Mauro and Glenda asked:

Why did god need time to make the universe? If he is so powerful, why did he spent 6 days to create
it?

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If one follows the precepts of St. Augustine, it was God that created time. There was no time before
its creation. God existed before time and after time as we know it ceases to exist. God is outside time.
God created all that exists including time and space ex nihilo, "out of nothing".

Augustine stated that in the mind of God there is no before or after: there is only the now. Individuals
experience time in the form of the present, past and future, but God is omnipresent and therefore is
not limited by the concept of time. There are not two types of time only one. Individuals are in time
God is timeless. Therefore, the six days is a concept that man has created to explain the process of
creation.

John Eberts

The Book of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 tell the story of creation. The book of Genesis is a literary work
and not a scientific work. The whole of the bible, but particularly the Old Testament is not strictly
speaking, history in the understood manner of the term. It certainly contains historical data, but also
contains myths, legends, sagas, etc. In other words, the writers of the Book of Genesis were not
really interested in the science of cosmology.

For them the religious truth was that the world had a beginning and that beginning was the creative
activity of God. The fact that science and contemporary cosmology can give us some theoretical
insights, such as the Big Bang into the beginnings of the universe does not negate the truth of the
creation as it is given in the Book of Genesis.

But, it is crucial to understand that it is a theological work. The writers are seeking to understand the
beginnings of the world and for them that beginning is the deity. It is not strictly in keeping with the
literary dimensions of the book of Genesis to see the so-called 6 Days of Creation in strictly temporal
or chronological terms. It is best to see the story of the creation in the Book of Genesis not as a
temporal or chronological history but as a story of origins which has similarities with all other myths of
beginnings and which are endemic to all primitive cultures.

So God did not take 6 days to make the world. Rather, the universe has evolved over thousands of
millions of years, but the actual literary story as it given in Genesis is the reflection of a people who
are trying to understand what we are all trying to understand: where did we come from, what are we
doing here, what si the meaning of life, why is there evil in the world, and where are we going. It may
take the same creativity for us to answer these questions as it took the writers of the Book of
Genesis.

Fr Seamus Mulholland