Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
Creationism - National Center for Science Education
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attacking evolution. Of the three, Leander Keyser supported Price’s strict recent<br />
creationism, while A.C. Dixon, editor of The Fundamentals, supported Gap Theory<br />
creationism, and Riley argued <strong>for</strong> Day-Age creationism. Since Whitcomb and Morris’s<br />
1961 Genesis Flood, recent creationism has come to the <strong>for</strong>e, but Day-Age, Gap Theory,<br />
and other old-earth creationist schemes remain surprisingly popular.<br />
GAP THEORY<br />
The Gap Theory, also known as the “ruin-restitution” or “reconstruction” theory,<br />
preserves the Genesis creation account as six literal days, of recent occurrence, but<br />
assumes that the vast ages so well attested to by science occurred prior to this set of<br />
events. In other words, the earth—and life—was created be<strong>for</strong>e the Creation Week of<br />
Genesis. This exegesis is accomplished by postulating a tremendous “gap” between the<br />
very first two verses of Genesis, into which go all the geological ages:<br />
[Genesis 1:1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.<br />
[… GAP …]<br />
[Genesis 1:2] And the earth was [“became”] without <strong>for</strong>m, and void;...<br />
The universe—heaven and earth—was originally (“in the beginning”) created many<br />
aeons ago; life flourished <strong>for</strong> millions or billions of years. But this world grew to be evil,<br />
and God destroyed it in a gigantic cataclysm. Earth became “without <strong>for</strong>m and void” as a<br />
result of this destruction. (Gap theorists hold that the verb in the second verse is more<br />
accurately translated as became or had become rather than as was. The familiar six-day<br />
creation—are-creation really—then followed, mere thousands of years ago, upon the ruin<br />
and chaos of this ancient <strong>for</strong>mer world.<br />
Gap Theory advocates, by this maneuver, are able to reconcile the scientific<br />
evidence <strong>for</strong> an old earth and universe and <strong>for</strong> life itself with Genesis. They maintain that<br />
this interpretation preserves biblical inerrancy and even literalism (though it is clearly not<br />
the plainest and most literal interpretation), while allowing <strong>for</strong> indefinitely long ages as<br />
demanded by science. They reject evolution just as strenuously as the young-earth<br />
creationists. The re-creation, some six thousand or so years ago, was not entirely ex<br />
nihilo (although humans may have been created out of nothing) but it was certainly by<br />
divine fiat. There<strong>for</strong>e, although they differ markedly from “strict” creationists regarding<br />
the age of the earth, their anti-evolution attitudes and arguments are virtually identical.<br />
The Gap Theory, incidentally, has nothing to do with the fact that there are two<br />
somewhat contradictory creation accounts in Genesis. Because gap theory creationism<br />
has received little attention compared to young-earth creationism, and because its<br />
proponents tend to use the same anti-evolution arguments anyway, many critics of<br />
creationism are unaware of it or are confused about what it is. The founders of the<br />
British anti-creationist group APE, <strong>for</strong> instance, erroneously reported that the gap theory<br />
“proposes that geology happened sometime between.the Fall and the Flood” (Howgate<br />
and Lewis 1984:703). Cavanaugh, in his otherwise excellent sociological study of<br />
creationism, mistook the gap theory as an attempt to reconcile the two Genesis creation<br />
accounts (1983:169n), as have others.