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A Consolidated View of Biblical Divine Days

About This Document This document is a written report for the course PE110 Biblical Creation on Solid Ground at the Scandinavian School of Theology.

Instructor: Ola Hössjer.

Version: 2024-06-08, revised 2024-06-27.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Abstract

The Bible begins with God creating heaven and earth in six days and resting on the seventh. The nature of the creation days has been intensely debated over centuries. This report describes a handful of major contemporary creation day theories and provides a glimpse of the thinking of Augustine of Hippo. An inherent anomaly in the 6 x 24 hour theory is reversed in an attempt to find a theory fitting the entire biblical narrative. The following hypothesis is proposed and substantiated: In biblical language it is day when God intervenes in earthly history to fundamentally alter it. The divine days of the Bible are examined in some detail.

Introduction

In the beginning God created heaven and earth in six days. A seventh day followed for God to rest. That is how the Bible starts1. What kind of days were those creation days?

Purpose And Scope

Genesis 1 is followed by 1.188 other Bible chapters. The purpose of this report is to arrive at a creation day theory that fits all of the biblical story.

The reliability of the Bible is a very important topic but is not discussed here. For the purpose of this report we take the Bible text as it stands and assume it is consistent, precisely worded, and can be read and understood as a normal text. Sometimes you like what you read, sometimes you don’t.

We assume that the Lord of the Old Testament is identical to the Lord of the New Testament, which is Jesus Christ.

Given the comparatively short time allotted to this report, especially literature search is bound to be somewhat limited.

Creation Perspectives

By way of commentary this chapter points out a few dimensions of the biblical creation.

Physical Creation

The most obvious fact about creation is that God called the physical space-time universe into being — including the earth, of course — and then life on Earth and the first humans.

Pristine Conditions

God instructed the first humans to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and rule over all animals.2 They had a job to do. Humans as well as animals were provided with green plants and fruit for food. There was no animosity between animals and humans, or between animals. God and the first humans communicated effortlessly.

The union between man and woman was created so profound that the two are regarded as one flesh3, a basic building block of human society.

Death was absent — the possibility introduced only when God warned Adam that he would “surely die” if he was to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.4

Light Versus Darkness

The gospel of John begins by invoking a parallel to Genesis 1:1.

In the beginning was the Word…5

In Genesis 1 God creates light the very first day. John sees creation largely in terms of light and darkness.

In [the Word] was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.6

There is something ominous about the darkness. It is active — not just passive absence of light. Genesis hints briefly about the primordial conditions on Earth:

… darkness was over the face of the deep7.

How could darkness be perceived before light was created? One may speculate that in creation God is beginning to deal with spiritual darkness — an important topic that is beyond the scope of this study.

Cosmic Party

Biblical creation was a momentous occasion in the heavenlies. The Creator speaks:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements---surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?8

Morning stars certainly refers to angels. Next time we read about angels singing is at the birth of Christ9.

The book of Proverbs also paints a picture of creation joy. The Wisdom of God testifies,

When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.10

Creation was an all-out, happy cosmic party. The joy may spill over to humans.

For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.11

Previous Work

What are the creation days, really? A number of significant theories, contemporary and classic, are briefly described in this chapter. Theories we assume are less known are given somewhat longer presentations.

Contemporary Creation Day Theories

This section is an overview of contemporary thinking about the creation days. The topic is hot. Proponents of various creation day theories often criticize each other, but temperate summaries do exist12. In addition to the major theories mentioned here there are variants and sub-theories.

Literal 24-Hour Days

Two prominent and accessible proponents for literal 6 x 24-hour creation days are Creation Ministries International (CMI, www.creation.com) and Answers In Genesis (www.answersingenesis.org). Their web sites contain several high profile articles in support of this theory13.

In addition both organizations include the subject in identically phrased statements as part of their creeds. The following is item D.2 of What We Believe, the statement of faith of CMI14.

The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of Creation.

24-hour creation days cannot be falsified within these organizations since they are postulated, pushed beyond being a testable hypothesis.

Day-Age Theory, Progressive Creationism

The day-age theory is, in a way, the opposite of 24-hour creation days. The creation days are considered long periods, geological ages. The goal is to accommodate contemporary science while retaining the God of the Bible as creator.

The antiquity of the earth is a common trait of two diverging views. Old Earth Creationism holds that life on Earth is the result of God’s direct and repeated interventions over the ages. Theistic Evolution sees creation progressing over eons of evolution through the visible mechanisms of mutations and natural selection.

A well known proponent of Old Earth Creationism is Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe (RTB, www.reasons.org)15. In that capacity he became the target of a scathing refutation from CMI16.

As for Theistic Evolution, Francis S. Collins is well known through his book The Language of God­17, which was a best seller at the time. Collins has outstanding academic credentials, and gained additional reputation by leading the Human Genome Project to completion 1990-2003.18 His mission in The Language of God is to declare that faith is reasonable. In order to reconcile Genesis with an evolutionary perspective he assumes the creation account may be understood as poetry19.

Framework Interpretation

The framework interpretation maintains that the creation account in Genesis 1 should not be taken as a chronological record. It is rather a literary device to communicate theological truths.

The best known proponent may be Meredith G. Kline20 (1922-2007). In Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony21 he applies what he calls a two-register cosmology to the creation account (and actually to the entire biblical revelation). The two registers are heaven (the invisible, higher realm) and earth (visible, lower)22. From the beginning, God’s presence was preeminently associated with the invisible heaven. Throughout the six creation days the let there be is uttered at the upper register. The and it was so occurs at the lower register. The creation days denote upper register time because in the beginning necessarily is upper register. Lower register time is regulated by astronomical phenomena which are not present until the fourth day. The creation day narrative is a literary figure, an earthly, lower register time metaphor for a heavenly, upper register reality.

John H. Walton may possibly also be included in this category. He is well known through his book The Lost World of Genesis One23. Walton attempts to evoke the original, ancient understanding of the creation account. He insists that Genesis 1 must be understood as ancient cultures understood them24. One of his main points is that Genesis primarily is about functional and not material origins25. During the creation days God builds cosmos as a temple26 where he finally rests on the seventh day.

Gap Theory or Ruin and Reconstruction Theory

In order to reconcile the Genesis creation account with modern science, the gap theory proposes a long interval (at least millions of years) between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. During this gap God destroyed the existing world (usually including human-like creatures) and then re-created it during the six creation days. This would explain fossil layers and other geological phenomena that have shaped the world.

The gap theory just barely qualifies as contemporary since it was proposed by Thomas Chalmers in 1814. A thorough description and critique is offered by Don Stewart27. One reason it became popular among Christians is that the Scofield Bible supported it in its comments28 in the early 20^th^ century.

Analogical Day Theory

The analogical day theory holds that the days of Genesis 1 are analogical to human workdays. The days are God’s workdays. Their length is neither specified nor important29. Although each day extends over an undetermined period, there is a sequential order of events. The creative process unfolds in a series of distinct stages, with each day marking a significant develop­ment.

Peter Wallace has written a defense of this view30. He argues that the nature of our earthly days is entirely bound up with the existence of the sun — which was absent until the fourth day. Thus those days are not identical to ours — but they may be analogous. Genesis does not suggest that there is any qualitative difference between days 1-3 and days 4-6; they all have evenings and mornings, with or without a sun.

Wallace, in summary, maintains that the principle of analogy is found throughout the biblical revelation.

In no case is the earthly shadow to be understood as identical to the heavenly archetype (pattern). No one would imagine that man is identical to God, or that the earthly tabernacle is identical to the heavenly temple. Instead, the earthly is analogous to the heavenly (which means that the earthly is similar to the heavenly, but not identical to it).

Earlier Thinking, Especially Augustine

Serious thinking about creation was accomplished long before our time. A historical survey ranging from early Jewish interpreters to the modern period may be found here31 (with almost 200 footnote references to sources).

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) deserves special mention. He was a prolific writer and set out to explain the beginning of the book of Genesis at least four times during his life, each time in greatest possible detail. There are several reviews of Augustine’s treatment of the creation as well as general introductions to his writings32 33. Reviewing Augustine on creation in a study like this is like reviewing the Atlantic after dipping a toe in the water. Nevertheless, here are a few observations.

Augustine is relevant in our time because of his reverent and prayerful attitude, quite different from the contentious disputes we often witness today34. He was a keen thinker who strived for coherent understanding and left no stone unturned. He did not always succeed. One of his attempts is On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book35. The book is unfinished because Augustine could not reconcile his interpretations to a final whole — and simply left it at that. He returned to the subject later. His writings are an ongoing inquiry.

The first sentence of Genesis, and of the entire Bible, captured Augustine’s mind36. In the beginning God created heaven and earth confronted him as a historical revelation. He accepted it as a liberation, not an inhibition of thought37.

Augustine takes in the beginning in two ways, figurative and literal. Figuratively, the beginning is the divine Word, the eternal Son in whom and by whom God made all things. Literally, the beginning is the beginning of time. All things were made in the beginning of time. Creation was not an act in time. Creation was in the beginning, it had no temporal duration. Creation is an act of God’s will, and God’s willing is not in time, nor does it take time because God is eternal.38 Time was created with the world.

Augustine is sometimes criticized because he did not know the original languages. For the Old Testament he used a Latin translation of the Septuagint39 (which, in turn, is also a translation).

Hypothesis Under Test

For some impetus to our analysis we will pick up an interesting anomaly in the 24-hour creation day theory. The theory may be condensed to: When there was day, God created. The anomaly is that creation controls the Creator.

Jesus Christ asserted,

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.40

This statement may seem to reinforce the idea that the Lord only works daytime hours. It is, of course, absurd. There must be a better explanation. After all, we can easily find that Jesus worked after sunset.

That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.41

Jesus also defined the essence of a day:

Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?…” 42

According to Jesus, a day has 12 hours, not 24. This means that Jesus regards a day primarily as a unit of work. A normal workday at the time was from sunrise to sunset.

The way out of the anomaly is to reverse cause and effect. That is, When there was day, God created turns into When God created, there was day. Or more broadly: When God intervenes in earthly history to change it — it becomes day in biblical language. This is our hypothesis.

After creation God turned the planet over to mankind43, to us. Our job was to maintain it, to keep it in shape. Even so, at certain points in time God intervenes in a way that alters the global history. Such occasions are divine days.

Divine Days

This chapter examines divine days in order to test the hypothesis that God intervening in history is depicted as a day in the biblical account.

The current state in history, the one we consider normal, is that the Son of God “upholds the universe by the word of his power”44, providing a predictable environment for its inhabitants, including what we call natural laws.

There are just a few biblical milestones in the annals of our planet, points where fundamental conditions are upset: the divine days45.

  • Creation
  • Incarnation: The earthly ministry of Jesus Christ
  • The day of the Lord: The future termination of history as we know it

We will treat them in a slightly different order. There is also a more personal divine day,

  • The day of salvation, a milestone in the life of anyone who has experienced it

The Earthly Day Of Jesus

The incarnation, the Son of God being born into humanity, deeply affected the history of our world. There are many faiths and calendars, but no part of the world can ignore Anno Domini46, the way we count years after the birth of Jesus Christ.

The earthly ministry of Jesus is one of the divine days. Jesus mentioned that Abraham was glad to see it.

Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.47

His day had been announced a few decades earlier by Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, who prophesied over his newborn son, and about a sunrise for his people:

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways … because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death … 48

A sunrise is the beginning of a day. The day is the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, bringing light to suffering mankind.

A day usually has an end. Jesus was keenly aware of that fact when he predicted that night was coming.

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.49

When did night come? We find the answer in the context of Judas leaving the last supper in order to betray Jesus. John (we assume) asked Jesus who would betray him.

Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him.50

So, after receiving the morsel of bread, [Judas] immediately went out. And it was night.51

It was night. The day of Jesus had come to an end after approximately three and a half years. From this moment on, the forces of evil seemed to have the upper hand. Jesus explicitly refused to call for support.52 He was arrested, sentenced to death and executed after a sham trial.

The Day Of The Lord

The phrase the day of the Lord, and its shorter variant, that day occurs many times throughout the Bible. It refers to events at the future end of the current age. It is almost impossible to say anything about the day of the Lord without getting entangled in theological arguments. Here is an attempt at a few uncontroversial biblical facts.

People often ask why God Almighty allows so much evil. A possible answer is, he doesn’t. The day of the Lord is when God sets the record straight.

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.53

For the LORD of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low54

In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, “the great day of [God’s] wrath has come”55 and we see events play out over several chapters of text. Thus that day is not a calendar day, but a period of some duration. A common, conservative view is that the day of the Lord lasts for seven years, corresponding to the 70th week of Daniel56, or possibly its second half, three and a half years.

The day of the Lord is also a time of darkness.

The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.57

Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?58

The duration along with darkness are uncommon characteristics of a day. The Bible still uses the phrase the day of the Lord about this period because it is one of the decisive occasions when God steps into human history to change it.

The Creation Days

Returning to Genesis 1 and the first creation day, we find that God assigned names to the light and the darkness.

God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.59

Augustine noted 1600 years ago that the name Night does not occur again in the creation account60. We find the formula there was evening and there was morning repeated throughout Genesis 1 without any mention of night. The Bible is precisely worded. We must conclude that there was no night.

As for the recurring evening and morning phrase, Peter Wallace shares an insight.

You may have heard people say that “evening and morning” means a 24-hour day. I have done a study on the usage of these words in Scripture, and I was shocked to discover that nowhere in Scripture do the Hebrew words for evening and morning mean a full 24-hour day. In the 23 instances where evening and morning are used in that order, the only time referent is the period of darkness from just before sunset to just after sunrise. Evening and morning refers to that period when man does not labor.61

We may also note that the seventh day, when God rested, does not include the evening and morning phrase.62 It is as precisely worded as the preceding text, implying that the seventh day does not end. Hebrews 3:7 to 4:13 contains extensive teaching about God’s rest. God intended every person to share his rest. The door is still open.63

The creation days are called days because God is launching the history of the earth. There is no night when God is at work.

The Day Of Salvation

The day of salvation is also a divine day, a visitation from heaven. Paul, in one of his letters, quotes from the prophet Isaiah:

In a favorable time I [the Lord] listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.64

For those wondering when the day of salvation might occur, Paul adds,

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Now does not refer to some particular calendar day around 55 AD when Paul wrote this. It is an open-ended now.

The Eternal State

Without going into details, let us note an aspect of the eternal state, after the Genesis 1 creation has vanished and given place to a new heaven and a new earth65.

And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.66

Out of day and night defined in Genesis 1:5, only day remains. The Lord God is forever present with his servants. They no longer need an auxiliary light, such as a sun.

Divine Day Characteristics

The essence of the divine days is that God is actively altering the history of the earth, and thus is present on Earth in an unusual way. Wherever God is present, there is light. The first characteristic of the divine days is twofold: The presence of God and light. The two are inseparable.

The first creation day came with light. Jesus Christ called himself the light of the world more than once67. It may seem contradictory that the day of the Lord signifies light since it is described as a time of darkness. However, according to common conservative theology, the period ends with Jesus Christ returning to Earth in glory,

For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.68

Another common characteristic of divine days is song. Angelic choirs accompanied creation69 and the birth of Jesus Christ70. The day of the Lord comes with marvellous singing — this time from an immense choir of redeemed human beings71. Perhaps the angels chime in. If so, they seem to be drowned out.

Discussion

This is the argumentative part of the study.

A Matter of Time, Really?

There are two biblical, very authoritative definitions of a day. The first one occurs at the beginning of the creation account.

God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.72

What is the main quality of a creation day? The main quality is light. There is no temporal connotation. The next definition is offered by Jesus Christ.

Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.”73

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”74

Even if there is a temporal reference here (twelve hours), the point is that a day is a measure of work accompanied by light. Jesus is that light.

The absence of temporal references may explain why creation day theories are so wildly disparate. On one hand, there is Augustine who suggests that creation was instantaneous. On the other hand, there are the day-age and gap theories proposing billions of years.

It seems reasonable to conclude that the creation days, in fact, are not a matter of time but of quality — the light emanating from God being present and at work. The creation days are progressive stages of unknown and unknowable duration, (similar to the analogical day theory).

Explanatory Power

Stating that the creation days were 6 x 24 hours does not run counter to other biblical texts in any obvious way. It also does not explain a lot. It is a rather isolated, technical statement.

Creation days defined as millions of years of progressive creation or evolution, on the other hand, brings significant dissonance with the rest of the Bible. To pick just one example, Jesus said, when asked about divorce,

Have you not read that he who created [the first humans] from the beginning made them male and female75

He would hardly have said from the beginning if Adam and Eve appeared billions of years after heaven and earth — which definitely were created in the beginning76. Evolution retrofitted into the creation account severely interferes with recognizing the Bible as a consistent text.

In contrast, regarding the creation days as an instance of the biblical divine days has great explanatory power, bringing the entire history of Earth, beginning and end, into a common perspective. God intervening to change the history of planet Earth constitutes a day in biblical language.

Conclusions, Further Study

There are many, perfectly ordinary, 24-hour days in the Bible. Another quite normal use is day denoting an unspecified period.

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider…77

Then there is our special topic, the divine days, points in the history of the earth when God intervenes to change the overall conditions down here. Each of them is a day in biblical language.

  • Creation
  • The earthly ministry of Jesus Christ
  • The day of the Lord, the end of history as we know it

The divine days are not about temporal extent. They denote a quality: manifest divine presence, necessarily accompanied by light. They also come with song.

Possible Further Study

A candidate for further study is to investigate just how plants and animals were created. Humans were created as a single couple according to Genesis. Were plant and animal kinds also created in minimum quantities and left to reproduce?

Bibliography

Augustine of Hippo. “On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book”. Translated by Roland J. Teske, SJ. In Saint Augustine on Genesis, vol 84, p 143-188, in the series The Fathers of the Church, A New Translation, The Catholic University of America Press, 1991.

Augustine of Hippo. “The City of God”. Translated by Marcus Dods. Roman Roads Media, 2015.

Collins, Francis S. The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief, Simon Schuster, 2007.

Creation Ministries International. “What we believe, DOCTRINES AND BELIEFS”, accessed 2024-05-15, https://creation.com/what-we-believe

Christian, William A. “Augustine On The Creation Of The World”, Harvard Theological Review, XLVI no 1, Jan 1953.

Doyle, Shaun. “How the Scriptures affirm a literal and historical six-day creation”, 2023-01-12, accessed 2024-05-15, https://creation.com/historical-six-day-creation

Hanson, Andrina G. “Young Earth or Old Earth? — An Impartial Overview of the Creation Debate — Introduction and Summary”, Facts and Faith, 2012-2017, accessed 2024-05-15,
https://factsandfaith.com/young-earth-or-old-earth-an-impartial-overview-of-the-creation-debate-introduction-summary/

Khullar, Dhruv. “Faith, Science, and Francis Collins”, The New Yorker, 2022-04-07, accessed 2024-05-15, https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/faith-science-and-francis-collins

Kline, Meredith G. “Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony”, in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 48 no. 1 (March 1996): 2-15.

Lavallee, Louis. “Augustine on the Creation Days”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 32/4, Dec 1989,

Lewis, Jack P. “The Days Of Creation: A Historical Survey Of Interpretation”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 32 no 4, Dec 1989.

Ortlund, Gavin. “The Missing Virtue in the Creation Debates”, Carl F.H. Center for Theological Understanding, 2017-08-28, accessed 2024-05-17, https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/2017/08/the-missing-virtue-in-the-creation-debates/

Rochford, James M. “Old Earth Creation: Day-Age, Analogical Days, and Intermittent Days”, (undated), accessed 2024-05-17, https://www.evidenceunseen.com/articles/science-and-scripture/old-earth-creation-day-age-analogical-days-and-intermittent-days/

Sarfati, J. Refuting Compromise: A Biblical and Scientific Refutation of “Progressive Creationism” (Billions of Years) As Popularized by Astronomer Hugh Ross, Creation Book Publishers, 2011.

Stewart, Don. “What Is the Gap Theory? (The Ruin and Reconstruction Theory?)”, (undated), Blue Letter Bible, accessed 2024-05-16, https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_654.cfm

Virkler, Jim. “Scofield And Gap Creationism”, The John Ankerberg Show, 2014-09-29, accessed 2024-05-17, https://jashow.org/articles/scofield-and-gap-creationism/

Wallace, Peter J. “The Archetypal Week: A Defense of the Analogical Day View”, 2002, accessed 2024-05-17, http://www.peterwallace.org/old/essays/analogous.htm

Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One, IVP Academic, 2009.

Weinberger, Lael. “Harmony and discord, A review of *The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief *by Francis S. Collins”, 2008-01-17, accessed 2024-05-17, https://creation.com/a-review-of-francis-collins-book-the-language-of-god

Suggested Further Reading

Additional reading on Augustine of Hippo and the creation.

Buchanan, Scott. “Saint Augustine on Interpreting Genesis”, Letters to Creationists, 2020-12-03, accessed 2024-05-17, https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/2020/12/03/saint-augustine-on-interpreting-genesis/

McCarthy, John F., Msgr. “A Neo-Patristic Return to the First Four Days of Creation, part III, The Days of Creation According to St. Augustine”, Roman Theological Forum, July 1993, accessed 2024-05-17, http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt47.html

Samples, Kenneth. “St. Augustine on Three Aspects of Creation”, Reasons to Believe, 2019-07-30, accessed 2024-05-17,
https://reasons.org/explore/blogs/reflections/st-augustine-on-three-aspects-of-creation

Stump, E., Kretzmann, N. eds, The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. Genesis 1:1-2:3

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  2. Genesis 1:28-30

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  3. Genesis 2:24

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  4. Genesis 2:16-17

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  5. John 1:1

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  6. John 1:4-5

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  7. Genesis 1:2

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  8. Job 38:4-7

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  9. Luke 2:13-14

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  10. Proverbs 8:27-31

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  11. Psalm 92:4

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  12. Here is one: Andrina G. Hanson, “Young Earth or Old Earth? — An Impartial Overview of the Creation Debate — Introduction and Summary”, Facts and Faith, 2012-2017, https://factsandfaith.com/young-earth-or-old-earth-an-impartial-overview-of-the-creation-debate-introduction-summary/

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  13. Here is a recent one: Shaun Doyle, “How the Scriptures affirm a literal and historical six-day creation”, 2023-01-12, https://creation.com/historical-six-day-creation

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  14. https://creation.com/what-we-believe

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  15. Hugh Ross stepped down as president and CEO of RTB in 2022.

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  16. Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Compromise: A Biblical and Scientific Refutation of “Progressive Creationism” (Billions of Years) As Popularized by Astronomer Hugh Ross, Creation Book Publishers, 2011.

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  17. Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief, Simon Schuster, 2007.

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  18. Dhruv Khullar, “Faith, Science, and Francis Collins”, The New Yorker, 2022-04-07. Interview after Collins stepped down as head of the National Institute of Health.

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  19. Lael Weinberger, “Harmony and discord, A review of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins”, 2008-01-17,
    https://creation.com/a-review-of-francis-collins-book-the-language-of-god

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  20. Resource site: https://meredithkline.com/

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  21. Meredith G. Kline, “Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony”, in Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith 48:1, March 1996, 2-15.

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  22. Calling them “higher” or “lower” is simply a convenient natural analogy, not to be taken literally.

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  23. John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One, IVP Academic, 2009. The chapters of the book are called “Propositions”, numbered 1-18.

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  24. Ibid. Proposition 1, but notable already in the introduction.

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  25. Ibid. Three entire chapters (Propositions 4-6) describe the initial nonfunctional state, establishing functions and functionaries. Proposition 10 emphasizes the non-material aspect.

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  26. Ibid. Propositions 8-9.

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  27. Don Stewart, “What Is the Gap Theory? (The Ruin and Reconstruction Theory?)”, (undated), https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_654.cfm

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  28. Jim Virkler, “Scofield And Gap Creationism”, The John Ankerberg Show, 2014-09-29, https://jashow.org/articles/scofield-and-gap-creationism/

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  29. James M. Rochford,* “*Old Earth Creation: Day-Age, Analogical Days, and Intermittent Days”, (undated), https://www.evidenceunseen.com/articles/science-and-scripture/old-earth-creation-day-age-analogical-days-and-intermittent-days/

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  30. Peter J. Wallace, “The Archetypal Week: A Defense of the Analogical Day View”, 2002, http://www.peterwallace.org/old/essays/analogous.htm

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  31. Jack P. Lewis, “The Days Of Creation: A Historical Survey Of Interpretation”, JETS 32/4, Dec 1989.

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  32. See the bibliography for samples.

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  33. Many thanks to Josef Schyborger for pointing a total newbie to several relevant Augustine resources.

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  34. Gavin Ortlund, “The Missing Virtue in the Creation Debates”, Carl F.H. Center for Theological Understanding, 2017-08-28, https://henrycenter.tiu.edu/2017/08/the-missing-virtue-in-the-creation-debates/

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  35. Augustine of Hippo, “On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book”. Translated by Roland J. Teske, SJ.* *In The Fathers of the Church, A New Translation, vol 84, 1991. The Catholic University of America Press.

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  36. Ibid. p 148 (chapter 3).

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  37. Christian, Augustine On The Creation Of The World, Harvard Theol. Review, XLVI(1), p 2.

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  38. Ibid. p 3-4

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  39. Louis Lavallee, “Augustine on the Creation Days”, JETS 32 no 4, Dec 1989, p 459.

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  40. John 9:4

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  41. Matt 8:16

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  42. John 11:9

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  43. Genesis 1:28

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  44. Hebrews 1:3

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  45. Miracles described in the Bible may be characterized as local divine interventions since they do not change the overall history of the earth.

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  46. Latin: in the year of the Lord.

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  47. John 8:56

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  48. Luke 1:76-79

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  49. John 9:4

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  50. John 13:26-27

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  51. John 13:30

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  52. Matt 26:53-54

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  53. Malachi 4:1

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  54. Isaiah 2:12

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  55. Revelation 6:15-17

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  56. Daniel 9:24-27

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  57. Joel 2:31

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  58. Amos 5:20

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  59. Genesis 1:5

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  60. Augustine of Hippo. City of God, book XI, chapter 7. Translated by Marcus Dods. Roman Roads Media, 2015.

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  61. Peter J. Wallace, “The Archetypal Week: A Defense of the Analogical Day View”, 2002, http://www.peterwallace.org/old/essays/analogous.htm

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  62. Genesis 2:2

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  63. See, for example, Hebrews 4:9-11

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  64. 2 Corinthians 6:2, quoting from Isaiah 49:8

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  65. Revelation 21:1

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  66. Revelation 22:5

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  67. John 8:12, 9:5 for example

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  68. Matthew 24:27

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  69. See section 3.4, Cosmic Party.

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  70. Luke 2:13

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  71. Several instances, among them Revelation 19:1, the “Hallelujah chorus” made famous by Handel.

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  72. Genesis 1:5

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  73. John 11:9

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  74. John 9:4

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  75. Matthew 19:4

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  76. Genesis 1:1

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  77. Ecclesiastes 7:14

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