“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
“Hear now my words: …My servant Moses… is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
Num. 12:6-8
“Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female”
Matt 19:4
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Subsections
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Order of Contents
Where to Start?
Articles
Booklet
Books
Historical 4
On Creation from Nothing
Creationist Books
For Children
Devotional
On the Purpose of God in Creating
On the Communicable Attributes & Participation
How the Creation is Said to Groan
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Where to Start?
A Brief Overview
Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary – 6 Days are 6 Days no date, 15 paragraphs, with a commendation by G.I. Williamson
Reymond, Robert – ‘Seven Reasons for Six Day Creation’ in Systematic Theology, ch. 2, pp. 392-394
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The More In-Depth Scriptural Case
Gentry, Kenneth – In the Space of Six Days, from the Ordained Servant, vol. 9, no. 1 (January 2000), pp. 12-16, 20 short paragraphs
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The Exhaustive Scriptural Case
Gentry, Kenneth – Yea, Hath God Said? The Framework Hypothesis/Six-Day Creation Debate Buy 2002 172 pp.
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 decimates all non-literal interpretations of what Scripture clearly says. Part 3 demonstrates that the Westminster Confession’s ‘in the space of six days’ means exactly what it says.
For another excellent book length defense of the Biblical view of the length of Creation, see ‘Did God Create in Six Days?’ below by Pipa and Hall.
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Articles
1800’s
Bavinck, Herman – ‘Creation’ from Our Reasonable Faith, excerpts from p. 170-173
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1900’s
Berkhof, Louis
On Creation HTML 1949 70 paragraphs from his Systematic Theology
On Creation in Six Days HTML 1949 25 paragraphs excerpted from his Systematic Theology
Young, E.J. – ‘The Days of Genesis’, part 1, part 2 Westminster Theological Journal 25 (1962-3) 1-34 See the historical background to these two articles in Gary North’s article.
Gentry, Kenneth – Reformed Theology and Six Day Creation no date, 22 short paragraphs
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2000’s
Batzig, Nick – [Geerhardus] Vos on the Historicity and Interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 2013 32 paragraphs Including an extensive quotation from Vos’ Reformed Dogmatics
Williamson, G.I. – A Defense of Six-Day Creation 2013 31 paragraphs
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Booklet
Beek, Joel – What did the Reformers Believe about the Age of the Earth? Buy 16 pp.
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Books on the Length of Creation from Scripture
Pipa, Joseph & David Hall – Did God Create in Six Days? Buy (1999) 352 pp.
This work includes contributions by numerous professors at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. See the ‘Look Inside’ option through the Buy link for the table of contents.
Young, E.J.
Studies in Genesis One Buy in An International Library of Philosophy & Theology (1975) 105 pp.
Young was one of the great, early, Westminster Seminary scholars.
In the Beginning: Gen. chs. 1-3 & the Authority of Scripture Buy (1976) 117 pp.
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Historical
On the Whole of Church History
Book
Hall, David – Holding Fast to Creation Kindle 2000 241 pp. The hardcopy is spiral-bound by The Covenant Foundation. 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’
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Early Church up to the 1800’s
Book
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 (Brill, 2012) ToC Covers the post apostolic era to the debates surrounding Essays and Reviews (1860).
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On the Middle Ages
Lyra, Nicholas – ‘On the Division of the Bible & The O.T. Especially’ & ‘On the Beginning of Genesis’ from his, The Holy Bible with the Ordinary Gloss (Venice, 1603) col. 1
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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. 125-133
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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 Buy 2000 119 pp.
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On Creation from Nothing
Historical Theology
Goudriaan, Aza – 2. ‘Philosophy & Creation from Nothing’ in ch. 2, ‘Creation, Mosaic Physics, Copernicanism & Divine Accommodation’ in Reformed Orthodoxy & Philosophy, 1625-1750: Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus Van Mastricht, and Anthonius Driessen Pre (Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 86-104
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Creationist Books
Whitcomb, Jr., John – The Early Earth Buy 1972 138 pp.
For Children
Guassen, Louis – Lessons for the Young on the Six Days of Creation 1860 135 pp.
Devotional
Myers, Andrew – ‘He Made the Stars Also’ a collection of photography and poetic quotes about the stars
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On the Purpose of God in Creating
Excerpts
Owen, John – An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews… vol. 2 ed. W.H. Goold in Works (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1862), vol. 19, Preliminary Exercitations
Exercitation 27, p. 43 (2.)
Exercitation 28, p. 90, #16
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On the Communicable Attributes & Participation
Quote
Samuel Rutherford
The Divine Right of Church Government… (London, 1646), Introduction, section 6, pp. 83-4
“It is an untruth which [the Romanist] Raphael de la Torres, with other schoolmen say (tome •, in 22, question 81, article 4, the only disputation), that with the same religion by which we honor holy men, we honour God, upon this reason, because holiness in them is a parti∣cipation of the divine nature; therefore God must be the intrinsical end and formal reason for which we honor the saints.
For holiness in saints is a participation of the divine nature, but it is a temporary and a created participation; it is not the same very holiness that is in God, but [rather is] the created effect thereof: and so the love I bear to any creature, because there is somewhat of God in every creature, and the love to our neighbor, commanded in the Second Table of the Law, should be the love of God commanded in the First Table of the Law.
2. When I bow to the gray-haired and to the king; I then do an act of obedience to the Fifth Commandment: No man can say that when I bow to the king or to a holy man that I am then bowing to the God of heaven and worshipping God: No acts terminated upon saints, living or dead, are acts of worshipping God; yea, reverencing of the ordinances of God, as the delighting in, or trembling at the Word, are not properly acts of adoring God.”
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Articles
1200’s
Aquinas
Summa, pt. 1, Treatise on the Creation, Question 44, ‘The Procession of Creatures from God, & of the First Cause of All Things’
Article 3, ‘Whether God is the exemplar cause of beings [Yes] or whether there are other exemplar causes?’
Article 4, ‘Whether He is the final cause of things?’
Compendium of Theology, pt. 1
ch. 21, ‘Eminent Existence in God of All Perfections found in Creatures’
ch. 68, ‘The Effects Produced by God’
ch. 109, ‘The Essential Goodness of God & the Participated Goodness of Creatures’
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1600’s
Norton, John – pp. 331-2 of ch. 15, ‘Of the State of the Blessed…’ in The Orthodox Evangelist… (1654; 1657)
Norton (1606-1663) was a New England puritan divine.
Tuckney, Anthony – Sermon 22, on 2 Pet. 1:4, pt. 1, 2, 3, 4 in Forty Sermons upon Several Occasions… (London, 1676), pp. 223-63
Owen, John – pp. 244-46 of Christologia… in Works (d. 1683), vol. 1
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1700’s
De Moor, Bernardinus – 4.19, ‘Classification of God’s Attributes: Communicable & Incommunicable’
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1900’s
Koterski, Joseph W. – ‘The Doctrine of Participation in Thomistic Metaphysics’, pp. 185-96
Koterski is a Jesuit. This is more detailed as to the nature of participation than the reformed treatments.
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2000’s
Muller, Richard – pp. 224-26 of 7. ‘Communicable & Incommunicable Attributes’ in pt. 2, ch. 3.3, D of Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: the Rise & Development of Reformed Theology, ca. 1520 – ca. 1725, vol. 3, The Divine Essence & Attributes 2nd ed. (Baker Books, 2003)
Wanless, Brandon L. – Universality & the Divine Essence: St. Thomas
Aquinas on the Unity Characteristic of the Trinitarian Persons a Masters thesis (University of St. Thomas, 2015)
‘Participation’ & ‘No Participation in God’, pp. 69-71 in ch. 8, ‘Universality & Particularity’
ch. 9, ‘Communicability & Incommunicability’, pp. 72-84
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Quote
Jerome Zanchi
Of the Nature of God, II.i, thesis 3, col. 55, as quoted in Muller, PRRD (2003), 3.240
“all things can be said to exist from God by participation in the divine existence.”
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How the Creation is Said to Groan
Samuel Rutherford
The Covenant of Life Opened… (1655), p. 17
“1. Man is to be considered as a creature [and] 2. as such a creature, to wit, endued with reason and the Image of God; in either considerations, especially in the former, all that are created are obliged to do and suffer the will of God though they never sinned. It’s not enough to say that sun, moon, trees, herbs, vines, earth, beasts, birds and fishes cannot suffer the ill of punishment which is relative to the break of a Law, for the whole creation is subject to vanity for our sins, Rom. 8:20-21.
The servant is smitten and sickened for the master’s sake, and God may take from them what He gave them, [even] their lives without sense of pain and dolor, for all beings, yea [even] defects and privations, are debtors to the glory-declarative of God, Prov. 16:4; Rom. 11:36; yea, and no-beings [things that could be, but are not,] are under this debt.”
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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
“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made… For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.”
Ps. 33:6,9
“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.”
Martin Luther
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