Creation Unfolding by Ken Coulson

I recently read Creation Unfolding: A New Perspective on Ex Nihilo (available to read free to Kindle Unlimited members) by Ken Coulson.

It was an interesting book, and I'm glad I read it.

Coulson is a Young-earth creationist (YEC). He is a geologist, not a biologist. The book says very little about biology, nor, of course, about evolution. The author has researched his subject thoroughly, except that he doesn't deal with the interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2. He takes both chapters as if they were meant to be literal, history-like descriptions.

How is Coulson different from many other YECs? I point out three significant ways.

First, he doesn't believe that nature, general revelation, was meant to reveal God as creator. He puts it this way:
In 1 Corinthians 1:21 (ESV), Paul makes God’s design abundantly clear: “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” The world is not allowed to come to know the God of creation by pursuing its own wisdom (e.g., through scientific endeavor). This is by God’s sovereign design.

Coulson goes on to say that, if God had wanted to make His creativity indubitably clear, He could have stamped each child born with a stamp proclaiming this. He doesn't say so, but perhaps, if Coulson had thought of this, he might have said that cloud formations could have said "made by God," in the language appropriate to each area of the world.

There are YECers, and other Christians, who would argue that Psalm 19 and Romans 1 tell us that God has revealed Himself though His creation, and holds us responsible for understanding that. Statements like this are made: "Look at the retina of the eye. (or some other natural wonder) How marvelous it is! You should believe in the God who created it!"

The picture at the top of this post, quoting Hebrews 11:3, indicates that we understand God's creative power through faith, and that perhaps those without faith cannot grasp this.

Second,  here's what he has to say about the Flood:
The Flood of Noah was a real, world-wide watery catastrophe. As such, geological evidence should exist that supports this catastrophe. Many YEC, however, have overstepped the line here by proposing that almost all the world’s sedimentary layers were deposited in the Flood. To think otherwise is sometimes viewed sacrilegiously. Now, it may be that nearly all the Earth’s geological layers were in fact deposited during Noah’s Flood, but there is nothing in Scripture that demands this. For all we know, the entire Flood record could extend to a single geological package of strata that represents a single geological period.

Not many YECers would agree with that.

Third, Coulson introduces a concept, and a term, that, as far as I know, is his, er, creation.

The term is Supernatural Formative Process(es) (SFP) which acronym is abundant throughout the book. For example: "In other words, although Adam’s bones and Eden’s trees would suggest processes leading to real histories, those processes and histories, as with those of the crust’s first crystals, are only apparent." In other words, Coulson argues that the earth, and the surrounding universe, only appear to be billions of years old, because God changed the rates of natural processes. And,

For example, if all rates everywhere in the universe were doubled, the participant would not notice this doubling unless there existed an unaltered rate that could serve as a frame of reference (Poythress 2019, p. 221). I propose that God has provided this frame of reference in the refrain that occurs at the end of each creative day: “And there was evening and there was morning.” This would mean that except for the rhythm of night and day, all other rhythms were accelerated in a time-lapse fashion.

So SPF are "natural" processes, which may be accelerated by God, and, if appropriate, kept in synchrony with other such processes, because the rates of each are sped up proportionally.

Coulson discusses several events, some biblical (like the water being transformed into wine in John 3) and some not so (the discovery of SN1987A, a supernova that looks like the light from it started heading toward us a long time before 6000 BC.)

Although Coulson claims that an appearance of age is not God being deceptive, because God altered various rates of processes, it's hard for me, after reading the book, to accept any Appearance of Age concept without thinking that God has unnecessarily hidden what He has done, and maybe is even being deceptive. God, of course, could have modified all sorts of rates, maybe even all of them except night and day, and presented us with an earth that is, actually, only a few thousand years old, in a universe that is also only a few thousand years old, regardless of their appearance. But did He? I don't think so. Perhaps I'm wrong.

It seems to me, and to many others, in the present, and in the history of the church, that most YECers, including Coulson, are starting from wrong presuppositions, namely that the days of Genesis 1 were consecutive 24-hour days, and that the Bible teaches that the earth, and the universe, were created in about 6000 BC. Many Christians, of the present and the past, believe that the first part of Genesis was not meant to be interpreted in a literal fashion. It is easier for me to believe that it was not so meant, than to believe that God adjusted all sorts of geophysical, chemical, astronomical and biological processes.

For some discussion of the interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2, see here.

There's also this simple graphic:

Which, I believe, shows that Genesis 1 and 2 cannot both (or either) taken literally.

Thanks for reading!