Genesis

The Genesis Flood, Tidal Wave of Change

By Paul J. Scharf Thu, 02/10/2011 - 4:22pm

morris_whitcombThe Genesis Flood is 50 years old today! The following article is reprinted with permission from the Baptist Bulletin July, 2010.

Birth of the modern creationist movement

The book that powered the modern creation movement was skipped over by several Christian publishers. When Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb sent their manuscript to one prominent publisher, they were told it was much too long. Perhaps the authors would consider cutting it down by half?

Only then did the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. of Phillipsburg, N.J., take up the project, releasing the book on Feb. 11, 1961. Now nearly 50 years later, it continues to impact Bible students around the world and across the generations.

Against the backdrop of the mid-20th century infatuation with naturalism and scientific truth, the authors articulated a dissenting position. At the time, a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of Creation and the Flood was scarcely being taught, other than by a few conservative Lutherans and Seventh-day Adventist theologians. Even within fundamentalism the prevailing views were the gap theory (the view that there can be a gap containing millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2) and the day-age theory (the view that each day of the creation week may represent vast ages of time).read more

A Wonderful Creationist Heritage

By John C. Whitcomb Thu, 01/06/2011 - 12:00am

It is so important that we focus on God’s perspective concerning ultimate origins. Human theories, hypotheses, speculations and opinions come and go. But the God “who cannot lie” (NKJV,* Tit. 1:2), who was there when the world began, has written a perfect book—the Bible—which He requires that we read and believe (Rom. 10:17).

Let us think, then, about the vital and blessed heritage that Christians enjoy as we understand the truths of creationism.

The Bible, God’s unique, inerrant, inspired, infallible written revelation, informs us that the world was not the product of some vague designer (to say nothing of time through chance by mindless evolution), but was the creative work of the Second Person of the triune God, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Through Christ, the eternal Son of God, “all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers [different ranks of angelic beings]. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist [hold together]” (Col. 1:16-17).read more

Review - The Message of Creation

By CPHurst Thu, 06/03/2010 - 11:00pm

The Message of Creation by David Wilkinson is a light commentary with ample contemporary application on the biblical theme of creation. Wilkinson is a competent theologian with a scientific background, making him well qualified to speak on the theme of creation. His pastoral experience shows through as he provides lengthy applications from the many biblical passages he discusses throughout the book. In his defense of the idea of a Creator, he also interacts with well known atheists (past and present) such as Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins.

The book considers five aspects of the doctrine of creation through 20 passages of Scripture. Wilkinson is quick to point out in the preface that the book is not a systematic theology on the doctrine of creation, though the theologian in him might prefer to write such a book.

It is a kind of journey. Some will want to get to the destination quickly, but that is not what we shall do. We have twenty “villages” to visit on the way in pursuing the doctrine of creation and opening up its biblical themes. Their large number of passages and their diversity is testimony to how important this doctrine is within the biblical literature. (p. 11)read more

An Apologia for the 24-Hour Day Creation View, Part 3

By Bob McCabe Tue, 04/14/2009 - 11:00pm

SpaceRead Part 1 and Part 2.

I am convinced that the alternative accounts I summarized in my last post are wrong. Thus, despite the fact that I have benefited from other work done by proponents of these views and for that matter regard their work to be full of Christian integrity, I nevertheless find their arguments on these matters unconvincing. My purpose in this third and final part of this series is not to do a point-by-point rebuttal of the four alternate views that I presented in my last post, for this has been done adequately by others. (On theistic evolution, see Vern S. Poythress, “Response to Howard J. Van Till,” in Three Views on Creation and Evolution, pp. 236-39; on the gap theory, see Weston W. Fields, Unformed and Unfilled; on the day-age and framework views, see Joseph A. Pipa, Jr. “From Chaos to Cosmos: A Critique of the Non-Literal Interpretations of Genesis 1:1-2:3,” in Did God Create in Six Days? pp. 153-98; and on the framework, see my “Critique of the Framework Interpretation of the Creation Account,” in Coming to Grips with Genesis, pp. 211-49.) Rather, with my first post serving as a foundation, my objective is to present three areas of weakness and a questionable presupposition that each view shares.read more

An Apologia for the 24-Hour Day Creation View, Part 2

By Bob McCabe Mon, 03/30/2009 - 11:00pm

SpaceRead Part 1

In the first part of this three-part series, I noted that the prevailing view of Christian orthodoxy had been the literal day interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2:3. I also presented four preliminary arguments supporting this twenty-four-hour day interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2:3. Here we will note four of the most prominent alternative views that have arisen largely as a result of the advent of modern geology and its claims about the (old) age of the earth.

(1) Theistic evolution

This view has also been described by one of its current advocates, Howard J. Van Till of Calvin College, as “the fully gifted creation” (“The Fully Gifted Creation,” in Three Views on Creation and Evolution [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999], 172). It argues that God created inorganic matter that contained properties with the potential to evolve into the wide variety of life forms presently observable. The advocates of this view affirm that God “created” all current life forms over extended geological ages and through random mutations and natural selection. Support for this hypothesis is drawn from the (supposedly) incontrovertible evidence of evolutionary naturalism. Moreover, advocates insist that since God has not revealed in Scripture how creation took place, the responsibility for figuring this out is man’s.read more

An Apologia for the 24-Hour Day Creation View, Part 1

By Bob McCabe Thu, 03/19/2009 - 11:00pm

SpaceBecause the tradition of Christian orthodoxy has a legacy of interpreting Genesis as a historic narrative, the prevailing interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2:3 has been that it is a record of God’s creative activity in six, consecutive, literal days followed by a literal seventh day of rest. Because the focus is on the six days of divine creative activity, this view is often called the “twenty-four-hour view.” With the rise of modern geology and subsequent development of other disciplines, such as astronomy, biology and geophysics, secularists are convinced that the “scientific” evidence, such as radioisotope dating, demands an earth that is 4.5 billions years old and a universe that is 14 billion years old (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrymple/scientific_age_earth.html).read more