The Dream Solution (How Considering the Method of Revelation may Help us Harmonize Genesis 1 and Current Scientific Understanding)

Something many Christians have struggled with

Many Christians at some point struggle with how to harmonize the creation account in Genesis 1 with the best current scientific understanding of the history of the universe. I’ve struggled with this myself. In this article I want to share an idea which may provide a surprisingly simple and robust answer to this complex issue.

There are no actual contradictions

I trust the Bible as God’s Word. I believe it is entirely true.

I love science and I believe science provides powerful ways for us to learn about the world God has made. Before the Lord called me to serve Him as a pastor, I served as a nuclear engineer in the US Navy for 5 years. At different times I led divisions responsible for chemistry and radiological controls, electrical generation, the steam plant, and the machinery that makes oxygen from seawater and maintains the submarine's atmosphere. Later, I was an assistant teacher for classes in thermodynamics and heat transfer at a college overseas. I’m not a scientist, but I’ve seen science at work and I’ve taught classes based on scientific principles.

I don’t believe that there are any actual contradictions between what the Bible teaches and what we learn from science. However, there can be apparent contradictions. How does that happen?

1. The Bible is perfect, but our understanding of the Bible is not perfect.

2. Likewise, scientific truth is really true, but sometimes even scientists misinterpret data and produce theories with errors in them.

An example where I think most scientists are wrong

Most scientists believe that darwinian processes are sufficient to account for all the life forms we see today, and that similar processes accounted for the appearance of the first life form. I think they’re wrong. I think the molecules-to-man evolutionary story is contrary to both the Bible and to a correct understanding of the scientific evidence. I’ve written several posts on this topic:

Nuclear Submarines and Living Cells

Excited as Both a Science Geek and a God Worshiper (this article is about how the smallest cells give BIG evidence for God)

Theistic Evolution Demagnifies God

Octopi from Outer Space!

I’m convinced that when science is correctly understood it provides strong, deep, broad evidence for a great, wise, powerful Creator.

An example where I think most scientists are probably right

While I don’t think most scientists are right about evolution, I do think they are probably basically right about the age of the earth and of the universe.

In the past, I was a young earth creationist, but a humble one who was never certain about this particular view. However, I’ve come to see many pieces of evidence that fit well with an old earth and old universe.  Here are a few of these:

1. We see events like stars exploding which based on the speed of light appear to have occurred millions of years ago.

2. There is a lot of evidence that the universe is expanding. This expansion together with the size of the observable universe is consistent with the universe being billions of years old.

3. In the past, people wondered how the sun could remain hot for billions of years. We know now that nuclear fusion provides an answer that works very well with stars lasting for billions of years.

4. Some people have wondered how the interior of the earth could stay hot for so long so that volcanoes continue to occasionally erupt. We now know that another nuclear process, radioactive decay, provides an excellent explanation for the earth remaining very hot inside for billions of years.

5. There is a lot of evidence showing that the elements needed to make planets like earth and living things like people are produced in stars through a process called nucleosynthesis. A very specific prediction about a nuclear resonance level needed in order for stars to produce carbon and heavier elements proved to be correct. This process requires billions of years. It’s a strange coincidence that the prediction proved correct if the process has never occurred.

6. The decay of nuclear isotopes in rocks points to an age of the earth on the order of billions of years.

7.  While I don’t believe the fossil record supports evolution, it does point to epochs in the ancient past where many types of animals that are alive today did not exist and many other types of animals, like dinosaurs, did exist.

I’m not saying that all of this absolutely proves an old earth and an old universe, but it’s hard for me to imagine God creating a world where there was so much evidence making it look like it was billions of years old if it really is much, much younger than that.

How does an old earth fit with Genesis 1?

The problem is that the simplest reading of Genesis yields an age of the earth of about 6,000 years. Quite a few possible solutions have been suggested. William Lane Craig has a series of articles which review these different solutions in some depth (you may find part 1 here). In the end, he’s not sure which of these is best, although there are some he thinks are unlikely to be true. While the solution I am going to offer fits broadly into the day-age view, there is a significant piece of the puzzle that I feel has been missing from all these proposals.

To my knowledge, none of the proposals have paid much, if any, attention to the question of what method God may have used to reveal Genesis 1 to its human author. I believe Moses is responsible for the first five books of the Bible, but like many evangelical scholars I believe it is possible that Moses was led to incorporate information that was passed down to him by others concerning events before his lifetime. I’m interested in how God revealed the information in Genesis 1 to whoever first received this revelation, whether it was Adam, Moses, or someone else.

Methods of Revelation

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, (2 Tim 3:16, NIV)

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:20-21, NIV)

Like other evangelical Christians, I believe that every word of the Bible came from God. While it is true to say, for example, that David wrote many of the Psalms, or that Paul wrote Romans, at a deeper level we can say that God is the Author of every word in the Bible. But God did use people to write the Bible. How did God reveal His truth to the people who wrote it?

We often don’t know the precise method the Holy Spirit used to carry along a person whom God was inspiring to write some portion of the Bible. However, there are at least four different broad methods that God sometimes used. Let’s look briefly at each of these methods and consider them with respect to Genesis 1.

1. A report of events and words which the author was an eyewitness to.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched-- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. (1 John 1:1)

John, Peter, and Matthew are examples of biblical authors who were eyewitnesses of much that they write about. Of course, the Holy Spirit would have guided their memories and understanding as they wrote. So, in some cases the main method of inspiration was a Holy Spirit guided eyewitness report.

Since no human was alive to observe the events of Genesis 1, this could not be the method of inspiration for this portion of Scripture.

2. A careful investigation of events.

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. (Luke 1:1-2 NIV)

While Luke was an eyewitness to some of the events he reports on in Acts, he was not an eyewitness to the events recorded in his gospel account. It appears that the Holy Spirit guided a process of historical investigation in order to produce the gospel of Luke.

Again, since  no people saw the events recorded in Genesis 1, historical investigation can be safely ruled out as the method God used to inspire the writing of that important chapter.

3. Divine dictation

Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, "This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: (Exodus 19:3 NIV)

Occasionally God used a very direct method of inspiring biblical authors. He basically told them exactly what to say. One of the clearest examples of this is Moses receiving instructions from God on Mount Sinai.

I think most people assume that this is the method of revelation God used to inspire Genesis 1. We certainly can’t rule this out. But there is nothing in the text of Genesis which specifically states that God used divine dictation to reveal its contents. There is one more method of revelation we should consider.

4. Supernatural Dreams and Visions

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream. (Daniel 7:1 NIV)

Sometimes God used dreams and visions to inspire the contents of the Bible. Daniel and the book of Revelation are the most famous examples. Could God have given someone like Adam or Moses a dream or visions about how He created the world? Might the author have written down “the substance of his dream” in the first chapter of Genesis?

I can’t find any reason that this mode of revelation is any less likely than divine dictation. The Bible does not explicitly state either one. Both are used in other places in the Bible.

There were a lot of dreams and visions in Genesis

Based on a word search of the CSB, the words “dream” and “vision” occur 40 times in the book of Genesis! In Genesis, God frequently used dreams to speak to people. This doesn’t mean that God used a dream to reveal the content of Genesis 1, but it certainly makes it a reasonable possibility.

A dream with 7 scenes called “days”

It’s interesting that the author of Genesis 1 felt a need to explain what he meant by “the first day”, the “second day”, etc. He says, “there was an evening, and there was a morning, one day.” Wouldn’t that be a good metaphorical description of a dream with seven scenes, each fading into darkness before the next one begins with new light? This could explain how there are days with evenings and mornings even before the scene where the sun is created.

One thing about dreams, including biblical dreams like those in Daniel and the book of Revelation, is that the time element is often very unclear. It may be that in these cases God did not intend to give clear information about the timing of events. Different scenes in dreams may include elements which overlap in time or even are out of order.

The examples from Daniel and Revelation are both complex and controversial, so let’s consider a simple example from the book of Genesis.

God gave Pharaoh two dreams where he saw 4 scenes:

1. In scene one there are seven healthy cows.

2. In scene two, seven gaunt cows eat the seven healthy cows.

3. In scene three, he sees seven plump heads of grain.

4. In scene four, Pharaoh sees seven thin heads of grain eat the seven plump ones.

God reveals to Joseph that the each of the cows represents a year, and each of the heads of grain represents a year. There are 14 cows plus 14 heads of grain, which would seem to point to a total of 28 years. But the dreams are about a period of 14 years, not a period of 28 years. The dreams about the cows and heads of grain occur sequentially in Pharaoh’s sleep, but they refer to two overlapping (in this case, identical) periods of 14 years. Examples from Daniel’s dreams and John’s visions in Revelation are even more complex. Many bible scholars believe there is some amount of chronological overlapping in John’s visions (this is sometimes referred to as recapitulation.)

How this might help harmonize Genesis 1 with an old earth

God could have revealed Genesis 1 to its biblical author by using a dream with seven scenes in it. Each scene accurately shows a sample of God’s creative work. Together, the scenes portray God as being actively and directly responsible for the creation of the earth, everything in the heavens (what we call the universe), and all the different types of life. But perhaps God never intended this supernatural dream to provide information about the timing of these events. So, the different scenes overlap and are not in strict chronological order. Also, a scene may represent God’s work carried out over vast amounts of time.

The author is inspired to call each scene a “day” because that’s a good metaphor for a scene defined by a period of visible work during the light which is preceded and followed by a period of darkness used to separate the scenes.

A weakness, but not a fatal weakness

An obvious weakness to this dream theory is that we are not told that anyone was having a dream. But then, neither are we told that anyone was receiving divine dictation. There could be good literary reasons for not mentioning the method of revelation. If Genesis began by saying something like, “Adam was sleeping one night and had a dream . . .,” that would not be nearly as powerful as “In the beginning, God created . . .” It would also take some of the initial focus off God and put it onto the human author. It’s easy for me to imagine how discussing the method of revelation would have distracted from the main points God wanted to reveal and the feeling and focus He wanted the first chapter of the Bible to have.

It’s only a humbly offered possibility, but it might still be very helpful

We should never treat this idea that Genesis 1 may have been initially revealed in the form of a dream as more than a possibility. There is no explicit proof that this idea is correct. What good is it then?

Some people simply cannot imagine any way that Genesis 1 can be true given their belief that the universe we live in is billions of years old. This lack of understanding about how to harmonize Genesis 1 and science should not cause people to doubt the trustworthiness of the Bible or their Christian faith. Many people recognize this problem, but trust that there is a good solution, even if they don’t know what that solution is. But the problem does cause some people to struggle with doubts about the Bible and about Christianity. What I’ve done here is to try to offer a reasonable way that Genesis 1 can be read as completely true revelation from God while still believing that the scientific account of the origin of the universe, stars, and the earth is basically correct in terms of timing. I think there is a good possibility that this “dream solution” is true, but I’m very open to the possibility that one of the other proposed solutions is correct or that there is a solution that I’ve never heard of or thought of and that we might not understand until Christ returns.

May God fill us with confidence in His Word, the Bible.

Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .