Tough Questions Answered

Well Billy, as of 12:36 PM, at least 23 of us are right!!

I had never heard of the 6000 year old theory until 3 years ago. Just assumed that with all the old bones that are found, it was older. And, always heard how old G.C. was. Read what I could find on the young earth theory and it did not convince me.

Pastor Hagee says it it not unbiblical to believe the earth is old. Somewhere else I read that we have no idea how many years were between Gen 1:1 and 2 or 2 and 3. Can’t remember. Said the earth was void. Is it impossible to think that millions of years went by?

A Christian lady in my Bible study class said she takes the “Christian” view. I found her to be rather closed minded.

Maybe this is something else we are to find out later.
Not really worth arguing about, right?

Bill,
The record of generations from Adam to Abraham can be discerned to equal 2,000 years and of course its obvious that from Abraham to Jesus was 2,000 years and from Jesus until now…well it’s year 2009, so clearly = 2,000 years. All in all thats 6,000 years. I do very much believe that the Bible genealogies make this clear.

Hi Spencer,
All I can tell you is what I’ve read over and over in my seminary studies. Below are just two quotes from well-respected evangelical scholars:

Bishop James Usher (1581–1656), whose chronology was used in the old Scofield Reference Bible, argued that Adam was created in 4,004 b.c. However, his calculations are based on the assumption that there are no gaps in the genealogical tables of Genesis 5 and 11, while we know this is false. For instance, the Bible says: “Arphaxad … became the father of Shelah” (Gen. 11:12), but in Jesus’ genealogy in Luke 3:35–36, “Cainan” is listed between Arphaxad and Shelah. If there is one gap, there may be more—indeed, we know there are more. For example, Matthew 1:8 says: “Jehoram the father of Uzziah,” but the parallel listing in 1 Chronicles 3:11–14 illustrates missing generations between Jehoram and Uzziah (Azariah), namely, Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah. Just how many gaps there are in biblical genealogies and how much time they represent is not known. Even so, gaps there are and, hence, complete chronologies cannot be made; only accurate genealogies (lines of descent) are given.

Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Two: God, Creation (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2003), 648.

The contents of the genealogies were selective and not intended to be exhaustive or precise. Shortening genealogies by omitting names was commonplace. . . . Although the years [representing people's ages] are reliable, this genealogy [in Gen 5] cannot be used to reconstruct the age of the earth. Genesis does not present genealogies for establishing absolute chronology (see 1 Kg 6:1). Also Genesis 5 does not possess a complete list. Genesis 5 and 11 exhibit 10-name genealogies that consist of stereotypical patterns.

Kenneth Mathews, “Are the Biblical Genealogies Reliable?”, in The Apologetics Study Bible, p. 14-15

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Bible doesn’t say one way or the other how old the Earth is. Because of this, I have no problem accepting the Earth as being approximately 4.5 billion years old.

Here are some Biblical arguments for an old Earth (or at least for the Bible not requiring a young Earth):

–”In the beginning” in Genesis 1:1 is not necessarily tied to the six days of creation. It could be a summary of the whole six days, or an event in the undated past.

–The days of creation have an amazing correlation to the 4.5 billion years of Earth history as understood by geologists. Reasons to Believe (Hugh Ross’s organization) has a chart showing how the days of Genesis 1 could related to Earth history: http://www.reasons.org/creation-timeline . I’m not committed to the day-age interpretation, but find this very interesting.

–The word “day” is used in a non-literal sense at least once in the opening passage of Genesis. Genesis 2:4 says, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” (ESV). Here, “day” refers to the entire creation week.

–Moses not only wrote the Pentateuch, but also wrote Psalm 90, which says “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” (verse 4, ESV). If Moses could use “day” figuratively in Gen 2:4 and Ps 90:4, then could he not have used it figuratively in Gen 1 as well?

–The days of Genesis 1 are used as a pattern not only for the seven-day week, but also for the sabbatical year and year of jubilee.

–Too many things happen on day six to be condensed into a literal 24-hour day. God creates the animals, God creates Adam, Adam names the animals, Adam recognizes that none of these animals are suitable companions, God creates Eve, and Adam exclaims, “At long last, this is it!”

–Another common argument given for a young Earth is that there was no death before the fall. But if one looks at the relevant passages (Gen 3, Rom 5, Rom 8, 1 Cor 15), there is absolutely no mention of animal death being the result of the fall. These passages specify human death, but are mute on whether or not animals were involved. Young-earth creationists are reading something into the text that isn’t there.

I view the young-Earth view as Biblically unnecessary and scientifically unworkable.

When one discusses the age of the earth, what does that person mean? You might ask, “How old is Adam?” Some may say he looks like 24. Someone else may say, “He is just a couple hours old.” Which one is right? If God created a grown man, would not that man have an apparent age at creation? Did the first trees have tree rings? The age of a substance is tied to its state of existence and its required environment. Furthermore, Adam had to eat food, so food already existed. If he was hungry, he could not plant a seed and wait for it to grow and bear fruit. He would have starved in the passing years. Therefore, the trees had an apparent age already at their creation with fruit on them. How old is the earth? That depends on its created state, and the necessary environmental factors. Age does not have to have a time factor; but just an existent functionary state that may only be apparent due to momentary creation; not by the passage of time as we know it.

I believe that a literal six-day creation in Genesis 1 is not compatible with millions (billions) of years. I have been researching this topic for over 30 years, and I find absolutely no warrant, either biblical or scientific to take Genesis as metaphorical and thereby accommodate it to the long-age paradigm of evolution (certainly not from the very dubious evidence based on radiometric dating, which has been known to be out by millions of years), other than what theistic evolutionists mistakenly do; namely, to discount the teaching of a recent (young) and functionally mature universe ex nihilo (out of nothing) by special (fiat) creation of God in order to acccomodate the teaching in Genesis 1 to the long-age paradigm of evolution; in short, to allow scientific opinion to become a hermeneutical basis for re-interpreting the plain language (even to them) of scripture (Genesis 1) Dr. James Barr, formerly Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford University and recognized as one of the world’s leading Old Testament Hebrew scholars, wrote, “So far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience.” Dr. E. J. Young of Westminister Seminary in Philadelphia, an authority of massive erudition in Hebrew and cognate languages, states, “Genesis is not poetry. There are poetical accounts of creation in the Bible–Psalm 104, and certain chapters in Job, and they differ completely from the first chapter of Genesis. Hebrew poetry had certain characteristics, and they are not found in the first chapter of genesis.” Professor John Currid writes, “There is no indication of figurative language in Genesis 1. If the narrative is to be considered imagery, one would expect to encounter many of the essentials of figurative language (i.e. schema, methapor, and other tropes), bur there are none. Rather, the first 11 chapters of it are written as historical narrative much the same way that I and 2nd Chronicles are written. That is, they are theological interpretations of the actual states of affairs that have occurred in the space-time cosmos.
Of course, there is plenty of scientific evidencefor a young earth.
I will continue the evidence for a young earth where I left of. I said where methods of radiometric dating failed on rocks of known age, or gave conflicting results,
geochronologists claim that one or more of the assumptions were invalid in this case. But then it should be acceptable to question these assumptions whenever a “date” contradicts the biblical time frame. Rob.. Said, “if the facts do not support the premise (whether it be the premise of uniformity–that the earth is billions of years old, or the premise of a catastrophic, world-restructuring global flood) , the premise is abandoned; yet, when evolutionists obtain results not consistent with the evolutionary time frame, do they abandon the premise of their cherished evolutionary paradigm? You bet your sweet bibby, they don’t. Instead, they reject and discard radiometric dating results not consistent with the evolutionary time frame . If evolutionists can do this, then scientists who believe in a young earth should have the same right at least to question the assumptions whenever a “date” contradicts a biblical time frame. Read the information I gave (via references above) on the assumptions of the Geological Column and Radiometric Dating. There are many examples where these dating methods give “dates” that are wrong for rocks of known historical age. One example is a rock from a dacite lava dome at Mount St. Helens volcano. Although we know the rock was formed in 1986, the rock was dated by the potassium-argon (K-Ar) method as 0.35 plus or minus 0.05million years old. Another example is K-Ar “dating” of five andesite lava flows from Mt. Ngauruhoe in New Zealand. The “dates” ranged from less than 0.27 to 3.5 million years–but one lava flow occurred in 1949, three in 1954 and one in 1975. What happened was the excess radiogenic argon (40 Ar*)from the magma (molten rock)was retained in the rock when it solidified. The secular scientific literature also lists many examples of excess radiogenic argon (40Ar*) causing “dates” of millions of years in rocks of known history. This excess appears to have come from the upper mantle, below the earth’s crust. This is consistent with a young earth–the argon had too little time to escape.
Question: If excess radiogenic argon (40AR*) can cause exaggerated dates for rocks of known age, then why should we trust the method for rocks of unknown age?
Another problem is the conflicting dates between different methods. If two methods disagree, then at least one of them must be wrong. For example, in Australia, some wood was buried by a basalt lava flow, as can be seen from the charring. The wood was “dated” by radiocarbon (14C) analysis at about 45,000 years old, but the basalt was “dated” by the K-Ar method at c.45 million years old. Other fossil wood from the upper Permian rock layers has been found with carbon 14 still present. Detectable carbon 14 would have all disintegrated if the wood was really older than 50,000 years, let alone the 250 million years that evolutionists assign to these upper Permian rock layers. According to the Bible’s chronology, great age cannot be the true cause of the observed isotope ratios. Anomalies like the above are good supporting evidence ( See conclusions of research on radiometric and carbon-14 dating by Dr. Paul Giem in his book, “Scientific Theology”, La Sierra University Press, 1997). In the words of atheistic evolutionist W.B. Provine: “Most of what I learned of the field in graduate (1964-1968) school is either wrong or significantly changed.” Creationists understand the limitations of these dating methods better than evolutionists who claim that they can use certain present processes to “prove” that the earth is billions of years old. In reality, all age-dating methods, including those which point to a young earth, rely on non-provable assumptions. In the words of atheistic evolutionist W.B. Provine: “Most of what I learned of the field in graduate (1964-1968) school is either wrong or significantly changed.” Creationists understand the limitations of these dating methods better than evolutionists who claim that they can use certain present processes to “prove” that the earth is billions of years old. In reality, all age-dating methods, including those which point to a young earth, rely on non-provable assumptions. John Woodmorappe has just published a detailed study demonstrating the fallacy of radiometric “dating”, including the “high-tech” isochron method: The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1999).
Evolutionist William Stansfield, Ph.D., California Polytech State, has stated: “It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological ‘clock’.”
Evolutionist Frederick B. Jueneman candidly summarizes the situation: “The age of our globe is presently thought to be some 4.5 billion years, based on radio-decay rates of uranium and thorium. Such ‘confirmation’ may be short lived, as nature is not to be discovered quite so easily. There has been in recent years the horrible realization that radio-decay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences. And this could mean that the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought the Mesozoic to a close may not be 65 million years ago, but rather, within the age and memory of man.”
Evidence from geology.
Erosion of continents:
Continents are being eroded so rapidly that they should have been worn away completely over billions of years. The problem is more acute in mountainous regions, and there are huge plains with hardly any erosion. Some scientists try to address the continental wearing problem by positing that uplift balances the erosion. But this fails to explain the existence of erosion surfaces that are “dated” as very ancient. Moreover, uniformitarian explanations of slow and gradual deposition/erosion over millions of years fail to offer a reasonable explanation for such important geological features and formations as the Tibetan Plateau (thousands of feet thick and over three miles high above sea level), the incredible lava Columbia Plateau in northwestern United States (approximately 200,000 square miles) and the flat, featureless Colorado Plateau. They do not explain the rise of mountain chains several times faster than erosion; yet, they contain much “ancient” sedimentary rock. Evolutionists allow enough time to erode the continents many times over; yet, they are nearly everywhere covered with sediments–evidence that they were shaped by a lot of water over a little time, not a little water over a lot of time.
Vast thickness of sedimentary rocks (used as evidence for vast age) could conceivably be produced by a little water over a long period of time, or a lot of water over short periods of time. Different biases can result in different interpretations of the same data, in this case, the rock layers. It is a philosophical decision, not a scientific one, to prefer the former interpretation (a little water over millions/billions of years). Because sedimentation occurs slowly, it is assumed it always did in the past, but that is not necessarily true. For example, witness the tremendous geological work done in minutes or hours by local floods (never mind a catastrophic earth-restructuring global flood) in New Orleans and other recent local catastrophic phenomena (tsunami that hit India and Sri Lanka).
What about the Mount St. Helens explosion (May 18, 1980) that devastated 400 square kilometers of forest in six minutes and washed over 1 million logs into Spirit Lake, resulting in an organic deposit of peat with essentially the same make-up and geometry as coal–consisting mostly of tree bark and decayed woody materials, and containing volcanic ash at the bottom of the lake. Also, it created a vertical sediment pile up to 600 feet thick which, within five years had hardened into rock and the right conditions for rapid petrificationof wood–ground water from rapid melting and descent of the mountain’s glacier percolating through hot volcanic ash, which typically is full of silica–a process which was thought to require millions of years to form. What about flat features or formations? Kangaroo Island in southern Australia is about 87 miles (140 km long) and 37 (60 km ) wide and is extremely flat. But it is “dated” at over 160 million years old, based on the fossil content and radiometric daying. Yet, one would expect that exposure to 160 million years of rain would result would result in some sort of channelization of the landscape, but there is very little.
There are precise and well defined boundaries that always exist between geological strata in real life. If the theory of evolution (uniformitarianism) is correct, certainly one would expect a gradual blending of one layer into the next, but this often is not the case. What we often see in the geologic record is one rock stratum abruptly and immediately overlying another, with no soils between (because these ‘missing” soils never existed in the first place) and frequently two formations of totally different rock types (ie. the dark-coloured Hermit shale beneath the Coconino sandstone in the Grand Canyon), lying one on top of the other with a “knife-edge’ bedding plane between them (again no soil layers). This speaks against the passage of long periods of time between their depositions, regardless of their index fossils. If anything, they speak either of continuous, rapid deposition with perhaps a near-instantaneous shift in current direction and sediment load, or of rapid deposition of the Coconino after an episode of “sheet erosion,” due to massive volumes of water flowing rapidly at equal depth over a wide area–in short, a earth-shattering, earth-restructuring flood on the scale of the genesis flood.
The amount of salt in the sea.
Salt is pouring into the sea much faster than it is escaping. The sea is not nearly salty enough for this to have been happening for billions of years. Even granting generous assumptions to evolutionists, the seas could not be more than 62 million years old–far younger than the billions of years believed by evolutionists. Again, this indicates a maximum age, not the actual age. Geologist, physicist, and pioneer of radiation therapy, John Joly (1857-1933), estimated that the oceans were 80-90 million years old at the most. But this was far too young for evolutionists to accept. More recently, the geologist Dr. Steve Austin and physicist Dr. Russell Humphreys analyzed figures from secular geoscience sources for the quantity of sodium (Na’) in the ocean, and its input and output rates. The slower the input and faster the output, the older the calculated age of the ocean would be. Every kilogram of seawater contains about 10.8 grams of dissolved sodium. (Na’). This means that there is about 14,700 million million tons of Na’ in the ocean. Austin and Humphreys calculated that about 457 million tons of sodium enter the sea every year and 122 million tons of sodium leave the sea every year. The maximum possible amount, even if the most generous assumptions about sodium loss rate are granted to evolutionists, is 206 million tons/year. Granting the most generous assumptions to evolutionists, Austin and Humphreys calculated that the ocean must be less than 62 million years. It’s important to stress that this is not the actual age, but a maximum age. That is the evidence is consistent with any age up to 62 million years, including the biblical age of about 6,000 years. This calculation assumes the lowest plausible input rates and the fastest plausible output rates , sustained throughout geologic time. Another assumption favourable to long-agers is that there was no dissolved salt to start with. If we assume more realistic conditions in the past (the sea had some salt content when it was created, so that saltwater fish could live comfortably in it, and the Genesis global flood would have dissolved large amounts of sodium from land rocks, then this would further reduce the maximum age.
Missing “Old” Supernova Remnants (SNRs).
A supernova is an explosion of a massive star–the explosion is so bright that it briefly outshines the rest of the galaxy. The supernova remnants (SNRs) should keep expanding for hundreds of thousands of years, according to the physical equations. Yet there are no very old, widely expanded (Stage 3) SNRs , and a few moderately old (Stage 2) ones in our galaxy, the Milky Way, or in its satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. This is just what we would expect if the galaxies had not existed long enough for wide SNR expansion (Dr. J. Sarfati, “Exploding Stars Point to a Young Universe: Where Are All the Supernova Remnants?” Creation 19 (3): 46-48 (June-Aug. 1997) Also read pages 346-347 of “Refuting Compromise” by J. Sarfati.
The Presence and Age of Comets in our Solar System.
Comets lose so much mass every time they pass near the sun in their orbit that they should have evaporated after billions of years . Instead, evolutionists have proposed ad hoc sources to replenish the comet supply. But observations of the region of the proposed Kuiper Belt fail to confirm it as a cometary source. And there is a total absence of observational evidence for the Oort Cloud, among other scientific difficulties for both notions. Astronomer Hugh Ross published explanation that comets have an interstellar origin was discredited by secular astronomers long ago.
Recession Rate of the Moon.
The moon is slowly receding from earth at about 4 cm (i½ inches) per year, and at the rate would have been greater in the past. But even if the moon had started receding from being in contact with the earth, it would have taken only 1.37 billion years to reach its present distance. This gives a maximum possible age of the moon–not the actual age. This is far too young for evolution (and much younger than the radiometric “dates” assigned to moon rocks).
Dinosaur Blood Cells and Hemoglobin.
Red blood cells and haemoglobin have been found in some (unfossilized!) dinosaur (T-rex) bone. Recently (April 29, 2007), the Discovery Channel special science documentary appropriately entitled T-Rex, New Science, New Beast disclosed on the basis of a report in 2005 that shocked the scientific community how Dr. Mary Schweitzer at Montana State University’s lab uncovered soft-fibrous connective tissue, branching blood vessels, osteocytes (bone cells), as well as visible red blood cells and positive immunological evidence of the blood protein haemoglobin in a no fossilized portion of a femur (thigh bone) from a Tyrannosaurus rex believed to be 68 million years old. Of course, to claim that bone could remain intact for millions of years without being fossilized (mineralized) stretches credibility beyond the limit. Dr. David Menton, who holds a Ph.D in cell biology from Brown University, wrote at that time it “certainly taxes one’s imagination to believe that soft tissue and cells could remain so relatively fresh in appearance for the tens of millions of years of supposed evolutionary history. “ This would be a tall order, even if they were kept frozen in liquid nitrogen in a lab.
But such is the stifling effect of the evolutionary dogma that scientists can be blinded to the clear implications of their own data. Accordingly, when a co-worker, a professional pathologist, first noticed blood cells in T-rex bone under the microscope, Dr. Schweitzer’s startled reaction was to question the evidence, not the dominant long-age paradigm, quote, “It was exactly like looking at a slice of modern bone. But, of course, I couldn’t believe it..the bones, after all, are 65 million years old. How could blood cells survive for millions of years ?” Of course, the obvious, sensible, logical answer based on the scientific evidence is that they couldn’t. Her boss, famous paleontologist “Dinosaur” Jack Horner insisted that Dr. Schweitzer prove they were not red blood cells, but to date she and her team have been able to do so. In fact, she has since found similar soft tissue in several other dinosaur specimens! At the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held in St. Louis, Missouri in 2006, as recorded by National Geographic, she explained that “traditional ideas of how fossils form do not allow for the preservation of soft, perishable organic tissue,” though she will not re-think her view that dinosaurs are 65 million years old. She states, “we felt comfortable claiming that these dinosaur tissues contained heme,; however, haemoglobin is more than just heme–there are peptide chains as well. And other proteins contain heme units, for example, cytochromes, which are found in all living organisms including microbes. So to rule out contamination, Schweitzer sent samples to an expert immunologist, who injected extract from the T-rex bones into rats. The rats’ immune system generated antibodies, which showed that it was homing in on some protein fragments. Heme itself is too small to produce an immune response. Then the rats’ blood was filtered to leave only the antibodies , forming an antiserum. This was shown to bond to haemoglobin from modern creatures, including birds, crocodiles, and mammals. A control sample, that is, rat serum extracted from before they were injected with T-rex substances did not bond to the modern haemoglobin. This means that there is enough of the hemoglobin protein in the T-rex structures for the rats’ immune system to develop antibodies specific to haemoglobin. Such a specific response shows that there must have been a substantial amount of the haemoglobin protein remaining in the T-rex bone. Hemoglobin would not be the only well-preserved protein from dinosaur fossils or fossils of the same assumed age. The protein osteocalcin has been identified in hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) bones from Alberta, Canada (Muyzer et al., Geology 20:871-874 (1992). This is a protein specific to bones, so cannot be due to contamination from outside microbes. And ligaments have been found in fossils “dated” to the same evolutionary “age” as the dinosaurs. Mud Springs on the edge of the “market town” of Wootton Bassett, near Swindon, Wiltshire, England, are “pumping up” fossils that are supposed to be 165 million years old. Dr. Neville Hollingworth, paelontologist with the Natural Environmental research Council in Swindon, noted:
“There are the shells of bivalves which still have their original organic ligaments and yet they are millions of years old” (M. Nuttall, “Mud Springs a Surprise after 165 Million Years,” Times, London, p.7 (May 2, 1996).
A more rational scientific conclusion based on the evidence to Schweitzer’s question about how blood cells could possibly survive 65 million years is: “I can see the blood cells and detect the chemical and magnetic signatures–in the present! Also, protein and DNA can be seen to break down so fast that they couldn’t survive for more than a few tens of thousands of years. So how could they possibly be 65 million years old.”.
Also, DNA from 28 different families of trees, herbs, and mosses, as well as the wolly mammoth and other extinct mammals, has been found in the frozen sediments of Siberia, “dated” up to 400,000 years old (see Willerslev E. and Hansen, AJ..et al., Diverse plant and animal genetic records from Holocene and Pleistocene sediments, Science 300 (5620): 791-795, 2003. And under sterile laboratory operating procedures, dormant bacteria have been revived from within salt crystals said to have been formed 250 million years ago (see Vreeland, R.H.., Rosenzweig, W.D., Powers, D. W.., Isolation of a 250 million-year-old halo tolerant bacterium from a primary salt crystal, Nature 407 (6806): 897-900, 2000). So how do we explain this apparent contradiction–that biological molecules like DNA are much too fragile to remain intact beyond some thousands of years, yet entire cells (complete with DNA) have been revived after millions of years–if no contamination from/by living organisms have occurred? Experts say there shouldn’t even be any DNA remaining after 100,000 years, let alone the entire intact machinery (entire cells complete with DNA) which make up a living organism. This evidence flies in the face of the imagined evolutionary (millions-of-years) history, but is perfectly compatible with the age derived from the Bible of the earth’s sediments during or after the global Flood about 4,500 years ago (about 6000 years.
I could give many more evidences for a young earth, but my eyes need a rest.
Well, all science is tentative because we do not have all the data, especially when dealing with the past. This is true for both creationists and evolutionists, but the creationist is in very good stead when it comes to the evidence and should be optimistic about the future.
Catch-22 situation:
It is interesting that Teaching About Evolution, an educator’s guidebook published by the National Academy of Sciences claims that the ideas of creation have been examined and found unsupportable, then they claim that
the “basic proposals of creation science are not subject to test and verification. So how could its proposals have been examined (tested!) if they are not subject to test and verification?
All science is tentative because we do not have all the data, especially when dealing with the past. This is true for both creationists and evolutionists.
One thing for sure, as Denyse O’Leary, the Faith and Science columnist for Christian Week magazine and the author of such recently acclaimed books as Faith and Science: Why Science Needs faith in the Twenty First Century and Intelligent Design: Beyond Creation and Evolution? Has rightly observed:
“If you are a Christian evolutionist, you have made a precarious peace with a science whose backdrop is there is no real design in the Universe, which is pretty much the opposite of what traditional Christianity teaches.”
Finally, as to what you call my “narrow view of the life sciences,” truth is narrow(2=2=4, the earth is round (spherical), not flat; Jesus is “the Way, the Truth,the Life, no one can come to the Father except through Me [Him].
Take care and God bless.



If you read your Bible, it is very obvious that disagreement over the age of the earth (millions of years) makes havoc out of the Bible’s teaching of the historicity of Adam and Eve, and is clearly an attack on the inspiration of Scripture ( and creationists’ interpretations have nothing to do with it). Let’s take the idea that God took a 1000 years to create Adam by evolutionary processes (natural selection , mutation), you know what theistic evolutionists take out of context; namely, “a thousand years is like a day” (never mind, that the second part “and a day like a thousand years,” cancels out the first part, showing how much God can accomplish in far less time than we). If this is so-that “one day is as a 1000 years” (never mind millions of years), what happened when God created Eve–did he need a 1000 years to create her (through evolution) from adam’s rib? Moreover, did he have to wait a 1000 years before he could have fellowship with Adam and Eve, which He did? Presumably not, as Adam died at 930 years according to scripture. Yet, we have to be consistent if we are going to make sense out of the intended meaning of scripture in its biblical ,historical context. Enough of this nonsense. Supernatural Creation (ex nihilo) is diametrically opposite to evolutionary processes(development) from some ape-like creature ( and ultimately from one common ancestor over eons of time).

Moreover, the Bible tells us that Adam was created on day 6 (Genesis 1:26), that he lived through day 6 and day 7 , and died when he was 930 years old–which means the creation days could not have been millions of years. Such interpretation makes absurdity out of the plain meaning of scripture. Again, take the plain meaning of Exodus 20:8-11. God’s pattern of creation according to scripture forms the blueprint or basis for of our work week of six literal days, in which the plural Hebrew form of days used here (“yamin”) for “days” in verse 11 always refers in the Old Testament to a literal 24-day ( and that 845 times). In other words, God established a blueprint for our lives, six days of work and one day of rest, based on the same pattern as creation. How could God say it more plainly? It makes complete nonsense of the obvious meaning of scripture to have each work day equal millions/ billions of years according to the uniformitarian evolutionary time frame.

There is no “testable, repeatable, observable phenomena” on the origin of the universe. All dating methods are based on fallible assumptions , and a majority contradict the secular dates anyway. How do they know that Genesis 1 is describing multiple and/or sequential indefinite periods of time? They might get such an idea from Astronomer Hugh Ross, whose skewed and strained “progressive creationist” (billions of years) interpretation of the Genesis account of creation has been biblically, comprehensively, and scientifically ( no straw-dummy arguments I assure you) refuted with brilliant clarity by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. in his newest and “must-read” book “Refuting Compromise”. But they certainly do not develop such a position from scripture. If death and struggle (the tooth and claw of evolution) were here eons before Adam sinned and which first brought death into the world accordind to scripture–(Romans 5:12; Genesis 3), as evolution requires, this clearly means that God’s “very good” creation (Genesis 1:31) had already been spoiled and death is not the penalty for sin , as scripture plainly declares (Romans 5:12, Genesis 3). This means that Christ’s death (for sin) and resurrection were ineffective and meaningless, and the plain biblical teaching (i.e. Romans 8; Rev. 21) of the final restoration of this fallen world to the original state before the Fall–no sin, no curse, no death– is sheer nonsense. And someone affirms that this does not disagree with the historicity and doctrine of the inspiration of scripture? You got to be kidding!

In short, evolutionary teaching, especially theistic evolution, denies this creation-Fall-redemption paradigm, which is everywhere affirmed in both Old and New Testaments and is the revelational and historical foundation which makes the saving Gospel of Christ “Good News” and meaningful. The “Good News” becomes “Bad News” if Adam and the Fall are not historic figures and events.The apostle Paul built his theology on the historicity of Adam and the Fall (1 Corinthians 15: 22-58; Romans 5; 1 Tim. 2:13-14) and Jesus predicated marriage on the historical truth of the supernatural creation of Adam and Eve–the first humans, made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27), and not an evolutionary development from some race of hairy anthropids (ape-like men/women). When Jesus referred to marriage, instituted by God, and the creation of Adam and Eve, he accepted both as historical fact (Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6).

Moreover,this is not a fringe view. Many noted scholars, including Oxford fellow Dr. John Lennox, hold that Genesis is real history, denying both chemical and biological “macro-evolution”–that all life forms evolved from a common ancestor. If scripture itself treats the creation and Fall of Adam as historical event, there is no warrant for treating the rest of the creation narrative as symbolism, allegory or other literary device–and that includes modern scientific opinion (i.e. based on radiometric dating), which is not a valid hermeneutic for interpreting Genesis or any portion of scripture. Science has been wrong before on many things. Christians do not discount the findings of fallible scientists (they should be thrilled about such) but that does not mean that they place such findings above the historicity and inspiration of scripture when such findings disagree with the plain teaching of God’s infallible, inspired Word.

Someone said to me, “Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.”

My reply:

Yes, and it also is a disgraceful and dangerous things for a Christian to hear an infidel, be he a scientist or theologian, using scientific opinion as a hermeneutical basis for giving the meaning of Holy scripture, making havoc and absurdity out of the plain meaning of scripture, and we (Christians) should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in spiritual understanding of the scriptures and laugh it to scorn.” Remember, spiritual understanding of what the scriptures teach (though not opposed to true science) comes through the Spirit of truth (revealed by God), not through scientific consensus or opinion.

Someone says, “If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason.”

Again, the contention is that scientists and theologians, presumably Old earth scientists,uniformitarian evolutionists and those Christians and theologians who agree with them (theistic evolutionists) are wiser than those who accept Genesis 1-11 as factual history, whether or not they believe the scriptures to be true (false teachers abound in our churches and pulpits today) and despite the fact that theistic evolution, as I have indicated, clearly“denies the creation-Fall-redemption paradigm, which is everywhere affirmed in both Old and New Testaments and is the revelational and historical foundation which makes the saving Gospel of Christ “Good News” and meaningful. The “Good News” becomes “Bad News” if Adam and the Fall are not historic figures and events.The apostle Paul built his theology on the historicity of Adam and the Fall (1 Corinthians 15: 22-58; Romans 5; 1 Tim. 2:13-14) and Jesus predicated marriage on the historical truth of the supernatural creation of Adam and Eve–the first humans, made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27), and not an evolutionary development from some race of hairy anthropids (ape-like men/women). When Jesus referred to marriage, instituted by God, and the creation of Adam and Eve, he accepted both as historical fact (Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6).

When the apostle Paul uses the expressions “in Adam” and “in Christ” in 1 Corinthians 15:22: ” For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive”, he is not using mythological laqnguage, but clearly revealing/distinguishing the separate spiritual realities of what it fully means to be “in Adam” and to be “in Christ”. As in the first Adam all men that were in him, became subject both to temporal [physical ] death, and also to that eternal death which is the consequence of the guilt of sin (Romans 3:23), so in Christ; that is, through the merits of His death and resurrection, all that are in Him, being chosen in Him, given to Him, and by faith, implanted spiritually into Him, are not only made spiritually alive (Ephesians 2:1, 5) but shall be raised from the dead bodily and physically to eternal life with Christ and shall not suffer eternal condemnation. Jesus predicated marriage on the historical truth of the supernatural creation of Adam and Eve–the first humans, made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27), and not an evolutionary development from some race of hairy anthropids (heitherto spirit-less ape-like men/women). When Jesus referred to marriage, instituted by God, and the creation of Adam and Eve, he accepted both as historical fact (Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6). The apostle Paul built his theology on on the historicity of Adam and the Fall (1 Corinthians 15: 22-58; Romans 5; 1 Tim. 2:13-14), not some mythological figures conveying mythological truth “deeper than words”. If the truth revealed in the words of scripture to the believer by God, the Holy Spirit, concerning Adam and Eve, the Fall, and being “in Adam” and “in Christ,” as it relates to the Fall, is not truth “deeper than words”, as Mr. Sawyer alleges, than I doubt that fallible scientific opinion will provide the proper “link” to the truth contained in God’s infallible revelation.

And as far as the heliocentric solar system is concerned, the Galileo controversy was certainly not a simple case of science versus the church (or the Bible). As many historians of science have pointed out, the first to oppose Galileo was the scientific establishment. The prevailing “scientific” wisdom of his day was the Aristotelian/ Ptolemaic theory–a geocentric system, with the earth at the centre of the universe. It is ironic (but understandable) that the four heroes of a heliocentric (sun-centered solar system)—Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton–were all believers in the Bible and in a young (functionally mature) earth created supernaturally (ex nihilo-out of nothing) by God. Yes, Mr. Sawyer, biblical truth, in this case, for me, too, is never less than my understanding of the words of scripture, aided by the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2: 12-14, because I’m sure the reality of such truth will be far more wonderful (or terrible) than what the words of scripture reveal by the Holy Spirit when our faith finally becomes sight .

Bill,
If your response here is accurate, it would indicate that it is actually impossible to determine the age of the Earth from Biblical scripture. I applaud your flexibility on the subject in not aligning yourself with young-Earth creationists, and would like to ask whether you feel this is an indication that possibly the Bible should not be consulted for statements of scientific fact.

Bill,
I could not, for some reason, reply to your reply to my comment below, so I am replying again to this one. What information do you think the Bible contains that “can inform some scientific disciplines?”