Question: What is the work of creation? Answer: The work of creation is God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of His power, in the space of six days, and all very good. Question 9 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
The answer to this question became a source of controversy in the PCA in the late 1990s leading up to its 25th anniversary. The debate centered on one phrase: “in the space of six days.” Did this mean six literal 24-hour days? Or could “days” be interpreted in some other way?
The answer to those questions had not always been a source of discord within the denomination. When the PCA was founded in 1973, there was a range of opinions on the nature of the creation days, reflecting the diversity of opinion among theologians PCA leaders saw as their forefathers (Hodge and Dabney, for example). The differences were generally accepted.
But during the next two decades, several factors undermined that acceptance. The footprint of the Christian Reconstruction movement in the PCA grew, and many in this movement saw 24-hour creation days as a test of orthodoxy. At the same time, the homeschool movement was spreading within the denomination, and the curricula used by many was written from a “young earth” creationist perspective. And as this culture war heated up, many “Calendar Day” proponents charged those holding a “non-Calendar Day” view as accommodating the secular culture and undercutting the inspiration and authority of Scripture.
When the PCA was founded in 1973, there was a range of opinions on the nature of the creation days. The differences were generally accepted.
These differences rose to the General Assembly through a New Jersey Presbytery study committee report on the interpretation of Genesis 1. One of the propositions the presbytery adopted from the report affirmed that the 24-day positions were one natural interpretation of Genesis 1, but denied that this was “the only exegetically possible” interpretation.
The review of the presbytery’s records at the 1997 Assembly led to extensive debate on the matter, and that same year a complaint about it came before the Standing Judicial Commission (SJC). When that case came before the 1998 Assembly by way of an SJC minority report (the only occasion on which that provision has been exercised), the Assembly narrowly ruled that New Jersey had a constitutional right to resolve this question of doctrine — without endorsing its conclusion. Later that same meeting, the Assembly approved a request from Central Carolina Presbytery to create a committee to study the “exegetical, hermeneutical, and theological interpretation of Genesis 1-3.”
Though the members of the study reflected the spectrum of views on creation days, they quickly discovered they were in full agreement on several points:
• Their belief in the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2, and their denial that Genesis 1 and 2 represent a mythical account of creation or that the two chapters present two accounts that are inconsistent with each other;
• Their belief that God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing;
• Their denial that the universe or anything in it was co-eternal with God;
• Their affirmation of God’s special creation of Adam and Eve as real, historical individuals.
After two years of study, the committee was unable to come to unanimous agreement about the duration and nature of creation days, but it presented a unanimous report with the understanding that committee members held different viewpoints on the question. The report surveyed the history of the church’s interpretation of creation days, defined key terms in the debate, and examined three different views of the original intent of the Westminster Standards regarding creation days.
But the heart of the report (nearly 40% of its 90 pages) was an examination of the variety of views of creation days, focusing on the four views most common in the PCA:
• The Calendar-Day View: “The Bible teaches that God created of nothing all things in six days, by which Moses meant six calendar days.”
• The Day-Age View: One of these two views: “The ‘six days’ are understood in the same sense as ‘in that day’ of Isaiah 11:10-11 — that is, as periods of indefinite length and not necessarily of 24 hours duration,” or “The six days are taken as sequential, but as overlapping and merging into one another, much as an expression like ‘the day of the Protestant Reformation’ might have only a proximate meaning and might overlap with ‘the day of the Renaissance.’”
• The Framework View: “The distinctive feature of the Framework interpretation is its understanding of the week (not the days as such) as a metaphor. Moses used the metaphor of a week to narrate God’s acts of creation. Thus God’s supernatural creative words or fiats are real and historical, but the exact timing is left unspecified.”
• The Analogical Day View: “The ‘days’ are God’s work days, which are analogous, and not necessarily identical, to our work days, structured for the purpose of setting a pattern for our own rhythm of rest and work. … The six days represent periods of God’s historical supernatural activity in preparing and populating the earth as a place for humans to live, love, work, and worship.”
At the committee’s recommendation, the 2000 General Assembly heard its report under the rules for “informal consideration,” during which the committee reviewed its report, responded to questions and led discussion. At the end of this period, the Committee presented three recommendations:
1. That the Creation Study Committee’s report, in its entirety, be distributed to all sessions and presbyteries of the PCA and made available for others who wish to study it.
2. That the Assembly declare its sense that in order to permit careful and prayerful contemplation of this matter, no further action of any kind with respect to this report be taken by the General Assembly for a period of at least two years.
3. That this study committee be dismissed with thanks.
While the Assembly adopted the first and third recommendations, Rev. Frank Barker proposed a substitute for the second, which the Assembly adopted:
That since historically in Reformed theology there has been a diversity of views of the creation days among highly respected theologians, and, since the PCA has from its inception allowed a diversity, that the Assembly affirm that such diversity as covered in this report is acceptable as long as the full historicity of the creation account is accepted.
The issue of creation days has not been a significant source of contention in the PCA since the presentation of the Creation Study Committee report and the adoption of Barker’s proposal, despite the fact that neither has constitutional authority.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash.