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Before I made up my mind that the earth must be old, there were still several difficulties I had with believing the earth was young.  These difficulties were not proofs against a young earth necessarily.  After all, I knew God was not forced to create the earth within any particular time frame; if He could do it one way, He can it another.  It was really just a question of what God did in fact do, and how Moses recorded it.  So, while — similar to a Young Earth Creationist — I did (and do) accept Genesis 1 as a literal history of God’s work, I also saw holes in the account that needed to be filled in for the history to be cohesive and complete.  Toward this end, I used a combination of scientific discovery and standard Christian theology to fill in those blanks, rejecting those conclusions that conflict with the literal scripture, and accepting those that I believed answer critical questions. 

In contrast, most Young Earth Creationists tend to base their answers on the premise of a Young Earth, and little more.  They consider the scriptural recording of a young earth to be obvious, and so they address every potential difficulty based on that.  Now, it is true that the more thoughtful arguments do point out real weaknesses in science, but people use those insights to simply dismiss the science, failing to realize that with such an attitude, interpretation of scripture can be dismissed just as easily.  For example, they point out that science is all theory.  As new evidence comes, the theories change; but the scriptures never change.  Well, I find that argument is true as far it goes, but it turns out that eschatology suffers from the exact same problem.  As history unfolds, the manner in which the church believes scriptural prophecy might be fulfilled changes.  But, do Young Earth Creationists reject the scriptures and the potential impact on their lives, just because they cannot know for sure what a prophet foresaw?  Absolutely not, and they shouldn’t.  After all, the truth is still there, whether we perceive it completely or not… and the same is true with science.  The truth is there, and deserves to be searched for, in both scripture and in science.

Now, here is where it gets interesting.  While only scripture records the future, both science and scripture record the past, and it turns out that before Adam, the scriptures cannot be interpreted with any more certainty than prophecy or science.  In other words, the scriptures do not clearly teach the earth is young.  Are you surprised that a Christian who believes the scriptures literally record geologic and biological history does not believe a young earth interpretation can be known with certainty? Well, let me do you one better.  I believe that when you combine science with scripture, one can confirm much of earth’s 4.4 billion (at last count) year history with certainty.

Step one is having an open mind as to what the scriptures say, and what they do not say.  For example, scripture does say that God created seeded plants; it does not say He created unseeded plants.  Scripture does say that the Holy Spirit was hovering over the deep; scripture does not say He left.  Scripture does use the word “yom” for day; scripture does not define “yom” by a duration, but by the physical event we call sundown.  Interesting, huh?  Well, it is in those blanks that we find answers to the age of the earth. 

In this series, I will discuss the biblical problems I see with believing in a Young Earth interpretation of scripture.  These include questions I had when I still thought the earth might be young, and other insights I have had since then.  Many of these “problems” do have a textbook Young-earth response, of which I am aware and I will acknowledge them.  But, please keep in mind that such a response, while it may be true and reasonable, is often not actually in the scripture.  It may have been deduced as what must be true if the earth is in fact young, and so relies ultimately on other proof-arguments, of which there are few (e.g., “simple enough for a child to understand”, “yom is 24-hour day”, “Adam is a special creation”, etc.).  After considering those arguments objectively, from a position that God is faithful and His Word is truth, I hope you will understand why I believe there is no scriptural proof of a young a earth.

Before I close this, I want to answer a question you might be asking yourself: “Why bother? Do you want really want to convince me that bad?”  The answer is that I am not looking to change the beliefs of Christians who have a saving faith.  I am looking for those who do not, because they see the difficulties that I see, but do not believe they can be reconciled.  I am looking for those Christians who have doubts about their faith, because they accept a Young Earth, kind of, and just know there must be more to the story.  I am looking for those Christians who see the division I see in the Church and are open to the possibility that someone like me can believe the Earth is old, yet have as much reverence and love for God and His Word as they do.  I do not know where such Christians are.  I have looked around, and frankly cannot find them… but I know they’re there, because of how many atheists used to be in that position.  If you are one of those people I am searching out, then I am glad you found this blog, and I pray that this will help you.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Bible Commentary, Creationism, Evolution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.