is inconsistent with the grace of God. Evolution, with its theology of struggle for survival in the physical world, fits perfectly with the humanistic theory of works for salvation in the spiritual world. The Christian concept of the grace of God, providing life and salvation in response to faith alone on the basis of the willing sacrifice of himself for the unfit and unworthy, is diametrically opposite to the evolutionary concept (see Eph. 2:8–9).
Progressive Creation
A large group of evangelicals, sensitive to the traditional opposition to evolution in their own constituencies, have tried to circumvent this opposition while at the same time embracing the essential framework of the evolutionary system through what they call “progressive creation.”
A similar concept is called “threshold evolution.” Other labels have been suggested for these general concepts, but they are all semantic variants of the fundamental system of theistic evolution.
The idea in the progressive-creation approach is to suppose that, while life was developing over the vast span of geologic time the way evolutionists have imagined it, God intervened on various occasions to create something new that the evolutionary process could not accomplish unaided. Thus, the “progressive creationists” give a sort of “nod to God” every now and then, and they consider this an adequate accommodation to Scripture.
For example, early in the Tertiary period, God presumably stepped in to create Eohippus, the small three-toed “dawn horse.” He then withdrew to let subsequent horse evolution continue through the stages of Mesohippus, Parahippus, etc., until finally they developed into the modern Equus. Similarly, a long succession of humanoid forms developed from their unknown apelike ancestor until, at the right moment, God intervened and placed an eternal soul in one (or two) of them by special creative power.
Details vary considerably in the exposition of the progressive creation concept by various writers, with greater or lesser numbers of creative acts interspersed in the evolutionary process according to the taste of the writer. All, however, accept the basic framework of the evolutionary geological ages and visualize progressive creation as taking place over billions of years instead of six normal, 24-hour days.
A few such accommodationists even suggest that every new species was a special “mini-creation,” introduced by God at the appropriate point in earth history. They call this “creationism,” but, obviously, it is essentially the same as theistic evolution.
It is difficult to see any biblical or theological advantage that the progressive-creation idea has over a straightforward system of theistic evolution. Exactly the same theological problems as outlined in the preceding section still apply, whether the process is called theistic evolution, progressive creation, old-earth creationism or anything else.
In fact, if one were forced to choose between the two, theistic evolution seems less unreasonable and inconsistent with God than progressive creation. It involves one consistent process, always the same, established by God at the beginning and maintained continually thereafter. Progressive creation, on the other hand, implies that God’s creative forethought was not adequate for the entire evolutionary process at the beginning. He, therefore, frequently interfered in the process, setting it back in the right direction and providing enough creative energy to keep it going a while longer until He could get back later for another shot-in-the-evolutionary-arm.
Theistic evolution is creation by continuous evolutionary processes initiated by God. Progressive creation is creation by discontinuous evolutionary processes initiated by God, but having to be shored up by sporadic injections of non-evolutionary processes. Of the two, theistic evolution is less inconsistent with God’s character. However, progressive creation may sound less offensive to college boards of trustees, contributing alumni, and supporting churches. Its purpose seems to be to permit Christian academics to say they believe in “creation,” for the sake of their constituents, without incurring opposition and derision from their non-Christian evolutionist colleagues.
The Day-Age Theory
Theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists have argued that the geological ages have been so firmly established by science that it would be folly to question them and, therefore, some means of accommodating Genesis to geology must be devised. The most obvious way of attempting this is to interpret the Genesis account of creation in such a way that the ages of geology correspond to the history of creation. Since the latter is given in terms of six “days” of creative work by God, the creation week must somehow be expanded to incorporate all of earth history from its primeval beginning up to and including man’s arrival. Hence, the “days” must correspond more or less to the geological “ages.”
In fact, some writers have even built what they feel is a case for the divine origin of the Genesis account on the basis of an assumed “concordance” between the order of creation in Genesis 1 and the order of the development of the earth and its various forms of life as represented by the geological ages. That is, in both Genesis and geology, first comes the inorganic universe, then simple forms of life, then more complex forms of life, and finally man.
However, such a proposed concordance cannot be pressed successfully for more details than that. Theories about the early history of the earth and the universe are still quite varied and indefinite. The general order noted above is only what must be postulated for either creation or evolution and, therefore, proves nothing at all. That is, if the evolutionary ages really occurred, the necessary order must be from simple to complex. Similarly, if God employed a six-literal-day week of special creation, as the Bible indicates, again the order must logically be from simple to complex, with the inorganic world first prepared for plant growth, which was then created for animal life, which was then created to serve man, who was finally created in God’s image. Since the same order is clearly to be expected in both cases, the fact that it thus occurs in both cases has no apologetic value either way.
The day-age theory is normally accompanied by either the theory of theistic evolution or the theory of progressive creation. In the previous sections it was seen that neither theistic evolution nor progressive creation is tenable biblically or theologically. Therefore, the day-age theory must likewise be rejected. Nevertheless, in this section the day-age theory specifically will be considered, showing that it is quite unacceptable on both exegetical and scientific grounds.
1. The Proper Meaning of “Day” and “Days”
The main argument for the day-age theory, other than the desire to obtain a framework corresponding to geological theory, is the fact that the Hebrew word yom does not have to mean a literal day, but can be interpreted as “a very long time.” Specific biblical warrant for such an interpretation is presumably found in 2 Peter 3:8, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.”
There is no doubt that yom can be used to express time in a general sense. In fact, it is actually translated as “time” in the King James translation 65 times. On the other hand, it is translated as “day” almost 1,200 times! In addition, its plural form yamim is translated as “days” approximately 700 times. It is obvious, therefore, that the normal meanings of yom and yamim are “day” and “days,” respectively. If a parabolic or metaphorical meaning is intended, it is always made obvious in the context. In approximately 95 percent of its occurrences, the literal meaning is clearly indicated.
Even in those cases where a general meaning is permitted in the context, it is always indefinite as to duration, such as the “time of adversity” or the “day of prosperity.” In fact, it would be very difficult to find even a single occurrence of yom that could not be interpreted to mean a literal solar day, and would have to mean a long period of time. (Moses never used it this way.) Whenever other biblical writers really intended to convey the idea of a very long duration of time, they normally used some such word as olam (meaning “age”
