I’m new to this forum, and I apologize that I haven’t read through all 78 pages of this thread to see if my approach to the question has already been raised (I skimmed enough to see that I don’t think it has). I also know this post is too long, but I think I need to make the full case from the start to avoid misinterpretations. To me the question really comes down to “What is a lie?” and “What are the limits of what God can do without transgressing his own divine character?”
Assertions are often made about what God can or can’t or would or wouldn’t do in regard to creation and appearances of age or of evidences of past events and processes. I think God has a lot more latitude than people would give him. Theistic evolutionists and old-earth creationists both say that God would be deceptive and a liar if he “planted” all the evidence that suggests billions of years of history. But young-earth creationists also often limit God by saying, “He could create an appearance of age, but not of process; that would be deceptive and a lie,” and they are the forced to explain away all the apparent processes as scientific mistakes or bias. But is that necessary? Would it be a lie if God really intended to make a young earth look old and natural and used every tool in his toolbox to do so?
God cannot lie. But the passages that state this truth are specifically about breaking a promise or about things he asserts as true in his inerrant, infallible Word. It does not mean he can never do anything that gives a false impression. When God says one thing in his Word, and the evidence of our eyes says something else, to say that God would be unrighteous or deceptive if he did what we don’t think a righteous God should have done, is like Job saying God was unfair or unrighteous if he made the righteous suffer. God didn’t answer the accusation or explain why he did what he did; he just said, “Were you there when I created the world? Then you have no right to judge me or question how I do things you can’t understand.” We should expect the same answer if we make ourselves God’s judge and jury when we question what he tells us and what he has done in creation.
Rather than judge God or look for excuses to answer Satan’s question, “Did God really say he created the world in six days? Did he really say death would be the consequence of sin?” with the answer, “Well, he said it, but what he really meant must be something else,” maybe we should ask, “Do we really know God’s essence, character, purposes, and plans well enough to second-guess what he really meant? Or might everything that we think would be unrighteous, unfair, or even deceptive in the physical evidences be his way of testing us the same way he tested Job, so that in the end we will simply let God be God and know that he’s given us just one job: to trust him?” On Judgment Day, if I was wrong to believe in recent six-day creation, God will correct me, but not chide me for trusting him too much. If I wrongly claim Genesis is a myth or parable or needs to be reinterpreted he may well say, “Why have you persecuted me, Saul? Why have you not believed and trusted me? Why have you led others away from the truth?” Other than the consequences of finding out I was wrong, I see no downside to simply believing God’s Word as it stands. I may be derided as a fool; fine. You may claim creationism acts as a hindrance to faith; I say the Spirit overcomes hindrances, and God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.
God cannot lie, but he can do things intended to obscure the truth or even to mislead: He commanded Israel to lay an ambush against Ai. But an ambush is deceptive; it tricks the enemy into thinking a small feint is the main attack. It’s deceptive, but not a lie, for an army has no obligation to do what the enemy expects. (Just as God has no obligation to show us how he created the world). God himself used righteous deception when he created the sound of a mighty army, where none was coming, to scare away the Arameans (2 Kings 7), and made water look like blood to trick the Moabites into making a rash advance (2 Kings 3). Even Gideon’s divine battle plan, 300 men blowing on horns to convince the enemy they were surrounded and overwhelmed, was righteous deception. I could add the instances when lying prophets served God’s purposes, or when Rahab is praised for saving the spies with her lie, although he himself did not do the lying, and he never specifically praises Rahab’s lie. (But a rock isn’t a lie).
God’s law says do not kill. But we know there is such a thing as righteous killing (in self-defense or law-enforcement, for example). He tells us not to be angry, but there is also righteous anger. He commanded people not to work on the Sabbath, but Jesus showed people there was also righteous work on the Sabbath. So there is also righteous deception, when the deception serves higher purposes of God’s holy will.
So what purposes could be served by having a creation that was made to look old and natural? First, it nurtures faith, it exercises that ability to trust God simply because he says so, and not because we judge him believable, this time, and we’ll continue to believe him only until we find something that makes us justified in doubting him. God told Abraham to kill his son. Abraham could have said, “Well, that contradicts what I know about God’s character, therefore I shouldn’t trust what he said.” No, the hardest test was also the best way to build Abraham’s faith.
Proof and scientific certainty would war against faith. Israel in the wilderness had proof, and it just made them proud, self-entitled, and apt to judge God whenever he didn’t do things the way they thought he should. That would be us, if God gave us proof that he created this world in a way that science could never deny. So God gave us a natural-looking world. But how natural? It wouldn’t serve God’s purpose if there was a single thing in creation that proved beyond all possible counter-arguments that it wasn’t natural. To leave room for faith, there had to be room for doubt. But how could it look natural if it didn’t look old? And how could there be any possible natural explanation for our own existence without leaving evolution open at least as a possibility that isn't completely ruled out by the fossil evidence? But that requires fossils and rock layers and radioisotopes that conform to theory, and every time science finds one more thing that doesn’t disprove their theories, they take it as proof of their theories. And as long as they can find a reason in every single rock they turn over why we don’t have to believe God, they will use it as a reason why we really ought to doubt and disbelieve.
And that serves a second purpose of God, judgment on those who disbelieve, “So that hearing they may not hear and seeing they may not see.” (And if you think that couldn’t possibly apply to you because you’re one of God’s people, tell it to the Pharisees who thought they knew God well enough to judge that Jesus wasn’t doing what the Messiah must do).
God could easily have given us a world that left no room for doubt. Instead of a sun, he could have put his own throne in the sky (and that would have been easier than designing stars from scratch). He could have given us a world that is capable of sustaining itself but impossible to develop naturally. He didn’t. He chose to give us a natural looking world. That wasn’t easy to do. No matter which theory of origins you hold to, that in itself should tell us he wants us to trust in him as our creator by faith, not by sight, because he says so and not because the scientists say so. The question is, if a perfect God chooses to make a natural-looking world, how natural will it look? If God has any righteous reasons at all to make the world look natural, then, as he is the perfect artist, he is also the perfect reproduction-artist; it wouldn’t just look natural when you look at it from a distance and see birds and trees and stars, but also up close. If there was a single brush stroke that was wrong or if the canvas and paint were too new to be original, that would be a flaw in the reproduction. And God is flawless. It’s not deception, it is perfection of reproduction to serve all of God’s purposes simultaneously, to leave room for both faith and doubt, to give believers the opportunity to look like fools for God, cherishing his call to trust and follow him more than they care about the respect of the wise of this world, to pass judgment on those who doubt God’s Word, and to declare the glories of God in his wisdom, power, and goodness displayed in creation in a way that avoids taking away from us a kind of freedom of worship by giving us no alternative but to see God’s glory in creation.