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Recent Creation Is A Vital Doctrine
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Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
IMPACT
No. 132, June 1984
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There is no aspect of creationism which is under greater attack byevolutionists than the Biblical doctrine of recent creation. Theevolutionists, knowing the weakness of the scientific case for evolution,almost always directs his own argument not against creation per se, butagainst recent creation and its corollary, flood geology.
As a result, many people who consider themselves creationists have beenintimidated against this Biblical concept. Instead, they try to cling to the19th century evolutionary compromise now known as the "day-age theory" and "progressive creation. Some take refuge in the "gap theory," hoping they can ignore the problem by pigeon-holing theevolutionary ages of the geologists in an imaginary gap between the firsttwo verses of Genesis. Both theories attempt to accommodate the geologicalages, even though it is the geological ages which provide the main basis andframework for evolution. We "young-earth creationists" are an embarrassmentto both the progressive creationists and the gap creationists and so theyurge us to acknowledge that recent creation is merely an optionalinterpretation which is unimportant and expendable.
But this we cannot do. As a strictly scientific question, divorced from anyBiblical or theological considerations (as presumably, in a public schooltextbook or in a scientific debate) the date of creation can and should betreated as a separate topic from the fact of creation. This does not make itexpendable, however. It is an important and basic issue that deservesserious study in its own right, strictly in terms of the relevant scientificdata. When the Biblical and theological data are also considered (as in achurch or other Christian context), the doctrine of recent creation becomescritically significant, integrally interwoven with the doctrine of creationitself. Outlined below, very briefly, are a few of the reasons why thedoctrine of recent creation is vitally important to true BiblicalChristianity.
Historical Reasons
"Progressive creationism" is not a modern interpretation developed to bringthe Genesis record into harmony with modern science, but a very ancientconcept devised to impose a theistic connotation upon the almost universalpagan evolutionary philosophies of antiquity. The primeval existence of thecosmos, with matter in some form present from eternity, was a dogma commonto all ancient religions and philosophies, seeking as they were to functionwithout an omnipotent, holy, eternal, personal, Creator God. Compromisingmonotheists, both in ancient Israel and in the early Christian church,repeatedly resorted to various allegorical interpretations of Scripture,involving some form of protracted creation, seeking to amalgamatecreationist/redemptionist theology with pagan humanistic philosophy. Almostinevitably, however, such compromises ended in complete apostasy on the partof the compromisers.
In more modern times, Charles Darwin himself is a classic case in point.Starting out as a Biblical creationist, his decline began with theacceptance of Lyellian uniformitarianism, the geological ages andprogressive creationism. He then soon became a full-fledged theisticevolutionist and eventually an atheist. The same steps were traveled by manyother scientists of that period. In fact, science itself was originally (inthe days of Newton and the other founders of modern science) committed tothe strict Biblical chronology, then drifted into progressive creationism(after Cuvier, Lyell and others), then into a Darwinian theisticevolutionism, finally into total evolutionary naturalism.
The creationist revival of the first quarter of the 20th century wasshort-lived because it again tried to compromise with the day-age theory.This was Bryan's fatal mistake at the Scopes trial. The various earlycreationist organizations also failed to take a firm position on recentcreationism and soon either died out (e.g., The Religion and ScienceAssociation, which lasted just two years, and the Creation-Deluge Society,which survived for six years), or became almost impotent (as in the case ofthe Evolution Protest Movement) or capitulated to theistic evolutionism (forexample, the American Scientific Affiliation). Multitudes of churches,schools and other Christian organizations, have followed the same dead-endpath of compromise during the past century. [1]
Theological Reasons
Even if one does not accept the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, theconcept of a personal, omnipotent, omniscient, loving God is fatally flawedby the old-earth dogma. The very reason for postulating an ancient cosmos isto escape from God—to push Him as far away in space and as far back in timeas possible, hoping thereby eventually to escape His control altogether,letting Nature become "god."
Surely an omniscient God could devise a better process of creation than therandom, wasteful, inefficient trial-and-error charade of the so calledgeological ages, and certainly a loving merciful God would never be guiltyof a creative process that would involve the suffering and death ofmultitudes of innocent animals, in the process of arriving at man millionsof years later.
It should be obvious that the God of the Bible would create everythingcomplete and good, right from the start. The wastefulness and randomness andcruelty which is now so evident in the world (both in the groaning creationof the present and in the fossilized world of the past) must represent anintrusion into His creation, not a mechanism for its accomplishment. Godwould never do a thing like that, except in judgment of sin!
Furthermore, if one must make a choice between a full-fledged theisticevolutionism and a compromising "progressive creationism," with its"day-age" theory of Genesis one would have to judge the latter worse thanthe former, theologically speaking. Both systems are equally objectionablein terms of their common commitment to the geological age system, with itssupposed three-billion-year spectacle of random wastefulness and asuffering, dying world. However, progressive creationism compounds theoffense by making God have to redirect and recharge everything at intervals.Theistic evolution at least postulates a God able to plan and energize thetotal "creation" process right at the start. Progressive creation postulatesa world that has to be pumped up with new spurts of creative energy andguidance whenever the previous injection runs down or misdirects. Surely allthose who really believe in the God of the Bible should see that anycompromise with the geological-age system is theological chaos. Whether thecompromise involves the day-age theory or the gap theory, the very conceptof the geological ages implies divine confusion and cruelty, and the God ofthe Bible could not have been involved in such a thing as that at all.
Biblical Reasons
As far as the Biblical record itself is concerned, there is not theslightest indication anywhere in Scripture that the earth endured long agesbefore the creation of Adam and Eve. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said:"But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female" (Mark10:6).
The crystal-clear statement of the Lord in the Ten Commandments completelyprecludes the day-age interpretation of the six days of creation:
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,...: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" (Exodus 20:8-11).
If God's six work days were not the same kind of days as the six days ofman's work week, then God is not able to say what He means. The languagecould hardly be more clear and explicit. Note also its further confirmationlater in the chapter:
"(The sabbath) is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed. And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God" (Exodus 31:17, 18).
All Scripture is divinely inspired, but this portion was divinely inscribed!
Still further, the record of the six days of creation concludes with thestatement by God that everything in His creation was "very good" at the endof the six days (Genesis 1:31). There is no way this could be harmonizedwith a worldwide fossil graveyard a mile deep all around the earth. TheBible makes it plain, in fact, that death never even entered the world untilAdam sinned (Romans 5:12; I Corinthians 5:21) and brought God's curse on theground. (Genesis 3:17; Romans 8:20-22).
Scientific Reasons
Those who insist on accommodating the geological ages, despite all theBiblical, theological and historical arguments against them, do so on thegrounds that "science" requires it. "God would not deceive us," they say,"by making the earth look so old, if it were really young."
But it is really the other way around. If the earth were really old, Godwould not deceive us by saying so clearly and emphatically that He createdit all in six days.
For that matter, the earth does not really look old anyway. Evolutionistshave tried to make it look old by imposing the unscriptural and unscientificdogma of uniformitarianism on the geologic record of earth history aspreserved in the rocks of the earth's crust. The fact is that geologists aretoday finally abandoning their outmoded 19th-century uniformitarianism,realizing that catastrophism provides the only realistic explanation for thegreat geological structures of the earth. Even though they are stillunwilling to acknowledge the validity of flood geology as based on theBible, they do recognize now that the earth's various geological featureswere each formed rapidly, in intense catastrophes of one kind or another.Furthermore there are many times more geological processes and systems[2] thatyield a young age for the earth than the handful of radiometric methods thatcan be forced (through an extreme application of uniformitarianism) to yieldan old age. The continued insistence on an ancient earth is purely becauseof the philosophic necessity to justify evolution and the pantheisticreligion of eternal matter.
If it were not for the continued apathetic and compromising attitude ofChristian theologians and other intellectuals on this vital doctrine ofrecent creation, evolutionary humanism would long since have been exposedand defeated. The world will never take the Biblical doctrine of the divinecontrol and imminent consummation of all things very seriously until weourselves take the Biblical doctrine of the recent creation of all thingsseriously. Neither in space nor in time is our great God of creation andconsummation very "far from every one of us" (Acts 17:27).
References
1. For a fuller account, see A History of Modern Creationism, by Henry M. Morris (San Diego: Master Books, scheduled for publication July 1984). Return to Text
2. See What is Creation Science? by Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1982), pp 239 - 259, for a listing of over 60 such processes. Return to Text
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"Vital Articles on Science/Creation"
June 1984
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