Genesis and Geology For People of Faith and People of Fact

By Steve Morreale

Steve Morreale always believed in God. As a small boy, he would look up at the clouds in the sky and try to catch a glimpse of God looking down on him. After all, wasn't God watching over us? Lacking any in-depth understanding of the Bible, his faith remained simple and vulnerable to the nonbelieving, scientifically educated individuals he encountered. Steve's vulnerability reached a peak when he began studying geology in college.

The real facts of science--not the unproven theories--conspired to eliminate God from Steve's life equation. Well-meaning Christians required a Young Earth Creationist view that flew in the face of facts. Those small elements of truth could not be ignored; they could be seen, touched, and calculated. Faith could not erase them.

Eventually, Steve turned to the God of his childhood, and began to read the Bible. It's message of hope touched him. Could that hope and the facts of geology be reconciled? Genesis and Geology: For People of Faith and People of Fact walks through the six days of Creation. That walk describes what God created, and geology explains how He created it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798885404266

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Genesis and Geology For People of Faith and People of Fact

Steve Morreale

ISBN 979-8-88540-425-9 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88540-689-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 979-8-88540-426-6 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Steve Morreale

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

A Word about the Bible

Introduction

A Day in Genesis

The First Creation Day: The First Long Yom

The Second Creation Day: The Second Long Yom

The First Part of the Third Creation Day: The Third Long Yom

The Second Part of the Third Creation Day: The Third Long Yom

The Fourth Creation Day: The Fourth Long Yom

The Fifth Creation Day: The Fifth Long Yom

The Second Part of the Fifth Creation Day: The Fifth Long Yom

The Sixth Creation Day: The Sixth Long Yom

The Rest of the Sixth Creation Day: The Sixth Long Yom

The Seventh Yom: Our Yom

About the Author

To my beautiful wife, Berlinda, her unconditional love assured me and her patience brought me to this time and place.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the men who were my pastors; their sermons inspired me, and their advice was sound. More specifically, to Pastor Tony Maupin who took a chance and released me to be a pastor; to Pastor Les Moore, DDiv., whose mission travel allowed me to preach a three-week sermon series debuting the initial version of Genesis and Geology; and to Pastor Robert Sherwood, who was the first to propose the Genesis and Geology Seminar be developed into this book. I am also appreciative of Mike Ghiglia, director of Share the Son Ministries, who brought me from a state of stagnation back into active ministry; Dr. Robert Primrose, retired university professor, missionary, and pastor, whose expert reviews and editing furthered the refinement of this book; Pastor Patrick Jones, former software engineer and race car driver, whose detailed review of the manuscript made certain my selection of scriptures were appropriate to the text; and to Robert Czyzewski, retired engineer, program manager, and consultant, for his in-depth and productive review comments that ultimately enhanced my message. I count them all men of God and friends.

Preface

I am one confused man. You would think that as I write this late in my seventh decade, a guy would know what he is, but I am still not certain of my place in life. I was a geologist, at least I used to get paid to do geological work. I began a career with Shell Offshore Oil Company in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1981. This, after completing two degrees, a bachelor of arts in earth science and a master of arts in geology. That career lasted until 1986, when I fell into the category of dispensable as the price of oil plunged to less than thirty-two dollars/barrel. So much for a long career and company predictions. Managers assured the cadre of young geologists and geophysicists I belonged to that one hundred dollars/barrel was around the corner and heading our way. Why, each of us was a much-needed member of the Shell family and set for a lifetime of job security.

It was coincidentally during that time period (1981–1986) that I found myself slobbering profusely with a godly man. Bill was a local businessman who happened to lead an informal church group that catered to young professionals from the oil patch. Through free-flowing tears and snot, he led me in the time-honored sinner's prayer as I admitted I was a sinner and asked Jesus to be my Savior. It was Easter Sunday in 1982.

I entered a particularly confusing time after that. Trained in geology and specifically to believe the Earth was much older than the ten thousand years many Bible scholars advocated, I was torn between the facts of science and the hope of faith. I wanted desperately to embrace the wonderful promises of the Bible, yet I was conditioned to believe the rock-solid evidences of geology. These same evidences relegated me, and everybody else in the world, to a few decades of life on Earth and nothing more. I much preferred the hope of eternal life promised in the Bible.

What was I to do?

The answer to that question was not what one might logically conclude. But it was right in front of my eyes. I should become a pastor. It made perfect sense. I had come to love the Bible and enjoyed sharing its promises with others. The difficulty in this perfect sense was that it made very little sense. Here I was, believing the Bible and geology. These two disciplines of study seemed so far opposed to one another. Talk about contradictions, one offered the softness of hope, and the other offered the flinty hardness of hopelessness.

Still, led by a crazy desire, I became a pastor. And I was still one of those Bible-wary geologists. Think of it, a Bible-preaching (but never thumping) pastor, while still a rock-banging geologist. As Robin might say, Holy schizophrenia, Bibleman!

One would think these two diverse occupations might be enough to make a guy relatively satisfied and occupied holding two flaming candle ends and trying to avoid dripping wax in his lap. But no, not me. Somewhere along the line, I thought to add yet another pursuit. This third chase in life was that of an apologist. Now, becoming an apologist was a natural third career choice for me. I had offended enough people that being an apologist was something right up my power alley. Except as some of you know, and others are about to find out, I was not destined to be that kind of an apologist (and I am sorry for any confusion). The kind of apologist I am now referring to is the man or woman who practices the branch of theology that purposes to defend and offer proofs for Christianity.

By the way, before going on any further, I once read that people will likely have five careers before they breathe their last and are laid to a multicareer, well-deserved rest. With the previous paragraph on paper, I was now in my third career: geologist, pastor, and apologist.

Now this third career of mine placed me in a highly esteemed group of individuals from the past. These included from the first-century Church such notables as Justin, Tatian, and Tertullian. These heavy hitters were followed sometime later by Augustine, Aquinas, and yet later, Calvin and Arminius. There are many more apologists of more recent times.

The need to enter the rarified air of the aforementioned apologists is a definite outgrowth of one who practices preaching and geology, sometimes within the same sermon, and given the opportunity, on an actual outcrop. It has evolved (and I do not mean in the biologic sense) that preaching the gospel and geology simultaneously made it necessary that a seminar, and now a book, be written. Genesis and Geology is at its heart an apologetic. It is most definitely a defensive statement of the Christian faith in a world that has largely decided to be saved by science and not by Jesus. But not so fast, Einstein. Whereas the world of science over the last three hundred years has seemingly proven the Bible is mere myth, the last fifty years of science is amassing much evidence that the Bible is not so mythical. In fact, it may make incredibly good sense, and for someone who preaches the gospel and geology, it now makes perfect sense.

Genesis and Geology purposes to demonstrate four points: (1) Christians don't have to fear science anymore. (2) Christians can be bolstered in their faith by scientific evidences. (3) Scientists can keep their indisputable facts. And (4) Scientists can also acquire the hope of the Bible. These four points have led to the subtitle of Genesis and Geology, which is for people of faith and people of fact. The subtitle appears to address two distinct groups: Christians (people of faith) and scientists (people of fact). However, it is really my stealthy way of daring to propose that Christians can be people of faith and fact, and scientists can be people of fact and faith.

It occurs to me that in hopefully leading fact-based men and women to faith in Jesus Christ, I am now embarking on my fourth and fifth careers, that of an author and evangelist.

A Word about the Bible

There are numerous translations of the Bible, each attempting to put biblical writings in easy-to-read/understand language. Most readers are familiar with the King James Version (KJV), and most readers are equally familiar with that version's use of words such as thee, thine, thou, and etc. Such words have largely been rendered obsolescent by our modern culture and its vernacular and make reading and understanding the Bible unnecessarily difficult. The New King James Version (NKJV) has replaced now obsolete pronouns and other words with more modern equivalents. The NKJV has been joined by many other translations, including the New International Version (NIV), the New Living Translation (NLT), American Standard Version (ASV), New American Standard Version (NASV), English Standard Version (ESV), Christian Standard Version (CSV), and others. While the names of these Bibles carry the words versions or translations, it is extremely important that the reader understand these Bibles are internally consistent in content. The Christian Church does not have different versions in the sense that one version says something that contradicts another. The KJV, NKJV, NIV, NLT, ASV, NASV, ESV, CSV, and others are co-equal insofar as that they state the same idea; they merely use different words to enhance comprehension. However, it is also extremely important that the reader understand that non-Christian versions of the Bible exist, and they distort or misstate the truth of Scripture. With the above stated, this book incorporates multiple Bible quotations. All are from the NIV, unless otherwise noted.

Introduction

As the plane taxied from the terminal to the runway, I adjusted myself in my seat and began the now daily wrestling match in my mind. It seemed hardly fair. The reigning champ was geology, a brute with rock-hard abs and biceps that could easily apply metamorphic-intensity pressure upon the seemingly puny and far-too-gentle opponent—the Bible. I hated this struggle, knowing the outcome but always hoping for the greatest upset of all time. I pulled for the Bible to pick up geology and body slam it to the mat of faith and pin it for the count, even making it say, Uncle.

The plane's rapid acceleration pressed me back into my seat, and soon the jet ceased to be constrained by gravity. The landing gear clunked securely into their underwing receptacles and the plane steadily gained altitude and finally leveled off at its designated thirty-thousand-plus feet. The little light signaling passengers could unbuckle seat belts came on. It was accompanied by a pleasant-sounding bell tone. I readjusted myself, reached into my briefcase, and pulled out my Walkman to listen to a lecture on a cassette tape.

I can no longer remember my destination. It was somewhere a rookie geologist is sent by his employer to do something geological. It was in the early to mid-1980s as might be determined by the use of my then state-of-the-art Sony cassette player.

Having placed the headphones over my ears, I placed the cassette tape into the Walkman. Before pressing the play button, I noticed the roar of straining jet engines was now muffled along with coughs and whispered discussions of my fellow passengers. The silence was not really welcome because it served to usher in the deafening grunts and groans of the wrestling contestants. Pressing the play button, a voice came into my ears. The voice was espousing aspects of the Bible and essentially advising me that I must accept some of the traditionally held views of the Holy Scriptures. First and foremost, the speaker was advocating the absolute, unquestionable idea that the world was created in six, twenty-four-hour days. Instantly, my stomach tensed up, and the knot in it simultaneously communicated to my brain that physical duress now demanded emotional distress. The two travel in pairs. Anguish commenced, and it was not the first time it had as a consequence of hearing this same Bible commentator's perspective.

My response to the lecturing was one of sincere and troubled prayer, God, if you are real, why do You torture me with this over and over? Why do You subject me to this mental struggle? Don't You know I want to believe in You, that I made that decision to believe in Jesus and asked Him to be my Savior on that Easter Sunday morning? Don't You know that geology textbooks have clearly demonstrated that the world took longer, much longer, to come into existence than Your textbook claims?

It would have been very easy for God to reveal to Moses, the author of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, that it took a long time to create His Creation. There, how hard was that? Bible apologists and scientists would have nothing to argue about. Everybody would be happy and even have hope. Instead, for some reason, maybe some heavenly editor's oversight, the first chapter of Genesis talks about six days. Imagine that, six days of creation. Six days for the heavens and the Earth to be formed out of nothing. Before these days, there was absolutely nothing, and then suddenly, there was all of the matter that comprises everything. The stuff making everything just showed up in six days.

Faith is described in the New Testament. The author of the New Testament Book of Hebrews states, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." I think that is a good definition of faith. I think it is a very good definition. After all, Christians have faith in God, but no living one has seen Him. By definition, today's Christians express faith that Jesus is God the Son. Yet they haven't seen Him either. God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit (all One God, the Godhead, and thus the Holy Trinity) offer us the hope of eternal life by faith. All of this is reasonable. We choose to believe in one God even though we have not seen Him. We choose to believe in the hope of eternal life, yet none of us on Earth has yet to experience it. Again, I think this is reasonable. What is not reasonable is that this faith thing seems to require a blind eye to facts. Such facts are indisputable. This is why they are facts; they reflect actual measurements, reproducible experimental results, and exist in things that can be held in the hand and seen with the eye. Facts are individual elements of truth. They cannot be ignored because they somehow get in the way. Yet is God telling us to do just that? Is He really telling us to check in our gray matter and stop thinking? The answer has to be a resounding No!

God did not give us our incredible power of thought and reason to ignore the outcome of thinking and reasoning. Instead, I believe He gave us these abilities so that we can understand how He created. I believe He wants us to understand how He created so we could appreciate that He is uniquely omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing). It has been said that the Bible tells us what happened, and science can only tell us how it happened. In other words, the Bible tells us what God did and modern science is beginning to understand and explain how He did it!

My stomach hurt for years. I agonized over the wrestling match between the perennial geology champ and the unflinching Bible challenger. I learned the survival strategy of ignoring the facts so I did not have to question the biblical promise of hope. However, about ten years ago, I felt led to take courage and trust to delve into the facts and assess them against the Bible. What began as a multiple Sunday sermon series grew over time into Genesis and Geology. That earlier effort was admittedly a slow starter fraught with questionable assumptions. It was in a favorite description, less-than-stellar. Still, God used that first step to increase my own interest and courage to take the step in writing this book. I have been encouraged by a former pastor and others who have shared how such a book is needed and desired by pastors, and how the seminar version answered questions they have been asked by congregants and have even asked themselves. Their support has been bolstered by reading the works of other apologists and seeing my own independently arrived at conclusions conforming to their writings. Lastly, and most importantly, this is something I feel led by God to do. With all of the above so stated, I am emboldened.

Genesis and Geology: For People of Faith and People of Fact begins with a most important issue. It is the elephant in the corner of the room with an eight-hundred-pound gorilla sitting on its back. I am speaking of course of the notion that God created everything in six days: six twenty-four-hour days, a grand total of only 144 hours. Could it be? Well, yes, it can. He is omnipotent. He could have done it in the blink of an all-seeing eye and the snap of an all-powerful finger. Perhaps, more importantly, the question to be asked is, Must it be? I believe the answer to that question is also a resounding No.

1

A Day in Genesis

Dr. Cooper drilled the mantra of multiple working hypotheses into our second semester geology student heads. If we heard it once, we heard it a thousand times. And maybe that's why it came back from the deep recesses of my mind when I began to revisit the challenging question, "What comprises a day in Genesis?"

Before I go into the details, let me introduce you to Dr. John Cooper, former professor of Geology at California State University, in Fullerton, California. Dr. Cooper was a bit of a hero to me. He was short, wore his hair ala Harpo Marx, and always had a faded colored T-shirt worn with equally faded Levi's. I remember one of my fellow students arrived at the Earth Science Department's loading dock for a weekend field trip. She had been driven there by her father, who upon seeing Dr. Cooper, asked his daughter, Who is that scruffy fellow? I am certain he was more than a little concerned when she responded that the scruffy fellow was her instructor, and she would be in his care for a weekend off the beaten trail in the Mojave Desert.

Dr. Cooper often walked about in cowboy boots. I remember he and I went on a short field trip together, just him and me. It was great. He was a powerhouse of energy and was scrambling up and down steep slopes, often taking a step in his cowboy boots and sliding back two. Still, he got to where he wanted to be and with the tap, tap, wham, of his rock hammer, he would hold up a rock sample, look at it intently, and explain in detail how that rock was formed. Often the rock had either fossils or some type of trail or burrow (trace fossils) from a long extinct organism. Or maybe the rock was devoid of any evidence of life, but it contained petrified ripple marks or mud cracks. The former indicating moving water or blowing sand and the latter, desiccation of an ephemeral mudflat. In either case, they betrayed an environment that no longer existed in that locale. It was fact-based evidence that could not be denied, and it strongly implied geological processes require a very long time.

Dr. Cooper, or Coop, as we called after him, trying to keep up with his movements across outcrops, passed away a number of years ago. While he is no longer with us, his lessons remain with me. Chief among them is that mantra of multiple working hypotheses. This catchy phrase can keep us from embarrassing ourselves. It suggests that whenever a geologist (or preacher for that matter) encounters a perplexing problem, it is wise to develop several concurrent hypotheses to unravel the mystery. Gathering data to support each working hypothesis until one becomes overwhelmingly data-laden and robust, protects us from prematurely locking into a preferred, or pet, concept that further data gathering ultimately undermines.

Coop taught several of my undergraduate classes, including Earth History. Earth History is a required class for all undergraduate geology students. It attempts to describe how the Earth was formed and altered over time, and it does so by looking at the plethora of evidence that exists in rocks. I like to say that despite finding rocks lying around, they never actually lie, we just misunderstand what they are trying to tell us.

Make no mistake, we do misunderstand them. That is why an early American geologist by the distinguished name of Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin advised the use of multiple working hypotheses as a means of