Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 62:1 (Spring 2000)
Article: The Westminster Assembly On The Days Of Creation: A Reply To David W. Hall
Author: William S. Barker

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WTJ 62:1 (Spring 2000) p. 113

The Westminster Assembly On The Days Of Creation:
A Reply To David W. Hall

William S. Barkeri

Rev. David W. Hall is pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. His claims of twenty-one Westminster Divines who hold, explicitly or implicitly, to six twenty-four-hour days of creation have been published electronically and in print and are being cited widely as having proven the position of the Westminster Assembly. The author, as a member of the PCA General Assembly’s committee on the days of creation, has found it necessary to respond to these claims.

Subscription to our doctrinal standards, the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, is a matter to be taken seriously. The second ordination vow of the Presbyterian Church in America asks: “Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of this Church, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures; and do you further promise that if at any time you find yourself out of accord with any of the fundamentals of this system of doctrine, you will on your own initiative, make known to your Presbytery [Session, in the case of ruling elders and deacons] the change which has taken place in your views since the assumption of this ordination view?”

In the last few years the claim has been made by some that, if one does not hold to a view that the days of creation in Genesis 1 are six twenty-four-hour days, then one should declare an exception to the Westminster Standards’ language that God created the world “in the space of six days” (WCF, IV. 1; cf. LC, Q. 15 and SC, Q. 9), and some presbyteries have indicated that they would not allow the teaching of any such exception. This claim has been bolstered by the evidence offered by David W. Hall that up to twenty-one Westminster Divines either explicitly or implicitly supported six twenty-four-hour days, with at least nine of them explicitly advocating this view.1 David Hall has done the church a service by gathering

WTJ 62:1 (Spring 2000) p. 114

this evidence. It is my belief, however, that his conclusions go farther than the evidence allows.

In a brief four-page statement on the days of creation adopted by the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary on March 1, 1999 the argument was made that the phrase “in the space of six days,” rather than simply “in six days,” was consciously adopted by the Westminster Assembly in order to disassociate itself from the view of insta...

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