Creation or Evolution: What’s at Stake?
Outdoor education is not just about field skills—it’s about worldviews. When we hike, observe wildlife, track animals, or study plants under a hand lens, we’re not only exploring creation—we’re interpreting it. And whether we realize it or not, our understanding of nature is always shaped by deeper beliefs about where it came from, why it exists, and what it means. This is why the doctrine of creation is foundational to Christian truth and worship.
Two Competing Worldviews
The debate between naturalistic evolution and biblical creation is more than a scientific disagreement—it’s a clash of worldviews. Evolutionary theory, as it is commonly taught, claims that everything in the universe—stars, oceans, trees, and even humans—came about through blind, unguided processes over billions of years. According to this narrative, we are the product of time, chance, and struggle—not divine design.
Biblical creationism, by contrast, presents a radically different account. It proclaims that the universe was spoken into existence by the Triune God in six literal, consecutive days. Man is not a biological accident but the image-bearer of God, uniquely formed from the dust and entrusted with the stewardship of creation.
These are not slight variations. They are fundamentally different stories about reality.
The Biblical Evidence for Six Literal Days
1. Genesis is Historical Narrative—not poetry or myth.
Genesis 1–3 presents a structured, sequential record of creation. It uses Hebrew wayyiqtol verbs, a hallmark of narrative history, and lacks the parallelism typical of poetry. It is tied directly to genealogies in Genesis 5–11 and affirmed as historical by the authors of 1 Chronicles and the Gospel of Luke. Luke 3:38 traces Jesus’ lineage all the way to Adam, affirming that Adam was a real, historical man—not a symbol.
2. The word yom ("day") clearly means a 24-hour day.
Of the 2,200+ times yom appears in the Old Testament, over 1,900 times it refers to a normal day. In Genesis 1, each day is marked by “evening and morning” and a number: “the first day,” “the second day,” and so on. This language speaks specifically of a literal 24-hour day, not symbolic ages.
3. Jesus affirmed the Genesis account as real history.
In Mark 10:6, Jesus says, “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female…”—a direct affirmation of Genesis 1. In Luke 11:50–51, He refers to Abel as a real person whose death occurred near the beginning of history. Jesus treated the Genesis timeline and its characters as literal, not figurative.
4. The Sabbath command is rooted in a six-day creation.
Exodus 20:8–11 ties our weekly rhythm of work and rest to the pattern God established in Genesis:
“For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth… and rested on the seventh.”
This cycle is not metaphorical—it makes no sense unless those days were literal. God’s own work week establishes our rhythm and reminds us weekly of the Creator's design.
Why This Matters
Because creation is a worldview foundation, it defines:
Purpose: If God created us, we belong to Him and exist for His glory. If not, we are accidents.
Worship: Without a Creator, the creation becomes our idol (Rom. 1:25).
Authority: If we reinterpret Genesis to fit human ideas, we place science above Scripture. But if Scripture is our ultimate authority, we must interpret the world through God’s revealed Word (Ps. 119:89).
Beyond theology or biology, the creation‑evolution conversation shapes ethics, stewardship, and education. Do we owe our care to a random outcome, or to a lovingly made world? At Cedarwood, we believe that recognizing creation as divine design transforms every outdoor skill into worship. It invites students to steward with reverence and learn with humility—because creation isn’t accidental, but revelation.
Evolution as a Competing Narrative
The evolutionary worldview is built on naturalism (everything must be explained by physical causes) and uniformitarianism (the processes we see today explain all of Earth’s history). It proposes a timeline of billions of years, with life evolving slowly from single-celled organisms to humans.
In this view:
Death is not a curse but a tool of progress.
Humans are not distinct but merely evolved animals.
Morality, beauty, and meaning are evolutionary byproducts—not reflections of God's image.
Evolution doesn't just attempt to explain biology—it redefines humanity. It offers a framework where suffering is normal, morality is subjective, and human life is only marginally more valuable than any other organism. In such a system, there is no ultimate meaning to life.
The Dangers of Compromise
Many Christians try to merge Scripture with evolutionary science through ideas like Theistic Evolution or Old Earth Creation. But these views:
Introduce death before sin, undermining the gospel.
Detach Adam from real history, making sin symbolic.
Force Scripture to fit a secular framework, rather than letting Scripture shape our worldview.
Such compromises distort both science and theology. They remove the foundation for a historical fall, a real need for redemption, and the hope of a literal restoration. If Genesis is allegory, the Fall becomes metaphor. But a symbolic fall needs no real Savior. The gospel stands on the reality of Adam’s sin and Christ’s atoning death. Undermining Genesis erodes the very structure of redemption. A true gospel must begin in a real garden with a real Creator and a real act of disobedience.
Creation: A Foundation for Wonder and Worship
At Cedarwood Outdoor School, we believe creation studies should lead to worship. Whether observing birds, harvesting herbs, or carving spoons, we approach every outdoor skill with the knowledge that we are exploring the works of God’s hands.
When we embrace the biblical account of origins, we’re not just winning a debate—we’re recovering the meaning behind what we see. Every spiderweb, every canyon, every tree ring becomes a testimony to divine craftsmanship. God’s Word and God’s world do not contradict—they harmonize. But we must let Scripture lead the interpretation. The same God who inscribed His Word in pages also etched His glory into the petals of flowers and the patterns of bird migration. But to rightly read creation, we must first submit to the clarity of Scripture.
Once again, creation is not random—it is revelation.
Conclusion: Standing on the Word
The world says we are accidents. The Bible says we are image-bearers. The world says death is normal. The Bible says death is the enemy. The world says the universe is cold and aimless. The Bible says it was spoken into being by a wise and loving God.
These are not small differences. They are light and darkness. And “what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial?” (2 Cor. 6:14–15).
At Cedarwood, we don’t just teach students how to build fires or forage plants. We teach them how to see the world rightly, through the lens of God’s Word. That starts with a firm foundation in six-day creation, the historical Adam, and the gospel that flows from it. Children are not just learning facts—they’re learning frameworks. If we give them nature but not its meaning, we’ve given them wonder without worship. But if we teach them to see creation as the handiwork of a personal God, we give them the tools to stand firm in a confused world.
When we know who made the world—and why—we’re free to explore it with wonder, gratitude, and purpose. Therefore, we must stand without compromise on the truth of God's Word from the very first verse. And when we do, we give the next generation a faith that can stand, a truth they can trust, and a world they can see with clarity, purpose, and hope.