Yes.
So this is correct and God is a liar? Nope.
If you can show me God saying otherwise then you might have something, otherwise this is a false dichotomy.
If your only evidence is Genesis 1 and 2 then let me pre-emptively respond: I don't accept the creation stories in Genesis to be literal, historical accounts. Which isn't the same thing as not believing them, I believe Genesis 1 and 2, I just don't believe they were ever intended to be taken literally. And, yes, I am familiar with Jesus and St. Paul referring to Adam, and no I don't believe that referring to Adam means that I have to take the creation stories literally. And, yes, one can believe in a not literal Genesis 1 and 2 and still believe that Scripture is the divinely inspired and written word God.
But allow me to present this: Besides the overwhelming evidence for a very old universe, a very old earth, and the theory of evolution; and besides the highly convincing exegeses concerning Genesis 1 with which I am familiar; besides these the most important reason I'm not a young earth creationist is because I
can't believe God is a liar and a deceiver. I could not know what I know about the natural universe and also believe what I believe about God at the same time and be a young earth creationist: because it would require that I believe that God actively deceives us.
What do I mean? Well, here's just one example;
Distant stars and galaxies. We can see them. If the universe were between 6,000 and 10,000 years old then the most distant objects we should be able to see would have to be between 6,000 and 10,000 light years away. But we can see much more distant objects than that, we can see galaxies which are billions of light years away. The only solution to that problem is to say that God purposely made the universe look older than it really is, it would mean that the galaxy we see which is a few million light years away didn't actually produce the light that we see. It means that the universe was created in a state of ancientness while being young; this is like producing a fully grown person in a lab and implanting a lifetime of memories which never actually happened. That's deceitful. To be a young earth creationist I would have to believe that God is deceitful and created a young universe imbedded with billions of years of cosmic memory, nebulae produced by exploding stars that never existed and never exploded, photons from distant galaxies that never originated there, the remains of dead stars that never lived. Every piece of evidence we have points to an old universe, and if God is, indeed, the God of all creation then either the universe is very old or it is very young and God is deceiving us by making it look very old. I can't believe the latter, I cannot believe that the God who makes Himself known in the history and narratives of Scripture and who makes Himself fully known in the Person of Jesus Christ, the very Word made flesh, is a God of anything other than truth.
So, on the contrary: I can't be a young earth creationist because I refuse to believe that God is a liar. Perhaps you are able to reconcile these things and still be a young earth creationist, I cannot. To do so would require that I discard Scripture, violate my conscience, and throw away my faith.
-CryptoLutheran
