What Matters

Consider two atoms moving back and forth. Does God truly care about the fact that those atoms are moving or how they move? There are two answers, and both are correct. First: Yes, but only inasmuch as the atoms play a role in affecting a person's life. By God's divine control, all of the complications of reality sum up in such a way that every particle plays an important role in affecting choice of the free will of each and every person in the universe. Hence, each particle is significant in that respect. The second answer: No. Particles are only a medium through which God conveys His love and we convey our love to God (via acts directed to please Him, especially such acts of loving neighbor). The motion of these particles is irrelevant. With respect to how I perform an act of love, God does not care if I move particular molecules of air around someone in order to perform the act of hugging or if I move the molecules of air a quarter inch above the other molecules in order to perform the same action. To summarize, in and of themselves, particle motion is meaningless or without significance.

Amongst theists, there are various points of view as to how God created the human race. Did God do things exactly according to a literal, six-24-hour-day interpretation of Genesis, or did it God use a more gradual process, perhaps macro-scale evolution? The answer to this question is hidden within the reason as to why God made the universe in the first place.

See "for-love-of-humanity".

So if God created humanity for their love, why would He watch the world build itself up, even if does seem instantaneous to Him? Why wouldn't God get started on what is significant immediately? Critics have commented that they don't like to put-thoughts-in-God's-mind, so-to-speak, implying that I might be doing so. Honestly, I am in a sense, but this is not because I think I know God inside out, but because we CAN know what God has revealed to us about Himself. It is not putting-a-thought-in-God's head to quote First John and say that God is loving and loving leads to self-sacrifice ("This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." - 1 Jn 4:10). Hence, since God is Love, it is not wrong to have certain expectations of that love. For example, love considers the beloved significant. Everything else is not necessarily insignificant, unless it has no meaning to the lover apart from the beloved. Hence, considering all this and the fact that the motion of the particles is meaningless, it is impossible to conclude that anything besides humanity is worth occupying God's attention before humanity's creation. Thus, the ideas of macro-evolution (in which creation progresses towards the point of humanity) or even six-24-hour-day creation are absurd theologically-speaking. It would make more sense for God to do everything instantaneously.

Concerning macro-evolution and six-24-hour-day creation, there are problems with each.

First, macro-evolution relies purely on scientific arguments. Instead of relying on God to instantaneously do His will, the viewpoint attempts to conform religion with science, essentially putting God in a box where the idea of God becomes the well-criticized model of "the god of the gaps". There are also some people who may take a different viewpoint and say that God was taking pleasure in forming creation. However, once again, forming creation is essentially the meaningless motion of particles. How long would God, an eternal being of infinite patience and creativity, "watch" His creation take shape via the meaningless motion of particles? It might be argued that, in this case, the motion of the particles is not meaningless since it is building up for the human race. However, this argument is flawed in that it fails to realize that God, when He instantaneously creates something, can arrange the particles in the exact setup they need to be in and with the exact speeds they need to have in order to fulfill the exact same role as if they had a 60 billion year head start. When "God saw that it was good" (various verses in Genesis 1 say this), it does not necessarily mean that God's creation was now an enjoyable thing to watch for its own sake. On the contrary, it simply points to the fact that God instilled Himself in His work, and He is thus visible in it. Notice that it never says, "God delighted in His creation" in the accounts of creation.

The 24-hour-day creation has similar problems. First is the time delay, which has already been accounted for. Second is the indescriptive nature of the word "day". The original word in Hebrew is "yom", meaning some indeterminate time period: anywhere from a moment to however long you wanted; it does not specifically mean "day". The word is used for "day" occasionally, but remember that the Hebrews only knew of a "day" with respect to the sun. A day for them could just refer to the morning hours (6 AM to 6 PM), and not restricted to 24 hours. Considering that Genesis is written to the Hebrews who would have interpreted "day" in that way, it would seem peculiar that the first "day" of creation would be over before the earth (dry ground) even existed, since light was created first.

In conclusion, there is little or no Biblical evidence to support either the macro-evolution hypothesis or the six-24-hour-day creation. What is most probable is that God instantly created everything.