Supporting Old-Earth Creationism

Christians around the world believe in all types of different things. The beliefs I’m arguing in this essay will certainly be radically different than the majority of Christians. Therefore, to introduce myself, I believe that the bible cannot always be interpreted literally. In Matthew, Jesus calls us to gauge out or eyes and to cut off our hand if either were to cause us to sin. Obviously he doesn’t want us to literally do that. Otherwise, if he did, we’re all disobeying him. Thus, we have to dig deeper to find what God is saying, or to find different ways of interpreting what we are reading.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and earth”. Every Christian can quote this biblical fact. I believe this is indeed a fact; how else can you explain the beautiful, intricate, and glorious, wonders of this earth and into outer space? In my believing of this, I can’t help but wonder, what was it like? What is the truth? How old is the earth? How does this work, how does that happen? None of these answers are for sure, and will never be known until God chooses to reveal them to us in this life, or the next. Nonetheless, contemplating the possibilities is an exciting thing to do.

I humbly admit that both sides of “old Earth, young Earth” argument are plausible. I am merely presenting my beliefs, and supporting my side of the argument. The most common belief among Christians is “Young Earth Creationism”. This believes that the earth was created approximately seven thousand years ago, and that everything was created in six day time period. This essay, however, supports the Old-Earth Creationism belief system. This system is more compatible with modern science, and has several different paths of beliefs. I strongly lean towards the interpretation defined as “Day-Age Creationism”. After much reading and study, I have formed and refined my opinions.

Modern science is compelling. Fossils and rocks being discovered that are claimed to be millions of years old. How can we explain them? Rocks and land formations have certainly taken a long time to form what we see today. Genesis 1:2 states: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” From this we can conclude that before everything was created something else had already begun to take place. God was at work beforehand.

God cast Satan down from Heaven, “But you are brought down to Sheol to the far reaches of the pit”, as states in Isaiah 14:15. He had fallen from grace “in the beginning”, and since the serpent tempted Adam and eve, this must have occurred before the fall of man. Psalms 104:30 says “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground”. So God was renewing the face of the earth, as he hovered over the waters. As you can see, God was working and shaping the universe before the “Days of creation”. Even more so, we do not know how long Adam and Eve lived in the garden before the fall of man. With this being true, it allows for the theories of rocks and land formations being millions of years old to be legitimate.

How do we explain the fossils of animals and plants that are claimed to be millions of years old? First off, we must note that the sun, moon, and stars were created on the fourth “day”. This means that we cannot assume the days that are mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis are referring to typical twenty-four hour time periods. In fact, In Hebrew the word used is “yom”. Yom can also be referred to as a period of time, with a beginning and an end, with no distinction of how long in between. Thus these six “days” could have been six ages, or eras, with thousands or millions of “years” within each. So when God created the land and vegetation in “age three” there could have been a significant amount of time before he created the sea and air creatures in “age five” and the land creatures in “age six”.

Furthermore, there could have been an extended amount of time between the creation of beasts and man. What could have protected man from the massive dinosaurs? Could man have lived safely while dinosaurs roamed the earth? It is certainly a possibility that beasts lived and died before man even came into being. Sin brought death to humanity. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that beasts could not eat meat, there is no specific prohibition from it. Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, which was specifically placed, and called a paradise. It was set apart from the rest of the world. There is no reason for us to assume that death amongst animals is out of question beyond the garden. God’s creation was perfect and good. He designed everything specifically: spiders and snakes with venom to subdue their prey, lions and dinosaurs with massive teeth to eat their prey. Why would the spiders weave webs to capture plants? Why would dinosaurs need carnivorous teeth to devour trees? With this added to the theory of day-age earths, ecosystems could have flourished and developed in a beautiful and natural way before God even placed Man on the earth.

As I’ve said, exploring the possibilities is exciting. Certainly there are many different ways that things can be viewed. God can do anything he wants. God could create another story in a whole other universe that we will never see or know of. There could be a world that’s lives we’ll never imagine or be able to comprehend. God creates life and ends life. He can do anything to bring glory to him. These are my beliefs. It is important to note that in the end none of it really matters. Our views of creation don’t affect our eternities with God, and don’t change the fact that Jesus died on the cross for us. Whether the earth is seven thousand years old, or four billion, God created it, and that is a fact we can rest assured in.