During this Darwinian anniversary year Christians have had to face the challenge of how to interpret the early chapters of Genesis.
In his book No Final Conflict, Francis Schaeffer looked at this challenge and proposed seven freedoms in regard to our understanding of Genesis. He did not necessarily believe any of them himself, but allowed them as possibilities. These are: 1) that God created a ‘grown-up’ universe; 2) that there is a break between verses 1 and 2 of Genesis 1; 3) that the days of Genesis 1 are ‘long’; 4) that the Flood affected the geological data; 5) that the word ‘kind’ in Genesis 1 is not necessarily to be equated with the ‘modern scientific word species’; 6) that there was ‘natural death of animals before the Fall’; 7) that ‘only the word bara must mean an absolute new beginning’.
But, having allowed these possible freedoms of interpretation, Schaeffer then goes on to set limits which he saw as necessary to preserve the integrity of the Bible. The following is what Schaeffer had to say.
