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According to the opening chapter of Genesis, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." When exactly was "the beginning"? We are frequently told that everything began some four and a half billion years ago. Some books suggest six billion years, and a few articles would even urge a span of 30 billion years. There seems to be a contradiction between the statements of Genesis and the premises of people who accept the evolutionary hypothesis. How does one blend four and a half billion evolutionary years with 6000 years (as determined from the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 and by Bishop Ussher)?

Some scholars have attempted to merge Biblical with evolutionary thinking, accounting for differences by making the days of creation long periods of time or by placing a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. In this chapter we will discuss these two theories as well as analyzing theories concerning the age of the earth itself.

THE DAY-AGE THEORY

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The nature of "the beginning" is clarified to an extent in Genesis 1:31, "And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." Chapter 2:1-2 continues, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made." God completed His work on the seventh day. Exodus 20:11 concurs with the Genesis account: "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day." God seems to have ended His creative activity on the seventh day, which would place the beginning of His creative acts exactly six days before their completion.

If the beginning was six days before the completion, we must next ask, How long was "the day"? God defines the Hebrew word for day the first time He uses it. According to Genesis 1:5, "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night." The light period of time is clearly labeled "day," the dark period designated "night." In addition, God uses two phrases which indicate the length of a day. "And the evening and the morning were the first day." Every time the Hebrew words for evening and morning are used in the Old Testament, they refer to a literal day. The Hebrew concept of "day" begins in the evening, continues through the night, and terminates the following afternoon. Thus "evening and morning" are expressions used to define a literal day.

Every time the Hebrew word yom (singular) is used in the Old Testament with a numerical adjective - first day, fifth day, tenth day, 100th day - it refers to a literal solar day. Likewise, each time yamim (plural) is used, literal days must be specified. Compare, for instance, the double usage of yamim in Exodus 20, the passage which contains the Ten Commandments. In verses 8-10, obviously speaking of a literal seven-day week, God enjoins us to work only six days (yamim), retaining the Sabbath as a day of rest. Why should man rest one day in seven? Because, according to verse 11, which relates back to the Genesis account of creation, God created everything in six days (yamim) and rested on the seventh.

A consistent interpretation of Scripture must find that "day" or "days" when used in a clearly literal context, as in Exodus 20:9, will likewise require actual solar days in Genesis 1 or Exodus 20:11, referring to days of creation. No exception may be allowed.

If one attempts to extend the days of creation into long periods of time, strange things happen. For instance, an effort to correlate the days of creation with the evolutionary geologic column produces at least twenty-one major discrepancies. According to the evolutionists, several things are wrong with the Biblical account. For one thing, plant life, the first life to appear in Genesis, comes rather late in evolutionary development. There are also some problems with differences between fish and fowl. In Genesis fowl are created on the same day as fish. When God created life. He started with whales, sea creatures, and fowl (Genesis 1:21). But according to evolution, fish gave rise to reptiles, which developed into mammals and birds. Again, the sun, moon and stars in the Genesis account were made on the fourth day, whereas these are the evolutionary essentials for bringing life into being. If life were to come about by microbiology, by some simple chemicals coming together to form amino acids, later becoming more complex protein molecules and ultimately the first cell, then radiant energy or sunlight would be needed. Finally, if one tries to stretch creation days into long periods of time. Plant life, created on the third day, would have to live without the light of the sun for however long your day was - 1000 years, one million years - because the light from the sun did not reach here until it was created on the fourth day. The third day brought forth plants, but insects which are necessary for the pollinization of many flowering plants are not created until the sixth day.

With reference again to consistent Biblical interpretation, if one insists that days are long periods of time in Genesis, he will have to say that they are long periods of time in other places of Scripture, such as Jonah's three days in the whale or Nehemiah's three days spent in the city. How long is a day? God says He began His creative activity six days before He completed it. The Bible is consistent, and therefore these days must be literal days.

THE GAP THEORY

In the light of the weaknesses found within the day-age theory, some people have invented another theory called the gap theory. The gap theory, or ruin and reconstruction theory, proposes that God originally created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:1. There was then a judgment and a cataclysm, some kind of catastrophic event by which the earth was judged and became "without form and void," as noted in verse 2. Proponents suggest that there is good evidence for this in the text, because "darkness was upon the face of the deep," and darkness is evidence of sin. Then "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." According to the gap theory, the word for "moved," which connotes brooding, indicates that God was brooding over this evil chaos, thus providing additional evidence for a gap and a judgment. The basic tenet that nothing chaotic comes from the hand of God demands a context of judgment upon sin between verses 1 and 2.

With Genesis 1:2 viewed as evidence for some catastrophic event, many people have tried to place all the geologic ages between the opening verses of Genesis and thus provide adequate room for evolution. They project that God created an original heaven and earth which He judged. He then recreated some of the animals, so a six-day creation could still be maintained.

First, let us consider the arguments presented in favor of this theory. The Bible says. "And the earth was without form, and void" (Genesis 1:2). The word for "was" in Hebrew is the verb hayah, the basic Hebrew word for being. It is used 1522 times in the Pentateuch alone. Fifteen hundred times it is translated by its simple usage "was," but twenty-two times it is used with the idea of "became." Each time it is translated "became," the context denotes a change taking place: Lot left the city with his wife, she was walking with him, she was a woman, she turned and "became" a pillar of salt. Such a change occurs in all of the instances translating this word "became." However, one cannot supply this translation in Genesis 1, which demands the simple usage of the word "was."

The proponents of the gap theory say that the words "without form and void" indicate some chaotic condition as a result of judgment. They point to verses in Jeremiah 4:23-26 and Isaiah 24:1, where the same words are used to refer to some type of catastrophic event. But both of those instances refer to a time when people living in an area experienced a judgment, a destruction, because of which the whole territory was laid waste and desolate to the extent that it became unpopulated. With that in mind, note Isaiah 45:18, "For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else." In this description there are no people. It is the description of an earth which is incomplete and unfinished. The word "vain" here is the same word which is translated "void" in Genesis 1:2. The earth was empty and void of life or empty and vain. God said He created it not in vain, but to be finished and inhabited by people. In this particular verse (Isaiah 45:18) the earth is not complete, so there can be no reference to any destruction and judgment, for in order to have a judgment there would have to be inhabitants to judge.

"And darkness was upon the face of the deep." Those who insist that darkness is evidence of sin conclude that verse 2 gives evidence of sin on the earth which resulted in cataclysm and judgment. True, darkness sometimes gives the impression of evil, but notice what God does with the darkness. He says, "Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day" (Genesis 1:3-5). If darkness is evidence of evil in verse 2, then it is also evidence of evil in verse 5. But the latter darkness He calls night. Must night, then, be considered evil? To the contrary, God, who sets up a system of light and darkness, says the whole system is "very good" (Genesis 1:31). The darkness of verse 2, then, simply means the absence of light. God solves that problem by creating light.

The final statement of verse 2 is quite direct and literal. "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" merely signifies that the Spirit of God was present and that water existed.

To argue for a gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2 and to place the geologic ages there is to formulate some very serious difficulties. If a judgment had been placed upon these earliest life forms, they would be buried in the earth, producing some kind of fossil record. This fossil record is found in the various geological strata and is really a record of the death, decay and destruction of plants and animals on the earth, laid in sedimentary strata by some kind of water action. Philosophically, if we try to correlate this with the Genesis account of chapter 1, then we are saying that death is the element to bring new forms of life upon the earth. This assumes that man is really the result of death over a vast period of time. Certain types of animals unfit to survive lost their ecological niche and died out; some new form of life entered, and ultimately man came upon the earth.

In opposition to this argument, Genesis 1-3 proclaims that man was created perfect by God. Because of man's disobedience to God, sin and death entered into this world for the first time. The Bible states that death came as a result of man's disobedience to God's law, whereas, according to evolution, the geologic record says that man is the result of death, having evolved from earlier animal ancestors that are now extinct.

What will we find, then, if we place the record of the geologic column into a gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2? We will discover buried in all the strata throughout the earth - every square foot of ground upon which Adam walked in the Garden of Eden - evidence of the destruction of animals and plants. But God created this garden in which (according to the gap theory) every rock contained evidence of death and destruction of animals in the past, and He said of this garden that it was "very good." In addition Romans 5:12 tells us that by Adam's disobedience death entered into this world for the first time. A gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2, into which the fossil record is placed, demands that Adam find death evidenced in every rock he looks at. How, then, can one honestly say that by Adam sin and death entered into the world for the first time? If we destroy that premise, we basically destroy the doctrine of sin and ultimately the basis for salvation, which is established upon the premise that Adam, a perfectly created individual, fell into sin, and his disobedience brought death into this world for the first time. On that basis Jesus Christ came to save that which He created.

Proponents of the gap theory suggest that the sun, moon and stars were created in verse 1 but that God did not make them appear until Genesis 1:16, which introduces two different lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night. They claim that the word "made" (verse 16) does not mean that God directly created them on that day, but that He unveiled them - He uncovered the cloud or vapor that kept them from being seen. This explanation is given in the Scofield Bible, whose notes contend that the verb asah indicates that God made the sun, moon and stars to appear. If this is true, and God simply remade them or made them to appear, we must ask what is meant by the verb asah in Genesis 1:26: "And God said, Let us make man in our image." Does this mean "Let us make man to appear"? Does it suggest that God uncovered man from the dust, perhaps taking one of the destroyed fossil men and remaking him? Was man merely unveiled or allowed to appear? To be consistent, one would have to accept such a description.

God seems to use two words asah and bara, interchangeably, for in Genesis 5:1 He says, "In the day that God created [bara] man, in the likeness of God made [asah] he him." And the Lord God says He made (asah) the earth and the heaven, whereas in Genesis 1:1 God created (bara) the earth and heaven. Genesis 2:4 tells us, "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created [bara] in the day that the Lord God made [asah] the earth and the heavens." In Exodus 20:11, "For in six days the Lord made [asah] heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is." We must conclude, therefore, that asah is not to be translated "made to appear," but simply "made" or "created."

A number of serious theological questions arise if we accept the thesis that God remade the sun, moon and stars. Does that mean that He also remade man? And if He made man over, then was man pre-existent before Adam? If so, this pre-existent mortal was totally destroyed and God did not save a remnant; in other words, His first creation was a total failure. But can God fail? If so, must we be fearful that He is failing now? And what about the souls of the men who were eliminated in this gap judgment before verse 2? Were they living souls condemned to hell? We may forego such questions if we remember the Bible's clear statement that Adam was created as the first man. In fact, because the first Adam, though created perfect, fell, Christ, the second Adam, came to save.

Since many gap theorists place most of the fossil record in the gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2, serious problems arise for them concerning the Flood. If any evidence of this gap judgment survived today in fossil remains of animals and plants buried by a cataclysm after Genesis 1:1, one could not affirm the occurrence of the worldwide Flood in Genesis 6,7 & 8. This catastrophe would probably erase most of the evidence of any previous cataclysm and rearrange the fossils so that one could not separate the fossils and determine which were from the gap judgment and which were from the Flood judgment without limiting the effects of the Flood. In light of this, it seems contradictory to place the fossil record in the gap and thereby deny another portion of Scripture, namely the universal Flood.

The gap theory requires cataclysmic judgment upon sin in order to produce an earth "without form, and void" (Genesis 1:2). Heretofore we have considered judgment upon pre-Adamic man; however the gap theory at times assigns the cause to the fall of Satan. That is, Satan was ejected from heaven and was cast to the earth, supposedly causing judgment upon it. We read a description of this fall in Ezekiel 28, beginning with verse 12, and in Isaiah 14, beginning with verse 12. God says that Lucifer was a created being, the "anointed cherub that covereth" (Ezekiel 28:14). He was perfect from the day of his creation until the day that iniquity was found in him. Satan at one point decided that he himself would like to be the recipient of worship. He decided in his heart that he was as high as God: "I will be like the most High" (Isaiah 14:14). He worshipped himself rather than God and placed himself before the Word of God. Satan was created perfect, but he fell.

The Biblical statement concerning Satan's fall is quite clear, but keeping in mind the gap theory's contention, let us turn to Genesis 2:1. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." The "host of heaven" refers to two things in Scripture: stars and angels (cf. Nehemiah 9:6, Revelation 12:4). Throughout the Psalms, Job, and several other books the "host of heaven" is repeatedly referred to as angels. In addition, the Bible tells us that angels rejoiced at the creation, but it does not say which particular stage of the creation. In Genesis 2:1 God finished the heavens and the earth and all the host of them, which would include the angels' creation within that six day event. Exodus 20:11 concurs, explaining that God "made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" - including angels - in six days. Affirming, then, that angels (including Lucifer) were part of the six-day creative process, we find God saying in Genesis 1:31 that He saw "everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." If God saw everything that He had made, He saw Satan. But if we accept this aspect of the gap theory, we would have to say that god beheld all that He had made, and, behold, every thing was very good - except Satan. In terms of the conclusion to this Genesis chapter, any evidence of sin on the earth or in heaven would transform God into a liar. And He does not say His creation is just good, but "very good." In other words, Satan could not have fallen before the end of the sixth day.

Scripture itself does not seem to validate the gap theory's argument that the fall of Satan and his followers, who were "cast . . . to the earth" (Revelation 12:4), fashioned an earth of darkness, without form and void. In fact, a full reading of Revelation 12 (cf. verse 9) speaks again of Satan being "cast out into the earth," but this is yet a future event. Since his fall Satan has argued with God over the tempting of Job and debated with Michael over the body of Moses, and at present he has access to the heavens as the accuser of the brethren to Jesus Christ, the Christian's advocate with the Father. Scripture fails to support any view that Satan's fall caused a cataclysm, whether past or future.

A CONSISTENT READING OF GENESIS 1

If we interpret Genesis 1 in the light of what is actually there, we will find a very different picture than what has been proposed. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." God created first of all an expanse and an earth - the word "heaven" means expanse. We seem to think of heaven as sun, moon and stars, but according to Genesis 1:14-17 the stars are hung in the heaven, or something we call space. Evidently before God began His creative activity, before Genesis 1, there was no such thing as space. God created space, mass and time to declare His power and Godhead.

In the beginning, then, God created this great expanse and the earth. In verse 2 He describes what the earth is like - "without form, and void." In other words, it is empty and vain, unfinished, void of life, as described in Isaiah 45:18. "Darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." According to this verse there is one body of water; earth or land exists, but a careful reading of the description in Genesis 1 indicates that land is completely covered by water. We may envision a rotating body of water shrouded in darkness in a vast expanse.

God then created light and divided it from the darkness. On Day 2 God divided the water from above the firmament and from under the firmament, establishing a unique atmosphere for the earth. On Day 3 God called the dry land out of the water. He let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and the dry land appeared. God called the dry land earth; the gathering together of the water he called seas. He now said, "Let the earth [the dry land area] bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and fruit trees." On Day 4 God divided His singular light source to create a sun and moon, now distributing that light source, forming stars and star groups as He created the heavens.

Then on Day 5 God created the fish of the sea and fowl that fly above the earth. On Day 6 He created cattle and creeping things. Also on the sixth day He created man, and after seeing that man was not complete, He created woman. At this point, when God finished all His creative activity, He pronounced it "very good."

Those who argue for a gap theory say that Genesis 1:28, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth," is evidence that people must have inhabited the earth prior to Genesis 1:26, 27. However, the word "replenish" in Hebrew means "fill" or "refill." Even the English usage of "replenish" may indicate filling the first time. A proper translation would be "to fill" - simply fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air. This was God's purpose for man.

According to Genesis 2, Adam was created full-grown and intelligent. The day of his creation he was able to walk through the Garden of Eden and name all the animals. In addition, the trees of the Garden were growing and giving fruit, though created only a few days before Adam. As Adam looked into the heavens, he could see the light shining from the stars. By stretching out the heavens (cf. Isaiah 44:24), God created the stars, and the light from the stars was visible on earth, giving the appearance that they had been shining for years, though created only two days before. Because all of God's creation appeared originally in a mature form, showing evidence of age, we can account for much of the discrepancy between the age of the earth given by the Biblical account and the age as given by the evolutionist. Remember, Adam was created as a full-grown adult.

George Gaylord Simpson, a leading evolutionist, admits that if one grants the premise of the appearance of age, he could not disprove that the earth was created one second ago, in 4004 B.C., or four and a half billion years ago. However, the creationists assume that the earth was created with the appearance of age. God says He did just that: He created man full-grown, a universe perfectly functioning. True creation, unlike evolution, does not predicate a gradual development form the simple to the complex. As the Bible clearly illustrates, creation begins only with God's eternal power and brings forth a mature product.

DETERMINING THE AGE OF THE EARTH

We now come to a major dilemma. If no gap exists between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2, thus denying the insertion of a long period of time, how do we solve the discrepancies concerning the age of the earth? Certainly there is a serious discrepancy between an age of four and a half billion years and an age of 6000 years. To place the problem in a figurative perspective, both evolutionist and creationist are examining a burning candle which is six inches high at the moment and burns at the rate of one inch per hour. The question is asked: how long has the candle been burning? In order to determine this, they need to know the length of the candle when it was lit. For instance, if the candle were originally eleven inches high, burning at the rate of one inch per hour, they can determine that it has been burning for five hours.

Two of the principal dating methods for obtaining the age of the earth are uranium-lead and thorium-lead, based on the half-life of uranium and thorium. These methods are used with rocks that contain uranium and thorium as well as other minerals. In order to explain this method let us assume that we have a rock which is completely uranium. Theory would state that in four and a half billion years, or the half-life of uranium, this rock would be half uranium and half lead - in four and a half billion years half of the uranium would turn into lead. We know the present amount of uranium, we know the present amount of lead, we know the present rate - but how long has this process been going on? Was it created in almost its present condition - half uranium and half lead? The evolutionist assumes that the rock was totally uranium in the beginning and has been decaying for four and a half billion years, with nothing ever changing its decay rate. Moreover, it is assumed that nothing has occurred to greatly affect the uranium and lead content of the rock. All things have remained constant.

Return to the illustration of the candle. Remember, it is six inches and burns at the rate of one inch per hour. One way to determine how long the candle has been burning is to measure the amount of carbon dioxide being expelled from the burning candle. If all of the carbon dioxide in the room were measured and we assumed that it all came from the candle, we could determine how long the candle had been burning.

What problem might we encounter? If someone were breathing in the room, and additional amount of carbon dioxide would be produced. Carbon dioxide, naturally present in the atmosphere, would also be in the room - as well as the carbon dioxide coming from the candle. Therefore, if we assume that all of the carbon dioxide in the room emanated from the candle, an age or length of time for the burning candle is going to be greater than the actual time the candle has been burning. Our dilemma is clear: the amount of carbon dioxide coming from the candle, from breathing and from the atmosphere cannot be separated. Since all carbon dioxide from all three sources is identical, it cannot be traced to its origin.

Lead is found in its natural state in the earth and is also present from the decay of uranium. By looking at lead you could not determine if it were naturally present or the product of the decay process. Unless you can separate the two, you cannot really judge the length of the decay process. Assuming that all of the lead in the earth came as a result of decay, you might come up with an age of four and half billion years for the earth. But let us return to the example of the candle. As the candle burns and decays, it gives off a certain amount of carbon dioxide, but it also emits a secondary by-product - wax drippings. No wax is naturally present in the room where the candle is burning, so we can be quite sure that all of the wax drippings came from the candle. But then we must ask "Did the candle always burn at the same rate?"

If it did burn at the same rate from beginning to end, we could measure the wax drippings and determine very accurately how long the candle has been burning. By comparison, as uranium in rocks decays into lead, it gives off a secondary by-product, helium. At the present rate of formation the total amount of radiogenic helium in the earth today can be accounted for within the last 12,000 years. Efforts to demonstrate that helium can escape the atmosphere seem futile since helium is being added to the atmosphere by the solar wind. This means that it is totally impossible for the earth to be four and a half billion years old on the basis of the uranium-lead and thorium-lead dating systems, for there simply is not enough helium, enough by-product present.

Using the helium method, measuring the other by-product of uranium decay instead of lead, one finds that it gives an earth-age of something like 12,000 years - if one assumes there is no helium to start with. But helium is a basic element, and so its natural presence would move the earth-age date to an even younger age.

There are other ways of looking at the uranium-lead and thorium-lead dating systems. In some rocks natural lead is not present, as evidenced by the absence of lead 204. Yet lead 208 exists in these rocks without the parent element thorium. Now it is impossible to have a daughter element without a parent element, at least if it is a by-product of some decay system. Yet at times we find lead 208 with very little or no thorium. This causes some scientists, such as Dr. Melvin Cook, a Ph.D. from Yale, to examine the system. He was curious about the ratio of nitrogen 14 and nitrogen 15 in the atmosphere which is different from the ratio of nitrogen 14 and nitrogen 15 in certain uranium-thorium minerals containing lead isotopes but not lead 204. Because lead is a very active element in nuclear reactions and would pick up fast neutrons freely, Dr. Cook compiled some calculations on fast neutron capture to indicate that the actual process was as follows: uranium was not decaying into lead, but lead 206 gained a neutron and became lead 207 which in turn gained a neutron and became lead 208. This discovery clearly resolved all the discrepancies between nitrogen 14 and nitrogen 15 ratios. Furthermore, this is the most logical way one can account for lead 208 being found in rocks without thorium, the parent element. According to Dr. Cook's calculations the uranium to lead system would give a zero age for the earth. These calculations show that the hands of this clock have not moved. When we consider the effects of the helium method gives a maximum age of 12,000 years, we can see there is strong evidence that the earth is very young.

Another method of dating, a little more accurate and easier to deal with, is carbon 14, a radioactive substance which possesses a half-life of 5570 years. It is estimated that a certain constant number of carbon 14 atoms are being produced each year in the upper atmosphere. When the total amount of carbon 14 atoms in the earth has built up to the point where the number of carbon 14 atoms decomposing in one year is equal to the number of carbon 14 atoms being produced in the upper atmosphere, then equilibrium will be reached. This process should take only 30,000 years, and since most evolutionists feel that the earth is older than 30,000 years, it is assumed that equilibrium has been reached. Yet it is now admitted by scientists that only enough decomposing carbon 14 atoms can be found to account for the system being two-thirds of the way to equilibrium. This means that the atmosphere is much younger than 30,000 years in age. If we agree only with the known measurements established by Libby and others who invented the method, we find that there is a non-equilibrium model (the rate of formation of carbon 14 in the upper atmosphere is still greater than the amount of decay)which can be used to correct for the assumption that equilibrium has been reached. All carbon 14 dates which have been published in the science journals can be telescoped to within the last 4000 years by this non-equilibrium model, and a maximum age for the earth of 11,500 years is established. At least that is the maximum age for the earth's atmosphere, and it would be hard to conceive of the earth existing without an atmosphere. Carbon 14 certainly has a half-life which is commensurate with a young age for the earth and seems to be a reasonable dating method when it has been properly calibrated.

When we examine what the scientists have to say, rather than taking their word at face value, and compare it with the Bible, we find that there is no need to stretch out the days of creation, no need to formulate a gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2. If we are willing to stand behind what the Bible affirms - that God created the heavens and the earth by His power in six literal days, as He says He did - our position can be supported by the actual facts of science. There is no known discrepancy which would disprove Biblical statements. Antithetical proposals are simply the assumptions of men who choose not to believe in God and who are trying to document the development of animals and plants apart from God. They wish to rely on natural processes rather than upon any supernatural force. The evolutionary position is held by faith. How much better to place our faith in a Biblical position of a supernatural God, who has the power and the authority to accomplish what He says He did.