A common question among both Christians and non-Christians, especially in the US, is whether the Big Bang and multi-billion-year age of the universe contradicts the Bible. There is a broad range of opinion on this subject among committed Bible-believing Christians. In many people’s minds “science and the Bible” means this topic (plus evolution), so this book cannot be complete without discussing it.

    Many Christians are convinced that the Bible says, in Genesis 1 and elsewhere, that God created the entire universe in six 24-hour days less than 10,000 years ago. This is called “recent creation(ism),” “young-earth creationism,” “strict creationism,” “literal creation,” or “scientific creationism.” It is considered by its advocates to be the only truly “literal interpretation” of the Biblical creation account, and also the Flood account. They link it to many other essentials of the faith, and consider it an essential, crucial, inextricable linchpin of the entire Christian faith.

    In ch. 6, I, are listed the basic scientific evidences that seem to indicate that the universe is about 15,000,000,000 years old, and the Earth just under 5,000,000,000. More are listed in II, C below. So this is a direct conflict between (recent-creationist) theology and science (not between the Bible and nature; see ch. 5, I, F). They disagree by six zeroes. Which one is wrong? Have we misunderstood the Bible or nature? Or is the Bible itself actually wrong about this?

    Though I have not made it my career, my background in atmospheric science and astronomy makes me especially qualified, interested, and unable to avoid the subject. But I do not wish this discussion to be merely pitting my opinions and qualifications against others’. In some cases that is unavoidable. But in most cases it is a matter of recent-creationists’ own contradictory statements, and an appeal to the reader’s common sense.

    If you have read the rest of this book first, and not jumped directly to this chapter, you know I am firmly committed to the inerrancy of Scripture including its teaching about God’s creative work. Ch. 6, sec. I and II discuss God’s creation of the universe and living things respectively. I reject an evolutionary origin of living things on Earth, and accept a time-span of billions of years, and the Big Bang origin of the universe. So my doubts about recent creation are not based on acceptance of evolution, nor on any anti-scriptural or anti-supernatural bias, nor on a desire or hope to gain the acceptance of the scientific community. I have no professional scientific career to protect. I am striving in good conscience to find a conclusion consistent with all the truth of which I am aware, in keeping with the principles in ch. 5, I, F.

    My comments refer mostly to the prominent leaders, speakers, and writers who propagate the recent-creation viewpoint. Their followers are sincerely convinced by their arguments. I was brought up on recent creation myself, and was once a convinced follower. That and the gap theory were then the only options in circulation among evangelical believers. But as I learned more about God’s creation, beginning when I was in college in the mid-1960s, I gradually, and painfully, realized the purported evidences and reasons had many serious errors. I thank the Lord that this was not my sole, or even primary, basis of faith in the Bible, and that I slowly worked out a satisfactory alternative in the 70s and 80s. But it was not easy, and I found no books that provided one, though many books had helpful contributions. Many other people were also dissatisfied with anything they could find, and asked me if I could recommend something better, but I could not. I had neither the time nor the ability to write something better myself. Finally beginning in the late 80s some books were published which came to the same conclusion I had, and a few were published earlier but somehow had not gained wide enough circulation to come to my attention. In the 90s it became a rapidly growing movement.

    This raises an embarrassing dilemma of identification. How should we label ourselves? Are we creationists? That label has come to be associated with the young-earth position, because that is what they call themselves, so it will cause misunderstanding if we call ourselves creationists. Yet we are unwilling to concede that label to them alone, but there is not yet a generally-accepted alternative term. So in the following discussion I must expend considerable extra ink and paper, and usually refer to them by the full label “recent-creationist,” not merely “creationist.”

    Unfortunately this has become a point of considerable tension and conflict among Christians all of whom are aiming to serve and honor the Lord. Accusations fly both directions, of unfaithfulness to Scriptural principles and ignorance or dishonesty about scientific facts. My criticism of recent creation has even strained two of my own most treasured friendships, and introduced strain in many other acquaintances. This is sad.

    When the subject of recent creation comes up, some Christians are amazed to think that anyone could even claim to believe the Bible and doubt recent creation. But other equally committed Bible-believing Christians, including career missionaries, respond “Does anyone still believe that?” So there are several isolated worlds even within the evangelical Christian community. Those who are unaware of this subject need to be aware of the issues that are of such great concern to so many others.

    To whom am I writing? First, to convinced recent-creationists. Very few of them will change their opinion if they read this. The recent-creationist movement will not come to an end because of my comments. But I hope those who read this will at least be clearer on the issues and facts involved.

    Secondly, to confused Christians, searching for the truth, and wondering what and whom to believe and how to answer questions for their friends and children. I hope to help them clarify what the facts are, so as to draw a conclusion with which they can feel satisfied. Of course, if the purported basis of recent creation, and rejection of the Big Bang, is found to be invalid, then it might be reasonable not to believe it, but that is the reader’s own personal decision. As for the Big Bang, it is a scientific theory, and will with time stand or fall on its own scientific merits. Our faith in the Bible need not become dependent on it.

    Thirdly, to offended non-Christians, who are convinced by Christians, who ought to know, that the Bible teaches recent creation. They feel that this is irreconcilable with many facts about nature, and therefore they cannot believe the Bible. They are unconvinced by recent-creationists’ attempt to resolve this conflict by reinterpreting the facts of nature. I hope to remove this stumbling-block for them, by providing an alternative interpretation of the Bible, and I hope that they will then decide to place their faith in the Bible and its Lord.

    Most non-Christians resolve the conflict by saying the Bible must be wrong and science must be right, and thus this is a major and genuine stumbling-block in the way of their deciding to trust the God of the Bible. Many conservative Christians resolve this conflict by saying the Bible (to be precise, this interpretation) must be right, and therefore science must be wrong about the Big Bang and the age of the universe. They claim to have found much scientific evidence in support of their position, and they accuse the scientific community of bias if not outright dishonesty. Many other Christians are caught in the middle, believing they see errors in both evolution and recent creation. But they have no better solution, and their own faith in the Bible and courage in sharing the gospel is seriously weakened. We must deal with this problem.

    Some people have advised me to simply avoid the subject, or to say less about it, so as not to offend my Christian brothers and sisters who are committed to recent-creationism. That is a valid point, but I have yet to see it balanced with an equally necessary concern for so many others who are offended by the flaws of recent-creationism. They are important too. I doubt any recent-creationist’s relationship with the Lord will be damaged by my comments, but many people’s relationship with the Lord seems to have suffered damage due to recent-creationism. More about this in II, A on the results of recent-creationism.

    The most influential center of the recent-creation movement is the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), near San Diego, California, whose founder and unchallenged dominant leader is Dr. Henry Morris. His son, Dr. John Morris, has succeeded him to the leadership of ICR. The movement includes many regional creationist centers in the US, and the Creation Research Society with its publication, The Creation Research Society Quarterly. There is a creationist organization in Australia, which produces the popular quarterly Creation Ex Nihilo, and also a related technical journal. Creationist organizations have been established in several other countries, with an especially large one in Korea. There were large creationism conferences in the US in 1990, 1994, and 1998. There have been several hundred books, videotape and audio-tape series, and thousands of training institutes, lectures, radio programs, and debates throughout the US and many other countries, especially beginning in the 1960s. The movement has historical roots long before that, but that is beyond the scope of this book.

    One life is too short to read all of the literature recent-creationists have produced; I have read what seem to be the most representative and influential ones. I attended the 5-day Summer Institute at ICR in 1980 and 1995.

    A major segment of the evangelical, or conservative, Christian community has enthusiastically endorsed the recent-creationist movement as an essential aspect of the defense of the faith. This includes many independent churches, such as Dr. James Kennedy’s (Evangelism Explosion) Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida, and Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel in southern California. It includes some entire denominations, the largest of which is the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches. It includes Bob Jones University, Liberty University, and many smaller educational institutions, plus several home-schooling curriculum producers including the widely used A Beka. The Institute of Basic Life Principles, led by Bill Gothard, advocates the recent-creationist viewpoint. Individual supporters of recent-creationism include Dr. Woodrow Kroll, the third leader of Back to the Bible Broadcast. These are all outstandingly good people with a wide and blessed ministry. The recent-creation movement has a far-reaching beneficial influence. What are we to think of it?

    The following is not a “vicious attack on recent creation,” though its advocates feel like it is. I have been told that I am hypercritical and disdainful toward recent-creationists, and they must be thick-skinned to talk to me. All I can do is let the reader judge whether this is true. As discussed later, recent-creationists are less than complimentary toward those who do not agree with them. I do not intend to take that as an excuse for responding in kind; the Bible forbids that (Rom. 12:14-21, etc.) and in morals in general two negatives do not make a positive. Whether this chapter is vicious and disdainful, and whether it is true, are two separate questions.

    My objective is not to prove that recent creation is false, nor that any particular alternative such as the Big Bang is true. My focus is not on recent creation, but on the case usually presented for it. I simply point out many things that do not make sense. I aim to discourage the propagation of false information and logic in connection with recent-creationism, present one possible alternative, and thus help many people, both Christian and non-Christian, relieve the “Bible vs. science” tension they presently feel. This is neither vicious nor an attack. The leaders have had abundant opportunity to reconsider and revise these deficiencies in their presentations. I wrote my first letter to recent-creationist authors in 1972, and have written many since, and received replies that mostly missed the points I raised. Many others, including some who accept recent creation, have also tried in various ways to communicate similar concerns to them.

    There are details that I still haven’t solved, particularly in geology. Some recent-creationists have chided me for criticizing some aspects of their position when I don’t have a better one yet, and they say I should at least give them credit for trying. They seem to be saying any answer is better than none, though no one would say it that explicitly. But we should be able to live with some unanswered questions; that is better than propagating answers that are false. You don’t have to open your own restaurant before you are entitled to point out that there is poison in someone else’s food.

I What recent creation is: An introductory summary

    I begin with a summary of the recent creation position and the basis frequently given for it. This is condensed from my memory of many books, periodicals, and lectures. I do not have the time or resources to track down a source for every detail, and that is not necessary. After this introductory summary, I discuss it carefully. This approach requires quite a bit of flipping pages back and forth, but an uninterrupted presentation is the only way to do justice to the full recent-creationist position and its supporting arguments. I am trying to present it as fairly and favorably as possible, just as its advocates do. I am not intentionally distorting or caricaturing it. The reader will have to judge whether I have succeeded. We all have more important things to do than knock down straw men.

    Any individual recent-creationist would disagree with some details in this summary, but it represents a broad basic consensus in the creationist movement. It at least represents recent creation as it has been and still is widely publicized in the last few decades.

    There are three main aspects of the basis given for recent creation: the Biblical basis, the scientific basis, and the scientific objections to long time periods and the Big Bang.

    I should state in advance that my conclusion is that nearly all of this basis given for recent creation is either factually false, logically fallacious, or irrelevant (which could be included under fallacious). I can’t quite say I don’t believe a word of it, but it is extensively and fatally flawed.

A The Biblical basis of recent creation

The length of the days of creation

    The word translated “day” in this account must mean a 24-hour time period. The Hebrew word “yom” also has other meanings referring to a longer time period. There are several hundred other places in the Old Testament where “yom” is used with a number, and in all of them the context clearly indicates that it means a simple solar day, so that must be what it means in Gen. 1 and 2. The account refers repeatedly to “evening and morning,” which should clarify the definition beyond question. Furthermore, in Exodus 20:11 and 31:15 it is referred to in connection with the Ten Commandments, using God’s example of working six days and then resting as the precedent for our work week and day of rest. If it is applied to our literal days, then the example must have been literal days.

Literal interpretation, Scriptural perspicuity, and authority

    This is simply following the principle of literal interpretation of the text. If all this is not enough to make it clear that God meant literal 24-hour days, what would be enough? Is God not able to say what He means? Can’t we believe what He says? There are other Hebrew words which He could have used, and surely would have, if He meant longer periods. We must believe God means what He says. This is the clear apparent meaning of this passage and many other references to creation, so this must be what God meant us to believe. This is the doctrine of “perspicuity of Scripture,” (Ch. 5, I, F) which states that its message is meant to be plain to common people, not obscure to all but a selected few who are enlightened and/or educated.

Orthodox Christian belief through the last two thousand years has been overwhelmingly on the side of a recent date of creation, with only a few exceptions, which can be attributed to the influence of Greek philosophy. Would God let so many people misunderstand it for so long?

    The unanimous opinion of present-day university scholars of ancient Hebrew language and culture is that the Genesis account means literal days, not longer time periods. These scholars are experts on the subject, and are mostly neither Christian nor Jewish, therefore objective in their opinion on interpretation.

    The leaders of the Protestant Reformation emphasized the principle of “sola scriptura,” the Bible alone, as the authority for faith. We must not allow this to be overturned by the popular concept of “two books” of revelation, placing the written Word and the created world on equal status, or “natural theology” which claims to find all necessary truth in the created world apart from verbal revelation. There is undeniably both general and special revelation, but general revelation must not be allowed to overrule or replace special revelation, or else the Bible becomes superfluous and meaningless. Science must be considered only after, and subject to, conclusions which are derived from the text of Scripture alone. Scientific facts must be interpreted in light of Biblical revelation.

    Scientific theories come and go. There have been other theories of the origin of the universe before the Big Bang, and sooner or later it too will be replaced. Already there are scientific objections to it, and alternative theories proposed. Our faith in the Bible must not be tied to any particular scientific theory, especially not one about origins.

The concept of long ages is evolutionary and naturalistic, compromising, accommodating

    There are many Biblical and theological objections specifically to the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. It assumes an infinite universe, which conflicts with the concepts of the sovereignty and transcendence of God. Any kind of process is an evolutionary concept, a naturalistic, atheistic model developed and advocated by scientists who reject God and the Bible. They claim that the Big Bang theory denies God’s involvement and power, excluding God from any active role in the process, and allows long ages in which naturalistic biological evolution could produce living things on Earth. A Christian and an atheist can give the same account of the development of the universe and the solar system from a Big Bang; it does not require God. It is an attempt to evade the obvious working of God, which is inescapable in a recent-creation model. Pagan religions from ancient times have taught a long-age evolutionary origin of the universe and living things. In modern times Darwinian evolution is the key basis and source of the horrors of Marxist communism and Nazism, and the evil movements advocating sexual freedom, abortion, pornography, violence, and euthanasia.

    All attempts to introduce long time periods into the Biblical account are motivated by an acceptance of the authority of science over Scripture, which leads to interpreting Scripture so as to make it conform to the opinions of the scientific world. No one ever even thought of such an interpretation before scientists began talking about greater ages of the universe. This is a serious error, compromising and accommodating to those who reject God, seeking to win their favor. The attempt has failed totally, being scorned by leading non-Christian scientists. It casts doubts on the Bible’s authority, and this has been a key step in many former Christian believers’ total loss of faith in God’s word, power, and presence. Many who remain Christians are much weakened in their faith and witness. Those who attempt to interpret the Bible in this way also commit other serious errors in principles of interpretation. The most serious and influential example of this is in the materials of Hugh Ross and his organization, Reasons to Believe. He also teaches such errors as death before sin and a local Flood.

    Creation evangelism, based on the literal authority of the Bible, has been widely fruitful in restoring many Christians’ faith in God from the damaging influence of evolutionary teaching, and in bringing unbelievers to place their faith in God.

Created or apparent age

    This appearance of age is not deception, since it is the only possible way to create such things, and God has clearly told us in the Bible what actually happened. Also, it is only the speeding up of the usual processes by which God now produces new things, such as bodies, wine, bread, and fish.

    “Creation” is by definition a unique event, unlike the pattern of physical cause and effect with which are now surrounded, and which is the subject of scientific research. Creation must be something from nothing, and could only be instantaneous, not a process. This is described by the terms “fiat,” meaning “decree,” and “ex nihilo,” Latin for “from nothing.” The Hebrew verb “bara” is used in the Bible only in reference to God’s work, never with a human subject of the verb. It does not in itself always mean fiat ex nihilo creation, but that is clearly the meaning of the context in Genesis 1. It is the only way a universe could begin, and living things, including their complex systems. It is the only way Jesus’ conception and resurrection could have occurred, and also changing water to wine (for the wedding Jesus attended in Cana) or multiplying bread and fish (to feed the five thousand and the four thousand), and an individual’s moment of conversion and new spiritual life. This is the pattern of God’s creative work.

    To reject this possibility is to deny the creative power of God. All estimates of long past ages are of necessity based on observation of the present and projected into the unobserved past. This requires the uniformitarian assumption: uniformity of rates, processes and laws throughout those long time periods, thus explicitly ruling out any miraculous intervention by God. The Bible says there has been such intervention, invalidating such speculation about the past. Science can only observe the present and repeatable operation of the universe, not its past, especially its unique unrepeatable origin. History is unobserved, so it is not science. God was there at the beginning; we were not. So we must simply accept His eye-witness account of the beginning. He has told us what He did.

    In reference to creation, there are many statements throughout the Bible relating it to “the word of the Lord,” or “God said.” This means it was done instantly, not gradually. Ps. 33:6, 9; 148:5; Isa. 48:13; Heb. 11:3; II Pet. 3:5, 6, etc.

    In a closely related point of Bible teaching, the Bible directly links the origin of the human race with the origin of the universe, including statements by Jesus Himself referring to human events “since the foundation of the world,” or “from the beginning of creation.” Mt 13:35; 19:14; 24:21; 25:34; Mk. 10:16; 13:19; Lk. 1:70; 11:50; Acts 3:21; Rom. 1:20; Heb. 1:10; 4:3; I Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8; 17:8. This is another reason to reject any long ages before Adam, or a gap between Gen. 1:1, 2 and the first day.

    The Bible also teaches that the universe will end in an instant. Mt. 24:35; Mk. 13:31; Lk. 21:33; 2 Pet. 3:10-13; Rev. 21:1; etc. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that it began in an instant.

Day-age and gap theories

    There have been many versions of the “gap theory,” one of the most widely circulated being that of C. I. Scofield early in the 20^th century, in his famous Scofield Bible notes. This theory proposes that Gen. 1:1 refers to an initial creation, which was destroyed when Satan rebelled and was cast out of heaven to Earth. This is how the Earth became “without form and void,” 1:2, and is also the source of the rocks and fossils. The six days were then a re-creation of this damaged world. This theory is no longer so widely held, so need not be criticized in detail here. Its Biblical base is at best dubious and largely speculative.

No death, decay, or suffering before Adam

    In the original creation animals all ate plants; they were not carnivorous, Gen. 1:29, 30. Meat eating did not begin until after the Flood, Gen. 9:3. The Bible predicts a future “peaceable kingdom” heavenly state in which there will be no death or suffering, not even carnivorous animals, but even lions will be herbivorous, Isa. 11:6-9; 65:25; Ezek. 34:25; Hos. 2:18; etc. Thus this is the future ideal state, and also must have been the original created state.

    This does raise some perplexing questions about when, after the initial creation, some animals became carnivorous, able to catch and digest animals instead of plants, and other animals became skilled in evading them. This involves major redesign of their digestive systems and entire bodies. But this is still of course no problem for the omnipotent God.

The Flood of Noah, Flood geology, Ice Ages, and the vapor canopy

    The Flood also explains the evidence of great Ice Ages in the past. There is clear evidence of great glaciers covering much of North America and Europe, and this is usually interpreted as indicating a long series of climatic fluctuations extending over at least many hundreds of thousands of years. This is one of many purported evidences that the age of the Earth is much larger than a few thousand years. Recent-creationist studies indicate that this long story can be telescoped into a single glacial episode during the few centuries immediately following the Flood, with heavy precipitation from the still-warm oceans.

    One common suggestion of those who reject the Flood as the source of the rock layers is that the Flood was global but quiescent, leaving no visible trace. This is simply impossible, unimaginable. No observed example can be given in which large quantities of flowing water do not profoundly affect the land they cover. There are many examples of the tremendous power of rapidly flowing water.

    Another suggestion is that the Flood was only local, not worldwide. This runs against many statements in the account referring to the “whole earth,” “under heaven,” all people and animals, etc. Also, if it was only regional, Noah would not have needed an Ark, but God could have instructed him and the animals, especially birds, simply to migrate out of the region affected.

    Finally, God promised that He would never again destroy the world with a flood. There have been many devastating local floods in history since then, so either that Flood was not local or God has not kept His promise.

    Another important concept in connection with the Flood is the pre-Flood vapor canopy. Gen. 1:7 refers to “the waters above the firmament,” and 2:5, 6 says there was no rain in the original world. Gen. 9:12-16 says that there had been no rainbow before the one Noah saw after the Flood. A layer of water vapor in the upper atmosphere would produce the uniform mild climate which existed throughout the Earth before the Flood, shield the Earth from damaging radiation and thus explain long pre-Flood lifetimes, and perhaps provide a significant part of the source of the Flood. This model has been developed in various ways; the most complete work, including computer model calculations, has been done by Jody Dillow in the 1970s, and since then by Larry Vardiman and his graduate students at ICR.

Dinosaurs in Biblical and more recent history

B Scientific evidence for recent creation

    There are many evidences which point to an age far less than billions of years, even if not necessarily only a few thousand. While not directly confirming recent creation, they show that the popular model has fatal flaws which are not being acknowledged. The shorter the time period involved, the more reliable such estimates should be, less subject to additional perturbing factors. The scientific community in general gives undue emphasis to evidences which seem to indicate larger ages, and disregards these that indicate shorter ages.

    First, there are some problems relating to the universe and its purported age of 15,000,000,000 years.

    If the matter we can see in galaxy clusters is all there is, then its gravity is not sufficient to prevent the escape of the galaxies from the cluster; galaxies in clusters are moving so rapidly that they would disperse in far less than billions of years. The astronomy community’s assumption of, and search for, “missing mass” and “dark matter” is only an attempt to cover up this fact, based on the assumption that the clusters must be stable for billions of years, and therefore must contain far more matter than is visible.

Spiral galaxy arms would wind up and become indistinguishable in a few hundred million years, so the galaxies and therefore the universe can’t be that old or older.

    Some star clusters are rapidly dispersing, once again unless we assume a lot of “missing mass.”

    There are no known supernova remnants older than a few thousand years, even though they should remain visible for over one hundred thousand years.

    There are many problems relating to the solar system and its purported age of 4,800,000,000 years:

    The Sun is shrinking at such a rate that it could not have existed for billions of years. If it had, then a few billion years ago it would have been as large as the Earth’s orbit, and would have burned up the Earth.

    Experiments to observe the flow of neutrinos from the fusion reaction at the center of the Sun have shown that there are only a third to a half of the expected number of neutrinos. Perhaps this indicates that the Sun is not in fact powered by fusion at its center, and its age is much less than the 4.5 billion years usually assumed.

    The lifetime of short-period comets is much less than several billion years, so their existence now proves the solar system is not that old. Small objects in the solar system, such as comet nuclei, are careening in a pinball machine, in which they can have only one of two inevitable destinies: either collide with one of the larger bodies, or be deflected into an orbit which will depart from the solar system never to return. The same is true of meteoroids. Rings around planets also cannot last for billions of years, for other reasons. Comets are so conspicuous because of their large tail of evaporated ices escaping from the nucleus; eventually this will all be evaporated, also in much less than billions of years.

    Astronomers are aware of these facts, and so they postulate a source of new comets, the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt of small icy objects in the outer solar system beyond the planets. These have never been observed, but are merely assumed to exist to solve the problem of the existence of comets.

    The small amount of meteor dust on the Moon and the Earth proves it has not been accumulating for several billion years. If it had, there would be a thick layer of dust on the Moon, and the astronauts would have sunk into it. That is why the first moon-lander spacecraft had huge pads on their feet. As the astronauts and earlier moon-lander spacecraft found, the surface of the Moon has less than an inch of fine dust. Also, there should be much more nickel in the crust of the Earth if meteors have been arriving for several billion years.

Moon mountains are slumping and would not retain their present height for billions of years.

    The Moon is receding from the Earth about 4 cm/yr. At this rate it would be very near the Earth less than 4.8 billion years ago, so this conflicts with the usual estimate of the age of the solar system, including the Earth and Moon in its present form.

Natural oil and gas deposits are under high pressure, which would leak out far sooner than several hundred million years.

Ocean salts are accumulating at a rate that, compared with the present salt content, indicates an accumulation period much less than 4.5 billion years.

Sediments are accumulating on the ocean floor at a rate that indicates an accumulation time far less than 4.5 billion years.

    Some continental mountains are rising at a rate that in 4.5 billion years would produce far larger and higher continents than we observe.

    The continents are eroding at a rate that will reduce them to a flat plain in far less than 4.5 billion years.

Pleochroic haloes (explained in Robert Gentry’s book) in some rocks seem to indicate instant creation of those rocks in the solid form, not slow cooling from a molten state.

    Finally, there are problems related specifically to the Earth, and therefore related to geology and geophysics.

    There are several characteristics of the Earth that indicate an age far less than several billion years.

Carbon-14 in the atmosphere is being produced 30% faster than it is decaying; it is not in an equilibrium state. The half-life of carbon-14 is only about 5000 years, so the present condition is what result if the atmosphere started from no carbon-14 at all about 10,000 years ago. If the Earth and atmosphere have existed with little disturbance for many millions of years, then it should have long since reached precise equilibrium. This indicates it is not that old, or at least that a major disturbance has occurred in the last few thousand years. The Flood and sudden formation of large amounts of sedimentary carbonate rocks would be such a disturbance, removing most of the carbon from the atmosphere.

    The geomagnetic field is at present decaying rapidly, reducing by a half every 1500 years, and therefore it could not have existed more than a few thousand years. It is produced by an electric current loop in the conducting iron-nickel core of the earth, and this current is steadily decreasing. The usual “dynamo” theory of generation of this current remains unconfirmed. There is no successful explanation of how the current and field could be produced or reversed. The strips of alternating magnetic polarity on the ocean floor and other locations are commonly interpreted as recording reversals of the magnetic field with time, at intervals of many ten thousand years. These strips are not as simple as they are usually described to be, and Flood geology gives an alternate explanation of their formation.

Helium escapes from the top of the atmosphere far more slowly than it is added from the surface of the Earth. It is produced primarily as alpha particles emitted by the uranium and thorium decay chains within the Earth, and then slowly diffuses to the surface. The present amount in the atmosphere would accumulate in only a few million years, indicating that it has not been accumulating for billions of years. The recent-creationist interpretation is therefore that nearly all the helium now in the atmosphere was created.

    As for the Earth’s surface and geological structure, Flood geology is a far better explanation of many characteristics of the rock layers and fossils than the standard geological theory of long ages of slow formation. There are several Flood models currently under discussion. In addition to the well-known hydrological model, there has been an alternative model developed in the mid-90s. This model is based on Dr. John Baumgardner’s research on the interior structure of the Earth, as a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. That laboratory’s computer model shows the possibility of a runaway catastrophic subduction of the surface plates of the Earth, compressing the standard several-hundred-million-year scenario of continental drift into a brief upheaval which can be equated with the Biblical Flood year.

    Some rock layers and landforms clearly indicate rapid catastrophic formation in volcanic activity and high-speed water-flow environments. Some are strangely folded and interlaced indicating deformation while they were all still fresh and soft, not long ages after some had formed and hardened. In fact the very existence of fossils is evidence of sudden burial, because an animal body will quickly decay if left in the open. This is what a catastrophic global Flood would produce: lots of mud and dead animals.

    Geologists are gradually realizing some of these facts, and reinterpreting formations which were formally assumed to have formed slowly. In addition to recent-creationist geologists’ prodding, another influence has been the astronomical community’s insistent reminder that the Earth is subject to catastrophic impacts, and is not simply leading a safe uninterrupted existence free from outside interference.

    Rock layers extend over wide areas. Two layers may be separated by an erosional surface in one location, but in another location these two layers are continuously connected by one or more intervening layers with no sign of an interruption. Thus the layers, most of which appear to have been formed rapidly, may be linked together into one great catastrophic event.

    Geologists talk about three main types of boundaries between layers. These are called conformities, unconformities, and paraconformities. The latter refers to instances, which are quite common and widespread, where different layers appear to rest continuously one above another, with no evidence of a long time interruption, but according to dating by the fossils contained in them geologists assert that a long time interval occurred at that point. Such long times would surely leave some traces of erosion of the surface of the older layer. Surely a more reasonable conclusion is to disregard the dating based on fossils, thus greatly shortening the geological time scale.

    A particularly significant type of paraconformity is where the fossils in the rocks above the boundary are considered to be older than those below, an inverted sequence. Geologists account for this as an “overthrust” in which horizontal movement has pushed one layer up on top of another. In some very small-scale cases this can be verified by further field study, but it is incredible in cases where the upper layers are many hundreds of feet thick, the distance supposedly traveled is a hundred miles or more, and the boundary surface is smooth and clean with nosigns of cracking and grinding during all this assumed motion. These cases should be interpreted as evidence against the standard dating and sequence of the fossils.

    A scientific problem with the day-age theory is that the order of the fossils in the rock layers, as summarized in the “standard geological column,” does not agree with the order in the Genesis account. For example, in the fossils ocean plants and animals are considered oldest, but in Genesis land plants are created first. This is, however, a complex issue. John Woodmorappe has done an extensive study in which he throws doubt on whether there is in fact a consistent worldwide pattern in the order of the fossils. The “geological column” is a conceptual construction, only a part of which is observed at any one location. He spent months gathering the original data and drawing his own maps of them, and found that there are many uncertainties in the sequence. The standard geological column is not well supported by the facts, but is a theoretical concept heavily influenced by evolutionary assumptions.

    Fossils of tropical plants are found throughout the world, including near both poles, indicating that there once was a worldwide mild climate. This confirms the canopy theory, which would produce such a climate.

    There are many processes that are commonly assumed, according to uniformitarianism, to proceed slowly, and therefore would require long periods of time to produce many existing formations on the Earth. But these processes can in fact proceed at much faster rates than is usually assumed.

    The world’s present-day ice-caps, on Greenland and Antarctica, supposedly are proof that they have been accumulating for at least a digit or two more than 10,000 years. However, identifiable annual layers exist only down to about 100 m, beyond which the snow is compressed and recrystallized into solid ice with the annual layers obliterated. Age estimates are therefore based on the assumption of uniform accumulation rates, not on the actual existence of that many identifiable layers. But precipitation rates would be very heavy for a few centuries after the Flood, as mentioned in sec. A, therefore the ice-caps do not constitute proof of a time period far longer than 10,000 years.

    Research in the area around Mt. St. Helens since its 1980 explosive eruption shows many phenomena formed at that time and since that are usually assumed to require long times for formation: thick series of cyclic sedimentary layers, rapid erosion of canyons through those layers, etc. Thus these formations elsewhere do not necessarily prove long ages were required to produce them.

    Observations of lake bottoms, both natural and artificial, has found that layers can be deposited several times a year, not only annually. This may be due to heavy rainfalls, or turbidity currents. This means that many layers that are interpreted as representing annual cycles may not actually represent that long a time span.

    Research has demonstrated that a coal layer is not, as usually assumed, the result of the burial of a mature forest or peat bog. By this interpretation, long series of coal layers interspersed with other layers must represent at least many thousand years of development and burial of successive mature forests. A coal layer is better explained as material dropped on the bottom of a lake from a floating mat of plant material, during a time period that is on the order of a year or two at most, perhaps only days or hours. Successive layers were deposited when mud and the plant material flowed back and forth in the lake, driven by whatever catastrophic circumstances produced the mat in the first place. Divers have found that this is exactly what is happening in a lake near Mt. St. Helens.

    It is common to find polystrate fossils, which extend through several layers. This is especially true in coal layers; there are many instances of trees, and even animals, found extending through multiple layers. This is impossible to explain in terms of many centuries of successive forests, and could only occur if the entire sequence was deposited very quickly.

    Similarly, recent creationists have studied the series of layers of buried petrified trees in Yellowstone Park. These were long interpreted as a series of forests buried by volcanic ash eruptions, each layer representing at least several centuries, but detailed analysis shows that the stumps do not have complete root systems, and many do not have bark. This too is better explained as falling on a lake floor from a floating mat, as observed at Mt. St. Helens.

    Observations in many locations have demonstrated that stalactites and stalagmites form far more rapidly than is usually assumed, within a few decades or centuries. Thus they are not evidence for several more digits of age for the Earth.

    Almost any issue of any creationist publication contains examples of rapid rates of various processes: coalification and petrification of wood in a few decades or less, growth of stalactites and stalagmites in and under man-made structures and therefore of known age, mineral deposits formed inside pipes in just a few years, the tremendous erosive power of high-speed flowing water, claims of human artifacts found in coal layers, etc. These reports are of course spiced with disparaging comments about the entire geological and scientific community which is blind to these facts and in fact is engaged in a sinister conspiracy to suppress them.

    Finally, there are a few other considerations also relevant to the age of the Earth and its rocks.

Human and dinosaur footprints have been found together in several places. This is totally inconsistent with the standard evolutionary timetable of the existence of dinosaurs and humans on the Earth.

    There are flood legends in many cultures around the world, confirming the reality of the Flood.

    There have been many reports of sightings of the Ark on Mt. Ararat in Turkey, though it has not yet been directly confirmed.

    The rate of human population growth rules out a multi-million-year age for the human race.

C Recent-creationists’ scientific objections to long ages and the Big Bang

Scientific theories are constantly changing, and the history of science is a history of the overthrow of theories once considered established facts. Such theories are not trustworthy as guides to truth deserving to be placed on a par with the Bible, or used as a guide in interpreting the Bible. Also, we must not tie our faith so closely to any one theory that when the theory falls it seems to make our faith fall with it.

    Specifically about the origin of the universe, there have been many theories, of which the Big Bang is only the latest, and it is already being criticized on many points. Who knows when its flaws will finally bring its rejection, to be replaced by yet another theory? Estimates of the age of the Earth and the universe have increased many times in the last two centuries. All these are closed-minded attempts to reject the truth of divine creation, and the scientific evidences which support it.

    The scientific community as a whole rejects any research which supports recent creation. They will not fund it or publish it, no matter how competent. But all the major revolutions in science have begun with a small minority who were considered crackpot in their time. Time will tell.

    A frequent basic question about recent creation is how it can account for the fact that we see light reaching us from distant galaxies up to several billion light years away, meaning that the light has traveled that long to reach us. This is the “light travel time” problem, with no definite solution yet, but there are several possible answers. Astronomical distance estimates are uncertain, therefore the light travel time is uncertain within a certain range. The greatest distances are estimated mainly on the basis of the red shift in the spectrum of the light we receive, but there are questions about whether the red shift of distant galaxies indicates distance correctly. Halton Arp and a few other astronomers have observed that some large-red-shift quasars seem to be closely associated with galaxies having a much smaller red shift.

    Some recent creationists have suggested that the speed of light may be decreasing, and was extremely fast at creation and for a while after that, so light from distant galaxies could have reached the Earth soon after creation a few thousand years ago. This theory is based on the fact that there is a slight downward trend in the measured speed of light over the past three hundred years, though there is disagreement among creationists over the significance of these measurements. Finally, be that as it may, God could of course have simply created the light waves already traveling all along the path to Earth, so that the light we are now receiving did not actually come from the object itself. This then becomes one aspect of “created age.”

    As for other characteristics of the universe which seem to indicate a long age, it is possible that the universe actually does have a far greater age than the Earth. Russell Humphreys, a recent creationist, is now unsatisfied with the concept of apparent age, though in earlier years he propagated it. He has developed a model based on general relativity, in which the Earth is initially briefly at the center of a white hole. He proposes that God rapidly changed the cosmological constant in Einstein’s equations during the first day (on Earth) of creation, thus producing a repulsion that overpowered gravitational attraction and producing a white hole from which the present universe emerged, leaving the Earth at the original center. This could allow for time to pass much more slowly at the surface of the Earth than in the distant universe, and so the universe could genuinely be billions of years old while the Earth is only a few thousand years old. The Genesis account describes the creation process as seen on the Earth. Humphreys’ model is still under evaluation and development.

    Regarding the geological evidence of a great age of the Earth, a crucial link in that interpretation is the assumption of uniformitarianism: that “the present is the key to the past.” This has been asserted in various forms. The weaker form is the assumption that only the presently known laws of physics have been in operation throughout the history of the world, though the rates and types of processes may have sometimes been different from the present. The stronger form asserts that not only the laws but also the rates of processes have always been similar to what is observed at present. This has been a fundamental principle in the growth of modern geology, but it explicitly rules out the events recorded in the Bible, and the possibility of God’s intervention in the world. Christians must reject such an assumption in any form.

    There are also many scientific objections to the Big Bang theory and a multi-billion year process leading to the presently observed universe:

    There is no explanation for the origin of the Big Bang. What is it that exploded? Why? Some proponents of the Big Bang refer to a primordial “cosmic egg” which exploded, but all such ideas have no scientific basis and are just attempts to evade the fact of creation.

    Something from nothing violates both the 1^st and 2^nd Laws of thermodynamics.

    The Big Bang model predicts no matter, only radiation. It should begin with exactly equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, which would all mutually annihilate.

    The Big Bang explosion would be too uniform to produce the complexity of the observed universe, which violates the 2nd Law of thermodynamics, and is impossible.

    The Big Bang explosion would be too chaotic to produce the order of the observed universe, which violates the 2nd Law of thermodynamics.

Expansion from a small Big Bang to the large present universe is an increase in complexity, so it violates the 2nd Law, and therefore could not have occurred.

Contraction of a gas cloud to form a star is an increase in order, so it too violates the 2nd Law.

    Some star clusters contain stars with apparently different ages.

    Stars cannot form or change, and no one has ever seen a star form or change. Stellar evolution is just another evolutionary assumption.

Sirius is a white star now but was described as red in ancient Roman times, which is faster than the theory of stellar evolution says such a change can occur.

“Sakurai’s Object” has been observed in the late 90s to be changing more rapidly than theory allows, and in the wrong direction, from a dwarf into a giant star.

    Measurements including those by the Hubble Space Telescope give an estimate of the age of the universe based on its expansion, and this result is less than the age of the universe based on the assumed ages of globular star clusters. This is clearly impossible, and shows the whole model is fatally flawed.

    The Big Bang cannot create life.

    A gas and dust cloud could not form planets.

    The origin of the Moon is not adequately explained by any theory yet proposed: co-formation, capture, division, or collision with an approximately Mars-sized object, which is the currently popular theory. A collision would have to be just exactly right, which is highly improbable.

    The solar system is too chaotic to be the result of a natural process of formation from a gas cloud.

    The solar system is too orderly to be the result of a natural process of formation from a gas cloud.

    The angular momentum distribution of the solar system cannot be explained by formation from a contracting gas cloud, because the mass is mostly in the Sun but the angular momentum is mostly in the planets.

Radioisotope dating methods are based on unjustified assumptions, and the results are often inconsistent. Those assumptions involve the initial composition, changes in the composition during time due to external influences, and the rate of the decay process. All of these are unknown or variable. Radioactive decay processes may vary in speed due to temperature, pressure, radiation, etc.

    The lack of interstellar comets from outside the solar system shows that either there are not many other solar systems or there has not been time (millions of years) for comets ejected by them to reach us.

Concluding comment

    The presentation of the recent-creationist position and the arguments commonly used to support it could of course go on forever, but this covers all the important points of which I am aware in the current literature and presentations. It should be sufficient for a meaningful evaluation of the validity or otherwise of the basis of recent creation.

    Unfortunately, I believe that the conclusion of such an evaluation is not validity but otherwise. As I stated at the beginning of this summary, I stop only slightly short of saying I don’t believe a word of all these purported evidences and arguments in support of recent creation. It has many flaws, several of them fatal.

    The primary source of material advocating recent creation is the Institute for Creation Research, P. O. Box 2667, El Cajon, California 92021. ICR’s web-site is www.icr.org.

    Master Books is closely related to ICR, and publishes only recent-creation material.

    Another source is the Creation Research Society, P. O. Box 8263, St. Joseph, Missouri 64508-8263. email is contact@creationresearch.org, web-site is www.creationresearch.org

    Books advocating recent creation and Flood geology include:

    The Genesis Flood, John C. Whitcomb, Henry M. Morris. Phillipsburg, N. J.: Presbyterian and Reformed. 1961. ISBN 0-8010-9501-8

    The Moon - Its Creation, Form, and Significance, John C. Whitcomb, Donald B. DeYoung. Winona Lake, Indiana: BMH Books. 1979

    Age of the Cosmos, Harold S. Slusher. El Cajon: ICR. 1980. ISBN 0-932766-03-X

    The Waters Above. Earth's Pre-Flood Vapor Canopy, Joseph C. Dillow. Chicago: Moody. 1981. ISBN 0-8024-9198-7

    The Collapse of Evolution, Scott M. Huse. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1983. 0-8010-4310-7

    A History of Modern Creationism, Henry M. Morris. San Diego: Master Books. 1984
Scientific Creationism, Henry M. Morris. El Cajon, California: Master Books. 2nd ed. 1985

    Creation's Tiny Mystery, Robert V. Gentry. Earth Science Associates, Box 12067, Knoxville, Tennessee 37912-0067. 1986. ISBN 0-9616753-1-4. This is the book describing pleochroic haloes.

    What Is Creation Science?, Henry M. Morris, Gary E. Parker. El Cajon: Master Books. 2nd ed. 1987. ISBN 0-89051-081-4

    Astronomy and the Bible, Questions and Answers, Donald B. Deyoung. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House. 1988. ISBN 0-8010-2991-0

    In the Beginning, Walter T. Brown. Center for Scientific Creation, 5612 N. 20th Place, Phoenix, Arizona 85016. 5th ed., 1989. Newer editions have come out since my copy.

    Science, Scripture, and the Young Earth, An Answer to Current Attacks on the Biblical Doctrines of Recent Creation and the Global Flood, Henry M. Morris, John D. Morris. El Cajon: Institute for Creation Research. 1989

    The Answers Book, Answers to the 12 most-asked questions on Genesis and creation/evolution, Ken Ham, Andrew Snelling, Carl Wieland. El Cajon: Master Books. 1990. ISBN 0-949906-15-8. While committed to recent creation, the book is quite cautious, and admits there are not clear answers in some cases.

    The Illustrated Origins Answer Book, Concise, Easy-to-Understand Facts about the Origin of Life, Man, and Cosmos, Paul S. Taylor. Mesa, Arizona: Eden Productions. 3rd ed., 1991. ISBN 1-877775-01-0

    Bones of Contention, A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, Marvin L. Lubenow. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books. 1992. ISBN 0-8010-5677-2

    Biblical Creationism: What Each Book of the Bible Teaches about Creation and the Flood, Henry M. Morris. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books. 1993. ISBN 0-8010-6298-5

    Studies in Flood Geology, A Compilation of Research Studies Supporting Creation and the Flood, John Woodmorappe. El Cajon: ICR. 1993

    The Young Earth, John D. Morris. El Cajon: Master Books. 1994

    Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics, Duane T. Gish. El Cajon: ICR. ISBN 0-932766-28-5

    Grand Canyon, Monument to Catastrophe, Steven A. Austin ed. Santee, California: ICR. 1994

    Starlight and Time, Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe, D. Russell Humphreys. Colorado Springs: Master Books. 1994. ISBN 0-89051-202-7

    Creation and Time, A Report on the Progressive Creationist Book by Hugh Ross, Mark Van Bebber and Paul S. Taylor. Mesa, Arizona: Eden Productions. 1994 ISBN 1-877775-02-9

    Astronomy and Creation, An Introduction, Donald B. DeYoung. Ashland, Ohio: Creation Research Society Books. 1995. ISBN 0-940384-17-5

    Dinosaurs and Creation, Questions and Answers, Donald B. DeYoung. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 2000. ISBN 0-8010-6306-X

    In addition to books, there is a six-film series on Origins, produced by Films for Christ, Mesa, Arizona. The series is closely parallel to, but not as detailed as, The Illustrated Origins Answer Book. Films 1 and 2 are specifically on recent creation.

    Finally, recent-creationists produce a number of periodicals.

    ICR publishes a monthly news pamphlet, Acts & Facts, with which is included Back to Genesis and Impact.

    The Creation Research Society publishes the Creation Research Society Quarterly, and Creation Matters.

    From Australia comes Creation Ex Nihilo, and the Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal.

    The above presentation of Biblical, theological, logical, and scientific arguments is truly awesome and overwhelming on first acquaintance, unless you have a specialist background in certain fields. Modern society is increasingly anti-Christian and degenerate, and we Christians are rightly concerned about how to deal with it for ourselves, as well as for our children. Recent creationism sounds like what we want to hear, defending the faith and defeating the enemies at their own game. It presents the valid arguments for intelligent design in the origin of living things; shouldn’t that and recent creation of the universe be a package deal? If they are right about the origin of living things, they must be right about the origin of the universe. Amen, preach it brother!

    So why do I disagree with virtually the entire recent-creation presentation above? Shouldn’t I support these brothers in the Lord who are laboring to defend and spread the gospel? I disagree with it because I believe it is wrong, however sincere and well-intentioned its advocates may be. And I am supporting them, by attempting to help them improve what I see as weaknesses that are counterproductive to their (and my) goal of supporting and strengthening faith in the Bible. Removing these flaws would strengthen their case. If this isn’t supporting them, what would be?

    The advocates of recent creation make themselves and their position highly visible, and extensively criticize all who disagree with them, whether Christian or non-Christian. Yet they express surprise and offense when criticized, especially by Christians. If they don’t want to attract lightning, they should get down off the rooftop. And by writing this chapter, I will no doubt attract some lightning! We shall see.

    Though none of them would say so, or even really think so, in practice many recent-creationists have a policy of employing anything that is anti-anti-creationist. If it comes to the “correct” conclusion, it must be right, and we should all support it. There are some who do not agree with this policy, but they seem to have little influence on the mass-marketed presentations.

    Let us consider the points of the recent-creationist presentation in detail. First, we discuss the Biblical basis, which is summarized in sec. I, A.

A Evaluation of the Biblical basis of recent creation

Literal interpretation

1 Six consecutive 24-hour days, about 6000 years ago

2 A long time interval after 1:1 and/or 2, then six 24-hour days recently

    The viewpoint usually referred to by this name is the one popularized in C. I Scofield’s Study Bible in the early 20th century. This placed the geological ages in the gap, after which Satan rebelled, fell from heaven to earth, and destroyed the initial creation, which was then recreated and repopulated in six 24-hour days. This view is no longer popular, for various reasons, mostly connected with the conjectured effects of Satan’s fall.

    But a time gap need not be connected with Satan’s fall. A fascinating variation is proposed by John Sailhamer, in his book Genesis Unbound. Dr. Sailhamer has impeccable credentials as a conservative Old Testament scholar, teaching at Northwestern College and Western Seminary, and has taught at Bethel Seminary, Philadelphia College of Bible, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He says he wrote the book to make the point that recent creation is not the only game in the Bible-believing town, and in fact it has some serious faults that bring unnecessary embarrassment to the cause of literal interpretation. His viewpoint, briefly, is that the universe, and the Earth, and all life on it, were created in Gen. 1:1, 2, during an indefinite time period. He rejects the Big Bang, but his reasons are the same as those of recent-creationists and are obviously influenced by their opinions (see II, C). He criticizes both Henry Morris and Hugh Ross (currently the best-known advocates of young- and old-Earth creation respectively)! The term translated “earth” in Gen. 1, Hebrew “erets,” can also refer to smaller areas than the entire planet; this is discussed later in connection with the Flood account.

    Dr. Sailhamer believes the six days are not referring to creation of the entire world and life in it, but instead to the preparation of the land, to be the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve, and later the Promised Land of Canaan. That particular parcel of land was initially a desolate waste, but was transformed as the plants and animals were brought into it from elsewhere. At first hearing, this seems inconsistent with the account as we are accustomed to understanding it, but he has done his homework and the book carefully discusses each verse. Read the book if you want all the details. Furthermore, Dr. Sailhamer claims this is no novel interpretation he invented himself, but is the viewpoint taken by the earliest pre-New Testament rabbis, right back to intimations in the prophetic writings themselves. Therefore he claims that the concept of this being an account of the creation of the whole planet only arose later under the influence of Greek philosophy.

    I do not accept Dr. Sailhamer’s entire position. But it does demonstrate that there are competent alternative viewpoints, and objections to recent creation that are not based on skeptical assumptions. In later sections we will discuss some of the details of the creation account, including more of Dr. Sailhamer’s comments. For now, it shows that the recent-creation interpretation is not necessarily obvious, simple, or even traditional!

    Recent-creationists have so far only responded briefly to Dr. Sailhamer, as far as I am aware. In book reviews they belittle his views as just one man’s unfounded speculation. What else can they do?

3 Non-consecutive 24-hour days, separated by long ages
4 Each day is an age; the “day-age” view

    In this view the “beginning” when “God created the heavens and the earth” extends from the Big Bang about 15,000,000,000 years ago, to the formation of the solar system about 4,800,000,000 years ago. At that time the newly-formed Earth was “without form and void,” a sterile desolate planet but uniquely, providentially suited for the survival of life (ch. 6, II, A, 2). The six days are correlated with the geological ages, during which various categories of life were formed by direct acts of God. This is the position I have suggested (see ch. 6, II, B, 9).

    There is a range of opinions among progressive creationists about Adam and Eve. Some do not consider them to be actual historical individuals, and this is used as an objection by recent-creationists against progressive creation. But many others, myself included, see no reason to deny the existence of Adam and Eve as historical individuals, as described many places in the Bible. They experienced a literal, historical temptation and Fall into sin, and were our ancestors. Those progressive creationists who deny this do so for other reasons; it is not inherent in progressive creation.

5 Overlapping ages
6 Flexible sequence

7 Parable or allegory
The Genesis account is not meant to be actual history or science; it is topical, non-chronological, theological, an anti-idolatry polemic. It obviously has a parallel structure, with the first three days forming different realms, the next three days filling the same respective realms.

8 Days of revelation
God revealed the creation account to Moses in seven days.

    This covers most of the products in the marketplace of literal interpretation of the creation account. I personally favor options 3 or 4. Now we need to discuss this interpretation in more detail.

The length of the days of creation

    In Gen. 1:11, 12, the third day, God said “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants….” In 22, the fifth day, He commands the sea animals and birds to multiply and fill their respective realms. In 24 and 25, the sixth day, He commands the land to produce creatures; there is not the explicit command to fill it, but this could be assumed by comparison with the previous day. In 2:8, 9 God planted a garden and caused it to grow. All of these do not sound like they were completed in a single day, so that is not a perspicuous, literal interpretation. It is difficult to imagine Moses thinking of them as occurring in a single day. And even if he did, what Moses thought on this particular point (as distinguished from what he taught) was not necessarily correct (see the discussion of language in ch. 5, I, F). This is of course a two-edged sword; if we could prove (we can’t) Moses was thinking long ages, that by itself does not prove that is correct either.

    If we view Gen. 1 as a record of consecutive 24-hour days, then we must assume that the plants and animals were created in abundance throughout the whole world, instantly constituting a fully formed and functioning ecological system. But is that what it says? I don’t see that in my Bible. It is between the lines, if it is there at all; it is not the clear, perspicuous, literal meaning of these verses. It does not say “Abracadabra, poof! Let there instantly be a fully formed and functioning global ecosystem.” If God created multitudes of animals and birds already dispersed throughout the ocean, air, and land, He would not have needed to command them to multiply and fill those realms. That is almost identical to the command given to Adam and Eve in 1:28. God began the human race with a single pair, not instantly fully formed and functioning throughout the entire globe, so why claim that that is what He did with animals?

    This reveals an unconscious contradiction in most recent-creationists’ thinking: they usually talk about a single original pair of each “kind,” yet also talk about a world that was instantly “fully formed and functioning.” If, as recent-creationists usually assume, He initially created only one pair of each “kind” (we won’t get side-tracked into defining that word!), then filling their respective ecological niches was not a matter of a single day, but a considerable number of years. The only question is how many digits there are in that number; at least more than one or two.

    There is another factor that compounds this problem. Recent-creationists mostly consider the created “kinds” to be equivalent to a higher category than species, so that one original pair’s descendants not only spread geographically but diversified considerably into numerous present-day species. This would require still far more time, at least one or two more digits in addition to the ones already required in the previous paragraph. So we are up to at least four-digit numbers of years in one particular “day.”

    One alternative view is the possibility that God instantly created sufficient creatures to make the Garden functional, and the command to fill the rest of the Earth was to be accomplished later. But this is barely possible even in a few hundred years, say from Adam to Noah, which according to the genealogies was at least 1600 years. Also, plants would spread slower than animals, which would spread slower than people. Thus for the rest of the world to be fit for people and animals to spread into from the Garden, the plants would need far more than a two-day head start. Be that as it may, it does not solve other problems.

The events of the sixth day

    In 2:23, Adam says of Eve that “This is now bone of my bone…” The word translated “now” implies he had waited a long time; it is the same word used in 13:23; 29:34, 35; 30:20; 46:30, etc. Of course if you were created just this morning, a few hours would seem like a long time…

    Notice particularly the necessity of language in this story. Adam, and Eve with an even later start, had a language. Could this have been instantly programmed into their brains? Meaning can only be based on experience; were they programmed with experience that had never really occurred? This means their minds were not initially a blank slate. This is taking “apparent age” (discussed below) to an amazing degree, which I have never seen a recent-creationist explicitly advocate. God expected them to understand His instructions that they be fruitful and multiply, and to know that plants yield fruit and seed. And He also expected them to know what death means; that is discussed below too.

    This question grows more fascinating the further it is pursued. Exactly what capabilities were given to Adam at the moment of his creation, and how much care and teaching did God give him thereafter? Was his brain instantly able to decipher signals from his eyes? Was he able to sit, stand, walk, feed himself? What food did he find, and how? We are accustomed to picturing him as instantly mature and competent, but where does the text say this? If it is there, it is between the lines. Is God not capable of the care and feeding of Adam beginning from some pretty rudimentary beginnings? It will be fascinating to get to heaven and watch God’s home videos of the Garden of Eden.

    Adding Eve and her learning process to the picture raises other questions. If, as the common interpretation tells us, Adam and Eve were fully formed and functioning mature adults from the moment of their creation, and she did not conceive before the Fall, then there cannot have been more than a very few days or even hours between those two events. Either that or they must have been created in a pre-puberty state. It is fascinating to speculate on the nature of a child who was conceived before the Fall. Would the child have inherited their sin nature, if they acquired it in the Fall after conception? So this could be construed as an argument either against any long time period before the Fall, or against their being mature at the moment of creation. But this is getting off the subject.

    It is significant to note that all these questions are based on literal interpretation. The recent-creation scenario seems to require a lot of effort in getting around the plain meaning of the text, which is that some things happened that took some time. The literal-interpretation shoe is suddenly on the other foot from the one on whichrecent-creationists are accustomed to wearing it. In this case it is they who seem to be defending a particular interpretation of a word in conflict with the apparent clear meaning of the context. And if they invoke any purported scientific evidence in support of that (young-earth) interpretation, then they can be accused of “exalting science over scripture,” an epithet they are fond of applying to those who advocate positions different than their own.

    On the basis of all these statements and details in the creation account, I firmly dispute recent-creationists’ claim to sole possession of the title “literal interpretation” for their viewpoint. In fact I personally strongly question their right to possession of it at all. But we have finished the description of the text, and are now comparing personal judgments, so the discussion is finished.

    Some long-age advocates have stated that they feel the apparent meaning of the Genesis account is recent creation, and they base their long-age position solely on scientific considerations. I feel they concede too much. Recent-creationists place great emphasis on quoting such statements as discrediting the long-age position and the motives of its advocates. They stereotype all long-age advocates as rejecting literal interpretation. This is false.

    But what about the word studies of the use of the Hebrew word “yom” elsewhere in the Old Testament? Does it always mean 24 hours when used with a number? There are a few arguable counter-examples, including Isa. 9:14; Hos. 6:2; Ps. 30:5. But this may be grasping at straws, and is not crucial.

    The really significant point is that, as recent-creationists are fond of emphasizing, the creation account is a unique context; they fail to consider that this therefore might be an exception to its usage elsewhere in the rest of the Old Testament. There is also the additional factor of possible changes in the language over subsequent centuries between the writing of Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament. The word-study argument must always be stated in terms of “all other instances,” which in principle cannot be an airtight proof about this particular instance. I am willing to accept their assertion that in all other occurrences of yom plus a number the context clearly indicates a 24-hour day. But the context of the creation account points strongly to a different meaning, and the fact we are discussing this at all is an acknowledgment that this context does not make the meaning clear here. When recent-creationists invert the procedure and interpret the entire text of Gen. 1 and 2 in terms of a particular word, yom, they are being inconsistent.

    Some authors point out that the grammatical phrase structure in Genesis 1, combining the word day with a number, is unusual, not the same as that used elsewhere for “the __th day.” But this is a technicality beyond my ability to evaluate. Perhaps some readers are qualified to pursue it, but I must set it aside.

    As for the contention that if God meant long time periods then He would have used another word, I again concede incompetence in Hebrew. I have read comments by others, claiming that the proposed alternative word would not fit this case either. This point too must be set aside for now.

The basis of the Sabbath command

    First, the account of God working and resting is clearly an anthropomorphism, describing Him in terms of our experience, which does not apply to Him. He is often described in terms of arms, eyes, even feathers, which cannot be literally real. He neither gets tired nor rests, nor does He live within the confines of our time-bound existence. The Biblical reference to God resting from creation, Gen. 2:2, 3, can simply mean He finished and stopped, and this is precisely how it is explained in Heb. 4:3. As further evidence of this anthropomorphism, consider what “evening and morning” could possibly mean to God. The Creator of the universe is little affected by the rotations of this little planet; why should His activity be regulated by it? There was no one on Earth to witness day and night until animals on the fifth day and Adam and Eve on the sixth day. So His creation week cannot possibly be closely, or literally, comparable to our work week. This does not mean the parallel is meaningless, only that it is not precisely, literally equivalent.

    Second, there are other commands in Ex. 23:10, 11 and Lev. 25:1-17 about 7 years and 50 years, 7 times 7 plus one. These are not explicitly related to the precedent of creation, but the use of the number 7 is at least suggestive. The Old Testament is full of symbols and types, so it is a matter of judgment what to take strictly literally. We Bible-believing Christians all agree that there is much in the Bible that is figurative, typical, and symbolical, and we also agree that sometimes there is some uncertainty in where to draw the line between this and the literal. There is a range for differences of opinion on where to draw that line. I do not hope to easily change others’ long-established opinion which has centuries of precedent. But neither do I accept it as infallible. I will say more about the “traditional” interpretation later.

Evening and morning

    Evening and morning may themselves have a symbolic, not necessarily literal, meaning. Psalm 90:5, 6 refers to grass sprouting in the morning and withering in the evening, which could hardly literally occur in the same day. This same Psalm, verse 4, states that “a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” God was the only witness of the first five days of Genesis 1, and most of the sixth. It is interesting to note that this is the only Psalm which is labeled as written by Moses, the author of Genesis.

The fourth day

    It may occur to an alert reader to ask to whom God proclaimed anything on the fourth day. The answer is that it is a comment to the reader after Moses, just the same as 2:24 which talks about a man leaving his father and mother when he gets married, which obviously did not apply to Adam and Eve.

    A common alternative solution of this problem, proposed by advocates of long ages, is to interpret the fourth-day account as meaning the heavenly bodies became visible from the surface of the Earth due to the clearing of a previously cloudy atmosphere. This fits in with a reasonable scenario of the formation and cooling of the early Earth. But it still leaves me feeling a little awkward, constituting the most difficult aspect of a day-age interpretation. If the viewpoint is that of a hypothetical human observer on the surface of the Earth, then it is harder not to take evening and morning more literally, though it could still be a figurative expression. Dr. Sailhamer’s explanation seems much more straightforward.

    All these considerations put together still do not lead clearly to a concept of several billion years. We don’t need them to do so. The point just is that once we escape from the 24-hour bottleneck in interpretation, there is no clear limit, and even billions of years are not ruled out by literal interpretation of the text. Theology is no longer constrained to a 24-hour interpretation. The time scale is left uncertain on the basis of the Scriptural text, and open to further information obtained from the study of nature. If nature seems to indicate billions of years, that does not create a conflict between theology and science.

Biblical perspicuity and authority

    Assuming the arguable (but we won’t argue it right now) point that all Christian leaders from the early church to, say, the 19th century, believed in recent creation, must this be conclusive for us? The history of Christianity seems too full of too many widespread errors for this principle to be tenable; it leans perilously close to the Catholic elevation of tradition to a par with Scripture. See the comments at the end of ch. 5, I, F, on the significance of long-held opinions of church leaders. They are neither unimportant nor infallible. We must not lightly disregard them, but neither are we bound by them. Those leaders also believed the Earth was immovable at the center of the universe, and there were widespread beliefs about racial discrimination, slavery, monarchy, etc. Belief in a literal second coming of Christ was largely abandoned for centuries, but this is a prime tenet of many who use the traditional viewpoint as a support of the recent-creation interpretation. So it seems there is a double standard employed in invoking the authority of past church leaders. History gives scant encouragement to any statement that begins “God would never allow so many people to mistakenly believe….”

    It is appropriate to ask why I think I and others in the late 20th century notice something in this passage that previous centuries of Bible scholars missed. That does seem presumptuous. On the interpretation of the creation account, I can only say that I have neither the time nor resources to see whether any earlier Bible scholars wondered about these verses that seem to refer to longer time periods. Surely some did, even if they left no record of it. I can only guess that they suppressed such questions under the pressure of prevailing opinion, and since the story has an irreducible miraculous element anyway, these parts can also be charged to that account. It may have become a conditioned mindset, so ingrained that it did not occur to anyone to view it differently until jogged to do so by some new factor such as 20th-century scientific discoveries. Through most of the centuries the leading Bible scholars had far more pressing matters to attend to, for which many faced martyrdom. As far as I know, the date of creation never was a life-and-death issue.

    Speaking of Christian leaders, in the 1970s and 80s the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) was formed and produced some outstanding books responding to attacks on the authority of the Bible. This was obviously a theologically conservative group of people, committed to the Bible and to taking a stand against prevailing opinion. In their official position statement, despite fervent pleading from recent-creationists, they declined to adopt the recent-creation interpretation of the Biblical account.

    What about all the university professors of Hebrew who say Moses clearly was thinking about literal days? This is a good question, and I can’t answer for them. I do wonder why they have not noticed the other details in the content of the story. But the fact that most of them are non-Christian, cited by recent-creationists as evidence of their objectivity, may also be cited as evidence of their bias. Most such scholars have many other opinions about the meaning and origin of the Old Testament with which we disagree, such as their documentary hypothesis (ch. 6, III, D), and we feel that they distort many facts in order to find pretexts for their unbelief. This very issue of the 24-hour days is one point they consider as evidence of scientific error in the Bible. Be that as it may, there remains the issue of how certain anyone centuries removed from Moses can be about his thoughts on a particular detail, a single word. And there is the issue of whether what he thought was correct (ch. 5, I, F).

    Even if we grant (but see the next paragraph) that the Bible gives no hint of long ages, that does not prove they could not be true. We could have fun listing things the Bible does not hint at: the creation of insects, the germ theory of disease, atomic structure of matter, the Ice Ages (maybe hinted at in Job), the distance of the planets and stars, existence of the American continents or Australia, the advantages or disadvantages of democratic government, etc. Of course, there is no reason why it should hint about these things, but is there reason for it to hint about long ages?

    Speaking of hints, the Bible gives no hint of created or apparent age of the universe, nor of the instant-creation “fully formed and functioning” concept. The commonly-quoted “hint” of this is the creation of Adam’s body, and some of Jesus’ miracles. This is discussed later, under “created or apparent age.”

    On the other hand, hints or the lack of them are in the eye of the beholder. We already discussed things right in Gen. 1 and 2 that seem clearly to refer to longer time periods. There are significant hints elsewhere too. The Old Testament, when referring to the long-term past, refers to the ancient mountains and everlasting hills, Gen. 49:26; Deut. 33:15, seeming to consider them older than mankind. See also Job 15:7; Prov. 8:25; Hab. 3:6. A human lifetime is referred to as merely “a breath,” like a fleeting puff of vapor on a cold day, Ps. 39:5; 144:4. If the authors believed it had been only a few thousand years since the creation of the universe, then a lifetime would be about 1/50 of this or more (for example, 80 years out of 4000), small but hardly describable as a fleeting breath in comparison. If a breath lasts a second or two, and a lifetime is 2 to 3 billion seconds, then we are in the range of the ratio of a lifetime to the estimated age of the universe.

    In Job 20:4; Rev. 16:18 the phrase “since man was on the earth,” could at least be hinting that there was a time when man was not on the Earth, and therefore the Earth is considerably older than man. It could be argued that the speaker in Job (one of his “comforters”) was not exactly inspired. It is harder to dismiss the inspiration of John’s statement in Revelation.

    In the New Testament, the apostles referred to their time as the “last days” or even the “last hour” at the “end of the ages” (note plural). Their time was the beginning of the church age, which has turned out to be at least 2000 years, so the ages preceding must have been much more than merely 2/3 of the time from creation to our time. I Cor. 10:11; II Tim 3:1-5; Heb. 1:2; 9:26; I Peter 1:20; I John 2:18.

    I am not seriously claiming any certain or precise conclusions from this at all, but I am responding to the assertion that the Bible contains no hints of long ages.

    Now, about authority. Is it a threat to Biblical authority to allow any consideration of scientific input in the process of interpreting the text? Not necessarily. The principles involved in sola scriptura and the “two books” were already discussed in ch. 5, I, F.

    It is not true that all the theories of science have been disproved, or certainly will be, and therefore cannot be trusted. Some have stood the test of much time and observation. See ch. 2, III. There is a curious ambivalence in recent-creationists’ attitude toward science. One of the names they give for their position is “scientific creationism,” and they expend great effort in finding facts which may be viewed as supporting recent creation. Those facts and interpretations are presented with great confidence, and primarily about past events. But others that do not serve that purpose are downgraded with doubts about the reliability of observation and deduction about the past. This will be discussed more later in B, C. It seems that in regard to the validity of science they try to throw away their cake and eat it too. They have not yet produced a coherent philosophy of science.

    The two diagrams represent two outlooks on the placement of the age of the universe in respect to the Bible and nature. The first diagram repeats its placement in my opinion, as shown in ch. 5, I, F, mostly within the bounds of nature, extending only slightly beyond that realm into aspects which can only be learned from the Bible. The second diagram represents the opinion of recent-creationists, that nature can tell us little about origins, even the date, and that we are primarily and clearly informed about this only in the Bible.

    We all need a reminder that our faith should not become dependent on any particular scientific theory or fact, which can only confirm it and remove apparent conflicts (ch. 3, IV). However, recent-creationists themselves give great emphasis to facts which they feel support a young universe and Flood geology, and they express little reluctance to see their followers make these things an important, even essential, basis of their faith in the Bible. Again, this seems ambivalent, a double standard.

Are long ages evolutionary and naturalistic?

    It is an interesting historical question to study the rise of the concept that the age of the Earth is greater than a few thousand years. It started primarily from geology, well before Darwin. It is true that long time periods are a pre-requisite for the development of his theories, which obviously would be impossible within a few thousand years. So it seems he received them, not invented them. And the fact that they contributed to the development of his theories is not necessarily evidence that they must be wrong. Any good thing, like ice cream, can and will be misused.

    A few billion years is just as inadequate for the success of evolution as a few thousand years. It is perhaps less obviously so to the uninitiated, and atheists take advantage of their gullibility, but that simply means we should initiate the uninitiated, not battle the billions of years. Recent-creationists are actually clear on this point. In other contexts they point this out themselves, yet when listing their objections to long ages they seem to become confused, and sound like they are afraid that given that much time evolution becomes believable, therefore a short time scale is an essential defense against evolution. It is not essential at all. This is another of recent-creationists’ many double standards.

    Probability estimates of the time required for evolutionary success easily generate numbers like 10¹⁰⁰ years, or even more digits in the exponent, so atheists and long-age creationists are separated by at least one hundred zeros, while long-age and recent-creationists are separated by only six! Surely they can be a little friendlier.

    Applying the label “evolutionary” to the concept of a process of formation of the present universe represents unclear definition of words, which leads to confusion. Recent-creationists catch evolutionists playing tricks with the word “evolution,” unjustifiably equating micro-evolution with macro-evolution, and even stretching the word to cover imagined molecular precursors to life. Evolutionists also try to link up with the apparent success of the theory of stellar evolution. Recent-creationists soundly denounce the evolutionists for such shenanigans. But then they follow in those precise footsteps themselves, lumping all these things under the label “evolution” and therefore insisting it must all be thrown out. I even heard one of them criticizing the “evolutionary theory” of the origin of the carbon atom! The word “evolve” did, before Darwin, mean simply to develop, but in this discussion let’s agree to restrict it to a theory of the origin of living things. This point seems so obvious that there is little more to say. It is an outgrowth of the following issues.

    Evolutionists do not own the age of the universe, and recent-creationists have no right to give it to them by referring to “evolutionary long ages.” The development of the universe and of living things are two separate subjects, astronomy and biology respectively. What God has left separate, let not man join together.

    The claim that the Big Bang is inherently naturalistic or atheistic has no logical basis. It is a beginning which no known laws of science can account for; in fact it is the beginning of those laws. What is naturalistic or atheistic about this? I cannot imagine any reason why a Christian should object to an unexplained beginning because he is a Christian. We should welcome it as at least consistent with the Bible, in fact apparently a confirmation of it, and refute claims that is in any way in conflict with the Bible, while being careful not make it an essential basis of our faith. If the Big Bang theory is one day found false, that would only be one less confirmation of the Bible (depending on the nature of the theory that replaces it), but losing a confirmation does not equal producing a disproof. God has provided many other proofs.

    Some atheists do claim that the Big Bang is a naturalistic theory that makes belief in God unnecessary, but the appropriate response is not to oppose the Big Bang but to expose the error of their logic. Even other atheists disagree with them, seeing the Big Bang as supernatural, and that is why they oppose it. The Big Bang is a hot potato that atheists have a hard time handling. The current opposition to the Big Bang is a strange and awkward alliance of recent-creationists and atheists. Polemics, like politics, makes strange bedfellows.

    Accepting a Big Bang beginning places no prohibition on believing God may and does act however He pleases thereafter. My discussion of the universe and living things in ch. 6, I and II, is exactly such a viewpoint, seeing God at work both in providential guidance of “natural” events and in direct supernatural activity.

    Of course a Christian and an atheist give the same account of sequential cause and effect in a natural process; that is the definition of natural. A recent-creationist and an atheist would give identical descriptions of the recent-creationist’s, or the atheist’s, mother’s pregnancy, but that is no reason to deny that her pregnancy really occurred. It is only in questions of origin and purpose that they differ.

    There is an important principle and concept involved here. A Christian and an atheist would give essentially the same account of the entire recorded history of the human race. Must we therefore deny the existence of that history? Of course not. We as Christians see in that history the providential hand of God, guiding the rise and fall of nations and rulers, cultures, philosophies, and technology, to accomplish His purposes. We believe this even though we cannot point to any visible miraculous act or intervention. Thus there is no inherent problem in principle about believing that the process of development of the universe in general, and the solar system and Earth in particular, was providentially guided by God to accomplish His purposes. Contrast this with my suggested account of the origin of living things on the Earth, ch. 6, II, B, 9, where some visible interventions do seem necessary.

    Back to the Big Bang. It is true that some of the researchers involved in developing the Big Bang are atheists, but that proves nothing about its truth or falsehood. Many atheists believe in Newton’s laws and the laws of thermodynamics, not to mention democracy, apple pie, and motherhood.

    Laplace and others used Newton’s laws as an excuse to replace God, but that does not require us to reject Newton’s laws. Even earlier, Copernicus’ ideas were used as a basis for attack on the church and the faith it propagated, and this is one reason the theologians opposed those ideas and specifically Galileo when he advocated them. They felt this was an essential part of the defense of the faith. With the benefit of hindsight we see what a blunder that was. The error was not in Copernicus but in the church’s attachment to a different concept, and in the skeptics’ conclusion that an error in the church proved an error in the Christian faith. In a debate two negatives don’t make a positive, just a bigger mess.

    The universe may or may not be infinite; that is still uncertain, and perhaps always will be. We can never prove that it is infinite on the basis of our finite observations; we may someday find evidence that it is finite. Be that as it may, the assumptions involved in the Big Bang model can be considered as only meaning the universe is large enough that wherever its limits are they are remote enough not to affect the part we see. In physics we do similar calculations about infinite charged plates and current-conducting wires to calculate the field near them, and no-one raises theological objections.

    Even if the universe is infinite, that is not necessarily a theological problem. There are degrees of infinity; this is a fascinating area of mathematical theory, to which Georg Cantor made significant contributions motivated specifically by his Christian beliefs. Here are some simple examples that even I can understand. There is an infinite number of points in any given interval along a line, and the line may be extended to an infinite number of such intervals. An infinite number of lines is contained in a finite plane, an infinite number of planes in a finite space, and so on. The universe seems to be finite in time, and infinite in at most three dimensions. Physics in recent years has discovered possible evidence of more dimensions, up to ten or more; the other dimensions are said to be rolled up. Don’t ask me what that means! A universe infinite in three dimensions is no threat to the existence or transcendence of a God who exists in ten or more dimensions, some of which are perhaps also time dimensions. We must speak softly in presuming to be able to prove anything about such matters.

Pagan religions have a lot of evolutionary concepts, obviously as a substitute for the one true Maker of heaven and earth. But it is interesting to note that the prevalence of such myths in this case is used by recent-creationists as evidence of the evil origin of that concept, while the prevalence of flood legends is used as evidence of the truth of that story. A little more work needs to be done on a consistent standard of evaluating the significance of such myths. Perhaps the recent-creationists have simply not stated their reasoning precisely enough. The myths can be evaluated on the basis of their agreement with the Bible or lack of it, but if we then turn around and use these legends as a part of our reasons for believing the Bible, it has become a logical circle.

    It should also be noted that pagan religious legends contain many elements of instant creation. What does that prove?

    And now for the matter of motives. In some recent-creationists’ writings they seem unable to mention alternative viewpoints without attaching the pejorative labels “accommodation,” “compromise,” and comments about trying to please their secular colleagues. This is no doubt true in many cases, but it is not ours to determine which cases. As I stated at the beginning of this chapter, that is not my own motive.

    This is a sensitive subject, on which the Bible commands us to tread very carefully. We cannot see others’ motives, and so can easily violate the commands “Do not judge.” (Mt. 7:1; Lk. 6:37; Rom. 14:4, 10; James 4:11, 12; 5:9) Recent-creationists’ zeal to defend the authority of the Bible is commendable, but while devoting so much attention to the passages referring to creation they should also spend a little time meditating on these passages. The first thing should be done, but the second not left undone (Luke 11:42).

    Does the fact that long-age creationism is rejected by nonbelievers prove that it is false? There is no basis for accepting nonbelievers’ opinions as authoritative on any matters of truth, particularly on origins. They also reject many other things that the Bible teaches.

    Jesus addressed many logical and factual arguments to the Jewish scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees of His day, but they responded by conspiring to send Him to crucifixion. Does this prove that Jesus’ motive and method was wrong?

    To be consistent, recent-creationists’ practice of calling their position “scientific creationism” could also be considered an equally (or even more so) failed attempt to attract scientists. For both Biblical and practical reasons, accusations about motives must mostly be avoided.

    Recent-creationists profess to be motivated purely by a desire to promote Biblical faith. Where there is any room for uncertainty, they say they prefer to err on the side of believing the Bible too much, not too little. This may be commendable in one way, but it is no excuse for running the risk of fleeing from one error into an opposite one. Erring on either side of the correct interpretation is a fault, and is liable to become a barrier to others’ understanding and believing the Bible. This is a heavy responsibility, and cannot be excused by pious professions of “believing the Bible too much.” They would do well to meditate on the stern Biblical warnings about adding to the Word of God, Deut. 12:32; Prov. 30:6; Rev. 22:18.

    If long-age creation represents a lack of courage to face criticism, then why do so many of us persist in that view despite criticism from both nonbelievers and their recent-creationist fellow believers? We get attacked from both directions, which is not easy to endure. It’s not a position for cowards.

    Some recent-creationists insist that any long-age viewpoint must be attributed to “predilections” in viewing the Biblical and scientific information. It cannot be denied that we all have many preconceptions of which we are not sufficiently aware, and which we can help each other notice and if necessary reconsider. Notice I said “we all.” Let him who is without predilections cast the first stone.

    In Mt. 7 after His command not to judge in vs. 1, Jesus goes on to say a few verses later, 15-20, “By your fruit you shall know them (false prophets).” So we are supposed to evaluate results that we can see. Now to consider the results of both recent-creation and long-age teaching, obeying Jesus’ instruction to be fruit inspectors.

    There are many instances in which people who were once convinced of recent creation and of faith in the Bible as a whole, later were influenced to completely reject that faith, including recent creation. In some cases, contact with the long-age viewpoint played a role in that process. Every individual is complex, and only God really knows all the factors involved. We all regret anyone’s weakening or loss of faith. But there are also many people for whom recent creation was and still is a barrier to faith, but contact with the long-age viewpoint cleared up their problem and played a role in their coming to faith. So both viewpoints have played a role in some people’s coming to or strengthening faith, and in others’ loss or weakening of it. It is impossible to do a meaningful survey to determine the number of people in these categories, but I have my hunch. Only God knows the numbers, and the real motives of people’s hearts, and only He can judge justly. People are responsible for their heart attitude. We are responsible for the way we help or hinder them. Proponents of any particular viewpoint would be wise to speak softly and slowly in presenting anecdotal evidence for their viewpoint and against others.

    There is an alternative interpretation of the cases in which people initially accept recent creation, and later reject both it and the Bible as a whole, perhaps in connection with hearing long-age views. This alternative is that the purported basis for recent creation contains many flaws. Many people initially accept it as the primary basis of their faith in the Bible. When they become aware of those flaws, it creates a crisis in their faith. Many other people see these flaws in the first place, and are thus hindered from ever coming to faith. Thus the flaws in the case for recent creation become an unnecessary hindrance to beginning or continuing faith. Those who propagate such flaws carry a heavy responsibility; I would not want to stand in their shoes or anywhere near them at the judgment, however well-intentioned they may be. We all must tremble at our responsibility for our influence. “Such things (offenses) must come, but woe to the man through whom they come.” Matthew 18:6, 7

    Let’s look closely at the positive results of recent-creation ministry. Those who report that recent creation was a help to their faith are al