Warmup 12/8/15 What does Creationism say? If you know, summarize it. If not, what do you think it says? Objective Tonight’s Homework To learn how Creationism can be true pp 178: 1

Notes: Basics of Creationism A reminder as we start. Creationism and evolution aren’t science. The Bible isn’t a science or history textbook. Knowing this, we have to try and interpret from the stories at the beginning of Genesis what facts we can. There is opinion here and it’s likely that what’s being said isn’t 100% accurate. Only God knows the full story. Also keep in mind that the POINT of the Bible is to be a love story between God and humanity. All the stories in the Bible point towards this end.

Notes: Basics of Creationism The 6 days of Creation First, we have to note that the 6 days of creation appear to be taken literally. This is seen in the Hebrew word being used for day – “yom”. This word, combined with the phrase “evening and morning”, pretty solidly indicates a day as a 24 hour period. So how is it possible that we have days and nights before the sun even exists? This does seem to contradict, but if we just mean “day” as “a 24 hour period” then its not a problem.

Notes: Basics of Creationism Let’s look at the 6 days of creation: Day 1) God separates light from darkness, day from night. It’s worth pointing out here that God created both light and darkness. How can we have “day” and “night” through if Earth doesn’t exist? Day and night means time. On this day, God has created time as well.

Notes: Basics of Creationism Let’s look at the 6 days of creation: Day 2) God separates the waters from the “vault”. What’s the vault? It’s a way of saying heaven and the Universe God is making for Man.

Notes: Basics of Creationism Let’s look at the 6 days of creation: Day 3) God separates the waters into land and sea and fills the land with plants. It’s worth noting that God commands the plants to repopulate after their own kind. He creates them so that they can keep going on their own as well.

Notes: Basics of Creationism Let’s look at the 6 days of creation: Day 4) Days 4, 5, and 6 mirror 1, 2, and 3. On day 4 God deals with light and darkness again. He fills the heavens with the sun, moon, and stars.

Notes: Basics of Creationism Let’s look at the 6 days of creation: Day 5) Day 5 deals with the waters and the vault again. But this time, God creates fish and birds to fill those as well. Once again, he creates them “after their own kind” so that they can keep making more of themselves.

Notes: Basics of Creationism Let’s look at the 6 days of creation: Day 6) On day 6, God creates all the creatures of land, including Man. These are the most complex creatures.

Variations in Creationism So a lot of this seems to clash with what science says. In the end, we have to trust that God has it right and man simply has made mistakes, but there are some attempts to explain things. Long Days One theory that some Christians have is that each “day” is actually a much longer period of time. We’ve already talked about how it was meant to be literal. There’s danger in trying to fit the Bible to match Man’s theories. Really, we should be making sure that our theories line up with the Bible first. (Which has happened tons of times with New Testament history.)

Variations in Creationism The Gap Theory Another view is that the Biblical account of creation skips a few details. Maybe in Genesis 1:1 when it says “God created the heavens and the earth”, there was stuff there that happened in between that and when God “separated the light from the darkness”. This theory says that there was all kinds of time in between to explain most of the stuff evolution says it’s found. Once again, it’s dangerous to mess around with interpreting what the Bible doesn’t say. Maybe this is how it happened, but it’s not likely.

Variations in Creationism Creation with Apparent Age Some Christians ask the following: Let’s say the days were literal and Day 6, God creates animals. Did He create all of them as babies? Of course not. If He had, they would have mostly died out by the next day! He must have created some of the animals to look like they were already a few years old. If God did this with animals, is it too hard to imagine He did this with rocks and fossils as well? Imagine if God had created the Earth brand new, with volcanoes and stuff everywhere!

Variations in Creationism The Flood Now we get to theories about the Flood. It changed creation. It killed animals and created fossils. But where did all the water come from?

Variations in Creationism The Canopy Theory The Canopy Theory says that the Earth had a large layer of water molecules sitting high in the atmosphere. (Currently, there’s only a little water vapor at the altitude we’re talking about) When the flood happened, all this water rained out of the sky and the sea level rose higher. The problem: This much water in the atmosphere would have made Earth too hot. Plus, it’s hard to explain how it would have all rained down in such a short time.

Variations in Creationism Tectonic Shift Another theory says that before the Flood, the Earth was flatter. Mountains weren’t as high. This idea says that when the Flood happened, there were a lot of earthquakes. A lot of land shifted, and while it was shifting it got submerged under water for a while. Also, all the shifting brought up underground water stored in aquifers. A bit of math will show that there’s enough water in the oceans to cover the whole Earth if things are leveled out.

Test Thursday Thursday you’ll have a test that covers everything we’ve talked about for evolution and creationism. It will also include some things about the Flood that we’ll talk about tomorrow.

Exit Question What’s the most important thing to remember while we look at Creationism? a) That we can only prove some of it b) That evolution is dumb and wrong c) That the Bible isn’t a science textbook d) That we should just believe whatever other Christians say e) All the above are equally important