iouae
Well-known member
Not those stages I quoted. Those are all on the first day in both accounts at least until the beginning of the photon epoch, which started on the first day. And light continued to be available, though separate from the darkness in the Genesis account, prior to the Sun's introduction, which fits the Genesis account. I'm pretty confident we don't have enough info from the bible to give the kind of details scientists have proposed for the big bang timeline, but the idea of a beginning, of inflation, of photons prior to sustained matter, and of the timing for those first few stages could all be considered in-line with each other.
The timing beyond that is the main disconnect. We have 4 choices in how that plays out, assuming the other things are correct in both accounts.
These are idealistic, as it's unlikely that both will be either perfectly true or perfectly false (one could be perfectly true while the other is only partly true).
- Both accounts are false
- BB is true, Genesis is false
- BB is false, Genesis is true
- Both accounts are true
The first is unhelpful, since we are debating between 2 potential truths and we don't really have a good alternative at this point.
The second is the anti-biblical view.
The third is the anti-scientific view.
The fourth is what I consider the most likely, with the above caveat about idealism. But how can both be true? The best science we have so far that deals with time inconsistencies is relativity theory, which says (with significant experimental proof) time in one place and under one set of conditions may flow faster or slower than time in another.
Are these two accounts reconcilable? Possibly. Should we try? As Christians I don't see why not to. Atheists probably wouldn't want to, as it lends credence to the biblical account. It's not necessarily a problem for scientists to continue to refine theories until they get everything right (after another 13 billion years, perhaps ), at which point maybe we'll be understanding the biblical account better, too--as Christians we always want to be doing that.
Note that what I'm talking about is the "evolution" or "creation" of the cosmos, not of living things. That's a different subject, with different premises and different conclusions, perhaps.
Or, the BB occurred any way science said it did, any time it did.
And 5.6 billion years ago earth formed.
And 5.1 billion years ago God created primitive life to produce oxygen.
And many mass extinctions and recreations later we come to the last mass extinction 6000 years ago which left earth "without form and void".
And in 6 literal days God re-created earth's last biome.
And 4.4 thousand years ago there was a Deluge, and an Ark.
And here we are today
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