“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 5
On Creation from Nothing
That God did Not Change by Creating
Creationist Books
For Children
Devotional
On the Purpose of God in Creating
On the Communicable Attributes & Participation
How the Creation is Said to Groan
On Conservation
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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 – Systematic Theology (1949)
‘On Creation’ HTML 70 paragraphs
‘On Creation in Six Days’ HTML 25 paragraphs
Young, E.J. – ‘The Days of Genesis’, pt. 1, 2 Westminster Theological Journal 25 (1962-3), 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
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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 Post-Reformation
Article
Muller, Richard – ‘creatio’ in Dictionary of Latin & Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology 1st ed. (Baker, 1985)
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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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That God did Not Change in Creating
Barcellos, Richard C. – ‘Change in God Given Creation?’ in The Master’s Seminary Journal, vol. 33, no. 1 (Spring, 2022), pp. 21-47
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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
Quotes
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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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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ch. 1, Question 5
section 2, p. 151
“1st Conclusion. The relative expression of God which is in the works of God, is no formal ground of any adoration of the creatures.
1. Because adoration upon this ground, though the creatures, the host of heaven be excellent, is forbidden, Dt. 4:19.
2. [If it were the case, then] Not only images (which cannot represent God) and the sacraments, but all the creatures, even, rats, mice, flies, frogs, worms, Judas and wicked men, yea, and devils are to be worshipped, because all things having being are shadows and footsteps of God, their cause, first author and last end, Ps. 19:1; 103:22; Rom. 1:19-20; Acts 17:27-28; Prov. 16:4; Rev. 4:11; Rom. 11:36-37.
3. Because God is really, and by the diffusion of his blessed essence, present in all creatures, it follows not that we should adore them: The Formalists upon this ground, that Christ is really present in the sacrament, though the manner we know not, think that Christ should be adored in the sacrament, according to that, Verbum audimus, motum sentimus, modum nescimus. But if this be good logic, because we know not the way of the Spirit and how the bones grow in a woman with child, Eccl. 11:5, and God, where he works, is present by the immediation of essence and power, though we know not the way of his presence, we are to adore the soul of man and the bones of a young child in a woman’s belly; and though they should say that God-man Christ is in a more powerful and efficacious manner present in the sacrament than in the works of nature; yet should it follow that God is to be worshipped in the works of nature also, for magis et minus non variant speciem [greater or less does not vary the species]; for then we could not conclude any thing but this: Though there be not so real a ground of adoring lice and frogs as adoring of the sacrament, yet there is a ground, seeing God is, in the reality of his blessed essence, present in all creatures.”
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Section 3, pp. 172
“4. It is ignorance in Burges to prove God may be adored in the elements, because they are as excellent symbols of God’s presence as the ark [in the OT]: for created excellency is no ground of adoring the elements, except it be a Godhead and uncreated excellency:
We condemn Pope Anastasius, who directs reverend bowing at the hearing of the Gospel and not of the Epistles, as if the Gospel were holier than the Epistles.”
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Francis Turretin
Institutes 3:545-46
“Although Christ is to be adored wherever He is present, it does not follow that everything in which He is present is to be adored. Christ dwells in all believers and yet believers are not to be adored with Christ…
We are not bound to adore God with an external adoration wherever He is present; but only where He is present with rays of his glorious majesty and where He wishes to be adored. Otherwise as God is in all creatures (in stones, in trees and in animals), He would have to be adored in them. Thus we are commanded to adore God in the heavens, where He manifests Himself gloriously. The Israelites were bound to adore Him at the ark, which was teh symbol of his presence….
The essential and internal glory of God (which consists in the eminence of his perfections) differs from the accidental and external glory (which is placed in some sensible, miraculous and extraordinary effect; as was seen in the bush, the ark and other like symbols of God’s presence). Although the internal and essential glory is the foundation of external adoration, still it does not bind to the exercise of actual adoration unless it is connected with the external glory (i.e., with some miraculous and extraordinary effect which makes an impression on the senses). Otherwise, as God is everywhere with his essential glory and in all his creatures, He would have to be adored there (which is absurd).
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The distinctions between the absolute, ultimate, intransitive, direct and formal worship (which is exhibited to Christ in the Eucharist); and the transitive, indirect, relative, and concomitant worship (given to the species of the Eucharist), cannot remove the crime of idolatry. (1) They are unknown to the Scriptures, which recognize no religious worship excepting one alone, which is absolute and direct…”
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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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Historical Theology
On the Medieval Church
Wood, Jordan Daniel – ch. 12, ‘That & How Perichoresis differs from Participation: the Case of Maximus the Confessor’ in Platonism & Christian Thought in Late Antiquity Pre (Routledge), pt. 3 ToC
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On Aquinas & Thomism
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.
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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On the Post-Reformation
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)
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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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On Conservation
Muller, Richard – Dictionary of Latin & Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology 1st ed. (Baker, 1985)
‘continuus Dei in creaturas influxus’
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Related Pages