The question of time and the tempo of events often pops up in discussions about Genesis 1. Should we take seriously the timing of events, the tempo of action, that is ostensibly in the text, or should we sideline it as irrelevant?
Those who want to make room for materialist dogma and confer credibility on the idea of evolution will typically vote to sideline the timing as irrelevant.
This is a mistake. If we take our lead from Paul, all scripture is profitable...so, where is the profit in the tempo of creation.
To answer let’s look at it the other way around. Where is the detriment in denying that the tempo is in any way related to what has really happened in our time-space domain?
If the tempo is disconnected from the real world, then there are gaps in the flow of God’s relationship with us. If evolution is deferred to as describing what *really* happened, then the gaps are immense, and the very flow of creation bears no relation to reality. On these grounds it can teach nothing: it is empty, or at least entails vast stretches of emptiness where the touch of God is absent. If the one who is love is absent, what takes his place?
The vacuum gets filled pretty quickly (which is one of the motives of materialism in ousting the supernatural): not with the one who is love and acts in love, but with myths and tales of demons who are not love in action, but the reverse. These gap fillers pave the way for the shamans of the day to use the power thus given to them against us, keeping us from knowing ourselves in relation to God.
