IX. Why The Gap Theory Won't Work by Henry M. Morris
A. Those who advocate the gap theory agree that the six days of the creation week were literal days, but they interpret them only as days of recreation, with God creating again many of the kinds of animals and plants destroyed in the cataclysm.
B. What is the Purpose of the Gap Theory?
The gap theory was developed mainly for the purpose of accommodating the great ages demanded by evolutionary geologists. This idea was first popularized by a Scottish theologian, Thomas Chalmers, early in the 19th century. In this country, the famous Scofield Study Bible made it an almost universally accepted teaching among fundamentalists.
C. However, serious conflicts do remain.
In fact, there are few, if any, professionally trained geologists and astronomers (to my knowledge there are none) who accept the gap theory. The promoters of this theory have mostly been Bible teachers who hoped they could place these great ages in a gap between the first two verses of Genesis, and thus not have to deal with them at all.
D. Is the Gap Theory Scientific?
The reason why geologists will not accept the gap theory is that it contradicts their assumption that the past is continuous with the present. There is no room in their naturalistic approach to science for a global cataclysm that would destroy all life and then require a new creation of plants, animals, and people such as the gap theory proposes.
Any cataclysm that would leave the earth "without form and void" (or "a shapeless chaotic mass" as The Living Bible expresses it), with "darkness on the face of the deep" everywhere, would require a worldwide nuclear or volcanic explosion that would effectively disintegrate the whole crust of the earth. All pre-cataclysm mountains would be blown into the sea and billions of tons of rocks and dust blown into the atmosphere, leaving the earth covered with "the deep" everywhere and "darkness" covering the
deep everywhere.
Such a cataclysm would disintegrate any previously deposited sedimentary deposits with their fossils and thus obliterate all evidence of any previous "geological ages." Thus the gap theory, which is supposed to accommodate the geological ages, requires a cataclysm which would destroy all evidence for the geological ages.
E. Is it Theologically Sound?
The God of Creation is an omnipotent and omniscient God, and is also a God of grace, mercy, and love. The very concept of the geological ages, on the other hand, implies a wasteful and cruel "god," and therefore probably no god at all.
The supposed geologic ages are identified in terms of the fossils found in the earth's sedimentary rocks, and there are multiplied billions of them there. But fossils speak of death—even violent death. The preservation of dead animals requires rapid burial if they are to last very long. There are many regions, for example, where there are millions of fossil fish preserved in the rocks. There are dinosaur fossil beds on every continent, as well as great beds of fossil marine invertebrates practically everywhere. These may
indeed speak of cataclysmic death and burial, but not a cataclysm operating slowly over billions of years, as the geological ages imply. If the gap theory were valid, it would mean that God had instituted an ages-long system of suffering and death over the world, before there were ever any men and women to place in dominion over that world, and then suddenly destroy it in a violent cataclysm. Why would an omnipotent, merciful God do such a wasteful and cruel thing as that?
They cannot blame Satan, either. According to the gap theory, Satan's fall took place at the end of the geological ages, followed by the great pre-Adamic cataclysm on the earth. Thus the geological ages, with their eons of cruelty and waste, took place even before Satan's sin. God Himself would be solely responsible for the whole debacle, if it really happened.
F. But is the Gap Theory Biblical?
If there really had been billions of years of animals suffering and dying before Genesis 1:2, why would God say nothing about it? The best they can offer in support of such a notion are some out-of-context quotes from Isaiah and Jeremiah, along with an ad hoc translation of Genesis 1:1,2.
And why would God send such a devastating cataclysm at all? Satan's fall did not occur until after the creation week of Genesis 1, for at that time God had pronounced the whole creation "very good" (Genesis 1: 31). [Satan was not created during the six days of creation documented in Genesis. All of that creation was very good, and Satan is not good. Owen Weber http://pages.prodigy.net/owebr/gap.htm] At present, however, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together" (Romans 8:22) because of the great curse pronounced by God on man's dominion (Genesis 3:17-19), as a result of sin.
This groaning creation has indeed experienced one global cataclysm—one not inferred from vague hints in out-of-context quotes, but rather one described in great detail in Genesis 6-9 and referred to often and unambiguously in later passages—namely, the worldwide Flood in the days of Noah. Most of the vast fossil graveyards in the earth's crust can best be explained as one of the results of the Flood.
This awesome spectacle of destruction and death was not part of God's "very good" creation. There was no death in the world until sin was in the world (Romans 5:12; I Corinthians 15:21; etc.). In fact, death itself is "the wages of sin" (Romans 6:23). Our future deliverance from sin and death has been purchased by the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, who is "the propitiation for our sins and ... also for the sins of the whole world" (John 2:2).
But if "death reigned" not "from Adam to Moses," as the Bible says (Romans 5:14), but had already reigned for billions of years before Adam, then death is not the wages of sin but instead was part of God's creative purpose. How then could the death of Christ put away sin? The gap theory thus undermines the very gospel of our salvation, as well as the holy character of God.
The fact is that no such gap exists between the first two verses of Genesis at all. The second verse merely describes the initial aspect of the creation as "without form and void"—that is, with neither structure nor inhabitants. The rest of the chapter tells how God produced a marvelous structure for His created universe, with multitudes of plant and animal inhabitants for the earth, all to be under the dominion of its human inhabitants created in the image of God. It was only then that God pronounced the creation "finished" (Genesis 2:1).
It is time for those who believe the Bible and in the goodness and wisdom of God to abandon the gap theory once and for all (as well as the day-age theory, which is even worse) and simply believe what God has said. The gap theory has no scientific merit, requires a very forced Biblical exegesis, and leads to a God-dishonoring theology. It does not work, either Biblically or scientifically.
[Respected theologians Thomas Chalmers, A.W. Pink, C.S. Lewis, M.R. DeHaan, and Donald Grey Barnhouse have all shared an interest in this theory. Even Francis Schaeffer is sympathetic to points of
their argument. But perhaps the most important member of this school is the one who popularized it widely: C.I. Scofield. Yes, he is the author of the notes to the Study Bible of the same name. Now, some of you will appreciate the next fact with more humor than others because of our ongoing discussion of application of such notes. In the Masoretic text of Genesis, ancient Jewish scholars attempted to incorporate "indicators" or notes to guide the reader in proper pronunciation and interpretation of Hebrew
text. Following verse one in their text is a small mark known as a rebhia which serves to inform the reader that there is a break in the narrative at this point. Thus, the Gap theory so popularized in Scofield's study Bible was itself the result of one of the very first Jewish Study Bibles published in antiquity!
by Max A Forsythe http://www.tulip.org/trf/gen2.htm]
X. YOUNG EARTH AND ARGUMENTS AGAINST GAP-THEORY
A. "without form and void"
1. Cataclysm would destroy records of geologic time-- Earth’s crust would disintegrate which would destroy all evidence for the geological ages.
2. Earth was created covered by water -- without form
3. Void = no living inhabitants -- yet
B. Creation with "Apparent Age"
1. Adam -- a man not a baby
2. Animals Adult -- Matured
3. Trees -- Mature -- Rings
4. Rocks -- Appear with age
5. Sand by the seashore -- Would assume long period of time to produce.
6. Adam could look up and see the stars on his first day. Light from stars would have been created as if present for thousands/millions of years.
C. Replenish Gen. 1:28 and 9:1 -- Should be to "fill"; incorrect translation of the Hebrew
(http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-a/btg-014a.htm BTG NO. 14a Closing The Gap by Ken Ham)
That the word "replenish" in Genesis 1:28 in the King James Version does not mean, "refill?" (Researched by Dr. Charles Taylor, linguist with the Creation Science Foundation of Australia).
Some have used the word "replenish" to support the Gap Theory, which makes it necessary for God to refill the earth after "pre-Adamites" perished due to Satan's fall. Does "replenish" really mean "refill?"
1. The Hebrew word translated "replenish" simply means "fill"—not "refill"! The Hebrew word
occurs 306 times in the Old Testament and in not one instance does it mean, "refill."
2. The Latin prefix "re" originally meant "again," but then it lost this meaning. At the time the King James Bible was translated in 1611,"replenish" was just a scholarly word for "fill." They almost certainly came to use it because an old word, "plenish," was dying out.
3. An examination of the Oxford English dictionary shows the English word "replenish" was used to mean "fill" from the 13th to the17th Centuries.1n no case, during these five centuries does it mean "refill."
4. In the 17th century, English scholars began trying to restore original meanings to words and prefixes, so "re" in English once more came to mean "again." Today, most words with "re" do mean again, such as "rewrite," etc. There are other instances, however, as in "replete," where there is no such meaning.
In the King James Version, Genesis 1:28 means "fill the earth," not "refill the earth"!
D. Death before Sin--Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:”
Fossils speak of death -- Disease, decay and death are evident -- this is supposedly ages before man brought sin into the world, and death by sin. Death could not come before Adam because
it could not come before Adam’s sin.
E. Satan's sin and fall -- In Heaven, not on Earth. Ezek 28 "I will cast thee to the ground" (or earth) (use pages 55-56 "The Beginning of the World" ? Can’t find book from last study.)
F. Satan was not on Earth, at least not as a wicked rebel against God prior to Adam's creation. Gen. 1:31 “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” Everything made -- it was very good. Satan had to fall after Adam was created.
G. Cataclysm would have destroyed geologic record -- rock strata intact Job 12:15 “Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.” Underground cavities emptied of water during Noah’s flood -- earth sinks in --turns over
H. Flood is described -- reasons, causes, and effects are given; pre-Adamic cataclysm is
never mentioned (Henry Morris)
I. Gap-Theory tried to reconcile with geologic ages and therefore the basis of evolution (H.Morris)
J. Jeremiah 4:23 “I beheld the earth, and, lo, [it was] without form, and void; and the heavens, and they [had] no light.”-- to be fulfilled -- Jacob's trouble Jer 30:7 “Alas! for that day [is] great, so that none [is] like it: it [is] even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.”
K. Isa 24:1 “Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.” -- Prophecy of coming judgment upon the land and the people of Israel, not a hypothetical race of pre-Adamites
L. II Peter 3:5-6 “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:” (v.6) “Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:” -- Flood of Noah
