Christian help with Genesis (take 2)?

Question

Sorry I wasn't clear in my last question.

"God created light, then plants, then the stars and Sun"?

First I don't get what light He created if the Sun and stars aren't made until later?

My second concern is how did plants survive if the Sun was yet to be made? I guess this is not a problem for Young Earth Creationists who believe it was literally 24 hours between the two events.

I'm a Christian asking for help.

Answer 1

I just had this conversation with my wife and we did some research. We got this idea from a sermon in Texas somewhere.

God set the Earth spinning once it had form. God, please remember, is robed in light, so much so that when Moses saw the coat-tails of God in all it's glory and splendor, it bleached his hair. It also says that there was morning and evening on days 1&2 without celestial bodies. God, being the only thing in the heavens, would then pour His light upon the earth giving morning and evening without a sun, moon and stars.

Now, if you believe that, and that God has control over time, the earth could be millions of years old. We have no reason to believe that God was speaking in lunar days as we have now. He never comes out and says how long, only days, He could most assuredly mean 24hr days, but if you are an old earth person, this may help.

Answer 2

God created with the idea of "apparent age". For example, Adam and Eve were created as adults, not as babies (or fetuses or single cells). It appeared as if they had been around for 20 years or so on the first day they were created.

God created stars that were tens, hundreds, thousands, and millions of light-years away. The light from those stars would have taken a long time to get here. So he created light from those stars on its way to us before he created the stars themselves.

Plants could survive because there was light.

You've accurately identified the problem with believing BOTH evolution and creation at the same time... if there were millions of years between "days" in Genesis then it wouldn't have worked. It's either the case that Genesis is literally true or it's metaphorical. The grammar of the Hebrew indicates 24-hour days, and the rest of the Bible assumes Genesis is literal.

Answer 3

I read the NAB and with it's footnotes and from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, my understanding is that the light that God created first, before the sun was the separation of light and darkness. This was light in the universe, not just our sun in our solar system. There is more light in the universe from just stars (actual suns) and our sun. Gas give off light and such. God began creating the universe and this is when the blackness of the universe changed.

The Bible I read has the plants being created after the Sun and the oceans separating the lands.

Answer 4

Light is not created by the Sun and stars. The actual physics of light makes the spectrum from the Sun and the stars visible. When God created light, it may indeed have been the physics needed to make light possible. In order for any physics principle to take place, there must first be the potential for such to take place.

God does not exist in the limitations of the physical world. In fact, there was no physical world until God spoke it into existence. This included our perceivable dimensions, as well as time. (God does not live on a time line). So God not only created the heavens and the earth, He created the potential for matter to exist, as well as physical energy and even physics within that universe. Hence, the potential for light and darkness had to be in place before the actual "light emitters" could be put in place. (ie stars)

Also remember that in heaven, the Sun and stars will no longer be around. So what will be the source of light? It is God that is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all. Those that do not want God will be thrown into "outer darkness" where the Light of God's presence will not be.

Revelation 21:23
The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light.

Revelation 22:5
There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.

Answer 5

Regarding the first part of your question, have you ever heard of "cosmic microwave background radiation"?

According to astrophysicists, light was first formed long before there were any stars, suns or galaxies to give forth that light. According to SCIENCE (not just the Bible), this initial burst of light apparently came from the fabric of the universe itself, when light separated from matter, shortly after the big bang. We know that this is true because we can measure the cosmic microwave background radiation that is the echo of this initial burst of light (This radiation is in the microwave range now, but it must have been in the visible range when it was first formed, and was highly energetic, or hot.)

"In cosmology, the cosmic microwave background radiation (most often abbreviated CMB but occasionally CMBR, CBR or MBR, also referred as relic radiation) is a form of electromagnetic radiation discovered in 1965 that fills the entire universe. It has a thermal 2.725 kelvin black body spectrum which peaks in the microwave range at a frequency of 160.2 GHz, corresponding to a wavelength of 1.9 mm. Most cosmologists consider this radiation to be the best evidence for the big bang model of the universe."

As for the second part of your question, you are right that it is not a problem for young Earth creationists, which explains why there are a lot of young Earth creationists. I'm not sure how the old Earth creationists explain it, other than to take the Genesis story symbolically somehow, not as a literal linear series of events.

Answer 6

Light could have been the inside of earth and the plants all could have been underground. Life is able to live without sunshine at the bottom of the ocean. Look at the white scorpions that hang around the clones that are over the bottom of it. He worked his way up maybe? Then the sun and stars would have played in.

Answer 7

1) I think that if God created the universe with a big bang, there would be plenty of light given off.

2) If God could create plants without the sun being yet made, He certainly should have enough power to sustain them long enough until He made the sun. If you accept one miracle (the creation of the plants), then why not the other (their being sustained until the sun was created)?

Answer 8

In the beginning God created the heavens & the earth.

On the 1st day, God created light & darkness. The light He called day and the darkness He called night.

On the 2nd day, God created the firmament (the heavens & the skies) which separated the waters from the firmament and each other.

On the 3rd day, God created dry land, the seas, seed bearing grasses, herbs, trees and fruit bearing trees.

On the 4th day, God created stars, moon, planets to define the night, & the sun as a greater light to define the light of day, and as signs & to mark the seasons, days and years.

On the 5th day, God created the creatures of the sea and birds of the air and made them fruitful to multiply.

On the 6th day, God created all animals, male and female, that live and move upon the earth, to be fruitful and multiply themselves; then He created man & woman in His own image and gave them dominion over all things in the sea, on the earth, & in the air.

On the 7th day, God rested from all His work. He blessed His work and sanctified it and the day.

Genesis 2:1 explains your question. He made everything (the foundations of all things first), then the "hosts of them" and it was finished.

On the 1st day God created light and dark, so there was light and darkness on the first day, and then on the 4th day He created "the hosts" of day and night which were the sun, moon, stars. They were put there as finishing touches and more so as "signs" created by God for man, animals, and all living things to be able to instinctly differentiate between sleeping, waking...seasons, time etc. etc.

Man & all the creations did not need the added "hosts" to differentiate light from dark...night from day to live and be and multiply. But the "hosts" added helped man discern the time of day or night, the seasons, inclement weather forecasting and their direction when they were travelling because of "the hosts position & intensity in the sky.

Answer 9

I am a California Certified Nurseryman. That means I took a 7 hour test on my knowledge on plants. I gave you a good answer, am I missing something? But add to my answer this: Do you think that God can keep things going, or does God need the sun? Does God need anything?

Answer 10

I believe in the literal creation- He created sun RIGHT after vegetation- therefore the plants were fed and taken care of right away- just as the Bible says at the end of that scripture "This was the fourth day"