It troubles me....... Creation Science

This is an attempt by scientists, mainly in the US, to redefine scientific thinking by stating that creation as depicted in Genesis is an accurate scientific model. It troubles me not only because I believe that Genesis is not science, but because it is divisive – driving Christians to different poles of opinion, and also driving seekers away from the church because they can see neither sense nor reason in such an approach.

I just want to make a couple of observations, because there's plenty of learned discussion on the web. Let me start by quoting the ancient writer Origen, an early Christian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Christian Church. He said this of the Creation story in Genesis,

“What man of intelligence, I ask, will consider that the first and second and the third day, in which there are said to be both morning and evening, existed without sun and moon and stars, while the first day was even without a heaven?  And who could be found so silly as to believe that God, after the manner of a farmer 'planted trees in a paradise eastward in Eden' ... I do not think anyone will doubt that these are figurative expressions which indicate certain mysteries through a semblance of history.” 

Origen, writing at the end of the first century suggests the pictures within the creation story are not to be read as straightforward history but as symbolic stories which express 'mysteries through a semblance of history'. Great thinkers such as Augustine, Calvin and Galileo are united in seeing the main purpose of the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4a as theological, not scientific.

 

Its main purpose was to set out the Hebrew understanding of creation over against the ideas that were prevalent in the cultures among whom the Hebrews lived. It was a picture that the ordinary man or woman in the street could relate to, and one that reflected a monotheistic culture.

 In the ancient word there were many creation stories, and the prevalent culture in the region was one of polytheism, or many gods, and their creation stories tend to begin with the origin of the gods, one of whom brings the universe into being.

In Genesis there is one God, creator of all that exists. The existence of God is assumed. Genesis is essentially about purpose rather than science. An understanding of God’s purpose in creating the world and its creatures.  An understanding of the purpose of humankind in the mind of God and their place in the bigger picture.

 

To treat the creation story as science is confusing and unhelpful. It also assumes that you accept the universe to exist as in the picture above, which would have been the understanding of the writer of Genesis. I'm guessing that not many creation science folk hold to that view?!