The Lost World of Genesis One (16 page)

• Days four and six have material components, but the text
explicitly deals with them only on the functional level (celestial bodies for signs, seasons, days and years; human beings
in God's image, male and female, with the task to subdue
and rule).

• This leaves only day five in discussion, where functions are
mentioned (e.g., let them swarm) and the verb bara' is again
used.2 As a result, it is difficult to sustain a case that the account is interested in material origins if one does not already
come with that presupposition.

If the seven days refer to the seven days of cosmic temple inauguration, days that concern origins of functions not material, then
the seven days and Genesis 1 as a whole have nothing to contribute to the discussion of the age of the earth. This is not a conclusion designed to accommodate science-it was drawn from an
analysis and interpretation of the biblical text of Genesis in its
ancient environment. The point is not that the biblical text therefore supports an old earth, but simply that there is no biblical
position on the age of the earth. If it were to turn out that the
earth is young, so be it. But most people who seek to defend a
young-earth view do so because they believe that the Bible obligates them to such a defense. I admire the fact that believers are
willing to take unpopular positions and investigate all sorts of
alternatives in an attempt to defend the reputation of the biblical
text. But if the biblical text does not demand a young earth there
would be little impetus or evidence to offer such a suggestion.

If there is no biblical information concerning the age of the
material cosmos, then, as people who take the Bible seriously, we
have nothing to defend on that count and can consider the options that science has to offer. Some scientific theories may end up being correct and others may be replaced by new thinking. We need
not defend the reigning paradigm in science about the age of the
earth if we have scientific reservations, but we are under no compulsion to stand against a scientific view of an old earth because
of what the Bible teaches.'

One of the sad statistics of the last 150 years is that increasing
numbers of young people who were raised in the environment of
a biblical faith began to pursue education and careers in the sciences and found themselves conflicted as they tried to sort out the
claims of science and the claims of the faith they had been taught.
It seems to many that they have to make a choice: either believe
the Bible and hold to a young earth, or abandon the Bible because
of the persuasiveness of the case for an old earth. The good news
is that we do not have to make such a choice. The Bible does not
call for a young earth. Biblical faith need not be abandoned if one
concludes from the scientific evidence that the earth is old.

At this point a very clear statement must be made: Viewing
Genesis 1 as an account offunctional origins of the cosmos as temple does
not in any way suggest or imply that God was uninvolved in material
origins-it only contends that Genesis 1 is not that story. To the author and audience of Genesis, material origins were simply not a
priority. To that audience, however, it would likewise have been
unthinkable that God was somehow uninvolved in the material
origins of creation. Hence there wouldn't have been any need to
stress a material creation account with God depicted as centrally
involved in material aspects of creation. We can understand this
issue of focused interests through any number of analogies from
our own world as we indicated in chapter two with the examples
of a company and a computer. Many situations in our experience
interest us on the functional level while they generate no curiosity
at all about the material aspect.

Our affirmation of God's creation of the material cosmos is
supported by theological logic as well as by occasional New Testament references. By New Testament times there was already a
growing interest in material aspects and so also a greater likelihood that texts would address material questions. Speaking of
Christ, Paul affirms, "For by him all things were created: things
in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
powers of rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and
for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Col 1: 16-17). This statement can certainly be understood
to include both the material and the functional. Hebrews 1:2 is
less explicit as it affirms that the Son is appointed the heir of all
things and that through him God made the "universe." Here it
must be noted that the word translated "universe" is aionas, not
kosmos-thus more aptly referring to the ages of history than to
the material world (the same in Heb 11:3).

The theological point is that whatever exists, be it material or
functional, God made it. But from there our task as interpreters is
to evaluate individual texts to see what aspect of God's creation
they discuss.

Finally we need to address the question of what actually happens in the seven days. What would a comparison of the "before"
and "after" pictures look like? What would an observer see if able
to observe the process of these seven days? On these we can only
speculate, but I will try to explore the implications of this view.

The functional view understands the functions to be decreed
by God to serve the purposes of humanity, who has been made
in his image. The main elements lacking in the "before" picture
are therefore humanity in God's image and God's presence in
his cosmic temple. Without those two ingredients the cosmos
would be considered nonfunctional and therefore nonexistent.
The material phase nonetheless could have been under develop ment for long eras and could in that case correspond with the
descriptions of the prehistoric ages as science has uncovered
them for us. There would be no reason to think that the sun had
not been shining, plants had not been growing, or animals had
not been present.' These were like the rehearsals leading up to a
performance of a play. The rehearsals are preparatory and necessary, but they are not the play. They find their meaning only
when the audience is present. It is then that the play exists, and
it is for them that the play exists.

In the "after" picture the cosmos is now not only the handiwork of God (since he was responsible for the material phase all
along, whenever it took place), but it also becomes God's residence-the place he has chosen and prepared for his presence to
rest. People have been granted the image of God and now serve
him as vice regents in the world that has been made for them.
Again it is instructive to invoke the analogy of the temple before
and after its inauguration. After priests have been installed and
God has entered, it is finally a fully functioning temple-it exists
only by virtue of those aspects.

What would a college be without students? Without administration and faculty? Without courses? We could talk about the origins of the college when it first opened its doors, enrolled students
for the first time, hired faculty, designed courses and offered them
and so on. In another sense this process is reenacted year by year as
students return (or are newly enrolled), faculty again inhabit their
offices, courses are offered. Anyone in academics knows the difference between the empty feel of campus during the summer
compared to the energy of a new semester beginning.

Before the college existed, there would have been a material
"construction" phase. What a mess! Partially built buildings, construction equipment, torn up ground and so forth. This is all part
of a campus taking shape-but it is only preliminary to a college existing, because a college is more than a campus.

What would the observer have seen in these seven days of
Genesis 1? At one level this could simply be dismissed as the
wrong question. It continues to focus on the eyewitness account of
material acts. But perhaps we can indulge our imagination for a
moment as we return to the analogy of the college.

The main thing that happens is that students arrive. But
even that would not necessarily mean much if faculty did not
begin offering courses. In the light of those two events, however, everything else that was there all along takes on energy
and meaning. The course schedule brings order to time. Time
had been there all along, but the course schedule gives time a
meaning to the college and the students. Even the course
schedule had been there a long time (designed months earlier
with students registering), but it has no existence until the semester begins. Dorms had existed filled with furniture. But
now students inhabit the dorms and the furniture begins to
serve its function.

The observer in Genesis 1 would see day by day that everything was ready to do for people what it had been designed to do.
It would be like taking a campus tour just before students were
ready to arrive to see all the preparations that had been made and
how everything had been designed, organized and constructed to
serve students. If Genesis 1 served as a liturgy to reenact (annually?) the inauguration of the cosmic temple, we also find a parallel in the college analogy as year by year students arrive and
courses begin to bring life and meaning to the campus.

DEATH

Some might object that if the material phase had been carried
out for long ages prior to the seven days of Genesis, there would
be a problem about death. Romans 5:12 states unequivocally, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and
death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned." Interpreters have inferred from this verse that
there was no death at any level prior to the Fall, the entrance of
sin. But we should notice that the verse does not say that. Paul
is talking about how death came to people-why all of humanity is subject to death. Just because death came to us because of
sin, does not mean that death did not exist at any level prior to
the Fall.

Not only does the verse not make a claim for death in general,
everything we know logically repudiates the absence of death at
any level prior to the Fall. Day three describes the process by
which plants grow. The cycle of sprouting leaves, flowers, fruit
and seeds is one that involves death at every stage. This system
only functions with death as part of it. Likewise with animals: we
need not even broach the topic of predatory meat eaters to see that
the food chain involves death. A caterpillar eating a leaf brings
death. A bird eating the caterpillar brings death. Fish eating insects brings death. If animals and insects did not die, they would
overwhelm their environment and the ecology would suffer. Furthermore, if we move to the cellular level death is inevitable. Human skin has an outer layer of epidermis-dead cells-and we
know that Adam had skin (Gen 2:23).

All of this indicates clearly that death did exist in the pre-Fall
world-even though humans were not subject to it. But there is
more. Human resistance to death was not the result of immortal
bodies. The text indicates that we are formed from the dust of the
earth, a statement of our mortality (for dust we are and to dust we
shall return, cf. Gen 3:19). No, the reason we were not subject to
death was because an antidote had been provided to our natural
mortality through the mechanism of the tree of life in the garden.
When God specified the punishment for disobedience, he said that when they ate, they would be doomed to death (the meaning
of the Hebrew phrase in Gen 2:17). That punishment was carried
out by banishing them from the garden and blocking access to the
tree of life (Gen 3:23-24). Without access to the tree of life, humans were doomed to the natural mortality of their bodies and
were therefore doomed to die. And so it was that death came
through sin.