Question: You keep saying that, as opposed to people that take the Genesis creation account very literally, that people who don’t take it as literally see "deeper and more profound truths". Could you please explain what you mean by that, because I don’t see that you re expressing anything deeper or more profound than they are.

Steven

Answer: Dear Steven,

On the one hand, as you imply – truth is truth – there is no such thing as deeper truth, more profound truth.

But our comments about creationism and the biblical account of creation in Genesis are not about truth claims. The biblical truth claim of the Genesis account of creation is that God is the creator. That is the truth. Absolute. Period. But your question regarding our comments relate to the way in which we read/understand/interpret the creation account – or hymn – and how it was inspired by God to be written. How has God imparted this absolute truth to us?

Any attempt by God – such as his written revelation we call the Bible – to communicate to humans involves an accommodation on his part. He must find a way to reveal himself to us – the holy, perfect, sovereign, eternal God imparting his reality to sinful, imperfect, limited, and finite humans, bound by time and space. He uses our language – since it’s the only way we will understand. But reducing his reality into our language is not easy – and cannot fully impart the totality of God to us. It is therefore interesting and helpful to note the kind of language or literary device that God inspired to help us know him.

Much of the Bible is written in poetry. While the creation account is not printed as poetry (as some translations, such as the NIV, format poetic sections to help the reader know the literary genre God is using to impart truth) it is nonetheless very poetic. It utilizes Hebraisms that are colorful, metaphorical, and symbolic to convey the absolute and concrete truth that the one God of the Bible is the creator.

Those who insist upon a literal reading of the Bible often decry poetry as "watering down the truth". First problem – God inspired poetry. Second problem – poetry actually does the opposite.

Poetry is addressed to the mind through the heart. For example, Martin Luther wrote the hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is our God" based upon the poetry found in the Psalms. Is the Bible insisting that God is a literal fortress – a fort-like structure – or is that term imparting the truth that God is our helper, or supporter, or foundation?

Another Psalm – much loved Psalm 23. The Lord is our Shepherd. Is God insisting that we humans should act exactly like sheep? Or that we should all live in the country, and that no Christian should ever live in the urban environment of a city? A literal interpretation of Psalm 23 could lead us in such a direction.

As stated in other questions and answers about Genesis, God is not giving us a blueprint of how he created the world. If he did, or if that was his purpose, the material is woefully incomplete. Many questions remain if the creation account of Genesis represents a blueprint-like account of how God created the universe. But that was not his purpose. He is telling us that he alone created the worlds – and not any other. No other God. One God. THE one God, as opposed to all of the other "gods" of the culture to whom the book of Genesis was originally written and directed.

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht