A Theological Defense of "Gap Theory"

Herepton...what evidence are you referring to when you say that the Gap theory is a fact of science?I'm curious what you base your dating methods on...you don't seem to agree with evolutionary science, yet you also seem to reject a normalistic interpretation of the creation account and subsequent geneologies.Jesus seemed to believe that we were created at the beginning of creation, and not after some Gap of time.Mar 10:6 "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female."

Just to give a basic definition of Gap Theory....this is from Wikipedia:"Gap Creationists believe that science has proven beyond reasonable doubt that the Earth is in fact far older than can be accounted for by merely adding up the ages of Biblical patriarchs, as given in the Book of Genesis. By taking the age of each father at the birth of his son, and adding the "six days" of creation, Young Earth Creationists thereby arrive at an age for the earth, concluding that the Earth is only 6,000 - 7,000 years old. In order to hold the two seemingly-contradictory viewpoints that the Bible is inerrant in all matters of fact as well as faith and doctrine and that the Earth is very ancient, they must account for the supposition that certain facts about both the human past and the age of the Earth have been omitted from the Biblical account rather than falsified by it."The problem is the 2 views are entirely incompatible even if you try to avoid the "Age" issue. If you add the gap, of millions or billions of years, between day 7 and the fall...then you have a world of death and disease before sin. (”by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin’ (Romans 5:12))From a scientific standpoint, it also flies in the face of uniformitarianism....which is the "continuity of processes in the ancient world with those in the modern world".

Much historical timeline information is built upon assumptions, you are correct. This is true for the young-earth creationist, the old-earth creationist and the evolutionist. The facts are that none of us were there to see the events take place.The YEC position is more defensible with real science and logic than are the Gap and evolutionary paradigms, in my opinion. But that is a discussion for another topic.This message has been edited by Garrett, 02-14-2006 10:28 AM

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An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
C. S. Lewis

I don't actually think there is a contradiction between our positions in relation to what your saying. I don't think Adam and Eve were the first to sin, just the first to bring sin into the world. I think, since Satan isn't a human-bound entity, that an actual human would have to sin to bring the curse onto the world. Satan had already been given his curse, which also resulted in separation from God, in the form of banishment from Heaven.The caveat is that God and Satan exist outside of our space and time, therefore they aren't bound by any human timeline. Time is only a construct used to describe the relation and movement of planets to each other (with the exception of the "week", which has no planetary basis...only based on the creation week). And then, only provided, by God, as a way for humans to track the passing of events. In other words, the "battle" between God and Satan in all likelyhood is much more ancient than the chronological time we have seen on Earth. But that would have no bearing on our timeline on Earth, in my opinion.

No, I've not yet joined Elvis....unfortunately I do have a day job..what a bummer.For the record, my failure to answer your previous post is only related to time limitations, and I really am not too concerned what you take the absence of my answer to mean.I did make that claim, and will provide my case as soon as I decide I want to discuss that topic.

Interesting thought...obviously it's not something we can conclusively know.The verse you reference in Revelation was written by a John. Since he is a human, we would expect him to relate to us in human "earthly" terms. My interpretation would be that John is describing in human terms the amount of time that passed. I think if you were to have heaven and earth split screen during this event, it's possible that we'd see the earth side not moving...or the heaven side moving faster...or vice versa even. I just don't think there is necessarily a parallel between time in heaven and time on earth.I agree that heaven is a created place..the angels are referenced as created beings on several occasions. I'm still of the opinion that time is only a construct in our material universe and that it works differently, if at all, in heaven, etc... Obviously I'm not dogmatic on this issue.