“A potter does not throw clay down and have it instantly take the form he wants. He molds it, shaping it through intermediate shapes, until it takes the form he wants.”
No, but God, being perfect, does. He needs not rely upon eons of small mutations. He said “Let there be light,” and there was light. Before He made the sun, mind you!
He could have told us differently. He could have said,
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, so he caused a giant explosion to separate matter from anti-matter. As the universe continued to expand, He caused a random DNA mutation on this planet to form a single, living cell. He caused this cell to split into two, and after several thousand years, a chance mutation that was actually biologically viable occurred. Both types of cell life coexisted for a hundred thousand years, and then. . .”
If that’s what He did, why did He not just say so? The Bible is His to write. Why say He made man, in his entirety, on the sixth day, and rested the seventh day? What does that mean?
The sabbath rest is the entire reason for the 4th commandment. The creation in six days, with the seventh for rest, is given as the reason for the Jews to work six days, then rest the seventh. What sort of reason would millions of years of evolution make for a resting time every seventh day of the week?
Jesus said that God made one man for one woman in the Garden when He taught against divorce. If we were slowly mutating from apes, with all the multiple sexual partners and lack of marriage and so forth in the animal sphere, what sort of reason would the creation of Adam and Eve be for arguing against divorce?
Who were Adam and Eve in your world view, anyway?
No, but God, being perfect, does. He needs not rely upon eons of small mutations. He said “Let there be light,” and there was light. Before He made the sun, mind you!
If God had created man in an instant, He would have described it that way. He chose to describe it using a term that invokes formlessness gradually taking a desired form. The instant act of "Let there be light!" corresponds rather well with the Big Bang of modern cosmology, BTW.
Who were Adam and Eve in your world view, anyway?
Adam was the first man to be recognizably human in some specific, probably spiritual or intellectual, way. A friend of mine has suggested that as God told Moses that His name was "I Am That I Am" that Adam was the first to realize "I am," thus becoming the image of God. That works for me. Eve remains the female civilizing influence -- the lost rib that civilized man.
BTW, this also allows Cain (and Adam and Eve's other children) to have spouses without incest. They were other at least genetic humans -- quite possibly, though not necessarily, others who had also learned, "I Am" from Adam.