YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISM, GOOD & BAD
This isn't real important, IMO, but maybe a little. Creationist scientists have done quite a bit of good science and I like to reference a lot of their work. But I'm not a Creationist. I don't accept their interpretation of how the Earth formed. I don't believe in their concept of God and Heaven in the sky. I believe God is universal consciousness and especially universal Love, which means Caring. Love/Caring is what makes anything come into existence. Angels, not God, inspired the Bible and that's why it contains many errors. But the errors are mainly trivial. The angels were inspired by God, but angels aren't perfect and can't speak for God perfectly, just as humans cannot. I think the Earth formed naturally. I don't know how life formed, but I doubt that life can come into existence through computers or so-called artificial intelligence. That's really just advanced calculation. Electricity also can't bring life to computers or robots, like Frankenstein's monster.
SIX DAYS OF CREATION
Creationists tend to insist that the six days of creation in the Genesis story infallibly means six literal 24 hour days. I just came across the following article today and it has an excellent Biblical argument against that notion. Here are the main points I got out of the article. 1.Early Christians interpreted the six days of creation as six thousand years. 2. Adventist Ellen White said the universe is old, but Earth was created in six days six thousand years ago. 3. Adventist George Price wrote the first young earth creationism book. Below is a quote of the first part about early Christian views. The author seems to accept mainstream views on evolution and an old Earth and universe. I accept that the Flood occurred about 5,000 years ago and formed the sedimentary rock strata and caused the continents to break apart and the continents are possibly less than 10,000 years old, but Earth is probably older and the universe may be much older as well. Anyway, here's the Biblical argument against six literal days of creation. I ask myself why I didn't think of it before, since I knew these passages since a young age.
EARLY CHRISTIAN VIEW
The Origins of Young Earth Creationism https://peacefulscience.org/prints/origns-yec/
__What Did Early Christians Believe?
_In the second century AD, St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote a book responding to gnostic heretics. Various gnostic sects believed the God of the old testament is a different god from Jesus and was not actually the ultimate creator of all things. Often they would argue that God was evil and lied to Adam and Eve, because the Gnostics read Genesis 2 to mean that God told Adam that if they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil he would die the same day that he ate, thus interpreting the word for day to mean a literal 24-hour day. However, in Genesis 3, it is clear Adam and Eve did not die on the same day they ate from the tree.
_St. Irenaeus responded by stating that the days in Genesis were not literal 24-hour days, by drawing from 2 Peter 3:8, where it states the days in Genesis were periods of 1000 years (Against Heresies 5.23.2). Since Adam did not live more than a thousand years, God did not lie when he said Adam would die in the same day that he ate. However, St. Irenaeus also states he thought the days of Genesis 1 were also one thousand year periods:
_For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the Scripture says: ‘Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works.’ This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year. (Against Heresies 5.28.3)
_Irenaeus thought each day of creation was 1000 years, meaning on his view, the earth would be roughly 12,000 years. Technically speaking, he would not qualify as a young earth creationist<>, since he states the age of the earth was over 10,000 years, but only in a technical sense. However, the important point to take away from this is St. Irenaeus didn’t think one had to interpret the days of Genesis 1 as literal 24-hour days, meaning the chapter was open to interpretation in the 2nd century AD and doesn’t necessarily have to mean the earth is only 6000 years old.
_St. Irenaeus is not alone in this understanding of the days of Genesis. St. Justin Martyr also seems to agree on this reading of days as being 1000 years (Dialogue with Trypho 81). Holding to a different interpretation, Clement of Alexandria also did not believe creation took place in 6 24-hour days. He seemed to have believed all things were created instantaneously in the past, and the days of Genesis 1 are figurative, ordering which creations were most important to God. The longer the day, the more important whatever was listed under that day. (Stromata 6.16; St. Miscellanies 6.16)
_Clement likely got this view from a contemporary of Jesus. The Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, also advocated for an instantaneous creation and that the days of Genesis 1 were figurative (The Creation of the World, 3). This interpretation of Genesis was also promoted by other early church fathers, like St. Athanasius the Great, Origen, St. Augustine, and others.
_St. Augustine taught the days of Genesis 1 were not sun divided days but God divided days (The Literal Meaning of Genesis 4.27), and that all six days of Genesis 1 are called one day in Genesis 2:4, where it states, in the day that the LORD God made the heavens [and] the earth.
_Thus, the days, according to his reading of Genesis 1 and 2 were not literal 24-hour days.
_It follow, therefore, that He, who created all things together, simultaneously created these six days, or seven, or rather the one day six or seven times repeated. Why, then, was there any need for six distinct days to be set forth in the narrative one after the other? The reason is that those who cannot understand the meaning of the text, ‘He created all things together,’ cannot arrive at the meaning of Scripture unless the narrative proceeds solely step by step. (The Literal Meaning of Genesis 5.3.6)
_In other words, St. Augustine believed the days of Genesis 1 were not 6 24-hour days, but part of the narrative structure of Genesis 1. So one didn’t have to take Genesis 1 to be explaining how creation literally happened.
_Now, the early church fathers who believed in instantaneous creation and took Genesis 1 figuratively, still were young earth creationists, since they didn’t state the earth was more than 6000 years old. But the point being they didn’t have to hold to the idea the earth was 6000 years old because of a plain or literal reading of Genesis 1. There were different ways to interpret the chapter where it was read figuratively. The belief one can have a non-literal reading of Genesis wasn’t a modern idea. It was present in the days of the early church fathers.