Creationism - National Center for Science Education

Paul Johnson, in Creation (1938), a volume in the Jehovah’s Witnesses Epiphany
Studies in the Scriptures series, specifically denied subscribing to the standard Gap
Theory, but his interpretation is much the same. He holds that there was a long period
prior to the six creation days. God set matter (gases) in motion in Genesis 1:1; this
unihabitable primeval chaos then gradually condensed and cooled. Johnson specified that
each creation ‘day’ was 7,000 years long. The Laymen’s Home Missionary Movement, a
Witness group which split from the followers of Rutherford, still distributes Johnson’s
book, and repeats his distinctive cosmogony in tracts such as The Bible vs. Evolution and
The Evolution Theory Examined—though without attribution. The latter tract quotes a
few fairly recent scientific sources, and the casual reader cannot know that most of the
“scientific” arguments are taken from Johnson’s 1938 book.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses proper (followers of Rutherford) produced the classic
anti-evolution book Did Man Get Here By Evolution or by Creation? (1967), published in
thirteen languages and over eighteen million copies. The Witnesses assert that man was
created about 6,000 years ago but allow for a Day-Age interpretation of the six days of
creation. They also allow for a Gap Theory interpretation as well (thus combining the
two), though they do not stress this (1967:97). The Witnesses’ new (1985) book, Life—
How Did It Get Here?: By Evolution Or by Creation?, an updated version of the 1967
classic, which is richly illustrated and includes many more recent anti-evolution quotes, is
somewhat more explicit in allowing for the Gap Theory in addition to a Day-Age
interpretation:
The first part of Genesis indicates that the earth could have existed for billions of years before the first
Genesis “day,” though it does not say for how long. However, it does describe what earth’s condition was
just before that first “day” began: “Now the earth proved to be formless and waste...” [1985:26]
Both the 1967 and 1985 books go on to present a Day-Age interpretation in more detail.
Carl Theodore Schwarze, a professor of civil engineering at NYU and a member
of the Plymouth Brethren, supported a Gap Theory scheme in conjunction with his
development of the pre-Flood Canopy theory (see later). In The Harmony of Science and
the Bible (1942) and in The Marvel of Earth’s Canopies (1957) he argued that this
canopy was formed in pre-Adamic times. Satan was ruler over “intelligent and powerful
creatures that inhabited this earth before Adam”: the fallen angels, or demons. This
sinful world was destroyed in an atomic blast which lofted up the Canopy. Schwarze
suggested that Satan or his evil followers triggered this cataclysmic, world-destroying
explosion by reckless dabbling in atomic research. This explosion is the destruction of
the world described in Genesis 1:2; the future destruction of the world prophesied in II
Peter 3:10 will probably be a similar nuclear explosion (1942:54-60; 1957:12-13,57).
A pamphlet by the International Christian Crusade of Toronto, A Biblical
Cosmology (1976), argues against both evolution and young-earth creationism,
presenting in its stead the Gap Theory. Ussher’s chronology is defended as valid for
events since the re-creation. (John Howitt was the unlisted author of this and other ICC
pamphlets, including the one which converted Gish to creationism. These other ICC
pamphlets by Howitt do not discuss the Gap Theory or any events prior to the six-day
creation.)
Why We Believe in Creation Not in Evolution (1959; now in its eighth edition), by
Fred John Meldau, editor of Christian Victory Magazine, is a compendium of creation-