What Do We Mean by Special Creation?

Special Creation is the term creationists use when they want to say that God created the world, and everything in it, pretty much the way we see it today. Further, they contend that He created it all at once, bypassing the natural processes and mechanisms we see at work around us in the universe. So while we see proto-stars, this is not how God made the current stars, though we see material from which planets will form, and material left over from planets that have formed, this is not how God made the planet we are on. Though we have discovered vast plates on which all the surface of the earth rides, these had nothing to do with the formation of the land masses we now see. Though we see evolution at work every day, evolution is not the process through which the diversity of life developed. It is true that some creationists recognize that natural forces are at work in the world, and ascribe trivial changes to them - but creationism ascribes the vast majority of the natural world to a 6 day stretch of time during which everything simply came to be.

Is there any scientific support for the idea of special creation? That is, can the facts we observe about the natural world be reconciled with the idea of a recent (6,000 year) earth, brought into existence over a 6-day period of time? The simple and best answer is no. At every level you look at it, the account of creation in Genesis 1 does not stand up as a "scientific" explanation of how the world was created. For me at least, this does not mean that it is not true - it is a declaration of freedom from bondage to the elemental forces thought to rule the earth - not a scientific explanation of the earth's construction.

It turns out that creation is a metaphor for processes that were not understood at the time, and for which people had neither the world-view, technology or even vocabulary to comprehend. And like all metaphors, it breaks down when you push it to the level of detail required to see the world as it is.

Take the opening sentence "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." When we contemplate these words, we most likely think of the familiar picture of a blue earth resting in vast space. This is not what the original hearers imaged at all - they pictured a vast sea, on which the earth, plate-like, rested on pillars. More pillars supported a dome of sky, and above that, the heavens - the place where God literally dwelt. Below the earth was a place of danger and chaos, where the dead went. The entire world was centered on the middle east, and Australia, North and South America did ot exist. Even much of Asia, India and Europe were unknown, or the merest fables. Ships kept close to the shore for fear of getting lost or eaten by monsters, women and children were property, slaves were a natural part of everyday life, and the world was ruled by powerful and unseen forces, investing all of nature with supernatural menace - capricious gods and spirits who had to be placated at every turn. This is the world pictured by the hearers of Genesis 1.

And where do we live now? In a world with 10,000 species of micro-organisms in a GRAM of soil. In a world where there are 350,000 species of beetle, where we can see the evidence of the slow shift of continents, and find the fossils of - not just strange creatures who have gone extinct- but entire ecosystems (plant and animal) who have developed and died out not just once or twice, but over and over during the 4.5 billion year history of the planet. Seas have formed and dried up, only to be replaced by plains, mountains have thrust seabeds into the sky, entire mountain ranges have been washed into the oceans - not once, but many times. We are not just related to the other apes - we share something like 98% of our DNA with them.

Yes life is wonderful and amazingly complex, and yes, there are still things we have not figured out - but one thing we have figured out is that we were not created 6,000 years ago from the dust of the earth.