The Age of the Earth
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Part II: An Appraisal of Some Current Evangelical Positions
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Frederic R. Howe
In exploring the positions held by evangelicals on the age of the earth, the real issue of the importance of this question must be faced. In the light of the Christian theistic system and the message of God's redeeming grace, the dialogue between young-earth and old-earth advocates must be set in context. Both positions hold to the radical truth of the Creator's work in supernatural power, and both positions appeal to the reasonableness of the Creator's work. In facing the intellectual bankruptcy of total macroevolution, the special creationist, whether old-earth or young-earth advocate, offers to the world the truth of the Creator God in all His power and redemptive love. In this question the doctrine of creation is the real issue, and this doctrine is closely related to and even foundational to the doctrine of redemption.
The early believes' first recorded public prayer began with these words: "O Lord, it is Thou who didst make the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them" (Acts 4:24). This is a quotation from Exodus 20:11, which links this work of God's creation to the chronometric framework of the six-day creation week. Acts 14:15 repeats the phrase, this time in a context of direct and open proclamation of the gospel: "We . . . preach the gospel to you in order that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them." Here the work of the Creator is related to the word of the gospel, and the whole truth is grounded on the words of the Old Testament in Exodus 20:11. The importance of the question is this: What is the most consistent position on the age of the earth in keeping with the meaning and implication of all the Word of God?
A Survey of Two Creation Models (Continued)
The comparison between the two positions continues (see "The Age of the Earth: An Appraisal of Some Current Evangelical Positions, Part 1, " Bibliotheca Sacra 142 [January-March 1985 1:23-37), and the identical framework in the outline used for surveying the old-earth model will be followed, to give the reader as accurate an appraisal as possible.
A Young-Earth Model
The approach to Scripture. Defenders of a young-earth model rest on the truth of the inerrant Word of God. (In dealing with the old-earth viewpoint, several scientists were cited in this regard.) Duane T. Gish (Ph.D. in biochemistry) exemplifies the scientists who advocate a young-earth model. Gish is a tireless worker in confronting evolutionists at the grass-roots level of debate and discussion. Henry M. Morris, director of the Institute for Creation Research (Ph.D., University of Minnesota), is the author of more than 30 books in the field of relationships between the Bible and science. Thomas G. Barnes (M.S., Sc.D.) has done extensive research in the technical aspects of the earth's magnetic field as it relates to geochronological "time clocks." Evangelical scientist Robert Gentry (listed in 1977 as assistant professor of physics at Columbia Union College, Takoma Park, MD, and also associated for some time with the Chemistry Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN) believes in the inerrancy of the Bible, and has done extensive, even exhaustive, research (to be described briefly later).
The evidence for a young earth. It is vital to note that concerning the main lines of evidence for an old earth, advocates of the young-earth model, with equally impressive credentials and research in various science disciplines, respond with equally feasible lines of evidence for a young earth. In the opinion of this writer, the approach presented by the young-earth advocates is not obscurantism or blind devotion to archaic concepts. For example, ever since the late 1950s evangelical Christians who are scientists, have raised a consistent voice of careful response to the appeal for an old earth from the radiometric data. An example of this type of response is the work of John W. Klotz. As early as 1970, at the time of the second edition of his major work Genes, Genesis, and Evolution, evangelical scientist and theologian Klotz set the tone for young-earth advocate response to the dating techniques used by evolutionists. He stated:
At the same time we must recognize that radiometric methods are not as accurate
and as reliable as they appear at first glance to be. All too often, these
determinations are pointed to as a final proof that the earth is of great
age. But at the present time it can hardly be maintained that the uranium
time clock possesses the reliability and accuracy we should like to find in
science . . . . It might also be pointed out that processes once thought to
take long periods of time -- millions and millions of years -- are now known
to occur in much shorter periods of time. It is generally assumed, for instance,
that oil is formed only after the original complex organic matter is covered
by several thousands of feet of overburden and after a lapse of several millions
of years. Yet Smith has found hydrocarbons (oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons)
in sediments dated as "Recent."
Since the matter of geochronological clocks is one of the central arguments for an old earth, it is crucial to see how young-earth advocates look at this evidence. The presuppositions demanded for any radiometric time clock to work accurately are set forth by young-earth proponents, and then the various time clocks are shown to be inadequate at one level or another. Here are the foundational tenets necessary to read "time" into a ratio of chemicals in a rock specimen:
1. The time units must be meaningful and readable.
2. The timer must be sensitive enough to measure the interval in question.
The same time
3. We must know when the time was started. True, some clocks have a
calendar, but a
4. We must not only know when the timer was started, but what the reading
was on the
5. The timer must run at a uniform rate; if it does not, we must know what
the
6. The timer must not have been disturbed in any way or reset since it was started
After a thorough and detailed study of each of the geochronological time clocks, Kofahl and Segraves concluded the following in 1975 (this year and others noted throughout this article are significant indicators of the developing dialogue in this field of study):
Generally speaking, the evidence as it has been presented indicates that the radiometric and non-radiometric clocks being used by scientists to time earth events fall short in one or more of the requirements for the ideal clock which we studied earlier in this chapter. In particular, the last four of the requirements . . . are normally not met by the usual methods for measuring.
There is no way to determine whether or not the "timer" was set at zero when it was started. As a matter of fact, if the world was created, we would expect it to display an appearance of age from the very beginning. Attempts to date it, then, would generally be expected to make it appear older than it really is.
Similarly, the requirements that the timer ran at a uniform rate and that it not be disturbed in any way are not subject to experimental verification. We cannot prove that these requirements have been met over the years since the earth came into existence. We know, however, of several kinds of events which could have disturbed the timer or the rate at which it has run. The development of the industrial age, great storms on the sun, and variations in cosmic radiation are examples of such disturbances.
This response continued to be heard from scientists who have serious questions about the validity of this method of dating the earth's age. Evangelical scientist and Bible scholar Edwin C. Myers (M.A.B.S., Ph.D., exploration geophysicist) helps clarify this. In 1984 he wrote,
Many of the factors which bear upon geologic dating methods may be illustrated by considering the familiar egg timer. One can measure the rate of flow of sand through an egg timer's neck and thereby derive a basis for determining the elapsed time at any instant during an egg timing "episode." To apply the derived dating method of any other egg timer would require that the second egg timer have the same sand density and grain size, neck diameter, etc., as the first, or that the effects of these parameters on sand flow rate and total timing interval be understood and accounted for. Additionally, environmental factors such as relative humidity (causing the sand grains to "clump"), temperature (causing the timer neck to expand), or gravitational field strength (affecting the weight of the sand) could cause changes in egg timer performance.
If an observer arrives on the scene while an egg timer is "in process," he may be able to state with confidence that the timer has not been running for more than one egg timing interval. The observer may not know, however, that the timer was started, allowed to run for a time, and then inverted before his arrival. Or perhaps there was an air pressure difference between the timer top and bottom for some time interval in the past. Alternatively, if all the sandis in the bottom of the timer when the observer arrives, he can state only that at least one egg timing interval has elapsed, with the assumption that the egg timer was started with all the sand in the top.
As applied to geochronology, then, the egg timer example illustrates that the reliability of quantitative chronological findings is tempered by environmental effects. It is also tempered by the susceptibility of the relevant chronometric system to actual physical alteration in the pre-observationai past.
Following are two of the many lines of evidence presented in recent years by young-earth advocates. One relates to radiometric data. The other relates to geophysical data. Both lines are thoroughly and painstakingly developed by hard research done by scientists in their respective fields.
In the later 1960s and early 1970s, evangelical scientist Robert V. Gentry, pondering questions about the earth's age, focused his attention on an obscure and neglected class of minute discolorations in certain minerals. He has since studied more than 100,000 of these "radio halos," and stands as the world's leading authority on the subject. Here is a brief summary of the research done by Gentry, and its implications for the question of the age of the earth. The halos, or rings of discoloration, are formed by radioactive decay of polonium in granite rocks and coalified wood. These result from the emission of alpha or beta particles given off from the decay process. Geisler summarizes Gentry's view on this phenomenon.
. . . one isotope of polonium has a half life of only about three-and-a-half minutes. This means that the rock has to be solidified before or within seconds of the time the polonium isotope gets into it, or there will be no halo in the rock.
In some instances, this isotope of polonium can be given by the decay of uranium, of which the polonium isotope is one by-product. However, sometimes polonium decay haloes are found in rocks without any possible uranium source for the polonium. This, Gentry explained, means the polonium had to be present in the rocks at the moment they solidified.
This in turn, Gentry said, means the rocks had to solidify extremely rapidly, under conditions unknown to science today. This indicates the likelihood of a creation of the earth and its primordial rocks and elements by a supernatural creator, and cannot be explained on the basis of evolutionary assumptions . . . . Gentry said his research calls into serious doubt the traditional scientific idea that the earth must be 4.5 billion years old.
Gentry is an eminently qualified scientist, and the results of his research are published in scientific journals.
Another important sphere of research engaged in by scientists is the decay of the earth's dipolar magnetic field. This work has been carefully reported by Thomas G. Barnes (professor emeritus of physics at the University of Texas, El Paso, and now dean of the Graduate School at the Institute for Creation Research). Commenting on the significance of this area of research for chronological considerations, Morris notes:
This is a world wide process (not a local process, as in a uranium mineral), accurately measured for over 145 years (not for just a few years, as for radio active decay processes) not subject to environmental changes, since it is generated deep in the earth's interior (not like radioactive minerals, which are highly unreliable becuase [sic] of the open systems in which they function), and probably not subject to changes in decay rates, since the factors that control it cannot be affected by any known outside conditions. If any process should be a reliable indicator of the earth's age, this should be -- and it indicates an upper limit for the age of about 10,000 years.
Recently a creationist publication in Australia, Ex Nihilo, placed experimental information before readers, replete with the results of sophisticated computerized research, to suggest that the date of the universe based on the calculations involving light years may be open to question. As stated earlier in the discussion of the old-earth model, the majority viewpoint among astronomers would indicate from advanced levels of trigonometry and observations from the most powerful telescopes that the universe is billions of years old. The critical discussions surrounding the scientific data on this question will doubtless continue, but the point here is simply this: the postulate of billions of years to explain the phenomenon of light traveling in a straight line is open to serious question by scientists. Reflecting on the implications of these newer studies, Niessen writes:
There are three "secular" or non-biblical possibilities to the problem of harmonizing a young universe with the allegedly great distances of the outer galaxies: (1) the distances may not be that great after all; (2) light may take a "short-cut" as it travels through deep space; (3) the speed of light may have been considerably faster in the past. These three are not mutually exclusive, and may in fact be used in conjunction with each other. The fourth solution, which may be used independently or in conjunction with the above three, is that God created the light beams as well as the stars so that they could be -- as indeed they were -- seen on the fourth day of the creation week.
In summary, many lines of evidence are used, from essentially the same realms as those used by old-earth model advocates(including astronomical, radiometric, and nonradiometric areas) to enable young-earth theoreticians to present a cogent and reasonable framework for earth history.
The interpretation of biblical data in the young-earth model.
Old-earth and young-earth defenders both reject classical theistic evolution.
In contrast to progressive creationism, however, young-earth advocates appeal
to principles of hermeneutics in interpreting the chronometrically relevant
terms in Genesis 1, for example. They reason that such a term as 
is to be taken in its normal
everyday meaning unless there is strong reason contextually to give it another
meaning. Klotz articulates this thinking as follows:
Yet the Scriptures speak very clearly on the length of the creation days. It is a general principle of Biblical interpretation that a word is to be taken in its everyday meaning unless there is compelling evidence that it must be taken in a different sense. So in Gen. 2:4 it is very clear from the text itself that the word "day" here means a period of time longer than twenty-four hours. And that is also true of the other passages of Scripture where the word "day" clearly refers to a long period of time. But there is nothing in the text or context of Genesis 1 which indicates that these were long periods of time. Sound principles of biblical interpretation require that we accept this "day" as being an ordinary day.
Passages such as Ps. 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 are not meant to interpret Genesis 1 and 2. Their purpose is to show God's eternity. They have no connection at all with the creation story.
Young-earth proponents press the literal understanding of the term "day" in Genesis 1. They are aware that some verses in the Bible are used by day-age advocates to establish a flexibility to this term. Whitcomb notes:
But neither Psalm 90:4 nor 2 Peter 3:8 lend support to the day-age theory. The latter verse, for example, does not say that God's days last a thousand years, but that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years." In other words, God is above the limitations of time in the sense that He can accomplish in one literal day what nature or man could not accomplish in a vast period of time, if ever. Note that one day is "as a thousand years," not "is a thousand years," with God. If "one day" in this verse means a long period of time, then we would end up with the following absurdity: "A long period of time is with the Lord as a thousand years." Instead of this, the verse reveals how much God can actually accomplish in a literal day of twenty-four hours.
The young-earth model contenders offer a position that is indeed viable both biblically and scientifically. The vast age demands from the evolutionary framework are seen to be explainedby reasonable alternatives. Setting the tone for the young-earth contenders, in the continuing dialogue, evangelical scientist Zimmerman concluded:
Scripture, then, does not give a precise calendar. But it does give the impression of an earth far younger than the theories of some scientists indicate. Neither side can be definite. However, the Christian must be sure that any conclusions he reaches must be in harmony with the very clear picture of a great creative act, of man specifically created by God in His image, of man's fall from perfection into sin, and of the first promise of the Savior in Gen. 3:15. To lose these precious truths would be tragic indeed.
Issues for Evaluation and Comparison
The Overall Approach to Science and Scripture
It is imperative now to probe some levels of dialogue and difference between young-earth and old-earth adherents at several points. Clearly a difference between these positions at this precise point of the relationship between science and Scripture is clear and unmistakable. The old-earth view is built on the position that an old universe and an old earth is an established factual base. Thus the Bible at the true meaning level must be interpreted to show that it is not out of harmony with this fact. The young-earth model is based on the position that the scientific data used to establish the concept of an old earth can be interpreted differently and that, strictly speaking, there is no need to defend an old earth. Thus the Bible is approached without this a priori demand for an old earth, and the differences are markedly clear, in this writer's opinion.
In Bible interpretation, each system can be tested and evaluated. In the previous article, it was pointed out that the real hermeneutical basis for an old-earth contender's model, such as that proposed by Robert C. Newman, is this: the Bible student should use the established results of the science of astronomy in proving an old earth much like the established results of the science of archaeology were used by Edwin Thiele to interpret heretofore unsolved questions in the chronologies of the Old Testament kings of Israel and Judah.
On this crucial issue, the analogy that Newman stresses comes short of reality, in the opinion of this writer. The comparison, even by analogy, between what Thiele did with archaeology and Bible comparisons, and what Newman does with astronomical observations on the age of the universe and their bearing on biblical data, is invalid. A close reading of Thiele reveals the falsity of this analogy.
The data for harmonizing dates of kingships included information from extrabiblical sources dealing with historical records, within a circumscribed time period. There is a control factor here, that of the chronology of archaeology, with its detailed and accurate reconstructions. This is credible historical documentation that can be used to build a comparison with biblical data, and the correctives and clarifications offered involved relatively minute adjustments of the years of kingships.To jump from this area over to the area of astronomy, for example, with the rise and fail of various speculative cosmogonies, and to suggest that these calculations and interpretations of data in astronomy have anything resembling the accuracy of pottery chronology, for example, in archaeology, is invalid. Yet this is the ultimate and the only real basis that Newman finds to allow him to interpret the Bible so as to bring it into conformity to the scientific data demanding an old universe. If his hermeneutical basis is unsound, as this writer believes, then it logically follows that Newman's conclusions are unsound.
The Days of Genesis 1
Clearly a crucial difference over the meaning of the days of Genesis 1 is
central in the old-earth/young-earth dialogue. Also the descriptions of events
designated as happening on those days is another center of differentiation.
Old-earth proponents admit the force of the argument that when appears with ordinal numbers
(1st, 2d, 3d) it always designates a meaningful chronometric unit of time,
a day in the normal sense of that term (see data referred to in note 21 in
the previous article). Yet to evangelical scientist Newman, this is not crucial,
since he already takes the position that the earth is old, that long periods
of time are clearly involved in earth history. He simply responds to the young-earth
advocates' demands for literality by making Genesis 1 an exception. "The
Bible has no occasion to mention several long periods of time which might
be numbered, except the days of creation." It appears that Newman is inconsistent at this point,
arguing here for the traditional view of the older "day-age" format
and then appealing immediately after this to the term as meaning only a term of reference to mark an advance in the account
of God's work of creation, and used only as a sign to mark the changes of
the timeless periods of creation as they progressively unfold.
In the past, progressive creationists and day-age advocates built careful correlations between the geologic ages and the days of Genesis 1. Responding to this type of argument, Klotz noted themany disparities between the ordered events of creation in Genesis 1 and the sequence of geological ages:
There are far more differences between the Genesis account and the geological record than there are similarities. And these differences are quite significant . . . . Genesis says there were grasses and fruit trees before there were any animals at all; geology reports a wide variety of animals already in the Cambrian period, while the flowering plants did not appear until the Cretaceous period, 400 million years later . . . . fish and birds were created on the same day, the fifth day; geology reports fish already in the Ordovician period and finds birds first in the Jurassic period, some 300 million years later . . . . Genesis reports the creation of the birds on the fifth day and of the creeping things on the sixth day; geology reports reptiles already in the Pennsylvanian period, while birds appeared only in the Jurassic period, about 100 million years later.
Recently, as reported earlier, some old-earth advocates have abandoned the attempt to press specific comparisons of Genesis with geological uniformitarianism. Instead they now assert that the account must be interpreted to show a major action or predominant work on the creative "day" in question, but not the only action. Also they simply state that the periodicity and regularity of the succession of days in Genesis 1 mean only the end of one era in God's progressive creation timetable and the beginning of another.
Neither the older suggested day-age harmonization nor the more recent
flexibility in interpreting satisfy the hard demands of exegesis, in this writer's opinion. An
example will suffice. Once the control factor of normative, literal
interpretation is dropped, then can be made to mean practically anything. To
argue for this open interpretation, and nonchronometric interpretation, many
advocates of the old-earth model feel that since the seventh day symbolizes
God's rest, and that God, in their viewpoint, is still working, then there must
be a harmonization of the days of Genesis 1 that will allow a nonliteral
meaning to prevail. The basis for this viewpoint is to be noted carefully: the
idea that God's rest is figurative or symbolic is suggested since, at least in
Newman's opinion, God is still working. Newman noted:
. . . a more literal interpretation of the passage could suggest either that God is still resting (day-age view) and we are living now in the seventh day, or that God has not yet begun to rest as the seventh day is still in the future. I favor the latter suggestion on the basis of Jesus' answer to the Pharisees in John 5:17. When Jesus was attacked for healing a sick man on the Sabbath, he answered, "My Father is working still, and I am working."
This is an example of oversimplification. To suggest that the work
To be sure, Newman argues that the work of creation here implied is the creation of a redeemed group of individuals, a new people in Christ. So he infers back to Genesis 1, from this basis, that the work of the seventh day can be interpreted in a nonliteral manner and that therefore all the other days can be interpreted that way also.
The late Hoeksema showed some years ago the incongruity of this nonliteral approach to the days of Genesis 1. He wrote:
It has sometimes been alleged that the seventh day, the day of God's rest, certainly must have been a longer period, seeing that the Lord God is still resting of His work of creation, and that therefore it is exegetically very well conceivable that also the six days of creation were long periods. But against this it may be remarked, in the first place, that this argument annihilates itself. For if this were the significance of the seventh day, then the seventh day lasts forever. God never creates again. In that case also the other days of the creation week were everlasting. And this last supposition is. of course, nonsense. But, in the second place, this certainly is not the significance of God's rest on the seventh day. This rest was a hallowing, through which the Lord God, together with His creature that was created in His image, rejoiced in all the works of His hands. And this certainly was not an everlasting day, although the rest of God was [an] image of the eternal rest in His tabernacle. But the day itself was twenty-four hours. Also the first sabbath was a common day.
The Specific Confrontation over Geochronology
A deep and continuing confrontation concerning the age of the earth as determined by radiometric and other data continues between advocates of the two positions. Some observations are in order.
The scientific training and expertise of adherents of both sides of this debate is undoubted. Thus here, as in all other areas of the confrontation, the decision as to which viewpoint is more coherentcannot be made on the basis of how many scientists with Ph.D.s in geophysics or geology hold each position! The debate between these adherents goes on in scholarly journals, reviews, and books. A question worth asking is this: how does an evangelical scientist holding the old-earth view evaluate, for example, the work of Robert Gentry, with its implicit affirmation of a young earth?
Interestingly, to this writer's knowledge, no advocate of an old-earth model has ever to the present time attempted to interact with the hard scientific data and the interpretation of the data that Gentry offers. Gentry's work has been well documented in journals for serious and scholarly evaluation for many years, yet it received only this brief reference in 1982 by old-earth advocate Davis Young:
The work by Gentry . . . is indeed problematic for current theories of radiometric dating and decay constants of radioactive nuclides. But creationists should concentrate their energies in trying to solve such problems with the help of modern research rather than continuing to propagate the same fallacious arguments.
On the question of the earth's magnetic field, and the arguments for a young earth based on that framework, Young simply sets the reasoning aside by suggesting that there is a way, now unknown specifically to science, whereby the magnetic field can be sustained, or actually can reverse itself periodically, thus rejecting the implications that this suggests a young earth. Myers, writing in an irenic and very careful style, discussed Young's dismissal of this argument for a young earth as follows:
Notice that his [Youngs] description of the "accepted" dynamo model for geomagnetism is very vague -- actually, to my knowledge, there is no dynamo model which consists of anything much more than the name "dynamo model." Nevertheless, the earth's magnetic field is empirically observed, and the crux of Dr. Barnes' contribution to the geochronology debate is precisely that he has presented a physically credible model for geomagnetism, while none of the dynamo models seem to accord with physical laws. It so happens that the "lifetime" of this physically credible model stands askew of establishment opinion.
The Question of Attitudes and Reactions
Crucial to improving the quality of the dialogue between advocates of these two points of view is the matter of analyzing the attitudes and reactions of the advocates to one another. It becomes apparent when studying the literature that some old-earth proponents engage in faulty argumentation when they underestimate the credibility and scientific expertise of the young-earth contenders.
One need look no further than the recent work by Young to find a fairly representative sampling of this kind of approach. The following statements are found in his book Christianity and the Age of the Earth: "Creationists need to learn how to receive criticism when they are told that they have spoken on a matter about which they know relatively little."
Does it really advance the Christian cause by forcing the facts of nature to fit into a preconceived theory of the Earth as is done by the creationist movement? No, it harms our cause. Christ has called us to truth and honesty . . . . I am not accusing creationists of lying or deliberate distortion. No doubt they have honorable intentions, but if they continue to espouse their theories when other Christian brethren have repeatedly called attention to the falsity of their theories, they must be challenged to stop. It is a far better procedure to follow the evidence of nature wherever it may lead, even if it seems, at first, to run counter to our interpretations of Scripture.
"May I plead with my brethren in Christ who are involved in the young-earth movement to abandon the misleading writings they provide the Christian public. I urge them to study geology more thoroughly."
These statements involving attitudes and reactions demand careful and irenic, yet specific criticism and response. The publications of Gentry, for one example, did not appear in writings appealing solely to the Christian public. They appeared in scholarly journals which assuredly have no link with the creationist press! From the first citation just noted, one gains the clear impression that Young feels that his own knowledge of geophysics and geology is vastly greater than that of Henry Morris, Robert Gentry, and a host of other scientists who believe in the young-earth model. The statement is so transparently biased that it defeats itself. It is disturbing to this writer to find Young charging his fellow believers in Christ with harming the gospel or the Christian cause simply because they present a viable model of earth origins!
Readers will be interested and even dismayed to learn that this is the same Young who recently gave permission to editor Roland Mushat Frye to include a chapter from his book Christianity and the Age of the Earth in a volume entitled Is God a Creationist? (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1983). Other essays in this volume include one by Roman Catholic scholar Bruce Vawter, entitled "Creationism: Creative Misuse of the Bible." Here Vawter (professor of theology at DePaul University, Chicago) openly attacks the very position of inerrancy that Young espouses. The entire book is written to undermine the credibility of young-earth approaches tocreation and science, and it includes chapters by liberal theologians as well. Much of it borders on outright attacks against the creationist stance by ridicule and appeal to prejudice. One wonders who is really here upholding the cause of Christ and the great Christian theistic orthodox position -- Young, or his fellow believers who hold a young-earth model? One cannot help but speculate here, using Young's very principles that he himself enunciates, as to which advocate in this specific instance is really helping the cause of Christ and evangelism: one that allows his writings to be linked with others in attacking inerrancy and the creationist stance, or ones that simply attempt to take another look at the data involving the age of the earth? Creationist Henry Morris discusses the matter of influence of scientists for the cause of Christ,
Dr. Young also expresses concern lest creationism keep students and scientists from coming to Christ. The facts, however, run in exactly the opposite direction . . . . This writer has been closely and directly associated with the university world for 45 years, and it has certainly been his experience that evangelism is far more fruitful and its results far more lasting when it is conducted in a solid framework of creationism and Biblical authority than one of expediency and minimal commitment. We at the Institute for Creation Research have received large numbers of verbal and written testimonials from students (as well as many from faculty and practicing professionals -- even many geologists!) of conversions, soul-winning and spiritual growth as a direct result of our creationist literature and seminars, and even our debates.
Young-earth advocates need to guard against oversimplification and against a
spirit of retaliatory criticism as well. In the young-earth model there are
problems and concerns that need to be faced carefully. The meaning of in Genesis 1 is a
continuing concern. Many thorough-going inerrantists do not feel that the
Exodus 20:11 passage furnishes the specific control for the interpretation of . Schaeffer noted:
The simple fact is that day in Hebrew (just as in English) is used in three separate senses: to mean (1) twenty-four hours, (2) the period of light during the twenty-four hours, and (3) an indeterminate period of time. Therefore, we must leave open the exact length of time indicated by day in Genesis. From the study of the work in Hebrew. it is not clear which way it is to be taken, it could be either way. In the light of the word as used in the Bible and the lack of finality of science concerning the problem of dating, in a sense there is no debate because there are no clearly defined terms upon which to debate.
The specific description of the creation of botanical life in Genesis 1:11 could involve the possibility of limited process, withthe implication that the fruit tree, for example, is said to grow. This growth process, in the thinking of many serious inerrantists, might well involve a process of time not limited to 24 hours in a tight-knit chronometric sequence. There is also, of course, the continued need for submission to Scripture itself, and one could ponder carefully the possibilities of a shorter "gap," so to speak, between the creation of inorganic matter and organic matter. In all these issues, young-earth advocates assuredly must preserve the same spirit of temperance and balance that they demand from old-arth advocates.
Summary an Appeal
Various arguments for the two positions have been studied. The dialogue between advocates of each view will continue. The appeal offered here is that the kind of argumentation which is really harsh criticism or judgment of motives cease. The brethren holding the old-earth model manifest in some cases a deep need to revise their scholarly presentations to the Christian public. The appeal is simply this: let advocates of either view creatively and meaningfully submit themselves to the discipline of careful exegesis of Scripture, and let the Word of God stand as the integrative source of all evaluations of theories as to the origin and date of the earth. It is this writer's opinion that the young-earth model is more coherent and more closely based on accurate exegesis and consistent thinking than the old-earth model. But having said this, it is imperative to note that any model is indeed a construct, a position, a framework, and therefore must stand under the continued judgment of the Word of God itself. Some years ago evangelical scientist and theologian R. Laird Harris, set the tone which is still desperately needed in this ongoing exchange of ideas:
I am appalled at the freedom with which our Christian scientists are toying with the Biblical texts. I may soften that by adding that our theologians are doing so too and so the scientists naturally are taking it up. But the scientists should have a chance to hear the criticisms of various theologians rather than jumping to the first far out exegesis of Genesis that seems to meet the scientific need.