When talking about how the universe is created, the topic has always been Creationism vs Evolution, Old Earth vs Young Earth. These topics are even debated among Christians. Even though there are important topics to discuss and debate, many forget about what God reveals about Creation through scripture. Though there are disagreements on how to take Genesis in the Bible, there are things that are affirmed by all Christians about Creation that is reveal through the Bible. These concepts are complied and supported through scripture, known as the Doctrine of Creation. A doctrine in Christianity is something that is formulated through scripture that defines what a Christian believes. Doctrinal beliefs distinguishes what Christians believe. This doctrine instead of talking about the specific details of how the world is formed (7 days or millions of years, evolution or formed), it states the characteristics of God and creation and reveals how God acts in Creation.

These are the beliefs that the Doctrine of Creation teaches: (This list is from Wheaton College's very own Dr. Bishop's article: "The Doctrine of Creation: A Theological View of Science")
-Ex Nihilo (This is Latin which means "out of nothing." This is the most well known concept that many Christians know about the Doctrine of Creation. It states from scripture that God created the world "out of nothing".)
-Distinction between Creator and Creation
-Sovereignty in Creation
-God's Action in Creation is Mediated
-God continually acts in Creation
-Involvement of the Trinity
-Having Purpose of Creation
-Creation/Salvation/Sanctification Parallel
-Creation is meant to be limited
-Creation has functional integrity

These are the characteristics of the Doctrine of Creation. So what is the significance about it? Well, it shows two ideas:

One, that the Christianity account is distinctive to other Creation accounts. If one studies the Bible on how Creation is described, it is not like the Greek or Aztec accounts, where the world was created because of conflicts between Gods and that the world was made by mistake or by accident. It describes everything in the universe is meant to be created with purpose. It also denies Pantheistic and Panentheistic views of Creation, which states that everything is God and God is in everything, respectively. The Creator and Creation are distinctive from each other. Finally, it denies Deistic beliefs, because God is active in Creation. Therefore, the Christian Creation account is different to other Creation accounts.

Second, it shows that Christianity does not go against Science. The creation doctrine states that God is active in Creation, even when certain processes are considered "naturally happened". God's act and creation are mediated, or cooperatively involved. As science continues to develop, seeing how the world works in naturally is not against the belief of God working. He can act through nature and outside of nature. Studying science would be an act of worship in wanting to know how God acts in the world and the amazing creation that He made (which is what motivates me to study Physics).

So as we continue to read about the latest discoveries and studies through science on the world and the universe, we should not think of science as anti-God, but a continuous study in learning more about this incredible universe and reality that we live in, while praising God for being such an amazing, complex, and creative God. Young Earth/Old Earth/Evolution debates would continue to happen, but none of these situations deny God's existence and God's activeness in Creation. It's just a discussion on how God works to create the world.

I haven't seen many posts from you lately, so it is good to see that you have gotten at least enough free time to make a significantly big post. I am sure your studies in school are both time consuming and mentally taxing.


As you pointed out, this Creation Doctrine emphasises how god created everything and not what he created (just based off of what you said, I haven't actually read it). In my opinion, the reason for this is because the "what"  of creation in the overall Christian Doctrine ( 7 day creation, young earth, spontaneous creations) is proven to be false by science.  I agree that science isn't anti-god , I feel that it is impartial to religion or anti-religion affiliations. Of course a theistic scientist may look at the results subjectively and not objectively in favor of their current belief system, and the same could be said for an overly anti-religious scientist. Overall though, science is largely objective ... look at results and state results, not attributing the results to a God or to a lack of a God. Now science may lead to something credited to God or to a lack of God but that so far hasn't happened. This is where religious doctrine and science can , have and will continue to clash. Like I mentioned before there are parts of the bible that have been proven to be false by unbiased scientific analysis. This doesn't mean there is no God, it just means the bible is wrong on those issues and topics.

So what is the theistic solution to these clashes? Remove those aspects proven to be wrong from a newer more refined doctrine. Seems fishy to me. I have heard you say a handful of times (or read to be more acurate) things along the lines of "refuting parts of the bible or coming to your own conclusions is unchristian" , yet here you are promoting a Christian creation doctrine which fails to acknowledge important parts of the overall Christian doctrine (particularly the bits about creation, which is odd since this is a creation doctrine). This seems like hypocracy. I may very well mistaken so I look forward to your next post.


Could you possibly give a link to this particular doctrine, I am sure some of us would love to read it.

smotpoker86 : What I wrote about the Doctrine of Creation is that it doesn't make a statement on topics like Young Earth vs Old Earth, evolution vs. spontaneous creation, etc. What it does affirm, is the fundamental concepts and attributes from creation itself. For example, from what was listed below, one of the attributes is "Creation is purposeful." This means from what we read in the Bible that the world was created with a purpose. So if someone were to say that evolution was the running cause for the formation of the species on the earth and that it was randomly made with no idea of a direction, then it is against the doctrine of creation. However, if one says that evolution is used by God to fulfill His purposes to form species, that is valid and aligned to Christianity. (Whether evolution is true is another and continuous story for scientists, but if described as a random act of nature and not purposeful, it is not supported by the doctrine of Creation)

Another example would be "distinction between creator and creation" Now this is a clear counter to pantheists, but also brings in another description for the evolution/special creation debate. If one were to believe that evolution is the driving force of formation of species and that nature is the "god" of forming what the world is today, then it is not supported by Christians. But if one were to say that God is the driving force of creation and that Nature is not God and it is separate from the Creator, then it is considered valid with the Creation doctrine.

What I'm saying that there will be debates on specific topics like evolution and special creation and how old is the earth. BUT...if someone were to describe the formation of the earth that crosses these distinctions that were shown in the Bible (which I have listed views of Deism, Pantheism, you might as well throw in Neoplatonism with the mix), then it is not believed by Christians and is not a belief by Christians.

Again, it really comes down to how you interpret the scriptures that you would declare to science have proven something to be false. However, you may not know the whole picture that the author was writing, whether if it is the author's point of view of something that is scientifically explained in a different way now, or whether it is an figurative description of something, or if it actually was divine intervention. Either way, science doesn't prove the Bible wrong. In more ways, it has proven it to be true than false.

Why do you think the specifics of what was created in the bible is left out of this Doctrine of Creation? In my opinion, they leave out the parts that are proven to be false and focus on the unprovable things.

If the authors of Genesis aren't correct in saying that God spontaneously created the heavens and the earth, why should it be assumed they are correct in saying that this false creation (or any other substitute version) has a purpose? Do they not lose credibility for the parts that are wrong?  Again it appears as if the false parts are disregarded while the unprovable aspects are still kept. Am I wrong with this view?

"Either way, science doesn't prove the Bible wrong. In more ways, it has proven it to be true than false."

Science doesn't prove the entire Bible wrong, for instance it can't disprove that Yahweh exists for obvious reasons. What it can prove is that a lot of the stories particularly in the Old Testament are wrong. Since many of these stories are attributed to Yahweh and are proven false, it can be rationally concluded that this particular God doesn't exist ... but not out right proven false.

I doubt you could list anything that science has proven right about the bible, at least anything supernatural.

I think science disproves religion, the bible is pretty clear on its view of earths age, it says bats are birds and it states god made 2 lights, the sun and the moon, yet we now know the moon isnt a light, but a reflector. Equaly science has shown stars are suns yet the bible says and the stars in the sky indicating that the writer was unaware stars and the sun are one and the same.
And if we discover inteligent life made in his image will go out the window, perhaps then christians will begin saying its symbolic/ metaphorical and means only our mentality.
Then theres the fact the bible dosent address another scientific fact, 99% of all species that have roamed the earth are gone now, seems weird that god would let that happen? I think science works against religion.

thenumberone : 2 things:
1. "Science disproves religion": The examples that you gave (bats are birds, moon is not a light, sun and stars are the same) are not disagreements of science, but disagreements of categorizations. Of course the people back then would say differently about these examples, but these are not scientific contradictions. They just call them differently. You are making it sound like those who called Pluto a planet anti-scientific due to the current category of it to not be a planet anymore. As for the age of the earth, you need to understand that it is still a debate in that area of Genesis and either theory (old earth, young earth) can be valid. But it doesn't disprove anything. In fact, many of the early church fathers interpreted Genesis 1 metaphorically, so it is not something that is new.

Finally, "99% of all species that have roamed the earth are gone now." First of, I don't think it is 99%. Second of all, it wouldn't be weird because that is how God created the world to operate. Food chain, habitats for specific animals and plants. All of these are operated with the purpose of nature being able to operate, and it shows God's ministerial work on creation.

So, with what you gave, Science didn't disprove anything.

P.S.: If you are planning to go into science, please drop the "Science "prove" things" lingo. You wouldn't do so well in your Philosophy of Science class.

2. "Science works against religion": In logic, that is a false dichotomy. In fact, many scientists before you would disagree with you as well. Some are even in science not only because they are motivated to study science, but to study God's creation. Christians should understand that we can know about God and how the world works through two types of revelation: General revelation (science, reason, history) and special revelation (Bible). Both go hand in hand.

smotpoker86 :
Why do you think the specifics of what was created in the bible is left out of this Doctrine of Creation? In my opinion, they leave out the parts that are proven to be false and focus on the unprovable things.

I don't think the specifics are necessarily left out. I think it is more of we should understand how Moses writes Genesis and look at whether we should take it literally or figuratively.

"If the authors of Genesis aren't correct in saying that God spontaneously created the heavens and the earth, why should it be assumed they are correct in saying that this false creation (or any other substitute version) has a purpose?"

The question right now is whether Moses intended to write Genesis 1 to be by day or whether it means more than a day. It isn't whether Moses was wrong in his writing but what was he intended to write. Many different Christian leaders and church fathers have different opinions about it. Augustine believed that it was spontaneous, meaning immediately, no separation of days or any time, it just instantaneously happened, while Charles Spurgeon believes in a 7 day creation, and then there was Irenaeous who find the topic of how many days did God created the universe to be irrelevant and pointless, but focuses on how creation is like and how God created it to be.

Again, science did not prove any stories to be wrong. We need to keep our pride and confidence in science in check and must remind ourselves that there are times when we don't know certain knowledge that would change our opinions about different things. Time and time again, however, science and archaeology showed how amazing God's Word is in speaking truth to the world. For example, it's been a long time that many people did not believe Sargon, King of Assyria, existed, which was recorded in Isaiah 20. However, in the 1840s, a wall relief was found with the face of Sargon on it, with inscription of Isaiah 20:1 on it, along with other writings, confirming the account from the Bible. Time tends to change the knowledge that we have on things and the Bible has been through many tests, but time and time again, it stands firm in it's witness in the world of academia.

The point being if its gods word it should be more accurate given god supposedly created it all. If i was a builder and my client asked what have you built, naturaly accuracy would be expected.

Calling the moon a light is not categorizatiom, its a misinterpretation of its functionality, fueled by our ignorance of the time, human ignorance.

Pluto is categoric, its merely down to its size and debate of what size constitutes a planet.

Having almost all species extinct dosent show a great deal of attachment to these creations, and before it was realised, christian belief was god would never allow his creations to go extinct.

The bases of feasability is based on science. It is the benchmark upon which to judge if something is viable or not, and the center point of human inginuity, droping it simply means nothing is proven, there would be a great many more religions too.

Over here, my science teachers incesantly used there knowlege to elaborate on the contradictions and failings of religion, they were also vocal in saying science and religion are a world (budoom doom doom) apart.