Karl W. Giberson - Seven glorious days: a scientist retells the Genesis creation story

SEVEN GLORIOUS DAYS

OTHER BOOKS BY KARL W. GIBERSON

Worlds Apart: The Unholy War Between Science & Religion

Species of Origins: Americas Search for a Creation Story (with Donald Yerxa)

Oracles of Science: Celebrity Scientists versus God and Religion (with Mariano Artigas)

Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution

The Language of Science & Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions (with Francis Collins)

Quantum Leap: How John Polkinghorne Found God in Science and Religion (with Dean Nelson)

The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age (with Randall Stephens)

The Wonder of the Universe: Hints of God in Our Fine-Tuned World

Saving Adam (forthcoming)

2012 First Printing

Seven Glorious Days: A Scientist Retells the Genesis Creation Story

Copyright 2012 by Karl W. Giberson

ISBN 978-1-55725-928-8

Scripture quotations are taken from The Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1965, 1966 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Giberson, Karl.

Seven glorious days : a scientist retells the Genesis creation story / Karl W. Giberson.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ).

ISBN 978-1-55725-928-8 (trade pbk.)

1. Creationism. 2. CreationBiblical teaching. 3. Bible. O.T. Genesis ICriticism, interpretation, etc. 4. Religion and science. I. Title.

BS651.G485 2012

231.7652dc23

2012016029

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Paraclete Press

Brewster, Massachusetts

www.paracletepress.com

Printed in the United States of America

who still remind me that teaching young people is a great way to live in the fantasy that you are not getting older.

SEVEN GLORIOUS DAYS

The Seven Days, or Epochs, of Creation

DAY 1

In the beginning God created all that is. The Logos of creation, out of which the heavens and the earth and all things within them burst forth, was the pattern of Gods purpose from which everything would emerge and toward which everything would evolve.

And there was evening and morning, beginning and ending, of the first epoch of creation.

And God saw that it was Good.

DAY 2

Then God said, Let matter emerge, with precisely defined properties that will empower the development of everything else in the universe, laying a secure foundation for changes that will eventually lead to living creatures, following the patterns laid down by the Logos.

And there was evening and morning, beginning and ending, of the second epoch of creation.

And God saw that it was Good.

DAY 3

Then God said, Let the matter be gathered into stars that they may shine forth, creating life-giving chemicals, providing light to decorate the night and energy to sustain future plant life. And let these stars create gravitational centers about which planets can safely revolve, following the patterns laid down by the Logos.

And there was evening and morning, beginning and ending, of the third epoch of creation.

And God saw that it was Good.

DAY 4

Then God said, Let planets of every imaginable size and composition emerge, traveling in precise and predictable orbits about their suns. And let some of these planets be located in temperate zones around their suns, covered with water over which my spirit will hover and call forth life, following the patterns laid down by the Logos.

And there was evening and morning, beginning and ending, of the fourth epoch of creation.

And God saw that it was Good.

DAY 5

Then God said, Let the waters bring forth living creatures in abundance. Let all manner of living things fill the seas and move onto the land and into the air. Let life find, create, and occupy every imaginable niche, maximizing the variety and diversity of possibilities. And let all creatures be empowered to reproduce and respond creatively to changes in their environments, following the patterns laid down by the Logos.

And there was evening and morning, beginning and ending, of the fifth epoch of creation.

And God saw that it was Good.

DAY 6

Then God said, Let life grow steadily in its capacity to understand and experience the world at the deepest level and to discover the nature and origins of its own existence. And let life develop its own creative capacities so that the world may be filled with great novelty and rich experiences for all its creatures, following the patterns laid down by the Logos.

And there was evening and morning, beginning and ending, of the sixth epoch of creation.

And God saw that it was Good.

DAY 7

Then God said, Let the members of the species Homo sapiens grow to understand the meaning, power, and significance of love; let them understand the importance of right and wrong. And let them burn with a deep spiritual hunger to know the God that created them and the world they inhabit. Let them begin to understand the mystery of the Logos that lies at the heart of their existence.

And there was evening and morning, beginning and ending, of the seventh epoch of creation.

And, having entered into fellowship with creatures in the universe, God blessed the creation and rested, satisfied that the Logos, still present and active in the cosmos, was accomplishing its task.

And God saw that it was Good.

INTRODUCTION

The Creation Story for the Twenty-First Century

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

I grew up in a religious tradition that taught me to read the Bible literally and accept its statementson all subjectsat face value. Not surprisingly, I became an enthusiastic young-earth creationist, convinced that the story of origins in Genesis was an accurate scientific account of how things came to be. I headed off to college in 1975 hoping to become a champion of creationism and a fearless crusader against scientific theories like the big bang and evolutionmanmade theories that foolishly presumed to challenge the story that God had provided in the Bible.

While studying science at Eastern Nazarene College near Boston I became convinced that the scientific explanations for our origins were true. The biblical account, read literally, simply could not be reconciled with the facts that science was discovering. It had to be reinterpreted. Like many Christians who discover this, I found a way to move past my biblical literalism. I accepted what my liberal professors were sayingnamely, that the Genesis story was best understood as a theological statement about the relationship between God and the Creation, not a modern scientific account. This timeless theological truth, unfortunately, was presented in the context of an ancient worldview that contained ideas about naturelike the sky being solid or the moon having its own lightthat we have long since abandoned.