Correspondence: Young Earth Creation

February 26, 2019

Hello,

How can you believe in an old earth and the Bible? This is just crazy to me.

Also, what about evolution: do you think God used evolution?

As regards to what is said on your web site about Jericho, you seem to be implying that the Bible is incorrect and that the date in 1 Kings is wrong.

This, to me, is super confusing. Please clarify all of this to me.

Note: I have been a YEC [young earth creationist] for a long time, and I do not believe we came from apes.

Nathan

Hello Nathan,

That's too many questions for me to tackle at once. Having discovered why it is that people were living so much longer before the Flood than they do today, I'm super busy at present trying to keep everybody from dying unnecessarily young. Let us restrict to just your first question, until it is resolved.

I believe the universe was created about 5200 B.C. (See the time chart on the BiblicalChronologist.org home page.) So we are both creationists, yes? But I am not a young earth creationist. The Bible does not teach young earth creationism.

The Bible teaches that we got here by creation---it does not teach that the earth is young. It teaches that the earth was created roughly seven thousand years ago. To be a YEC, you have to import an extra-biblical idea into the reading of the biblical creation account. This idea is that created things appear to be zero years old at their creation. This is a false philosophical idea, not a biblical idea.

This false philosophical idea is normally justified, by those who hold to it, by the theological argument that the appearance of age in a created thing makes the Creator to be a deceiver, and God cannot be a deceiver. This theological argument is shown to be false by what we learn about creation-type miracles from the Bible. For example, when Jesus multiplied the bread in the feeding of the five thousand, the bread he created on that occasion appeared to be cooked, not raw bread dough. When was it cooked? It was never cooked. It was created in an already cooked state. But it appeared to be cooked. Thus it appeared to have cooled from its baking temperature to ambient temperature. Thus it appeared to have been in existence for some time, even though it was newly created. This is just a way of saying that it did not appear to have zero age. Does this make Jesus to be a deceiver? If you create a fresh loaf of bread (which you can do in your imagination) are you a deceiver?

The YEC position stems from a false philosophical idea not taught by the Bible. The Bible teaches recent creation, not young earth creation. Can we agree on this much?

Sincerely,
Gerald Aardsma