# creation week



## cornelius vantil (Jun 6, 2005)

what is your view of creation week?


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## cornelius vantil (Jun 6, 2005)

i am framework......that is probably in the minority but i would like to see what everyone thoughts are.


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jun 6, 2005)

6-day literal.


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## pastorway (Jun 6, 2005)

6 day literal, just as God wrote with His own finger on the Stone tablet (Fourth Commandment) that He created the world in 6 days and rested the seventh. (an example of the fact that the Hebrew word for day when modified by a number always equals a literal day.)

Phillip


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## RamistThomist (Jun 7, 2005)

Six-Day Literal/Literary


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## WrittenFromUtopia (Jun 7, 2005)

> _Originally posted by pastorway_
> 6 day literal, just as God wrote with His own finger on the Stone tablet (Fourth Commandment) that He created the world in 6 days and rested the seventh. (an example of the fact that the Hebrew word for day when modified by a number always equals a literal day.)
> 
> Phillip



Good point.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 7, 2005)

I stated mine as Literal/Literary because I affirm the actual week of creation and I also see it as a stunning narrative stating the exact same thing in a different way. So when i say literary I do not mean non-6 day.


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## Robin (Jun 7, 2005)

> _Originally posted by cornelius vantil_
> i am framework......that is probably in the minority but i would like to see what everyone thoughts are.



 

Robin


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## LadyFlynt (Jun 7, 2005)

6 day--literal


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## Abd_Yesua_alMasih (Jun 7, 2005)

6 day literal - I mean come on folks lets be scientific here. We cant have life exist long without the sun  [size=-2]no scientific rebutals please...[/size]


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## Poimen (Jun 7, 2005)

Six day historical-grammatical.


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## default (Jun 7, 2005)

Does it matter? By that, I mean we mere humans are always trying to "figure" God out, we will never, in our given state, be able to do so. Even the Seventh day, the Sabbath Day, is spoken of in Hebrews 4, Christ is our Sabbath! So literal or not (there is scripture that says one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day_) with God... our rest is in Christ. 

ps... not saying "does it matter" as in I don't care... I do!


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jun 7, 2005)

Six-day literal. This is a cardinal doctrine of the Christian religion.


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## BobVigneault (Jun 7, 2005)




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## cornelius vantil (Jun 7, 2005)

while i would that "creation" is a cardnal doctrine of our faith, i would disagree in saying that the nature of the creation week is as improtant as some of our brethren would think. Augustine did not hold to a literal creation week as did some of the fathers. it is definately important to hold that our universe was created "ex nihilo" by God and that man was a special creation of God distinct from the rest of creation (as oposed to darwinain evolution). the creation was a historical event, how we understand that event can be open for discussion.


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## BobVigneault (Jun 7, 2005)

Six day literal is necessary because:
1. it is the plain meaning of the text
2. anything contrary is a compromise with and an attempt to facilitate evolution and millions of years;
3. anything contrary requires using an interpretive methodology that is not healthy to our understanding (eg. Did Johuas march around Jericho 7000 years? Did Jesus stay in the tomb 3000 years.)
4. the better question is, "Why did God take so long?"
5. To shy away from six literal days is to bring God's omnipotence into question.
In my humble opinion


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## fredtgreco (Jun 7, 2005)

I have said this in the past regarding the necessity of a normal six-day view:



> I don't believe that an incorrect doctrine of the length of days should of itself make a man unfit for the ministry. When ordaining a man, we should look at the whole man and judge whether or not he will be profitable to the church. This issue is not a important as others. But I would not want to lie or pretend that the Westminster divines intended framework or day age when they did not.
> 
> It is also very likely that most men who hold to a day-age view do not allow the logical consequences of that view to tarnish their doctrine of the Sabbath.
> 
> Thank God for inconsistencies!



And I also have posted this:



> The grounds would be that the FH advocate does not say that Genesis 1-3 is figurative, he would say it is a non-chronological description of a literal event. The FH does not say God does not create ex nihilo. There are serious problems with the FH in my opinion, and Kline especially has many fanciful notions in general; but a denial of ex nihilo is not one of them. Even Augustine, with his notions of creation (which were also quite odd), did not deny ex nihilo.
> 
> That is why for me FH is not heresy - even though I think you can be a heretic and still a Christian (i.e. a teacher of non damnable heresy) - I believe it is flawed, but that is it. To argue otherwise is to open oneself up to easy counterattack by the FH advocates, much the same way that the simplistic, "Roman Catholics believe in salvation by works," can get you obliterated by a savvy RC apologist.



I do think that there are significant exegetical problems with framework:

1. If Genesis 1-2 is not narrative, but is semi-poetical (whatever that is), why is THE sign of historical narrative (the _waw conversive_) used in Genesis 1-2 more than in any other chapter of the Bible?

2. How do we apply the 4th commandment to a normal day if the analogy (God's resting) is NOT a normal day?

3. How is it that God would reveal Himself to His people in a way that even FH advocates say would not have been understood by the recipients of the revelation?

4. Why is it that the FH was completely unknown in all of Church history before the late 19th century? (Kind of makes the secret rapture a hoary old theory)

These are the issues, not exaggerations that are (relatively) easily dismissed.


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## Puritan Sailor (Jun 7, 2005)

6 day view for all other reasons as stated. I do not think the Church has been left in the dark until Kline came around. PLus any non traditional view is simply a consession to unbelieving worldviews. It is not derived form the plain reading of the text itself.


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## cornelius vantil (Jun 7, 2005)

> _Originally posted by puritansailor_
> 6 day view for all other reasons as stated. I do not think the Church has been left in the dark until Kline came around. PLus any non traditional view is simply a consession to unbelieving worldviews. It is not derived form the plain reading of the text itself.



brother, i would have to strongly disagree with you. my affirming FH is not a consession to unbelieving worldview but is the best way to understand the account in genesis. my issue is not that God could not have created to the world in 6 days (he most certainly could if that was his intent), but that the way genesis 1-2 is structured makes it highly unlikely that the intent of the author was to a chronilogical account of the creation week. there are a few reasons for this 

1. day1 and day4 conflicts: God creates light and separates it from darkness and calls it "good" in D1, then in D2 God creates the sun and the stars and the first reason he gives is to separate day and night. now if the first arangement was considered "good" why introduce a second arrangement? wouldn.t it be better to conclude that D4 is a recapitulation and expansion of D1?

2. nature of providence during the creation week: the writer says this in Gen.2:5 

"and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground"

this verse presupposes that God used ordinary providence during the creation week. this verse brings a few problems with a literal reading of the creation week
a. this verse has vegitation arriving before the arrival of man when in the creation week this was inverted, vegiatation D3 man D6
b. if God used ordinary providence then D1-D3 cannot be chronological because apart from the sun and moon in D4 there was no ordinary method in measuring the days. which further gives the need of D4 to be a recapitualtion of D1

would love to hear some dialogue


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## fredtgreco (Jun 7, 2005)

Hermenio,

To my knowledge, no one has ever answered the grammatical-exegetical concerns. Genesis 1-2 is narrative. It is not Hebrew poetry, and even the most brilliant advocates of the FH have not attempted to argue that. The best that they come up with is that it is "semi-poetry" - now what that means, and where we would ever find any other examples of "semi-poetry" in all of literature (none to my knowledge) is beyond me.

How this can be non-chronological and non-narrative, when Genesis 1-2 have the single most occurrences of THE mark of Hebrew historical narrative - the waw conversive (not just a lot, but more than any other section of OT Scripture), as well as the use of a numeral with yom? Even Gerstner remarked when asked where else in the Bible was yom used with a numeral to mean anything other than a literal, normal calendar day, "Nowhere."

I agree with you - I don't think Framework is an attempt to accommodate secular science so much. The day/age view does that just fine. I see it as the spirit of the age in the Church - the pursuit of the novel, interesting, and "oh wow! how come no one else ever figured that out!"

Poor Church, unable to understand a fundamental passage of Scripture for 1950 odd years.


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## Puritan Sailor (Jun 7, 2005)

> _Originally posted by cornelius vantil_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by puritansailor_
> ...


This is how I understand it.
The two creation accounts are two types of narratives with two purposes in mind. The first is deliberately chronological, and interpreted as such in the Decalogue. That is how the Jews and the Church have understood it for thousands of years. I don't think they were wrong. 
The second is a narrative specifically about Adam and is not intended to be strictly chronological. How many times is Adam put in the garden in that account? It has a different purpose in explaining the origin of man and his fall. 

I don't have time to add anything further right now but I would refer you to EJ Youngs critique of the FH as well as Pipa (but I'm sure you already read them).


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## BobVigneault (Jun 7, 2005)

Without arguing the specifics Herminio, my greatest problem with your compromised (my opinion) view is that you seem to be saying that the scriptures, as they are written, stand in error. Isn't that the bottom line or am I oversimplifying your assertions?


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## RamistThomist (Jun 7, 2005)

1. Only concerning the "light without the sun" issue: Why not see the Light emanating from the Holy Spirit of God until God made the sun? Is this any different from the Garden-city of the New Jerusalem at the end of Revelation?


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## cornelius vantil (Jun 7, 2005)

> _Originally posted by puritansailor_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by cornelius vantil_
> ...



have not read young's critique would love to though. i have read l. duncan, k. gentrey, j. pipa, and a. sandlin critiques and to be honest they did not address the issues raised especially the gen2:5 issue. that was just danced around by duncan. i was very disappointed. while i would agree with you the both creation accounts served diffrent purposes that does not answer gen2:5. that passage says that the ordinary providental work of God in bringing rain and the arrival of man were nessacary before vegatation can grow. if this was not to be taken literally or chronologically, then why would the Lord reveal it as such?


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## PuritanCovenanter (Jun 11, 2005)

Was Adam created an infant or a man? Already aged somewhat, that is. Can't the stars be created with light rays already in place? Besides, the fact that He is light and will be our Sun in the New Heavens and New Earth is something that will be discovered. Light doesn't need a star. It needs a creater and Him who holds all things together.


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## Puritan Sailor (Jun 11, 2005)

> _Originally posted by cornelius vantil_
> 
> have not read young's critique would love to though. i have read l. duncan, k. gentrey, j. pipa, and a. sandlin critiques and to be honest they did not address the issues raised especially the gen2:5 issue. that was just danced around by duncan. i was very disappointed. while i would agree with you the both creation accounts served diffrent purposes that does not answer gen2:5. that passage says that the ordinary providental work of God in bringing rain and the arrival of man were nessacary before vegatation can grow. if this was not to be taken literally or chronologically, then why would the Lord reveal it as such?


Young was a analogical view guy, but I still think his critique of the FH is excellent. You maay see it in his "Studies in Genesis One" published by P&R. 


Your vs.5 dilemma is resolved in verse 6. 
"5before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. "

The God brought a mist to water the ground. Plants grew. Then God makes a specific garden for Adam to tend. Where's the dilemma? The point of reference now in the second narrative is Adam. These initial verses simply summarize what was already explained in more detail the previous chapter. They seem to presuppose it actually. I'm not sure why you think verse 5 is such an obstacle to the traditional understanding.

[Edited on 6-12-2005 by puritansailor]


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## RamistThomist (Jun 11, 2005)

He might be a bombthrower in other areas, but Jim Jordan's book on creation is quite good. He addresses and admirably deals with every objection to the six day view (he deals with Kline's two versions of the FH; Waltke's view, and Sailhamer's view).


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## Augusta (Jun 11, 2005)

Six day literal.


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