when we talk about the doctrine of creation most people automatically think exclusively of the creation evolution debate and i hope that our study of the doctrine of creation in this class has helped you to see how much richer and fuller the doctrine of creation is than just the controversy between creation and evolution we've talked about things like creatio ex nihilo we've talked about god's conservation of the world in being we've talked about god's providence both his ordinary providence in governing the world as well as his acts of extraordinary providence and miraculous intervention in the world and we've talked about higher orders of creation like angels and demons so the doctrine of creation is a rich theological doctrine that goes far beyond disputes between creation and evolution still the question of how god created life and biological diversity on this planet is an important and very interesting aspect of the doctrine of creation and so today what i want to do is to take an excursus from our survey of the doctrine of creation to talk specifically about the creation of life and biological diversity in order to do so we want to turn to the principal text in the bible that addresses the question of god's creation of life and biological diversity which is the first chapter of genesis after verse 1 in which god created the heavens and the earth the universe the author of genesis goes on to describe how god creates this wonderful world as an environment for human beings to live in how he transforms the earth into a habitable place for humanity and so what we want to take up first in our study is the interpretation of genesis 2 chapter one verses two to the end of the chapter particularly in conversation with what modern science and the biological theory of evolution has to say about the origins of biological complexity so let's begin our study by reading this text from the first chapter of genesis and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of god was moving over the face of the waters and god said let there be light and there was light and god saw that the light was good and god separated the light from the darkness god called the light day and the darkness he called night and there was evening and there was morning one day and god said let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters and god made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament and it was so and god called the firmament heaven and there was evening and there was morning a second day and god said let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear and it was so god called the dry land earth and the waters that were gathered together he called seas and god saw that it was good and god said let the earth put forth vegetation plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is there seed each according to its kind upon the earth and it was so the earth brought forth vegetation plants yielding seed according to their own kinds and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed each according to its kind and god saw that it was good and there was evening and there was morning a third day and god said let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth and it was so and god made the two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and he made the stars also and god set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth to rule over the day and over the night and to separate the light from the darkness and god saw that it was good and there was evening and there was morning a fourth day and god said let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens so god created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind and god saw that it was good and god blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let birds multiply upon the earth and there was evening and there was morning a fifth day and god said let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds and it was so and god made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind and god saw that it was good and god said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth so god created man in his own image in the image of god he created him male and female he created them and god blessed them and god said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and to have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth and god said behold i have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit you shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth everything that has the breath of life i have given every green plant for food and it was so and god saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good and there was evening and there was morning a sixth day now in order to interpret this passage correctly we have to follow certain fundamental hermeneutical principles hermeneutics is the science of interpretation and in interpreting a writing you have to apply or follow certain hermeneutical principles in order to understand it correctly first and most fundamentally we must interpret a writing according to the literary genre or type to which it belongs g-e-n-r-e is how you spell genre the literary type to which a text belongs it is absolutely critical to interpret text according to their genre because it would be a catastrophic mistake to interpret a text literally if the genre of that text isn't of the sort that is intended to be taken literally for example when the psalmist says let the trees of the wood clap their hands before the lord he's obviously not trying to teach botany uh think how inappropriate it would be to read poetry such as the psalms literally that would be a disastrous misinterpretation of the text or again think how inappropriate it would be to interpret literally uh a book like the book of revelation where the monsters and other uh figures that are described in revelation are meant to be symbols of say nation states or political alliances when i first became a christian i thought that the book of revelation literally described sea monsters who were going to come up out of the ocean at the end times and take over the world seven-headed beasts and so forth but as you begin to understand the type of literature that the book of revelation represents namely jewish apocalyptic literature then you realize that apocalyptic literature is highly symbolic and figuratively and therefore it would be a mistake to take it literally so when we come to genesis chapter 1 considerations of literary genre will be important in deciding how to interpret it correctly now another hermeneutical principle that we should observe here is trying to determine how the original author and his audience would have understood the text it's not enough to ask what it means to you today you have to ask how would the author have understood this and how would his audience have understood the text we should examine the text on its own basis respect its integrity as a text many christians unfortunately follow a hermeneutic which is sometimes called concordism concordism which is trying to interpret the text in light of modern science trying to read modern science back into the original text rather than letting the text stand on its own two feet and speak to us for example i have heard christians say that the bible predicts television that if you read the bible you can find predictions in the bible of television what are they talking about well they'll point to passages in the bible when it says that when jesus christ returns to earth at the second coming of christ every eye will see him and they said this is impossible for people living on a globe like the earth the sphere of the earth not everyone could see christ when he returns so they must be watching it on television this is a prediction in the bible of modern television or in the case of genesis one there are uh examples of christians today who will read modern big bang cosmology uh back into the text for example uh there's a text i believe in isaiah where the prophet says that god stretched out the heavens and this is supposed to be in anticipation of the expansion of space in the contemporary standard big bang cosmological model as time goes on space stretches and space expands so that the universe uh is expanding and this is read back into the bible so that when it says he stretched out the heavens this is supposed to be a anticipation of the stretching or expansion of space postulated in the big bang model well i think it's fairly obvious that these are preposterous uh examples of uh reading the text not on its own not in the way the author or his audience would have understand it but but trying to read things back into the text to make it into concord with modern science hence the name concordism this is really isogesis not exegesis you want to take the meaning out of the text not read the meaning back into the text and impose it on the text now obviously i am not saying that we should not engage in the project of seeking a synthesis of science and the teaching of the biblical text on the contrary i am deeply committed to this project as you know i think this project is vital for modern christians if we are to have an informed and relevant theological worldview our theological worldview needs to be informed by and in conversation with the discoveries of modern science but that's a later project that's a secondary project the first project is the task of interpreting the text itself first you need to determine what the text is saying before you can try to relate it to the discoveries of modern science so rather than trying to impose modern science onto the account in genesis 1 or to read genesis 1 in light of modern science we want to read the account as it would have been understood by the original people for whom it was written and who read it and when we do that a number of different competing interpretations of the genesis account emerge and what we want to do next time is to begin to go through these various alternative interpretations of genesis chapter 1. now a very helpful website that you might want to consult on this question has been put up by the presbyterian church in america at www. pcahistory.
org dot www. pcahistory.
