T. Allen Burr Ministries

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1, ESV) Most people are very familiar with this scripture, as it is the first in the Bible. It is an integral part of the creation narrative of Christianity. That said, there are several theories of what creation looked like: young and old earth creationism, intelligent design, the big bang theory, and simulation theory. These theories vary widely in their interpretation of the creation narrative, but each of them share something important, and unexpected, in common. To understand that commonality, it would do well to understand the basics of each theory.

Earth creationism can be broken down into two camps: young earth and old earth. Young earth creationism takes the Bible very literally. They place the age of the earth to be somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years old and interpret the act of creation described in Genesis 1 as being done in six consecutive 24-hour periods. Meanwhile, old earth creationism offers a more literary interpretation of the Genesis 1 narrative. They believe the earth is 4.5 billion years old, based on factors such as geologic timescale data, carbon dating, radiometric dating, and other scientific measurements. They interpret the six days of creation as being representative of different epochs in our planet’s history. Both of these viewpoints affirm the existence of God and ascribe the act of creation to Him.

Intelligent design is ​​the theory that certain features of the universe, including living things, are best explained by an intelligent cause. This means that there is some kind of creative entity out in the ether that directed the process of creation. However, it is not a Christian theory. It isn’t creationism. Whereas creationism begins with the Genesis narrative, intelligent design begins by looking at compelling empirical evidence which suggests that the nature of creation is guided by an “intelligent cause” and not by an undirected cause like natural selection. 

The Big Bang Theory, not the TV show, is the theory that the universe started as an immesurably hot and dense point that exploded and expanded into all of creation over billions of years. This is a relatively new theory of creation, as the base theory for it was proposed back in 1948. Those who hold to this theory view the universe as being 13.7 billion years old, with the earth being 4.5 billion years old. They also, typically, hold to a Darwinian/evolutionary understanding of the origins of life on earth.

Lastly, I’ll address Simulation Theory. This theory is rather straightforward. Simulation theory is the premise that we all live in a computer-simulated, computer-generated world. According to this theory, our universe is simply a simulation being run by an entity living in a reality far and away from our own, in a reality beyond our comprehension. This means that every aspect of creation, including human beings, is predetermined, coded, and fixed. This also means that the age of the universe and origins of life on earth are less important as they would be simple variables that could be altered by “the programmer.”

This is by no means an exhaustive list or analysis of the theories of creation, but it gives us a sample of theories to work with. As I stated at the beginning of the article, these theories share something important, and unexpected, in common. No matter which you adhere to, there comes a moment in which a certain presumption must be made as to the cause. If you believe in evolution, that’s well, fine, and good, but there comes a point in which the question must be asked: How did the first organism come into existence? The same goes with the Big Bang theory. Scientists can use computer modeling to “rewind” the state of the universe to mere moments after the Big Bang but never to what comes immediately before it. This should beg the question: What caused nothingness to explode into somethingness? No matter which theory you adhere to, there is a cause. Comedian Pete Holmes had this to say in one of his comedy routines, “Either you think it’s God, who you can’t see, touch, taste, photograph, and science can’t prove, or you think it’s nothing, which you can’t see, touch, taste, photograph, and science can’t prove. But I think we can all agree, if your nothing sometimes spontaenously erupts into everything, that’s a pretty magical nothing.”