Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning According to Genesis and Science

by John C. Lennox

What we learn from this is that it is just not adequate to choose an interpretation simply on the basis of asking how many people held this interpretation, and for how long.37 One has to ask why they understood it that way at that time, and one also has to ask if there are compelling reasons for changing that understanding.

The major thrust of my argument so far, then, is that there is a way of understanding Genesis 1 that does not compromise the authority and primacy of Scripture and that, at the same time, takes into account our increased knowledge of the universe, as Scripture itself suggests we should (Rom. 1:19–20).

Human life, as we learn from Genesis 2, has many aspects; its lowest level is physical life, to which we must add those other things that make life life — aesthetic environment, work, human relationships, and a relationship with God. Human death, then, will involve the unweaving of all of this: it will first mean the death of fellowship with God, and the first result of this death is a pathetic attempt to hide from God in the garden.

The deadly rupture of fellowship with God will then lead inexorably to all the other levels of death — aesthetic death, death of human relationships, and so on, until we reach the lowest level of death, which turns our bodies back to molecules of dust.

One might then reasonably argue that Romans 8:20–21 is carefully written to refer to decay and corruption as distinct from death.

This leads to the question, at creation did human beings have essential, inherent immortality that was removed when they sinned? Or, in light of the New Testament’s explicit statement, “[God] alone has immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16), does it follow that Adam never had intrinsic immortality, but was dependent from the beginning on regular access to an external source of food (the Tree of Life) for continued existence?

God had made. But that is already telling us something — and simultaneously raising many questions. For this serpent is a creature; so God is ultimately responsible for its existence. Yet it is clearly opposed to God. In other words, Genesis is saying that there was already an alien in the earth, a being that, apparently, had the capacity to disobey God, had done so, and was now encouraging the first humans to follow suit.

The question of the origin of humans — are we made in the image of God, or thrown up on the sea of the possible random permutations of matter without any ultimate significance? — is of major importance for our concept of our human identity; and it is therefore not surprising that ferocious efforts are being made to minimise the difference between humans and animals on the one hand, and the difference between humans and machines on the other.

It is important therefore to combat that naturalism by presenting biblical theism as a credible alternative that, far from involving intellectual suicide, makes more sense of the data than does atheistic reductionism.

Firstly, we must beware of tying our exposition of Scripture so close to science that the former falls if the latter changes. On the other hand, we would be very unwise to ignore science through obscurantism or fear, and present to the world an image of a Christianity that is anti-intellectual. No Christian has anything to fear from true science. Many Christians have made, and continue to make, first-rate contributions to science.

The fact that we do not know everything. Humility is often seen in the greatest scientists. It is also a Christian virtue.

Just as it was no shame or compromise in the past for people to change their minds over the motion of the earth, so it is no shame or compromise today for people to change their minds about the age of the earth.

The central tenet of the biblical worldview is that the ultimate reality is God: “In the beginning God …”

The Biblical worldview begins with God; the atheist worldview begins with the universe.

It tells us that this material universe is not the ultimate reality. God is.

It is important, of course, not to confuse the fact of creation with the manner or the timing of creation. I mention this because it sometimes happens that failure to sort out problems connected with the manner and timing of creation stops people believing in the fact that creation occurred. An illustration from science can help us grasp the issue here. Stephen Hawking says that space-time began in a singularity, where the laws of physics break down. The moment of creation, therefore, poses an immense problem for science. But this does not stop most scientists believing that there was a beginning. The important thing for these scientists is that there is scientific evidence for a beginning, even though science cannot comprehend the nature of that beginning.4 We should bear this attitude in mind when we come to Genesis.

Genesis tells us that God is primary, and the universe derivative. This worldview is the exact opposite of ancient polytheism and contemporary secularism, both of which assume that matter is primary and everything else, including mind, is derivative.

Matter is made out of nothing, not out of God.

Planet Earth is special. It was created with an ultimate purpose—that of having human beings on it.7

So, both Genesis and science say that the universe is geared to supporting human life. But Genesis says more. It says that you, as a human being, bear the image of God.

The idea that the universe did not come to be without the input of information and energy from an intelligent source seems to me to have been amply confirmed by scientific discovery.

As I argue in detail elsewhere,11 the nonmateriality of information points to a nonmaterial source — a mind, the mind of God.

It is for this reason that we can have confidence in the Christian message — it brings real illumination, authenticating itself in human experience. It also authenticates itself intellectually, as C. S. Lewis pointed out: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

He expected his disciples to deduce something simple yet profound from his observation about the sun: if in the physical realm they were helplessly dependent on a light situated outside themselves, what about the intellectual, spiritual, and moral realms? Where was the source of their insights and answers, inside or outside their own heads?

Sometimes we try to use our powers of reason to make sense of what has happened, and fail. We need light from outside.

For atheism, death is the ultimate darkness. But Christ has shown that death is not the end.

In the meantime, the fact that God has put human beings in charge of a good creation reminds us also of our responsibility towards God as stewards of creation. It is not our property, but God’s; and we are not at liberty to abuse, waste, and ruin it. Indeed, God takes our attitude to the earth very seriously, as a day will come in which God will judge those who destroy the earth (Rev. 11:18b).

We inherit a universe that we did not create.

We study something given. This simple idea has consequences. It means, for instance, that it is for the universe to shape our ideas about how it works, rather than for us to decide in our heads how it ought to work and then force the universe to comply.

British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes of the Sabbath, “It is a day that sets a limit to our intervention in nature and to our economic activity. We become conscious of being creations, not creators. The earth is not ours, but God’s … The Sabbath is a weekly reminder of the integrity of nature and the boundaries of human striving.”19

We are restless beings. Augustine of Hippo long ago traced the reason for this back to creation: “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”20

God did the work of creating the universe, and then he rested. We inherit a creation that we didn’t work for, merit, or earn. In that sense, we rest in what God has done. Entering God’s spiritual rest — receiving his forgiveness, salvation, and peace — proceeds in exactly the same way. God has completed the work on which salvation rests: the death of Christ for human sin on the cross. In order to enter God’s rest, we must rest on the work that Christ has done — not on the work we do.

What, therefore, should our attitude be to others who do not agree with us, whatever view we hold? Surely the old adage has got it more or less right: “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.”

Much more recently, Andrew Parker, Research Director at the Natural History Museum in London, draws attention to the same phenomenon in a way that is directly relevant to Walton’s view. Parker, an evolutionary biologist who does not profess to believe in God, was stimulated to look at Genesis 1 after a number of people had written to him suggesting that his research on the origin of the eye seemed to echo the statement “Let there be light.” He was very surprised at what he found: “Without expecting to find anything, I discovered a whole series of parallels between the creation story on the Bible’s first page and the modern, scientific account of life’s history. This at least made me think. The congruence was almost exact …” He later adds, “The more detail is examined, the more convincing and remarkable I believe the parallels become. One question I will be asking in this book is this: could it be that the creation account on page one of Genesis was written as it is because that is how the sequence of events really happened?”32 Here is Parker’s conclusion: Here, then, is the Genesis Enigma: The opening page of Genesis is scientifically accurate but was written long before the science was known. How did the writer of this page come to write this creation account? … I must admit, rather nervously as a scientist averse to entertaining such an idea, that the evidence that the writer of the opening page of the Bible was divinely inspired is strong. I have never before encountere...

The catch is that the nature of life itself militates strongly against there ever being a purely naturalistic theory of life’s origin. There is an immense gulf between the nonliving and the living that is a matter of kind, not simply of degree.

Any adequate explanation for the existence of the DNA-coded database and for the prodigious information storage and processing capabilities of the living cell must involve a source of information that transcends the basic physical and chemical materials out of which the cell is constructed.

Such processors and programmes, on the basis of all we know from computer science, cannot be explained, even in principle, without the involvement of a mind.

Mathematical laws of the type that are familiar to us from physics are just not adequate to do the job, for the simple reason that they cannot create information.