The Gap Theory: The Literal-Historical View Of Creation

As new research as come out opposing the Literal-historical view of creation, people have developed other theories and methods to view to the world. A unique idea that is in many ways similar to the Literal-historical lens is The Gap Theory. This theory finds its differentiation though the way that it interprets Genesis 1:2 as, “Now the earth became formless and empty…” instead of “Now the earth was formless and empty…” (Young 15). It asserts that the world existed and was perfect before the creation account in Genesis 1, and then was then rebuilt in six days of the the creation account in scripture. Because this interpretation says that the world existed at one point before its destruction, it has the strength of being compatible with

Instead of focusing on an old-earth or new-earth perspective, it interprets Genesis 1 as topical and poetical, where each of the days describes parallelism in the way the world was created. The days of creation are connected together in a poetic manor. “For example, day one describes the creation of light while day four describes the creation of the light-bearers (Young 16).” By viewing Genesis as a poetic account instead, this theory adopts the benefit of time not being an issue. Evolution, the geologic timescale, and radiometric dating can all be completely accepted from a scientific perspective. This theory has minimal controversy. This theory asserts that the reader should not be concerned about how long it took God to make the sky, but rather to just appreciate that He did so. Another major advantage of this belief system that out of the theories I have discussed, this one is by far the most adaptable. No matter what science has found out or will find out about the origin of the world, this theory can be interpreted as truth. Because of this, the Framework theory does not offer a solid foundation for those who believe in literal interpretation of scripture, and can easily seem justification to the changing world and continuous scientific discovery. Some may believe that

Now that I have gone through this process of learning and reflection, I have concluded that the Day-Age Theory still best aligns to my personal view of creation. This theory states that the days of Genesis were not necessarily 24-hour days, but instead ages of time that the world went through in a more figurative sense (Young 15). This theory has the strength of being compatible with the old-earth findings within the scientific and geological community. It gives the authority of time to God, and admits that it is possible and likely that the world was not made in the 144 hours we experience in 6 days as humans, but 6 days through the perspective of God (Fischer 223). Radiometric dating is not a controversy, when we do not claim to know how old the earth actually is. This theory allows for the possibility that creatures of the world could have evolved during massive ages of time as depicted in the fossil and geologic time scale (Young 18). It is also compatible with the idea that Adam could have been made separate from creation, and not just evolved from an ape. It connects very well with scripture, as it is able to not really contradict what is said in any verse, other than if someone was set on the idea that “day” in Genesis had to involve a 24-hour period of time. However, this lack of compete literal interpretation can shake the foundation of Genesis and the entire Bible for