Evolution is considered by many to be scientific fact. Every National Geographic program reminds us that we live in a world created by random chance over 5 to 20 billion years. While most Christians do not believe in evolution, they struggle to believe God created everything in six literal days.

In an effort to reconcile the difference between high school biology and the church youth group, many Christians attempt a compromise. A common compromise is theistic evolution or the day-age theory. This theory claims that each day of creation corresponds to billions of years in the evolutionary cycle. The Bible is considered true as long as the days of creation are not literally true. Is this what you believe?

Unfortunately, theistic evolution poses serious theological problems. Theistic evolution claims animals were dying for billions of years before Adam and Eve entered the world. Therein lies the fatal flaw. We have death in the world before sin entered the world. The Bible is clear that death came about as a result of sin (Romans 5:12). The theistic evolution compromise can’t be true since death came from Adam and Eve’s sin, not before Adam and Eve’s sin.Another reason Christians struggle accepting creation by God in six literal days is because of the apparent age of the universe. How could God create the universe in six literal days in the recent past when some things appear so old? To answer that question lets answer the age-old question of what came first, the chicken or the egg? Most people don’t realize that the Bible gives an answer in Genesis 1. When God brought creation into existence in six days, the Bible tells us his creation was fully formed and had the appearance of age.

Genesis 1 tells us God created plants with seeds in them, not from seeds. The plants were spontaneous creations of God. They were fully formed. Trees had rings in them, as if they were old, even though they only existed for minutes. In the same way the animals were spontaneous creations of God that were adults. How could God command them to be fruitful and multiply if they weren’t mature enough to multiply? In addition, when God made Adam and Eve, he made them with age and maturity. They had the ability to multiply. They had pre-formed knowledge and language skills. They knew how to care for the garden. If we were to travel back in time to moments after creation, we would assume Adam and Eve were adults in their twenties. In reality, they were only minutes old. God has no problem creating things with the appearance of age. In John 2, Jesus changed the water into wine. He bypassed the long fermentation process. When Jesus fed the 5,000, he didn’t have to hatch fish, feed fish and grow fish. God can spontaneously create things that look old. What came first, the chicken or the egg. The chicken… and she was a mature adult ready to lay an egg!

If we believe God raised Jesus from the dead, why do we have a problem believing God made the world in six literal days, and with the appearance of age, like the Bible claims? If we believe God will raise our self-same bodies from the grave, even though our bodies may be decomposed for hundreds or thousands of years, why do we have a problem believing God created the earth in six literal days? If we believe God will one day create a new heaven and a new earth (2 Peter 3:13 and Revelation 21:1), and he won’t do it over billions of years through random evolutionary chance, why do we have a problem believing God created our current heaven and earth in six literal days?

Published September 25, 2015 in the Dickinson County News