It must be concluded, therefore, that the biblical record cannot be harmonized at all with the standard evolutionary reconstruction of human history as promoted by modern anthropologists and archaeologists. In the absence of actual proof to the contrary, the dates of creation and the Flood are quite reasonably placed in terms of the past several thousand years.
1 See The Genesis Flood, by J. C. Whitcomb and H. M. Morris (Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Co., 1961), p. 1–115, for an extensive treatment of these biblical evidences. Henry M. Morris also has a listing of 100 reasons for believing in the worldwide flood in The Genesis Record, (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1976) p. 683–686.
2 Young, who originally accepted a worldwide, cataclysmic flood as described in the Bible, later taught a worldwide tranquil flood and still later began advocating a local flood. His confidence in biblical authority (except as corrected by “science”) has likewise declined in recent years.
Chapter 5
The Age of the Earth
It has been shown that neither the day-age theory, nor the gap theory, nor any other accommodationist theory can be applied legitimately to the creation record to allow for the supposed great ages of geology. The same is true for the vast span of cosmic time demanded by astronomers to accommodate their big bang and the subsequent eons of assumed stellar and galactic evolution. Whether we like it or not, the inspired record of Genesis has told us plainly (as God later re-emphasized on Mount Sinai) “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day” (Exod. 20:11). If the Bible is truly the infallible and inerrant Word of God, as the Lord Jesus believed and taught (“the Scripture cannot be broken,” He said, for example in John 10:35), then that should settle the question. At least it should settle it for those who claim to believe in the inerrancy and authority of the Holy Scriptures.
There may be scientific questions related to the concept of recent creation, and these are discussed in Volume 2 of this Trilogy. There, the real hard data of science are shown to be in full harmony with both recent creation and a worldwide flood. Even if there still remain some unresolved scientific problems, however, these can never invalidate the plainly revealed Word of the eternal living God. He was there, and the scientists who reject His Word were not there. Furthermore, He cannot lie, whereas even the greatest scientists are fallible, sinful human beings, like everyone else. They can, and do, make many mistakes, and they have many biases. “Let God be true, but every man a liar!” the Scripture enjoins (Rom. 3:4).
Because this doctrine of recent creation and the global cataclysmic flood seems to be the chief point of attack by unbelievers and the chief stumbling block for believers, we want to emphasize it further in this chapter. Even if one could manage to re-interpret the plain words of Scripture to allow the multi-billion years demanded by evolutionists, there are many other theological, moral, and philosophical reasons for rejecting these great ages. There are also many good scientific evidences for a young earth as well, but these are discussed in Volume 2.
Why Recent Creation Is a Vital Doctrine
The one aspect of strict creationism that is under greater attack by evolutionists than any other is the biblical doctrine of recent creation in six literal days, which then implies also the worldwide Flood. The evolutionist, realizing the weakness of the scientific case for evolution when he really tries to defend it, will almost always direct his main arguments not against creation per se, but against recent creation and its corollary, flood geology.
As a result, some people who consider themselves creationists have been so intimidated by this biblical concept that they try to cling to the 19th-century evolutionary compromise now known as the “day-age theory” and “progressive creation.” Some still rely on the “gap theory,” hoping they can ignore the problem by pigeon-holing the evolutionary ages of the geologists in an imaginary gap between the first two verses of Genesis. These theories attempt to accommodate the geological ages, even though it is the geological ages that provide the main basis and framework for evolution. “Young earth creationists” embarrass both the progressive creationists and the gap creationists, so they complain that recent creation is merely an optional interpretation that is unimportant and expendable.
But this cannot be. As a strictly scientific question, divorced from any biblical or theological considerations (as presumably, in a public school textbook or in a scientific debate), the date of creation can and perhaps should be treated as a separate topic from the fact of creation. This does not make it expendable, however. It is an important and basic issue that deserves serious study in its own right, strictly in terms of the relevant scientific data. When the biblical and theological data are also considered (as in a church or other Christian context), the doctrine of recent creation becomes critically significant, integrally interwoven with the doctrine of creation itself. Outlined below, very briefly, are a few of the reasons why the doctrine of recent creation is vitally important to true biblical Christianity.
1. Historical Reasons
“Progressive creationism” is not a modern interpretation developed to bring the Genesis record into harmony with modern science, but a very ancient concept devised to impose a theistic meaning upon the almost universal pagan evolutionary philosophies of antiquity. The eternal pre-existence of the physical universe of space and time, with “matter” also present in some form, was a belief shared by all ancient religions and philosophies, seeking as they were to function without an omnipotent, holy, eternal, personal, creator God. Sad to say, compromising monotheists, both in ancient Israel and in the early Christian church, repeatedly resorted to various allegorical interpretations of Scripture, involving some form of long-stretched-out creation, seeking to combine creationist/redemptionist theology with pagan humanistic philosophy. Almost inevitably, however, such compromises ended in complete apostasy on the part of the compromisers.
In modern times, Charles Darwin himself is a classic case in point. Starting out as a biblical creationist, his decline began with his acceptance of Lyellian uniformitarianism, the geological ages, and progressive creationism. He then soon became a full-fledged theistic evolutionist, and eventually an atheist. The same steps were traveled by many other scientists of that period. In fact, science itself was originally (in the days of Newton and the other founders of modern science) committed to the strict biblical chronology, then drifted into progressive creationism (after Georges Cuvier, Charles Lyell, and others), then into a Darwinian theistic evolutionism, and finally into total evolutionary naturalism.
The creationist revival of the first quarter of the 20th century was short-lived because it again tried to compromise with the day-age theory. This was William Jennings Bryan’s fatal mistake at the Scopes trial. The various early creationist organizations also failed to take a firm position on recent creationism and soon either died out (e.g. The Religion and Science Association, which lasted just two years, and the Creation-Deluge Society, which survived for six years), or became almost impotent (as in the case of the original Evolution Protest movement), or capitulated to theistic evolutionism (for example, the American Scientific Affiliation). Multitudes of churches, schools, and other Christian organizations have followed the same dead-end path of compromise during the past century. For a fuller account, see History of Modern Creationism1.
2. Theological Reasons
Even if one does not accept the Bible as the inerrant and authoritative Word of God, the concept of a personal, omnipotent, omniscient, loving God is fatally flawed by the old-earth dogma. The very reason for postulating an ancient cosmos is to escape from God, to push Him as far away in space and as far back in time as possible, hoping thereby eventually to escape His control altogether by letting “nature” become “god.”
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