Hi,
To show a few of the problems in the Old Earth Creationist view and also in the Young Earth Creationist view of reality: A reply to an e-mail:
Scientific procedures are the most reliable ways of finding out about reality. Science is not perfect but there is nothing else that even approaches it’s ability to describe what is. Darwinian Evolution with natural selection (determined) and mutations (chance) is the basis of biology, geology, and astronomy, and is totally supported by Physics.
Because I am a supporter and a promoter of science I have on occasion debated with Creationists (Intelligent Design people are also creationists) by e-mail, including school board members (usually they ask Trinity Western professors for help) and professionals that support creationism. In education this is important — the issue is: should science or should religion be taught in a science class? Creationists in the West (Muslims have their own version of creationism, yet similar to Christian Creationism) use the first few chapters of Genesis in the Bible as part of the basis of their authority. This is where God creates the Universe in 6 days. There are 2 main groups of Creationists — Young Earth and Old Earth.
Young earth creationists take each of these days as having a duration of 24 hours.
Old earth creationists, who supposedly accept the evidence of fossils, evidence of the Big Bang of the Universe, etc., take these days to be in reality much longer (1 day to God is 1000 years, for example, or much longer than that — millions of years). Old earther creationists talk about a theistic evolution, not a naturalistic evolution as in science.
Several Brief Points in support of the Young Earth Creationists:
(1) A surprise — the Bible verses actually only make sense if you take the Young Earth perspective — that by a day is meant 24 hours.
In carefully reading Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 4:17 again, I have come to the conclusion that the Young Earth Creationists are correct. That there is no way physically for the days mentioned in Genesis to be longer than about 24 hours. It is logically clear that the day in these verses can only be an ordinary 24 hour day, not some other duration often cited by “liberal” Christians and “liberal” Jews.
I used to think how ridiculous new earthers were in insisting on an ordinary day, but now I know they are the ones that are honest in their reading of these Bible verses. The liberal old earther’s attempts at making the day longer are fooling themselves and others — they are not being honest with the words in front of their eyes. The Bible really, really does say the Universe was created in 6 literal days! Read the first chapter of Genesis carefully and you will see why. Interestingly, my very early Mennonite Brethren background included a Young Earth view of reality.
One reason (In addition, New Earth Creationists list 20 or more contradictions that arise between science and Scripture if the days are taken as geological eras instead of ordinary days.):
Plant life, including fruit trees and seed bearing plants, was created on the 3rd day.
Sun and stars were created on the 4th day
Insects were created on the 6th day.
Plant life needs the sun’s special light for photosynthesis or they die. So 1 day after the plants were created could not be years, else the plants would die. It must be more like 24 hours.
Fruit trees (also many seed bearing plants) need to be pollinated by insects. So the 3 days between these plants being created and Insects being created can’t be the length of time (3000 years or 300 million years) claimed by old Earthers.
Etc.
(2) Adam and Eve and the talking snake must have happened as told in Genesis. If the verses of Adam, Eve, and the talking snake are myths then there was no Fall or original sin, no need for Jesus as a second Adam as a savior. If these are myths then the whole Biblical system of salvation collapses.
If these are myths then anything else in the Bible could be a myth. Young Creationists are honest here as well.
(3) A few years ago I attempted to add up the years from Adam to Abraham and beyond as given by the long genealogical lists given in the Bible. This was to disprove Archbishop Ussher who calculated that creation happened in 4004 BC. Again to my surprise Ussher was correct. According to the Biblical genealogies the Universe could not be more than 6000 years old — not less than about 10,000 years as some young Earthers say, but 6000 years. If the Bible is the inspired word of God and the Bible is accurate as creationists claim then even some of the young earthers aren’t being honest by using 10,000 years, instead of the Biblical 6,000 years. (God directly dictated the genealogical lists to Moses, right?)
(4) Young earth creationists believe that theistic evolution (as believed by Old Earth Creationists) is not consistent with a God of love — God is too benevolent and too kind to use billions of years of untold cruelty and wastefulness as his method of creation — is too intelligent to plan it that way and is powerful enough to accomplish creation in a better, more direct way. A good point!
So, the Young Earthers score here.
On the other hand:
Young Earth Creationists have some problems in their stance:
(1) They actually serve a cruel, external God who created a cold-blooded system where life feeds on life — where the strong destroy the weak — where it is either kill or be killed. Life without killing other life is impossible.
“God saw that it was good” is mentioned after each day — was it really?
Was it just; to curse all people and all animals for all time for what 2 people and a snake (Adam and Eve and the talking snake) did at the beginning of time?
(2) They serve a dishonest external God.
This God created light waves to look as if they were coming from galaxies a long way off (millions and billions of years for light to travel to us).
This God created things to look as if they were really old, even though they are brand new — within 6000 years. This God created Fossils, decayed radioactive material that seems to have decayed over the last 5 billion years, geological structures that would take millions of years to form (and are not the result of a world-wide flood), and so on.
This God created fossils as if they were the missing links in evolution.
(3) They serve an external God that is uninformed.
This God knows only about our sun, moon and the stars but nothing about Galaxies, Quasars, Black Holes, colliding Galaxies, about stars actually being suns.
This God knows nothing about much, much more that science has discovered in the last 400 years.
A note:
Science and religion are not separate domains. Scientific knowledge has a lot to say about religious concepts. Separating the two, as some do, does not help us take God seriously.
(4) They serve an external God that is too human.
This God created people and beasts, changed his mind and became sorry about this creation, then decided to destroy all but a small sample of them in a world wide flood, only to start the whole process once more.
So the young Earthers show the unacceptability of the liberal Christians’ God of evolution and in so doing they unintentionally reveal the brutality and deceptiveness of their own God of creation.
An aside: Genesis 4:1,2 and 17. Where did Cain get his wife from — was she his sister?
(5) A world wide Flood, Noah’s Flood, does not explain anything about the world.
In conclusion: I must commend the Young Earthers for reading the verses as they are — the words mean what they say — often people try to put another meaning to Bible verses than what the words actually say. On the other hand, these verses do not agree with reality as science has found it. From a reality view they are myths created by ancient people that had the limited knowledge of that time. The “liberal” Christians and Old Earthers are much closer to the truth than are the New Earth creationists. Liberal Christians and Old Earhers are truthful in that they accept more of the evidence of science.
To me both views (young Earthers and Old Earthers) have major problems in reconciling Bible verses and reality.
Your constructive thoughts?
O. Hooge
An e-mail comment on the above and my reply:
Just skimming through I can see why he is confussed. He takes the main point
of old earth creationism(OEC) and applies it in a young earth(YOC) manner. He
takes the OEC claim that a day is not really a 24hours and then makes this
point.
>Plant life needs the sun’s special light for photosynthesis or they die. So
>1 day after the plants were created could not be years, else the plants would
die.
However, this is only one part of a grander theory. He is applying the theory
wrongly. Furthermore, the problem he describes still exists even if the “day”
is only 24 hours. Without the sun NO LIFE could even survive for a MINUTE
probably less. The second mistake he makes the following claim:
>The Bible really, really does say the Universe was created in 6 literal days!
Read the first chapter of >Genesis carefully and you will see why.
Interestingly, my very early Mennonite Brethren background >included a Young
Earth view of reality.
I really doubt he can read Hebrew. The NIV is not the word of God. Nor is the
King James. They are all just TRANSLATIONS. So unlless he can read hebrew or
at least studied the original text trying to get a sense of the meaning in the
original language using various dictionarys and such can he really make any
educated claim about what it says? Who knows maybe he has. You of all people
should appreciate what can be lost in a translation. Also interesting is that
my mennonite bretheren church now openly supports OEC.
My Reply
Your friend’s note on Mistake #1:
Furthermore, the problem he describes still exists even if the “day”
is only 24 hours. Without the sun NO LIFE could even survive for a MINUTE
probably less.
Mistake 1 is not a mistake. Your friend should read the Bible (the words must mean what they say in context, otherwise there is no basis for an argument), not some commentary.
Since on the 3rd day God made Grass, Fruit trees yielding fruit, etc. (which means already fully formed) they would easily survive 24 hours without the sun.
Plants can easily survive a 12 hour night and most plants can survive without photosynthesis for 24 hours, but not much longer.
The Day in Genesis still means the usual 24 h day.
Your friend’s note on Mistake #2:
I really doubt he can read Hebrew. The NIV is not the word of God. Nor is the
King James. They are all just TRANSLATIONS. So unlless he can read hebrew or
at least studied the original text trying to get a sense of the meaning in the
original language using various dictionarys and such can he really make any
educated claim about what it says?
Actually this is not a mistake. Your friend is mistaken.
2 points:
(1) Hebrew (or Greek) not withstanding: In all the churches I know these “TRANSLATIONS” are considered THE Word of God by the ministers and by most members of the congregation.
Show a NIV Bible or a King James Bible to a minister or a church member and ask if it is the Word of God and he answer will be YES, DEFINITELY.
Would your friend suggest there should be a large WARNING sticker on the cover of each Bible telling everyone that it is only a translation and not really THE Word of God? If your friend is correct, putting a Warning sticker on all Bibles would be the ethical thing to do.
(2) About original texts: There are no original texts of the Old (including Jewish) or New Testament in existence.
Your friend declares you have to know Hebrew to read the originals — there are none!
If a knowledge of Hebrew (or Greek) clears any questions then why do the experts still argue — often strongly disagree on the copies of the copies of Hebrew texts (there are no originals) that exist today?
Also the Hebrew (and the Greek) languages have changed substantially over the centuries.
The comment about the original Biblical texts and the necessity of knowing Hebrew to translate them correctly is a red herring. All the translators worked and do work from the same existing Hebrew (and Greek) texts. If knowing Hebrew is a prerequisite, why are there then so many translations of the Bible?
Some additional comments showing that the ordinary person does not have to know Hebrew to understand the Bible:
(a) The Jews reckoned the day from sunset to sunset Le 23:32
It was originally divided into three parts Ps 55:17
“The heat of the day” 1Sa 11:11 Ne 7:3 was at our nine o’clock, and “the cool of the day” just before sunset Ge 3:8 Before the Captivity the Jews divided the night into three watches,
1. from sunset to midnight La 2:19
2. from midnight till the cock-crowing Jud 7:19
3. from the cock-crowing till sunrise Ex 14:24
Asked a friend of mine about original manuscripts of the Bible:
(b) “The fact is that there is no “one manuscript tradition” for any of the books of the bible, and that by reconstructing an archetype manuscript from a logical analysis of the available, often incomplete and error-filled manuscripts, scholars are actually producing a more reliable approximation to the original manuscript tradition–which is otherwise completely lost. We do not have, for example, the original letter written by Paul to Tim, but only hundreds of imperfect copies. Since all manuscripts have errors, it is not possible to pick one and say that it, and only it, is true, since it clearly cannot be”.
Naturalism and Religious Experience 