he said, What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive.

John Calvin used the expression in the space of six days in his Commentary on Genesis 1:5, evidently to distance himself from Augustine’s speculations and position of instantaneous creation. In the Institutes I. xiv.20, Calvin avoids recounting the history of the creation of the universe, but refers favorably to the works of Basil and Ambrose. Basil in his Hexaemeron clearly regards the sun as being created only on the Fourth Day. Likewise in Ambrose’s Hexaemeron the sun did not exist until the Fourth Day. Calvin’s Commentary on Genesis 1:14 indicates his belief that the stars, sun, and moon were made only on the Fourth Day.

William Perkins (1558-1602), like Calvin, distanced himself from a view of creation in one moment and spoke of creation in six distinct days or six distinct spaces of time, with the sun, moon, and stars not created before the fourth day.

The Westminster Divines, deriving the language of in the space of six days from Calvin, Perkins, and the Irish Articles (1615) of Archbishop James Ussher, left the duration of the days of creation unspecified in the Confession and Catechisms, perhaps out of awareness that the days before Day Four were not normal solar days. Although some members of the Westminster Assembly, particularly the great biblical scholar John Lightfoot, were explicit about 24-hour days, the main concern seems to have been to differ from instantaneous creation, a view held by such contemporaries as Sir Thomas Browne and John Milton.

Soon after the Westminster Divines, explicit evidence for the Day-Age approach appears, although among less than fully orthodox sources. Thomas Burnet (1635-1715), a chaplain to King William III until dismissed for some of his views on Genesis, argued that the six days might represent periods of undetermined length, in a work praised by his friend Sir Isaac Newton. Burnet’s view stemmed partly from his understanding that the sun was created only on the fourth day. In 1698, William Whiston, an English Baptist known to modern readers for his edition of Josephus’ works, regarded the days as years. The Dutch theologian Hermann Venema (1697-1787) opposed the view that Moses speaks not of ordinary days but of years and of centuries, showing that such a view was held by some in his circles in the 18th century.

In the 19th century, before Darwin’s 1859 Origin of Species and in the midst of much discussion of a geological basis for an old earth, Robert Shaw described favorably the possibility of interpreting the days of creation as ages. Professor Tayler Lewis of the Reformed Church of America advocated long ages in his The Six Days of Creation, as did Donald MacDonald, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, in his Creation and the Fall: A Defence and Exposition of the First Three Chapters of Genesis. Of the Old Princeton theologians, Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, and Benjamin Warfield supported a Day-Age approach, as did also J. Gresham Machen, O. T. Allis, and E. J. Young of Westminster Seminary.

J. Oliver Buswell, Jr. also took this position. In the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod and Covenant Seminary tradition, so also did R. Laird Harris and Francis Schaeffer.

In his three-volume Commentary on Genesis, James Montgomery Boice considers evolution, theistic evolution, the gap theory, six-day creationism, and progressive creationism in chapters 5 through 9 of Volume 1 and concludes by favoring a Day-Age view.

4. Is the Day-Age interpretation just a reaction to Darwinism?

Much of the negative sentiment brought against the Day-Age theory of creation within the reformed church has been engendered by a strong reaction against the teachings which grew out of Charles Darwin’s seminal work on the Origin of Species. In its so-called neo-Darwinian form, this teaching holds that random mutations, which are continually occurring within the population gene pool of any species, can confer a survival advantage on individuals within the species, and that gradually over long periods of time, this increased biological fitness leads to the emergence of new species with more complex biological systems, through an unguided process termed ‘Darwinian Evolution.’ Extension of this concept back in time to an initial primordial elemental soup (which arose some time after the ‘Big Bang’) that gave rise to the first ‘life’, has substituted for the Biblical account of creation in the proud minds of men. This view has been so aggressively taught within our schools and colleges that it is the predominant view of the origins and diversity of life. Consequently, we in the church today find ourselves in such a reactionary stance against this incessant tide of unsubstantiated indoctrination of our children, that we ‘blame’ Darwinian evolution as the evil that gave rise to such interpretations of the Genesis account of creation as the Day-Age theory. This is not so, however, as we can clearly appreciate from the discussion under question 3) above where we see that a view open to the possibility of creative days of unspecified length was held by prominent and influential church fathers, some of whom lived long before Charles Darwin. We must remember this in our new examination of the theory and remain clear-headed in our evaluation of how these early, as well as contemporary, church fathers adopted the view as their belief. We must also deal with Darwinian evolution rationally and provide a cogent case for its deception and the complete lack of physical evidence to substantiate it.

5. How do you deal with the issue of death within this view?

The specific point for consideration here is whether death within the animal kingdom is linked to the death of Adam. Some hold the view that prior to the fall and the resultant curses by God, the perfect state of the world and everything in it left no place for death of any kind. The proponents of this view understand Romans 5:12 (Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin....) to be speaking of all death, both that of man and all under man’s dominion, entering God’s perfect creation through the one sin of Adam. It is clear that death at least in the plant kingdom was to be a natural process since God gave every green plant as food to all that had the breath of life in it including man, the beasts of the earth, the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground (Gen 1:29-30). Others, including John Murray in his commentary, understand Paul here to be speaking of the death of man only. Such proponents see in the very contrast made by Paul in Romans 5:12-21, of death through Adam being subjugated by life through Christ, that the righteousness and eternal life brought by Christ to man alone indicates through its very antithesis that death through Adam is to man alone.

Those who fall into this latter category suppose that the carnivorous fish of the ocean, which were created on the fifth day (a day before man and therefore the earliest opportunity for the fall), ate other fish and/or birds between their creation and the fall, just as they do today. The alternatives are that either they did not eat during this period or that they ate only plant material before the fall (which would require a completely different digestive system and tooth structure, for example). In addition, proponents of this view believe the carnivorous animals, created on day six prior to man, fed in the way they are expertly designed to do on other animals, in the manner we observe them doing today between their creation and the fall, which (if, as some believe, the fall occurred on day six) must have been at the very least several hours in duration to allow time for Adam to work and take care of the garden, name the kinds, sleep while God created Eve, interact with the serpent, eat the forbidden fruit, hide from God, speak with God, and receive the judgements and curses.

A Biblical text associated with the account of the fall has also caused some to ponder the timing of death in the animal kingdom. Immediately after the fall, God graciously made garments of skin-probably animal hides (Gen 3:21)-to clothe Adam and his wife to cover their shame. While the exact timing of the sequence of events leading up to God’s gift of clothes to Adam and Eve is not given, it seems certain that the dialogue between God and Adam was on the same day as God was walking in the garden. Furthermore, it seems most likely that God’s judgements and curses were uttered immediately upon Adam’s admission of guilt, and that God clothed them with the animal hides at the same time to complete His dealings with them. The question then arises as to the time that the skin was taken from the animals and processed into leather hides that the Lord God used to make the garments. Could it be that animals had already been killed by other animals or man for food, or slaughtered for hides that may have been used for bedding and baskets for carrying things, for example?

6. How do you deal with the issue of time within this view?

Much could be said in response to this question since it is inherent in the title of the theory under discussion (Day-Age) and at the very heart of the reason why the committee is meeting. First we are told that God is from eternity past, from everlasting to everlasting, an eternal God. Time itself was a part of His creation. Time, as Herman Bavinck expressed it, is the measure of creaturely existence. What he terms ‘intrinsic time’ is a mode of existence of all created and finite beings. By ‘extrinsic time’ he means the standard employed to measure motion... We derive it from the motion of the heavenly bodies, which is constantly and universally known, Gen 1:14ff. It is this ‘extrinsic time,’ time as we know and measure it, which has its beginning only on the fourth day when we are told:

And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years (Gen 1:14).

On the other hand, ‘intrinsic time,’ the possibility for beginning, end, and sequence of events, comes into existence with the beginning of creation. The Lord is sovereign and not part of His creation; He is outside of it and therefore outside of our perception of time (and space). Inasmuch as God created the space we know (the heavens and the earth on day 1) before He constituted our natural measure and knowledge of time (on day 4), it seems logical to conclude that He at least began His creation in His own sense of time. Perhaps the Lord is trying to communicate this to us through the psalmist in the Old Testament (Ps 90:4) and Peter in the New Testament (2 Peter 3:8) when we are told that With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. In other words, our perception of time is not the Lord’s.

If this is the case, are we being presumptuous, or even arrogant imposing the time we know on the Lord for His creative work? For our sake, so that we might know that He undertook His creative work in six discrete steps of time, He gives the refrain And there was evening, and there was morning-the nth day. Even the order of the two times of day in the refrain is peculiar from our perception of time and work; they bracket the nighttime. We characteristically work during the daytime, and so if we were writing such a refrain describing our creative work it would be far more logical to write, And there was morning and there was evening-the nth day. So even this refrain hints at something unusual about the time of creation, that may have been designed for us to notice.

7. What are the strengths of the Day-Age interpretation?

a. This view is not concerned with the absolute period of time God used in each of His six days of creation. It recognizes this period in earth’s ‘history’ as special when time, as it has been given to us (and space), was created. In as much as this creative event appeared to have occurred on the fourth ‘day,’ this view prefers not to stipulate periods of man’s perception of time for the first three days, since the Sovereign Creator of them is Himself outside of them. It also acknowledges that the Creator may have used the process of growth for example, as we now perceive growth, a time-consuming activity, to bring forth vegetation. In addition, the ‘days’ (ages) within the Day-Age model, can be overlapping to allow insects and birds to be created in time to facilitate plant reproduction, when plants had grown to reproductive age.

b. This view does not need to consider the so-called ‘appearance of age’ problem; that God might have created things differently from how we perceive the order of nature (general revelation) today from the present interpretations of the findings of science. e.g. that the speed of light has changed; that carnivorous animals and fish were once herbivorous; that stars were created with strings of light attached; that rocks were created with isotope ratios suggesting age; that fossils were created with the appearance of age; that fossils, have apparently different ages with some of them being very old.

c. The Day-Age construct preserves the general sequence of events as portrayed in the text.

d. The position can, and has been, arrived at through exegesis of the text, particularly what is said about the sun on the fourth day and what is said about growth and development in Genesis 2 and does not require the influence of Darwinian evolutionists, or any of the natural sciences.

e. The position accounts for the description of the events on the fourth day, including the beginning of solar days, and no non-literal explanation of the text dealing with this creation is called for. Neither do we have to impose solar days on days 1-3 of creation before the sun was in existence.

f. This viewpoint readily accommodates the preponderance of inference from present day scientific interpretation from general revelation, in particular with data from astrophysics, geology and the fossil record.

g. The time that might be envisioned for the accomplishment of the extensive list of events that occur on the sixth day of creation present no problem to this view. On this day the wild animals, the livestock and all the creatures that move along the ground were created. Then Adam was created and put in the Garden of Eden to take care of it with the single proviso that he was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then the Lord brought all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air before Adam for the man to name them, but from amongst them no suitable helper was found. So the Lord caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, took a rib from him and created Eve to be his wife and helper. Some would also include in the events of this day, the dealings of Eve with the serpent, the eating by Adam and Eve of the forbidden fruit, their sewing of fig leaves to make coverings for themselves after the realization of their nakedness, their hiding from the Lord and then accounting to Him of their sin, the Lord’s cursing of the serpent, the man and woman and the ground, the Lord’s fashioning garments of skin for the man and the woman to clothe them, and then banishing them from the Garden of Eden.

8. What are the difficulties for the Day-Age interpretation?

a. Without the concept of ‘age overlap,’ it allows that the universe as we know it could have existed in intermediate states for long periods of time, e.g. vegetation requiring insects/birds for propagation to be in existence without insects/birds.

b. Overlapping ‘days’ (ages) are hard to propose from a reading of the text which more speaks of consecutive times (days).

c. Green plants were created on day 3. Although light had been created on day 1, we know nothing about the nature of this light and its ability to substitute for sunlight (not available until day 4) as the energy source for the plant life. Thus, it could be argued that the green plants could not exist for a very long period without the sun.

d. Need to accept that at least the initial creatures of every species were created by God with some appearance of age (since this view affirms that there was a primary creation event of all species of plants, animals and man each according to its kind [Gen 1:24]).

C. The Framework Interpretation

Description

There are a number of versions of the Framework interpretation. Here we discuss the position which has arguably influenced the PCA most, that of Meredith G. Kline and Mark D. Futato. In Genesis 1:1-2:3:

Exegesis indicates that the scheme of the creation week itself is a poetic figure and that the several pictures of creation history are set within the six work-day frames not chronologically but topically. In distinguishing simple description and poetic figure from what is definitively conceptual the only ultimate guide, here as always, is comparison with the rest of Scripture.

In other words, the distinctive feature of the Framework interpretation is its understanding of the week (not the days as such) as a metaphor. Moses used the metaphor of a week to narrate God’s acts of creation. Thus God’s supernatural creative words or fiats are real and historical, but the exact timing is left unspecified.

Why the week then? Moses intended to show Israel God’s call to Adam to imitate Him in work, with the promise of entering His Sabbath rest. God’s week is a model, analogous to Israel’s week. The events are grouped in two triads of days. Days 1-3 (creation’s kingdoms) are paralleled by Days 4-6 (creation’s kings). Adam is king of the earth and God is King of Creation.

Two major arguments support the position:

1. The order of Gen 1 is difficult to square with Gen 2:5-6: and no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. These verses presuppose that God’s preservation of the plants during the six days was by normal, secondary causes (water), not by miracle. What Scripture presupposes is part of its inspired meaning. Without rain or a human cultivator, God would not create plants. Verse 5's explanation for this assumes that the mode of preservation during the creation period was ordinary preservation (the same as the Israelite knows, what is currently operating).

But normal preservation can not be easily harmonized with a week of 144 hours. If Gen 1 is strictly sequential, Gen 2:5 must have occurred on Day 3, because dry land did not exist before Day 3, and rich vegetation existed by the end of Day 3. But when Gen 2:5 occurred, it was too dry for plants. Land inundated with water only yesterday (Day 2) does not dry out in a few hours, especially without the sun, which was not created until Day 4. God could have preserved plants without rain, man, or the sun. But that is not the way Gen 2:5 explains the delay of the creation of plants. Rather it was because of the lack of water, or secondary means of preservation. Therefore the six days in Gen 1 must be topical, not sequential. The framework view does not state how long the week was, but affirms that it must have been longer than one hundred forty-four hours.

2. Second, since God’s mode of operation was ordinary providence, and since light (Day one) without luminaries (Day four) is not ordinary providence, the six days of creation in Gen 1 must be topical, not sequential.

Futato’s version of the Framework view argues that both Gen 1 and 2 are arranged topically. Moses wrote in the second millennium B.C. for the edification of the Israelites on the outskirts of the land of Canaan. The basic message of Gen 1 is that Yahweh, the God of the Exodus, not Baal, is the Creator of heaven and earth. He brought them into being by his Sovereign Word. They depend on him completely. Yahweh is God over rain and sun, moon and stars; hence they are not to be worshiped.

As mentioned above, there are variations on the framework theme. Kline has recently added a two-register cosmology, in further development of his earlier framework conclusions. Bruce Waltke summarizes his own reflections on the literary genre of the passage:

. . .it is a literary-artistic representation of the creation. To this we add the purpose, namely, to ground the covenant people’s worship and life in the Creator, who transformed chaos into cosmos, and their ethics in his creative order.

Henri Blocher basically follows Kline. Gordon J. Wenham seems less clear about the historical claim of the text. We move into a different realm with Claus Westermann, who is driven by higher-critical commitments.

Comparison of the Framework Interpretation with Other Interpretations

The Framework position as taught by Kline and Futato shares a number of conclusions with the Calendar-Day, Day-Age, and Analogical-Day interpretations.

1. It teaches that Gen 1 is inspired verbal revelation. It teaches creation from nothing, the special creation of Adam and Eve, Adam as the covenant head of the race, and death and curse as the result of sin.

2. It affirms the historicity of Adam, his uniqueness as the image of God, and his covenant headship of the human race.

3. Along with the Calendar-Day view, it understands yôm, day, to refer to a regular day.

4. With the Analogical-Day view, it says the days are structured to give a pattern for our own work and rest. Also with the Analogical-Day view, it says that Gen 1 does not intend to communicate the length of the creation week.

5. With the Day-Age view, but differing from the Calendar-Day view, it holds that the length of the creation period is figurative. The Framework view differs from the Day-Age view in that it does not understand yôm, day, as a long period of time. It differs with the Calendar Day, Analogical-Day, and Day-Age views by denying that Moses intended to relate the creation history sequentially.

Evaluation

Strengths

1. The Framework view interprets Gen 1 in the light of its immediate context in Gen 2. It harmonizes Gen 1 and 2 concretely and contextually. It tries to attend to the Bible’s actual meaning within the ancient Near Eastern readership. This is particularly true of Futato’s stress on the literary features of the text. Moses’ audience in Genesis was ancient Israel. To whatever extent he wrote to challenge paganism, his arrows were aimed at ancient Baal religion, not at modern naturalistic astronomy, biology, or geology. He wrote to strengthen the covenant people as they entered Canaan. However much we may diverge in exegetical conclusions, and granting that metaphor is less descriptively precise than prose, we may agree that for Israel, a technical scientific description of the timing and mechanisms of creation was not the primary focus of Gen 1. Nevertheless, the Creator’s week is not window dressing, but a call to covenant obedience.

2. The view is fully compatible with the New Testament which emphasizes God’s Word of power and the created order, not the timing or length of creation. Specifically, it is compatible with Heb 4:4-6, which presents Gen 2:2, the 7th day, God’s creation rest, as the consummation hope of the church. (See the Appendix, The New Testament’s View of the Historicity of Genesis 1-3.")

3. The Framework view is theologically rich, highlighting Moses’ presentation of biblical-theological themes such as covenant, image of God, and Sabbath. The literary schema of days illumines the glorious wisdom of God as the Sovereign architect of creation, and the goal of all things.

4. With respect to the relation of scientific theory and theology it is open to the study of general revelation regarding the age of the earth and the cosmos, within biblical constraints. Some of those are: creation ex nihilo, that Adam and Eve were the genetically unique, specially created parents of the human race, and that the fall of Adam introduced the curse into God’s good creation. It denies all evolutionary origins, and evolutionary philosophy as contradictory to the teaching of scripture.

Objections

1. The position has been severely criticized for rendering Gen 1 non-historical. For example:

Evangelical framework theologians tell us that the Genesis account is not a factual and historical account. Rather, it is an artistic expression, a divine metaphor, affirming that God is the Creator; it does not inform us either of the mechanism or time frame of the creative process.

The criticism is a serious one, because Christianity rests on the historicity of Gen 1-3. However, Framework proponent Meredith Kline explicitly affirms the opposite. He writes,

. . .Gen 1-11 is not mythological but a genuine record of history. . .The material in these chapters is unquestionably interpreted by inspired writers elsewhere in Scripture as historical in the same sense that they understand Gen 12-50 or Kings or the Gospels to be historical.

This avowal of historicity may be highlighted by contrasting it with the comment of Roman Catholic scholar J. A. Fitzmyer on Rom 5:12: . . .Paul has historicized the symbolic Adam of Genesis. So the position should not be confused with the claim that Gen 1:1-2:3 is myth or parable or allegory. The Framework position asserts unequivocally that the passage teaches acts of supernatural origination by God’s commands and the special creation of Adam and Eve. It is an exegesis, not an attempt to balance prior philosophical or scientific commitments with Scripture. (Those who hold the Framework interpretation agree that God could create the world in one hundred forty-four hours, for instance.) Because we believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, no one should be considered orthodox who holds to the Framework view if he is motivated by naturalistic, higher-critical, or evolutionisitic assumptions. Those assumptions would be an abuse rather than a proper use of the Framework position.

Affirming historicity while denying sequence is difficult. The most prominent aspect of narrative as we write it may be the appearance of chronology. The marker of history in our thinking tends to be when and how did it happen? On the surface it seems contradictory to suggest that history is being narrated in a semi-figurative form, when time markers are said to be figurative. This opens the interpretation to the abuse of those who wish to deny the historicity of the events, or embrace naturalistic theories of origins, a serious abuse indeed.

2. The position depends on the exegesis of Gen 2:5-6 that denies all miraculous preservation during the creation week. If there were also supernatural preservation, Gen 2:5-6 would not require a non-sequential interpretation of chapter 1. Is mere natural preservation so clearly assumed in Gen 2:5-6 as to require the affirmation that the week of Gen 1 is a metaphor? Could God not have dried the land supernaturally before the situation described in Gen 2:5? If so, would that render the reason given in Gen 2:5b irrelevant, as Kline claims?

3. The relation of Exodus 20:11 to Genesis 1:1-2:3 raises another problem. Verse 11, for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh, employs an accusative of duration. In other words, critics argue, Ex 20:11 gives an inspired interpretation of the length of the work of creation. This is decisive for many. Those who hold the Framework position answer by noting that the revealed pattern of six and one is a sufficient basis for man’s imitation of God in ordering his time. That is, the rest God requires in the fourth commandment (including physical rest) is an analogy of God’s seventh-day rest. God’s divine refreshment on the seventh day (cf. Ex 31:17) is the theological basis of Israel’s physical refreshment.

4. The Framework interpretation raises the question of what literary genre we may understand Gen 1 to be. It seems to present a mixed form, which is difficult to interpret. How does one discern metaphor from straightforward prose? Proponents answer that this is no more difficult in Gen 1 than anywhere else Scripture uses metaphor. Is 48:13 says for example, My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens. . .

The metaphors (hand, foundations, spread out) offer no difficulty. They do not threaten the historical claim of the text, or the clarity of Scripture. In Gen 1 as elsewhere, the analogy of Scripture, in its narrower and broader contexts, is determinative.

5. The view is complex and has been poorly, perhaps sometimes provocatively expressed. It may legitimately be asked whether the Israelite reader could have understood the week as a metaphor without denying its real historicity.

6. The Framework view is the most easily misunderstood of the options. Proponents should recognize that it is complex, it has sometimes been poorly expressed, and it does not answer every exegetical question. It should be handled with great pastoral tact and sensitivity in today’s charged atmosphere.

D. The Analogical Days Interpretation

Definition of the position

The days are God’s work-days, which are analogous, and not necessarily identical, to our work days, structured for the purpose of setting a pattern for our own rhythm of rest and work.

The six days represent periods of God’s historical supernatural activity in preparing and populating the earth as a place for humans to live, love, work, and worship.

These days are broadly consecutive: that is, they are taken as successive periods of unspecified length, but one allows for the possibility that parts of the days may overlap, or that there might be logical rather than chronological criteria for grouping some events in a particular day.

Genesis 1:1-2 are background, representing an unknown length of time prior to the beginning of the first day: verse 1 is the creatio ex nihilo event, while verse 2 describes the conditions of the earth as the first day commenced.

Length of time, either for the creation week, or before it or since it, is irrelevant to the communicative purpose of the account.

Historical background

In the modern period, this view arose from perceived problems in the Day-Age view, though it employs what were felt to be valuable observations by the proponents of that view. William G.T. Shedd’s Dogmatic Theology (1888), i:474-477, drew on these insights, as well as statements from Augustine and Anselm, to the effect that the days of Genesis 1 are God-divided days, with the result that the seven days of the human week are copies of the seven days of the Divine week. Franz Delitzsch’s New Commentary on Genesis appeared in English translation in 1899 (German original, 1887), and argued the same position.

The prominent Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck published the first edition of his Gereformeerde Dogmatiek in 1895-1901, and the second edition in 1906-1911. The section on creation has just appeared in English translation (Baker, 1999). There he advocates a version of the Analogical Days interpretation:

It is probable, in the first place, that the creation of heaven and earth in Genesis 1:1 preceded the work of the six days in verses 3ff. by a shorter or longer period. . .

So, although. . .the days of Genesis 1 are to be considered days and not to be identified with the periods of geology, they nevertheless-like the work of creation as a whole-have an extraordinary character. . .The first three days, however much they may resemble our days, also differ significantly from them and hence were extraordinary cosmic days. . .It is not impossible that the second triduum still shared in this extraordinary character as well. . .It is very difficult to find room on the sixth day for everything Genesis 1-2 has occur in it if that day was in all respects like our days. . .Much more took place on each day of creation than the sober words of Genesis would lead us to suspect.

For all these reasons, day in the first chapter of the Bible denotes the time in which God was at work creating. . .The creation days are the workdays of God.

More recently, C. John Collins has argued for this position: first in an article in 1994, and then a more developed version in 1999. This latter article in particular employs the tools of discourse and literary analysis. Discourse analysis approaches texts under the assumption that they are acts of communication, and studies the patterns of linguistic usage as they relate to communicative intent. Linguist and PCA ruling elder Robert Longacre summarizes the issues studied:

. . .contemporary discourse analysis is interested in questions of genre classification. . .; the articulation of parts of a discourse such as formulaic beginnings and endings, episodes, and high points in the story (called peaks); the status of discourse constituents such as sentences, paragraphs, and embedded discourses; the cast of participants in a given discourse. . .; author viewpoint and author sympathy as indicated in the text; the main line development of a discourse. . .; the role of tense, aspect, particles, affixes, pronominalization chains, paraphrase, and conjunctions in providing cohesion and prominence in a discourse; ways of marking peak in a narrative; and the function of dialogue in discourse.

Conservative literary approaches share some of these concerns, and add some of their own. These methods stem from the observation that the Biblical narratives are stories, and hence involve characters, events (plot), and scenes. To call them stories is not to downplay their historical claims (indeed, to do so would be a mis-reading of them); instead, it directs our attention to the narrator’s ways of portraying characters’ good and bad traits, and of displaying or hiding his own point of view.

Description of the position

The specific features of the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:1-2:3 (and of passages that reflect on it) for which this interpretation (in its developed form) seeks to account include:

1. The verb tenses in Gen 1:1-2 mark those verses as background to the narrative: further analysis indicates that verse 1 designates an event as an unspecified time prior to the conditions of verse 2, while verse 2 describes the conditions as the first day begins in verse 3 (which uses the narrative tense for the first time).

2. The absence of the refrain in the seventh day is most easily explained as indicating that the day did not end (and John 5:17; Hebrews 4:3-11 seem to take that for granted), hence this is not an ordinary day.

3. The refrain of the six days (and there was evening, and there was morning, the nth day), when seen from within the culture of Moses, marks the end-points of the night-time (cf. Numbers 9:15-16), which is the daily rest for the worker (Psalm 104:22-23; cf. Genesis 30:16; Exodus 18:13) and looks forward to the weekly Sabbath rest.

4. When the Pentateuch reflects on this account to enjoin Sabbath observance, it draws on the analogy (and not identity) between our work and rest and God’s (Exodus 20:8-11; 31:17).

5. The use of the Hebrew narrative tense and the march of the numbered days in Genesis 1, along with the accusative of duration in Exodus 20:11 (over the course of six days) all favor the conclusion that the creative events were accomplished over some stretch of time (i.e. not instantaneously), and that the days are (at least broadly) sequential.

6. The indivisibility of Genesis 2:4, as well as its content, points to the traditional conclusion that Genesis 2:5-25 are an amplification only of the sixth day of the creation week.

Similarities to and differences from the other positions

Conservative adherents of the Calendar Day view, the Day-Age view, and the Framework view, share a number of points in common with the Analogical Days view. These include the propriety of attributing historicity to Genesis 1-3 (see discussion of that word in the Definitions section of this report); the rejection of source-critical theories of these chapters as originally disparate, and ultimately incompatible; and adherence to the authority of the New Testament as interpreter of these chapters.

The Calendar Day, Day-Age, and Analogical Day views all see the days as sequential, while the Framework view sees sequentiality as optional at best. The Calendar Day and Day-Age views take the strongest position on sequence, while the Analogical Days view is more reserved about strict sequentiality (and hence cautious about harmonization with geology).

With the Day-Age view, the Analogical Days view sees the days as potentially long periods; unlike that view, it does not arrive at that position by appeal to day in its sense period of undefined length. Instead it finds an analogical application of the ordinary sense of the word day.

Finally, the Day-Age, Analogical Days, and Framework interpretations do not involve rejection of conventional cosmology and geology. (The stance taken toward evolutionary biology, a different science, is different; see the discussion of evolution in the Definitions section.) Although some adherents of the Calendar Days view do not insist on young-earth cosmology and geology, most do.

Strengths of the position

This position claims the following factors in its favor, which commend it to others’ acceptance:

It derives from a discourse-oriented study of the text of Scripture in the original languages. Although it is in principle responsible to re-evaluate our interpretation of the Bible in the light of widely accepted scientific theories, it is dangerous to set out with the purpose of harmonization. This interpretation does not fall foul of such a warning. As an exegetical position it is compatible with old-earth creationism as well as with young-earth creationism, but requires neither.

The toolkit of discourse and literary methods, when applied to the rest of Genesis 2-3, yield such results as: rejection of source-critical theories of the passages’ origin; affirmation that we do not have here two creation accounts; resolution of alleged contradictions between Genesis 1 and 2 (e.g. at 2:5-6, 19); vindication of the Pauline reading of Genesis 3, including Adam’s role as first human and covenant head of humanity, and different role relationships for men and women within the context of their equal bearing of God’s image. Application of these tools does not in any way question the historicity of the events narrated in these chapters, but in fact supports it. These methods attempt to systematize what good grammarians and exegetes through the ages have felt.

Though the interpretive scheme itself, as well as some of the arguments employed for it, may sound novel to some, it does not actually involve any grammatical or semantic innovations.

The developed arguments for the view claim to account for all the details of the text.

This view is explicitly built on the desire to be ruled by Scriptural reflections on the account, especially those regarding work and the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11; John 5:17; Hebrews 4:3-11). In particular, it is strongly Sabbatarian in its orientation, and explains how our Sabbath can be grounded in God’s by the principle of analogy.

The stress on the principle of analogy between God’s work and ours means that it has special creative events built into it, and hence while it favors some sort of intelligent design model for biology it is incompatible with theistic evolutionary schemes.

Objections to the position

The following objections may be raised to this interpretation, which advocates must be sure to answer:

1. The discourse and literary methods to which it appeals are new, and not unanimously or consistently employed by Bible scholars.

2. The scheme requires explanation to show that it is not too subtle for the ordinary Hebrew to have understood it, or for the ordinary believer today to understand it.

3. Other explanations for the absence of the refrain on the seventh day have been offered by responsible commentators, and need to be considered.

4. No other Scriptural examples are offered where time indicators are used analogically.

5. Though it may claim a kind of continuity with Augustine (as well as Anselm, and sympathy from Aquinas), it is not really the same as his