Why did God create in six days rather than in, say, ten days? Many Christians think the answer has nothing to do with the universal self-evidence of life-affirming Design.
For, example, Ken Ham (1987) reasons,
'God is an infinite being. He has infinite power, infinite knowledge, infinite wisdom. Obviously, [therefore,] God could [have created in any way imaginable]. [For example, He could have created the whole universe, the earth and all it contains[,] in no time at all. [Therefore, it seems] the question we should be asking is why did God take as long as six days? After all, six days is a peculiar period [of time in which] for [which] an infinite being could [create]. [Therefore, according to the Bible, t]he answer [to why God created in this particular time frame is that taught] in Exodus 20:11.'
Likewise Richard Fangrad and Thomas Bailey (2018):
'Why six days? Why six days? God could have created instantly. Right? He could have. Or in six seconds. Or [in] six billion years. He has the ability to create the universe in any length of time He chooses; So why did He choose six days, as the text [of Genesis 1] says? God tells us why He chose to create in six days rather than some other time frame: in Exodus 20, verse 11, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and Earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” He did it as a pattern for the [human] workweek. A [human] week of seven days is patterned after God['s] creating for six days and resting for one.'
But is this logic valid? No, for it assumes, in effect, that a quantity of six things stood out to God as the right number of days for Him to chose in the first place. It does not answer why that is, but takes the mere form of an answer: 'The reason why God created chose to create in six days, rather than in some other measure of time, or in no time, is because God wants us to have an example to follow.'
Our having an example to follow does not begin to explain why the example was six days instead of, say, ten days. This is not just a weak argument, it logically invalid. It not only presupposes its own conclusion, its logic fails to logically compel that conclusion.
It is just like asking 'Why did dad paint the family car red rather than some other color?' and be told that dad wanted to give us an example to follow as to the color he wants us to paint all our painting cars. 'Why not blue?' we ask. Imagine if some people answer, 'Because blue is not the kind of a color that can serve as an example to follow'. This is utter nonsense as an 'answer'. It grants a complex issue, and puts a 'because' link to another complex idea, the latter idea having been assumed to be the case.
That latter idea is that this kind of answer is assumed to be the answer that God gives to the issue. But that assumption is based on an extremely poor sense of the issue, namely that, since God is all-powerful, the only sense there is to the issue is that, all else being equal of Divine Design evidence, God could just as well have created in ten days as in six days. But that in itself shows that the supposed answer is invalid, since the answer does not explain why God chose six days instead of, say, ten days.
The hidden assumption is that the reason God chose six days in which to create instead of, say, ten days is because He Himself was following the example of the six day human workweek.
But if we simply allow that God designed biology and ecology to function on natural cycles of seven (seven days, seven waves, seven years, etc.) then it only makes sense that He would have created everything in a seven-natural-something period of time. Further, if only we allow to the issue our own recognition of irreducible complexity in Nature, then we shall have a rational basis not only for special creation, but for God to have created in six days rather than in either six years or six billion years. Given what we know of how creaturely life and ecology functions, either of these two latter amounts of time is far too long.
Either a year for creation or a billion years, both are nearly the same in the single most basic way. Either of them is like a man who, despite his building an engine that he has designed to cycle in terms of seconds, decides to build it very, very, very slowly.
The difference is that a life-supporting ecology is like an engine that has been designed to begin to function with the very first parts of it that are assembled. Yet this man adds more of its total parts to it in a slow-motion way that takes him years to complete. And it is a kind of 'engine' that is NOT an inanimate object, or that has a natural 'off' mode.
God did not create all of nature before turning it on. It was on from the first things He created. And the plants, for example, were created in situ, not made someplace else and then put into the ground after-the-fact.
So this 'answer' to why God chose six days is not a valid explanation to the actual question of 'Why six days and not some other amount of time?'. And it overlooks all of the most important parts of the issue, all because its advocates think they ought to be like senseless idiots in face of the fact that God is all-powerful.
The failure of this answer assumes Divine Design is just arbitrary numbers with no actual design, so that the universal self-evidence of Divine Design can just as well have been any which way. But we breathe, in and out, in a period of seconds, which ought to show us something of just how dependent we are, for our very lives, on natural regular cycles.
Of course, God wants us to have an example to follow. But that fact does not explain why God created in one particular amount of time over any other. It explains only why He did not create in a single, duration-less, Genie-like 'Pop!'.
For, by virtue of thinking the above 'answer' is logically valid, we are logically allowing, contrary to our intentions, that it is *invalid*. For, had God opted to create in, say, ten days and rest on the eleventh day, then Exodus 20:11 would state as much, as would Genesis 1-2. He would not have commanded a six-day work week, but, instead a ten-day work week, with an eleventh day for rest.
The confound is one of conceptually reducing the issue to what little the Bible spells out specifically and directly about the specifically six-day Creation Week. Such a reduction overlooks the wonderful inter-connectivity and inter-dependency in Nature that we each experience every day, both that outside us and that within us. For example, no one denies that we have a natural need for regular rest. And few would deny that there is a natural maximum and minimum of rest we need, relative to a given unit of work.
In other words, few would deny that there is some kind of ideal ratio of work-to-rest that is built into our own biology. For those of us who believe that Nature is designed and created by God, that ratio must also be designed by God. And no one denies that there is some range beyond which the ratio is either (a) abuse or (b) one or more of laziness, trepidation, clinical depression, etc..
In fact, no one would deny that it is as much an abuse to continually prevent a person from acting as to force them to act without due natural rest. So the answer to why God created in a particular amount of time has to do with the fact that creatures need periodic, occasional, and regular rest. Surely, the answer is not one that discounts or ignores that need!
The same is true even of a given location of ecology (Lev 26:34-35). And this need does not stop there. For, as just pointed out, we believe that God designed us to need a particular measure of periodicity and duration of rest and work. Of course, when the 'sweet spot' of work-to-rest ratio is violated too much or too long in a particular case, be it to a person or to an ecology, the effect on that case is essentially a form of PTSD. And recovery from PTSD requires extended amounts of appropriate forms of rest (Leviticus 26:34-35).
So the answer becomes clearer if we imagine a limited range of options that God faced: that God had to choose between either six days or ten days. Thus, 'God begins with these two options, and has to choose between them.' But, logically, given God's power, 'either option would do for being an example for us to follow.'
For, example, Ken Ham (1987) reasons,
'God is an infinite being. He has infinite power, infinite knowledge, infinite wisdom. Obviously, [therefore,] God could [have created in any way imaginable]. [For example, He could have created the whole universe, the earth and all it contains[,] in no time at all. [Therefore, it seems] the question we should be asking is why did God take as long as six days? After all, six days is a peculiar period [of time in which] for [which] an infinite being could [create]. [Therefore, according to the Bible, t]he answer [to why God created in this particular time frame is that taught] in Exodus 20:11.'
Likewise Richard Fangrad and Thomas Bailey (2018):
'Why six days? Why six days? God could have created instantly. Right? He could have. Or in six seconds. Or [in] six billion years. He has the ability to create the universe in any length of time He chooses; So why did He choose six days, as the text [of Genesis 1] says? God tells us why He chose to create in six days rather than some other time frame: in Exodus 20, verse 11, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and Earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” He did it as a pattern for the [human] workweek. A [human] week of seven days is patterned after God['s] creating for six days and resting for one.'
But is this logic valid? No, for it assumes, in effect, that a quantity of six things stood out to God as the right number of days for Him to chose in the first place. It does not answer why that is, but takes the mere form of an answer: 'The reason why God created chose to create in six days, rather than in some other measure of time, or in no time, is because God wants us to have an example to follow.'
Our having an example to follow does not begin to explain why the example was six days instead of, say, ten days. This is not just a weak argument, it logically invalid. It not only presupposes its own conclusion, its logic fails to logically compel that conclusion.
It is just like asking 'Why did dad paint the family car red rather than some other color?' and be told that dad wanted to give us an example to follow as to the color he wants us to paint all our painting cars. 'Why not blue?' we ask. Imagine if some people answer, 'Because blue is not the kind of a color that can serve as an example to follow'. This is utter nonsense as an 'answer'. It grants a complex issue, and puts a 'because' link to another complex idea, the latter idea having been assumed to be the case.
That latter idea is that this kind of answer is assumed to be the answer that God gives to the issue. But that assumption is based on an extremely poor sense of the issue, namely that, since God is all-powerful, the only sense there is to the issue is that, all else being equal of Divine Design evidence, God could just as well have created in ten days as in six days. But that in itself shows that the supposed answer is invalid, since the answer does not explain why God chose six days instead of, say, ten days.
The hidden assumption is that the reason God chose six days in which to create instead of, say, ten days is because He Himself was following the example of the six day human workweek.
But if we simply allow that God designed biology and ecology to function on natural cycles of seven (seven days, seven waves, seven years, etc.) then it only makes sense that He would have created everything in a seven-natural-something period of time. Further, if only we allow to the issue our own recognition of irreducible complexity in Nature, then we shall have a rational basis not only for special creation, but for God to have created in six days rather than in either six years or six billion years. Given what we know of how creaturely life and ecology functions, either of these two latter amounts of time is far too long.
Either a year for creation or a billion years, both are nearly the same in the single most basic way. Either of them is like a man who, despite his building an engine that he has designed to cycle in terms of seconds, decides to build it very, very, very slowly.
The difference is that a life-supporting ecology is like an engine that has been designed to begin to function with the very first parts of it that are assembled. Yet this man adds more of its total parts to it in a slow-motion way that takes him years to complete. And it is a kind of 'engine' that is NOT an inanimate object, or that has a natural 'off' mode.
God did not create all of nature before turning it on. It was on from the first things He created. And the plants, for example, were created in situ, not made someplace else and then put into the ground after-the-fact.
So this 'answer' to why God chose six days is not a valid explanation to the actual question of 'Why six days and not some other amount of time?'. And it overlooks all of the most important parts of the issue, all because its advocates think they ought to be like senseless idiots in face of the fact that God is all-powerful.
The failure of this answer assumes Divine Design is just arbitrary numbers with no actual design, so that the universal self-evidence of Divine Design can just as well have been any which way. But we breathe, in and out, in a period of seconds, which ought to show us something of just how dependent we are, for our very lives, on natural regular cycles.
Of course, God wants us to have an example to follow. But that fact does not explain why God created in one particular amount of time over any other. It explains only why He did not create in a single, duration-less, Genie-like 'Pop!'.
For, by virtue of thinking the above 'answer' is logically valid, we are logically allowing, contrary to our intentions, that it is *invalid*. For, had God opted to create in, say, ten days and rest on the eleventh day, then Exodus 20:11 would state as much, as would Genesis 1-2. He would not have commanded a six-day work week, but, instead a ten-day work week, with an eleventh day for rest.
The confound is one of conceptually reducing the issue to what little the Bible spells out specifically and directly about the specifically six-day Creation Week. Such a reduction overlooks the wonderful inter-connectivity and inter-dependency in Nature that we each experience every day, both that outside us and that within us. For example, no one denies that we have a natural need for regular rest. And few would deny that there is a natural maximum and minimum of rest we need, relative to a given unit of work.
In other words, few would deny that there is some kind of ideal ratio of work-to-rest that is built into our own biology. For those of us who believe that Nature is designed and created by God, that ratio must also be designed by God. And no one denies that there is some range beyond which the ratio is either (a) abuse or (b) one or more of laziness, trepidation, clinical depression, etc..
In fact, no one would deny that it is as much an abuse to continually prevent a person from acting as to force them to act without due natural rest. So the answer to why God created in a particular amount of time has to do with the fact that creatures need periodic, occasional, and regular rest. Surely, the answer is not one that discounts or ignores that need!
The same is true even of a given location of ecology (Lev 26:34-35). And this need does not stop there. For, as just pointed out, we believe that God designed us to need a particular measure of periodicity and duration of rest and work. Of course, when the 'sweet spot' of work-to-rest ratio is violated too much or too long in a particular case, be it to a person or to an ecology, the effect on that case is essentially a form of PTSD. And recovery from PTSD requires extended amounts of appropriate forms of rest (Leviticus 26:34-35).
So the answer becomes clearer if we imagine a limited range of options that God faced: that God had to choose between either six days or ten days. Thus, 'God begins with these two options, and has to choose between them.' But, logically, given God's power, 'either option would do for being an example for us to follow.'
