First of all, let me give credit where credit is due. Back when I was a teenager, I read a short story by Isaac Asimov called “Darwinian Poolroom” which I thought did a nice job of reconciling physical science and the way Genesis describes the creation of the world. If anyone’s interested, it’s in Buy Jupiter, a collection of his short stories. That was the inspiration for what I’m about to set out before you.
I am by no means a Biblical literalist or a 6-day creationist, but I know many Christians are. I’ve also found myself wrestling with this issue over the years and I think I’ve finally got it pinned down into a form which makes sense to me. Since we’ve got a couple of threads running which touch on 6-Day Creationism right now, I thought this would be an appropriate time to put this out there and see what people think. I apologize if this comes across as blasphemous to anyone. It’s just a rather fallible human being’s attempt to understand the Divine, and it’s about as subject to error as you can get.
I’m a programmer by profession. As such, I’ve been involved in some rather large projects although, of course, none have them have been anywhere near as big as the creation of the universe. When I’m tackling a large project, I’ll usually break it up into manageable steps. I carefully build each step, being aware of what it will have to interact with, test it as much as it can be tested, then let it rest. I then go on to the next step, building it carefully, connecting it to the previous steps and making provisions for it to be connected to future steps. Some of the programs I’ve built have been designed to run independently, or, as I tell my users, “Hit Enter, go and get a cup of coffee, and when you come back it should be done.” I also usually work from simplest to most complex and from most essential to least essential, adding frills and frivols during the last step. I should also add that I don’t necessarily code these steps in the order they’ll actually take place, but in the order which makes most logical sense to me.
So, this is the way I have reconciled Genesis and physical science within myself. Picture God as The Great Programmer, if you will. In the beginning, the earth was without form and void. No code written, just a blank slate to begin creating on. God said, “Let there be light’ and there was light.” God worked out the logistics for light,and possibly orbital mechanics, not to mention quantum physics – complex but essential – and set them in place. Morning came and evening came, the first day. Picture this running through all six days, each day or step being crafted and examined until finally, upon the sixth day, “God saw all that he had made and it was very good.” Could this be the first recorded case of Programmer’s High? “Thus heaven and earth were completed with all their might throng. On the sixth day God completed all the work he had been doing.” Final connections in place and checked, and we are ready to run. “And on the seventh day, he ceased from all his work. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day he ceased from all the work he had set himself to do.” On the seventh day, God hit Enter.
CJ
