Today we’ll begin to consider interpretive options for the first chapter of Genesis. We’ll see three main groupings of theories, including those that propose a young earth of only thousands of years, those that see the earth as old (billions of years), and those that are compatible with either. After introducing the main options, Will Barlow goes on to explore young-earth creationism. He presents the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Lastly, he shows why the “appearance of age” hypothesis fails to convince him.
Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
See below for notes.
—— Links ——
- We are doing follow-up discussions to these episodes on YouTube. Check them out!
- See other episodes in this Scripture and Science Class
- Check out Barlow’s previous podcast episodes
- Learn more about and support the church Barlow and his team are starting in Louisville, KY, called Compass Christian Church
- Find more articles and audios by Barlow on his website: Study Driven Faith
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- Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library.
- Who is Sean Finnegan? Read his bio here
—— Notes ——
What have we seen so far?
Genesis was written to a group of ancient people coming out of slavery
The questions that they were asking of the text are different than the questions that we ask
How can we read Genesis 1?
Does Genesis 1 begin with a continuous narrative or is there an initial creation in verse 1 followed by a “re-creation” or “reconstitution”?
- “Gap” theory says the latter
- Most other views take the former
How can we read Genesis 1?
How do we read the word day? Is a day a literal 24-hour period of time? Or is it something else?
- YEC and “gap” theory view the word “day” as a literal 24 hour period
- Most other views either don’t require a day to be a specific length of time or say it is a longer period of time
How can we read Genesis 1?
Is Genesis 1 meant to be a description of creation itself? Or is it meant to describe how God ascribed function to already existing systems?
- “Modified gap” theory and Walton’s “Temple” theory both focus on Genesis 1 describing function, not creation
- Most other views take Genesis 1 to be describing creation
How can we read Genesis 1?
How importantly should we weigh the scientific evidence?
- Walton’s “Temple” theory does not care about modern science
- The mainline YEC view has an alternate view of the scientific evidence
- All other views rely on the scientific evidence
Many views of Genesis 1
Perhaps the easiest way to divide them is:
- Young-earth views
- Old-earth views
- Views compatible with either
Young-Earth Views
- Mainline YEC view – Answers in Genesis, Ken Ham, Institute for Creation Research (ICR)
- The “Appearance of Age” view
Old-Earth Views
- “Day-Age” and modified “Day-Age”— Hugh Ross, Gerald Schroeder
- “Theistic Evolution” — Francis Collins
- Gap and modified gap — Scofield Bible
Views Compatible with Either
- The “God’s Temple” interpretation — John Walton
- Any non-literal interpretation that does not involve evolution
Young-Earth Creationism
Genesis 1:1-3 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 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. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Genesis 1:4-5 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Positives of Young-Earth Creationism
- You can read Genesis 1 without importing any other ideas as a complete narrative
- Then, using the genealogies from other parts of the Bible, you get roughly 6,000 years of history
- Nothing in the Bible absolutely contradicts it
Negatives of Young-Earth Creationism
Some of the strongest arguments against YEC come from science. However:
- AIG and ICR have answers to basically any scientific question
- Both do a great job of attacking science at the weakest spot — assumptions and counterexamples
Young-Earth Creationism
Biblical questions about YEC:
- Would the original audience have cared about the age of the Earth?
- Are we sure that the genealogies are without gaps?
- Is Genesis 1 about creation or function?
- Is there really enough time for Satan to rebel (if you hold this view)?
Scientific challenges to YEC:
- Basically all scientists view the Universe as old and the Earth as old
- Faraway stars appear to age the Universe at 13 billion years
- There is no reason to believe that the speed of light has changed over time
Appearance of Age View
This view accepts the scientific evidence and says that “God made the Universe appear old to test us.”
- I believe that God gave us our heads to think with.
- God does test us, but He is not a deceiver.
Here are my thoughts and positions on what was shared in this podcast.
** Would the original audience have cared about the age of the Earth? **
YES – it would be prideful to assume they were less intelligent or curious than current generations. This can lead to evolutionary thinking in my opinion. Each generation is more intelligent than the last.
** Are we sure that the genealogies are without gaps? **
YES – otherwise it sets a precedent for us insert gaps into other narratives wherever we want throughout scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Leaves scripture wide open for readers to read all sorts of man-made doctrines and theories into it.
For a comprehensive discussion on this see: https://creation.com/genealogy-gaps
** Is Genesis 1 about creation or function? **
BOTH on a broad scale in my firm opinion. Going for the whole elephant and not the trunk or the tail. Listen to podcast: God Created with Functional Maturity (15 min)
https://creation.com/media-center/podcast/functional-maturity
** Is there really enough time for Satan to rebel (if you hold this view)? **
YES – between Day 1 & the Fall. We are not told how long this period of time is. I would say less than 100 years is the only conclusion we can reach from scripture using a YEC view.
** Basically, all scientists view the Universe as old and the Earth as old is blatantly FALSE statement often made by secular community and many atheistic scientists **
See this comprehensive listing: https://creation.com/creation-scientists
Also attempts have long been made to defund and silence Christian scientists
( https://creation.com/creation-scientists#discrimination )
** Faraway stars appear to age the Universe at 13 billion years **
Recent James Web Space Telescope imagery raise serious questions about deep-time and much better support an “Appearance of Age” or YEC position.
https://youtu.be/tmlpVSPd6Rc
https://youtu.be/HjmkDgE0MpQ
** There is no reason to believe that the speed of light has changed over time **
AGAIN FALSE. Measurements of speed of light “c” over the last few centuries show evidence it is slowing down.
https://creation.com/the-velocity-of-light-and-the-age-of-the-universe
APPEARANCE OF AGE VIEW
** This view accepts the scientific evidence and says that “God made the Universe appear old to test us.” I believe that God gave us our heads to think with. **
AGREE 100% … Adam and Eve appeared as adults on their first day – fully formed with all their complexity and design, ready to reproduce. Same with animal and plant life. This sets precedent and context for understanding creation process of the entire universe in my firm opinion. Why would we attempt to limit God when it comes to understanding his creation process for the entire the physical universe – all set-in motion with its complexity and design, and yes also “appearance of age”. Yes, he is testing us in many ways including concerning apparent age – “Are we going to limit what He is capable of doing? You should be asking yourself how big is your God allowed to be?”
God created with functional maturity, not ‘appearance of age’
>>> https://creation.com/is-apparent-age-biblical
God Created with Functional Maturity (15 min)
>>> https://creation.com/media-center/podcast/functional-maturity
Creation and the appearance of age
>>> https://creation.com/creation-and-appearance-of-age
** God does test us, but He is not a deceiver. **
A poor strawman argument I have heard before and used as a wedge for inserting pre-conceived deep-time and GAP theory into scripture. This inserts the same seeds of doubt within scripture that I fell for as a young physicist and geologist 40 years ago in accepting deep-time and GAP theory, and then later completely backsliding from the Christian faith as these positions both undermined other scriptures. Does Adam and Eve, specially formed as grown adults, also mean we are deceived because all humans after them were formed differently through biological laws and processes that God had set in motion?
SUMMING UP:
I no longer hold to any old-earth views as correct. I remain open to studying what each Creation view has to say, but I hold scripture as accurate, and that science will eventually confirm this from every angle. For the Christian, science is to be used in understanding how God’s Creation works and how it came into being where possible – not used to tear His scripture down. I hold to a YEC view of a special 7-Day Creation that includes the “appearance of age” at all scales – both life and the material universe. This is completely logical to me. And yes, this is also test of faith for many. How big and capable is the God you believe in? How and when Lucifer’s rebellion fits into this timeline exactly we are not told. He is the deceiver of the whole world in all areas of life at so many levels. It is not wise or good science where pseudo-scientific models and hypotheses are used to speculate beyond what we know operationally; to pulling scripture out of context to support conclusions based on non-operational scientific hypotheses or incomplete and/or fake scientific evidence is a snare. We must decide – Do we trust scripture first and foremost where it does speak on a particular area? Coming up with new interpretations is fine BUT it must fit within the guardrails of scripture held in its proper context.
Looking forward to your next few presentations on this area.
Great response. Came here to post a similar point-by-point response but you did a much better job that what I could’ve done. One thing I would add is that the speaker mentions YEC “attacking Science” by going after areas where “Science” is weak. So is he “attacking the Bible” by going after some areas in the Bible such as his questions about whether the audience of Genesis care about what a “day” means and questioning whether the genealogies are 100% accurate?
Your statements include a bunch of your own presuppositions, Sasha. How do you know, for example, that the author of Genesis (Moses?) may not himself have had a parabolic, or a semi-parabolic, interpretation of the Creation account(s) ?
Putting aside all the possible conceivable arguments and counter-arguments, what really is the ‘bottom line’, Peter ?
” For from Him, and through Him, and for Him, are all things. To God be the glory, forever. Amen. ”
Romans 11:36.
That does it for me.
Hi Sean, in the past you mentioned we could send you a voice comment through some app, can you remind me again what it was called?
Never mind, I found the link (click my name of anybody else should be interested as well). I think you should promote it more, just left you a message myself. 🙂
As for the episode, certainly informative to hear some different perspectives. I don’t really hold too strongly to one particular view, although I do think the universe being created old makes a lot of sense. It seems Will’s whole counter argument revolves around the assumption that holders of this view assume it to be a test or deception. I think that not necessarily the case at all.
Rather, the universe looking old is just a logical result of how God chose to create the universe. For example, when he created the plants and trees, they might have looked to be hundreds of years old even though we know it really was only a day (assuming a literal day for the argument). That’s not necessarily a test or a deception, it’s just that the result of a large tree being created in a day is it looking older than it is. Same thing for the oceans, mountains, starry sky etc.
I’d be interested in hearing more counter arguments that don’t presuppose God testing or deceiving us.
In any case, thanks a lot Sean and Will for all the effort and quality content!
Mark
https://www.speakpipe.com/restitutio
Absolutely, Mark.
Quality content!