4th Day Alliance

After the NCHE Conference in North Carolina last week, I received the following email from an attendee:

Dear Diego,

Really enjoyed the conference! Hope you liked being in North Carolina.

I have a couple of thoughts and questions about some scripture that has been giving me trouble. I know in Genesis that some of the entries are descriptions of specific days of creation and then there are some repeats of a more general overview of that same day. The one that is troubling me is pre-day 1 and then the account of day one.

Gen 1:1 ¶ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

So the two questions this raises in my mind is this:

1. What was the light on day one if the sun was not set in place until day 4?

2. He seems to have set the heavens and the Earth in place prior to setting the rest of the stars in place. Is this a description of the "canvas" that God had to work with and then He "painted" on that canvas or is there something else going on here?

One of the thoughts that had been rattling around in my head for the last several years is the idea that the universe could be old and that when God decided to start things moving on Earth that is where our history begins. This could explain why there are things that seem to be much older than our ability to record them do exist but that our human history is realativly young. I also feel that it does not contradict or diminish the validity of the Bible. I think it acctually agrees with Gen. 1:1-2 that seems to support the idea that there were things here before the human project began.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this and to see if I am way off base or am I in an area that we will just never know for sure until the end.

Blessings and looking forward to discussing, in Christ,
[name removed]

I took this opportunity to give a more detailed response and I have included it here for our readers:
-----------my email response-----------
[name removed] -

I'm glad you enjoyed the conference and the presentations. You bring up some interesting questions and I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts with you about them. Let me respond below:

What was the light on day one if the sun was not set in place until day 4?
The answer to this questions is remarkably simple—nobody knows. However, let's remember that light comes in many forms and from many different sources. Today, our main source of light is definitely the Sun, but the Sun is not the only source of light in the universe—in fact, far from it. One key that is important to recognize in this passage however is this—whatever the light was on day 1, it was not supernatural. Many people mistakenly believe that the light on day 1 was from a supernatural source, but this thinking runs completely contrary to the context of the scripture. Think about it, the entire creation week is a record of God creating the natural universe. Everything, and I mean everything, that God created in 6 days was a part of the natural universe. It is completely inconsistent to assume that everything that God created during Creation Week was natural except for the light on day 1.

However, this thinking is quite prevalent amongst believers. That is, when Christians don't have the answer to something, they simply claim it was a miracle or that it was supernatural. Sometimes that is true, but the reality is that most of the time we are simply ignorant. We should not automatically assume that something is supernatural just because we don't know what the answer is. If you remember from the NCHE conference, one theme that I rehearsed time and time again in my seminars was this, "We are living in a day of relative technological ignorance." That theme/principle would definitely ring true regarding the question you asked about the light from day 1. In our day, we have no idea what the light was on that day. However, our scientific ignorance should not frustrate our faith. Furthermore, any "definitive" scientific answer given today would still stand the chance of being overturned one day in the future—only serving to make those of us who believed in the scientific explanation previously given look like a bunch of gullible and unenlightened schlubs. So let's be cautious not to put "too much stock" in the scientific explanations we have for things today (particularly in the field of astronomy where very little empirical science is performed), because many of these explanations stand to be overturned one day in the future. The point here is that our faith in the certainty of God's word should never depend upon an explanation for current (and subjective) observations in mainstream science.

So the bottom line is this—whatever the light was on day 1, it was some sort of real light in the natural universe with a natural source (though the creation of the light was a miracle performed by God ex nihilo). Dr. Walt Brown, a scientist and devout Christian man actually has a theory regarding this. I have the utmost respect for Dr. Brown and his work and he does provide an interesting and possible solution. You can read about it here: What was the light of Day One?

He seems to have set the heavens and the Earth in place prior to setting the rest of the stars in place. Is this a description of the "canvas" that God had to work with and then He "painted" on that canvas or is there something else going on here?
It seems very plain and simple that God created light, open space, and the earth on day 1. We can assume many other things were created on this day (like natural laws, gravity, electromagnetism, etc.), but we only know for sure that God created those things that he specifically mentions. The stars were not created until day 4, so I'm not exactly certain what you mean with your description.

I guess you could loosely or poetically refer to space as a "canvas" and then metaphorically state that God "painted" the Earth and the stars on that "canvas." That seems to work fine. But, one thing we cannot change is the days that God said he did this "painting." The earth would have been "painted" on that "canvas" on day 1; and the sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars would have been "painted" on day 4.

One of the thoughts that had been rattling around in my head for the last several years is the idea that the universe could be old and that when God decided to start things moving on Earth that is where our history begins.
This thought has "rattled around" many believers’ minds for some time now as the "billions of years" message has been continually pummeled into mainstream life. The problem is that it does run directly contrary to scripture. The Bible very plainly and specifically tells us that everything began on Day 1, "In the beginning." Also note that the term "heaven and Earth" specifically means the "universe." Consider the following citations:

“It must be remembered that the Old Testament has no single word for ‘universe,’ and that the phrase ‘heaven and earth’ serves to supply the deficiency." The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

“…[heaven] includes all that is distinguished from the earth. When employed this way, the words heaven and earth exclude one another; but when taken together the two embrace all the universe of God (Genesis 1:1).” Wycliff Bible Dictionary

The point here is that God created the universe on Day 1. There is nowhere in the text of the Bible where there is room to add any time before day 1, or insert gaps after day 1. Day 1 is just that—it's DAY ONE. It is the very first day of the beginning of the history of the universe. From that day, you can begin counting each day one by one by one in (what we would call) 24 hour segments.

This could explain why there are things that seem to be much older than our ability to record them do exist but that our human history is realativly young.
I want to challenge you to rethink this statement. I definitely understand where you are coming from, but I want to ask you to question your own thinking process here. This won't hurt one bit—it's just a little thinking exercise. Ask yourself this question, "Why do I think that things seem to be much older than our ability to record them?" Why do you think that? Can you give me some examples of things that seem to be much older that our ability to record them? If so, do you know for a fact that it is correct, or are you just believing what other's have told you? Have you done the experiments yourself? Do you know what assumptions are involved in the processes? Do you know who the people are who have made the conclusions that you've heard? Do you know their character and do you have confidence that they did not have any other human emotions or motives driving their conclusions? Are you aware of their detractors? Many more questions could be asked, but hopefully these questions help to illustrate this point—people only think that the universe is billions of years old because they've heard that so many times. That being said, consider these quotes:

“A lie told often enough becomes truth” - Vladimir Lenin
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." - Joseph Goebbels (minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany)

These are not the most illustrative characters to be quoting from, but I think history proves that they knew what they were talking about when it comes to manipulating the minds of the masses.

I would contend that the universe does not look "old." At best, it looks "mature" and fully formed, but not "billions of years old." For example, Adam and Eve were not babies or embryos on day 6 when they were created. They were adults and fully mature. They would have looked like they were "old" but the truth is that on day 7, they were only one day old. The same thing goes for all of the trees, animals, etc. And the same definitely goes for the stars!

Also, are you aware of the dozens of scientific evidences that point to the Earth being young? Did you know that at least 15 strong evidences from the field of astronomy point to universe also being young? You can read through all of them here: 15 evidences for a Young Universe. The main "evidence" that the universe is old is the so-called "distant starlight problem." However, if you sat through our presentation on distant starlight at the NCHE convention, then you know how riddled with problems that evidence is. How would distant starlight hold up in a court of law? If we have 15 strong pieces of evidence and 1 piece of weak evidence, do we favor the 1 piece of weak evidence over the 15 pieces of strong evidence? No way!

Unfortunately, the truth is that popular science, public education, and the media constantly bombard us all with a single message that is simply unsubstantiated, false, and definitely contrary to biblical truth. Too many Christians don't realize how much peer pressure this puts on them and they then try to find ways to manipulate the plain reading of the biblical text in favor of extraordinary and non-historical interpretations so that they can feel comfortable with the claims of "modern science." Let us just remember that our “modern science” will one day be considered "ancient science" and future astronomers will look back at our ignorance and folly and laugh at the ridiculous things people believed in the "unlearned 21st century." Just like we do when we look back at what scientists believed 500 years ago or more.

Fear not! The Bible is not wrong, nor is the simple, obvious, and plain reading of its first verses. The universe really was created in 6 literal days just like the Bible says, and just over 6,000 years have passed since that time (I can walk you through the chronologies of the Bible so that you can see for yourself where that figure comes from).

I also feel that it does not contradict or diminish the validity of the Bible. I think it acctually agrees with Gen. 1:1-2 that seems to support the idea that there were things here before the human project began.
Hopefully, I've helped you to rethink this idea. The Bible does not indicate that there was anything at all in the natural universe before day one because the natural universe did not exist before day one. (Of course, there were things here before the “human project” began, but only for 5 days!)

Blessings to you!

Diego Rodriguez
4th Day Alliance