But just as the day and hour of our Lord’s return is known only to the Father; so also, the exact date of the Creation remains a mystery. This is consistent with the fact that He is the Alpha and the Omega. Is it then not fitting that the Eternal God, Whose paths are beyond tracing out, should also shroud the beginning and end of time in mystery? Therefore, we who live in time, between the primordial light and the Second Advent, if unguided by the Scriptures, could easily conclude that the universe grades into Eternity at both ends, is thus of extreme antiquity, and will endure through immense future ages. But the Scriptures tell us otherwise.
Moreover, all of creation reflects His Eternal nature and beckons our hearts upward, pointing to The Creator, and praising Him: “The Heavens Declare the Glory of God …” (Psalm 19:1). But when tempted to worship the stars, it is only the Scriptures that show us the One Whom they reflect. Finally, Scripture provides the only Name “whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Yet to be a faithful witness of the Creator, the Scriptures also describe the creation accurately. Therefore, any testable conclusion of Scripture will also be verifiable in observation – and this is the very paradigm of science. As a result, properly applied scientific endeavor will prove any testable idea false if but one prediction of the idea plainly contradicts observation. But the opposite is not the case: a true idea could be proven true only if all of its predictions were tested and none contradicted observation.
So how did the earth get so old so fast? Well, in the 19th century several arose who disbelieved the Scriptures; and to prove their false philosophies they used somewhat the opposite of science: they would propose an idea and deem it scientifically true if only one or perhaps a few predictions were verifiable in observation, while suppressing any contradictions. For example, within a decade of its publication, Darwin’s theory was known to be scientifically contradicted; however, even to this day it publicly appears true because the contradictions and their implications have been withdrawn from public view.
Similarly, when applied in radiometric dating, Charles Lyell’s uniformitarian “principle” predicts the earth’s age to be about 4,500,000,000 years. Whereas, when applied in the build-up of uranium salts, it predicts the oceans to be only 10,000 years old! This, and many other age-of-the-earth contradictions result whenever the uniformitarian philosophy supplants the Biblical testimony. Nevertheless, these contradictions rarely find their way to press, leaving the only well published numbers to result from radiometric dating.
Yet most church leaders of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries have failed to confront the fine sounding words emanating from the proponents of this sort of false science; some have even acquiesced. And this failure to defend the Gospel at such a foundational level has resulted in lost generations and may ultimately precipitate the great falling away.
