In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
- Genesis 1:1
“The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.” Thus reads Chapter 1, Section 4 of The Westminster Confession of Faith.
Last week it was mentioned that it would be both foolish and impious of me to attempt to prove that the 66 books of the Bible are the infallible and inerrant Word of God. The foolishness of this project, as you may recall, was found in the axiomatic position the Bible plays in the Christian system of thought.
An axiom is a first principle, an unproven and unprovable first principle. The reason an axiom is unproven and unprovable lies in the very definition of the term “axiom” itself. If one were to prove a first principle, then it would no longer be a first principle. Whatever argument used to prove the axiom would take the original axiom’s place as the new first principle.
Some Christians may be concerned by the assertion that we do not prove the axiom of Christianity – The Bible Alone is the Word of God – supposing that somehow this puts Christianity on a shaky footing. But this concern can be assuaged by remembering that all systems of thought – and this includes all secular systems of thought of the sort the world delights to throw at Christians – have their axioms. In this case, the Christian with his axiom is no worse off than the secular scientist or philosopher with his axioms. The Christian begins his thinking in one place, the 66 books of the Bible. On the other hand, the scientist begins his thinking in another place, perhaps on the axiom of the general reliability of the senses.
In addition to it being foolish to attempt to prove that the Bible is the infallible and inerrant Word of God, it was also mentioned that it would be impious to do so. “Impious” is not a term we use often, so perhaps a definition is in order. Merriam Webster defies it as irreverent or profane. The notion that the fallible words of sinful man are better testimony of the truth than God’s Word itself is the very definition of impiety.
The Westminster Confession citation above refers to several passages from Scripture to supports its claims.
- 1 Peter 1:19, 21 And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
- 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
- 1 John 5:9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.
It was Augustine who famously wrote, “For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that you may understand” (Tractate 29 on John 7:14-18). In this statement, Augustine shows himself a Scripturalist. He attempts not to prove the Bible is the Word of God, but accepts it as true – that is, he accepts the Bible as his axiom - and his understanding of God and his works follows from this.
With all this said, let us turn to the subject at hand, which is Genesis as history.
Genesis as History
Accepting that Genesis is history – all of Genesis is, of course, history; but in our study the special emphasis is on Genesis chapters 1-11 – is fundamental to a correct understanding of the whole of Scripture.
The stance of this author on the doctrine of creation is that Genesis 1 teaches, and teaches clearly, that the Lord created all things of nothing by speaking them into existence in the space of six literal, 24-hour days, and that the creation was all very good.
Among Christians, this was doctrine was not seriously challenged, “until,” as Gary Crampton noted in his Trinity Review “The Days of Creation,” “the late 18th and early 19th centuries with the onslaught of evolutionary thinking.”
In reading the works of the Reformers of the 16th century and the Puritans, one will find, as far as this author is aware, no hint of a question about the historicity of the events recorded in Genesis 1-11.
In his Annals of the World published in 1650, James Ussher began by writing, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. {Ge 1:1} The beginning of time, according to our chronology, happened at the start of the evening preceding the 23rd day of October (on the Julian calendar), 4004 BC or 710 JP [Julian Period]…On the first day {Ge 1:1-5} of the world (Sunday, October 23), God created the highest heaven and the angels.”
It may be that Ussher is right about the day on which the world was created. But whether he is right about this or not, this is not the main reason I quote this passage from his book. The reason I cite it is to illustrate the point that Ussher, as was typical of those in his day, accepted without question that Genesis teaches not only that God created the world in six, literal 24-hour days, but also the closely connected point that the earth itself is about 6,000 years old. Note that Ussher gives 4004 BC as the year of creation.
Above it was mentioned that the doctrine of creation out of nothing, in the space of six, literal 24-hour days, and all very good, was, as far as this author is aware, the universal, or near universal testimony of the church until the about 200 years ago. With that said, it’s worth noting that there were some in the days of John Calvin who did not accept this teaching. This may come as a surprise to some, but the challenge to the doctrine of creation in six 24-hour days made the opposite error of today’s scientists or theistic evolutionists. In the 21st century, we’re used to hearing theologians attempt to square the Bible with modern science by coming up with various schemes to reinterpret the creation account in Genesis to accommodate long periods of time. For example, the day-age theory posits that the days of Genesis 1 are long periods of time, perhaps millions or billions of years.
But those who went astray in John Calvin’s time did not do so with the day-age theory. No. They made the opposite error. Instead of making the days of Genesis into millions/billions of years, they erred by claiming that God created the whole world in an instant! Writes Calvin,
Here the error of those is manifestly refuted, who maintain that the world was made in a moment. For it is too violent a cavil to contend that Moses distributes the work which God perfected at once into six days, for the mere purpose of conveying instruction (Commentaries, Genesis).
In reading Calvin’s remarks, I am reminded of a colorful quote, often attributed to Martin Luther, which reads, “History is like a drunk man on a horse. No sooner does he fall off on the left side, does he mount again and fall off on the right.” Modern scholars fall on the horse on one side by positing millions or billions of years in the place of the days of Genesis, while 500 years ago scholars fell off the horse on the other by claiming that God created the world in a moment.
Both groups are wrong. For both have failed in their duty of taking God at his word.
The Westminster divines, on the other hand, got it right. In their words, “The work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.”