Interpreting Genesis One - S03 E05 - Science and Faith Podcast

Описание: How should we interpret the creation story in Genesis chapter one? Which view is correct? Did God create in six literal 24 hour days? What about the Day-Age theory? Or the Framework Hypothesis? These are all questions we discuss in this episode of the Science and Faith Podcast.

St. Augustine, one of the most important theologians in the history of the church, was famously disturbed by the “human-like” way in which God’s creation is portrayed in Genesis 1. For him, it was difficult to understand why an infinite God would take a whole week to create the cosmos. He concluded that God created instantaneously, but with the capacity to develop, much like a seed has the capacity to develop into a mature tree. In his view creation was simply portrayed in Genesis 1 as happening over a week’s time to accommodate human understanding. While Augustine’s instantaneous creation view has few modern adherents, he grasped a vital truth about Genesis 1: that the seven-day divine work week is not meant to limit God’s creative action but to present it in a way the original hearers would have understood.

So are the days of Genesis 1 meant to be understood as regular, 24-hour days? Yes and no. The seven-day week is meant to be understood as a regular human work week. But it does not automatically follow that Genesis 1 is revealing scientific information about the chronology of natural history. The frequent references to ancient cosmology in Genesis 1 indicate that God did not choose to reveal modern scientific information to the ancient Hebrews.

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