In Part One of this piece, I offered 10 reasons for reading the six days of creation as six chronologically successive periods of 24-hours each. Today, I will answer five common objections.
Objections to Literal, Chronological Days
1. Objection: Genesis 2:4 speaks of the entire creation week as a ‘day,’ showing that ‘day’ may not be literal.
Response: The phrase here is actually beyom, an idiomatic expression meaning “when” (NIV, NRSV, NAB).[1] Besides, even had Genesis 2 used “day” in a different sense, Genesis 1 carefully qualifies its creative days (see points 2–5 in the previous article).
1. Cp. G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 6, trans. John T. Willis, Douglas W. Stott, and David E. Green (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1990), 15.
2. Objection: Genesis 2:2–3 establishes the seventh day of God’s rest, which is ongoing and not a literal day. This shows the preceding six days could be long periods of time.
Response: (1) Contextually, this is an argument from silence—one which contradicts Exodus 20:11. (2) If true, it would imply no fall and curse (Genesis 3), for then God would be continually hallowing and blessing that “ongoing day.” In fact, God does not bless his eternal rest, but a particular day. (3) Days 1–6 (the actual creation period) are expressly delimited; Day 7 is not. (This is, however, because the creation week has ceased. To mention another “morning” would imply another day followed in that unique period.) Since this is the seventh in a series of six preceding literal days, how can we interpret it other than literally?
3. Objection: On Day 4 God creates the sun to provide light; but light was created on Day 1. This shows that the days are not chronologically ordered, but thematically cross-linked.
Response: This “problem” is answered in the context. On Day 1 God declares “good” the newly created light, but not his separating it from darkness to form “evening and morning.” This is because the final, providential mechanism for separating (the sun) is not created until Day 4. Thus, when Day 4 ends we finally read: “it was good” (Gen. 1:18). This is similar to the separation of the waters above and below on Day 2, which is not declared “good” until the final separation from the land on Day 3 (Gen. 1:9). Or like Adam’s creation not being “good” (Gen. 2:18) until Eve is separated out of him. Also, Scripture elsewhere suggests light was created separately from the sun (2 Cor. 4:6; Job 38:19–20) and can exist apart from it (Rev. 22:5).
Besides, most of the material in Genesis 1 demands chronological order—even for Framework advocates. This suggests that the surprising order of light-then-sun is also chronological. Not only is Genesis 1 structured by fifty-five waw-consecutives (often translated “and”) that indicate narrative sequence, but note: Separating the waters on Day 2 requires their prior creation on Day 1 (Gen. 1:2d). Creating the sea on Day 3 must predate the sea creatures of Day 5. Day 3 logically has dry land appearing before land vegetation later that day. Day 3 must predate Day 6, in that land must precede land animals and man. Day 6 must appear as the last stage of creation, in that man forms the obvious climax to God’s creation. Day 6 logically has man being created after animal life (Days 5 and 6) in that he is commanded to rule over it. Day 7 must conclude the series in that it announces the cessation of creation (Gen. 2:2). And so on.
4. Objection: The parallelism in the triad of days indicates a topical rather than chronological arrangement: Day 1 creates light; Day 4 the light bearers. Day 2’s water and sky correspond to Day 5’s sea creatures and birds. Day 3’s land corresponds to Day 6’s land animals and man.
Response: (1) Such parallelism can be both literary and historical; the two are not mutually exclusive. God can and does gloriously act according to interesting patterns. For instance, just as the land arises from the water on the third day, so Jesus arises from the tomb on a third day. Likewise, in John 20:15 Mary Magdalene sees Jesus, the Second Adam, in a garden (John 19:41) and assumes he is the gardener. Is this a new Eve encountering the New Adam in a new garden under the new covenant? This theological imagery may very well be true here. But she really did see the resurrected Jesus.
(2) We must not allow the stylistic harmony in the revelation of creation to override the emphatic progress in the history of creation. The chronological succession leaves too deep an impression upon the narrative to be mere ornamentation. (3) Numerous discordant features mar the supposed literary framework: For instance, “waters” are created on Day 1 (Gen. 1:2), not Day 2—disrupting the parallel with the water creatures of Day 5. In addition, the creatures of Day 5 are to swim in the “seas” of Day 3. Consequently, the “seas” separated out on Day 3 have no corresponding inhabitant created on its “parallel” day, Day 6. Additional illustrations are pointed out by E. J. Young and Wayne Grudem.[2]
2. E. J. Young, Studies in Genesis One (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R), 1999), 71–73; Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 302–303.
5. Objection: God employed ordinary, slow providence as the prevailing method of creation: Genesis 2:5 demands that the third day had to be much longer than 24 hours, for the waters removed early on Day 3 leave the land so parched that it desperately needs rain to clothe the landscape with verdure. Yet a full panoply of vegetation appears at the end of that very day, Day 3 (Gen. 1:11).
Response: This novel, minority interpretation of Genesis 2:5 misses Moses’s point. In Genesis 2 Moses is: (A) Setting up Adam’s moral test, while (B) anticipating his failure. Note first the setting: (1) Genesis 2:4 introduces us to what becomes of God’s creation.[3] (2) In describing the whole creative process, Genesis 1 uses only God’s name of power (elohim); Genesis 2 suddenly introduces his covenant name (Jehovah God). (3) Unlike how he creates the animals (en masse by fiat), God creates Adam individually and tenderly (2:7). (4) Genesis 2 focuses on the beautiful garden (2:8–9) and God’s gracious provision of a loving helper for Adam (2:18–24). (5) God provides abundant food for Adam (2:16). Thus, the Lord God loves Adam and well provides for him. Would Adam obey him in such glorious circumstances?
3. E. J. Young, Studies in Genesis One (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, n.d.), 59–61.
Note also the anticipation. Opening this new section with the words of Genesis 2:5, the narrative intentionally anticipates Adam’s fall and God’s curse—preparing the reader for the prospect of death (Gen. 2:17): (1) Genesis 2:5 is stating that before God cursed the ground with the thorny shrubs (comp. Gen. 3:18a) and before man had to laboriously “cultivate the ground” (cp. Gen. 3:18b–19a), God provided him with all that he needed. (2) The narrative notes God’s creation of Adam from the dust (Gen. 2:7), anticipating his rebellion and return thereto (Gen. 3:19b). (3) It tests Adam in terms of his eating due to God’s abundant provision (Gen. 2:16–17), which foreshadows his struggling to eat, due to his failing God’s singular prohibition (Gen. 3:17–19a). (4) We learn that at their creation Adam and Eve were “naked and not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25), anticipating their approaching shame (Gen. 3:7).
Thus, Genesis 2:5 anticipates moral failure, rather than announcing creational method.
Conclusion
Against my arguments above, Meredith Kline argues that “as far as the time frame is concerned, with respect to both the duration and sequence of events, the scientist is left free of biblical constraints in hypothesizing about cosmic origins.”[4] However, the Scripture clearly teaches that “from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6, emphasis added). But Kline allows billions of years of creating (from the original ex nihilo to Adam), teaching that we have only just recently left creation week!
4. Meredith G. Kline, “Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony,” in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 48 (1996): 2.
Certainly much more needs to be stated. But I believe my ten arguments for a literal reading of Genesis 1 and my five response to objections sufficiently demonstrate the validity of the Westminster Confession (4.1) when it declares: “It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good.”
For these reasons I am a Six Day Creationist.