From Six Days to Six Trillion Days: Dr. Gerald Schroeder’s Genesis Chronology William DiPuccio, Ph.D.

Introduction “…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” 2Pet 3:8 (Psalm 90:4) Since the days of Isaac Newton it was assumed that time and space are the same everywhere in the universe. All this changed with Einstein’s theory of Relativity. The measure of time and space can vary from one location to another depending on your frame of reference. This frame is determined by the intensity of gravity, the gravitational warping of space around matter, acceleration, and the expansion of the universe. MIT Physicist Gerald Schroeder uses General Relativity to show how the 6 calendar days of creation in the book of Genesis, seen from God’s frame of reference in the beginning, stretch to 14-15 billion years in our present frame of reference due to the expansion of space since the Big Bang. This article briefly unpacks and illustrates Schroeder’s creative cosmology. It should be noted that my descriptions here do not necessarily imply full endorsement of Schroeder’s evocative views.

Genesis Days: The Divine Frame of Reference “God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, day one.” Gen 1:5 Notice the text says, “day one,” not the “first day.” Day One is the Divine Day, the archetypal day, the clock by which all subsequent creation is measured. It is, as Genesis 1 suggests throughout, a 24 hour calendar day. How does this day relate to the immense age of the cosmos since the Big Bang? God is omniscient and omnipresent. Unlike us, He is not trapped in space or time. Consequently there are two frames of reference and two clocks in creation, Divine and human. These clocks, though ticking at the same rate, accumulate vastly different times.* Both creation clocks start when stable matter formed (nucleosynthesis of lighter elements—10-5 sec after the Big Bang). At this point the universe was about the size of the solar system. “At the moment of the big bang, when the universe was still pure energy, there was no matter to record the passage of time because at the speed of light, time does not exist…Time grabbed hold when matter formed from the light beams of the big bang creation.” Genesis time begins with the creation of ordinary matter which, though as yet unstructured, later became the building blocks of earth and water as suggested by Gen 1:2, “the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep”.

NOTE: Time indicators shown on the left are approximate

Divine Clock: Genesis Days

Human Clock: Historical Days

Perception: Looking forward from the beginning Perception: Looking backward from the present Space: Unexpanded

Space: Expanded a trillion times (1012)

(since matter formed and time took hold)

(since matter formed and time took hold)

Time: 6 calendar days

Time: ~ 6 trillion calendar days (6x1012)—14-15 billion yrs (age in years includes ~ 10% correction for recently discovered nonlinear increase in the rate of cosmic expansion; see references below)

As this table shows, if we multiply the expansion factor of space after the Big Bang (1 trillion times since stable matter formed), by the 6 calendar days of Genesis, we arrive at 6 trillion days. According to the best estimate of astronomers, this is the approximate age of the universe. Coincidence? The correspondence is remarkable: After all, the age of universe could have turned out to be an immensely different number! So ”once you squeeze the expansion out of the universe to find the age of the universe as seen from its beginning (from Genesis time) the universe was created and made in six 24 hour days” (Schroeder).

Development of Time: The Human Historical Frame of Reference “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.” Isaiah 40:22 Looking back to the beginning of creation, our perception of time and the age of the universe is dependent on both the size of the universe and the travel time of the most distant starlight. The speed of light does not change, but the distance between points changes as the fabric of space itself stretches. Since space has expanded from the very moment of creation, the length of each creation day, from our historical perspective, is scaled according to this rate of expansion. When the universe was small, its rate of doubling was very rapid, greatly increasing the travel time of distant starlight. So the first days of creation were longer. But as the universe got larger, the rate of expansion slowed, so it took a lot more time to double in scale. By comparison, this slower expansion reduces the travel time of distant starlight. So subsequent creation days became shorter. The result is that every time the universe has doubled, our perception of time has been cut in half. From our human historical frame of reference, the length of each creation day is about half the length of the previous day.

APPROXIMATE SCALE OF DAYS

Genesis Day

Historical Day

1st

7.1 billion years

2nd

3.6 billion years

3rd

1.8 billion years

4th

0.89 billion years

5th

0.45 billion years

6th

0.23 billion years

Imagine in your mind going back billions of years to the beginning of

time. Now pretend way back at the beginning of time, when time grabs hold, there's an intelligent community. (It's totally fictitious.) Imagine that the intelligent community has a laser, and it's going to shoot out a blast of light every second. Every second -- pulse. Pulse. Pulse. And on each pulse of light the following information is printed (printing information on light, electromagnetic radiation, is common practice): "I'm sending you a pulse every second." Billions of years later, way far down the time line, we here on Earth have a big satellite dish antenna and we receive that pulse of light. And on that pulse of light we read "I'm sending you a pulse every second." Light travels 300 million meters per second. So at the beginning, the two light pulses are separated by a second of travel for 300 million meters. Now they travel through space for billions of years until they reach the Earth. But wait a minute. Is the universe static? No. The universe is expanding. The universe expands by space stretching. So as these pulses travel through space for billions of years, space is stretching. What's happening to these pulses? The space between them is also stretching. So the pulses get further and further apart. Billions of years later, when the first pulse arrives, we read on it "I'm sending you a pulse every second." A message from outer space. You call all your friends, and you wait for the next pulse to arrive. Does it arrive second later? No! A year later? Maybe not. Maybe billions of years later. Because the amount of time this pulse of light has traveled through space will determine the amount of space stretching that has occurred, and so how much space and therefore how much time there will be between the arrival of the pulses. That's standard cosmology. –Gerald Schroeder

This exponential shortening of creation days correlates with the geologic ages of the earth (created on day 3) and the appearance of various flora and fauna in the fossil record (see the series of articles cited below). Dr. Schroeder maintains a limited form of theistic evolution, but his chronology is used by many old earth creationists who reject macro-evolution.

Conclusion Genesis looks forward in time, from very different time-space coordinates, when the universe was small. “The universe, up to the creation of Adam’s soul [about 4000 BC], is 14 to 15 billion years old in human time and it is 6 days old in Genesis time, with no bending of either the Bible or the science. It is the same series of events, told from two different vantage points” (Schroeder). As Einstein showed in his theory of Relativity, the measure of time throughout the universe is completely dependant on one’s frame of reference. ______________________________ * Schroeder, possibly in response to criticism by other scientists, has quietly modified part of his original contention (1991) which held that time dilation (i.e., time flowing at different rates due either to acceleration or changes in gravity) is responsible for the difference in elapsed time between the two clocks. So far as I can tell, he now attributes the difference only to the stretching of space which increases the travel time of distant starlight. Time dilation is a conclusion of Special Relativity, while coordinate expansion is a conclusion of General Relativity. The term “frame of reference” as used in this article refers generally to one’s spacetime position or vantage point and does not necessarily imply inertial reference frame which has a more technical meaning in Special Relativity.

References Gerald Schroeder, “The Age of the Universe” (various versions): http://www.tothesource.org/5_16_2006/5_16_2006.htm (includes graphic) http://www.geraldschroeder.com/AgeUniverse.aspx (discusses recent correction factor) http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html (more detailed) http://www.tothesource.org/8_2_2006/8_2_2006.htm (correlates creation days with earth’s history) Also see Schroeder’s volume, Genesis and the Big Bang: The Discovery Of Harmony Between Modern Science And The Bible (1991— does not include later corrections and modifications)