Creation Science Rebuttals -
Light During the First Three Days of Creation
Review by Greg Neyman
First Published 2006
In an article on the Creation, Dinosaurs and the Flood website,
young earth creation science advocate Charlie Liebert explains his
thoughts about the presence of light during the first three days of
creation.1
He claims that "The light in the first three days was probably from
God himself coming from a specific location where He was located.
His person is described as light in many places in scripture." While
a noble thought, there is a better explanation. One comment before
we move on. If God is indeed light, then why did He have to say "Let
there be light" in Genesis 1:1? Was He telling Himself to start
shining? If God is light, then he was already shining! This sort of
contradicts the nature of God...if He always existed, then he was
already shining.
The standard model of planetary formation within old earth
creationism (and secular science) fully explains this. First, one
must realize what Genesis Chapter 1 is. It is an account of the
creation, from the point of view of an observer, standing on the
surface of the planet. This "frame of reference" for this observer
is very important. Genesis 1:2 says
The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep, And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
The observer is
at the surface, observing these events. In a new planet, there is
much gas, thus a cloud would have existed over the planet, obscuring
the light. The sun would already, by necessity, be in place, and the
moon is probably also already captured by earth. Thus, when God said
on day one, Let there be light, there was enough light on the
surface to observe, but one could not look out into the heavens and
observe the stars.
With each day of creation equal to many millions of years,
the second day of creation explains God shaping the land...a process
that he started, and continued, throughout the geologic history of
our planet. The third day, the creation of plants, is the key to
understanding the fourth day, the creation of the sun and moon. The
first photosynthetic plants would have enough light to live and
multiply, but not direct sunlight. This simple algae, as seen in the
fossil record from 3,8 billion years ago to the present, helped
convert the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into oxygen. This slow
process eventually cleared the atmosphere, and then allowed the
observance of the sun, moon, and stars as described on Day Four of
creation. It is a beautiful story, where scientific observations of
earth's history fully meshes with the creation account of the Bible.
For those not familiar with old earth creationism, each day
of creation is seen as overlapping the others. For instance, in the
creation of plants, God assigned this to Day Three. However, from
the fossil record, we see new plants appearing, all the way up to
our present day (the end of the creation event). Thus, there are two
ways to interpret it:
1. For progressive creationists, who do not believe in evolution, God was creating unique plant species, all the way up to the end of the creative works. Therefore, Day Three lasted from 3.8 billion years ago, all the way up to several thousand years ago. It is more of a description of an event, than a description of a specific amount of time.
2. For theistic evolutionists, God started the process of evolution of plants during Day Three, and then let evolution run its course, producing new plants as time went by.
-------------------
1
Light During the First Three Days of Creation, published on the web
at
www.sixdaycreation.com/facts/creation/astronomy/feb2001.html
If you are not a Christian, and you have been holding out on making a decision for Christ because the Church always preached a message that was contrary to what you saw in the scientific world, then rest assured that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and you can believe in Christ and receive salvation, while still believing in an old earth. Click here for more.
Are you a Christian who believes in young earth creationism? Now that we have shown the many difficulties of the young earth creation science model in this and many other articles, how does this impact your Christian life? If you are a young earth creationism believer, click here.
Creation, Dinosaurs and the Flood Review Homepage
Related Articles
To learn more
about old earth creationism, see
Old Earth Belief,
or check out the article
Can You Be A
Christian and Believe in an Old Earth?
Feel free to check out more of this website. Our goal is to
provide rebuttals to the bad science behind young earth creationism,
and honor God by properly presenting His creation.