Ge 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Ge 1:2 And the earth was without form and empty. And darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.

It has been suggested by some, that the two verses are not connected but that there is an amount of time between them. That is, God created earth, satan messed it up, so He recreated it. The argument is given that God only creates perfect things, so how could He create a world without form and empty. Therefore, it must have originally been perfect, it was messed up, and then He did it again, and it was messed up again....

What I'm looking for is various ways on how to refute this idea. It is actually a very old idea, a mixture of atheism, evolution, and paganism. Some have tried to harmonize evolution with scriptures and said between those two verses is where the fossil record came into being.

But, there are problems. If all worlds were created perfect, and that meaning not without form and void, then satan must have messed up most of the universe. Then, since the earth was flooded, there must have been two floods. And not just two creations, but three. For if you can read a whole bunch of things between verses 1 and 2, then what about
Ge 2:4 ¶ This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

Another creation! And is this none other than God keeps trying to get things right, but He keeps failing, over and over? What happened to the first creation? Does this diminish salvation?

Are there other suggestions on how to refute this idea?

http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H8414&t=KJV
Strong's H8414 - tohuw
formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness
formlessness (of primeval earth)
nothingness, empty space
that which is empty or unreal (of idols) (fig)
wasteland, wilderness (of solitary places)
place of chaos
vanity

http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H922&t=KJV
Strong's H922 - bohuw
emptiness, void, waste

It simply means that it's empty. That doesn't mean that it's imperfect. I can have a perfect box that's empty.

The problem is projecting to God our own ideas of perfection. It happens in cosmology, and soteriology, and harmartiology, and a host of other areas.

However, there's still room for a vast amount of time between verse 1 and 2, and even 3.

I've heard the argument too. But I would ask such people to go bury their heads in the sand and not show their faces again for shame.

When a man starts building a house, how does the building look? Beautifully Palatial? Silly people.

///

Yes, I like that.


I guess it all depends upon what one's definition of heaven and the earth is. I tend to believe it is defined within the chapter, and you probably believe it's terra firma. I think these others have created a mixture of the two ideas and several other ideas leading to emptiness and confusion.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
There's a lot of importance in this verse. It's not just a matter of chronology that the first words of the Bible present God as Creator. What was the memorial of this creation? The seventh day, in which He rested. The seventh day is established forever in the commandments alongside a reference to the creation. What was the first angel's message in Revelation 14? To worship God as Creator. With this is a quote from the fourth commandment.

By remembering the seventh day, as the commandment says, we acknowledge God as Creator. Without creation there is no seventh day. With the Sabbath there are no long ages of evolution, no other creators, and no authority in man, who is under heaven, to change the Sabbath declared by God, who is above heaven.

In one statement these first words of the Bible refute atheism, all other religions, and the keeping of the first day sabbath. They also declare the love of God who, "Declaring the end from the beginning" (Isaiah 46:10), knew the battleground that the world He was creating was going to become and knew the suffering He would go through to save the race he was about to create, yet chose to create us.



"And the earth was without form and empty."
To quote the Pulpit commentary- "Was. Not "had become."" The author goes on to describe and refute the idea of multiple creations.

This is like saying God placed a canvas on the easel, and at first it was blank. There was no more imperfection in a world not yet sculpted to maturity and inhabited by all life than there is in a newborn child who has yet to grow into their adult form. It being the beginning only meant that there was work to be done, and this is exactly what God is immediately described as doing.

We know that "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin..." (Romans 5:12) and also that "by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." ((1 Corinthians 15:21,22) Was there anyone before Adam? "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." (1 Corinthians 15:45)

Because we believe the Bible to be inspired by God we know Adam was the first man and that both sin and death entered this world through him, and not by anyone before him. If these did not come here before Adam then there could not have been another previous creation, because there would have been no reason to destroy it.

God did not restart creation over and over to erase sin. After all, He did not restart Heaven over and over because of Satan's rebellion. If God was willing to simply restart creation to solve sin then He would have had little interest in suffering to save sinners or in allowing the world to continue more than moments after the first sin. If he had restarted this world's creation to solve sin then the angels would have been still left with the unresolved controversy of Satan's accusations.



"And darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters."
Though empty, it was filled with water, and though without form, it was deep. So what was the earth empty of? Any inhabitants. What form did it not have? Any land.

There are a lot of worlds "empty" of life in the universe. As far as we know all the planets circling our sun are "empty" of life, all except earth.

In the beginning God created the universe including our earth. Just because there was no life on these multi-billions of celestial bodies, does not mean His work was imperfect.

Then, it appears He chose to turn some of these worlds into populated planets, like our earth (spending six days doing so).

Ellen White mentions that there are other perfect, populated planets that have never tasted of their tree of knowledge of good and evil. (See Early Writings page 40)

The thing is -- we don't know how extensive the "war in heaven" was when Satan and his angels fought against Michael and His angels. (Rev. 12) Angels are far more powerful beings than we humans -- there may have been considerable damage.
There are things going on in the universe of systems exploding and colliding etc. that raise questions.

Sin entered the UNIVERSE before the creation of this world.

This in no way means that God tries to create but fails.
Everything God created is perfect, including the angel now known as Satan. He was perfect till he cultivated thoughts of pride and ambition which turned his perfection into imperfection.

The important thing for us is that OUR world was created perfect in six days, and that the seventh is the memorial of that event.
Sin came into our world when Adam chose to sin.
Satan was not allowed free access to the world (only to the tree of knowledge of good and evil) before that.

It was due to sin and choosing Satan's suggestions over God's law of liberty that this world became imperfect.

On the fourth-day of creation Jesus created perfect planets that are void and without form. They still are. The Asteroid Belt may have happened at the time of the Flood. As well as all the craters on the moon and earth.

On the 4th day God created our solar system, placing our earth in the perfect distance from the sun to support life, and the moon to rotate around the earth.

The universe (at least a large part of it) was in place long before that. The words "he created the stars also' is in parenthetical style not limiting them to day four. God and His angels existed before the creation of this world -- they had places to live, not just existing in nothingness.

We read:

Notice there were created "worlds" that first had a measure of sympathy with Lucifer, the covering cherub, an angel that they had loved when he was perfect, and now after Christ's death they understood the true malignity of Lucifer's character and all that "affection" was destroyed.
She isn't talking about our world here.

Again:


and also:


Compare this with
Job 38:4 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if you have understanding.
38:5 Who laid the measures thereof, if you know? or who stretched the line upon it?
38:6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
38:7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

So the "the sons of God, the representatives of the unfallen worlds" were shouting for joy when God created our world.

I agree. I suspect our planet existed in a void, formless, water-covered state for billions of years. Then 6000 years ago Jesus rearranged the elements into plants, animals, and people.

I thank everyone for their responses. To try to summarize some main points:

Emptiness does not mean imperfectness.

When building something, the initial portion is not the complete portion.

If by one man sin entered the world, then it did not enter by another means. Therefore, there would be no need for God to restart creation.

If restarting creation solved/solves the sin problem, why not continue restarting creation over and over?

Satan was not allowed free access to our world prior to Adam's sin.

There are other planets without form and void. Did God create them that way or sin reign there, too?



I think this should be enough to object to someone promoting such an idea. Then it can be seen how they handle these objections or if they carry on as they are with no answers given.