The Westminster Divines and the long stretch of church history prior to the 19th century did have a view on the length of creation days. This historical fact is often obscured by either biased presuppositions or a research vacuum. Despite the prevalent claim from some quarters (actually relatively recent, primarily since the 1800s) that the confessional words "in the space of six days" really could mean up to 16 bi11ion years, when primary writings by the divines are consulted, it becomes very difficult to maintain that the divines were more chic than heretofore imagined.

The West has undergone two cataclysmic religious Reformations. The Second Reformation began in the Sixteenth Century and was a rediscovery of the Biblical doctrine of grace. The First Reformation began over one thousand years earlier and was a rediscovery of the Biblical doctrine of creation.

This rediscovery of the Biblical doctrine of creation had the effect of a nuclear bomb on the West, bringing to an end the dominance of a Classical approach to man and nature. This Classical approach originated with ancient, pagan Greek and Roman philosophies. Early medieval Christendom inherited and absorbed this worldview as the Classical world itself collapsed. But as the centuries past, the medieval world, largely rooted as it was in Christianity, could not escape the Biblical doctrine of creation that had been suppressed by Greek and Latin thought. Eventually that doctrine broke free from its chains and totally reoriented the thinking and activities of man with reference to the true character of creation and the true role of man within that creation.