Editor’s Note: We are linking to our good friend, Sarah Salviander’s website. She is an Astrophysicist, holding a Ph.D in the field. She is also a committed Christian. We find her explanation very intriguing and hope you do, as well. You can check out her other articles in her site, and even purchase a book in which she was a contributor, The Story of the Cosmos.
Was the universe created and developed in just six days? Is it possible to reconcile a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 with a billions-year-old universe? We address these questions in the following presentation. The material presented is inspired by The Science of God by Dr. Gerald Schroeder, a book we highly recommend.
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Intriguing, but no. I believe what the Bible says. God is the author of the Bible, and he’s the author of physics. He isn’t limited by physics.
This does not disagree with the Bible.
These things are always more subtle than simply disagreeing with the Bible.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And seeing that the light was good, God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day…
Does that say to you that Day 1 took 7.1 billion years?
Remember this is the same God who did this:
Joshua 10:13 So the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance upon its enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? “So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.”
Job 38:4 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.
Like Job, I wasn’t there. I am skeptical of framing what God has said and done by our current understanding of science.
Does that say to you that Day 1 took 7.1 billion years?
Jake, when taken in the full context I presented, I believe Genesis does suggest that. This is the argument that convinced me, as a non-Christian physicist, that Genesis was a living miracle.
Neither I nor Schroeder are going to tell you with absolutely certainty what God meant when relating the Genesis creation narrative. That’s not really the point. The point is that no critic of the Bible can reasonably claim the Genesis narrative is incompatible with modern science.
“This is the argument that convinced me, as a non-Christian physicist, that Genesis was a living miracle.”
If this argument helped draw you to faith in Jesus, then I praise God along with you for it! And may it do so for many others.
“The point is that no critic of the Bible can reasonably claim the Genesis narrative is incompatible with modern science.”
Much respect, that is a significant achievement.