In 1831, Charles Darwin began his 5-year expedition aboard the Beagle. While in the Galapagos Islands, he noticed the slight variations between species of finches on different islands. He concluded that these finches must have descended from a common ancestor and changed over time to survive in their specific environments. Darwin universally applied his theory of change, or evolution, to all life on earth which, he speculated, must have descended from a single common ancestor. In his Origin of Species, he supposed, “Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form…”. These words changed the world. These words have also changed the church. Since the Darwinian revolution of the 19th century, many gallons of ink have been spilled by Christian theologians and pastors over the meaning of the word “day” in Genesis 1. Are we to believe that these 6 days of creation were ordinary days? Ancient church fathers like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil of Caesarea struggled to understand why the creation took so long, suggesting instead that the Lord created all things instantaneously. But today, many sincere Christians struggle to believe that the earth could have been created so quickly contrary to the modern scientific consensus.
