When did creation happen? In the late 17th century, using only the Bible and his current knowledge of history, an Archbishop in Ireland estimated that the act of creation happened about 4000 years before the birth of Jesus or, more precisely, on October 22, 4004 BC. But long before the word “science” was even coined, good people were closely studying nature as a pathway to learning about God. For, as it was said, God reveals Himself to us in the two books of Scripture and Nature. A Scottish physician, James Hutton, could see on his farm that natural processes, such as erosion, occur very slowly, on the order of millions of years. Charles Lyell, a gentleman farmer and lawyer, studied the layers of rock outcrop in his native England. He saw remains of organisms embedded in the various layers, suggesting that these life forms lived many, many years ago. We now know that the earth was formed about 4.6 billion years ago, but it was extremely hot and not at all livable. The early atmosphere was rich in volcanic gases like carbon dioxide and lacked free oxygen until about 3.6 billion years ago. Very slowly, life began to take shape, starting in the ocean depths. In the Cambrian era, there was an “explosion” of life when primordial life forms moved up onto dry land and developed skeletons and hard body parts. A great extinction of most species (including the dinosaurs) occurred about 65 million years ago. We human beings came along much later, and if all of creation could be shown in one year, then we humans would appear on December 31 at very close to midnight. We slowly developed language and culture and conscious awareness of our life world. Maybe God is much bigger than we ever dreamed! – – – Fr. Jim
