Benjamin,
How God inspired Moses to write the Pentateuch is an open-ended question of the inspiration context of the entire Bible. The “tearing apart” of your thoughtful interpretation of Creation Week is not desirable on this forum. Dreams, visions, and often face-to-face (as with the Ten Commandments tablets) are all methods validated in the Bible. I am particularly impressed with how the Lord gives people without biblical backgrounds dreams and visions to reveal himself today.
My response to your post is late in the conversation, but I hope you find the scientific approach I shared on another forum interesting for comparison’s sake. It is my interpretation of creation and how Creation Week happened through God’s Word.
So here is the Q&A “What does science say about the creation account in Genesis?”
Science either validates or denies the Genesis account of creation. My most trusted Quantum Physics resource is a respected Quora contributor, Viktor T. Toth. Toth, an accomplished mathematician, explains that the best scientific explanation for our Universe starts at the second picosecond of time with the Planck epoch’s hot and dense expansion (“Big Bang”) from the Initial Singularity. However, since science can only address our physical Universe, Toth admits that no one, either scientist, priest, or philosopher, can prove what occurred in that first picosecond of time. Indeed, the first picosecond may have been a picosecond or an eternity.
Genesis is a biblical account, and the Bible is not a science book, but there is a caveat worth considering. If the biblical account is valid, the Genesis account amounts to an eyewitness outline of creation inspired by the Creator who was there at the time. So, let me explain how science works in the processes of creation. Theologically there are two types of creation. First, ex nihilo is Latin for “out of nothing.” I qualify the term as “out of nothing physical or material.” Second, de novo is the Latin word for “new beginning.” I see this type of creation as the “Let there be” creation instructions in Genesis.
Ex nihilo creation from nothing physical is the first picosecond timely delivery of the Initial Singularity by the Word of the Creator from His mind and by His will. So, the Bible says in John 1: 1–3, In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He created all things, and nothing was created without Him. At this point, the delivery of the Initial Singularity completely satisfies ex nihilo creation. So then, Viktor T. Toth explains that the Universe has a finite age calculated back to the second picosecond of time, some 13.8 billion years ago.
So, let us focus on the “Genesis account of creation” nine to ten billion years after the universal ex nihilo creation. In his book Improbable Planet, Astrophysicist Hugh Ross explains that the raw materials used to make our Earth and humanity required the space dust remnants of three generations of supernova explosions from neutron stars many times more massive than our Sun. I posit that the Genesis account outlines the “Let there be…” de novo creations in our Milky Way planetary system, Earth, and us. The required supernova astrophysical activity occurred in the first nine to ten billion years following the “Big Bang.” Our Milky Way galaxy and planetary system were brought into the picture some 3.8 billion years ago as a “new beginning” from the previous supernova materials.
De novo creations for “new beginnings” is a sound scientific concept to explain the Genesis account by the spoken Word of the Creator. I posit that the Creator who established the laws and principles of science used them in the processes of scientific creation and also embedded them in natural processes like evolution. Wrap your head around this Quantum Field Theory (QFT) science. All common particles scientifically identified today are listed in the Standard Model of Elemental Particles and summarized in the Periodic Table of the Elements. Acclaimed scientists like Max Planck, James Clerk Maxwell, Hendrik Lorentz, Albert Einstein, and a string of Nobel laureates established the quantum sciences used worldwide today. All particles are the quanta of field interactions between particle fields and the universal electromagnetic field. De novo creation is the Word of the Creator speaking material instructions into the electromagnetic field to initialize the “Let there be…” things in Genesis. His de novo words excite the electromagnetic field (QFT) the same way your words speak into the air to excite sound waves to the ears of those who listen.
So, “What does science say about the creation account in Genesis?” No scientist, theologian, or philosopher can prove the creation of the Initial Singularity. However, the QFT science from the second picosecond of time forward is consistent with the Creator’s “Let there be” creations that followed. Genesis could be paraphrased in the first person of the Creator, saying, “I said, let there be…,” and it was." The Creator was the only eyewitness for *Genesis, * as He explained to Job in Job 38:4 when He laid the foundations of the Earth.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and I hope BioLogos Forum posts reinforce your relationship with the Lord.
Blessings, Bill
