Many people think evolution conflicts with the Creationism account in the Bible. This article explains that they are not mutually exclusive. You may choose to retain your own view of Creation after this, but so many difficult issues are resolved with this reconciliation that it could be good to know if you're looking to convert a hard lined evolutionist. If you are a hard lined evolutionist(as most scientists are), I feel you may find this article outrageously useful. It is one of my missions in life to break down barriers people have to belief in God. I don't hear people talking about the theory I am about to present, but it is very powerful. Hopefully it will not stay rare and become popular.
The theory I am about to present to you is known as the Long Day Theory. I came up with it on my own then I realized other people came up with it before me. The idea is that a day for God is a different length of time than a day for man. It is a scriptural fact that a day for God is different length of time than a day for man. Here are two places that this is directly mentioned:
Psalms 90:4 A thousand years to you are like one day; they are like yesterday, already gone, like a short hour in the night.
2 Peter 3:8 But do not forget one thing, my dear friends! There is no difference in the Lord's sight between one day and a thousand years; to him the two are the same.
In addition to a day for God being a different length of time than a day for man, let us examine the situation. There is no sun. There is supernatural light being shed on the Earth. How long does the light shine on the Earth before darkness comes and night happens? I think there is no way to know. Assigning 24 hours to the situation is presumptuous, but that is what most people automatically assume. Finally, the word for day in Hebrew is YOM. It means a period of time, but doesn't directly mean a day.
I know God exists for a fact. I know Jesus is Lord. I'm also a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University in a self declared degree of Scientific Computing I have enough education to understand that evolution makes sense. But even if evolution didn't happen, we're still left with the problems of,”Where did dinosaur fossils come from?”, “Why does life occur across so many sedimentary layers?”,and “How did the oil and coal pockets form.” A flood does not explain the sedimentary layers though I know a global flood happened. I can't rule out the possibility that dinosaurs may have lived when humans did, but I think the geologic column says that there were dinosaurs that existed before man. Some people may say,”Well God created coal in the ground”, but coal and oil have fossils in or around them. If you're to close off your mind and say that a day for God must be 24 hours long, you can't answer the above questions rationally. We can't just write off evolution and be out of the woods in terms of how the Earth is made up. This Long Day Theory does allow for fossils, geologic columns, evolution, and an Earth that is older than 6000 years.
In the Long Day Theory, the Earth can be many millions or many billions of years old. God created the plants and animals, and then many millions of years passed on each day of God. Evolution took place, but it was likely guided by God. This is an idea known as theistic evolution. Living species lived and died over the course of many millions of years. Then man was created. Man was created from the soil as the scripture says. Other animals may have evolved from prior species that God created, but man was created directly. While plants and animals have lived on Earth for a long time in this theory, we can still assume that the length of time that man has lived on this earth is roughly 6000 years.
God could have made the universe in a blinking of an eye if he wanted, but he chose to make it over a timed period. Do not think this theory diminishes God because it looks like it took God a long time to create the universe. God is all powerful and can do anything that he wants. Time for God can be any length of time. This does not hold true for specific things in the Bible for example Jonah being in the belly of a whale for three days: to Jonah, it was three days. That is the time for man and is different than time for God.
One “weakness” that I'll bring up about this theory is that it says that death existed before sin came into man. The serpent sinned before mankind did. How far back can we figure sin to be in the world? We can't make the determination. Because of this ambiguity, death may have happened in the world before sin entered in. Are we to suppose that Adam had the perfect ability to not step on any insects when he walked? Even if you think that was possible, Adam ate fruit in the garden. The fruit was living before he ate it, but once it went into his digestive tract, it died. So we see that death existed before the fall of man, but death of man did not.
The world needs scientists. The world needs Christianity. Everyone needs Christianity. Everyone doesn’t need to be a scientist. It is much better to be a Christian that doesn’t understand science than to be a scientist that doesn’t understand Christianity Still people need to understand that there is not some disagreement between science and Christianity. Enemies of Christianity seek out any excuse why they can label Christianity as bad. Enemies of Christianity love it when Christians are anti-science because science and technology have real solutions for the word's problems. By labeling Christians as anti-science, they can say libelous things such as Christianity is bad for the world. It is because of this that I feel it is very important for people to realize that science and Christianity are not mutually exclusive.