Where Will its Stand on the Six Days of Creation Lead the PCA?

Every faith has to make decisions about what it believes.

The Christian church generally agrees its beliefs are based on the Bible. Beyond that, though, agreement is often hard to find.

Case in point: those of us who call ourselves reformed or Calvinists agree that Scripture is inerrant and the whole counsel of God’s Word is true, without contradiction. So what do we do when Scripture tells us that “God created the heavens and the earth” in six days? We argue about it.

Whether or not one believes in six 24 hour days of creation does not determine whether one is a Christian; that is dependent solely on believing in Jesus Christ. However, what the leaders of a denomination believe about the days of creation may be determinant of its future.

This piece will examine the Presbyterian Church in America’s 2000 decision that in many cases allows elders to deny six 24 hour days of creation without taking an exception to the Westminster Standards and the effects of that decision on the PCA today and into the future. Sneak preview of the conclusion: the future of the PCA is in God’s hands, and we should be in constant prayer to Him about the direction He will take us because we are not doing a very good job of it ourselves.

Every elder in the PCA is required to “sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of this Church as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scripture.”

However, this doesn’t mean that they have to agree with everything the Westminster Standards proclaim. The Book of Church Order 19-2 says, “our Constitution does not require the applicant’s affirmation of every statement and/or proposition of doctrine in our Confession of Faith and Catechisms.”

What it does mean is that it is up to each Presbytery to determine if a candidate for elder “is out of accord with any of the fundamentals of these doctrinal standards.”

This is done by requiring a candidate to “state the specific instances in which he may differ with the Confession of Faith and Catechisms.” Then, if “the difference is neither hostile to the system nor strikes at the vitals of religion,” the candidate can move forward, pending meeting other requirements, including election by the congregation.

Some relatively common exceptions from the Westminster Standards that might be taken by an elder and granted by a presbytery are those related to the Sabbath, exclusive Psalmody, and civil magistrates. But one exception that is often not taken, anymore, is on the days of creation.

That is because of the PCA’s adoption at its 2000 General Assembly of a study report that allows PCA elders to hold any of several views on the days of creation “as long as the full historicity of the creation account is accepted.”

Genesis 1, of course, tells us that “God created the heavens and the earth” in six days, with each day being separated by evening and morning. The reality of the 24 hour days of creation cannot get much clearer than that. Jesus supports this in Mark 10:6 when He says, “from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female,'” indicating that Day Six was very close in time to Day One. And again when He says the “blood of Abel” was “shed from the foundation of the world.” The biblical text leaves no room for days that last for billions of years so that, for instance, the earth could have slowly formed out of the remnants of the big bang.

Likewise, the Westminster Confession, tracking Genesis 1, states “It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost … to create or make of nothing the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days.”

This plain understanding of creation is nothing new. Throughout history, the church has read Scripture as reporting a God-created creation that occurred over six 24-hour days (or instantaneously, in at least one instance) within the last several thousand years. From the church fathers through Augustine (instantaneous creation), Aquinas, the Reformers (including Calvin), the Westminster Divines, and the post reformers, this has been the case.

So how did the PCA, with only 170 out of over 900 elders dissenting, decide that something other than the six 24 hour days of creation view was acceptable? By making hash out of both Scripture and the Westminster Confession.

The Day-Age interpretation of the creation account, ignoring the evening and morning modifiers, contends that ‘yôm,’ the Hebrew word for day, could mean ages, thus allowing for days of millions or billions of years. This view also allows for death to occur before the fall, discounting Romans 5:12: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”

Perhaps the most popular non-24 hour day view in the PCA today is the Framework interpretation, which takes the position that “the scheme of the creation week itself is a poetic figure.” Its proponents come to this conclusion by claiming Genesis 1 and 2 are differing and conflicting accounts of creation by viewing Genesis 1 in light of the less clear Genesis 2:5-7.

Yet this stands sound hermeneutical principle on its head, which requires that “a clear passage … be used to shed light on a difficult, not-so-clear passage.” Of the two, Genesis 1 is much more straight forward: the world was created in six days. Going in this direction, it becomes clear rather quickly that Genesis 1 is a history of creation and Genesis 2 is a history of man, starting on Day Six. The plain meaning of the text in Genesis 1 helps us see that both are historical and without conflict–though still with some mystery. Which makes sense, since all of Genesis–including the creation account–is most naturally read as history.

While there is (a little) room for debate when looking at the scriptural account of creation, there is much less so when it comes to the Westminster Confession. It is not an ancient text written in a foreign tongue by men with a significantly different worldview; instead, it was written only a few hundred years ago in English by modern men, most–if not all–of whom individually believed in a creation of six 24 hour days. Yet Framework proponents take the phrase, “It pleased God … to create … the world … in the space of six days,” and determine that it could mean something else, using reasoning like this:

the confessional language “in the space of six days” is substantially equivalent to Scripture, and … the clear expressed intention of the Westminster Assembly is thus to be no more or less explicit than Scripture itself.

In other words, since the Framework proponents have previously muddied the clear meaning of Genesis 1, the Westminster language can be declared opaque as well.

Why is the PCA’s treatment of the days or creation important when thinking about its future?

By allowing those who do not agree with the Church’s historical interpretation of Genesis 1 to avoid taking an exception to the Westminster Standards, or be granted a “standard” exception, the General Assembly essentially set up a self-selection process biased toward those who are willing to stray from sound exegesis of Scripture when under pressure from the culture around us.

In the meantime, elder candidates who hold other positions that may conflict with the Westminster Standards–but have not received a Westminster waiver from General Assembly–have a harder time standing for ordination. For instance, many sessions will not approve a candidate who thinks the Bible allows for paedo-communion–even if they agree not to teach their views. Unlike those who hold to the framework interpretation, they may be told that their position on communion means they don’t really understand the issue and could indicate other theological concerns.

This selection bias has made it much harder for sessions and congregations to ensure that candidates for elders keep to the historical interpretation, and thus has resulted in more elders in the PCA that have adopted and taught various positions in opposition to the 24 hour day position. While there is not a one-on-one correlation between views on the days of creation and views on other issues being debated in the church today, I suggest that those who reject the biblical view of creation are more likely to hold other theological beliefs that should concern us.

N.T. Wright is one example. After years of rejecting 24 hour days in creation, he has recently questioned the existence of a historical Adam.

I suggest this concern is being validated each passing day as the number of theological positions adopted by the PCA using tortuous reasoning that bends to the culture around us grows.

Today the PCA is full of churches that allow women to read scripture, lead prayers, and/or serve communion during Sunday worship. The majority of elders in the PCA seem comfortable with or supportive of an openly gay (though celibate) man being a PCA pastor; the upcoming study committee report on homosexuality seems destined to reflect this view. The General Assembly has adopted a number of overtures and guidance on race that seem to be be based more on the culture’s concept of “white privilege” than on the scriptural concept of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation. And theology based on social justice, rather than biblical justice, seems to be taking a foothold in the denomination as well.

So far we have covered the past and present. What does the future hold?

Well, thanks be to God that He is sovereign over everything, including the future of the PCA. It will come to pass as He ordains it. And it will be good. My prayer to Him is that we as elders, deacons, and members of the PCA should repent of our individual and corporate sins, especially of how we continue to reject the clear meaning of His Word in an attempt to placate the raging nations around us and shield ourselves from their hostility. And that we might instead proclaim to the nations the full counsel of God’s Word, making disciples of them and teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded us.