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Gap creationism (also known asruin-restoration creationism,restoration creationism, or "the Gap Theory") is a form ofcreationism that posits that the six-yom creation period, as described in theBook of Genesis, involved six literal 24-hour days (light being "day" and dark "night" as God specified), but that there was a gap of time between two distinct creations in the first and the second verses of Genesis, which the theory states explains many scientific observations, including theage of the Earth.[1][2][3] It differs fromday-age creationism, which posits that the 'days' of creation were much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years), and fromyoung Earth creationism, which although it agrees concerning the six literal 24-hour days of creation, does not posit any gap of time.
From 1814,[4]Thomas Chalmers popularized gap creationism;[5] he attributed the concept to the 17th-century DutchArminian theologianSimon Episcopius. Chalmers wrote:
"My own opinion, as published in 1814, is that it [Genesis 1:1] forms no part of the first day, but refers to a period of indefinite antiquity when God created the worlds out of nothing. The commencement of the first day's work I hold to be the moving of God's Spirit upon the face of the waters. We can allow geology the amplest time...without infringing even on the literalities of the Mosaic record."[6]
Chalmers became adivinity professor at the University of Edinburgh, founder of theFree Church of Scotland, and author of one of theBridgewater Treatises. Other early proponents of gap creationism includedOxford University geology professor and fellowBridgewater authorWilliam Buckland,Sharon Turner andEdward Hitchcock.[4] The idea gained widespread attention when a "second creative act"[7] was discussed prominently in the reference notes for Genesis in the influential 1917Scofield Reference Bible.[4]
In 1954, a few years before the re-emergence of young-Earthflood geology eclipsed gap creationism, influential evangelical theologianBernard Ramm wrote inThe Christian View of Science and Scripture:[4]
"The gap theory has become the standard interpretation throughout hyper-orthodoxy, appearing in an endless stream of books, booklets, Bible studies, and periodical articles. In fact, it has become so sacrosanct with some that to question it is equivalent to tampering with Sacred Scripture or to manifest modernistic leanings".
Ramm's book became influential in the formation of another alternative to gap creationism, that ofprogressive creationism, which found favour with more conservative members of theAmerican Scientific Affiliation (a fellowship of scientists who are Christians), with the more modernist wing of that fellowship favouringtheistic evolution.[8]
Religious proponents of this form of creationism have includedCyrus I. Scofield,Harry Rimmer,G. H. Pember,Lewis Sperry Chafer,Oral Roberts,Jimmy Swaggart,[9] Perry Stone, L. Allen Higley,[4]Arthur Pink,Peter Ruckman,Finis Jennings Dake,Chuck Missler,Robert Thieme,R. A. Torrey,E. W. Bullinger,Charles Welch,[10]Victor Paul Wierwille,[11]Donald Grey Barnhouse,Herbert W. Armstrong,Garner Ted Armstrong,Michael Pearl andClarence Larkin.[12]
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Some gap creationists may believe that science has proven beyond reasonable doubt that theEarth is far older than can be accounted for by, for instance, adding up the ages ofBiblical patriarchs asJames Ussher famously attempted in the 17th century when he developed theUssher chronology.
Gap creationists who hold to a young-earth position stress that it is more accurate to positGenesis 1:2 as destruction rather than a preparatory state for God's creation of Earth.[13][14] They also hold thatNoah's flood was a global flood and reject the idea thathumans existed before Adam.
For some, the gap theory allows both theGenesis creation account and geological science to beinerrant in matters of scientific fact. Gap creationists believe that certain facts about the past and the age of the Earth have been omitted from the Genesis account; they hold that there was a gap of time in the biblical account that lasted an unknown number of years between a first creation inGenesis 1:1 and a second creation (or restoration) inGenesis 1:2–31. By positing such an event, various observations in a wide range of fields, including the age of the Earth,the age of the universe, dinosaurs, fossils,ice cores,ice ages, water on other planets, and geological formations are allowed by adherents[15][16][17] to have occurred as outlined by science without contradicting theirliteral belief in Genesis.
Because there is no specific information given in Genesis concerning the proposed gap of time, other scriptures are used to support and explain what may have occurred during this period and to explain the specific linguistic reasoning behind this interpretation of theHebrew text. A short list of examples is given below:
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