To Help Us With Our Study Of Origins, We Will Use Two Main Sources Th

To help us with our study of origins, we will use two main sources: the Bible ? as God's direct revelation of life, and science ? a way to interpret the Bible using scientific knowledge. In his book Biology Through the Eyes of Faith, R.T. Wright (1989) states: "It is an important conclusion of faith that both science and Scripture are sources of knowledge of God's works and that, when properly understood, should not lead to conflicts." I agree with this statement, believing that God created the original species. I also uphold a belief that a series of natural processes lead to the formation of other species thereby increasing the diversity of life on earth. By carefully studying both science and Scripture, I believe that we will be able to find truth about God's creation. Genesis 1 clearly states that God created heavens, earth, and their organisms. It doesn't indulge, however, in explanations of how or when God created them. As the result of that a variety of view appeared on how to interpret Genesis 1. Old-earth creationists believe that the Bible shouldn't be taken literally, referring to various problems associated with the order of creation and the "obvious" old age of the universe. They base their beliefs on various studies such as paleontology, astronomy, biology, genetics; and the list goes on. Young-earth creationists, on the other hand, believe that the Bible should be taken literally, telling a story of 24-hour day creation. Theistic evolutionists presume that God used evolution to create living species. However, biblical creationists argue that this could not be the case because the Bible says: "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them..." (Exodus 20:11), and He created species "according to their kind" (Genesis 1:11,12,21,24,25). This paper will analyze the worldviews of young-earth creationists and old-earth creationists, pointing out that both the Bible and science can agree on the issue of origins of species, and reveal which worldview I agree with more. Exodus 20:11 says that God created the universe in six "days." Many people, however, still wonder whether or not the modern scientific belief that the earth and universe have existed for billions of years can be harmonized with a literal interpretation of the Bible. Some Christians believe that the word "day" in Genesis doesn't mean a literal 24-hour day, but rather that a "day" is a long period of time. In Hebrew, where every word has three basic letters and vowel sounds are not included in a written language, the historical and literary time become a dominant factor in determining the meaning. Some commentaries have estimated that there may be as many as a hundred different meanings in the Bible for the word "day." These include the non-literal interpretations implying periods or epochs (Zabilka, 1992). However, when the phrase evening and morning is coupled with a numbered modifier and the word day (yom), there is no stronger way of specifying a normal day (Bebber, 1995). Others m aintain that "morning" and "evening" should also be taken figuratively. The Bible doesn't specifically state that "day" in Genesis 1 is a 24-hour day. No one, except God, can know for sure that Genesis is describing six earth rotations and not an unspecified period of billions of years. Another argument for old earth comes from the study of fossils. Many scientists believe that it took millions of years for the rock layers to form. They reason that many fossils seem to be more than 10,000 years old. Geologists today hold that the earth is approximately 4 to 5 billion years old. Others have found different explanations for the old age of the earth. According to a scientist Dalrymple (1991), The best value for the age of the earth is based on the time required for the isotopic composition of lead in the oldest (2.6-3.5 billion years) terrestrial ores, of which there are currently only four [235U to 207Pb to 238U to 206Pb], to evolve from the primordial composition, recorded in meteoritic troilite, to the composition at the time (measured independently) the ores separated from their parent rocks in earth's mantle. These calculations result in ages for the earth of 4.42 to 4.56