“For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day”
Ex. 20:11
“ By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap… For He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”
Gen. 33:6-9
“Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day…”
Gen. 20:9-11
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Subsection
Westminster: “Space of Six Days”
Whether Pre-Fall Adam ate Meat
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Order of Contents
6 Natural Days
. Start 4
. Articles 10+
. Books 10
. Quotes 4
. Latin 1
Non-Literal 4
Consensus Tools 2
Seminaries 1
Historical 8+
Children 1
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That God took 6 Natural Days in Creating
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Start
Brief Overview
Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Faculty – ‘6 days are 6 days’ (GPTS, n.d.) 4 pp.
Reymond, Robert – ‘Seven Reasons for Six Day Creation’ in Systematic Theology, ch. 2, pp. 392-394 at Purely Presbyterian
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In-Depth
Gentry, Kenneth – In the Space of Six Days in Ordained Servant, vol. 9, no. 1 (January 2000), pp. 12-16, 20 short paragraphs
See Gentry’s other article below as well.
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Exhaustive
Gentry, Kenneth – As it is Written: The Genesis Account, Literal or Literary? Dismantling the Framework Hypothesis Pre (Master Books, 2016) 230 pp. ToC This work is substantillay siimlar to, Gentry & Michael R. Butler, Yea, Hath God Said? The Framework Hypothesis / Six-Day Creation Debate (2002)
Though this work takes aim at the popular Framework Hypothesis (that Gen. 1 is only poetic and not historical with poetic beauty), it also contains perhaps the best Scriptural case for the traditional, literal 6-Day viewpoint. At the same time, the work also argues against all non-literal interpretations of Gen. 1-2. Part 3 argues that the Westminster Confession’s “in the space of six days” was intended to refer to natural days.
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Articles
1300’s
Lyra, Nicholas – The Holy Bible with the Ordinary Gloss tr. Michael Lynch (Venice, 1603), col. 1
‘On the Division of the Bible & The O.T. Especially’
‘On the Beginning of Genesis’
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1600’s
Turretin, Francis – Institutes of Elenctic Theology, tr. George M. Giger, ed. James Dennison Jr. (1679–1685; P&R, 1992), vol. 1, 5th Topic
4. ‘In what season of the year was the world created? In the spring, or in the autumn?’ 441
5. ‘Was the world created in a moment, or in six days? And, were the particular works of each of the six days created without motion and succession of time, or did God employ a whole day in the production of each thing?’ 444
6. ‘In what order were the works of creation produced by God in the six days?’ 446
7. ‘From the use of the luminaries posited by Moses can judiciary astrology be built up? We deny against the astrologers and planetarians.’ 452
8. ‘Was Adam the first of mortals, or did men exist before him? And is the epoch of the created world and of men’s deeds to be referred much farther back than Adam? The former we affirm; the latter we deny, against the Preadamites.’ 457
van Mastricht, Peter – Theoretical Practical Theology (2nd ed. 1698; RHB), vol. 3, pt. 1, bk. 3
ch. 5, ‘Creation in General’ 101
ch. 6, ‘The World & the Work of the Six Days’ 123-74
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1900’s
Berkhof, Louis – ‘On Creation in Six Days’ HTML 25 paragraphs in Systematic Theology (1949)
Young, E.J. – ‘The Days of Genesis’, pt. 1, 2 Westminster Theological Journal 25 (1962-1963), pp. 1-34 See the historical background to these two articles in Gary North’s article.
Gentry, Kenneth – ‘Reformed Theology & Six Day Creation’ no date, 22 short paragraphs
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2000’s
Batzig, Nick – ‘[Geerhardus] Vos on the Historicity & Interpretation of Genesis 1 & 2’ (2013) 32 paragraphs Including an extensive quotation from Vos’s Reformed Dogmatics
Williamson, G.I. – ‘A Defense of Six-Day Creation’ (2013) 31 paragraphs at The Highway
Shaw, Benjamin – ‘Review: ‘In Six Days God Created’ by Paulin Bedard: a Critique of the Framework Hypothesis’ (2013) 5 paragraphs
“This is a very fine book. As a quick look at the table of contents will tell you that it is a critique of the framework hypothesis.”
Derouchie, Jason – ‘Our Young Earth: Arguments for Thousands of Years’ (2022) 32 paragraphs at Desiring God
Derouchie is a professor of Old Testament and biblical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (Kansas City, MO).
Arguments:
1. Humanity in the first week
2. In the beginning
3. Linear genealogies
4. Climax of creation
5. Animal suffering and death
6. Eating meat and the curse’s end
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Books
1900’s
Young, E.J.
Studies in Genesis One in An International Library of Philosophy & Theology (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1964) 105 pp. ToC
Young (1907–1968) was one of the great, early, Westminster Seminary scholars.
In the Beginning: Gen. chs. 1-3 & the Authority of Scripture (Banner of Truth, 1976) 117 pp. ToC
Whitcomb, Jr., John – The Early Earth rev. ed. (Baker, 1986) 166 pp. ToC
Kelly, Douglas – Creation & Change: Gen. 1:1-2:4 in the Light of Changing Scientific Paradigms (Mentor, 1997) 260 pp. ToC
Kelly holds to 24 hour days.
eds. Pipa, Joseph & David Hall – Did God Create in Six Days? Buy (Southern Presbyterian Press / Covenant Foundation, 1999) 352 pp.
This work includes contributions by numerous professors at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Amongst other things, three chapters present and defend non-literal views before chapters critiquing those and defending the literal view ensue.
Jordan, James B. – Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One Pre (Canon Press, 1999) 265 pp. ToC
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2000’s
ed. Ashton, John – In Six days: Why Fifty Scientists choose to Believe in Creation (Master Books, 2001) 375 pp. ToC
Ham, Ken – Six Days: The Age of the Earth & the Decline of the Church Pre (Master Books, 2013) 257 pp. ToC
Bedard, Paulin – In Six Days God Created Ref (Salem Author Services, 2013) 254 pp.
See this positive review by a reformed professor and another by a reformed minister.
“This book refutes the framework interpretation and other figurative interpretations of the days of creation and shows the majestic progression of God’s work of creation in six literal days. The author enters into debate with renowned contemporary theologians…” – Blurb
“His extensive research demonstrates that those who embrace the Framework Hypothesis often are influenced by the ‘apparent’ scientific evidence for long ages in their reading of Genesis 1 and 2.” – Blurb
Gentry, Kenneth – As it is Written: The Genesis Account, Literal or Literary? Dismantling the Framework Hypothesis Pre (Master Books, 2016) 230 pp. ToC This work is substantillay siimlar to the his previous, Yea, Hath God Said? The Framework Hypothesis / Six-Day Creation Debate (2002)
Though this work takes aim at the popular Framework Hypothesis (that Gen. 1 is only poetic and not historical with poetic beauty), it also contains perhaps the best Scriptural case for the traditional, literal 6-Day viewpoint. At the same time, the work also argues against all non-literal interpretations of Gen. 1-2. Part 3 argues that the Westminster Confession’s “in the space of six days” was intended to refer to natural days.
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Quotes
For dozens more Post-Reformation, reformed quotes on God creating in six natural days, see Primary Source Quotes on “In the Space of Six Days”.
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Order of
Luther
Voet
Charnock
Warren
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1500’s
Martin Luther
What Luther Says. A Practical In-Home Anthology for the Active Christian, ed. Ewald M. Plass (St. Louis: Concordia, 1959), p. 1523
“When Moses writes that God created Heaven and Earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this period continue to have been six days, and do not venture to devise any comment according to which six days were one day.
But, if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are. For you are to deal with Scripture in such a way that you bear in mind that God Himself says what is written. But since God is speaking, it is not fitting for you wantonly to turn His word in the direction you wish to go.”
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1600’s
Gisbert Voet
Select Theological Disputations, vol. 1 tr. by AI by Onku (Utrecht: Johannes a Waesberg, 1648), pt. 2 Latin
On Creation, pt. 1, p. 112
“9. That it [Creation] is an action not successive, but instantaneous; for creation is not motion, as Thomas rightly proves, Summa Contra Gentiles bk. 2, chs. 17 and 19. Therefore God created each thing, if we consider them separately and in themselves, in an instant: although the creation of some succeeded to others in the span of six days, if we consider them collectively.
But why God did not create all things at once, no reason besides his will can be adduced. For the twofold διασκοπία [scope] which is usually adduced from Ambrose, Hexaemeron, bk. 1, ch. 7, and Augustine, On Genesis, seems to me indeed, to speak truly, insufficiently solid: namely so that hence it might more openly be established that the world was founded not from eternity, but in time; and that men might so much the more distinctly and attentively meditate on the individual works of God. As if namely we would less meditatively and attentively [consider] the soul of man, or the animation [ensoulment] of the fetus, or the sun, or the hypostatic union of Christ, because God effected those works in a moment.
But that reason which Augustine adduces for the time of six days in bk. 4, On the Trinity, and bk. 4, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, ch. 1, namely that the number six is the first perfect [number], is plainly atheological, and savors of Kabbalistic superstitions:
Petrus Bongus, On the Mysteries of Numbers, on the number six, p. 268, thus urges this, that he does not fear to write: For the number six is said to be sacred, and perfect not only because in this number of days all the species of things were founded, as William Hamerus had thought, following Pope Gregory the Great, bk. 35, ch. 20, Moralia, but also for that reason God perfected his works in six days, because six is perfect, and sacrosanct. Therefore even if those things were not, it would be perfect; but unless it itself were perfect, those things would not become perfect according to it:
In the same chapter he adduces for this μυσταγωγία Kabbalah Clement of Alexandria, and Eusebius, who in the books of Evangelical Preparation, cites Clement. But it can be said that they argued more to the man, than from the truth of the thing and their own sense. For thus Clement, bk. 5, Stromata, p. 432: The βάρβαρος φιλοσοφία indeed knows one world, which is perceived by the intellect, but another sensible, etc. καὶ τὸν μὲν ἀρχέτυπον, and that indeed archetypal it attributes to the monad as that which is perceived by the intellect: but this sensible [world], to the number six. For among the Pythagoreans marriage is called the number six, as that which is the generative number.
We reject: 1. The opinion of those, who establish that the entire world was founded in an instant, or at once, and afterwards the individual [things] were successively separated from each other. Maimonides in The Guide of the Perplexed, pt. 2, ch. 30. Of the same opinion are Philo, bk. 1, Allegories, Cajetan on Gen. 1, Melchior Cano in Bañez on ST, pt. Ia, q. 74, art. 2, Augustine, bk. 11, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, ch. 22.
We reject: 2. Those, who Kabbalistically deduce the duration of the world and other mysteries from the six days of the creation of the world. Of which sort were not only Jews, but also some from the Christians: Concerning which perhaps we must speak elsewhere in the chapter ‘On the End of the World, or on the Signs of the Times’.”
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On Creation, pt. 2, On the World, p. 128
“As to 1, the world is one, as the sacred Scriptures teach in innumerable places. It will suffice to have indicated Jn. 1:3; Col. 1:16 compared with Gen. 1, 2, where one world created by the works of six days is described:”
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On Creation, pt. 3, p. 137
“Creatures considered through individual species are usually divided among physicists either according to the species of natural body, which is simple and mixed, etc. or according to the parts of the world, which are containers and contents, celestial and elemental, etc. We, presently omitting those things, will follow the division by the works of the six days’ creation frequented by all theologians and chronologers; and we will explain some things about the system of the world from Mosaic physics in the manner and method of theologians.
For to want to call that into doubt, and to reduce it to absurdity belongs to those who, being unwise, refuse to submit their wisdom to the most Holy Spirit, and pave the way for themselves and others to Libertinism or atheism: while the system of the world described by Moses to them does not seem dissimilar to the fables and absurdities of Muhammad about the earth being founded on the horn of an ox (in the book Sunna), about the sun when it sets, immersing itself in a bubbling spring of water (Quran, chapter on the Cave).
Objections and exceptions against the sacred Mosaic physics which are usually brought forward are not so subtle that they cannot be resolved. As among others Francis Junius shows against the 22 arguments of Simplicius, and of today’s antinomians, at the end of the explanation of the first three chapters of Genesis: with whom Scipio Claromontius, On the Universe, should be compared, and other philosophers to be cited below, who do not allow anti-Mosaic systems of the moderns to be foisted upon them….
…Heaven and the angels were created on the First Day. The reasons are:
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2. Because nowhere in the Hexaemeron is mention made of the creation of that heaven and the angels: but God completed in six days all things that were
created, Gen. 2:1, and that heaven is among things created, Heb. 11:10.”
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Stephen Charnock
Several Discourses upon the Existence & Attributes of God (London, 1682), ‘Wisdom of God’, p. 414
“We know that God created the world in time; but why He did not create the world millions of years before, we are ignorant of, and our reasons would be bewildred in their too much curiosity. If we ask why He did not create it before, we may as well ask why He did create it then? And may not the same question be asked, if the world had been created millions of years before it was?
That He created in it six days, and not in an instant, is revealed; but why He did not do it in a moment, since we are sure He was able to do it, is not revealed.”
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Erasmus Warren
Geologia, or a Discourse concerning the Earth before the Deluge… (London: Chiswell, 1690), ch. 2, pp. 51-63
“4. And though the sun was not made as yet (the Fourth Day being the first of his existence) yet this does not invalidate Moses’s narrative in the least, by rendering it absurd or inconsistent with itself, when it tells us that the earth was brought to such maturity on the Third Day. For though there was no sun then, yet we are assured there was light: And providence might so order this light, as to have it supply the place of the sun in measuring out time and making days, though not so distinctly as he does.
And that there should be light before there was a perfect sun, seems highly agreeable to the explication of light by the Cartesian principles… And if there could thus have been light antecedently to the sun; then how there should be days and nights at the same time, is easy to conceive, admitting the diurnal motion of the earth.
This [preceding description of how the sun could have come into existence] I have said, not that I belive the sun was thus produced (any more than the Great Philosopher [Descartes] did) but to make it appear, that the holy text might be literally true; and that to hold there were days before there was a sun, is so far from being vulgar and ridiculous (as some would make it) that it is greatly consonant to that which is counted the best philosophy…
As many as are not pleased with this have liberty to imagine that by the three first (anticipative) days more early than the sun was only meant such certain spaces of time as were commensurate or equivalent to three days, though they were not divided into diurnal periods, nor otherwise distinguished, than by those acts of creation which God exerted, or the several creatures which He formed upon each of them.
So about the [North] pole, where the sun is in the horizon by months together, and then out of it as long, men may reckon the time by days, though they have them not, without any solecism in their way of compute. But not to dwell upon this point; they who believe and consider, that there was once an universal darkness, [Greek] over all the earth, for the space of three hours, a long time after the sun was made, may, I think, be persuaded to believe also that by some means or other there might be three real and distinct days in the world before he [the sun] was created.
5. But that the whole creation, and consequently the whole earth, was consummated in six days may be proved by one very good argument, the Fourth Precept in the most sacred Decalogue…
Now the Seventh day, which by divine benediction and special consecration was set apart for the Jewish Sabbath was no other than a natural day, consisting of twenty-four hours. And the six days in which God allowed men to work were of the same quality or duration. But then He permitting labor six days in the week, because in six days He made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and enjoyning a cessation from all manner of work and a sanctification of the Seventh Day, because on it He rested from his work of creation; from hence it will follow by undeniable consequence that the seventh day on which God rested, and the six days on which He wrought, must be of the same nature that the Jewish Sabbath and weekdays were of; and that in six such [Hebrew], or natural days, consisting of twenty four hours apiece, the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, were made.
And indeed unless the Holy Ghost had said expressly that they were natural days, each of them made up of twenty four hours, he could hardly have spoken them to be such more plainly and properly than He has done. For he tells us seven times over (in the first [chapter] of Genesis) that is, concerning every one of the seven days, that they had evening and morning [Hebrew].
Whereas if he had made use of the single word [Hebrew] that might have been taken for time indefinitely or at large. But as if He designed to prevent this, or at least to give no occasion for it, as often as He mentioned [Hebrew], He was still pleased to tack [Hebrew] and [Hebrew] to it, to evidence that He meant no other than a natural day, to which evening and morning do belong.
And that which makes it farther evident, that He has tied up [Hebrew] ‘day’, to signify a natural day, in the story of the creation, is, that this Fourth Commandment is partly entered in that story; and [Hebrew] the seventh day, which He blessed and sanctified for the Sabbath, is said to be the seventh day on which He rested from his works. And so both were natural days alike, the one as much as the other. And therefore the seventh day separated for a sabbath, and kept so by the Jews (from the promulgation of the Law, to the dissolution of their polity, yea, to this very hour, in their dispersion) being a true natural day, the seventh day whereon God rested from his works, must be the same.
And truly once to pretend that there is any thing of cloudiness or ambiguity in the recited precept; or that God by the days mentioned therein did not mean ordinary natural days, would be to raise a mist to darken the truth; to offer to tie a knot where there really is none, and to put plain words by their common sense merely to force a difficulty into them.
Suppose a man should command his servants or children to work six days, because he himself in six days had done such and such things; and to rest on the seventh day because on that day he ceased from his labours: Could it ever enter into the thoughts of any but that the days in which he wrought, and they are to work; and the day in which he rested, and they are to rest, must be of the same nature? Why, such is the case here, if we put but the Great God into the place of that man and allow his precept to be of a plain import and signification, as we have reason to do.
For this great God was now publishing a Law to his people: A Law whereby they were to live, or die for ever: A Law by which He really intended and heartily desired that they should not die, but live to eternity. And He being in hand with a Law of such consequence to their precious souls, who can question but it was worded plainly? For without doubt He would deliver it in such familiar terms as might be most intelligible to the meanest capacities amongst that people, to whom He recommended it as a standing rule. So that the Fourth Commandment being a piece of that rule, a branch of that Law, we cannot suppose it to be clothed with obscurity, either in the substance or reason of it.
And truly if so plain a paragraph as that be not to be taken in its grammatical sense, ’tis impossible we should know the mind of Scripture, and vain it will be to pretend to understand any period in it. But then, if where God speaks plainly in his Word, we must understand it literally, surely we must do it most of all, in that part of his Word which is the body of his Law, and so the specific rule of our practice. And if the Moral Law in general was of a literal signification, then so was the Fourth Word of it to the Jews. And if that were literally to be interpreted, as undoubtedly it was, the world must be created in the time there specified, in just six days, that is, neither more nor fewer.
And Moses methinks seems to be mightily concerned to ground men in this. For though he had noted already in the first of Genesis that the work of creation was compleated in six days, and had fairly accounted for each of them in particular: yet reviewing things in the second chapter, he there inculcates the same afresh, that so they might take farther notice of it. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. That is, in the days, and according to the order before remembered. But had the earth been formed after the tenor of this new hypothesis, it could never have been finished in six days… Though far more agreeable to this hypothsis (as it makes the formation of the earth so slow) is the fantasy of the Chinese, inhabiting Formosa and other islands. Who hold that the world when first created, was without form or shape: but by Pankun, one of their demi-gods, (the sixty second of their seventy two deities) was brought to its full perfection in four years.
6. The only considerable way of eluding this doctrine of the worlds being made in six days is the introducing of Cabbalism into the story of the Creation. For by that, numbers, which show the order of time are made types or emblems, or secret notes of the natures of things. But the force of the Holy Argument alleged is not to be shifted off by this means…
8. But grant (what by no means is to be granted) that there were a Cabbalistic sense in the story of the creation, so venerable and excellent as to be allowed to supersede the literal one quite, or to swallow up the same; and that the Mosaic numbers there were not at all intended to distinguish time, but only to shadow out the natures of things, and so no satisfactory proof could be fetched from thence of the world’s being completed in six days: Yet still the holy argument [from the 5th Commandment] produced would hold good, because in that divine precept there can be no Cabbalism exclusive of its literal meaning. And that for these three reasons:
First, Because God must then have put dark mystery into the heart of his Law. Into that part of it which (that it might be sure to be most plain, as well as authentic) He was pleased to write with his own finger. Into that part of it which every poor Israelite newly come out of Egyptian bondage was to practice. And therefore it was necessary he should understand it, and consequently that there should not be obscurity in it: A thing ever held incongruous to laws (as very unsuitable to their use and end) and always declined by wise legislators. For they have still been careful that the statutes drawn up and enacted by them should carry a clear sense along with them both in their injunctions and the reasons of them.
Secondly, Because then something of duty expressed in the Commandment, would have been very improperly and incompetently urged. That men should work six days in the week, because in six days God created the world, upon each of them bringing some considerable pieces of it into being, is most fit and reasonable: Even as fit and reasonable as it is for mean persons to imitate their superior; for creatures to follow the great example of their Maker. But that men should labour six days in the week, because the number six is the character of the nature of any creatures, would be altogether empty, trifling and impertinent, as admitting no manner of dependance or connection betwixt the reason and the thing.
Thirdly, Because it would shuffle and jumble the natures of things together, or else bring a strange confusion into the numbers of the Cabbala. It would shuffle the natures of things together, in an intolerable manner. For thus the heavens and the earth (as the Commandment runs) the sea, and all that in them is (which according to the physical Cabbala of Moses, are thought to have their orders and various natures, distinctly characterized by several numbers) must be here referred to one single number six…“
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Latin Article
1600’s
Wendelin, Marcus – ch. 15, thesis 1, sections 19-22 of Section 1 of Physical Contemplations, which is General Physiology… (Cambridge: Roger Daniel, 1648), section 2, pp. 335-38
Wendlein, a German reformed professor, uses the same terminology as Bonaventure, and even similar outlines of arguments.
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Non-Literal Interpretations of Creation Week
Uncertain
Article
1900’s
Taylor, Justin – ‘Biblical Reasons to Doubt the Creation Days were 24-Hour Periods’ (2015) with a bibliography at The Gospel Coalition
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Quotes
Order of
Augustine
Anselm
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400’s
Augustine
. The City of God, bk. 11, ch.7
“What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to
conceive.”
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1100’s
Anselm
Cur Deus Homo, p. 18
“the ‘days’ of Moses’ account… are not to be equated with the days in which we live.”
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Instantaneous Creation
Latin Article
400’s
Augustine – bk. 4, chs. 1-35 of The Literal Interpretation of Genesis See especially chs. 33 & 34.
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Allowance of Numerous Views
PCA Report of the Creation Study Committee (1999)
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Consensus Tools
Intro
The two brief tools below were developed by a PCA presbytery to be used in examining candidates for ordination. The first, the ‘Slippery Slope Exam Tool’, gives very helpful agreed upon affirmations and denials by the presbytery on the topic, in order to prevent persons from sliding down a slippery slope. Some of the denials include:
We deny the contention that general revelation has no bearing on our interpretation of Scripture.
We deny a scientism that comes from an atheistic or deistic naturalism.
We deny any doctrine that would attempt to reduce Genesis 1-3 to myth or mere symbolism without reality in space and time.
We deny the theory of macro-evolution (i.e., the evolution of new species from existing ones).
We deny that creation fell into a state of bondage to decay for any reason other than those that emerge from the Fall.
We deny that other views of the length of the days of creation [than that of natural days] are necessarily incorrect interpretations of Scripture.
The second tool, the ‘Tough Questions List’, is a brief, subdivided list of tough questions for each main view on Genesis 1-2. However sure one believes one’s position is, these questions ought to open one’s eyes to the possibility of alternate interpretations and syntheses of the evidence and issues.
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2000’s
Central Carolina Presbytery (PCA), Creation Study Committee, Final Report (Aug. 2001)
Appendix A, ‘Slippery Slope Exam Tool’
Appendix B, ‘Tough Questions List’
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Seminaries
Banner of Truth – ‘American [Reformed] Seminaries & the Days of Genesis’ (2001)
This list details the self-confessed viewpoint(s) of 14 American reformed seminaries on the topic, though note the older date of the article.
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Historical
On the Whole of Church History
Books
2000’s
Hall, David – Holding Fast to Creation Buy (The Covenant Foundation, 2000 / 2018) 241 pp.
The work has chapters on: the Early Church, Calvin and the Reformers, the Westminster Divines, the Enlightenment, recent debates and ‘A Biblical Theology of Creation’
Brown, Andrew J.
The Days of Creation: A History of Christian Interpretation of Genesis 1:1 – 2:3 in History of Biblical Interpretation Series, vol. 4 Pre (Brill, 2012) 335 pp. ToC Covers the post apostolic era to the debates surrounding Essays & Reviews (1860).
Recruiting the Ancients for the Creation Debate Pre (Eerdmans, 2023) 366 pp. ToC This covers early Christian interpretation to John Wesley (1700’s).
Given the ancients’ diversity and complexity, Brown’s conclusion is that we ought to revisit them, not recruit them.
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On Augustine
Articles
Lavallee, Louis – ‘Augustine on the Creation Days’ in JETS 32.4 (Dec, 1989), pp. 457-64
Mortenson, Terry & A. Peter Galling – ‘Augustine on the Days of Creation: A look at Augustine as an alleged old-earth ally with a review of his commentaries on Genesis and young-earth leanings’ in Answers in Depth (2012 / 2020) at Answers in Genesis
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On the Post-Reformation
Booklet
Beeke, Joel – What did the Reformers Believe about the Age of the Earth? Buy (Answers in Genesis, 2014) 16 pp.
Beeke quotes or references in favor of natural days:
Basil of Caesarea, Ambrose, Bede, Lombard, Bonaventure, Luther, Calvin, Musculus, Vermigli, Bullinger, Ursinus, Zanchi, Ussher, Vincent.
“Lombard tuaght that the days of Genesis 1, defined by mornings and evenings, should be understood as ‘the space of twenty four hours.’ (Sentences, bk. 2, dist. 12, ch. 2) Bonaventure (AD 1221-1274) argued that God created ‘in the space of six days’–a phrase that will appear later in Reformed writings.¹
¹ The Latin phrase sex dierum spatium appears in Bonaventure’s Commentaries on the Four Books of Sentences, trans. Alexis Bugnolo, book 2, commentary on distinction 12, art. 1, question 2…” – p. 2
“The expression of [the WCF] has its roots in at least four previous theologians whom the Westminster divines knew. As we have seen, the words ‘in the space of six days’ appear in the writings of Bonaventure, Calvin, Zanchi, and Ussher.²
² Bonaventure, Commentaries on the Four Books of Sentences, book 2, distinction 12, art. 1, question 2; Calvin, Commentaries on Genesis, 1:78; Zanchius, Confession of Christian Religion, 21 [5.1]; De Operibus Dei intra Spacium Sex Dierum Creatis; Ussher, Works, 11:183.” – p. 11
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On the 1600’s
Article
Goudriaan, Aza – 3.1 ‘Creation in 6 Days’ in ch. 2, ‘Creation, Mosaic Physics, Copernicanism & Divine Accommodation’ in Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 1625-1750: Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus Van Mastricht, and Anthonius Driessen Pre (Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 105-13
“In his comprehensive series of disputations on creation that were originally held in 1638-1639, Voetius does not omit a discussion on how creation took place. In this context not much attention is given to the issue of the six days as such (although the work of creation is explained in its six days order), but Voetius maintains that creation took place in six days. He therefore rejects the ancient theory that the world was created at once (in instanti).” – p. 105
“…circumstances had changed by the time of Driessen’s carreer. But Driessen [1684-1748] likewise maintained creation in six days.” – p. 110
“Voetius as well as Van Mastricht and Driessen maintained a literal interpretation of the description of Genesis that God created the world in six days. Both Van Mastricht and Driessen criticised the notion of natural laws that are in force prior to creation… Van Mastricht notes that the concepts of matter and form make it possible still to speak of creation after the first day…” – p. 113
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On Westminster
On Westminster’s “in the Space of Six Days”
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On the 1900’s, PCA
Book
Reed, John – Plain Talk about Genesis: A Fresh Look at the PCA Earth History Debate (Word Ministries, 2000) 119 pp. ToC
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For Children
Book
1800’s
Guassen, Louis – Lessons for the Young on the Six Days of Creation (Edinburgh: Constable, 1860) 135 pp. ToC
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“…by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men…”
Rom. 5:12
“He which made them at the beginning made them male and female…”
Mt. 19:4
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Related Pages
On the History of Religion & Science, & on the Mosaic Physics