A Proposal: Narrative Creation

     Narrative Creation is a theorem that attempts to understand the Genesis question that has plagued the modern Christian Church since Darwin challenged traditional creation theory. While the exact details and implementation of this theory is unpolished and inexact, the logical theory of Narrative Creation is as follows.

• The universe appears to be far more ancient that traditional creation accepts.
• Therefore, the universe as we know it is only a portion of existence, that is, before the creation narrative in Genesis (or at least the creation of humans) something existed. What exactly that is and how it relates to the narrative is up for debate, but I tentatively propose that shape comes first, infinitely so- stars, planets, matter, etc. have existed for incredible amounts of time relative to the human viewpoint. Other elements of creation can follow sequentially, methodology not important. (Some Christians vehemently argue that life arose only through divine creation, others are more accepting of a creation by evolution framework. Again, this is a challenge to both creation and evolution, so I won't endorse either.)
• The way that we understand this in scripture is in relation to the Bible as a narrative- an author creates a world and then the story takes place in the world. Even if you believe that scripture mandates a specific time-frame, all of this creation takes place before time, and events can happen before the human narrative begins, allowing for potentially infinite time for divine tweaking and fixing and stuff.

     So, in short, this theory proposes that, while the time of humanity in existence is relatively short, that does not mean that God cannot have been active before the arbitrary constraints imposed by traditional creation theory, and that God can create in any way He darn well chooses. (To be honest, in my opinion, evolution is such an absurdly chaotic event that it could only be caused successfully in context of our existence through divine intervention. This may be a bias, but the incredible probability of mass genetic mutation requisites a massive leap of faith that is easier through a faith in the divine rather than chance.) The goal is to add a third, more reasonable theory to the conflict between creation and evolution that has become so incredibly deprived of common sense, logic, and rational thought that another challenger is needed, even a totally tentative one as this, to solve anything. Even then, this won't solve the debate between opponents, but as Charles Simeon said, "The truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes."