If we believe Jesus when He said Adam and Eve were created “at the beginning” (i.e., the sixth day of creation – Matthew 19:4), and we take the genealogies of chapters 5 and 11 of Genesis literally as historical narrative, we see that the earth is about 6,000 years old. Yet today, most Christian theologians, accept as fact that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Why? First, let’s look at the history of the idea of millions of years, and an old earth.
Early Old Earth Proponents
Up until the mid 18th century virtually all scientists and theologians believed the earth was created about 4,000 years before Christ as recorded in the Bible. However, by the end of the century, scientists such as Buffon, Laplace, Lamarck, and Werner began to propose that the earth was millions of years old. Later, men such as Hutton, Cuvier and William Smith added their support to an old earth view. To account for the fossils, Cuvier held that these were created by catastrophic floods, all but one of which (i.e., all but Noah’s flood) occurred before the creation of man[1]. Noah’s flood was now relegated to one of many catastrophes over many ages.
Catastrophism was then discarded entirely when Charles Lyell completed his work, Principles of Geology, in 1833. Here he proposed his theory of radical uniformitarianism, holding that no catastrophic floods ever occurred – that the geologic processes of the present are key to the past. God predicted men would deny the Flood:
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers…saying…all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation (uniformitarianism). For this they willingly are ignorant…that by the word of God…the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 2 Peter 3:3-6
All of these men were open atheists or deists at best. Therefore they had no respect for the veracity of Scripture. Where were the Christians in all this?
Christian Compromise
For the most part, the Christian response was anemic. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the “Age of Reason” and the opinions of scientists held sway and were the impetus to compromise God’s Word. Around 1814, to accommodate millions of years, Presbyterian pastor Thomas Chalmers proposed the “Gap Theory,” also known as the “Ruin-Reconstruction Theory,” placing eons of time between the first two verses of Genesis. Anglican theologian George Faber advocated the “Day-age” view that the days of creation were not literal but figurative. Liberal theology was the rule of the day and by 1845 “all the commentaries on Genesis had abandoned the biblical chronology.”[2]
Of course in 1859, evolution received its great boost with the publication of Charles Darwin’s, Origin of Species. It is important to point out however, that his work with finches only supports adaptation or, as some prefer, “micro-evolution.” Adaptation is totally consistent with the creation model. There is still no evidence of one kind of organism evolving into another kind, which we refer to as “macro-evolution.” Nonetheless, by the end of the 19th century, books such as Earth’s Earliest Ages, by G.H. Pember, still popular today, convinced many godly men to simply go along with the scientific consensus and accept evolution or at least the old earth paradigm. At that time men such as Charles Spurgeon, Charles Hodge of Princeton, and C.I. Scofield accepted that the earth was hundreds of millions of years old. Today the age is placed at about 4.5 billion years. Even during the Scopes (Monkey) Trial in 1925, William Jennings Bryan, the defender of Creation, simply parroted the theistic evolutionary theory of the day.
The Trend Continues
In recent years, theologians, as revealed by Ken Ham[3], continued this trend claiming “data overwhelming in favor of evolution” (Bruce Waltke), “data from various disciplines” (James M. Boice), “modern scientific research” (Gleason Archer) or “mainstream science” (William Lane Craig), support an old earth.
Simon Turpin analyzed writings by three other modern theologians[4]. Tim Keller says one must “reject science” in order to “believe the Bible (i.e. a literal Creation).” Although John Piper agrees that mankind is “young,” he says, “the earth is billions of years old if it wants to be—whatever science says it is, it is…” R.C. Sproul was non-committal about the age of the earth due to “all this astronomical data.”
Why did or do these Christian men take these positions? Probably because they don’t want to appear dogmatic on what is (although it shouldn’t be) a theologically controversial topic. Perhaps they don’t want to appear “academically naïve,” or as Craig says, outside of “mainstream science.” But the overriding theme we see here is that Bible scholars are putting man’s word (scientific theory) above God’s Word.
Our guide should never be the opinions or praise of men:
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Colossians 2:8
…avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
1Timothy 6:20
Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
Luke 6:26
Young Earth Creationism
Despite this trend, there has been a modern resurgence of “young earth creationism,” which was advanced by the publication in 1961 of The Genesis Flood by John Whitcomb and Henry Morris. Today there are an increasing number of PhD scientists who are seeing the fallacies of evolution and believe in a young earth. Some are willing to state so openly and probably many do not for fear of ridicule or losing their jobs – so much for academic freedom.
Are long ages and/or evolution based on observed scientific facts? No. Although we’re all working with the same evidence, the difference is how we interpret that evidence. If examined carefully, macro-evolutionary theory is a presupposition of long ages based on dating methods supported only by unverifiable or erroneous assumptions. There are no irrefutable scientific facts that disallow a young earth and point to an ancient earth.
Theistic Evolution is defined here as the umbrella term used to describe any theory that attempts to reconcile evolution and the Bible. In the next blog I will discuss the four main theistic evolutionary theories: the Gap Theory, the Day-Age Theory, Progressive Creation, and the Framework Hypothesis.
[1] Mortenson, Dr. Terry., War of the Worldviews, “Where did the idea of Millions of years come from?”, Answers in Genesis, 2008, pg 82.
[2] Ibid, pg 86.
[3] Ham, Ken; Stop Trusting Man’s Word, (DVD); Creation Library Series; 2013
[4] Turpin, Simon; Click Here, accessed 11 Jun 2016.
Thanks for clarifying how beliefs re: evolution have become so accepted and not challenged by biblical scollars. Your writings are a little deep for me, but we’re used to 4 th grade level news , and are a “sound bite” society of listeners these days. Praying for you new carreer adventure.