Appendix: Advice to High School Graduates
Author: Tin-chee Lo
The core of the debate and the objectives of this article
Genesis Chapters 1 and 2 record that God created the universe in six days. People’s first understanding of the word “day” is a twenty-four-hour “day”. But “day” in the Hebrew word “YOM” has multiple meanings: it can be twenty-four hours, or it can refer to different forms of “indeterminate periods of time.” What is the original intention of the author of Genesis? Endless debate begins at this point. The good news is that the motives of Christians of both groups are good: they all start from “respecting the authority and inerrancy of the Bible, loving God, and earnestly pursuing the truth.” To me, it doesn’t matter whether we support “young earth view” or “old earth view”, as long as we grasp the key points of Genesis. These key points are highlighted here:
- The universe has a beginning
- God is the Creator
- God used His Word to create all things
- His Word has power
- His did not create all things in one go, but step by step; each step is God’s independent creation, not built upon the previous steps
- In the creation of living things, God’s law is: Each According to Its Kind
Thankfully, both sides agree on the above points. The core of their dispute is about the “speed of creation.” This is obviously not the basic gospel truth and has nothing to do with the salvation of our souls. Therefore, there is no need for the two groups to insist on who is right and who is wrong, or even argue to the point of being red-faced. They should respect each other on the level of interpersonal relationships. and acceptance. But on the level of pursuing truth, we can study which viewpoint has a stronger ability to explain reality.
Some people advocate “interpreting scriptures by scriptures.” He quotes 2 Peter 3:8, “To the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” to resolve the dispute. This is equivalent to saying nothing, arguing that in the sight of the Lord, ten thousand years can be equal to more than ten billion years anyway. This is a possible option, but whether it is actually so is another question. As to me, I won’t adopt this “lazy approach” to avoid important matters and losing many opportunities for Bible study and critical thinking. But if you insist on this method of interpreting the Bible, it is OK, so you don’t need to read further.
However, a very few numbers of “young earth die-hards”, such as Ken Ham (with remarkable fast-speaking intelligence) and others, are “absolute literalism” believers. They insist that YOM is 24 hours (though ignore the fact that this word is polysemous). If you are truly an absolute literalist, you must believe that a camel can go through the eye of a needle.
Not only do young earther die-hards absolutely believe that the universe was created in six 24-hour-days, they also declare in an authoritative and absolute tone, saying:
“Accepting the Old Earth Theory” is the most basic root cause for the decline of Christendom, the rise of secularism, and the corruption of social order of today. “
This is an extraordinary assertion. This is no small matter, for this declaration has a huge negative impact on Christians, especially the high school graduates preparing to enter college (more on this subject below). In view of this, the author feels the burden to refute the absoluteness and validity of this statement. Let me build my case gradually.
The views of historical figures
Since this controversy is a question of biblical interpretation, this dichotomy naturally has existed as far back as from ancient Judaism and the first century church until today and undoubtedly to exist in the future. So, it is obviously not just a “modern-time” issue. Now take a look at some famous historical figures’ viewpoints throughout history to demonstrate it is not an era-sensitive controversy:
Flavius Josephus was a first-century Jewish scholar and historian who, in his book Jewish Antiquities, followed the literal traditional interpretation of six days of creation in Genesis.
- Philo of Alexandria was a first-century Jewish philosopher and Bible commentator who tried to combine Greek philosophy with Judaism. He believed that the “day” in Genesis was symbolic and not a literal 24 hours.
- Origen of Alexandria: The Christian church father of the third century. He tended to adopt an allegorical and symbolic approach, believing that the “day” in Genesis did not refer to the literal 24 hours, but symbolized a longer period of time or cycle.
- Augustine (354-430 AD) considered the day of creation to be an “allegorical long period,” but he does not seem to object to the “twenty-four hours” view.
- Basil of Caesarea, a 4th-century church father, explained Genesis in his work “Six Days of Creation” and stated that the day of creation was an ordinary 24-hour day.
- James Ussher (1581-1656) was an Irish bishop. He calculated the specific date of creation as 4004 BC. Based on the genealogy table in the Bible and other historical records, he believed that the “day” in Genesis was 24 hours in the modern sense.
- C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) believed that the age of the earth as determined by scientific means did not contradict Christian beliefs. Although he did not explicitly express his views on the age of the Earth, his acceptance of modern science and the way he interpreted the Bible suggest that he might accept the scientific consensus that the Earth is billions of years old.
- In the 20th century, Dr. Billy Graham/pastor/evangelist believed in the “young earth” theory, but he adopted an open attitude towards the “old earth” theory.
- Stephen Tong is a famous Chinese Christian theologian and preacher. In his teaching and preaching, he generally emphasized a strict interpretation of the Bible and traditional Christian beliefs. He has not made a clear public statement on whether he supports the “old earth” theory. He was very familiar with Western history and church history, but he did not, to the best of my knowledge, relate the development of ideologies to the age of the earth.
- The late theologian/pastor/philosopher/Dr. RC Sproul (RC Sproul), one of the scholars I respect, supports the “young earth” theory and opposes the “Big Bang Theory”.
- The late apologist/pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, Timothy Keller, one of the scholars I respect, advocated the “old earth” theory.
Obviously, we cannot attribute the current decline of Christendom to today’s Christians-support for the old earth theory, because this debate exists long before “today”. But why do some “young earth” die-hards think this way? We must first look at the development history of Western scientific knowledge and ideologies before making meaningful speculations.
Idea Has Consequence
This statement is correct. But we must clarify the “causal relationship” between “ideas” and “consequences” to make this statement meaningful.
We have seen that both old-earthers and young-earthers of about the creation speed coexisted throughout history, but generally speaking, before the 14th century, the number of supporters for the “young earth hypothesis” was always greater than the number of supporters for the “old earth hypothesis.” However, we have observed that since the Renaissance until today, the number of people supporting the “old earth view” has continued to increase. What is the reason? We must first look at the historical development process of Western science and ideology.
Renaissance (14th century to 17th century): As humankind’s cumulative knowledge increased, Christian scientists realized that the “young earth” hypothesis could not explain many unprecedented new phenomena, and gradually felt that the “old earth” hypothesis had greater explanatory power than sticking to the young-earth view. However, they felt that they were still loyal to the integrity of the Bible, but only adopt the interpretation of “YOM” as a “period” rather than “24 hours.” Therefore, they have not compromised the authority and inerrancy of the Bible.
The Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century and lasted until the early 19th century. For the same reason, the position of the “old earth” theory in biblical exegesis has been strengthened.
In the 20th century, with the publication of the theory of relativity, the emergence of quantum mechanics, and the rise of the Big Bang theory, mankind’s understanding of the universe in theoretical physics reached a new milestone.
We have seen from above that due to the development of knowledge and the rapid advancement of science, mankind had gradually become proud due to mankind’s potential sinful nature, and believed that God was unnecessary. This kind of thinking led to the decline of Christendom in Europe. This phenomenon is clearly not caused by Christians supporting “old earth” theory. On the contrary, the upward trend in favor of old-earth view is because new phenomena were revealed by science that could not be explained by young-earth view. In this sense, it was science which influenced the Bible interpretation rather than the Bible interpretation influenced science (that allegedly led to the decline of Christianity) as the young earth die-hards claim. This causation relationship cannot be confused.
Theory of Evolution: Those who support the theory of evolution must support the “old earth theory”. But those who support the “old earth theory” do not necessarily support the “theory of evolution.” On the contrary, Christians always firmly oppose the theory of macroevolution. A few years ago, I spent a long-hours reading cover-to-cover Darwin’s masterpiece <The Origin of Species>. However, I did not see at all that Darwin was inspired by the “old earth theory” to come up with his theory of evolution, nor did he publish <The Origin of Species> because he wanted to overturn the “young earth theory.” He simply didn’t care or totally oblivious of the controversy. It is true that the theory of evolution has had an indelible negative impact on Christianity and society, but church and social problems have nothing to do with Christian’s adoption of “old earth theory.”
We now move to the historical development of ideologies. We often hear the term “post-modernism” in our daily life. But what exactly does it mean? We must first understand what “modernism” is before we can understand what “post-modernism” means.
If we want to use some events to mark the beginning of “modern times”, it would be the publication of Einstein’s <Special Relativity> in 1905; the characteristics of “modernism” are: anti-tradition, individualism, etc. The symbolic event that marks the beginning of “postmodernity” is the end of World War II in 1945; the characteristics of “postmodernism” are: secularism, pluralism, skepticism, relativism, etc. Although these terms are cryptic to many of us, just as the words suggest, their soundings are enough to convince people know that “people’s thoughts have become futile and their ignorant hearts are already darkened” (Romans 1:21). It is quite clear that ideologies have led to the decline of Christianity, rather than the supporting the “old earth” does. This causality relationship must be understood correctly.
In short, scientific knowledge makes people proud, and ideology alienates people from God. These two are today’s fundamental reasons for the decline of Christianity, the rise of humanism, the rise of secularism, and the corruption of society. This obviously has nothing to do with supporting the “old earth theory”. If we insist that the decline of Christianity is due to Christians supporting the “Old Earth Theory”, then it is another to say that Christianity does have great influence, so how can it decline? Is it not that the premise contradicts the conclusion?
Today in the United States, 99.9% of church pastors leaders rarely talk about the young-earth/old earth controversy in their sermons or teachings. If supporting the “old earth theory” has such a negative impact on human’s wellbeing, and supporting the “young earth theory” can reverse the corruption of society, and these pastors remain silent on the subject, are they not committing a sin against the kingdom of God? Or dereliction of duty at the very lease?
“Young Earth” vs “Old Earth”: Who is right and who is wrong?
Regarding the question of “who is right and who is wrong,” there is no absolute answer because we were not present when God created the world. Though we don’t have absolute answer, we can only have a comparative answer. It is to compare which hypotheses can provide a stronger “explanatory power” for God’s creation (nature).
As theoretical physics advances, so does experimental physics. With the invention and continuous improvement of various super-functional telescopes (such as Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, etc.) and special artificial satellites (such as Planck satellite), scientists have designed various ways to measure the age of the universe. And more importantly, the results obtained from these various different methods are very close which illustrates the validity of these measurement methods. In the end, physicists and cosmologists agreed that the age of the universe is 13.78 billion years. This is a shocking conclusion for Christian scientists, which has led to an increase in the number of “old earth theory” supporters because there is no possibility to harmonize the “billion years” of science with the “six days” of the young earth theory.”
What do “young earthers” think about the age of the universe? Both camps agree that Adam was the last creation in the creation process; and that Adam was created 10,000 years ago. If God’s creation was completed in literal 6 twenty-four-hour “days,” then the age of the universe would be “ten thousand years plus five days.” Facing such a huge discord, how do “young earthers” respond? The only respond they can offer is to declare: “Science is invalid!”
Looking back the history of science, we all agree that scientific theories in the past have gone through constant revision and even replaced. Die-hard “young earth” supporters may say, “Science is not reliable! Don’t believe it. Only God’s Word is trustworthy.” Although they speak plausibly, in this case, we should not lightly ignore the enormous magnitude of the disparity. The difference between 10,000 years implied by the Young Earther and 1.38 billion years calculated from science is astronomical; it greatly exceeds the “margin of error” allowed by scientists which means that in this case, even if science is VERY WRONG, it will not be so wrong to the degree that supporting Young Earth Creationism can harmonize with science.
Personal Opinion
Although I have mentioned earlier, “It doesn’t matter whether we support the young earth theory or the old earth theory, as long as we grasp the key points of Genesis, we should be at peace with God,” this does not mean that I don’t have my own opinion about this controversy: I am leaning on the side of “old earth theory” for the following reasons:
First, I am a scientist and engineer. I cannot honestly accept that the age of the universe is merely 10,000 years. The cell phone and computer I am using now is the application of some scientific theories, the same theories the cosmologist used to calculate the age of the universe.
Second, Genesis records that in the sixth-day of creation, both God and man did a lot of things. Almighty God could certainly complete His part of the work at any speed he wished, but Adam was still a human being, not a superman, nor a divine man, even before he sinned, he could never be able to complete the job (taking care of the garden, and giving names to creatures) in 24 hours (strictly speaking, less than 24 hours, because Adam was last made). So, the “sixth day” had to be a VERY long “day”.
Third, Eve was created on the sixth day. However, she was not made “immediately” after Adam was made. Adam must be a bachelor for a long time before he could begin to feel lonely. Then
God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” This further requires that the sixth day must be a “long day” rather than a 24-hour day.
Finally, I don’t think I have compromised the integrity of the Bible by interpreting the polysemous word YOM as a long period. I also believe that if we interpret the Bible correctly and the scientific theory is correct, Bible and science should be in harmony because “All truth is God’s truth.”
Closing Remark – an Expository Thought
In our understanding of “church”, we have a distinction between “visible Church” and “invisible Church”. “The visible church” is the physical church we see in which there are “unregenerated people” and “regenerated people” mixing together, no one can distinguish them except God. For example, during persecution, the “visible church” shrinks significantly, but the “invisible church” may flourish significantly, her size is known only to God. Jesus illustrates this truth with the parable of the wheat and the tares. The “invisible church” is entirely spiritual, made up of all true believers, within it is all wheat. She is a living organism, and her growth is entirely in the sovereign hand of God. Just like the growth of a plant seed described in the Bible, “Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.” (Mark 4:27). Why the man does not know? Because only God can control the matters of life. The rise and fall of the “visible church” can be influenced by human thoughts and actions, but for the “invisible church”, all human means, including Christians’ views on the “Day of Creation”, have no impact whatsoever on the growth of the “invisible church”.
Appendix: Advice for college students
If you are truly convinced that the universe is only 10,000 years old by adopting the “Young-Earth Theory” only because you want to be faithful to the Bible, then your attitude is commendable. What you need to do next is to diligently investigate the validity of your exegesis and to see if it is right, and not to be so gullible.
There are consequences for being an absolute Young-Earther. For one thing, as you step into the college campus, you’re bound to be teased for your ignorance if you insist on 10 thousand years old universe. Soon your faith will be shaken and you may even lose your faith which you have been nurtured over the past 18 years. After all, your insistence on young universe does no good to evangelism because people will reject you before they have a chance to hear your gospel.
There is a spiritual consequence also. Being an absolute Young-Earther, you have obliviously committed a grave sin without feeling it. Paul in Romans 14:23 says, “everything that does not come from faith is sin.” If your conscience really believes that science is meaningless, and yet you pay to go to college to learn about science which you don’t have faith right at the beginning, I can assure you that you won’t enjoy your learning and can hardly achieve great success professionally and become disrespectful to your career when you work. I hope you will use your own independent thinking to distinguish between right and wrong, and do not blindly believe what I or others say.
In any case, your choice over Young or Old Earth will not affect your spiritual health before God. As long as you live under the Lordship of God, obey Him, honor Him, and glorify Him, you will be Jesus’ good disciple.
