Gap creationism

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Type of creationism

title: "Gap creationism" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["dispensationalism", "old-earth-creationism"] description: "Type of creationism" topic_path: "general/dispensationalism" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_creationism" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Type of creationism ::

::callout[type=note] an interpretation of the biblical creation account ::

Gap creationism (also known as ruin-restoration creationism, restoration creationism, or "the Gap Theory") is a form of creationism that posits that the six-yom creation period, as described in the Book 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 the age of the Earth. It differs from day-age creationism, which posits that the 'days' of creation were much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years), and from young Earth creationism, which although it agrees concerning the six literal 24-hour days of creation, does not posit any gap of time.

History

From 1814, Thomas Chalmers popularized gap creationism; he attributed the concept to the 17th-century Dutch Arminian theologian Simon Episcopius. Chalmers wrote:

Chalmers became a divinity professor at the University of Edinburgh, founder of the Free Church of Scotland, and author of one of the Bridgewater Treatises. Other early proponents of gap creationism included Oxford University geology professor and fellow Bridgewater author William Buckland, Sharon Turner and Edward Hitchcock. was discussed prominently in the reference notes for Genesis in the influential 1917 Scofield Reference Bible.

In 1954, a few years before the re-emergence of young-Earth flood geology eclipsed gap creationism, influential evangelical theologian Bernard Ramm wrote in The Christian View of Science and Scripture:

Ramm's book became influential in the formation of another alternative to gap creationism, that of progressive creationism, which found favour with more conservative members of the American Scientific Affiliation (a fellowship of scientists who are Christians), with the more modernist wing of that fellowship favouring theistic evolution.

Religious proponents of this form of creationism have included Cyrus I. Scofield, Harry Rimmer, G. H. Pember, Lewis Sperry Chafer, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Perry Stone, L. Allen Higley, Arthur Pink, Peter Ruckman, Finis Jennings Dake, Chuck Missler, Robert Thieme, R. A. Torrey, E. W. Bullinger, Charles Welch, Victor Paul Wierwille, Donald Grey Barnhouse, Herbert W. Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong, Michael Pearl and Clarence Larkin. Unformed and Unfilled, Weston Fields, , p43.

Interpretation of Genesis

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Re-creation_(Gap)_Theory.png" caption="Gap creationism"] ::

Some gap creationists may believe that science has proven beyond reasonable doubt that the Earth is far older than can be accounted for by, for instance, adding up the ages of Biblical patriarchs as James Ussher famously attempted in the 17th century when he developed the Ussher chronology.

Gap creationists who hold to a young-earth position stress that it is more accurate to posit Genesis 1:2 as destruction rather than a preparatory state for God's creation of Earth. They also hold that Noah's flood was a global flood and reject the idea that humans existed before Adam.

For some, the gap theory allows both the Genesis creation account and geological science to be inerrant 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 in and a second creation (or restoration) in . 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 to have occurred as outlined by science without contradicting their literal belief in Genesis.

Biblical support

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 the Hebrew text. A short list of examples is given below:

  • The Masoretic Text contains a small mark at the end of Genesis 1:1, referred to as a rebhia, which acts as a "disjunctive accent", indicating that the reader is to pause before proceeding to the next verse. It is one indication, among others, that the waw which introduces verse 2 should be translated "but" rather than "and".
  • The word "was" in for some adherents is more accurately translated "became". Such a word choice makes the gap interpretation easier to see in modern English.
  • God is perfect and everything He does is perfect, so a newly created Earth from the hand of God should not have been without form and void and shrouded in darkness. ,
  • The Holy Spirit was "renewing" the face of the Earth as he hovered over the face of the waters, noting that the water-covered planet already existed.
  • Angels already existed in a state of grace when God "laid the foundations of the Earth", so there had been at least one creative act of God before the six days of Genesis.
  • Satan and his angels caused the war in Heaven () and had fallen from grace () () "in the beginning" which, since the serpent tempted Adam and Eve, had to have occurred before the Fall of man. , ,

Notes

References

  • {{cite book | last = Chafer | first = Lewis Sperry | author-link = Lewis Sperry Chafer | title = Satan: His Motive and Methods | publisher = Zondervan | year = 1964|edition=reprint | isbn = 0-310-22361-X
  • {{cite book | last = Custance | first = Arthur C. | author-link = Arthur Custance | title = Without Form and Void: A Study of the Meaning of Genesis 1:2 | url= https://custance.org/Library/WFANDV/ | publisher = Classic Reprint Press | year = 2008|edition=reprint | isbn = 978-1934251331
  • {{cite book | last = Gaebelein | first = Arno | title = The History of the Scofield Reference Bible | publisher = Living Words Foundation | year = 1991|edition=reprint | isbn = 0-9628169-0-6
  • {{cite book | last = Larkin | first = Clarence | title = Dispensational Truth | publisher = Kessinger Publishing | year = 2005|edition=reprint | isbn = 0-7661-8427-7
  • {{cite book | last = Numbers | first = Ronald | author-link = Ronald Numbers | title = The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition | publisher = Harvard University Press | date = November 30, 2006 | isbn = 0-674-02339-0
  • {{cite book | last = Pember | first = George | author-link = G.H. Pember | title = Earth's Earliest Ages | publisher = Kregel Publications | year = 1987|edition=reprint | isbn = 0-8254-3533-1
  • {{cite book | last = Pink | first = Arthur | author-link = Arthur Pink | title = Gleanings in Genesis | publisher = Filiquarian Publishing, LLC. | year = 2007|edition=reprint | isbn = 978-1-59986-741-0
  • {{cite book | last = Thieme | first = Robert | author-link = Robert Thieme | title = Creation: Chaos and Restoration | publisher = Berachah Tapes and Publications | year = 1974

References

  1. ''Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction'', [[Eugenie Scott]], pp61-62
  2. ''The Scientific Case Against Scientific Creationism'', Jon P. Alston, p24
  3. "What is Creationism?".
  4. Moore, Randy. (2008). "More Than Darwin: An Encyclopedia of the People and Places of the Evolution-creationism Controversy". Greenwood Press.
  5. McIver T., Formless and Void: Gap Theory Creationism, Creation Evolution Journal (8)3, 1988, p. 6.
  6. The idea gained widespread attention when a "second creative act"[http://www.studylight.org/com/srn/view.cgi?book=ge&chapter=001 Scofield References Notes online], verse by verse notes on Genesis 1.
  7. Numbers(2006) p208
  8. Numbers(2006), p11
  9. "Pleroma - an Alphabetical Analysis by Charles H. Welch".
  10. Wierwille, Victor P.. (1971). "Power for Abundant Living". American Christian Press.
  11. Demopoulos, Perry. "The Gap Fact".
  12. "Real Bible Believers {{!}} Genesis!! Gap Theory, Cosmology & Firmament (Genesis 1:1-8)".
  13. Thieme (1974)
  14. [http://www.kjvbible.org/ The Bible, Genesis, and Geology], Gaines Johnson, 1997.
  15. Custance, Arthur C., ''Without Form and Void'', 1970, pp. 18-19.
  16. "Without Form and Void - Frontpage".
  17. Pink (2007)
  18. Chafer (1964), p15-27

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