Why Old Earth creationism doesn't work

[Job 33:6]

With the above said, to conclude. The 7 days of Genesis are really just about a temple inauguration, hence why God rests on His throne on the 7th day. It has nothing to do with the age of the earth. And for this reason, because the Bible isnt describing the age of the earth, an old earth view of creation becomes reasonable in light of external resources related to the age of the earth, that is, science.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Thanks Via. But from where I'm standing, giving the devil a billion year lifespan just doesn't make sense to me. I don't think God would do that, hence young earth creationism is more probable.

Why don't you think God would do that? If it's just a feeling or opinion then that isn't a sufficient argument.

When it comes to God's plans, purposes, and designs do you recall what St. Peter writes in his epistle? That for God a thousand years is as a day and a day is as a thousand years? God is Eternal, Infinite, Timeless. There are some who could argue that it doesn't make sense for God to have waited these last two thousand years before Christ comes again--and it may be another two thousand years, or another twenty thousand years, we don't know. Yet all is within God's purposes and plans for the redemption of His creation in Jesus Christ.

Are you in favor of the theory which states the earth is billions of years old?

I consider it an indisputable fact that the earth is several billion years old.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[friend of]

Why don't you think God would do that? If it's just a feeling or opinion then that isn't a sufficient argument.

Would you give a serial killer permission to live for billions of years? It's almost a reward for rebelling. Gifting the rebel with billions of years to be alive.

 

[friend of]

Why don't you think God would do that? If it's just a feeling or opinion then that isn't a sufficient argument

I don't feel a need to prove anything. This is just my opinion. Take it or leave it.

 

[Job 33:6]

Would you give a serial killer permission to live for billions of years? It's almost a reward for rebelling. Gifting the rebel with billions of years to be alive.

An alternative to the position of death before the fall, aside from Satan reigning on creation for billions of years, would be to observe the possibility that only God is "immortal" and thus lives forever. And death, physical death (not spiritual death), particularly of the animal kingdom, would be an inherent component of creation. As the psalmist noted in his own words about creation:
Psalm 104:21
The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.

 

[Ephesians321]

I believe Genesis 1 & 2 mostly serves as a polemic against Semitic and Egyptian creation myths identifying God's true character and role in creation. Remember this book was written by Moses and copied by the scribes after an approximately 400 year bondage in Egypt. To treat this poetic creation passage as literal history and science may rob of it of the original intent and beauty.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Would you give a serial killer permission to live for billions of years? It's almost a reward for rebelling. Gifting the rebel with billions of years to be alive.

Would you give a serial killer a hundred years? Fifty? Ten? One?

-CryptoLutheran

 

[friend of]

Would you give a serial killer a hundred years? Fifty? Ten? One?

-CryptoLutheran

I wouldn't give him 4 billion years, no. That would be justice abrogated

 

[Ephesians321]

The Greek word used for Satan, serpent of "old" in Revelation 20:2 can mean ancient, primeval, and from the beginning.

 

[Sors]

I wouldn't give him 4 billion years, no. That would be justice abrogated

Yeah. but you aren't God. I wouldn't sacrifice my son for you or anyone else. But God did. For you and me. You can't put yourself in God's shoes.

 

[Diamond72]

Would God really allow his nemesis to live for billions of years? I don't think so.

There is no time for God, that is why He can declare the end from the beginning.

 

[friend of]

There is no time for God, that is why He can declare the end from the beginning.

But there is time for His creatures

 

[BNR32FAN]

OE creationism doesn't work because if OE was in fact the case then you'd have to admit that the devil and his fallen angels and demons are all billions of years old.

Would God really allow his nemesis to live for billions of years? I don't think so.

And what would the devil have been doing for all those years? Tempting monkeys to sin? makes no sense!

While I do agree with a young earth I can’t say that your argument here is very solid. One could just as easily say why would God allow satan to live 6000+ years. Young earth has plenty of scriptural support so I’d just leave it at that.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Still. God knowing everything why would he allow his nemesis to live that long? It's crazy. Also, genesis describes the creation of the earth in quick succession.

Why would God allow satan to live 6000 years? Apparently it was part of His plan otherwise He would’ve never created satan to begin with. It’s not as if He didn’t know that satan would rebel.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Genesis describes a lot of things. Genesis describes the Earth as being formless. It doesn't specify how long the Earth was formless. It then describes the day being separated from the night. But there was no sun. For those and numerous other reasons based on the internal wording of Genesis Origen resolved in 220 AD that the creation account is not six literal days. That's one of the reasons why Christianity has never had a defined teaching on the age of the Earth.

The word Yom means a day not an age or an era. The word translated to age is Beyovm not Yom.

 

[BNR32FAN]

This topic is something we'll never know until heaven. I used to be a YE believer and questioned carbon dating years ago. Today's modern science has gotten better and now they say the homo sapien DNA is 200k years old. Maybe there was a gap. Who knows maybe God allowed the gap to let the plants and animals populate the earth for several cycles.

They can’t date organic material 200k years old, carbon dating has a maximum half-life of 50k years and that’s based on their estimation of how much c14 was in the atmosphere 50k years ago. They’re not expecting c14 levels to be zero 6000 years ago which makes everything appear to be older than it actually is. Not only that but c14 has just been discovered 80 years ago and since then c14 levels in the atmosphere dropped dramatically in the early 19th century due to the use of fossil fuels then doubled in the 1960s due to nuclear testing. On top of that different organic materials have different c14 levels so do different biomes and different locations around the planet. What they have learned recently is that it’s actually extremely inaccurate and in the next 30 years could be completely useless. None of the dating methods are reliable they all rely upon assumptions and estimations. If man has existed for 200k-300k years as scientists suggest then why did it take man 195k-295k years to invent the wheel when he’s managed to invent everything we have today in just the last 5k years? That doesn’t make sense to me. For 195k years the concept as simple as the wheel completely escaped man then just 5k years later we have computers, smart phones, space travel, etc? Doesn’t make sense.

 

[BNR32FAN]

It's the only way that science and the bible start to agree together. If you stick by the young earth creation, then you have to toss out every material thing that science finds that is old that betrays the 6 day creation.

If we begin to look at the pre-adamic creation upon earth as being wiped out by an ice age that lasted thousands and thousands of years, and GOD starting over by re-forming the earth in six days, then things start to fit together and nothing has to be ignored.

Exodus 20:11 has to be ignored in order to believe in a preademic era.

 

[BNR32FAN]

It is only critical by man's tradition that Adam and Eve introduced physical death. I, personally, reject it I believe the death of Adam was a spiritual death and therefore spiritual Resurrection. If Adam and Eve were truly immortal why would they ever need to eat food? Also, God mandated that they and animal kingdom be fruitful and multiply. If nothing ever died and everything is vegetarian it would take no time for the whole Earth to be completely deforested and humankind would literally sharing our living spaces and beds with the animals.

That could explain why God put the tree of knowledge in the garden to begin with knowing that man would fall and death would come into the world and keep a balanced ecosystem in order to cultivate more souls who would choose to love Him.

 

[BNR32FAN]

No ...its not mans tradition ... it's taught in Genesis ... Adam and Eve ate from the tree of life ... that is what sustained their immortality ... after they sinned that tree was removed ... had it not then sin would have been perpetuated for eternity.

We don’t know that they ate from the tree of life. It’s certainly possible but we don’t know if they had to keep eating from the tree of life in order to maintain their life or if they would’ve had immortality just by eating from it one time. It’s just not mentioned in the scriptures.

 

[HTacianas]

The word Yom means a day not an age or an era. The word translated to age is Beyovm not Yom.

I haven't spoken to the meanings of words. Only to the creation account in Genesis. If we read the creation account, and really read it, not merely accept what someone has told us about it, it says God created heaven and earth, and the earth was without form. Then God created light, and separated the light from the darkness. The light He called day, the darkness He called night. "And the evening and the morning were the first day".

Note that the first day did not exist until after light was created. How long was the earth formless before light was created?