Falwell Is Hurting Christianity With Ultra Literal Creationism
Jonathan Falwell, the late Jerry Falwell’s son, said in his
e-mail newsletter of August 10, 2007 that “…the world was
created by God in six literal days”.
There is an “ultra-literal” position, a “young earth”
theory, that calculates back 4004 years BC for Adam and Eve in
the Garden from the ages of individuals specified in the Bible,
and then says the prior year nothing existed except God who we, those that do believe in God, all accept as eternally existing. [The
emphasis is shown on what is ultra literal.]
Young Mr. Falwell is giving a “black eye” to all Bible
believing Christians if he is, in fact, holding to that ultra literal position.
The more reasonable “literal” position is that in the
beginning, God created all matter at once from nothing with a
“Big Bang”. It is a fact that science has traced all the
movements of the various heavenly bodies (stars, galaxies, etc.)
to a single spot in space and have developed a theory called,
“The Big Bang Theory”.
Genesis 1:1 says: “In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth.” To my mind this says God and science agree in
the basic time frame of the creation of the universe. Everything
was created at one time in one place and “hurled” through space.
On the third day God created vegetation. Now here we need to
talk more about the word “literal”. To me it means that it
literally took less than a day for the creation act to occur but
it was not necessarily the third “consecutive” day.
It could very well be describing a number of days of
creation which were not consecutive but were in fact separate
acts of creation. Perhaps there were millions and millions of
years between the specified days and not necessarily the same
amount of time between each “creation day”.
Another equally valid literal interpretation could have the
creation day be significantly longer than 24 hours, even a
thousand years. St. Peter writes:
“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” [I Peter 3:8]
If we look closer at the word describing the creation of the
vegetation:
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” [Genesis 1:11-12]
Notice the wording used here how God did the creation. God
said “Let the earth bring forth…” This more implies a gradual
development or, if you excuse the word, an evolving of the
vegetation.
But however God did it, there was a start and a conclusion.
The conclusion comes with the phrase “after its kind”. When we
grow corn, the pollen does not get mixed up with the roses. The
corn makes new corn and the roses make new roses. There are
variations in the “kind” but no matter how you try, you may get
red, white, and blue roses, but you wont get an ear of corn on
the rose bush.
So looking back through fossil records, do we not find there
is a time when there was no vegetation and then there was
vegetation? Does anyone claim there was animal life before
vegetation?
Now what is meant by the creation act of day four? This
talks about the sun during the days and the moon and stars at
night. What ever it means, vegetation was here before whatever
happened on creation day four.
Day five uses “bring forth” for fish and birds and also uses
the word “created”. This also was completed with “after their
kind”.
Day six uses “bring forth”, “created”, and “God made” in
reference to the rest of the animals.
But day six also includes the creation of man different from
the animals.
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created he him; male and female
created he them.” [Genesis 1:26-27]
Now the difference between man and the animals is that God
created man, both male and female, in God’s own image and God
gave man, again both male and female, dominion over all life;
fish, birds, and animals.
Now I am not going to comment on just what “God’s image”
means nor the “dominion” concept in this document. That is left
for another discussion.
What I have done it to give a literal interpretation of
creation that does not contradict any obvious scientific evidence
and is diametrically opposite to the “young earth” theory.
I agree with the late Jerry Falwell and now his son on most issues. But
this ultra literal position is a “fly in the ointment”. I strongly suggest
that Mr. Falwell should rethink what he is promulgating and accept the
possibility that other literalist could be correct.
Doug Johnson has been writing and online publishing Christian articles since the 1990′s on http://www.independentchristian.org/
Doug has been a Bible believing Evangelical Christian since childhood. He has been received into fellowship with the Evangelical Free Church, the Plymouth Brethern, the Assembly of God, the American Baptist, and the Southern Baptist.
In the early 2000′s, he was received into full communion with the Catholic Church after careful study of the Catholic Catechism and the Bible. He believes Catholics and Bible believing Protestants should build on what they have in common rather than looking at what is different.
He is presently helping to establish the Independent Christian On-Line Academy at: http://www.ICOLA.us
Doug has an online retail wallpaper business, http://www.wallpaperpirate.com/
Doug is available as a consultant and or speaker.
