The danger of believing that Earth began with a miracle lies in the belief that it will also end with one: it results in the abdication of human action. This is a sin of presumption.
James W. Stivers, The Institutes of Biblical Terranomics, publication pending
None of the analysts featured on this website are Six-Day Creationists. Whether they believe in an “old” Earth or a “young” Earth, it would be one of perspective. . . We ask, “Compared to what?”
For example, a million year old Earth is young in comparison to a billion year old Earth, yet it would be “old” in comparison to a thousand – or six thousand – year old Earth.
Of course, what I am discussing here is the centuries-long contention between science and religious dogma. Six-Day Creationists believe that the universe was created in an instant (Genesis 1:1) and that the “six days of creation” found in Genesis represent six, literal 24-hour days. Science says there are no known natural processes by which such a thing could happen.
Now, as an Evangelical Christian, I have no problems – propositionally – with the notion that the Almighty can “speed-up” a creation process in which things that scientists might surmise should take millions of years are achieved in mere moments. But that would be a miracle. We might label such a belief as the “acceleration” doctrine.
However, the debate over a literal “Six Day Creation” is not really about that. It is about the reliability of the Genesis record. If the “Six Day Creation” is mere poetry or a myth, then maybe the story of Adam and Eve is not literal, either. Maybe the entire book of Genesis is made up. That is the implication.
I don’t mean to get entangled in the reiteration of arguments and counter-arguments. Others have happily done so already and the reader is referred to them.
Nevertheless, to illustrate how slippery this topic is, consider that a “24-hour day” is dependent upon an astronomical event: the complete rotation of the Earth. We know that the Earth’s speed of rotation can vary, and may have varied considerably once upon a time. The Planet Venus, for example, rotates once a year. A “six-day” creation for Venusians would be six years.
While some Six Day Creationists have admirably defended their position, and have sometimes parsed the biblical texts with a hermeneutical and linguistic skill that seems irrefutable, nevertheless, it ends with a hermeneutical standard which even the Apostles have refused to obey:
One day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.
– 2 Peter 3:8
Here, St. Peter tells us that “time” itself is relative and is measured by God’s activity in distinction from that of mere humans. What to a Darwinist would take a million years – and should take a million years using observable data – it is a time frame inconsequential to an eternal being.
It just so happens that I believe the age of the known universe should be measured in millions of years, not billions. It is because I believe in a modified “steady-state” cosmology founded in a theological perspective that the “stuff” of the universe is – as claimed by Vogt using a different terminology – founded upon the Divine Logos as a manifestation of God’s eternal being:
The Druids taught that the universe was a part of God’s being; much like the body of a man is to his head. God is the head; the stuff of the universe is His body. We are a part of that stuff.
The Druids also taught that the universe is indeed a “uni – verse” – one sentence, one word. It is not a multi- verse, a place of many voices. Nor is it a “bi-polar” verse, one of contradictory voices: one evil and one good. The universe is one voice, one word, pointing to one God – one Head.
Classical, Christian theologians tell us that the universe is separate from God; it is outside of His being. They say the universe was created ex nihilio, that it came from nothing and that it will return to nothing. According to this dogma, the center of the universe is man and his place of abode – Earth. But as Dante, the medieval poet (and a closet Druid) so aptly disclosed in his inferno, that dogma contains a hidden fallacy. The center of a geocentric universe is not Earth, but Hell; for Christian dogma declares Hell to exist in the center of the Earth. Hell – the place of anguish and torment – ostensibly becomes the goal of Creation and the end of history. Like Buddhism and other similar faiths, classical Christianity is a dead-end street for humanity, except, perhaps, for a chosen few. . .
I challenge the Classical view. I say it is not authentically Christian. The first Christians and the Druids shared the same world view. Classical divines will tell us that the universe came from the Word of God and is sustained by that Word (Hebrews 1:2-3):
God . . . hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son . . . by whom also he made the worlds . . . Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power. . .
Which is it, then? Did the universe come from nothing? Or did it come from “the word of his power”? Or are they telling us that the Divine Logos (Word) and nothingness is the same thing?
What does the “word of his power” mean?James Wesley Stivers, THE MOTHER HEART OF GOD: A STUDY ON THE PNEUMATIC ROLE OF THE WOMAN, (1997), p. 11-13
Found at the 2046AD website, this out-of-print book began with a metaphysical discourse which used the Christian doctrine of the Trinity as the foundation of Relational Theology. The inference would be that because God’s being is eternal, then so is the universe.
However, lest we drift off into some sort of pantheism, there is an important distinction to be made between this divine unity with creation taught by “Christian” Druidism from raw pantheism:
THE WORD: STUFF OR NON-STUFF?
In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
John’s Gospel 1:1-3
If the universe was made by the Divine Logos, and is sustained by Him, and if it is the Divine Logos which goes forth from God, how can we say it is no longer a part of Him?
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
John 1:14
Jesus Christ is the Divine Logos.
Ibid, emphasis added p. 14
Distinguishing the Divine Logos as a metaphysical manifestation of the mind of God preserves the Creator/creature distinction. We avoid the “tail wagging the dog” scenario of classical pantheism.
What we should infer, then, from this cosmic unity between the stuff of the universe and God’s eternal being as expressed in the Divine Logos is that science is as much a part of discovering the mind of God as is Divine Revelation. In fact, science, especially as it is expressed in mathematics, becomes a sort of divine Rosetta Stone.
The danger of Six Day Creationism is that it represents an attempt to destroy any certitude derived from the scientific method. It replaces the need for human action with miracles, or worse: magic.
Consequently, the miracle of the Hebrew Children in the Fiery Furnace replaces the incentive to build fire-proof bunkers. The miracle of the Loaves and Fishes replaces the incentive to stockpile food and supplies. Jesus “Walking on the Water” and “greater works than these, shall ye do” replaces the value of boats and human technology which might overcome the limitations of nature. The miracle of the Resurrection replaces the incentive to guard one’s own life or the lives of others. “Divine Healing” defeats the study of nutrition and medicine.
Religion wants us to believe that the world will end the same way as it began: with a miracle. Perversely, it rejoices at every warning of an imminent cosmic disaster: “Jesus is coming any minute” or, it invites us to pray – pray for a miracle, of course.
But when Satan tempted Jesus with the promise of a miracle if He should cast Himself down to certain death from the pinnacle of the Temple, Jesus replied,
It is written, “Thou shalt not tempt the LORD thy God.“
– Gospel of Matthew 4:7
JWS, 11/9/25
