Time and Genesis

In the Interpreter's Bible on Genesis (v. 1 1952 ed.) page 1:5

"There can be no question but that by Day the author meant just what we mean--the time required for one revolution of the earth on its axis. Had he meant an aeon he would certainly, in view of his fondness for great numbers, have stated the number of millenniums each period embraced. While this might have made his account of creation less irreconcilable with modern science, it would have have involved a lessening of God's greatness, one sign of which was his power to do so much in one day."

I thought of this quote when I read John's post on 'time' and its implications for our understanding of God and his acts.

Psalm 104

There was a reference on Craig's blog to the ConfessingEvangelical blog on Psalm 104. An interesting discussion then ensued. As it was in September last year (an eon ago in Internet time) I thought I'd take it up here, rather than attempt to join an old discussion.

As a matter of interest, I googled over to Spurgeon's Treasury of David on the psalm.

From the introduction:

"Here we have one of the loftiest and longest sustained flights of the inspired muse. The psalm gives an interpretation to the many voices of nature, and sings sweetly both of creation and providence. The poem contains a complete cosmos sea and land, cloud and sunlight, plant and animal, light and darkness, life and death, are all proved to be expressive of the presence of the Lord. Traces of the six days of creation are very evident, and though the creation of man, which was the crowning work of the sixth day, is not mentioned, this is accounted for from the fact that man is himself the singer: some have ever, discerned marks of the divine rest upon the seventh day in Ps 104:31. It is a poet's version of Genesis. Nor is it alone the present condition of the earth which is here the subject of song; but a hint is given of those holier times when we shall see "a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, "out of which the sinner shall be consumed, Ps 104:35. The spirit of ardent praise to God runs through the whole, and with it a distinct realization of the divine Being as a personal existence, loved and trusted as well as adored."

The original blog on this was a question about the use of this psalm in our reflections on creation, and that it had not figured in much of the debate. Interesting thought. While my reading is slowed down by the demands of my work (paid work, that is; I've got a pile of articles, theses and books to get through before I retire), I hope to get to recent theological reflection on the creation. I must say, I agree with Mr Baddeley that there is a dearth of theological work done in this area and because, as Baddeley says, we are of puny mind, we daren't even think of undertaking it. The dearth results, perhaps, from the widespread acceptance of the assertions of materialism as being conclusive and factual, and so eliminating the need to consider Genesis 1-3 theologically; also, of course, if this passage is not the account of creation, then theological work is sort of pointless, because it makes no contact with our real world, it becomes a sort of story telling: comforting, perhaps, but of no concrete relevance to us here and now.

Nevertheless, there is grist for the mill in Psalm 104.

I think that Spurgeon gives a lead in that the Psalm makes assumptive reference to the creation, and is more concerned with straddling from normal providence (that is, post creation) and the new creation. However, it underscores the biblical signficance of the creation account and encourages us to deal with that account seriously; not dismissing it as some sort of side show, which Jensenism tends to do; making its content subservient to current materialist conceptualisations.

One of the comments on the original blog related to animal carnivory mentioned in the psalm (v. 21) as somehow undermining the contention that a 'very good' creation excluded animal carnivory (on the basis of Genesis 1:30). It was a long bow, I think, as the psalm clearly refers to the world as it stands, while harking back to the orginal creation of it. As it stands now, the world bears the marks of that great cataclysm, the fall; the rejection of relationship with God. The psalm is a 'post fall' document and so recognises the world post fall, wherein, by the operation of common providence, animals must 'look' to the creator for sustenence: see Spurgeon on this, for example.

Some of the comments on confessingevangelical suggested that Psalm 104 shows that God's sustaining work (in common providence) is behind the normal flow of 'cause and effect'/'purpose and result' in our everyday experience, non-miraculously; so simultaneously, as if in two parallel realities, there is God over there, and there is nature over here. Therefore, it seems some might hold that God's statements about creation in Genesis 1 can take the same form: God's action and its results as stated in the account coexist with but are separate from the normal flow of cause and effect described by Evolution as we would see it. So yipee (as my young son says) we can both be right!

The trouble is, for practical evangelism, both being right just leaves the average materialist with his/her materialism and no compelling reason to question or reject it. After all, it simply means that some story has been crafted to 'stand behind' the real world but the real world is what it is, independently of the story. The dependence of the world on God, at least at its creation, is therefore, in real terms, obscured. And so, our connection with God, is similarly obscured and the whole salvation project is thrown into the dark.

I think it is the notion of independence which is critical for Christian reflection. If the real world can be conceived of as independent of God, and practical denail of the concreteness of the creation account results in such a conception, then we are truly cut adrift, theologically and evangelistically. Paul the apostle certainly thinks that we are, in fact, not cut adrift (Acts 14 & 17 as examples of his reliance on the creation account, by implication, 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, for his reliance on the fall in his theology); nor does the author of Hebrews (4:3, 11:3). Wright has an essay (chapter from his book on Paul) that touches on this in some ways.

Moreover, the 'stand behind' theory of interpretation gets us nowhere if it cannot make the case that the genesian text gives due reason for that theory. I don't think it does. The grammar of Genesis 1, as I read, is not consistent with metaphor, but with historical account. Taking a more theological perspective, as the Genesis 1 account is the only point for an ontological link between us and God, it must make the link in terms that are congruent with our current time-space world and not need to transmogrify that world into some spiritualised thing that we would find in neoplatonic thought.

Just as an aside:
Found on Jordon Cooper's site:

" 'Jews see water, sea as dark and evil. Look at Noah, Jonah, Moses and the sea as the dark chaos of creation. '
My apologies, but you misunderstand Wright.
Jews thought of the material world as good. They did not believe God had created an evil thing.
It was Gnostics who thought of the material world as evil, created by a Demiurge."
a comment on his blog.

“For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.”

Christians can be a smug lot. Hubristically and, might I say, quite sinfully, we often pigeon-hole our atheist “enemies” as being quite incapable of even grasping the most rudimentary truths concerning the world we live in. Tagging along with this is the frequent and, what seems to be, intentional failure of Christians to carry through with the biblically ordained task of seeking rational understanding of the atheist worldview. These are no better abjectly reflected than when Christians adopt the evolutionary story as their own, a Mephistophelean barter implicitly announcing that Christians appreciate the materialist “creation myth of this age”, as Mary Midgely so aptly labelled it, more comprehensively than they.

Of course, passing these mythological elements off as genuine Christian philosophy comes with a monumental price-tag: How does one explain away all those ill-fitting components which just do not square up with the revelation that God himself has spoken to us in the Bible?

Far too many Sydney Anglicans have capitulated to philosophical materialism, adopted its faux scientific offspring, and are thus forced to ignore the internal contradictory clashes that arise when a Christian worldview is tied to a pagan one. When these are pointed out, the best its adherents offer is a stream of irrelevant platitudes that just do not take seriously this metastasis of Christian theodicy and soteriology: “This is not a salvation issue”, “God’s ways are not ours”, “My God is big enough to do it any way he pleases”, “Genesis 1 tells us who and why, but not how”.

In contradistinction to the Anglicans’ lack of comprehension, it is completely refreshing to read an atheist who has intelligently understood the ramifications of this zeitgeist. Mark Rowlands, in his The Philosopher at the end of the Universe: Philosophy Explained through Science Fiction Films, has done just that.

Like the existentialists, he thinks life absurd. Absurdity, he coherently explains, arises because there is a confrontation between how we see ourselves from the inside and the view that we understand about the external world. This philosophical absurdity is fundamentally and rationally linked to the meaning of life:

“The problem is one of explaining our ultimate significance given our place in a universe that does not seem to allow us to have any such significance. The problem derives from the thought that there are two quite different stories we tell…[On the one hand] we matter…We are…a core of significance. On the other hand [there is] our ultimate insignificance. As a species we are finite, partial creatures, inhabiting an unremarkable planet in an unremarkable galaxy. We have been around for an infinitesimally small proportion of the life of the universe, and even the best estimates for our continuation don’t give us too much longer in the cosmic scheme of things. None of us, not even the cleverest, really understands where we came from – the origin of the universe we inhabit is necessarily a mystery to us.” (pp. 4-5)

Rowlands doesn’t just end his pitch there; he goes on to make a quite unexpected and perspicacious confession. His sense of disquiet isn’t cured by invoking some anti-intellectual Hegelian synthesis of the two incompatibilities; rather he admits he has a “hard time seeing how both sorts of stories we tell about ourselves could be true.” (p. 6)

This enigma is returned to again and again with increasing clarity, nuance and despondency: “How can I be a centre of significance and purpose when I am the product of processes and forces that were in place long before I was born, and where my essential nature seems inextricably bound up with these processes and forces?” (p. 14)

And ultimately what fuels his angst, this discontent he experiences when he attempts to grasp the ‘big picture’? The very view that the Sydney Diocese has promoted from its pulpits, college and discussion groups: the evolutionary worldview:

“The philosopher Immanuel Kant once wrote that there were two things that never ceased to fill him with amazement: the starry sky above him and the moral law within him. When I look at the starry sky above me, what fills me with amazement is the idea that there could be a God who created a universe like this. A universe that is designed according to a principle – the Second Law of Thermodynamics – which means that suffering and death are built into it as one of its structural elements. A universe that, after billions and billions of years of travail, eventually produced creatures that were conscious, and then self-conscious. A universe that, through these creatures, became aware of itself, understood itself, marvelled at itself, only to realise that it was doomed; that its fate was heat death, that it was essentially ephemeral, that it was essentially futile. The darkness of unconsciousness eventually, after billions of years of struggle, gave way to the light of consciousness, only for this light to understand its own hopelessness. This is cruelty on a cosmic scale. Perhaps only a God could be capable of such cruelty.” (p. 23)

Creationists, by insisting on a young earth, non-evolutionary, 6 day creation week, are frequently accused by Sydney Anglicans of setting a major stumbling block before those seeking Christ. What is clearly apparent from reading Rowlands’ words is that it’s the Sydney Anglicans’ promulgation of the pagan evolutionary worldview that clearly hinders people opening the door to Christ. As Jesus complained, “Alas for you experts in the Law, for you have taken away the key to knowledge. You have never gone in yourselves and you have hindered everyone else who was at the door!”