Christians have always believed in creation. There was little debate about nature or the date of creation until the last two centuries. However, science began to gain credibility through great advances in the so-called Era of Reason (also called The Enlightenment or Modernism) developed in the 18th century. Science was increasingly identified with the naturalistic worldview, which was directly opposed to the theistic worldview.
Scientific evidence became a weapon used by opponents of Christianity to attack the biblical worldview. We are now going to explore the question that is at the heart of all of this. What does Genesis 1 say? He bluntly says that one God created everything out of nothing and that he did it in six days and then rested on the seventh day. He spent three days shaping the world and then three days filling it.
And, finally, he created humanity uniquely in his image. Christians believe that God created the universe. He chose to create it out of love for humanity. Some may argue that he created it because he wanted to be adored, so his creation was selfish, however, Christians debated this.
They would argue that since God is omnipotent, he doesn't need to be loved. Christians who take the Bible literally believe that the world was created by God in seven days. In recent years, some Christians have proposed the idea of an “intelligent designer” as an alternative to the science of evolution. Many Christians understand this as evidence that human beings have dominion over God's creation.
This could suggest that human beings have the power to use the world and its resources however they want, but it doesn't mean that humanity should exploit the Earth's resources. For Christians it is not important how God created the Universe, since they believe that this is beyond their own imagination and for them it doesn't really matter. Let's look at three common interpretations of the Genesis creation story, evaluate the importance of the topic for the Christian faith, and examine how a similar controversy was resolved several hundred years ago in a way that complies with the commandments of Christ and the Apostle Paul regarding Christian unity. As the debates unfolded, controversies arose about the date and nature of creation among biblical Christians.
While tertiary issues often differentiate one Christian denomination from another, most Christians agree on the main issues found in historical creeds. While I think this point of view is certainly within the realm of Christian orthodoxy, I don't find it particularly useful, while the other two points of view are better representations of what the passage says. In the United States and the United Kingdom, major groups of Christians believe that evolution is an unproven theory that can devalue religious beliefs, and they want schools to teach students that creationism or intelligent design are alternative theories that should be considered. This third category includes all Christians who do not believe that the days of Genesis mean periods of time of any kind.
A group of biblical Christian scholars published a series of books called The Foundations in an attempt to define and defend biblical Christianity against this widespread commitment to liberalism. A group of Christians who use the name “evolutionary creationists” or “theistic evolutionists” (TE) believe that God created the Earth with the potential for life to develop by naturalistic methods. There are different types of creationist Christians (you can read more about this here). In general, they believe that the story of the Bible is the literal truth.
Christians believe that God appointed human beings to be in charge of what He created and to care for the world as responsible guardians. .
