Scientific ("Young-Earth") Creationism:
A Stumbling Block?

It is commonly assumed in many circles that all Christians hold firmly to the belief that the Earth and the Universe are of recent origin, that is, that they are no older than about six to ten thousand years.  I myself held to this belief until I was faced with serious challenges during my freshman year at college.  The source of this challenge came primarily from an astronomy professor who spent the better part of a class period one day debunking the young-earth (and, so he likely thought, the entire Christian) point of view.  My defenses went up immediately, and for the rest of the semester I found myself disliking that professor.  However, as I had never done a great deal of investigation into the specific scientific arguments being made by "scientific creationists", I had no grounds on which to argue with him.   Nonetheless, given the facts that I saw in front of me regarding astronomical proofs of the age of the universe, I was faced with a serious conundrum. 

This is a conflict that I feel is faced by Christian students everywhere -- not just in college, but more and more in high school and earlier.  Armed with flimsy arguments and so-called "proofs", they are sent into battle against teachers, many of whom have been trained in the sciences, to defend the cause of Christ against the evils of those who would have us believe in a billions-year-old universe.  These young people are being sent in as intellectual martyrs, almost sure to be put to shame, given the sketchiness of their information (let us hope for compassionate teachers at least), and most likely to be forced to come to the conclusion that the universe and world that they see is only an illusion.  Some of them may be unable to maintain such a conflict of mind and may be weakened in their faith or give it up entirely.  Most will probably at the very least form a disdain for the study of science where they are forced to pretend to believe what they cannot accept, which, in itself, is a tragedy. 

The problem not only extends to youth who are vulnerable to disillusionment, but to adults as well, who have been schooled or at least exposed to enough evidence to place them in disagreement with the young-earth view.   Many seekers have discounted Christianity because of the perception that, in order to accept Christ and the Bible, they must reject rationality and logic.  I have often seen bumper stickers that read "Open your mind, not your Bible."  What of eternal significance is accomplished by the perpetuation of this perceived dispute between the Bible and science?

Jesus said that stumbling blocks will surely come and that we would always be faced with challenges to our faith.  But is this stumbling block one that is necessary?  Challenges to the faith to which we must be willing to mount an unwavering defense are on foundational issues -- the existence of God, the saving atonement of Jesus' death and resurrection; these are issues that we are required by our faith to defend, even to the death.  Some issues we are required to defend unwaveringly, yet perhaps not to the point of death.  Other issues, however, are to what the Apostle Paul refers as "disputable matters".  These issues we may chose to defend or we may open to discussion, but Paul is very clear that we are not to condemn others for what they believe on these matters.¹ 

I want therefore to make clear that my intentions here are far from condemnation of those who hold to the young-earth view.  I do, however, want to demonstrate both some serious theological and logical problems with this school of thought.  I do this in the hopes of removing this obstacle from the path of those to whom it may, as it did at one time to me, become a stumbling block, and to present an acceptable alternative.  If, on the other hand, you are one who chooses to hold to the young-earth view, and if you find my position to be a stumbling block itself, then please do not allow it to become so.  Rest assured that the thrust of this paper is that the creation date controversy is, as I have indicated above, not a foundational issue, that is, it is not a requirement for salvation.  I hope, however, that all sides of the debate will be able to approach this subject with an open mind and heart.

I.  The Theological Problem

I should begin this section by defining what I mean by "young-earth" or "scientific" creationism.  Scientific Creationists believe that Genesis chapter one can only be interpreted to mean that the Universe and the Earth were both created concurrently over a time span of six consecutive 24-hour days.  Using the genealogies presented in Genesis, Matthew and in other places in the Bible, they determine that this creation took place between six to ten-thousand years ago.  By this position, many young-earth creationists believe they are defending the inerrancy of the Bible and thus the truthfulness of God.  However, consideration must be given to the possibility that theirs is not the only possible interpretation of the Biblical account, and, that by their presumed discrepancies between observation and the Bible, they may actually be themselves unwittingly disputing the truthfulness of God!  In fact, the Bible itself explicitly precludes the possibility that science (based on objective observation of creation) and the Bible can ultimately be in conflict.

Hebrews 6:18 tells us that "it is impossible for God to lie".   Isaiah 45:19 states "I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob's descendants, `Seek me in vain.' I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right."

Furthermore, Psalm 19:1 says that "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."  The Apostle Paul said in Romans, "since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made"², and in the book of Job, God's Word tells us, "But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you.  Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this?"³

These two groups of scripture present us with two indispensable precepts that we must constantly bear in mind whenever dealing with the question of the age of the earth and the universe with respect to scientific observation: 

1. It is impossible for God to lie; He does not deceive or even mislead.  

2. Creation must necessarily bear evidence not only of God's role in its creation, but it gives us insight into God's very character.  The above scriptures state that a record of God's creative acts is imprinted within the very fabric of the universe.  In addition, they suggest that this record is easily observable.

If we believe that the Bible is God's Word and that it is inerrant, including the verses just cited, then we must come to the conclusion that it is impossible for the Biblical account of creation and the fossil, geological or astronomical record to be in conflict. 

Young earth creationists take as their first prong of the attack against "old-universe" scientists the reliability of scientific methods of measuring age -- whether geological or astronomical.  The astronomical measurements (upon which this paper shall focus) have proven particularly problematic, since even the broadest possible margin of error leaves us looking at objects billions of light-years distant.  Even some of the objects observed within our own galaxy, for which distance-measuring techniques are even more reliable, are much further away than ten thousand light-years.   Since, in astronomy, distance equals age (recalling that a light-year is the distance that light travels in one year, therefore in order for a star, say, one million light-years away to be visible from Earth, the light we see must have left that star one million years ago), this means that the universe must be much older than ten thousand years -- even on the order of billions of years old.

Failing this first strategy, young-earth creationists then attempt to find alternative explanations for this "appearance of age".   Some of the theories presented to do this have included variability of the speed of light, i.e., that light traveled much faster in the past than it does now, thus accounting for great distances traveled in a relatively short period of time (a few thousand years)⁴, that time passes at different rates in distant parts of the universe than it does near the earth⁵, and that light was created "in transit" from distant objects⁶.  The greatest problem that I can see with these theories, beyond the scientific issues, is the underlying purpose of each, and that is that they are proposed to explain how God went about creating a "young" universe with the false appearance of age.  Clearly, this violates one or both of the precepts laid out above -- either the Bible is incorrect when it says that God has left easily-observable clues as to His divine nature and craftsmanship in His creation, or God deliberately left multiple misleading (i.e., deceptive) evidences of age.  This, as I see it, is the foundational theological error of young-earth creationism. 

One argument made in response to this criticism is that the Fall of Man not only affected Man's relationship with God, but it also created distortions in creation.  Included among these distortions are those that create the false impression that the Earth/universe is much older than it actually is.  The problem with this is that it also violates the above Biblical precepts -- specifically the second.  All three verses cited above were written after the Fall, yet all three are stated in the present tense.  Were this assertion of distortions in the natural record Biblical, Psalm 19:1 would read, "The heavens once declared the glory of God; in times past, the skies proclaimed the work of his hands," which clearly is not what the Psalmist said.  In addition, the Romans passage begins with the phrase, "since the creation of the world", which indicates that the natural record continues to show evidence of God's work now as it did before the Fall.  

II.  The Logical Problem

The Scientific Method proceeds from observation to hypothesis, hypothesis to experiment, experiment to theory, and only after extensive testing and proof can theory become "law".  Scientific ("young-earth") creationism proceeds in exactly the opposite direction from this.  The scientific creationist begins with the assumed "law" (based on his understanding of the first two chapters of Genesis) that the universe and the Earth are around six to ten thousand years old.  From this starting point, he formulates theories to attempt to explain the appearance of age in a "young" universe, then he seeks some observation to provide anecdotal evidence for these theories, in the process ignoring or explaining away any evidence to the contrary.  (Ironically, naturalists practice many of the same methods to support their "law" that all life evolved from a common ancestor by way random variations over time.⁷)

According to the precepts set forth in the previous section, this pseudo-scientific approach is entirely unnecessary to demonstrate the creative acts of God!   According to God's Word, objective scientific observation must reveal the work and identity of God.  Trying to circumvent this process by engaging in pseudo-scientific speculation will ultimately be self-defeating, in my opinion, by actually diverting attention away from the true evidences of God's work and His greatness.  I believe this is the kind of thing to which C.S. Lewis was referring when he said that "twisting science in the interest of apologetics would be both sin and folly."⁸

Now allow me to interject what I believe to be an important point, and I believe it points out not only an error of young-earth creationism, but of naturalism as well:  Science can and will never prove that God does not exist (the ultimate goal of naturalism).  This is supported by the scriptures we have discussed previously.  Conversely, science (alone) can and will never prove that God exists.  I believe this because of the importance placed upon faith in the Bible.   Hebrews 11:1 states that faith is the "evidence of things not seen".  If the existence of God were proven by scientific mandate (as is apparently the goal of scientific creationism), then there would remain no place for faith, since God would no longer remain "unseen".  Science, however, can provide teleological proof that strongly suggests the existence of God for those who are willing to see.⁹  We have been seeing this happen within the scientific community a great deal over the past several years as evidence mounts for design and order in the universe rather than randomness (which the naturalistic school presupposes).¹⁰

III.  Solid Science, Sound Theology

Progressive Creationists believe that Genesis chapter one actually refers not to six 24-hour days but to six ages or epochs of creation.  The greater Universe was actually created in verse one, "the heavens and the earth" referring to all of creation.  The remainder of the creation account in Genesis deals strictly with the creation of the Earth from the perspective of an observer on the surface.  One might imagine God demonstrating creation to Moses (the author of Genesis) by way of a vision; Moses would have written this account from his perspective looking up at the sky and at the earth and sea around him as God's creation unfolds.

The Progressive Creationist school of thought is very often portrayed as a "compromise" of the scripture in order to conform to the latest in "worldly" science.  This is far from the case, however.  Progressive creationism simply acknowledges that, in accordance with God's Word, the natural record must ultimately agree with the Biblical record.  In other words, God's Word and God's works must be in agreement.

It is, however, necessary to point out the danger of being "wind-tossed", that is, blindly adopting every new discovery and theory as "proof positive" that "this is how God did it".  This type of thing only tends to harm ones credibility, especially when it happens that your pet theory is eventually overturned.  I say this because we need to be savvy enough to recognize that all science is not objective.  As I alluded to before, there are many scientists who are of the naturalist school who will blindly only see "proofs" that discredit the existence of God, and there are some creationists who are biased toward those things that they perceive as proving God's existence (remember that ultimately, science can do neither).  There is a sort of "natural selection" built into the scientific community that eventually weeds out these flawed theories.  Even if human nature precludes the entirely unbiased scientist, the mechanism of competition and verification will ultimately produce an objective product.  As truth-seekers, those desiring to find the inner workings of God's great creation, we must always try to only endorse those things that have been sufficiently tested.

From a theological standpoint, it is sometimes suggested that it is necessary to twist the words of Genesis, or to take a figurative interpretation, to accomplish reconciliation between scientific observation and scripture.  This is also far from the case.  The "long creation day" reading of the first two chapters of Genesis is a perfectly direct, legitimate and literal interpretation of the Biblical account of creation, given the wording in the original Hebrew text, in which the word "yowm", translated "day" in English translations, is also commonly used to represent a longer period, up to and including an age or epoch.¹¹  Given this indeterminate timeframe, it is entirely conceivable for God to have carried out the process of creation over a period of billions of years by our time.  Christians often bristle at such a long creation period, but it is important to note that God is not constrained by our marking of time.¹²

Another point often brought up in criticism of this reading of Genesis is the necessity for the death of animals prior to the Fall.  First, when the Bible states that death came into the world through Adam, while it is presumably the case that, had Adam not sinned, he would have lived forever, the death that sin brought into the world was spiritual death.  The death Adam died when he sinned was separation from God.  It was his spirit that died, which, over time, led to the death of his body. A corollary to this is in John 11:26:  "And whoever lives and believes in me will never die."  All of Jesus' apostles experienced physical death, as have hundreds of millions of other believers in Christ over the past two-thousand years.  Clearly the death that Jesus refers to here is spiritual death -- this is the death that came into the world through Adam, and it is the death that Christ came to save us from.  Yes, this spiritual death did lead to physical death in Adam and all of his descendents, but since only creatures who possess a spirit (in the image of God) can experience spiritual death, this phenomenon likely only extends to humans.  Therefore, on these grounds, there is no basis for the claim that no death of other creatures occurred prior to Adam.

Secondly, God gave plants for use as food prior to the Fall.  The consumption of plant material requires the death of the organism ingested.  Some theologians dispute whether plant life qualifies as "life" in a Biblical sense, but there are many places in Scripture where plants are described as "living" and "dying". 

Finally, and I think this is a vital point, God created the earth and its biosphere to endure.  Even though God fully knew that Man was going to fall before He created him, the Bible indicates that God created the world to be perfect (that is, without flaws).   Therefore we must assume that, had Man not fallen, the Earth as God created it would have been able to continue to flourish indefinitely.  This would be impossible without the death of animals prior to the Fall. 

In Genesis 1:22, God instructs His creatures to reproduce in order to fill the Earth.  We can observe in the modern world that when the birthrate within a species sufficiently exceeds the death rate, such as when non-indigenous animals are introduced into an environment where they have no natural predators, the population explodes.   When this continues for a long enough period of time, there is invariably a crisis -- overpopulation depletes food sources which affects not only the overpopulated species, but disrupts the entire ecology and results in mass death by starvation.  Now, consider the situation if there is a steady birthrate and no death rate.  In a very short period of time, the Earth would be completely overrun; there would not be enough food to support such a large animal population (the fact that God provided plants for food suggests that animals required food for survival before the Fall).  Eventually, space itself would become a problem.  Would God have built such a fatal flaw into His creation? 

IV.  What About Evolution?

A major question that many Christians deal with on a regular basis is the question of biological evolution. 

Now, it is important to note that people generally tend to lump all old-earth views with the term "evolution".  These are actually two separate issues.  It is also important to note that the term "evolution", despite common usage, including by naturalistic scientists, does not strictly refer to naturalistic ideas about life coming about from a "primordial soup" through a series of random combinations of organic molecules (abiogenesis).  Again, people tend to lump the two ideas together.  While it is true that the naturalistic model does depend on evolution to explain the diversity of life, and naturalistic evolution would require a very old Earth/universe in order for it to have taken place (very much older than the age indicated by current observations, as it happens)¹³, it does not follow that an old Earth necessarily validates evolution, and it does not even follow, for that matter, that biological evolution validates naturalism.

Now the term "evolution" can mean different things.  The word actually means growth and change over time.  When we say that life forms evolve, in actuality we may only be saying that children grow up into adults or that caterpillars transform into butterflies.  But in more relevant terms, we are either saying that specific species make minor changes over time to adapt to changes in their environment (like polar bears growing white fur, or tuberculosis bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics) -- this is referred to as "microevolution".  Or we may be going so far as to say that over a very long period of time, one species actually develops into another species -- this is called "macroevolution".  Finally, we may be taking the extreme macroevolutionary position and saying that all life evolved from a common ancestor -- an ameba or such.  Therefore, simply speaking of "evolution" is a much too simplified approach.  We have to specify exactly which type of evolution we are arguing for or against.

Now, I should point out at the outset that I do not have sufficient knowledge of biology to argue authoritatively for or against any of these positions.  As for my personal faith, I have come to the conclusion that whether microevolution or macroevolution took place is irrelevant.  Genesis is intended to give us an outline that demonstrates the order and gives us clues as to to purpose of creation; I believe even scientific creationists would agree with me that it is not intended to be an exhaustively detailed account as to the methods employed by God as He went about His act of creation. 

While I do not have sufficient knowledge to support any position on evolution from a biological standpoint, it is still possible to approach the issue from a strictly logical angle.  Based on the evidence of which I am aware, there seems to be a great deal of proof that microevolution has taken place and is currently taking place (e.g., drug-resistant bacteria).  In fact, I would find it surprising if God did not, from time to time, genetically adjust life forms to adapt them to environmental changes.¹⁴  However, there does not appear to be sufficient evidence to conclusively support macroevolution.¹⁵  Would my faith be threatened if I am wrong?  Absolutely not.  God is God, no matter how He chose to go about creating His universe.  

And this is really what I have been driving at for these pages:   It does not matter "how" God created, it only matters that He did, and the teleological evidences (the complexity of life, the fine-tuning in the universe making it suitable to sustain life, and the astronomically low probabilities of these things occurring randomly in the finite time that the universe has been in existence) are sufficient to support the existence of a divine Creator.  The important thing is to not become bound up in arguments that ultimately turn people away from Christ, rather than to Him.

V.  Final Thoughts

I believe that it is imperative that we are careful not to distort the scriptural creation account in order to reconcile it with scientific observation.  We must recognize, however, that whenever seeking the absolute, most literal interpretation of Scripture, that many words in the original Hebrew text may have more than one usage in the original language.  In determining this, we must consider the context of the passage and usage in other areas of the Bible, as well as common usage at the time the text was written (this latter endeavor would require significant expertise, but the former may be performed quite easily using a concordance with a Hebrew dictionary). 

Likewise, I believe that it is equally important not to distort scientific observation in order to line it up with a particular interpretation of the scriptural account.  Why do I say this to be equally important?  Because to do so would inherently compromise the credibility of the creationist position, and ultimately of the Christian message itself.  It is a point that I often make in debate:  If it is necessary to distort the opposing viewpoint in order to support your own, then your position is probably not valid to begin with.  This is a hard standard that I set for myself, and I hope that I have not been guilty of it at any point in this essay.

What I hope to have illustrated is that distortion of either scripture or observation is entirely unnecessary.  Once meanings within original Hebrew texts have been explored for the best possible interpretation of the Biblical account and distortions caused by bias within the scientific community have been weeded out through peer review and exhaustive testing, I believe that scripture and nature will coincide, and without compromise of either side.

A final, personal observation:  When I stand looking the the Appalachian mountains near my home and see the ripples that betray the seismic events that raised them above the flatland, and I see the striations and irregular formations that tell of millions of years of erosion, and the mists of a recent rain rising off of their slopes like broken ribbons being lifted from some magnificent gift, I somehow find the thought disturbing that they were brought instantaneously into existence less than a hundred centuries ago.  It leaves me with a feeling that they are only a facade -- an illusion brought on to give the impression of a great and fascinating geological history that never existed.  The glory of God's great creation, of mountains and worlds and galaxies far more vast than imagination itself, all simply a stage prop set before our eyes, with beauty and grandeur, but with no real existence or history.

But when I consider the loving craftsmanship of God forming their atoms in the manufactories of a hundred generations of stars, of His scattering them across the cosmos to a place where He has picked where a special, element-rich cloud of gas and dust was to form a world for His people, of His manipulation of stellar orbits and galactic motion over vast eons to form a small yellow star with enough fuel for a long lifespan and burning at just the right temperature, of His raising the mountains from the floor of the ocean  thousands of centuries before the first man walked the Earth, just because He knew that one day I would stand on a mountaintop and revel in the beauty of His creation -- now that leaves me with a sense of wonder.

Notes:

1. Rom.14:1  (All scripture quotations taken from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise noted.)
2. Rom. 1:20
3. Job 12:7-9
4. Briefly mentioned in an interview with Keith Wanser:  "God and the Electron", Carl Wieland and Jonathan Sarfati (Creation Ex Nihilo 21(4):38–41, September–November 1999).  The problem with this theory is that the rate at which matter is converted into energy by the atomic reactions within stars is heavily dependent upon the speed of light [E=MC²].  If the speed of light were variable, then stars in the past, including our Sun, would have generated a great deal more energy than they do now.  This would not only have made the Earth uninhabitable during most of human history, but it would be observable in the energy output of distant stars.
5. This appears to be the most popular hypothesis at the moment.  For a presentation of this proposal, see:  "How can we see distant stars in a young universe?"  For refutation of the hypothesis, see:  Samuel R. Conner and Hugh Ross, "The Unraveling of Starlight and Time".
6. Mentioned briefly in "'He made the stars also': Interview with Creationist Astronomer Danny Faulkner".  
   To illustrate the problem with this theory, astronomers recently observed a supernova -- an exploding star -- in a galaxy millions of light years distant [http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990515.html].  Now, let us suppose the age of the universe is only around six thousand years, and that the light from the distant galaxy was created already in transit at the time of creation.  In order for this explosion to be visible from Earth, given the distance to the galaxy where this star was located, it would have had to occur millions of years ago to allow the light from the explosion ample time to reach our telescopes, yet the universe, and therefore that star, did not exist millions of years ago (keep in mind, even if the star were visible at the moment of creation, light from any new event, such as the star exploding, would still require full transit time to reach Earth).  Therefore, the supernova that was observed may have only been an illusion and never actually occurred.  This creates the image of God as a master of illusion rather than as a divine Creator.  [The article cited above notes this problem with the in-transit theory.]
7. See:  Johnson, Philip E., Darwin on Trial.  InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL (1991, 1993).  Particularly Chapter 12.
8. Lewis, C.S., "Christian Apologetics".  God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics.  Ed. Walter Hooper.  W.B. Eerdman's Pub. Co., Grand Rapids (1970).  Page 93.
9. There is a growing body of literature on the school known as "Intelligent Design".  Perhaps the seminal work is: 
   Dembski, William A., Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology.  InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL (1999).
10. See:  Ross, Hugh, Creation and Time.  Navpress, Colorado Springs (1994).  Chapter 12.
11. Strong's Concordance, H3117
12. See Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8.  Note:  A common misinterpretation of the latter verse is that 1000 years = 24 hours in "God-time".  This verse, however, does not state this but rather that 1000 years can be as one day or one day can be as 1000 years.  In other words, time is not constant from God's perspective.  In fact, the doctrine of God's transcendence would indicate that He exists completely separate from time, therefore the difference between a few billion years and six 24-hour days would be negligible to God.
13. Hugh Ross, "Do Long Creation Days Imply Evolution?" (Ch.7 of Creation and Time)  Probability indicates that in order for life to have arisen by chance as alleged by naturalism, the universe would have to be not billions but trillions of trillions of years old.  [It is notable that prior to Hubble's discovery of the expanding universe, naturalists generally believed that the universe was infinitely old, thus giving ample time for life to evolve.]  This has been further complicated by discovery of fossilized microbial life forms in rocks dating back to within a few hundred million years of the Earth's formation, which leaves far insufficient time for life to occur randomly (see Johnson).
14. Scientific (young-earth) creationists actually concede that some degree of microevolution has taken place.  See for one example:  "Ligers and Wholpins?  What Next?" by Don Batten (Creation Ex Nihilo 22(3):28–33 June–August 2000).  See also Answers to Commonly Asked Questions About Dr. Hovind's $250,000 Offer.
15. Johnson, particularly Chapter 4.