Del Ratzsch has brought up young earth creationists, so I thought I might
submit that part of my pamphlet a bit early. (It is the appendix.)
Note on the Age of Creation
The creation date issue is a sensitive subject for many
Christians. Before I present my thoughts on this issue, I feel I must
clarify a few things. First of all, I make no pretense of being a learned
Bible scholar or an expert on the Hebrew language. All I am is a
scientist reasoning through the available facts. Secondly, I fully realize
that the scientific community loses a great deal of credibility by not
being forthright about the problems with evolution. It is not my
purpose to defend them, but to ask Christians to carefully analyze their
interpretation of God's inerrant word. Finally, though I believe the
earth is old, there are times when I have to admit that the young earth
position makes sense to me.
When I get these feelings, however, I am not relying on scientific
evidence for a young earth, rather I am relying
on an interpretation of Scripture that I call "Retroactive Fall Theory".
How does "Retroactive Fall Theory" work? In the Bible, God
describes Himself as being "jealous" and also calls the church the
"Bride of Christ". So when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree
of knowledge of Good and Evil, they were, in a sense, committing
adultery on God.
How would a jealous God react to this? Like a jealous human
husband, he might do the following:
1) He might kill all the parties involved.
2) He might kick the wife out of their shared residence.
3) He might take His wedding ring back and destroy all the
pictures of the wedding ceremony and everything else
that would remind Him of their wedding.
4) He might eventually relent and forgive her.
Looking at the Bible, we see that God did do some of these things.
Adam and Eve were doomed to die, they were kicked out of the
Garden of Eden and they were forgiven through Christ's work on the
cross. But what of number 3? Did God ever take back the wedding
ring and destroy all evidence of the union of man and God?
"Retroactive Fall Theory" holds that He did. When Adam and Eve
sinned in the Garden, God removed all trace that He had ever had a
hand in the creation of the universe and left Adam and Eve and their
descendants to their own devices.
Having defended the young earth position, I must say that the
"day=age" theory is also a reasonable explanation of the scientific
evidence for an old earth. The whole controversy centers around the
usage and meaning of the Hebrew word "yowm". Does "yowm" mean
a literal 24 hour period or does it mean an arbitrarily long period
equivalent in modern english to "age" or "epoch"? No Hebrew scholar
would deny that yowm can mean a period of time greater than 24
hours; it is used that way in Genesis itself. (The english word day can
even be used this way. Consider the usage in the phrase, "In the day
of Julius Ceasar. . .") The question is whether or not "yowm" preceded
by an article and a number must refer to a 24 hour day.
Let me say, first of all, that it is simply amazing to me that the
Bible has been transmitted so faithfully that it is possible to argue over
a grammatical point more than three thousand years after the original
was written. As anyone who has ever read a play by Shakespeare can
attest, languages change so quickly that even a couple hundred years
can make many words and phrases completely incomprehensible. In
fact, the language most of us take for granted, english, did not even
exist one thousand years ago. What am I suggesting? Just that we
must be careful when extrapolating grammatical rules from ancient
Hebrew texts. Hebrew is a language where words can have extremely
flexible usage and no literal interpretation should be ruled out on the
basis of a questionable grammatical extrapolation.
If the issue were simply grammatical, however, it would have
disappeared long ago. The truth is that many Christians find the idea
that God created the universe billions of years ago threatening. If the
universe is billions of years old, then our conceptions of God as a
loving grandfather figure are somewhat inaccurate. Instead of
introducing death as the consequence of Adam's sin, God would have
introduced death from the beginning and even called it "good". This
is understandably difficult for many people to accept, but I believe the
Bible does address these issues.
First of all, the Bible does not say that God introduced physical
death as a result of Adam's sin. In fact, the Bible implies just the
opposite. Consider Genesis chapter 2 verse 17, ". . .for in the day that
you eat of it, you shall die." After he eats of the fruit, however, Adam
lives for another nine hundred years. Was God wrong? or did He
mean a different kind of death (i.e. spiritual death)? If He meant
spiritual death, doesn't that mean that physical death was already
present? Wouldn't Adam have asked God what death was if physical
death had not already existed?
The larger issue of determining the nature of what God calls
"good" is addressed far more effectively in the Book of Job then I
could ever hope to achieve. In that book, we're told of the life of Job;
a righteous man who underwent a series of horrific calamities. Job's
friends went to him and told him to repent, reasoning that he must
have committed unspeakable sins for God to treat him in such a
fashion. Job, however, steadfastly maintained his innocence and
questioned the assumption that God always does what we consider
good. The point of the book, in my opinion, is that God is not
interested in believers who will second guess him, He wants those who
will be obedient even when they do not understand.
So why would God create the universe in billions of years
instead of just seven days? Let us go through this step by step. When
God created life and the universe, He had a choice. He could have
created it instantaneously, or He could have done it over a period of
time. The Bible says that God chose not to create the heavens, the
earth and life instantaneously. Therefore, He must have had a reason
for taking His time. What could that reason be?
In my opinion, God created a universe bigger than any human
mind can comprehend over an unimaginably long number of years in
order to demonstrate His absolute mastery and control over space and
time. Anyone who has ever read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit will
recognize the following: "This thing all things devours. Birds, beasts,
trees, flowers. Gnaws iron, bites steel, grinds hard stones to meal.
Slays kings, ruins towns and beats high mountains down." Time is the
ultimate power in our universe. Eventually, it destroys all of the works
of man and nature. Time has, however, no power over our God, "But
do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as
a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. . ." (II Peter 3:8).
When I contemplate this issue, I recall some of my favorite
Bible verses:
"For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast
love towards those who fear him . . ." (Psalms 103:11) and "For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your
ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9). Those who
argue that the universe is smaller and younger than modern scientists
describe are, in my mind, denying the infinite power and glory of God.
Some will say that my brief treatment of the age issue here
trivializes a number of important points. No doubt this is true, but I
plead a lack of expertise and time. For those who are interested in a
detailed discussion of the history, theology and science involved in the
creation date controversy, I highly recommend Dr. Hugh Ross's
Creation and Time.