Disclaimer:  My interest in this subject came and went years ago.  I now take the Genesis gap and an old earth for granted.  My interest waned when I became convinced.  That dormant interest only awakens when I'm asked about this belief and I feel a need to explain myself.

Below is my explanation.  It's poorly written because my grammar education never happened.  I repeat points often to tie them in with other points so that people can't dismiss them separately, which I've found they have a tendency to do in most any argument.  All these points sort of tie in later on in this rant.  I make claims early on to plant ideas in your head and then offer cumulative evidence from the bible later.  It's the only way I could think of to word it.

Also, I start off slow and beating around the bush.  The actual scripture references come in the second half of the rant.  I begin with more secondary, circumstantial evidence and end with more solidly biblical sources.  I also do not consider this "article" anywhere near finished.  It's a collection of a number of things which convince me of an old earth.  It's less than a blog.  It's a pile of run-on sentences crawling out of a garbage can, begging for a 6th grader to arrange them more suitably.

I initially started writing this with brothers and sisters from my home assembly who've inquired in mind, but have since taken on a mission to have a pile of evidence to offer anyone who asks for an answer from me in the future or on facebook or message boards, as I've been in several conversations with people over the topic the last few years...

As a final note, if you're not the type of person who's very pushy with your young earthism and you truly do have an open mind about the subject like those from my assembly, you may disregard my lightly scolding sarcasm strewn about this little rant.  It's only intended for those who are pretty sure of themselves.  I've experienced several different attitudes toward my point of view and most of them are rather passive and merely inquisitive.  Some others, however, have been quite cocky and pushy and pharisaical.  I've been told that I'm basically unsaved because I "don't believe the bible" a couple of times.  The sarcasm in this article is intended to shock those people into thinking more critically of their own position.

Without further ado:



Heterodoxy?

Young earth creationists quite often paint old earth creationists as liberals or people who don't really believe the bible.  They tend to argue that we erode away biblical truth because we don't support what they claim is plain and literal biblical truth.  They have the tendency to treat us like we all believe in evolution and view God as some impersonal force.  I will attempt to counter that belief here.

For starters, I should drop some names of very influential Christians who don't believe in young earth creationism, but are sound in their faith, some being quite conservative.  While I understand that this in no way proves an old earth, the point I'm trying to make is that these guys are mostly pretty sound in their Christian beliefs and life, and that they believe in an old earth, so if you want to give a sideways glance to an old earther, all these names ought to be included:

John Darby
William Kelly
Frederick Grant
Charles Coates
G.H. Pember
C.S. Lewis (partial evolutionist!)
Josh/Sean McDowell
Lee Strobel
Tim Keller (partial evolutionist!)
J.P. Moreland
J. Vernon McGee
William Lane Craig
John Lennox
David Gooding
Norm Geisler
Francis Schaeffer
Cyrus Scofield
Irenaeus
Justin Martyr
Eusebius
Origen
Basil
Augustine
Thomas Aquinas
Watchman Nee
Martin DeHaan
Roy Huebner
Clarence Larkin
G. Campbell Morgan
Arno Gaebelein
Harry Ironside
Arthur Pink
Louis Chafer
Warren Wiersbe
Charles Spurgeon
Gordon Hayhoe
Raymond Campbell
Grant Steidl
James Morris

....also, Philo and Josephus, as well as a whole lot of Jews from thousands of years ago, from what I understand.  The fact that a lot of ancient Jews and early church fathers often held to some sort of old earth idea should make you wonder if maybe there's not something to all this old earth heresy!  Maybe?   If many of the early Jewish targums (Onkelos, specifically), and even the punctuation marks in the Masoretic text of early Genesis verses, point to the idea that there may be something to this old earth idea, would you be willing to reconsider?  I won't be going into evidence like that here, but it IS out there if you should choose to research it.  I simply don't have the interest in this subject to follow it that far down the rabbit hole.  I've already spent far more hours than I ever planned on this topic, but I have a reason, which will become clear to you by the end of this poorly written "paper".

I know that the common strawman argument as to why many of these more recent brothers believed in an old earth is that either they were afraid of geologic records and evolutionary theory, or that they're apologists and are afraid to commit to solid bible doctrines because they've compromised biblical truth in an effort to appear relevant to unbelievers, which I agree would be wrong of them to do.  I don't think that's the truth behind it though.  At least not for most of them.  I think there's very good, very biblical arguments for the idea of an old earth.  It is my opinion that later in this paper I present enough holes in the idea of a young earth to convince at least ...ME!

As far as those I'm crediting to be old earth creationists above, some of them I am admittedly just going by what other people say.  I have not read the entire works of any of the early church fathers.  I also understand that some of those church fathers (Origen!) held to some strange beliefs.  So give me a break here!  But I have read many quotes from several of the more recent authors, meaning those from 1800's and on.  Over half of the above list was compiled by me from authors I'd read on the subject.  The remainder can be considered Google hear-say, if you wish to believe I'm full of baloney.

I have to ask though, do you really think that many of those listed above were really weak-spirited, weak-minded compromisers of God's word and will?  Were they carried to and fro by every wind of doctrine?  Would they maybe have done better to have been taught by yourself, or the illustrious Ken Ham?  Do they need a visit to Noah's $100,000,000 ark in Kentucky to see the cages that supposedly stored pterodactyls to have a more complete understanding of God's word?  Hahahaaa!!!

I'd like to note (mostly because I think it's funny) that J. Vernon McGee thought that the universe had not only been around for millions of years, even billions, but he suggested that it'd probably been around for "squillions" of years.  I don't know how many zeros come after a squillion, but I'm guessing it's a lot.  If you want to know where I heard that, it was listening to his radio ministry for the first chapter of John's gospel on YouTube.  I'll be using this term "squillions" again in this article, because I like the indefinite amount of time attached to that imaginary number.

Now, time for an actual point!  I'm going to present you with an example of a different topic that's quite similar to this young/old earth debate, but this topic has basically been solved at this point.  It shouldn't take long for you to start making a correlation.

I get to some of the most common scriptures that gap creationists (otherwise known as ruin-reconstructionists) use later in this rant.  For now, I'm going to make a long point against the near-Catholic dogmatism surrounding the general attitude of today's young earth creationists:



Does the sun come up in the morning?

When I was a child, I remember my mom telling me to ask my teacher a question and relay the answer to her after school.  I was probably in 2nd or 3rd grade.  When I asked the question to the teacher, she replied with "Does the sun come up in the morning?"  I took it as a "yes".

When I told my mother what the teacher said later that night, dad sarcastically remarked that her answer must've meant "no", since the sun doesn't go around the earth..  After a couple minutes of banter, my parents agreed that the teacher actually meant "yes", but dad instructed me to tell my teacher that the sun doesn't go around the earth.  Thus began my school career of smarting off at teachers.




In the 4th century BC, Aristotle put forth a model of our solar system which claimed that the earth was in a fixed state and that the sun and stars moved around us.  Essentially, we were the center of the universe.  Sounds so silly, doesn't it?

Already though, around 250 BC a fellow named Aristarchus put a rough sketch of a heliocentric model of our solar system out there.  These two opposing models were argued about for CENTURIES, with the heliocentric model being considered the obtuse solution.  This went on for roughly 2000 years, depending on the culture we're talking about.

In case you don't know what "heliocentric" means, it means that the planets in our solar system orbit around the sun.  This is what we learned in school and most likely what you teach your children without a second guess.  These days you would laugh at the suggestion of the opposite, as my father sarcastically did in the earlier mentioned anecdote.

In the 1200s AD, Thomas Aquinas read a bit of Aristotle's works and shortly thereafter decreed that the earth was fixed in space and that all the planets and stars and sun moved around it.  The Roman Catholic church made a papal bull about it (or whatever) and it was basically considered a fact.  If you were to argue it, you would be facing charges of heresy, quite likely.  That probably wouldn't end well for you in the dark ages.

In 1543 Copernicus died, and around the same time a work of his was published which claimed a more modern heliocentric model in some detail.  Copernicus faced no persecution because he was dead, but the book fell under heavy scrutiny and was on banned book lists within 15 years.

Less than a hundred years later, Galileo started teaching the heliocentric model publicly and was persecuted harshly by the Catholic church, eventually ending up in prison, where he died, despite the fact that he recanted his claim and had been saying his penitential psalms and doing all that other Catholic guilt stuff.  I wonder if he got out of purgatory a few hundred years later when the Romanists finally admitted to a heliocentric solar system?  Not likely!

It wasn't just the Catholics who felt this way.  Like so many other things, Martin Luther and John Calvin were on the wrong side of history for this one.  Calvin said in a commentary on Psalm 4 that,

"By what means could it (the earth) maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it?"


And Martin Luther said in one of his Table Talks,

"There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around, instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved.  But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must... invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best!  The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down.  However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth."


Now here's some scriptures (ESV) about this subject to consider:

"Tremble before him, all the earth; yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved."
  -  1 Chronicles 16:30

"Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved."
  -  Psalm 93:1

"He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved."
  -  Psalm 104:5

"For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and on them he has set the world."
  -  1 Samuel 2:8


The Catholic church and our favorite reformers were thinking of verses like these when they stood firm on the official doctrine of the earth as the stationary center of the universe.  Any who thought outside that box were out of step with pop Christendom of that day.  They "didn't believe the bible".  Furthermore, the idea that the sun stopped moving for Joshua, thereby again proclaiming that the sun moved around the earth, is more rigidly backed up with verses like these:

"In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.  Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat."
  -  Psalm 19:4-6

"The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises."
  -  Ecclesiastes 1:5


So then, using the same insensitive, selectively hyper-literal hermeneutic (I believe it's called "literalism") applied by a young earth creationist to verses in the first few chapters of Genesis, when applied to the verses just quoted, you have two choices:  You can either agree with the Catholics and Reformers of 500 years ago that the earth doesn't move and the entire universe moves around it, or you must admit that science is right and the bible is incorrect.

I think neither is wrong about that subject, myself.  I think it's a faulty bible interpretation which would lead me to have to make such a ridiculous decision and dogmatically stand behind it, considering any who didn't agree to be at least somewhat heretical.  Furthermore, I think that looking back on the position taken by the church at large on that subject is incriminating and an embarrassment to this day!  Yet another permanent black mark on our witness to the world.  The Catholic church didn't admit that Galileo was actually correct and wasn't a heretic until the 1900's!

Those quoted scriptures were inspired, but sometimes written in a subjective, and not 10000% literal sense, just as if you were to say "I'm running late" or "You drive me up the wall".  If I were to take that last statement in a 10000% literal sense, I would have to believe that person A and person B actually got into a car and that person A actually drove up a wall before person B made the comment to person A "You drive me up the wall".  That's insane, but that's what insensitive reading gets you.  There's several different types of figures of speech all over the bible, on every page!  We have to be taking these into consideration when we interpret things in a literal fashion!

Besides all that, I think there's a whole heck of a lot of stuff that God just doesn't tell us.  Especially in the first 3 chapters of Genesis.  And while it's not my job to speculate outside scripture very much on what those gaps in story-telling may contain, it IS my business to think about why a complete story may not have been told and maybe not get so dogmatic and doctrinally self-assured when we're dealing with areas like that.  The first 3 chapters of Genesis are an extremely brief account.  They're historical so far as they go, but they only really tell you a very few things.  Very general.  It's an extremely concise overview of what was obviously an extraordinarily impressive event.

It's also my job to take other parts of the bible which may be referring to creation or the fall of Satan and his angels and form some sort of cohesive timeline out of that information.  As we know with the pre-trib rapture doctrine, amongst other things, God doesn't always lay things out so plainly.  Instead He drops little hints here and there and leaves it to us to figure out.  This is something I believe He does on purpose, so that only genuine believers will have a real understanding of His word.  A relationship with Jesus Christ is all about love, and those in loving relationships enjoy being pursued and pursuing.  What if you never asked your wife or parents about their lives before they met you?  What if you never asked them about their day?  What if you never asked them their opinion on anything?  What if you never diligently searched for the perfect birthday gift to suit the tastes of that specific person?  They probably wouldn't think you loved them very much.  God feels the same in a way, I think.  Reading the bible and praying are things that show God you love Him and are interested in what He thinks.  Getting off topic...

I say that the young earth creationist has probably taken a pre-supposed, faulty biblical exegesis and spent the last 50 years trying their hardest to twist science (as some do scripture) in every direction that they can and with as much force as they can muster to try and make the scientific model fit their janky interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis.

I'd like to note that quite recently I viewed an argument on facebook between two Christians, one of which I actually know in person, though briefly.  He is quite sound, from what I can tell, and a young earther.  Anyway, he was debating a girl regarding the shape of the earth.  She seemed to believe that it was flat and had a few bible verses which "proved" that to her.  She looked quite foolish.  But she kept throwing that idea out there, that the guy she was arguing "doesn't believe the bible" because he didn't accept her faulty interpretation that the bible was calling the earth flat.  This is just another example I thought I'd throw in, last minute, to show you how we look to the world with our young earth propaganda.

If I'm wrong about the old earth, then I will look dumb some day and so will any who bought into that idea.  We'll still go to heaven, but I'm sure the Lord Jesus will correct us about our foolishness.  However, if young earthers are wrong, which I'm pretty sure that they are, you have been throwing stumbling blocks like bowling balls in front of the whole world for the last 25 years.

My consequences for being wrong are just that I will look stupid some day.  Your consequences are that you have been scaring people away from everything the bible has to say.  I don't want that on my conscience.  Can you bear that?  Is it worth it to feel as if you're right?



A call to objectivity

I think that the young earth position at large is harmful to the Christian witness.  I've never met an unbeliever who made mention of the fact that they thought a Christian was a hypocrite for having a beer at a bar, or that a Christian was laughable because they smoked, or evil because they read a Harry Potter book.  Most of the basest heathen I've encountered can agree that Christ was at least a good man, even if they don't quite get how dying on the cross is going to help them stay out of hell for pirating movies off the internet.  Most people think Jesus is okay in my experience, at least at first glance.

I've heard several unbelievers comment that what we believe about science and history in the realm of young earthism is a fairy tale that they wouldn't let their own children believe in for a second.  It's because of things like young earth creation and the pseudoscience and revisionist history involved that they say those things.  And I don't blame them!  However, if those same unbelievers were to talk to someone like C.S. Lewis or John Lennox or William Kelly for 5 minutes, I have the sneaking suspicion that they would walk away questioning their own beliefs.  Why do you think that is?

Why can William Lane Craig make so many people question how they think and Ken Ham cannot?  At least from what I've seen, Ken Ham is the laughing stock of the English speaking science community.  If you were to take a poll the next time you go downtown to hand out tracts, I bet you would find that the Ken Ham/Bill Nye debate is at or near the top of the list for why most of those kids can confidently slam the door on whatever the bible has to say.  30 years ago they weren't so sure about evolution.  Thanks to the Ham-brained young earth model shoved down the throats of the public by every Christian for the last 25 years, they now more than ever think that the bible is just a book of fairy tales and that evolution has to be true.  In my opinion, Satan loves young earth creationism.  It makes his job SO easy!

Augustine had these somewhat harsh, but helpful words in his book The Literal Meaning Of Genesis, vol 1:
"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens... and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.  Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should all take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn... If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?"

Or, as John Lennox puts it in much kinder fashion:
"If my views on something not fundamental to the gospel, on which equally convinced Christians disagree, attract ridicule and therefore disincline my hearers to listen to anything I have to say about the Christian message, then I should be prepared to entertain the possibility that it might be my interpretation that is at fault."
  -  John Lennox, 7 Days That Divide The World

Do you remember the debate I mentioned?  The one where Bill Nye mopped the floor with Ken Ham's head?  That's how I remember it!  Ken Ham, who is one of the most respected "educators" for a young earth model couldn't even handle himself with a TELESCIENTIST!  FOR KIDS!  Bill Nye is a glorified babysitter from the television and Ken Ham got wrecked by him.  That's what unbelievers in English speaking countries are thinking about when you try to bring up young earth propaganda to them.  Bill Nye is to scientists as Joel Osteen is to Christians.  He's a mega lightweight in the science community.  Ken Ham got smoked like a gas-soaked cigar in both debates!  And Bill was trying to be nice in the first one!  In the second one (on the Ark model), Bill Nye was obviously quite irritated and his arrogance was showing.  I didn't blame him though.

I actually like both Bill Nye and Ken Ham, but I think they're wrong on a lot of things.  However, Bill Nye impressed me a few times in that first debate by consistently stating that the reason he believes in modern secular science is because they have numerous predictions fulfilled which prove the theories that they have.  He said that if Christianity could offer the same evidence (fulfilled predictions), that he would give it consideration.

Dave Hunt was a young earth creationist, but I know that he would've immediately switched gears at that point to PROPHECY.  Right?  Isn't that what Bill Nye is asking for?  It occurred to me then, why don't modern Christians focus on the "more sure word of prophecy" than trying to beat scientists at their own game?  Why do we so indoctrinate ourselves with worldly wisdom (science) and try to beat an atheist/agnostic on their own court?  It's given us a cursed record akin to the Detroit Lions.  I think we make it harder for God to bring future sheep in by building up walls of worldly nonsense like young earth science, amongst other things that we've become associated with which aren't in the least bit biblical, like political agendas.  Not that God won't have who He wants one way or another, but we're just not helping much on a grand scale, as far as I can tell.  I think that we are working against God's best intentions to save people like my wife.  My wife was delayed by years because of the pathetic Christian witness to the world.  It took years to convince her that Christians weren't just a bunch of idiotic rednecks who hate democrats.  I think Christians themselves can take the blame for that.




Long story short  (Genesis 1)

Let me say now, that if you want to continue believing in a young earth, whatever.  I don't care.  I'm just trying to make mention that there are alternatives which are held by quite sound Christians and that we have biblical reasons for believing these things.  Also, I'm trying to stress that Christians are not necessarily soft on their understanding of scripture or their commitment to the Lord Jesus if they don't hold to a young earth position.  Was John Darby soft on his doctrine?  Did he know the Lord Jesus?  Was J. Vernon McGee swept off his feet by the science of his day?  Are David Gooding and John Lennox uninformed in their studies of either the bible or scientific research?

I'm trying to make it plain that concerning outsiders, young earth science only draws criticism.  Very few find it respectable who didn't grow up in church.  Like Christian pop music, young Earth creationism mostly appeals to people who are a couple generations deep in church culture.  They find the shock of outside influences to be too much for them to compute, so they fall back on less troubling ideas which are manufactured with spiritual approval from everyone's favorite Zondervan-approved ministers.  It's easier than having to answer a lot of hard questions and also helps them to fit in, which people seem to greatly desire, in general.  And it appeases the flesh with a G rating, which makes modern Christian parents feel that their children have been properly Christianized and would never stray.  ...How's that for an unfair strawman from the other side?!

C.S. Lewis was basically a progressive creationist/partial evolutionist, from what I've read.  I'm pretty unconvinced on theistic evolution.  John Lennox and some others on that list seem to hold more to a day-age theory, meaning that they don't believe in 24-hour creation days.  I'm on the fence for that one.  I could see it being either way sometimes, but mostly lean toward seven 24-hour days.  350 days a year I believe that the creation days are 24 hours long.  The other few days I wonder a bit...  I see a lot of scriptural support for both sides of that argument.  I won't be going into that topic here, however.

The one that gets me is what most early dispensationalists believed.  It was called the "Gap Theory", AKA "Ruin-Reconstruction", which puts an indefinite amount of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, but still holds to six 24-hour REcreation days.  There's a lot to it, but Charles Coates gives this concise definition:

"'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'. That is all we get about the original creation. Then in the second verse we find things fallen into a state of ruin. "And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep". This was certainly not as it was created -- for we are expressly told that "not as waste [the same word as in Genesis 1:2] did he create it" (Isaiah 45:18). The same words 'waste' and 'empty' are used of Edom (Isaiah 34:11), and of Israel (Jeremiah 4:23), when those nations have come under Jehovah's vengeance and fierce anger. So that a solemn change had come about between the first and second verses of Genesis 1. We do not know what length of time elapsed between those two verses; possibly the long periods of which geologists speak might come in there. In verse 2 we find the earth a scene of disorder and darkness. It is in such a scene that God's movements and activities are presented as taking place -- activities which come to an end on the sixth day, so that on the seventh day God rested."
  -  Charles Coates, An Outline Of Genesis


"And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."
  -  Genesis 1:2, Darby translation

"For thus sayeth Jehovah who created the heavens, God himself who formed the earth and made it, he who established it--not as waste did he create it: he formed it to be inhabited:"
  -  Isaiah 45:18, Darby translation

"And the pelican and the bittern shall possess it, and the great owl and the raven shall dwell in it.  And he shall stretch out upon it the line of waste, and the plummets of emptiness."
  -  Isaiah 34:11, Darby translation

"I beheld the earth and lo, it was waste and empty: and the heavens, and they had no light."
  -  Jeremiah 4:23, Darby translation

The KJV says that the earth "was without form and void" in Genesis 1:2, and other translations put it other ways, but the most literal translations (Young's Literal Translation and Darby's New Translation) both word it as "waste and empty".

Robert Young and John Darby had nothing to do with each other, as Young came out of the free church of Scotland and I do believe Young's translation was published a mere year or two prior to Darby's.  Whatever the case, those two are considered some of the most accurate, most literal English translations of the bible to this day.

What's more, two other verses where those Hebrew words for "waste (tohu) and empty (bohu)" occur is talking about God destroying Edom for sin and also destroying Israel for sin, in Isaiah 34:11 and Jeremiah 4:23, respectively.  There's also Isaiah 45:18 which states that "not as waste (tohu) did he create it" (the earth).  If you follow the uses of those words with your Vine's and Strong's lexicon tools throughout the few books of the bible they're present in (Genesis, Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah), I think you'll find they carry a similar theme throughout.

To me, that speaks some truth as to how we ought to treat the actual definition of those words.  In both of the cases with Edom and Israel, they were punished by God for sin and it was NOT their original state.  They were in a working state and THEN were destroyed, made tohu and bohu, because of SIN.

I believe it strongly suggests that God created everything in Genesis 1:1 in a state of perfection, then a bunch of sinful stuff went down and God basically destroyed what He had created, and then we end up at verse 1:2.  I get the impression that God isn't exactly being detailed with His entire creation of the universe between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 2:2.  Maybe there's a bit more to it than a few hundred words.  Do you think that maybe it could be a possibility?  We'll get a little bit more into why I have the described chain of events in my mind later on.  For now, just keep reading.

There's more reasons that a lot of those old dispensationalists believed in the gap.  For one, sin entered the universe BEFORE Adam and Eve ate the fruit.  We know that, because Satan had to fall before Adam and Eve if he was going to tempt them in the garden, right?  And it's rather speculative, but there is a number of hints in the bible which may suggest that Satan is prince of this world now because he tried to usurp God's authority in the past and so God gave him the ability to call some shots on the planet which he tried to steal for himself.  Rather, when Adam gave up his right to run this world, Satan picked it up (again), and Christ won it back positionally later, but still has not taken it back practically.

If Satan was part of this world in some way before he fell into sin and dragged so many angels along with him, it would explain why God judged and punished this planet and maybe the solar system and maybe the universe by flooding the world and basically destroying all life to start over.

His Spirit moved on the face of the waters.  Sounds like it could be a hint as to an ice age, as water does not necessarily need to be in liquid form, right?  My understanding of the ice age(s) is that the entire world was basically a snow ball for some time.  The whole world was covered in water.  Frozen water.  Ice.  An ice age.  What happens to water when there is no light (heat) on it?  It freezes, right?  Was there light on the earth in Genesis 1:2?  Not yet!  Like I said, I'll be getting into some of these details with scripture shortly.

There's also a word study that can be done on the 3 or 4 words used between 1:1 and 2:2 for the words "created", "made", and "formed".  The argument there is that the word in Genesis 1:1 for "created" means something a bit different from the words "made" and "formed" in later verses.  "Created" would mean that God created out of nothing.  "Made" and "formed" would mean that God made stuff out of existing materials that He had already created.  The verse in Isaiah uses the same Hebrew word for "create" as was used in Genesis 1:1.

So, since Isaiah 45:18 states that God didn't create (same Hebrew word as in Genesis 1:1) the world as waste, that would mean that when Genesis 1:2 says that the earth was "waste and empty", that God didn't create it that way.  Something had taken place before that.  Then God judged and remade a world, possibly a universe, out of the same ingredients He'd used the first time around at the initial creation from nothing.  That's the argument, at least.  I find it convincing, personally, when certain scriptures are presented.



Hidden in plain sight

I'll now attempt to bring up a few of the more common points from scripture:


Exhibit A:  The first word in Genesis 1:2 is the Hebrew word "Waw", which is translated "And" in a lot of translations, but could just as easily be translated "But", which actually reads better.  So, starting at the end of verse 1, in my own understanding, the beginning of verse 1:2 may read, "But the earth was waste and empty", which would denote some unspoken piece of history happening between those two verses.  As if I were to say, "I was born with a good leg, but then a tiger tore it off in Africa, and then I got a prosthetic one."

What I didn't tell you about was how I was a star athlete well into my 20's and then my financial and physical struggle with no leg for 43 years until I finally got the money saved to have it replaced with a prosthetic limb.  Doesn't mean it didn't happen.  It means I was making a long story short, which I believe is very much the case in the early parts of Genesis, as it is in several other places in the bible.  I think if God explained the creation in much detail at all it would probably take more pages than could be produced in a thousand lifetimes.  Remember the idea of the mountain peaks that the prophets were looking across?  Well, I think there's quite probably some mountain peaks in the early chapters of Genesis, specifically between 1:1 & 1:2.  That's all the gap theory is really about.


Exhibit B:  Again, the Hebrew word "hayah" is translated as "was" in KJV and a lot of other translations.  This would also easily translate as "had become" according to people who understand Hebrew well.  While I'm not one of those people, neither are you.  You're also not a geologist and are just going by other people's understanding of those things when you ascribe your facts to young earth science.  So now the verse would start out like, "But the earth had become waste and empty".  And that reads even better in my opinion.  It should also be noted that it's translated in that fashion in Genesis 2:7, 2:10, 3:22 and elsewhere.  I think that adds weight to the argument over this bit of translation.

Before you object to my twisting of translation to fit my view of the age of the earth, remember that Isaiah 45:18 tells us explicitly that God didn't create the earth "tohu" (waste/without form).  Isaiah tells us that God didn't create the earth that way.  So what do we do with Genesis 1:2 which says that He did, according to young earthers?  I say that maybe it's not translated the best in English versions.  I say the "tohu" and "bohu" in Genesis 1:2 are referring to a judged state, just as they were in Isaiah 34:11 and Jeremiah 4:23.

I say that sin happened on this earth and that Satan was behind it, and that sin brought death into the world once before, and God wiped everything out with a flood, which turned into an ice age, and His spirit moved across the face of the (frozen) waters before He started the game over again.  Can you not see a tiny bit of reason in my thinking there?  No?  We'll keep going then!  There's more!


Exhibit C:  Darkness in scripture is quite often pointing to a state of judgment, as in Jude 13, John 3:19, and the accounts of a dark sky when Jesus was on the cross.  I think that Satan rebelled a long time ago and God probably let it continue on for a while, then He flooded the world and shut out the lights, which took the heat from the earth, thereby causing the flooded water to become ice.  I can't be dogmatic about something like that, obviously.  It's just something I see as plausible from what I read.  I only know that darkness in scripture is generally brought about by God's judgment.  It's not how He starts stories.  It's how things end up when sin and judgment are involved.  I think that's why the darkness was there in the beginning of Genesis 1.


Exhibit D:  Jeremiah 4:23-26 which reads, "I beheld the earth, and lo, it was waste and empty; and the heavens, and they had no light.  I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills shook violently.  I beheld, and lo, man was not, and all the fowl of the heavens were fled.  I beheld, and lo, the fruitful land was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down, before Jehovah, before his fierce anger."

The context is that Jeremiah is threatening Israel of God's judgment.  And I think he's in essence trying to say, "God has trampled this entire universe before in judgment, do you really want Him to get angry and do something similar to you?"  Anyway, I think these verses are speaking of a past judgment on the earth, which included a flood and earthquakes and the lights being turned out in the heavens.  It may also refer to a future state, in part, but I can't think of a time on the future prophetic calendar when it will ever be said "man was not".  It may refer to both ideas.

In fact, the concept that God is going to judge this earth and the heavens again in the future, only to make a new heavens and new earth to me lands credence for my train of thought.  I see a pattern or two in how God deals with disobedience on earth either way I look at these verses.  This scripture makes me think of the first couple verses in Genesis SO HARD!

And anyway, was Jeremiah's (God's) threat to be compared with some other event that's supposed to happen in the future?  Is it like a parent saying, "If you don't listen to me, I'm going to spank you, and it's going to hurt real bad, just like when you go to jail in the future and get beat up by 5 guys at once"?  Or is God saying something more along the lines of, "Your father used to spank me harder for a lot less, don't think I won't take off my belt if you won't listen!"  ?  Well then?


Exhibit E:  "Thou wast in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was thy covering: the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the chrysolite, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the carbuncle, and the emerald, and gold. The workmanship of thy tambours and of thy pipes was in thee: in the day that thou wast created were they prepared. Thou wast the anointed covering cherub, and I had set thee [so]: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou didst walk up and down in the midst of stones of fire.  Thou wast perfect in thy ways, from the day that thou wast created, till unrighteousness was found in thee."  -  Ezekiel 28:13-15

The above verses are generally interpreted to be talking about Satan.  I agree.  I hope you do too, because there's very few who don't think so.  So then, young earth creationists tell me that Satan was created in the initial 6 days of creation.  We can know he had his fall before mankind because he was sinning when he was lying to Eve.  He is the father of lies and also a "murderer from the start", which means he probably murdered before Cain.  Maybe not.  Maybe he just influenced Cain.  Still, it's something to think about.

With the above verses from Ezekiel in mind, you have to consider that Satan was in "Eden", and that he was apparently playing a bunch of instruments and was covered in all kinds of jewels which are probably symbolic for something religious, considering that the array is strikingly similar to the priestly robes (Exodus 28).  God gave him the high ranking office of "covering cherub" which whatever that may mean, probably means he was WAY up in ranks among the other creatures, and he was on some holy mountain and doing all kinds of important things.

Again, was this "holy mountain" denoting something religious?  Are we talking about other "holy mountains" of scripture at this point?  Mt. Sinai?  Moriah?  Olivet?  Furthermore, if we're going to be reading this literally like we should, where does this fit in with the earliest verses of Genesis?  If Satan sinned before Eve and was cast out of heaven, why no record of that in the Genesis account?    When was this being created, as no claim is made in the Genesis account of any angels being created?  Let me illustrate what I'm getting at with sarcasm:

Stuff was great for Satan for a while, but then he obviously fell.  His glorious office lasted for what, 2 days?  3?  At some point in his short but mega-awesome career he decided, completely unprovoked by anyone else, to "become like the most high".  He sinned because of his pride.  And we know he sinned before Adam and Eve.  If you don't remember why that is, I'll get to it.  My point right now is that all this drama and creation of Satan and the angels (good band name) happened in the background of the 6 days of creation.  God just didn't bother mentioning His creating Satan and all those angels, or the fact that Satan rebelled and all that.  ...for some reason...  Didn't bother mentioning it, but thought it was all "very good" as he looked back on His 6 days of creation (Genesis 1:31)

So Satan sinned and he fell.  For some reason God didn't really care when he sinned though.  I mean, at least the bible makes it seem that way.  The wages of sin is death, unless Satan does it.  Right?  He didn't get thrown out of the garden.  Instead, Satan possessed some serpent creature and went about trying to practice his new talent to sin and happened to stumble upon Eve when God was distracted by YouTube videos or something.  Satan sinned and rebelled against God, but God either didn't notice or care about that, at least not at that time.

However, when Eve ate some watermelon after being tempted into it by an already sinful serpent possessed by Satan, and Adam followed her lead, God just couldn't deal with it.  He kicked them out and cursed all of creation for the thing that Satan had already done a few days prior.  Death came into existence for the first time ever because of man's sin, and not when Satan sinned previously.  The wages of sin is NOT death in Satan's case, according to young earth creationists.

Pardon me if I don't think it quite adds up. Shouldn't mankind be considered far worse than Satan, in a way?  He may have invented sin, but death exists because of us!  God didn't seem nearly as upset when Satan, who was in the very presence of God in His glory, sinned and tried to usurp His authority.  But when Adam and Eve ate the Jonagold apple instead of the Honeycrisp, it was just too much for God to stand.  Does this sound about right to the young earth creationist?


Exhibit F:  "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! [how] art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.  Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.  They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, [and] consider thee, [saying, Is] this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;"  -  Isaiah 14:12-16

William Kelly thinks this is describing future events and while it's hard to disagree with Mr. Kelly, I'm not 100% convinced.  It could be describing Satan's initial fall, which would have interesting implications in regard to what the rest of these verse says, alluding to what may have been a civilization on earth long before the 6 days of REcreation.  Again, this may possibly be describing both past and future events as the bible has done in other places.  Nothing is new under the sun!

Still, that phrase "the sides of the north" makes me think of Psalm 48:2, which states "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King."  So this verse would have me believe that this mountain which the preceding verse denotes with this "sides of the north" designation is Mt. Zion.  Couple it with the fact that the Ezekiel 28 verse above speaks of "the holy mountain of God", while Isaiah 66:20 states "And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD."

Are you getting my point as to what I think Ezekiel and Isaiah are referring to with this "holy mountain" and the "sides of the north"?  I think that the combination of exhibits E & F suggest that Satan at one time had some sort of role as a spiritual leader.  A high priest type.  And he was hanging out in ancient Jerusalem, long before it saw the Jewish people.  We'll get back to this point.  Just keep it in mind.


Exhibit G:  Revelation 12:4 says "And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born."

Okay, so I know that a lot of Revelation 12 is referring to future events, but I don't believe that this verse is.  It looks to me like Satan drew a third of the angels (stars of heaven) before Christ was born, because the dragon was waiting to devour the child as soon as it was born.  So anyway, fallen angels had to come from somewhere and this could very well be a brief description of that scenario.  If not, they obviously fell at some point in the distant past because we're dealing with demons on earth now and have been since the beginning of our existence, so far as we know.  Can someone tell me otherwise?


Exhibit H:  One that really hits hard for me is 2 Peter 3:4-7   "And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.  For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:  Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:  But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."

A lot of people think that this refers to Noah's flood because that was mentioned back in chapter 2.  I disagree for four reasons.  1) There is a different context present in verse 4.  This other context is "the beginning of the creation".  2) Toward the end where it says, "...the heavens and the earth, which are now..."  Wait a minute, what happened to the heavens in Noah's flood?  Did the heavens get destroyed too?  Why is Peter mentioning the heavens in this passage at all, let alone insinuating that there was some drastic change in the heavens, if he was referring to Noah's flood?  3)  The earth perished in the flood described.  The earth didn't perish in Noah's flood.  Sea animals and sea plants did just fine, to be sure.  God's goal was to kill the humans with that flood.  And he spared Noah, his sons, and the wives, along with however many hundreds of animals.  4) The reason I think the earth perished because of any flood is because of an ICE AGE which resulted from flooding the earth and shutting down the heavens, thereby turning out the light of the sun, which caused the earth to freeze nearly solid.  And compare the wording of the waters in this verse with Genesis 1:6,7.  I definitely think there's something there.

I think that in these verses Peter is looking back to a different flood.  One which was brought about through judgment that affected the heavens as well.  One through which NOTHING survived.  And the earth was reformed.  A flood much more powerful than Noah's and which froze and stayed in that state a very long time.  I could be wrong, but that's why my opinion doesn't hang on this one verse!


Exhibit I:  Job 38:4-7 states “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?  Tell Me, if you have understanding.  Who determined its measurements?  Surely you know!  Or who stretched the line upon it?  To what were its foundations fastened?  Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

To me the above verses are clearly saying that the angels were around before the earth.  They sang for joy when God laid the foundation, which may mean a number of things, but still says that they existed before the foundation of the earth.  I don't think that's an airtight scripture proving that the angels are super duper old, but I think it points to it.  At the very least, it places the angels' creation in verse 1 of Genesis, in between "the heavens" and "the earth".  Honestly, the picture that I get is that the angels were probably created before any matter and are older than the universe themselves.  And that the universe is FAR older than 6000 years itself.



Exhibit J:  I'm quite elementary on the subject of Hell and Hades and the Lake Of Fire and the Abyss/Pit.  That's sort of confusing to me.  I know that what is called the Lake Of Fire is the finality of it.  And I know that unbelievers go somewhere quite unfun when they die.  And there's places which talk about the Abyss all over the bible.  Some of the worst demons are currently being stored there and I would gather that this Abyss is located at the center of the earth.  If I'm wrong, I apologize, but I think that's basically what I've read about it.

Whatever the case, there's some thing called the Abyss somewhere that has some really scary dudes locked up in it.  I get the idea from Isaiah 14 that Lucifer was cast into this pit that I'm referring to.  Him and the one-third angels he drew to himself.  And that later Lucifer and the less insane demons were let out to roam the earth.  Luke 8:31 has the demon(s) begging the Lord Jesus "not to order them to go back to the abyss".  Right?  So this is saying that some form of Hell is already in existence, though it may not be the final Lake Of Fire referred to in other passages.  It also appears to be inside the earth, according to Revelation 9.

What I'm getting at is, when was this abyss made?  According to a young earth creationist, was this made during the 6 creation days, or after?  Why no mention?  Also, if it were made during the 6 days in Genesis, did God therefore refer to it as "very good" when He was done with creation?  Do you really think that God would call the creation of Hell and millions (billions?  trillions?  squillions?) of creatures that He made rebelling against Him within a matter of days a very good thing?  I realize that everything God does is good and one of those things is giving freedom of choice (to a certain extent) to much of His creation, but still...  There's just so many questions!

If you ever noticed, God calls His creative act "very good" before Adam and Eve ate of the fruit.  I don't think He would've referred to it as "very good" after they ate the fruit.  So why would He refer to Satan and a squillion angels sinning like madmen as "very good"?

As a sidenote, I think it's interesting that the earth's core is liquid fire.  Ever thought about that?



Exhibit K:  Hebrews 12:25-27 states, "See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks.  If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on the earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us of heaven?  At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, 'Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.'  The words 'once more' indicate the removing of what can be shaken - that is, created things - so that what cannot be shaken may remain."

Do I even need to bother what I'm implying at this point?  Again, it's saying that the heavens were shaken once before, which I don't think happened at Noah's flood.  I think a shaking happened between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.  This seems to strongly point to ruin-reconstruction as far as I'm concerned.

For further reference, the writer of Hebrews is referencing Haggai chapter 2.



Exhibit L:  Hebrews 11:3 YLT says, "By faith we understand the ages to have been prepared by a saying of God, in regard to the things seen not having come out of things appearing."

The above quote is out of Young's Literal Translation.  The word "ages" is translated as "universe" and "world" in other translations.  That's not entirely accurate though, as the original greek word used here is "aionas" (plural), which literally means "ages".  Time and space are both implied when defining greek words with the "aion" root.

Luke 20:34-35 YLT says, "And Jesus answering said to them, 'The sons of this age (aionos) do marry and are given in marriage, but those accounted worthy to obtain that age, and the rising again that is out of the dead, neither marry, nor are they given in marriage;"

This verse would have me believe that Christ is calling our time from Adam and Eve until now one age, since that's when the concept of marriage was instituted.  This verse combined with the previous verse would tell me that there was an age before the age of Adam and Eve.  There's many other verses to compare for this idea if you want to take the time to do it.  The bible has a lot to say about "aion" if you feel like looking into it.  I believe it will convince you further of my point of view if you were to research that word.



Exhibit M (just for kicks):  "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."  -  Genesis 1:28 (KJV)

Do you notice the word "replenish" in that sentence?  Well then, what does it mean to "replenish"?  It denotes that the earth was once filled and needs to be refilled!  But, you can play translation games to do away with that if you want.  I already looked into it.  "Replenish" isn't the only translation that could go there.  However, the next time you get in a debate with a KJV-only guy, you should really tell him that if he's not a gap creationist, he doesn't think that the KJV translation is completely perfect!  HAHAHAHAAAA!!!  EAT THAT, KJV GUYS!


Below I'm going to attempt to describe how I would have to view things in order to believe in young earth creation:

In the beginning, God created the heavens.  Then he created the angels because they were around before the earth, according to Job 38.  The angels were created and immediately started jumping for joy and hooting and hollering because God was creating the earth and it was blowing their minds.  Again, see Job 38.

Later, sometime after the 3rd day when God had created vegetation which allowed for an Edenic garden, Lucifer had taken on a role of high majesty and was leading worship with musical instruments and dressed in his priestly robes on the top of Mt. Zion or something.  All of the creatures in the universe were worshiping God in unison and it was incredible.  See Ezekiel 28.

Unfortunately, Satan got bored with this after a couple days and rebelled against God and managed to talk squillions of angels into joining his cause.  See Revelation 12.  God lost His cool and cast them all down into the abyss that He created and forgot to mention and called very good later on, but it was only for a day or something .  He let at least Satan out of the abyss so he could tempt Adam and Eve.  See Isaiah 14.  Then God propped his feet up on a footstool and rested.

After all of this crazy stuff happening in the midst of the 6 creation days, God creates man and woman, who the serpent immediately tempts probably within 48 hours of leaving the Abyss.  Am I missing something here?  It sure seems like it.  I can't imagine God calling it "very good" when sin had just been introduced into His universe and He had to create Hell to deal with all these rebellious angels.

Apologies, but I just have a really hard time taking the young earth view seriously because of the problem of Satan.  I don't care about geology.  It's Satan and the fallen angels and the mystery of how evil entered God's universe which will not allow me to accept that all of creation is only 6000 years old.  I simply do not believe the bible teaches that in light of other scriptures.  I wish I could.  It would make everyone like me better if I just thought like everyone else.  I'm trying to say that from a biblical standpoint, I have a hard time believing in young earthism.  Satan obviously sinned before Adam and Eve and I do believe the bible is pointing to the idea that he was punished before Adam and Eve.  And that leads me to all the other points I've mentioned in this article.  I simply cannot dismiss this problem and accept the Ken Ham view of the early chapters of Genesis.


There's a lot of speculation in this rant.  I know that.  But the detail that I can't shake is Isaiah 45:18.  It's not that I don't think the scenario I sarcastically presented a few sentences back is possible.  Anything is possible with God.  I just don't think it's very likely that it happened that way.  Especially since Isaiah 45:18 directly contradicts the young earth view of Genesis 1:2.  I've got a lot of other evidence to offer above, but it all springs from Isaiah 45:18.  Some gap creationists have far more elaborate schemes with much more conjecture, but I try to just leave it off where scripture leaves off, for the most part.  I think scripture points to a gap and that Satan and the demons fell in that time.  I think that Satan fell ON THIS EARTH and I think I've presented scriptures to at least hint at that idea.  Some others talk of a pre-Adamic race and other wild stuff.  I am not entirely convinced by all that.  I just think the scripture points to a gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2 like it points to gaps in so many other areas.  For example, the gap between Daniel's 69th and 70th week.

It may sound a bit far-fetched to you biblically, but there's books written about this topic which are more convincing than my brief synopsis.  It gets harder to explain from here on out and I'm sure that people have grown tired of hearing me blabber, clumsily shaming the english language with every word.  I can find you articles and books on the subject if you're interested.  A few books which have influenced my thinking on this subject were:

"In The Beginnings" by Steven Dill (The Best)
"Without Form And Void" by Arthur Custance  (The Classic)
"7 Days That Divide The World" by John Lennox (Day-Age Theory)
"The Genesis Gap" by James Lowrance (Easy Read)
Also, several commentaries on Genesis by classic dispensational writers

I lifted a number of ideas from those books, just to be honest.  There's also random web pages and other things I've gotten scripture references and ideas from over the years, but I forgot to write them down in my official Gap Theory Defense Journal!  Actually, there's a whole lot of ideas in here which are all my own, as well.

Personally, I think there's more evidence for a Genesis gap strewn about the bible than there is for the pre-tribulational rapture, which is a doctrine that I accept, along with many other Christians.  And when people don't accept the pre-trib rapture because they find it a bit tough to skate around the scriptures to build the doctrine, I have a hard time taking them seriously.  Too many ideas fall apart when you don't have that pre-trib view.  The way the world is headed screams for that A Thief In The Night scenario.  And the way the past looks honestly seems to scream for a very old earth, as far as I can tell.  Sure, I can't count geology in that assessment if I want to base my claims on scripture alone.  But I'm more staunch about the story of Satan and his angels and hell, anyway.



The Main Point Of This Article:

I'd just like to state that I could be quite wrong in my interpretation, but that's okay, because it's not essential to salvation.  If you want to continue to disagree with me, I understand and value what you consider a safe interpretation.

I do like where my own position leaves me though, because it's one that I can use to build bridges with unbelieving friends, many of whom are straight up science goons, and a number of them also being history buffs.  It's nice to dispel that argument right off the bat.  It's nice to change the subject to something about Jesus Christ or the many ways which the bible is able to be proven, such as the prophecies in the book of Daniel and Isaiah and elsewhere.

God gives Christians room to believe differently on subjects like this.  It's other Christians who choke on gnats like this, generally.  If you don't think that God gives room in this area and still very much blesses those who hold to an old earth, I would ask you to look at the list of names at the beginning of the article again.  If you're still not convinced, then look at the list over and over until it finally dawns on you.  It WILL dawn on you eventually!  You will swallow those gnats if you think about it enough.  I promise!

In fact, you could make your own list of proven, staunch young earthers if you like, and see which list has received more blessing from God.  It should tell you something about how God views the subject.  I'm pleased to align myself with the list of names I presented.

I could be wrong.  Young earth creationists could be right.  It just doesn't look that way to me at this point.  I am as entirely unconvinced by what appears to be pseudoscience and revised history as taught by young earth creationists with all their clever charts and diagrams, as I am by what appears to be pseudoscience and revised history pushed by evolutionists with similarly fancy charts and diagrams.  They both look to spring forth from the same tree of contrived science to me, both having their own biases as their starting point.  Scientific eisegesis!

Further, I think that while young earth creationists endlessly tell me how they're only concerned with what the bible says and that people like me are just trying to appease a conflict between man's thinking and God's truth in our minds, those same young earth guys sure do talk about science a whole bunch!  Watch their videos!  Read their books!  Scripture is hardly mentioned!  Instead, young earthism is taken for granted in the beginning of Genesis, then I'm presented with pages and pages of crackerjack science "facts" and shamed by pharisaical disapproval if I don't believe the propaganda.  I'm not impressed.

As far as science stuff goes with a young earth, I have a hard time believing that mankind existed on the same planet with the stegosaurus, spinosaurus, allosaurus, velociraptor, tyrannosaurus...  Not to mention the incredible bugs that lived back then like the giant dragonfly, giant scorpion, mega centipede (like 10 feet long), spiders and wasps and ants 3 times the size of what we have now.  Can you imagine mankind dealing with such conditions with no boundary of civilization to scare off predators and no chance to really build one up because some T-Rex might drop by any day and destroy all you've built in 3 minutes before making lunch out of your village?  No bug spray?  No shotguns?  Just a bunch of pointy sticks and rocks!  Haha!

I may be wrong, but I think we'd see evidence of carvings on cave walls to warn others that this particular cave was infested with super spiders and stuff!  The only way we could live would be like mice, hiding at all times and being constantly on our guard.  I don't get that impression reading the bible that man ever really lived like that.  Can you show me where man lived like that?  Is there a verse that says, "Cain was going to head west of Eden, but saw a giant T-Rex over there, so instead he went east, because dinosaurs hated hanging around the land of Nod."?

I'm not even tryig to change your mind.  You believe whatever you want to about the age of the earth.  Just remember that it's not fundamental in the least bit and treating it that way is detrimental to the spreading of the good news of Jesus Christ.  The age of the earth should be considered a "pet doctrine" as far as I can tell.  It's some clinger-on, like Calvinism or whether the antichrist and Roman beast are different people (they are!).

The age of the earth is not nearly as important as some other non-essential doctrines like the pre-trib rapture, as I see it.  But modern dispensationalists treat it like it's among the most important of doctrines.  "If we give way on this important young earth doctrine, we'll certainly be snake-worshiping atheists within the year!"  Right?  Because John Lennox and Arno Gaebelein are just some liberals who have no faith in God.... ?  William Kelly was some hippy dippy moral relativist?

Most of the reason I decided to write this is just because something called "creation evangelism" is becoming quite popular within Christendom.  It's pushed by Ken Ham and his underlings.  I don't mean to diss on Ken Ham so much.  He's quite obviously a super nice guy and a genuine Christian as far as I can tell.  But I also think he's wrong on a whole bunch of things and he's using a barrage of incorrect ideas to represent Christianity.  I have a problem with that because I think he does a heck of a lot more damage than he does good.

(Also, if you've read this far and are actually paying attention to what is being said, I would like you to use the code word "trampoline" when discussing this topic through email or in person.  My problem with giving my point of view to people is that they quite often don't pay much attention and then want to argue points with me which I've already addressed.  Back to our subject...)

Every Christian has different people put in their lives to represent Christ to those people.  In my case, I don't think my wife would've responded well if I would've told her that she had to believe that the earth was 6000 years old and to vote republican as a prerequisite to believing in Christ for salvation.  You may say, "We don't tell people that!"  But that's what outsiders see.  And it's all a person like me can do to dispel the defensive spiderwebs left behind by the general Christian testimony of stuff like young earth science and the religious right.

Unbelievers don't even know the purpose of Christ.  They think that Christianity is a political ideology and a bunch of bogus science, because that's what we've turned it into.  That's what the person on the street thinks the bible is talking about, because that's what Christians talk about.  And while the devil may be using that to his advantage, the fact is that Christians give him plenty to work with in that arena!

Young earthism and right politics are two hurdles that any sinner has to jump over today to get to the gospel in the modern world.  Most just can't make that leap.  I think that's sad.  It's like a modern form of Judaizing.  I'd like to see more democrats saved without having to battle over the extra baggage of having to become a republican on top of that.  I'd like the homosexual and the transsexual to be saved with ease.  I'd like mothers who've had abortions to know that the Lord Jesus forgives them and welcomes them to heaven if they will have Him.

I'm not advocating that we don't acknowledge sin.  Homosexuality is sinful.  Abortion is sinful.  Democrats are wrong about a whole lot of stuff, but so are republicans!  But the political activism of trying to get rid of gay marriage and outlaw abortion at all costs is just making Christians look like nothing more than the Muslims of North America, with the republican manifesto as our Christianized version of Sharia law.  WE LOOK LIKE A POLITICAL PARTY BECAUSE ALL WE ARE CONCERNED WITH IS POLITICS.  Our eyes are looking to the earth rather than toward heaven.  Too earthly-minded to be any heavenly good.  I think it's no different with the age of the earth argument.  Our focus is not where it should be.

And if by chance you happen to think I ought to just put my brain aside and think what everyone else does to be more spiritual, I gotta throw Romans 14 at you.  God wants me to be fully persuaded in my own mind.  Furthermore, I think it's damaging to the Christian witness as previously stated to not keep a more open mind on non-essential doctrines like these.
An unbeliever who inquires about such questions ought to be promptly told that the bible is vague on the origin of earth, because IT IS.  They should be told, even if the gospel preacher doesn't hold to the old earth themselves, that plenty of sound Christians throughout the ages have believed in a very, very old earth.  Some even in evolution, but not many.  Not presented with a bunch of young earth propaganda that will immediately turn them off.  Seeing pictures of Adam riding a t-rex and Noah farming brachiosaurs after the flood isn't going to make an outsider think you're any more sane than you already appear talking about miracles and stuff.

If you want to make your young earth stance known, fine, but at least inform people that they'd be in good company if they didn't ascribe to young earthism.  At least, if you actually care about saving souls, that should be your attitude, in my opinion.  And that's why I decided to write this paper.  To address that.  I feel it's needed in today's church, greatly.

Before I go, I should mention that I don't believe that ALL so-called young earth science is bogus.  Gap creationists believe that while the earth is very, very old, that God basically destroyed all life on the earth and sort of REformed it, which would mean that there was a bunch of new happenings 6000 years ago.  So many points made by young earth creationists will probably have some validity to them.  I don't care to sift through those things, because my interest in science is really quite fleeting.  My interest is in the bible.  The BIBLE is what has convinced me of an old earth, as I described above.  Not science.

Now I can get back to learning about Jesus Christ, which is far more interesting and helpful to my own benefit.  The comments are shut off for this rant because I don't feel like being attacked by angry mobs.  If you want to disagree with me on a personal basis, my email is jonathanvanryn@yahoo.com.  You're welcome to try to change my mind if you think I'm wrong.