One of the challenges that the people who claim that nothing of the universe existed before 6,000 years ago is the existence of a watery fluid mass before God said that He created anything. Genesis 1: 2 says "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" and that existed before God took any action.

Before I address that let me say a bit on my position on the Gap theory and in other articles I have more to be said on the subject of creation.

Why a gap?

Job 38:7 (KJV) saysWhen the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 

So to the rest of our knowledge we must add this information on the angels. Then Exodus 20:11 (KJV) says For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. 

How do we deal with this additional information? First note that Exodus does not say that it was in the beginning (the absolute beginning) that this six-day event occurred; then also notice that it does not say ‘created’.

Now let us add some reasoning. If the universe was created before or at the same time as the angels then the angels could not sing when they were created so the angels had to be created before the heavens and the earth. Now there is another very important piece of information that we have. The beginning cannot mean the beginning of everything because it necessarily excludes the creation of the angels.

We cannot forget what it says in John. John 1:1 (KJV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 

Now if there are two beginnings then there must be a gap.

Let me say what I do believe. God does not explain what happened before the age of man in any detail. In the Bible the beginning refers to the beginning of the age of man not any of the many other possible beginnings for someone who has lived eternally. The beginning is not the beginning of God or angels or the universe although we can pick up some insights into some of these as well. 

The watery/fluid mass

Even before I go to the scripture I want to present what I believe is logical. Matter cannot exist in nothing. If you tell me that something solid exists then I believe that I am correct is assuming that space exists because matter must occupy space.

I hope to spend some time later discussing this fluid mass but the first thing I want you to recognise that it is mass. It is matter therefore there is already space. Matter can only exist in space so creation had already begun, space is something and the watery mass is something else. It is called the Earth not the universe! Some people read Earth and then switch to start talking about the universe. By identifying the watery mass as the Earth alone it means that there was something else that made up the universe. Now the word translated water is also used for semen for example. I say that to say that it can mean something liquid with several solid pieces of matter in it. This will be important but I do not want to develop this topic here.

Now I already hinted that I believe that Psalm 104:30 and Genesis 1 are talking about the same thing; a renewal of the Earth. Later on we will discuss the meaning of created as used in the Bible. I hear people nowadays laughing at tohu and bohu and pointing symbolic fingers. It reminds me of when I was in school and children who had no shoes laughed and pointed fingers at children who wore cheap shoes. To me tohu and bohu, coming from the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void , when interpreted as became waste and empty is a far superior explanation than that of the finger pointers.

At absolute zero there is no energy. There is no light at any wavelength. Everything crumbles into one mass of mush. So if the Earth exists there must be heat. Heat can be created by chemical reactions within a planets core. Most things will survive without light for a few days but they will not survive extremely low temperatures. If you have a naturally decayed solar system or indeed universe then suns will die but there will be some heat and gravitational force to keep the solar systems and galaxies together. This is the condition that I believe is described in Genesis 1; a dead system (not necessarily the whole universe) that came about as a consequence of destruction by God followed by neglect and a satanic attitude, although I do not believe that it reached absolute zero. The Earth would be an ice planet because it has water. There are scientific arguments about gravity that could suggest that all of the water would fly off into space but let us assume that these were overcome. At such low temperatures there would be no atmosphere because all of the gases would become liquid first then solid but if we actually reach absolute zero, undefined. Adding heat (which could produce some level of light) would be the first step in rebuilding the atmosphere. In order to sustain it He would later create a sun (but not necessarily out of nothing). Now that is pure guesswork mixed with a little science but it is a possibility.

Some people argue that in the beginning of everything God created the Earth and lots of extra water and then he sent some of the water up to heaven and threw some planets and stars into the vacant space. I would rather believe in tohu and bohu. Take a quick look at Genesis 1.

For some reason there was too much water on the earth or maybe throughout space. Now remember that the word used for water does not mean water ONLY. It appears to mean a fluid of no specific density. God created a firmament between the excess and what He wanted. He collected the one under the firmament BUT HE DID NOT COLLECT THE ONE IN SPACE. What happens to water left in space? It dissipates. It addition the solid part could have been the basis of other planets. Now that is just one possibility. Another is that He actually did move much of the liquid somewhere out at the edge of space. The Bible refers to four different places as “heaven”. The problem is that He may not specify.

Now science has provided us with a clue to what that 'water' was like and hence what He created this solar system from.

Where do comets come from?

Mathematical theory suggests that most comets may come to the solar system from very far away, as far away as 100,000 AU. In this picture, the solar system is buried deep within the cloud.
An AU is the distance from the earth to the sun and is equivalent to about 100,000,000 miles. Mars is 1.5 AU from the sun, Jupiter is 5 AU from the sun, and Pluto is 39 AU from the sun. So comets come from very far away indeed.
Comets are observed to come to the solar system from all directions, therefore the place where the comets come from is thought to be a giant sphere surrounding the solar system. This sphere is called the Oort cloud after Jan Oort who suggested its existence in 1950. Thus comets are said to come from the Oort cloud...Last modified March 17, 2004 by Randy RussellWhere do comets come from?WINDOWS TO THE UNIVERSEWEBJune 2nd, 2017

The Bible indicates that some of the watery mass was left back after God completed our solar system and He send it out to the "heavens". The Oort cloud could be the rest of this watery mass. The Oort Cloud is still a theory, although scientists have studied several comets believed to have come from this distant region of our solar system.

The highest heaven. the Third Heaven 2 Cor. 12:2.

also (1 Kings 8:30; Psalm 2:4; Matthew 5:16)

The next one with the stars and heavenly bodies.

also (Psalm 19:4 ,6; Jeremiah 8:2, Isaiah 13:10).

Another with earths atmosphere.

also (Genesis 7:11-12; Deut. 11:17; Deut. 28:12; Lamentations 4:19).

And finally where birds fly.

What is the firmament? In other words did God say that he sent the water up to the third heaven?

I believe that at the renewing of the earth God separated enough matter from the mass of fluid to make Earth the size that He wanted and I am not clear on exactly what He did with the rest in the long term. He could have made the whole solar system out of what was originally the Earth. On the other hand the whole Earth could have been covered with solidified gas and liquid to the height of Noahs flood and therefore the whole surface would be dark. I am not sure what without form and void means (we will go into Jeremiah 4 later) but it is not good and it is not something that we have at present because it was. I tend to believe that it was without any of the forms that He was about to create i.e. like flora and fauna because the without form appears to be synonymous with void or empty and then life came and we have what the writer talks about in Romans.

Sin entered this age or the renewed world because of Adam but it was around long before in another age. Satan lied before Adam and Eve disobeyed. He said that they would not die, he had also become Satan before he ensnared Eve therefore he had to have sinned, but Satan is a product of another age. Before we get to Satan and the like let us talk some science or rather, common sense.