But whilst this doctrine of plenary inspiration is used to understand how eye witnesses of events were chosen by God in just such a way as to write exactly what God wanted written in scripture, we are left with a difference between the writings of eye witnesses and the recording of direct revelation.

Now clearly the first two chapters of Genesis must be largely direct revelation – particularly the creation hymn. God knew exactly how He created the world, but there were no human eye witnesses.

So this creation hymn is revelation, and not witnessed history.

You clearly take that revelation to be an exact recounting of the events of creation. But it is a perfectly valid historical Christian position to treat that hymn as allegory (as did Origen and Augustine).

Why should we treat it allegorically?

1. Comparison with other revelation in scripture. We have revelation in various parts of scripture – particularly Isaiah, Daniel and Revelation. In none of these cases is it really valid to treat the revelation as a literal historical accounting. The great statue of Daniel is not a real statue at all, but a recounting of forthcoming empires for instance. Allegory is usually intimately involved with direct revelation.

2. What would be the purpose of a direct recounting of the Creation of the World? Did people nned to know about first generation stars? Black holes that drew galaxies together? Quantum mechanics or super inflation or whatever else accounts for the lumpiness of the universe? DNA? etc. Would it not be better to make a point about the God, creator of the Universe in juxtaposition to the gods of the Chaldean peoples?

3. If we believe a six day creation 6000 years ago, then we have to believe that God has made the Universe look old. Creation science “proofs” of a young earth are therefore predicated on a theory that it is possible that God made errors in his making the earth look old. Therefore creation science suggests that God has deliberately hidden the age of the earth (arguably a deceit) and that he has failed to do so adequately! To my mind, if you believe the 6 day creation, then that is a matter of faith, and I can accept your decision to do so. If you want to persuade me that there is evidence of a young earth, then I disagree entirely.

4. I, following some eminent scientists before me, want to think God’s thoughts after him. I believe a discovery of this universe is doing just that. All the evidence I have found has convinced me that the Universe is ancient and wonderful.

Thanks for your comment. I am sure we still disagree, but I hope this is food for thought.

You can’t discount that God was present at the beginning, and why would He want to feed us a lie about how it all began. If Jesus was God and Genesis was wrong, couldn’t have He have fixed the inaccuracies?