Bavinck on Creation Days

A renowned member of a now endangered species (Dutch Christian theologians) Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) had a crisp, logical, almost scientific approach to exegesis that translates well. Bavinck primarily wrote at a time when the geologists (without the recourse of radiometric dating) were suggesting ages of the earth in the hundreds of millions of years. However, by the time of his death, early radiometric dating technology had pushed the age into the billions of years. (For a history of the estimations of the age of the earth, look here.)

On the reformed.org site, we have a page that quotes (from Our Reasonable Faith)  Bavinck's discussion of creation days:

The whole work of creation—according to the repeated testimony of the Scriptures—was completed in six days. There has, however, been a good deal of difference of opinion and freedom of speculation about those six days. No one less than Augustine judged that God had made everything perfect and complete at once, and that the six days were not six successive periods of time, but only so many points of vantage from which the rank and order of the creatures might be viewed. On the other hand, there are many who hold that the days of creation are to be regarded as much longer periods of time than twenty-four hour units.

Scripture speaks very definitely of days which are reckoned by the measurement of night and morning and which lie at the basis of the distribution of the days of the week in Israel and its festive calendar. Nevertheless Scripture itself contains data which oblige us to think of these days of Genesis as different from our ordinary units as determined by the revolutions of the earth.

In the first place we cannot be sure whether what is told us in Genesis 1:1-2 precedes the first day or is included within that day. In favor of the first supposition is the fact that according to verse 5 the first day begins with the creation of light and that after the evening and the night it ends on the following morning. But even though one reckons the events of Genesis 1:1-2 with the first day, what one gets from that assumption is a very unusual day which for a while consisted of darkness. And the duration of that darkness which preceded the creation of light is nowhere indicated.

In the second place, the first three days (Gen. 1:3-13) must have been very unlike ours. For our twenty-four hour days are effected by the revolutions of the earth on its axis, and by the correspondingly different relationship to the sun which accompanies the revolutions. But those first three days could not have been constituted in that way. It is true that the distinction between them was marked by the appearance and disappearance of light. But the Book of Genesis itself tells us that sun and moon and stars were not formed until the fourth day.

In the third place, it is certainly possible that the second series of three days were constituted in the usual way. But if we take into account that the fall of the angels and of men and that also the Flood which followed later caused all sorts of changes in the cosmos, and if, in addition, we notice that in every sphere the period of becoming differs remarkably from that of normal growth, then it seems not unlikely that the second series of three days also differed from our days in many respects.

Finally, it deserves consideration that everything which according to Genesis 1 and 2 took place on the sixth day can hardly be crowded into the pale of such a day as we now know the length of days to be. For on that day according to Scripture there occurred the creation of the animals (Gen. 1:24-25), the creation of Adam (Gen. 1:26 and 2:7), the planting of the garden (Gen. 2:8-14), the giving of the probationary command (Gen. 2:16-17), the leading of the animals to Adam and his naming them (Gen. 2:18-20), and the sleep of Adam and the creation of Eve (Gen. 2:21-23). 

As I said, logical. He says nothing new, of  course, no new creation theory, but what he says (or rather writes) he says well. To paraphrase, he suggests that Gen. 1:1-2 might have occurred before the first day (a form of the Gap Theory) and that in any event the first three days must have been very different from our days, for the usual reason of there being no sun. (There was, of course, a Son.) He then goes on to suggest the second set of three days were also likely quite different. He makes a point that I especially like, which that while God can can accomplish tasks at a supernatural rate, the very human Adam, who worked seemingly with considerable care and thought, would have tremendous difficulty completing the job of naming the animals in a fraction of a day.

I am going to speculate that Bavinck, a scholar and intellectual, was influenced by the science of his day, science that was at the cusp of providing a modern value for the age of the earth. I am going to speculate that he felt it reasonable to allow this knowledge to inform his exegesis of a passage that is not critical to the gospel and not critical to the doctrine of God, apart from acknowledging God as the ex-nihilo creator  and there was a real, historic Adam. And he did it in a way that did not do violence to the text.

They could easily be wrong, those speculations of mine. But on this I am certain: Bavinck, unlike many current celebrity pastors and theologians (to the extent that there are any modern theologians of his caliber) was not a literal six-day creationist. And yet he seems to have maintained purchase even on that slippery slope of which we are so often direly warned, the one that results in an inevitable water-slide O' apostasy from denial of a literal creation account  to jettisoning the gospel and oh, I don't know, worshipping Satan or at least Joel Osteen (a mere minion of Satan.)  What really irks me is that many evangelical  churches avoid this subject so as not to offend members who hold fast to a YEC view, when they should  be teaching them how their YEC view, while perfectly acceptable, has not, historically, been the only acceptable view. For peace and harmony and the elusive unity, that is all they need to be taught, that their view is not critical dogma. It is absolutely wrong not to correct them on this matter.