The Physical Necessity For The Order Of The Six Days

In the National Catholic Reporter for March 15-28^th of 2013 – on page 21 – there is an article by an Irish theologian and Columban missionary priest, Fr. Sean McDonagh, entitled “Church’s Teaching on Ecology Still Light Green”.  I bypass Fr. McDonagh’s main complaint about the Church’s less than clear and even more than less urgent, teaching on ecology and its relation to Creation. I go rather to the core points of his ideology. I give here two summary quotes:

 
“Unless one understands the magnitude of a problem, one cannot design appropriate responses.”

Truer words were never spoken! But their application to our present situation in the Church vis a vis Creation –something Fr. McDonagh is incapable of grasping – is material for a large book. And so must be postponed as of now. And I move on to my immediate issue with Father’s article. Here is the second quote:

“As we know from the various sciences….the Earth is 4.6 billion years old and that life on earth is about 3.8 billion years old. There were fully functioning ecosystems in the lower carboniferous period from 324 million to 354 million years ago. At that time there were no flowering plants or birds, but there were giant horsetails and ferns and an array of creatures, most of which are now extinct. In religious terms, I am sure that God would have spoken the Genesis words,“It is good,” over this and other phases of the evolution of life on Earth. God would not be waiting for Homo sapiens to arrive about 200,000 years ago to give meaning to creation. It is important theologically to remember that God has a history with nature that is independent of God’s relationship with humanity.”

I have never seen this separation of man from“nature” stated so clearly, in all of its most starkly dark falsehood. There must be, then, two Gods: One for Nature and One for Mankind.

One major problem with this is that science (True Science here) shows us quite irrefutably, that the plants, the animals, birds and man’s body – are all made of the same physical elements. Only the arrangements are different in and unique to each bara-min or created kind– even within the large kingdoms of plant, animal and man. Mankind alone, of all corporeal beings, is the sole representative of his genus and his species. The differences of skin color, skull size and other measurements, - hair texture, and all other physical variations found amongst human beings, are but minor variations – on the same theme of humanity. Here, to my shame, but grateful shame, as should all Catholics, I must refer to the work of the Protestant Creationists, especially that of Dr. Duane Gish, who is certainly the world’s best authority on what evolutionists try to tell us are hominids on the way to homo sapiens. All such human-like “ancestors” have been demonstrated to belong to some species of true primate. Read true accounts of the infamous Scopes trial!

But I digress from my primary aim in this paper, which is to show the physical necessity for the literal Six Days of the Divine Revelation of the Genesis account of Creation.

Given the 3.8 billion years of life on earth, is it possible – in an evolutionary scenario, that the elemental constitution of plants, animals and man would be the same, as is the case in reality? It is difficult – if not impossible, to explain the reality of man– the microcosmos of all systems below him in the Hierarchy of Being– or in the evolutionary “pre-history” – if there were a God of Nature – different from a God of humanity. Creation is one in its physical-material constitution because there is but one God – Who is the Creator of all things. Here is where the necessity of the transcendentals come in. All beings are One, Good and True to God’s idea. For this reason, too, all finite things – “visible and invisible”, manifest in their diverse ways or modes of being, the same physical and metaphysical principles. So, for example, all finite beings manifest in their real existence, a composite of:

Act and Potency – (Angels have only act and potency) – of Form and function – of Form and matter – of Substantial Form and Accidental Forms. Because of this observable and measurable composite nature of every corporeal being, we are forced, if we are to avoid the absurdity of an infinite regress, to admit of a Being Who is all Act with no potency, and to an Efficient Cause of all things – Who is Himself uncaused because He is infinite and eternal. In other words, we have arrived at the 5 Ways of St. Thomas (ST I, q.2, a3) – than which there simply are no better ways of proving God’s existence and His attributes. This fully satisfies the normal human mind – because the human mind is so structured – as to reason according to these First Principles – even when they are denied. Such is the situation today. (See this writer’s Textbook for the Sciences.) The proof-point is that an omnipotent God does not act by temporal processes. He is not limited by time. He is the Creator of time, which began with His first corporeal creature. Therefore, the very best way for God Himself to reveal to man exactly how He created all things, is exactly the way it is revealed in Genesis 1: by a day by day series of a-temporal, i.e., absolutely transcendent Acts of Creation – ex nihilo and in toto.

Whether absolutely, strictly and completely ex nihilo– as on Day One with the creation of the angels and the physical elements, or by making something totally new and unrepeatable, as on Days 3,4,5and 6 – and in creating human souls -- for each new body a new soul, - God’s Acts are absolutely new and unrepeatable. The Protestant Creationists have done, and continue to do, great work in empirically proving that the Earth cannot be more than 10,000 years old. But this is a long way from demonstrating that All things were created in six literal – 24 hour days. We can only say – and I submit it is proof enough – that God’s very nature demands acceptance of the Genesis narrative of Creation. If this is falling into Rationalism, which is to say, expecting human reason to be able to understand and explain everything, then let us hasten to point out that while arriving at God’s existence and attributes is accessible to human reason, as St. Thomas amply demonstrates, the acceptance of the Genesis account –because it is Divine Revelation – does require the supernatural virtue of Faith.