For Christians?

Question

Genesis Chapter 1 11-14 : Makes it clear that vegetables came before the sun, but how is this possible?

I'm Christian myself but have been wondering about this

Answer 1

If God is able to make people out of rocks (Luke 3:8) then he can cause carrots to grow with no sunlight.

Answer 2

In the normal order of things, a plant needs the Sun in order to grow. In God's act of creation, we find that God created vegetation on the third day, and then God created the Sun on the fourth day. I don't find it a problem to leave the plants in the dark for just one day. Cover a houseplant for twenty-four hours and it'll live!
Quite a few people find the order of creation in Genesis to be absurd. God created light and darkness before the sun; he created an expanse between waters, and then caused dry land to appear out of the water. God creating everything out of normal order demonstrates the magnificence of his power and control. He is not limited in the same way we are.

What Do You Think?

a. In what sequential order do you think our natural laws were established? Did they appear in operation all at once?

Answer 3

I have thought about this too. There are many possibilities that you could come up with, here is something I came up with...not much thought went into it...just kind of popped into my head while reading Genesis(see below).

In this, it is basically step 3 and 4 that gives us a "logical" problem. How could there be vegetation before step 4 where God created the sun? Well, did he actually create the sun in step 4, or did the sun always from his first step? The sun could have already existed, and the earth may have not been rotating yet...so there would be no night/day. In step four, the earth started rotating(see theories on the formation of the moon) giving the earth night/day. So in theory, there could of been vegeation on one side of the earth that was exposed to the sun before it began rotating.

Step 1: Bible: Darkness to Light (Science: Big Bang)
Step 2: Bible: Separation of sky and water (Science: Creation of Earth)
Step 3: Bible: Creation of Land and Water and vegatation (Science: Earth Cooling, development of early life)
Step 4: Bible: Night and Day (Science: Formation of the Moon and the begining of the Earth rotating...creating night and day.)
Step 5: Bible: Creation of life in water and air (Science: Even in evolution theory I think life in water is accepted to come first, not sure about the air part.
Step 6: Bible: Creation of life on land and creation of man (Science: Final step of evolution to bring us close to where we are now, notice within this one step, it is said that first there were animals on the land, then created man)
Step 7: We are living in it right now, and God is resting : )



Final thoughts: we always assume life must always look and act as it does today. When scientist find a new planet, they say whether or not it COULD have life on it or not. But who is to say that life can only take the form of what we know of it? We can only attempt to understand God with the information we have. In my opionon, no one can truly understand God...it is just beyond our ability.


p.s. I do realize this is just an attempt to rationalize what is in the bible...I don't have a problem with that. I like to think and think of new possibilities. We are also limited in the fact that the bible has been translated so many times.

Answer 4

I believe he did it this way to make the line more distinct between creation and evolution. Someone who trusts him will believe he made plants before the sun...someone who doesn't trust him will call him a liar and invent their own order. The space of time between the creation of plants and the creation of the sun is not large -- ALL creation took place over a period of 6 days. Also note that light and darkness are mentioned on the first day. So there was light even without the sun.

Answer 5

Because we have misinterpreted God's meaning on this matter. The sun had to be present before anything on Earth could live. Or else the Earth would have been one big ball of ice. Do you think Pluto has any liquid water on it's surface being so far from the sun? Neither would have the Earth without the sun.

Answer 6

Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Light not created (Let) but unblocked.

Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

Again (Let), not created.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Here is most of the creation in Gen.1:1.

Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

In Gen.1:2 the word "was" (hayah) in the Hebrew means "became".

And the earth BECAME (was) without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

It was not created without form, and void.

This happened because of Satan's Rebellion.

Answer 7

God has always been the Light of the world. God said, "let there be Light." This was said before God created the sun for daytime and the moon for night.

I believe the Light of God makes the sun look like a spec of dust. The Bible says that God is Spirit and consuming fire. I don't believe God would create a sun that is greater than His energy.

Answer 8

He created it and then the very next day there was light. What makes you think that a plant can't go up to 24 hours without sunlight?