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Old-Earth Creationism
Supplemental Reading | |
Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
Back To Genesis
No. 100a, April 1997
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"But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female" (Mark 10:6).
Many evangelical leaders today, unfortunately, have capitulated to theevolutionary time-scale of modern unbelieving geologists and astronomers.They feel that they must somehow reinterpret the Genesis record of creationto allow for billions of prehistoric years, which the evolutionists musthave in order to make cosmic evolution and biological evolution seemfeasible. This compromise is necessary, they say, in order to win scientistsand other intellectuals to the Lord.
Perhaps the most influential of these evangelical scientific speakers andwriters is Hugh Ross, with his "Reasons to Believe" organization, but thereare many others. Many large evangelical churches, as well as mostevangelical seminaries and liberal arts colleges, today favor one of thevarious accommodationist theories. So do the leaders of many para-churchorganizations, such as the American Scientific Affiliation, along with ahost of others. Some claim neutrality on the issue, but this is a cop-outwhich ignores the clear statements of God's Word.
In addition, there are the many liberal denominations, seminaries, and otherprofessedly Christian organizations that no longer hold even to the verbalinspiration of the Bible, practically all of which now teach theisticevolution. The term "evangelical" is used above to denote only thoseindividuals and organizations that still hold to the full inspiration andauthority of the Bible, as well as the deity of Jesus Christ and salvationthrough faith in the substitutionary death and bodily resurrection ofChrist. Yet even many of these seem willing to distort the Bible's teachingon creation and the Flood, simply to accommodate the supposed geologic andcosmic ages required by evolution.
We strongly believe that it is a serious mistake when Bible-believingChristians compromise with the great ages demanded by the evolutionists.Various interpretive devices have been suggested by Bible expositors as theytry to convert the six-day creation record of Genesis into billions ofyears. Some will frankly advocate "theistic evolution," but others will callit "process creation," "progressive creation," "multiple creation," or someother term, implying that they still believe in some sort of "creation."Some do criticize and reject Darwinian evolution, but then will still allowsome other form of evolution—"creative evolution," "pantheistic evolution,""punctuational evolution," or something. Some still resort to theunscientific "gap theory" which seeks to insert the "ages" between the firsttwo verses of Genesis. Every such group must turn to either the "local flood theory" or the "tranquil flood theory" " if they are going to hold to thegeologic ages, since a global cataclysm such as the Bible describes wouldhave destroyed all evidence for the geologic ages.
Then they go on to patronizingly deplore the supposed anti-intellectualismof what they call "young-earth creationism" (this is their term; we prefer"Biblical creationism" or "literal creationism"). They think this positionis an embarrassment (one has even called it a "scandal") to evangelicalism.
However, we who believe in a recent literal creation of all things do notconsider ourselves anti-scientific or anti-intellectual! Many of us arefully credentialed scientists, and we are quite as familiar with thescientific and Biblical evidences as they are. Indeed there are nowthousands of scientists who believe in recent six-day creation. There arealso organizations of scientists who are young-earth creationists in atleast ten different countries, as well as in many states in this country.
The difference is this: we believe the Bible must take priority overscientific theories, while they believe scientific theories must determineour Biblical interpretations.
It all seems to us to hinge on one overriding question. Do we really believethe Bible to be God's inerrant Word or not? If the Bible is really the Wordof our Creator God, then—by definition—it must be inerrant and authoritativeon every subject with which it deals. This assumption leads clearly to theconviction that the creation took place in six literal days several thousandyears ago. We believe this simply because God said so and said it quiteplainly! And then we find also that this revealed fact will fit all thefacts of science much better than the long-age evolutionary scenario does.
It is no good to say, as one evangelical leader said recently: "Well, Ibelieve that God could create in six days or six billion years—it makes nodifference."
Yes it does, because it has to do with God's truthfulness! It is not amatter of what God could do. The question is what God says that He did! Andwhat He said in writing was this, recorded with His own finger on a table ofstone: "In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that inthem is, and rested the seventh day" (Exodus 20:11; see also Exodus31:15-18).
For a discussion of every passage in the Bible dealing with creation or theFlood, see the writer's book, Biblical Creationism. There is not a hintanywhere in the Bible of evolution or long ages of Earth or cosmic history.
Others have said: "But God could have created by a long evolutionary processif He wanted to."
No, He couldn't! God can do everything except contradict Himself and His ownnature. Evolution is the most wasteful and most cruel process that one couldever devise by which to "create" men and women. Christians should not accuseGod of being responsible for the evolutionary process.
Nor does it help any to say that God interspersed various acts of specialcreation at different times throughout the long geological ages. This iswhat is usually meant by the term "progressive creation." Modernevolutionary biologists and paleontologists are increasingly turning to asimilar concept today—only they just call it "punctuated equilibrium." Theyexplain the many gaps in the fossil record, not by sporadic creation events,but as sudden evolutionary developments triggered by mass extinctions whichpunctuate long periods of "stasis," or equilibrium.
Their atheistic theory is, it seems to us, actually more reasonable thanthat of the progressive creationists. The latter have to attribute all thesemassive waves of extinction to God. There were also the multiplied billionsof animals that suffered and died during the long periods of stasis. Thisproblem applies even to the populations of supposed pre-Adamic human-likebeings (Homo erectus, Neanderthal, etc.) that presumably became extinctbefore Adam and Eve were created.
To us literal creationists, on the other hand, it seems unthinkable that theGod of the Bible—the God who is omniscient and omnipotent, merciful andloving—would do anything like that. Surely He could devise and implement abetter plan than this. It is true, of course, that in this present age "thewhole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Romans8:22), but God did not create it as a groaning, dying world. At the end ofthe creation week, "God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it wasvery good" (Genesis 1:31).
The problem is sin. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death bysin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans5:12). It will not do, of course, to argue that death affected only Adam andhis human descendants, for "death reigned—even over them that had notsinned" (Romans 5:14). God's curse was on Adam's whole dominion, even thevery elements. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake," God told Adam (Genesis3:17).
Nor will it do to say that the curse applied only to "spiritual" death, onthe premise that Adam would eventually have died physically anyway. If thatwere the case, the bitterly cruel physical suffering and death of Christ onthe cross for our sins becomes a travesty.
Unbelievers seem to have a better understanding of this obvious truth thenold-earth creationists do. By accepting the geological ages, suchcreationists are accepting billions of years of suffering and death in God'screation even before sin entered the world—not only man's sin, but evenSatan's sin. Thus God would be directly responsible for creating a worldwhich is not good!
Thus the wonderful saving gospel of Christ is essentially subverted anddestroyed if we must accept the vast ages of the evolutionary cosmologistsand geologists, with their eons-long spectacle of suffering and death asrecorded in the global fossil graveyard. Sound theology must say no to anysuch concession! Fossils speak of death, and death results only from sin andjudgment. "Sin... bringeth forth death" (James 1:15). Death is only atemporary intruder into God's very good creation, of course, and in the newearth which is to come, "there shall be no more death" (Revelation 21:4).
"But science has proved the earth is old," they still insist, "and we darenot alienate the academic community by insisting on a literal Genesis."
No, "science" has not proved the earth is old! The oldest written records wehave, apart from the Bible, are in Egypt and Sumeria, and these only go backa few thousand years. The great fossil "record," instead of displaying vastages of evolution, really shows the remains of a worldwide hydrauliccataclysm. Nowhere in the fossil record are there any genuine evolutionarytransitional forms between kinds, and certainly no one has ever observedtrue evolution taking place in all recorded history. Furthermore, manygeologists now recognize that all formations were laid down very rapidly.Uniformitarian speculation applied to a few radiometric decay systems maysuggest great ages, but other more reasonable assumptions applied to scoresof other global processes indicate much younger ages. (See The Defender'sStudy Bible, Appendix 5, pp. 1505-1510, for a listing of such processes,with references. Also see the book, The Young Earth by Dr. John Morris, foran excellent exposition of several such key processes, along with a critiqueof radiometric dating.)
In any case, the only way we can know anything about the date of creation(and remember that the word "science" means knowledge!) is for God—who wasthere—to tell us when He did it. And, of course, He has told us, in Hisinspired Word. The question is, do we really believe what He says? |
"Vital Articles on Science/Creation"
April 1997
Copyright © 1997 All Rights Reserved |
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