When God created all things, did he do it in six twenty-four hour days or do these days represent epochs of time ranging from millions or billions of years? We would have to speculate on the motive of God for each creation belief. God is beyond time, above it, creator of it, and ruler over it. God has no need to constrain Himself with time or a timeframe so what is the purpose of six literal twenty-four hour days? God uses this to establish time and structure for mankind, since time is of no use to God He is not bound by it. Creating all things in a millisecond would do mankind no good, it establishes no structure and shows no compassion or care in His own creation and therefore cannot be a possibility. If indeed each day were an epoch of millions or billions of years, we also run into a similar problem. Instead of God needing only a short time, He needed or used, a very long period of time. This does no good for mankind as it establishes nothing except again that God does not seem too interested in His own creation. He seems to be starting things off in each day or epoch and just kind of letting it go, which is not only uncaring but lacks the structure required for man.
St. John Chrysostom warns us of delving into creation with "human reasoning" in Eight Sermons on the Book of Genesis, pg.31-33. This shows how much wisdom St. John really did possess, to know that science would ignore God's incomprehensible infiniteness and subject Him to scientific scrutiny. Since the theory of evolution did not exist until recently, why should we apply it to scripture? Evolution is a convoluted theory based on interpretation of "evidence", what is factual about that, and why should we apply it to scripture? We should not, it does not even make sense when it is applied. As stated previously, what is the point of having days or epochs of millions or billions of years? God could created all things in any sort of time frame He chose to, an evolutionary standpoint does not make sense. There is no motive in doing so. To create all things in an instant is not only against scripture but just lacks any sort of common sense and again, motive or purpose.
The only logical interpretation would be a literal one. The purpose of God is clear in this instance, mankind. Mankind needs structure and time, our biological clocks revolve around time and when it is thrown off by travel or working the late shift, our bodies let us know. Each day God created something new, he was also establishing time for us in a way that we would understand, what other reason would God create in such a way? God is in no need of time, therefore if you are a theistic evolutionist then you must be like a detective and establish a motive first, and think science later. Purpose, we have established the purpose and necessity for six day creation, but there no purpose for millions or billions of years.
Would God actually need that time in which to "perfect" His creation, or could He create it all as is? When Adam was created, he was not created as an infant and was not born. Adam must have been middle aged, whatever that is for that time. I am assuming that when things were created, they were created in a similar manner, mid aged or so. Believing God is constrained by time would mean that you believe God to be limited and below time. Needing millions or billions of years would mean that God is unable to create things right the first time and needs time for them to evolve until the next day or epoch to create the next thing. Again what is the purpose for mankind here? It lacks purpose and logic, theologically speaking anyways. This is an attempt to reconcile the two belief systems. People who do this cannot, or will not, part with one or the other. So the only logical thing to do for an illogical mind, put them together. Unfortunately for them these two beliefs are opposed to one another, unless you selectively embrace different parts of scripture and science.
Science's evidence for evolution is like evidence for the existence of God, when a spiritual man looks at the evidence for God, his argument is strengthened by it because he is interpreting it through a spiritual mindset. When a scientist looks at the evidence for evolution, he feels his belief is fact, because he is interpreting it through an evolutionary mindset. There may be evidence that we feel points in one direction but none of it empirically shows that either is true, both are faith. In the Christian view we see that God established time for us, and then gave it structure for us, and this is the purpose for the literal six twenty-four hour day creation, which the theistic evolutionists lack in their explanation.
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