THERE is no scientific proof that the earth is billions of years old despite the almost universal popular assumption, after years of evolutionary propaganda, that the issue is settled once and for all. There is evidence supporting both a very long span of time and strong evidence against it. As Don Batten writes at Creation.com:

No scientific method can prove the age of the earth and the universe …. Although age indicators are called ‘clocks’ they aren’t, because all ages result from calculations that necessarily involve making assumptions about the past. Always the starting time of the ‘clock’ has to be assumed as well as the way in which the speed of the clock has varied over time. Further, it has to be assumed that the clock was never disturbed.

There is no independent natural clock against which those assumptions can be tested. For example, the amount of cratering on the moon, based on currently observed cratering rates, would suggest that the moon is quite old. However, to draw this conclusion we have to assume that the rate of cratering has been the same in the past as it is now. And there are now good reasons for thinking that it might have been quite intense in the past, in which case the craters do not indicate an old age at all (see below).

No scientific method can prove the age of the earth or the universe, and that includes the ones we have listed here.

Ages of millions of years are all calculated by assuming the rates of change of processes in the past were the same as we observe today—called the principle of uniformitarianism. If the age calculated from such assumptions disagrees with what they think the age should be, they conclude that their assumptions did not apply in this case, and adjust them accordingly. If the calculated result gives an acceptable age, the investigators publish it.

See Batten’s compelling list of evidence for a young age.

— Comments —

Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:

The philosophical problem of geological or cosmic time, as it seems to me, is that time is a concept – or maybe even, as Immanuel Kant argued, a category of perception.  Time requires a recording consciousness and where there is no recording consciousness – that is, before the appearance of humanity – it is difficult to say what “time” could mean.  The claims of geological and cosmic time are all based on an unspoken supplementary hypothesis: That if a recording consciousness had been continuously present from the condensation of the proto-earth out of the nebular accretion-disc, and if that recording consciousness had used the measures of time that historical and modern people use (days, months, years, etc.), then that recording consciousness would have counted four billion years from the fully accreted proto-earth to the present.  Of course, those measures (days, months, years, etc.) would have been unavailable to a recording consciousness that began its work contemporaneously with the formation of the terrestrial globe in its primordial molten state.

In fairness to geology and cosmology, it is extremely difficult to discuss duration except by analogy – that is, by assuming human measurement even though it is anachronistic to do so.  The same criticism applies just as well to “young earth” arguments.  If the “billionists” ought humbly to confess that they aren’t entirely sure what the concept of “billions of years” might mean absent the recording consciousness then the “young earthists,” in respect of their short-measure chronology, should humbly make the same confession.

My position is that the conflicting claims about the ages of the earth and the universe have very little human meaning.  Supposing, for example, that the “young earth” hypothesis prevailed tomorrow morning and everyone was convinced by it.  Would any of our cultural, social, and political crises go away?  Certainly not.  They would be unaffected.  The “nature” that is maximally relevant to human beings is human nature.

 Laura writes:

Hmm. It seems that time can be a way of perceiving the past even if it is a past absent of human beings and the recording consciousness. Time is based on nature, not just human perception. If the earth existed and experienced the same natural cycles of night and day upon which time is based, it could retrospectively be divided into days, years, etc. Couldn’t it?

You write:

Supposing, for example, that the “young earth” hypothesis prevailed tomorrow morning and everyone was convinced by it. Would any of our cultural, social, and political crises go away?

I think the effects would be immense. Whether our current crises would go away, I wouldn’t presume to say, but certainly modern atheism and alienation would be dealt a serious blow. A God who created the earth billions of years ago and then left it with no intelligent life seems a distant, distracted and uninteresting figure. Human life is reduced in significance, which is partly why Darwinian evolution had such far-reaching cultural repercussions in the 19th century. The idea that God brought the earth into existence and many creatures and then waited eons to create his masterpiece in human beings is a serious challenge to Christianity. We are told in Genesis that “the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature so is its name. And Adam called all beasts by their names, and all the fowl of the air, and all the cattle of the field.” Are we supposed to believe that every word of this is legend? Then why not the rest of the Bible too?

In any event, given God’s revelation and the scientific support (not proof) for a young age, the onus of proof is on those who maintain an age of billions or millions of years. Pope Leo declared in his 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus that Scripture commands belief in the absence of conclusive evidence to the contrary:

“But he [the expositor of Scripture] must not on that account consider that it is forbidden, when just cause exists, to push inquiry and exposition beyond what the Fathers have done; provided he carefully observes the rule so wisely laid down by St. Augustine — not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires; a rule to which it is the more necessary to adhere strictly in these times, when the thirst for novelty and unrestrained freedom of thought make the danger of error most real and proximate.” [1] 

It is an important question, even if it cannot be conclusively answered by science. Here’s another good article on the subject.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

I read some articles at the link to creation.com, especially the one on oil formation.  Here’s my conclusion:  This stuff is too technical for most of us to judge and debate,  as is the theory of evolution when you get right down to the nitty gritty.  You could have a public debate by scientists from both camps and come away none the wiser. No one has the guts to say, “I may have been wrong.” Saving face seems to be everything.

If some scientists believe the Young Earth Theory and most other scientists believe the major Evolution Theory it all comes down to faith.  Faith in the Bible or faith in atheistic ideas.

I think there’s a Third Position, namely that we cannot truly know for sure, as none of us is smart or wise enough at this point.  Science is tainted always;  folks who insist on interpreting literally every line of the bible are just as mis-led. I’ll say this – some of the writers at creation.com are more modest than any atheist scientist will ever be.

Does any of  this matter?  I disagree that the Young Earth Theory must necessarily be aligned with Christianity, yet the speaker introducing the creation site to us plunges headlong into that very idea. I say that you can tend toward the young earth theory, believe in the imperfectibility of man through human effort, yet not trust every word that comes ouf of the Bible, either.  I know I sure don’t.

 Laura writes:

As I said, your third position entails — for anyone who considers himself Christian — belief in the basic literal meaning of the Biblical creation story.

We don’t need to take every single word of the Bible literally — if we have good reason to suspect it is not true. But revelation is not a grab bag from which we can pick and choose. God does not lie. In the case of evolution, we do not have sufficient reason to doubt creation as basically described in the Bible, with the first human beings created shortly after the earth.

And yes, it does matter. Even if the earth is very old, it does matter. But you’re right, much of this is too technical for those of us who are not scientists. That is why the Church’s guidance is important. The pre-Vatican II popes did provide some guidance, but there is need for more. The Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation is an excellent resource.

Heather writes:

I wrote to you a few months ago about my experience as a woman engineering student.  I don’t think I mentioned that after those two years of engineering, in a last-ditch effort to get back on the modernest wagon, I briefly transferred to the geology department because I had the math and science prerequisites, and thought the only thing wrong with me was that “I wasn’t much of a builder.”  I haven’t given much thought to things like the age of the earth in years, but it’s very interesting to look at these questions again under the light of my current conversion back to faith.  For the record, I currently have no opinion on the earth’s age.

I did a fair amount of field work, a lot of which involves identifying rocks, and, knowing the textbook properties of those rocks, putting together a relative timeline for how they came to be there.  This process can be simple, or extremely complex.  It’s not unusual for a piece, or several, of the puzzle to be missing, and you have to make an educated guess, or build cases for different scenarios.

Now, I remember one Canadian outcrop in particular that was, to put in bluntly, impossible.  It wasn’t a case of a few missing puzzle pieces – it actually violated many laws of geology – the laws we were using to figure out the history of the next outcrop down the road, or anywhere in the world.  Fabulous amounts of extra credit were promised to anyone who could figure it out – not they expected us students to be able to.  Some of the greatest minds in geologic academia had puzzled over this outcrop.  We approached it with a spirit of “isn’t it so much fun that there’s so much we have yet to figure out!” Rather than “something is seriously wrong with our understanding of geology and the laws we’ve written.”  Students and teachers alike prided themselves on their ability to “think for themselves,” and how supposedly ruthlessly intelligent they were, always striving for answers and explanations, shunning supersitious religions, and yet no one was bothered by this.

I’ve poked around the creationist website you linked, and now I wonder if the great flood is the answer to that mysterious outcrop.  It’s a shame I can’t remember anything specific about it!

Laura writes:

Thanks for writing.

There is compelling evidence for a major catastrophe that wiped out much of life on earth, including vast fossil deposits that suggest rapid death for many creatures.

David Mundy writes:

I tend to be sympathetic toward young earthers and Pentecostals and madmen. They drive the churchians of this age apoplectic, claiming the Bible should taken at its word or claiming to have a prophetic vision from the Lord. They are as shocking as the Amish. And aren’t we instructed to act in the Spirit so that our faith is as strangely and disturbingly evident as a drunkard’s stumbling gait? (Ephesians 5:18)

So I tend toward sympathy with the young earth if for no other reason than this: those who speak so knowingly on evolution with one breath, opine on global warming, social justice, and other Malthusianisms with the next.

Laura writes:

Part of the success of evolutionary propaganda has been to portray the dissenters as fanatics, idiots and madmen, when in fact they include perfectly rational scientists and theologians.

Mark B. writes:

There are so many amazing, awesome, and befuddling anomalies to what is generally called the Current Model in physics, geology, and natural history that it opens the door for young earth creationists to attempt to construct a counter model based on the strength of great anomalies refuting the Current Model.

I understand why so many would be drawn to the idea (the evidence of the anomalies are compelling and real), but there is also a different model of the universe, the solar system and earth which better accounts for all the many anomalies and it has to do with what some theorists call the Electric Universe based on plasma physics.

One proof the EU theorists offer is that of having claimed (and shown through evidence) that what astronomers have been calling comets as dirty snowballs are nothing more than hard, iceless asteroids that are charged and outgas electric filaments when they approach the sun due to a difference and strength in electric charge between the comet’s core and the heliosphere (that encompasses the solar system).

They help explain how mountain ranges can be created in a very short times, how canyons and craters can be carved electrically, and how elements can be transmuted by massive amounts of electric charge (lightning, for example, often transmutes elements. Imagine lightning bolts a millions times stronger and larger since it can be scaled up to any size, even galactic size).

They demonstrate how the Big Bang is as much a hoax as global warming (since red shift does not always illustrate motion away, and that background radiation is variable and created, not simply left over).

They show how fossil fuel is probably not the result of eons but a fast process in many cases such as a coal bed in the Midwest of a standing fossilized forest.

You can find all that information here and their video channel that explains and visually expresses their theories, speculations, proofs, and concepts.

Over the years, I have been following their work, I have come to agree with all their basic principles since no one is yet to refute any of them, and more and more evidence keeps appearing to confirm or support them

For example, according to current physics theory, gravity is a universal constant and can never be changed, and yet on our earth today the heaviest that a land animal can weigh reaches its limit with the African elephant since if it were any larger it would be physically impossible for it to lift and move it’s own weight at around 6 tons, 12,000 pounds. And yet a new dinosaur was discovered in South America that weighed 77 tons.  

According to the current model of physics it’s impossible for gravity on Earth to be different (greatly lighter in the case of dinosaurs) given the same mass, and yet, as Sherlock Holmes stated, when you eliminate the impossible then the improbable must be true. Dinosaurs could only exist in a lighter gravity field. Dinosaurs undoubtedly existed on earth at one time, therefore lighter gravity must have existed on earth in the distant past. The syllogism is undeniable, and yet the physicists deny it, except that they don’t. They totally ignore it since they “know” gravity can never be different.

But EU theory posits that gravity is different because it’s nature is electrical (although not fully understood). It stands to reason that if everything in the universe is charged (including a neutron but in a different way), why would gravity be the one force that isn’t at all related or like every other aspect of Creation? Thus, if earth had been in the orbit of a less electrically charged sun, gravity would indeed be much less than now.

Imagine a sun the size of Saturn that had planets around it and that system was captured by this current Sol system, and in the shifting of all theses worlds, there were enormous upheavals and effects? It’s one hypothesis for a lighter earth, but we do observe the effects of massive effects on Mars, an asteroid belt of fragments that seems like it would have made up a planet at one time, all the cratering on the Moon, Mercury, other moons, and Earth. Craters that aren’t impact craters but flat bottomed with no debris fields that are the result of electric “machining” by electric arcs (like welding torches).

There’s much more, like the real nature of the Sun to discover, and how Einstein had everything wrong that I hope you and others will investigate further for a better idea of how things actually work in nature (as created by God).

Thank you.

Laura writes:

Interesting.

I don’t grasp everything you’ve said but basically, as I read it, you are affirming the point made in the original entry, which is that speculations about an old earth are based on assumptions that current physical forces have been constant from the beginning when in fact there is evidence that they have not.

You write:

Imagine a sun the size of Saturn that had planets around it and that system was captured by this current Sol system, and in the shifting of all theses worlds, there were enormous upheavals and effects?

But that is pure speculation, an imaginary scenario. Meanwhile we do have an alternative scenario, albeit a sketchy one, in the Creation story in Genesis. Only God was present at Creation and He has given us some idea of what it was like and informed us that He did it all — from solar system to human beings — in a short time.

Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:

I am with St. Augustine, whose treatise on interpreting the first book of Genesis emphasizes that Scripture is not cosmology, but theology and anthropology, either one necessarily implying the other.  It takes six of the seven tablets of the Babylonian creation-story Enuma Elish to get to the appearance of man, who is anyway a mere plaything of the gods.  Genesis finishes up the cosmos with celerity and is ninety-nine per cent about Adam and Eve and their descendants.  That is an enormous and significant difference.  There is a continuity in cosmology and all the related sciences that is unaffected by the differences between Pagan religions and Biblical religion, but where it concerns theology and anthropology there is a break and a distinction.  While I really have no dog in the fight – the one between the “billionists” and the “young-earthers” – I can’t suppress a gnawing suspicion that the “young-earthers,” however sincere their motivation, are diverting a discussion which ought to be about theology and anthropology back into one that is obsessively about cosmology.  They strike me as unwitting parodists of the scientism that they would elsewhere, I am sure, critique.

The Platonic cosmology, which we find in the dialogue Timaeus, was adopted by medieval Christianity without qualms.  Plato’s is a “creationist” cosmology, in which a divine maker, whose motive is the good, fashions the universe and the beings that populate it.  After that, all the important questions are moral ones.  Interestingly, the question of time, that is, of the age of the universe, never enters into Plato’s speculation.  This must be because, viewed sub specie aeternatis, calendars are irrelevant.  This is why I say that no more does the “young earth” theory necessitate God than the “billionist” theory obliterates Him.  Likewise, whether the “billionists” or the “young-earthers” are right, Eve still eats the apple, Cain still murders Abel, and Moses still brings the Commandments down from the mountain.  That is where significance lives.

 Laura writes:

The scientific question of the actual age of the universe is just science, not theology, but I disagree that the question makes no difference to theology. Evolution, which is part metaphysics, requires long periods of time. Among the challenges to the theory is the claim that even if the earth is billions of years old this couldn’t possibly be enough time to bring about the proposed evolutionary developments. So time is crucial to the evolutionary thesis.

You write:

I can’t suppress a gnawing suspicion that the “young-earthers,” however sincere their motivation, are diverting a discussion which ought to be about theology and anthropology back into one that is obsessively about cosmology. They strike me as unwitting parodists of the scientism that they would elsewhere, I am sure, critique.

They would be irresponsible not to delve into the subject of time and the science of Origins given how much these have been part of the evolutionary metaphysical project.

It was St. Augustine who laid down the principle stated by Pope Leo, cited above, that Scripture must be taken in its literal sense unless there is rigorous proof to the contrary. Scripture is cosmology. Much of the Bible, of course, is not literal. It includes poetry and parable, but it also is history and the sacred writer of Genesis surely knew of various pagan mythologies regarding Origins, but records a distinctly different story of one single, omnipotent God creating the earth by Himself out of nothing in a short time and making the summit of his creation one man and then one woman. I can understand someone perhaps having a lack of interest in the events that occurred before this point when man and woman were created, but I can’t understand the argument that what exactly happened isn’t important, morally and theologically. Genesis demonstrates God’s creativity and authority in a quite spectacular way while the theory of eons of time undercuts that creativity, which doesn’t mean that therefore the earth is young and must be young if there is a God, but that there are definite psychological and theological  consequences to it being young. The idea of an old earth, relentlessly promoted, was cultural dynamite. Suddenly, man was king because God just sort of fiddled and faddled before he got around to him, which suggested an unimportant God and an unimportant earth, unimportant because He played so long with dumb rocks and because the earth was the scene of mute nothingness for so long. We can work that into God’s omnipotence and grandeur, but it is harder to do. What about death? Genesis says death began with the betrayal of Adam and Eve. Can’t we dispense with that idea too if Genesis was so wrong about cosmology? Extreme environmentalism draws its strength in part from a denial of Special Creation as it was roughly recorded in Genesis, with Man given dominion over the earth. Feminism draws its strength from a denial of the details and chronological sequence of biblical Creation. The idea of an old earth definitely liberated many people from the theology of Scripture. Time itself became so unimportant, so inconsequential. Go ahead, do what you want with your life because time stretches out endlessly behind you and you are the merest speck on that dull continuum. Population Control, I believe, draws its strength from the idea of an old earth. The earth has lasted for millions of years and may go on for millions of years so we must worry, worry, worry about preserving it, rather than worry about preserving an intimate bond with our Creator and about participating in His Creation.

One can’t have a young earth just because one wants a young earth. Scripture does not command us to defy reason. But if there is as of yet no conclusive proof against a young earth and, in fact, there is quite a lot of evidence to support the idea, as well as the idea of a catastrophic flood, well then, we should trust in what we do have and, in fact, as Christians we are absolutely required to trust in what we do have: a miraculous story of Creation that occurred perhaps 10,000 years or so ago and that is marvelously and exhilaratingly true.

Dr. Bertonneau writes:

You write: “The idea of an old earth, relentlessly promoted, was cultural dynamite.  Suddenly, man was king because God just sort of fiddled and faddled before he got around to him, which suggested an unimportant God and an unimportant earth, unimportant because he played so long with dumb rocks and because the earth was the scene of mute nothingness for so long.”

Skepticism and hostility to religious narrative were present before the debate about geological time.  Owen Barfield traces them back to the early Seventeenth Century.  I might trace them as far back as the Greek atomists, 2500 years ago.  One way or another, Voltaire, in the Eighteenth Century, had no need of geological arguments: He fed his anti-religious fervor with other nourishment.  Dogmatic skepticism, like the global warming theory, interprets everything its way, but that does not compel anyone else to interpret anything – like the proposed “billionist” universe – its way.  There is nothing in the “young-earth” theory that would prevent a new Voltaire from interpreting the shorter period as so much fiddling and faddling; it would, only be, for that mentality, a bit less fiddling and faddling.  And if the short duration were not fiddling and faddling why should the long duration be fiddling and faddling?  To conclude that it counted as fiddling and faddling would be to import a prejudice from the anti-religious side of the debate.

My thesis might boil down to this: Creation took as much time as it took; that was God’s time, about which human beings can have only a partial and inadequate understanding.

Speaking of cultural dynamite, the Ministry of Jesus Christ, including the Crucifixion,  was also cultural dynamite, far more so than the thesis of deep geological time; it was, as Paul says, a scandal to the Jews and nonsense to the Greeks; there are many pseudo-Christian misinterpretations of the Gospel that do great harm to people, but we recognize them as misinterpretations and do not blame them on the Ministry of Jesus Christ.

You write: “What about death?   Genesis says death began with the betrayal of Adam and Eve.  Can’t we dispense with that idea too if Genesis was so wrong about cosmology?  Extreme environmentalism draws its strength in part from a denial of Special Creation as it was roughly recorded in Genesis, with Man given dominion over the earth.  Feminism draws its strength from a denial of the details of Creation.”

Death comes into existence with consciousness, which man acquires by the Felix Culpa in the violation of the prohibition, as an event, which is how Genesis reports it.  Once we have consciousness, as I previously argued, and an awareness of events, we can begin thinking in terms of time because we have the record of memory and a set of markers to indicate measurable duration.  This is where the time of God and man begins.  By the way, I did not assert that Genesis is wrong about cosmology (I accept that the cosmos is a creation).  I characterized Genesis as being comparatively uninterested in cosmology, to which it devotes only a few verses, and I offered as the comparison the resolutely cosmological Babylonian Creation.  As for extreme environmentalists and Feminists – they are like Voltaire: So distorted in their thinking by resentment and prejudice that their beliefs can have no epistemological value for calm thinkers.

Having criticized the “young-earthers,” I would like to praise them.  I am myself something of an eccentric and (ask my wife) a stubborn person.  I admire other eccentrics and other stubborn people, especially the ones who drive the establishment crazy.  The “young-earthers” are admirable, at the very least, for resisting implacable peer pressure and, by so doing, causing a panic among the Borg.  I have a similar admiration for Immanuel Velikovsky, in whose literalistic reading of the Old Testament, planets and moons are also, as in “young-earth” theory, caroming and careening around the solar system, and for whom history is much, much shorter than the academic chronology lets on.  I myself have argued (see my essay on Ur-Civilization) that history is much, much longer than the academic chronology lets on!

 Laura writes:

Thanks for your response.

I don’t admire those who have presented evidence for a young earth (not all of whom qualify as dogmatic “young earthers”) because they are courageous but because some of their geological, paleontological and archaeological observations are very compelling. This is not the work of cranks or eccentrics.

You say, “Skepticism and hostility to religious narrative were present before the debate about geological time.”

Yes, of course, but that doesn’t mean we therefore ignore myths and un-truths. Skepticism will always find ample justification. But truth is intrinsically good. People should know and be told that the evidence for an old earth is not conclusive. Let them do what they want with that. I’m sure it wouldn’t make one bit of difference to some people.

As for extreme environmentalists and Feminists – they are like Voltaire: So distorted in their thinking by resentment and prejudice that their beliefs can have no epistemological value for calm thinkers.

Their views are very often based in reason and a prevailing cosmology.

My thesis might boil down to this: Creation took as much time as it took; that was God’s time, about which human beings can have only a partial and inadequate understanding.

Everything is God’s time. I have more curiosity about it than to be satisfied with, “Well, it took as much time as it took,” even if I can never have a full understanding. We should strive toward the limits of our understanding with the evidence before us and, to repeat, if the evidence does not rigorously disprove Genesis, we are obliged to believe it. I know Genesis is short. But it’s pretty emphatic. Why did the author bother with this whole thing about seven days, which may indeed not literally be seven days but could be and in any event is very difficult to translate into billions of years? Okay, let’s say it’s all just a story except for the basic fact of God having Created all, but do we have scientific evidence to support that view or do we have scientific evidence to support the notion that Scripture is more accurate than has been claimed for the last 150 years?

Death comes into existence with consciousness, which man acquires by the Felix Culpa in the violation of the prohibition, as an event, which is how Genesis reports it.

Death came into existence with Adam and Eve’s sin. Thousands of years in which death existed in quasi-human creatures is a serious challenge to that claim — a different subject really from the issue of the earth’s age, but related to it and to evolutionary theory.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

If you read about creation myths from around the world, they are no stupider or smarter than the one from the Old Testament (Genesis).   They are unique to each ethnic group that developed them.  None of these races  had any science whatsoever so they had to couch things in childlike terms.  But they all start with Void or Chaos.  Then various entities have various adventures.  This can all be interpreted as mighty movements in the cosmos.  Ultimately these cosmic events affect humans and animals.

It just doesn’t matter if you believe in the young earth version or not.  It’s all too big for us. For me, the Big Bang story is a bit silly. It’s just the latest plaything of scientists. They need to fit in somewhere, belong to something,  So they have most of them agreed to belong to the Big Bang Club for now – until they can come up with something else and ridicule those who can’t buy the new theory.

Laura writes:

It’s not a question of whether other creation stories are “stupider or smarter.” It’s a question of whether they are true or not. Of course, all of them, to the extent that they assert a divine creator, are true, but all of them, except Genesis, contain some falsehoods. Genesis is entirely inerrant. That doesn’t mean that all of it is literally true, but it does mean there is nothing essentially false in it.

The above is a matter of faith, but it is a matter of faith based in reason. There are good reasons why we speak of Genesis as God’s revelation first to the Hebrews and subsequently to all of humanity.

As far as whether it matters or not whether one accepts the notion of a young earth in light of the evidence and in light of Scripture, I would say that given the fact that the concept of an old earth is a major weapon against Revelation in our time that it does matter whether one categorically dismisses the subject as unimportant.

Dr. Bertonneau writes:

You write: “That doesn’t mean that all of it [Genesis[ is literally true, but it does mean there is nothing essentially false in it.”

I concur.

Buck writes:

Why, since so much is admittedly and increasingly mysterious and undiscovered, perhaps never to be scientifically discovered, by even our advancing science, can’t there be some yet undiscovered purpose or “utility” for what is argued to be too long a period and too many purposeless and seemingly useless creatures come and gone on this Earth before man, even if the relative timing were true? And why is any of that so significant when talking about the non-temporal nature of the God who created everything, including time?

The competing theories about the creation of the Earth and life in the “known” universe are all based on some inescapable notion of a coming into being. The fact that anything exists is proof of that. Science says that matter can’t be annihilated or ex-nihilated (something from nothing). It can only be combined with or separated from other material elements by some natural force. Nothing can not exist in science.

The Steady State theory quickly gained popularity, then rapidy fell out of favor. It required a constant, ongoing creation of matter with no beginning or end to it. That was unacceptable. The Big Bang quickly prevailed over the Steady State because it, at least, posits a “beginning” and a source or sorts. It imagines an unimaginably powerful law of gravity that pulls in absolutely everything, and holds it – all of our now known universe; every spec of matter and the light we see it by – in a single point, in a mass so incomprehensively dense and small that was eventually either overcome by a force greater than the unimaginable gravity, or the gravity weakened, for some reason, and all hell broke loose.

The laws of physics that rule all of this either existed already or they were created during our big bang, as the other theoretical physical laws must also have been created within each of the infinite number of other big bangs and universes. The laws of physics, even as it is supposed that they could all be different, couldn’t have existed before. Where would they have come from? That they can only be created with and by all these big bangs is the only scientifically acceptable speculation. Our science, the laws of physics that got man to the moon, and all of the material arrangements and forces – all of the dynamics of matter and time and space – did not exist before our random, insignificant big bang flung them and us out into an empty or non-existent universe, which is expanding out into an infinite empty space uncrowded with an infinite number of like-mindless other universes that are all doing the same. Big bangs and Big Bounces, infinite universes, or “cycles” of remodeled universes that have revamped building codes issued by no known authority.

The more this is thought about and studied, the more incomprehensible, varied and complex the theories get, the greater becomes the need for that one unifying grand theory of everything that holds it all together. It’s not hard to imagine that being.

 Laura writes:

You write:

Why, since so much is admittedly and increasingly mysterious and undiscovered, perhaps never to be scientifically discovered, by even our advancing science, can’t there be some yet undiscovered purpose or “utility” for what is argued to be too long a period and too many purposeless and seemingly useless creatures come and gone on this Earth before man, even if the relative timing were true? And why is any of that so significant when talking about the non-temporal nature of the God who created everything, including time?

I didn’t say that there can’t be purpose to an extreme length of time, if that is what you are suggesting. However, it is not a settled issue scientifically. Everyone is taught that it is a settled issue. It is significant precisely because the issue has been exploited by a materialist philosophy to create distance between man and God.

Buck writes:

I wasn’t suggesting that. I wrote: “Why…can’t there be some yet undiscovered purpose or “utility?” The point of my comment was to illustrate that “…, it is not a settled issue scientifically” and that it likely never will be, scientifically.

Mike writes:

Some discussion has mentioned the fact that there isn’t scientific proof for many of the ideas under discussion.  There’s no proof of the age of the universe or earth and no proof of the development of new species through evolution. Given the standard of proof within the scientific method, I don’t think the lack of proof comes as much of a surprise. The way to ‘prove’ speciation through evolution would be to observe it and test it experimentally, and the time scales involved are too long for humanity.

So, while science offers models that help us predict the behavior of the universe, it doesn’t offer understanding of the fundamental causes of that behavior. Similarly, it doesn’t offer any confidence that our ‘understanding’ is fully correct. Given the pace at which scientific models have been formed, considered sound, and ultimately rejected, I don’t see how it’s possible to have complete confidence.  But…. this is okay to the extent that scientific models serve their use. The fact that Newtonian mechanics isn’t fully true doesn’t mean that it can’t be used to put a satellite in orbit that makes it possible to monitor a developing hurricane.

I’ll also take this a step further and say that there is no way, given the all-powerful Creator, to scientifically reject the creation account given in the book of Genesis. The world, as it exists today, might have been created in exactly six 24 hour days, and in exactly the order given in the book. The world, as it exists today, might have been created as a whole, five seconds ago. Without anything concrete to test, science can’t say anything. Faith, in contrast, is built on the untestable to the extent that testing God is prohibited by scripture.

The question, then, is how science and Christian faith interact with each other. It’s not just that they have different worldviews, they have different views about how a worldview should be formed in the first place. Faith makes claims to explain fundamental causes and origins that science could never make. Similarly, science is built on partial approximations, the rejection of ideas that are no longer useful, and a degree of comfort with an incomplete understanding of the world.

Personally, I think that both schools of thought are useful, but they can only co-exist by carefully paying attention to make sure they don’t overstep their bounds. I’ve said this before, but for me, the work of scientists (even evolutionary biologists) has mainly served to emphasize the magnificence of God’s creation. (Even if I have no idea how any of it actually works.)