GENESIS 1:20 - Did God Use Evolution? Contradicting Interpretations?

Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.”

Did God Use Evolution? 1 day = Millions of Years?

The big questions in Genesis - or for many, the whole Bible - deals with "science vs. creationism ". While this applies to plants and geography (mentioned in previous verses), usually the great debate rages around animals and in particular, evolution.

It's no surprise that Christians like myself who on the one hand say they believe in the infallibility of the Bible become squeamish when encountered by the case for evolution. As a result, I often found myself trying to draw connections between the two. One of the arguments and explanations put forth was that maybe God used evolution. Maybe the "one day" stated in the Bible really did mean millions or billions of years.

"The book of Genesis teaches that death is the result of Adam’s sin (Genesis 3:29; Romans 5:12, 8:18–22) and that all of God’s creation was “very good” upon its completion (Genesis 1:31). All animals and humans were originally vegetarian (Genesis 1:29–30). But if we compromise on the history of Genesis by adding millions of years, we must believe that death and disease were part of the world before Adam sinned. You see, the (alleged) millions of years of earth history in the fossil record shows evidence of animals eating each other, diseases like cancer in their bones, violence, plants with thorns, and so on. All of this supposedly takes place before man appears on the scene, and thus before sin (and its curse of death, disease, thorns, carnivory, etc.) entered the world." (Answers in Genesis)

I had never thought of it this way, but it makes sense. There can be no middleground on this issue. Many Christians - including myself - are eager to adopt this view in the name of defending the infallibility of the Bible, but in doing so, it's ironically the very thing we destroy:

"...once Christian leaders concede that we shouldn’t interpret the Bible as written in Genesis, why should the world take heed of God’s Word in any area? Because the church has told the world that one can use man’s interpretation of the world, such as billions of years, to reinterpret the Bible, this Book is seen as an outdated, scientifically incorrect holy book not intended to be believed as written.

As each subsequent generation has pushed this door of compromise open farther and farther, they are increasingly not accepting the morality or salvation of the Bible either. After all, if the history in Genesis is not correct, how can one be sure the rest is correct? Jesus said, “If I have told you earthly things, and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?” (John 3:12)."

Agreed. And this is definitely something you need to come to grips with before seriously studying the Bible.

Contradicting Interpretations?

That said, I did find it quite disturbing that only four verses earlier in my previous post, Genesis 1:16 (The Moon Only Reflects Light), my answer there seemingly advocated a contradicting view to the one offered here.

I'm not actually troubled by this because it's clear to me how these situations are distinct and as such only give the appearance of a contradiction. That said, I think it's noteworthy because I can also empathize with those who see it as such and by virtue of that, are willing to write off the Bible.

(back to Genesis 1)