A Brief History of the Gap Theory of Creation

In the circle of Christian beliefs, concerning the creation of the earth and the universe, there are several different teachings. All agree God created the earth, but beliefs of how and when differ considerably. There are three primary views concerning the age of the earth. Most believe it is a very young planet, and that God created it mature (old) as he created man (Adam) mature. This group has the earth varying in age from 6000 to perhaps 12000 years. Then there is a group that believes a very long indefinite period of time passed between Genesis 1:1 and 1:3, varying from millions to billions of years, and that the creation account following Genesis 1:2 is a recreation, or reshaping, of what was made void and without form by Satan’s fall in Genesis 1:2. The third group believes in theistic evolution, saying God created things over a long period of time, with the Hebrew word “yom” for “day” being used to denote long epochs of time during the six days of Genesis creation. Now, having very briefly presented these different beliefs, PLEASE READ VERY CAREFULLY WHAT I AM ABOUT TO SAY NEXT!

HERE IS PRECISELY AND EXACTINGLY WHAT I BELIEVE – AND I BELIEVE IT EXACTLY AS IT IS WRITTEN:

GENESIS 1:1 – IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH.

I COULD CARE LESS ABOUT WHAT YOU BELIEVE ABOUT THE HOW AND THE WHEN. I AM ONLY CONCERNED ABOUT YOU IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE HE CREATED IT. I HAVE BIGGER FISH TO FRY THAN BECOMING ENTANGLED IN DEBATES ABOUT WHICH ONE IS CORRECT. SO PLEASE DON’T SEND ME ANY OFFERS TO DEBATE. THIS IS SIMPLY A HISTORY OF ONE OF THE BASIC BELIEFS KNOWN AS “THE GAP THEORY.”

In this Update I intend to present a brief history of what is known as “the gap theory.” It is not the intent and purpose of this report to elaborate on the various Scriptures and inductive reasoning processes put forward by many learned men in support of the basic hypothesis. It is primarily the purpose of this article to render a brief history of the gap theory from its inception into the ranks of Missionary Baptists. However, at least a very basic description of the proposition should be outlined before going into details about its history, and a short summary of the theory will be presented by Gaebelein from his Annotated Bible, where he states the following on pages 16 and 17 (BEGIN QUOTE BY GAEBELEIN):

“It is of the greatest importance to understand that the condition in which the earth (not the heavens) is described in the second verse is not how God created it in the beginning. Scripture itself tells us this. Read Isaiah 45:18. The Hebrew word for ‘without form’ is TOHU, which means ‘waste.’ ‘The earth was waste and void.’ But in the passage of Isaiah 45:18 we read, ‘He created it not a waste.’ The original earth passed through a great upheaval, a judgment swept over it, which in all probability must have occurred on account of the fall of that mighty one Lucifer, who fell by pride and became the Devil. The original earth, no doubt, was his habitation, and he had authority over it, which he still claims as the “prince of this world.” Luke 4:5,6 shows us this. The earth had become waste and void; chaos and darkness reigned. What that original earth was like we do not know, but we know that animal and vegetable life were in existence long before God began to restore the earth. The immense fossil beds prove this. But they likewise prove that man was not then on the earth. Between the first and second verses of the Bible there is that unknown time of millions of years which geology gets a glimpse of in studying the crust of the Earth.” (END QUOTE BY GAEBELEIN).

In order to present a truly representative history of the gap theory, it is first necessary to examine the soil of the times from when it first burst forth its blooms into the light of the nineteenth century. A bit of what we might call a “pre-bloom” time of say, 100 years, would present a picture of mankind beginning to unearth extensive “finds” of various kinds of fossil life. Graphic pictures of pre-historic creatures and plants began to be noticed in exposed rock surfaces, and even more startling were the underground finds of huge dinosaur forms that had once roamed the vast plains of earth. It was a time of great unrest in the minds of learned men who sought an answer to the apparent conflictions of these discoveries with a long accepted belief in a very young earth of some 6000 years.

Into this time of apparent contradiction with the long conceived idea of a young, God-created earth, stepped a brilliant Christian man of that day, the scientist, Georges Cuvier. Morris and Whitcomb, in their publication of “The Genesis Flood,” give the following statement concerning Cuvier: (BEGIN QUOTE).

“The man to whom we refer was Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), professor of comparative anatomy in the museum of natural history at Paris, and the founder of modern vertebrate paleontology – a man of immense learning and reputation. Cuvier’s opposition to flood geology was subtle, because he insisted the earth had been laid down by the flood. He also taught that the major fossil strata of the earth had been laid down by a series of great floods, separated by immense periods of time, and long before the creation of man.” (END QUOTE).

As in most theories, there were certain portions of Cuvier’s hypothesis that needed, over a period of time, to be modified to agree with later discoveries of climate and geological shifts of both life forms and the earth’s crust. Kruten, in his book, “The Age of the Dinosaurs,” as it pertains to the discovery of dinosaur remains in the Paris Basin, says of Cuvier: (BEGIN QUOTE).

“Georges Cuvier, working out the sequence in the Paris Basin, taught that the successive periods in the history of the world were invariably caused by a great catastrophe, wiping out most of the living beings when it occurred, whereupon new forms of life were created or migrated from other regions. The antithesis of catastropism is the principle of actualism or uniformitarianism.” (END QUOTE).

It was during Cuvier’s lifetime that the conflict between the theories of Pre-Adamic “Catastrophism” and “Uniformitarianism” spread across the civilized world. There were many theologians who lifted the flag in support of Curvier’s hypothesis of a long period of chaos and catastrophe before the first appearance of man. Some of these theologians were portrayed by Surburg in the book “Darwin, Evolution, and Creation,” where he wrote the following: (BEGIN QUOTE).

“In the nineteenth century George H. Pember, in his book, ‘Earth’s Earliest Ages,’ set forth the interpretation that a long period or ‘gap’ was to be reckoned with after Genesis 1:1. Pember is thus sometimes credited with the formulation of the ‘gap’ or ‘restitution’ theory. The possibility of a gap or long period of time after Genesis 1:1 has been held by a number of nineteenth century theologians, among then Hengstenberg (1802-69), famous Lutheran theologian at the University of Berlin; Franz Delitzsch (1813-90), professor of Old Testament at Erlangen, and by Boehme, Oetinger, F. Von Meyer, Stier, Keerl, Kurtz, and others.” (END QUOTE).

I shall have something to say about Surburg’s suggestion that Pember is the originator of the gap theory at a later time, but for now I would like to present as clear a picture as possible on the catastrophism theory advanced by Cuvier. To close our analysis of Curier’s idea, I will provide a quote from Wendt in his book, “Before the Deluge,” where he speaks of Cuvier’s theory as follows: (BEGIN QUOTE).

“According to Cuvier, the earth was shaken many times in its history by upheavals and cataclysms. Some of these were local events; in such cases they only annihilated life in the affected regions, so the new living beings drifted in from other regions and repopulated the devastated areas. In his principle work on paleontology, ‘Recherches Sur Les Ossements Fossiles,’ Curier stated: ‘Life on earth has been frequently interrupted by frightful events. Innumerable organisms have become the victims of such catastrophes. Invading waters have swallowed up the inhabitants of dry land; the sudden rise of the sea bottom has deposited aquatic animals on land. Their species have vanished forever; they have left behind only sparse remains, which the naturalist is currently striving to interpret.’ Cuvier did not exactly state that life on earth had been extinguished to finality, and then recreated by God in superior form; that theory was to be advanced by his successors.” (END QUOTE).

Concerning Cuvier’s belief concerning the existence of man during the time of the earth’s great catastrophes, Wendt flatly states: “Cuvier did not believe in the existence of man in primordial times.”

While I agree with Dr. Surburg’s statement that G.H. Pember is often credited with the formulation of the original gap theory, this has caused many who do not believe the gap theory to say it was only an answer to Charles Darwin’s famous book, The Origin of Species, published in 1859. However, this is completely false.

The weight of my research credits the original formulation of the gap theory to have originated from the lips of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, a noted gentleman of some renown, some 45 years before Darwin’s book was published. Whitcomb and Morris, in their book, “The Genesis Flood,” are correct in their assessment of the “earliest” appearance of the gap theory, of which they state as follows: (BEGIN QUOTE).

“As early as 1814, Cuvier’s views were being pronounced in England by Dr. Thomas Chalmers, who found room between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 for this succession of pre-Adamic catastrophes and thus became the great popularizer of the now famous ‘Gap Theory.’ Many of the greatest geologists of this period, such as Adam Sedgwick, Rodgerick Murchison, and William Buckland, approved Cuvier’s theory because it seemed to offer an easy explanation of the fossil strata.” (END QUOTE).

It would seem reasonable that the 1810 pre-Adamic catastrophe theory of Cuvier would prompt an almost immediate searching of the Scriptures by diligent born-again believers in an attempt to find God’s linguistic answer to a scientific problem. I have always held that God’s word has the answers for the problems mankind faces in the interpretation of what it teaches. It seems quite reasonable to me that his word was used at that time to present a linguistic solution to a scientific dilemma. I believe the born-again believer who first discovered this linguistic revelation in Genesis was Dr. Thomas Chalmers, who began to expound it publicly “as early as 1814.” The character of this man reveals an inner nature that held the Bible inspired to the point of defending his beliefs openly. The following information concerning Dr. Chalmers, taken from The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, is quoted as follows. (BEGIN QUOTE).