| As I sit at my computer
this morning, a new year has dawned. It is known as the year 2010,
the end of the first decade of the 21st century. This will be
another year of debate as to just how old the universe really is.
Many will say that it is millions of years old. Some will even
claim it to be billions of years old. Others will say that it can
be no older than 6,000 to 8,000 years, and to prove their case,
will point to Biblical genealogy. I am no expert on Biblical
genealogy, so will leave that argument up to Biblical
scholars.
When it comes to
dealing with the age of the universe, there seems to be two camps,
the Evolutionists and the Creationists. The Evolutionists will say
that for evolution to take place, the universe must be millions or
even billions of years old. They also point to scientific data,
which is used to track the age of the universe. The Creationists,
on the other hand, will say that God created the heavens and the
earth in six literal days and the genealogy of the Bible characters
from Adam on down, prove that the world is a young
creation.
Before going on, I
will emphatically state that I believe God created the universe and
the earth, or as scripture states, "the heavens and the
earth". The book of Genesis gives great description regarding His
creation, but what the Bible doesn't say speaks louder than
what it does say, and the silent parts of scripture give rise to
theories. These are known as Biblical Theories.
The verses in
question are Genesis 1: 1-3. Verse 1,"In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth." Verse 2, "The earth was
formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the
Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters." Verse
3, "Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and
there was light."
The first theory is
that all three verses run together in a complete time frame. God
created the heavens and earth and the process started with the
earth being a dark place filled with water. Then God immediately
went on to the next step of separating the water from the dry land,
filling the earth with vegetation, animals and man. This was all
done in six literal days. If we then combine this short event with
the genealogy of the inhabitants of earth, as shown in the Bible,
one can easily conclude that the universe, including the Earth is a
very young creation.
The second theory is
one that is known as "The Gap Theory". This theory states
that the action in verse one is complete in itself, "In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth." They say that at
this point the creation was complete. But there was a large gap in
time between the creation being completed in verse one and the
dark, water-filled earth, as described in verse two. It is
believed, according to this theory, that this is the time when
Satan was thrown out of heaven because of his rebellion, and was
cast to the earth, destroying God's creation. They use
Revelation 12:7-9, "Then there was war in heaven. Michael
and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. And the
dragon lost the battle, and he and his angels were forced out of
heaven. This great dragon - the ancient serpent called the
devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world - was thrown
down to the earth with all his angels."
The belief in
"The Gap Theory" is that God's creation in Genesis,
verse one, was complete, with an earth of vegetation and animals,
and some would even go as far as to say humans. How else can they
account for the part of the above scripture that says, "the
ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the
whole world"? Without humans in the first creation, what or who was
being deceived? It is also felt that the dinosaurs existed during
this first creation, which were instantly destroyed when Satan fell
to the earth.
The Gap Theory
certainly allows for the belief that the universe could indeed be
millions or even billions of years old. How long the earth could
have sat formless, empty and dark, filled with water (v.2) could be
anybody's guess.
The third theory,
(and this is one of my own making), is that the time gap existed,
not between verses one and two, but between verses two and three.
In my theory, God created the universe and the earth (heavens and
the earth), and simply made the earth a dark place, filled with
water, the same as He made some planets dry and barren, others
surrounded by lethal gases and others very, very cold or extremely
hot and some with violent storms. Later on, maybe thousands,
millions or billions of years later He decided to continue with His
creation, by making the earth into a living place, complete with
vegetation, animals and mankind. Remember, verse two says,
"The Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the
waters". God obviously had a great interest in this place called
'Earth', even in the early beginnings.
So there you have
it: three theories as to when the earth and universe came into
being. Some say that God created the earth in six literal days:
some say the six days were actually six periods of time, some
extending billions of years. That can be a discussion for another
time, suffice it to say that "A day is like a thousand years
to the Lord, and a thousand years like a day." (2 Peter
3:8.)
Theories are
interesting, though not proven. They give rise to great
discussions, even arguments, but nonetheless they are still
theories. One thing I will not argue, however, is the truth of the
first verse in Genesis, "In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth". The Bible does not go on to try to prove
the existence of God or go into great scientific detail of how or
when the universe came into existence. It simply says, "In
the beginning God created", and leaves it at that. And so will
I.
by David Ronald Bruce Pekrul
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