By: Steve Schramm
Growing up in Independent Baptist Churches, I have always taken the Genesis creation account very seriously. I’ve never really perceived this to be a point of contention at all. Despite the reigning naturalistic dogma of evolutionism, I had no trouble taking God at His Word and believing that the world was made around 6,000 years ago over the course of six ordinary days. The problem is that I made the mistake of thinking every Christian believed this.
As you grow in your Christian walk and begin to read and study the work of others, you will no doubt be introduced to a variety of new and differing viewpoints. Considering my upbringing, you can only imagine my surprise when I found out there were Christians who actually believe in the “Big Bang” and some who even believe that God used molecules-to-man evolution to create the bio-diversity we find in our world.
Your view of Biblical origins will drastically affect your apologetic. Many “evidential” apologists believe in deep time (millions of years), and have no trouble arguing for the Biblical God by appealing to the Big Bang. The fact of the matter is that if the Big Bang were true, it certainly would point to a Creator.
Big Bang or no Big Bang—something still cannot come from nothing. Actually, it is a fact of history that mainstream scientists were initially resistant to the Big Bang precisely for this reason. To this day, “what exploded in the big bang?” is a question mainstream scientists cannot answer because they are committed to naturalism.
However, not only is there good scientific evidence against the Big Bang, but the biblical data—the Genesis 1 narrative, the genealogies, other biblical references to the creation account, the treatment of Genesis 1 as factual, recent history by the biblical writers and extra-biblical sources, etc.—all support a recent creation. This presents a real problem for those with alternative views of creation.
I do not have the space within this post to give a complete defense of creationism, nor is it the purpose. However, we will examine two reasons why the origins debate matters and why we must think correctly about the age of the earth if we’re going to be consistent apologists.
Remember—presuppositional apologists hold Scripture as the highest authority. Therefore, it is paramount that we first allow Scripture to inform our view of origins before we even talk about science, philosophy, etc. As Christians we must learn to accept a “God said it; that settles it” mentality and explore the world from that basic premise. Of course—we rightly expect the world to then reflect the Christian Story.
If the world we live in does not reflect the story we believe, then our story is false. But in order to find out if that’s the case, we must work from the assumption that our story—the Christian Story—is true, and expose the faulty presuppositions that others espouse, unfortunately leading them to accept an inaccurate view of the world.
Here are two key reasons why we must work from a proper understanding of creation in order to get the origins debate right:
1. Science Agrees with the Bible
It causes me to pause when Christians place what they have heard about origins from other fallible human beings above what can be plainly read in the Scriptures. This is not usually done nefariously. Rather, it is done with a regard for intellectual honesty in most cases. Those with an alternative view of Scripture tend to trust the scientific consensus in nearly every discipline—including their conclusions about the age of the earth—usually with the exception of Darwinian Evolutionism.
The problem is this trust in the scientific consensus causes them to violate the core principle of biblical hermeneutics—namely, “If the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense at all.” The plain sense of Scripture indicates a recent creation—a fact even many old earth creationists have personally admitted to me in the past.
We must remember that “science” does not speak for itself; rather, scientists look at the data that has been discovered and interpret their findings according to the scientific method and in accordance with their worldview. For example, when biologist Mary Higby Schweitzer discovered soft tissue proteins in an alleged 68-million-year-old dinosaur fossil in 2007, she was keenly aware that those proteins and collagens should not be there—they simply don’t last that long. If the world was created just 6,000 years ago this is exactly what we would expect. But did Mary become a creationist because of her findings? Has any scientist become a creationist because of them? Not to my knowledge. In fact, this had led researchers on a wild goose chase to find a mechanism which would preserve soft tissue for millions of years, rather than to question the dates. So far no such mechanism has been found.
Another helpful example can be found in the radiometric dating process itself. Radiometric dating methods such as the Potassium-Argon, Rubidium-Strontium, and Uranium-Lead methods are used by mainstream scientists in determining what is called the “absolute age” of rocks. The results given by these methods vary greatly, but are always hundreds of thousands to millions of years old. The problem, ironically, is that these methods always—without fail!—generate these long ages—even when the rocks are young!
The Institute for Creation research carried out an eight-year-long project (the RATE project) during which they collected myriad samples of rocks known to be young by direct observation, such as those collected from the Mt. Saint Helens eruption in 1980. These were laboratory tested by mainstream scientists with no prior knowledge of the age or source of the rocks, and always dated over 200,000 years old with dates ranging upwards of 3.5 million years.
There is a natural explanation for this—in these rocks, there was found to be an excess amount of Argon which skewed the results. See, amongst other things, scientists have to make unprovable assumptions about the rocks (because they weren’t around to see the rocks form). It is these assumptions which cause scientists to inaccurately date them. I don’t have space here to explain radioactive decay, but one of the critical assumptions made in, say, Potassium-Argon dating is that at the time of the rock’s formation, there was only Potassium—no Argon. The time it would take for all of the Potassium to decay into Argon (based on the half-life of the element) is how one arrives at the “absolute” date. But if the assumption is false as it was in the Mt. Saint Helens incident (i.e., there was “excess Argon” at the time of formation) then the date will be wrong.
Of course—this is true about all rocks—not just the ones used in the RATE project. By starting with incorrect assumptions about the expected “age” results, one will arrive at an incorrect date. Similarly, by starting with the assumption that dinosaur fossils are millions of years old, one will have to invent ideas about how soft tissue can suddenly be preserved for millions of years instead of considering that dinosaurs simply aren’t millions of years old, but rather, were created with the rest of the land animals on day six of creation week.
Scripture says the earth is “young”, and good science supports it! To accept any other position would be erroneous both from a biblical and scientific standpoint. I submit to you that many of the Christians who accept deep time do so because of (1) academic peer pressure and/or (2) a sheer refusal to investigate science from a recent creationist perspective. In either case, the obvious implication is that the age of the earth matters to Scriptural authority. If the Bible got it right as plainly stated in Genesis, we can trust that the Bible got it right in all other areas as well—namely in our understanding of sin and why we need a Savior.
This is another reason why the only biblically correct way to practice apologetics is the presuppositional method. In presupposing the authority of Scripture, we are able to accurately understand the world and make sense of actual scientific discoveries without having to create “just-so” stories in order to justify our position.
Each of these discoveries is an embarrassment for the Christian who accepts deep time because he must also attempt to explain them away, as well as the theological issues such as reconciling animal death before sin with the fact that all animals were once vegetarian (Genesis 1:29). But the Christian who has allowed Scripture alone to inform his view of origins will hold the correct view and never have to change! Just like the Father “changes not” (Malachi 3:6), neither does His Word change (Isaiah 40:8).
2. Jesus was a Recent Creationist
As briefly mentioned above, accepting a view of the age of the earth/universe that begins with man’s interpretation of science also has incredible theological implications—even concerning Christ Himself. Jesus made statements that carry quite a bit of historical and evidential weight concerning the events as recorded “in the beginning.” If we discount these statements or take them to mean anything other than what a plain reading of Scripture dictates, what basis do we have for trusting anything that Jesus said about the world?
Of course, I am concerned about unbelievers misinterpreting science because of faulty assumptions about the world, but I’m much more concerned with the inherent implication that Scripture (and even Jesus Himself) cannot be trusted. If the Bible is wrong about origins, perhaps it is wrong about a lot of other things too.
Let’s look at a few scenarios where Jesus made historical, evidential comments about the creation:
- In Luke 13, Jesus references a passage in Exodus 20 that explains our dictum to work six days and rest on the seventh. This is a framework that was established at the beginning. It corresponds perfectly to the 6-day creation account recorded in Genesis 1.
- Jesus had no problem with a literal Adam and Eve. Many theistic evolutionists (also known as evolutionary creationists) believe that essentially all of Genesis 1-11 is allegorical in nature. Jesus did not believe that (Matt. 19:4). Since Jesus treated these events as true history, why should we take issue with this view?
- Since Christ is the second person of the Trinity, and was there at the beginning of the creation (see John 1), every word stated in the entire Bible can be attributed to Him. This means that any time a claim in the Bible indicates a young creation, it is not merely the writer’s assertion, it is The Writer’s assertion!
- It is also worth noting that when Jesus performed a miracle in the New Testament, there was no length of time required–it was instantaneous. The creation account is the greatest miracle of all. Why should we assume it took 13.8 billion years when every other miracle was instantaneous? The only reason it took six days was to establish a pattern for our week (see Exodus 20:11).
To my last point–what would be the purpose of God creating time, space, and matter and then waiting for billions of years? We were created to give glory to God (Isaiah 43:7). The Genesis 1 account is laid out in such a way that humans—made in the Image of God—are obviously the apex of the creation. We were told to have dominion over the earth and the animals (Genesis 1:28). Are we to believe that God created animals billions of years ago and brought us on the scene to subdue creation only recently? Proponents of the old earth view such as Dr. Hugh Ross argue that humankind is around 100,000 years old, but this does not have any warrant in the text of Scripture.
Furthermore, our understanding of the doctrine of creation has gigantic theological implications on the doctrine of original sin. The Bible says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). If God created the Earth billions of years ago, then the fossil record shows evidence of disease, struggle, suffering, bloodshed, etc. before Adam, and therefore, before sin. This also leads to rejection of a worldwide flood as taught in Genesis, because the fossil record cannot be evidence for both millions of years and a worldwide deluge—it’s one or the other. However, science has demonstrated that rapid water burial is responsible for fossilization—not slow, natural processes. The world’s geologic record is not really evidence for deep time and evolution, but for the historicity of Genesis 1-11 and a recent creation.
Conclusion
Though we have barely scratched the surface of the available knowledge about our origins and why they matter, I think it would be safe to conclude, at this point, that our views in this area are important to our understanding of God’s world. To be sure, I am persuaded that one can believe in an old earth and still be a born-again Christian. It is a tragedy, however, that more Christians will not simply accept God’s Word at face value and resolve to begin scientific and philosophical research from that starting point.
It’s time we get back to the Bible as our source for information. The Bible is historically true and scientifically accurate. One legitimate argument I hear often is that the old earth view allows us more flexibility in the college and university setting. This is certainly true—people rightly associate the 6-day view of creation only with Christian bias. But is that a good enough reason to justify believing and teaching in error? If we can prove that we have real science to put forward, I believe we can begin to make those inroads without compromising our belief in an accurate Bible and a recent, historical Genesis.
Don’t give in because the upper scientific echelon has something to say that contradicts what you know to be true. Remember–we do not believe blindly! As the great philosopher of science and mathematician (and ironically, old earth creationist) John Lennox once said, “Nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world-famous scientists.”
