Interpreting the 6 Days of Creation

THE first chapter of the Book of Genesis narrates the creation of the universe and of the living and inanimate world in a story of work accomplished in six days. If the most rigorously literal interpretation be attached to the text, disregarding all considerations but the meaning of the individual words as they stand, the account appears to commit itself to three statements:

1. The world was created in six stages, the work of each being begun and completed within one day: "And there was evening and there was morning, a second ... a third day."
2. Each stage was comprehensive and the time allotted to it did not overlap with that of any other stage.
3. The six stages are placed in a definite order of succession in time.

These statements, whether taken together or singly, seem to be irreconcilable with the world's history so far as we know it in the light of science, notably of the sciences of astronomy and paleontology.

The problem has come into special prominence in modern times. Many have attempted to bring the two into harmony, working on the assumption that the account of Genesis and the account of science describe the same objective facts. Another school of students have sought to raise the document from the arena of conflict by suggesting that a study of the writer's mind as revealed by the literary style of the chapter, the circumstances amid which it was written, the purpose and the audience for which it was intended, shows that the two accounts can have no point of contact in the same plane. Speaking roughly, then, the main solutions fall into two groups, hypotheses of reconciliation and idealistic hypotheses. Evidently either may be carried to extremes.

It will be convenient to open with a short summary of the first chapter of Genesis, to which we can afterwards refer; it will also serve to bring out at once one aspect of the rhythmical and symmetrical character of the narrative.

Before the days	Gen 1:1-2	1= summary. 2 = first state (waste of waters and darkness)	{	Forward Movement Areas
First day	Gen 1:3-5	light, producing days
Second day	Gen 1:6-8	heaven, dividing (l) waters above, (2) waters below, beneath which latter is the land
Third day	Gen 1:9-13	(1) 9-10: land emerges from waters below (2) 11-13: land: non-animal (plants)
Fourth day	Gen 1:14-19	heaven: non-animal (stars, etc.)	{	Strophic: Populations
Fifth day	Gen 1:20-23	water: (no non-animal) animal (fish) heaven: animal (birds)
Sixth day	Gen 1:24-31	land: animal (beasts) MAN

The first difficulty that presents itself in the acceptance of this cosmogony is one of order. Light, day and night, land and sea, and plants are all made before the sun and the other heavenly bodies. But plants, as we know them, live by the warmth and light of the sun, while light, day and night, presuppose its existence. Again, we know the earth to be but a satellite of the sun, one of a number of planets in the solar system. Fairly strong evidence points to a common origin of the system, to the hypothesis that the earth and other planets have been thrown off from a condensing mass of hot vapor, that they have cooled down and solidified while the condensing nucleus became the sun. It seems incredible that the -earth, with dry land and water, with alternations of day and night, and with vegetable life complete, should have been in existence before the sun.

The difficulty was stated by Origen[1] and other members of the Alexandrian schools, Jewish and Christian, most of whom entirely rejected the verbal interpretation of the six days.

Distinguished men of science, Sir J. W. Dawson and Professor J. Dana, have reverently attempted to attach to the words an interpretation which is in harmony with our knowledge of the earth's place in the solar system. They suggest that the fourth day records not the creation of the sun, but its visible appearance from the earth, the dispelling of a mist which had enveloped it from the beginning. The creation of the sun, it is suggested, took place before the work of the six days and is included in the preliminary act of the first verse. This suggestion, however, fails to achieve its object, the harmonizing of facts with the exact words of the document. If the sun was not made, but made to appear through the clearing mist, it is difficult to see why the sacred writer did not say so, for he must have foreseen the difficulty. Father Hetzenauer, in a passage to which we shall return, quotes to the point the words of St. Stephen, "And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians."[2] Nor does the suggestion offer a complete solution of the scientific difficulties for grass, plants, and trees are not to be satisfied with the unseen action of the sun through a mist. They require for the ordinary and essential processes of their life the not infrequent action of direct sunshine.

Equally serious are the objections raised by geology to the order assigned in Genesis. In geology we have a record which is necessarily incomplete, but, so far as it is accessible, it is consistent. It is accepted in all its main conclusions by geologists of every school and country, and is strengthened rather than weakened as research progresses. The outer portion of the earth's crust is mainly formed of an orderly series of rocks which are rendered accessible to investigation in many places by distortion of the earth's surface in the past, by the erosion of rivers or sea, and by borings and excavations. The composition of many of these layers indicates that they have been formed in remote ages by a gradual deposition of mud or sand at the bottom of a former sea. Fossils, traces of former animal or vegetable life are found in all those layers of which the material is favorable to the preservation of such remains. Some layers, as chalk and coal, are formed almost entirely of organic remains. Each layer contains a characteristic flora or fauna. The lower layers contain only the lower forms of life and types now extinct. A gradual progression of life towards higher forms, more nearly approaching those existing today, is revealed as we pass upwards through the series. Each layer contains a story of past inundations by land and sea, and shows the successive appearance of types, and the existence of ancient types when more recent forms had not yet come into being.

The order of life as shown by the rocks is very difficult to reconcile with the order of the six days in Genesis.[3] The order of Genesis is:

Third day: Grass, plants, trees.
Fifth day: Aquatic animals, large and small, and birds.
Sixth day: Land animals, reptiles, man.

The rock series, however, show invertebrate animal life in abundance before any but the lowliest forms of plant life -- fishes (extinct types) before the plants of the coal age some reptiles and mammals before the earliest of modern trees. The vegetable creation, therefore, assigned to the third day, appears in part along with the creatures of the fifth day, in part with those of the sixth, and, as we know it now, subsequent to both. Similarly, reptiles appear in the rock series long before birds, thus partially inverting the order of the fifth and sixth days.

The order of Genesis, then, seems to be different from the order of geology; and the sets of creation which Genesis marks off into distinct compartments, one ended before the other begins, appear from geology to overlap.

The question of time presents a further difficulty. In Genesis each group appears within twenty-four hours. The whole process is completed in six days. Now, the processes revealed by a study of the rocks have their counterpart and find a repetition in the work of rivers and seas to-day. We can see fresh geological layers in actual process of formation. If the products of the past were formed in a manner in any way resembling that of similar products to-day, the minimum duration of the ages required for the formation of the successive geological layers can scarce be measured in hundreds of thousands of years. The years required for the cooling of the earth to a condition suitable for life can only be estimated in millions.

It has been contended that the word yôm in Hebrew, rendered "day" in our versions, is susceptible of a meaning such that it might designate a period of time of any duration. However, even if this interpretation is accepted, the difficulty presented by a statement of successive, distinct, non-overlapping groups remains. But the context of itself renders this interpretation extremely difficult. The writer has practically removed ambiguity by the phrase, "And there was evening and there was morning, one day."

While it may be impossible in certain circumstances to reject the dictates of generalized laws of natural science without supposing miracles, science as such can in no case declare a miracle to be impossible. Theology, however, may place grave objections in the way of an unlimited postulation of miracles. We cannot suppose on the part of God a suspension of a law or a harmonious process which He has Himself established without a reason and a purpose which commends itself to the Divine Intelligence, still less if the only apparent result is deception.

If, therefore, we are to call for supposed miracles in support of a theory, we should not do so unless compelled by a theological necessity. If a verbally literal acceptation of the cosmogony of Genesis appears to demand the hypothesis of miracles, we should be very careful to ask ourselves whether in reality theology does bind us to such an interpretation.

Leaving aside for the moment other grounds of theological authority, does our belief in the veracity of the sacred writer oblige us to read history into every letter of his narrative? To answer this question we must consider the purpose and aim of the writer, the literary style of the document, the character of the people among whom and for whom, in the first instance, it was written. A writer of a modern textbook of science might prefer, for the purpose of logical exposition, to classify creatures otherwise, at greater length, with much distracting detail, committing himself, perhaps, to one or two unproven theories. Such is not the method of the author of Genesis. He describes phenomena just as any unlearned man might were he asked to enumerate all that he sees around him. Or, again, an enumeration might have been omitted. All creation might have been summed up in a word, but this would have been to neglect the arts of oratory, and the sermon of Genesis would have been a poor one.

It will already be clear from the plan which we have given early in this essay, and which the reader should now consider attentively, that the order in which creation is grouped has so pronounced a symmetry that it naturally leads us to suppose that it is, in the strict sense of the word, artificial, the expression of incomparable art. The sacred writer has summed up the creation of the universe, not with an eye to the chronological sequence in which its several parts appeared, but with a definite logical scheme in his mind. This is well brought out by the learned Capuchin and Roman professor of Holy Scripture, Father Hetzenauer, in his excellent commentary on Genesis, in a passage which appears to be worth translating at length (p. 41):

The sacred writer himself indicates not obscurely that the periods[4] are arranged, not in a chronological, but in an ideal order. For he speaks first of the solar light, and afterwards of the substance of the sun; first of the division of light and darkness, day and night, and afterwards of the luminaries which effect that division; first of the plants bearing flowers and fruits, and afterwards of the rays of the sun, without which plants cannot exist (Gen. 1:3-5, 12, 14-18). If an author "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22) writes in this way, he sufficiently hints that he is observing, not a chronological, but an ideal order. To this must be added the fact that, while prefixing the article to the number of the last day, he has omitted it before the other numbers.[5] Finally, the idea, in accordance with which the sacred writer arranged the material which he took from tradition, is plain. First comes the work of division (the production of areas), then the work of equipment (the production of populations); first what is general, then what is particular; first what is more imperfect is described, then what is more perfect. Just as Matthew arranged the works of Christ not chronologically, but in a historico-dogmatical or ideal order, even so did Moses narrate the creation of the world.

The force of Father Hetzenauer's words will be all the clearer, as we have said, if they are read in the light of the scheme on page 2, above. A second scheme will serve to bring out still further that rhythmical correspondence of the different parts of the narrative which is so characteristic of the more poetical forms of Hebrew literature. It should be taken in conjunction with the first. It may be seen in full in Father von Hummelauer's Genesis (p. 84); space forbids that we should do more than summarize it here. Each day begins with a divine command, and the third and sixth days contain two, because there are two important creative acts in each of these days. "And God said: Let there be light... Let there be a firmament..." And then, six times in our present Hebrew text, and once beside in the Septuagint, comes the fulfillment: "And there was light... And it was so." Then in due order comes the description of what is made ("And God made the firmament..."), the naming (thrice), the praising ("And God saw that it was good..."), and the blessing (twice). Nothing so regular in its symmetrical movement can be found in the rest of the Bible; and to the Hebrew (as to the modern, if he has cultivated his literary experience) this would speak volumes as to the character of the narrative before him. Not merely is the language held of God anthropomorphic, in that He is said to see, to speak, even to rest -- a daring figure, eloquent of His freedom and personality, and a lesson on the precept of the sabbath -- but nature itself, if we may say so, is dealt with anthropomorphically, is reduced to categories or heads of divisions that, as in the case of the terms employed of God, find their governing principles in the needs of human thought, at all events of primitive human thought, rather than in a dull enumeration that could make no appeal to head or heart.

And we can now see that the narrative is true, full of deepest truth, because it is describing and enforcing objective truth, but in a literary form adapted to the Orientals whom it was originally intended to teach. To see falsehood in it would only be the mark of a narrow and illiterate pedantry. The writer is not bent upon a scientific or scholastic treatise, nor does he affect the sorry tricks of journalism; but he is the inspired seer whose chief purpose is to bring it home to the people committed to him that God is the One Supreme Creator of all, personal, intelligent and free, that man is the master of the world, the world is made for man, but made by God, and man is God's creature like the rest.

Poetical language is often most effective as the vehicle of truth and of history, and it would be idle to seek therein the same manner of expression or the precise form of truth that we should find in a more matter-of-fact document. We cannot forbear to quote an illustration, though a somewhat extreme one, brought forward by Professor Henry Drummond, writing in 1886[6], "on the occasion of the historic controversy between Professor Huxley and Mr. Gladstone:

George Macdonald [he writes] has an exquisite little poem called "Baby's Catechism." It occurs among his children's pieces:

Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here.

Where did you get your eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.

Where did you get that little tear?
I found it waiting when I got here.

Where did you get that pearly ear?
God spoke and it came out to hear.

How did they all just come to be you?
God thought about me and so I grew.

For its purpose [asks Professor Drummond] what could be a finer, or even a more true account of the matter than this? Without a word of literal truth in it, it would convey to the child's mind exactly the right impression. Now, conceive of the head nurse banishing it from the nursery as calculated to mislead children as to the origin of blue eyes. Or imagine the nursery governess who has passed the South Kensington examination in Mr. Huxley's Physiology informing her pupils that ears never "came out" at all, and that hearing was really done inside, by the fibres of Corti and the epithelial arrangements of the maculae acousticae. Is it conceivable, on the other hand, that the parish clergyman could defend the record on the ground that "the everywhere" was a philosophical presentation of the Almighty, or that "God thought about me" contained the Hegelian idea? And yet this is precisely what interpreters of Genesis and interpreters of science do with the Bible. Genesis is a presentation of one or two great elementary truths to the childhood of the world. It can only be read aright in the spirit in which it was written, with its original purpose in view, and its original audience. What did it mean to them? What did they need to know and not to know?

We have not been able to leave ourselves any space wherein to discuss the matter adequately from the point of view of authority, though it will have been evident to the careful reader that we were keeping its pronouncements in view. The Biblical Commission, under date of June 30, 1909,[7] has promulgated certain answers with regard to the historical character of the first three chapters of Genesis, and it need hardly be said that we have no desire to put forward anything that is not in entire accord with the decisions there arrived at. We are encouraged to think that we have done so, not only by a careful study of the answers themselves, but also by the fact that in this matter we are merely walking in the steps of a capable and conservative biblical scholar, Père Brucker, S.J., with whose treatment of the subject in that most admirable and useful work, the Dictionnaire Apologétique de la Foi Catholique,[8] we are in entire agreement. It must suffice to note here that the hypothesis of the simultaneous creation put forward by several Latin and Greek Fathers, and notably by St. Augustine, leave such an interpretation, and the whole question of "days" in general, an open one to Catholics, in accordance with the principles laid down in the fourth answer of the Commission. In the eighth answer a wide liberty is allowed in the interpretation of the word yôm (day), a concession clearly intended to show that the exegesis of the word is one of the difficulties contemplated in the fifth answer; is in fact, a case in which "reason forbids us to defend the strict sense, necessity compels us to abandon it." And our explanations do not affect the vital doctrines mentioned in the third answer, in regard of which "the literal historical sense" may not be called in question. We have already pointed out above the great truths which the first chapter of Genesis forcibly inculcates.

The second answer of the Biblical Commission which, among other things, denies that the first three chapters contain "fables borrowed from the mythologies and cosmogonies of ancient people" and expurgated, leads us to conclude with a brief word on the origin of the first chapter. In the present case, there is no general agreement as to a shared source, and it seems sufficient to remark that the attempt, in itself admirable, to establish a connection does not carry conviction.

____________________
1 Origen, De Principiis, iv. 16: "What man in his right senses can believe that there could have been a first, a second, a third day, evening and morning, without sun, moon or stars?"

2 Acts 7:22.

3 The late Professor Driver, in his Genesis (p. 21), gives a convenient table of the succession of life upon the globe, taken from Dawson's Chain of Life in Geological Time. While we admit the cogency of much of his argument against too literal an interpretaton of the biblical account, we must differ from him widely in his more general conclusions, which, not to speak of graver defects, betray considerable lack of literary imagination.

4 Father Hetzenauer prefers to speak of the "days" as actual periods, not as natural days introduced for a setting. If once it be allowed, as he allows, that these periods are arranged in an ideal order, this ulterior point loses much of its importance; but against Father Hetzenauer's view it may be urged that the mention of "evening" and "morning" renders it almost impossible either to take the days as periods or to suppose that they are represented as overlapping (cf. p. 5).

5 "The sixth day," Gen. 1:31. We are not inclined to lay much stress on this argument.

6 Nineteenth Century, February, 1886. A somewhat similar treatment of the subject is to be found in "The First Chapter of Genesis," an article by Prof. W. G. Elmslie in the Contemporary Review for December. 1887.

7 Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. i., pp. 567-9.

8 Vol. ii., col. 283-6, part of the article "Genese."


By Fr. Leo O'Hea, S.J.