Darwinian’s laugh at me…… often behind my back…….sometimes to my face.
I think that many Christians are so intimidated……. so afraid of the ridicule of the Darwinian’s that they don’t stand up for creation. Creation is critical………it is the defining act of God. It must be defended.
I believe that Darwinian evolution has done more damage to mankind in general, and to Christianity in particular, than anything else in human history. Once you accept this theory……..then there is absolutely no need for God. Once you get to that point, it is very easy to take the next step. Because you no longer need God……. you can deny/ignore/ minimalize him. Hundreds of millions of people have taken that next step. This is tragic. I believe that there will be more people in hell over Darwinism than over murder, rape, theft, lies, and hatred combined.
The first punch line that the Darwinist pulls out is “How old is the earth? Do you really believe that the earth is only 6000 years old? (Or 3000 or 9000….. you pick the number.) ”
That number comes from adding up 7 literal 24 hour days of creation plus the number of years that each man in our geneology lived. In short it comes from a literal interpretation of the bible. The scientists on the other hand tell us that the earth is hundreds of millions of years old. The difference is huge. How do we defend creation……. how do we reconcile those 2 numbers?
We all agree that about 6000 years ago….. give or take…… there were people on the earth. So let’s focus on the time before that. How long did it take to get from nothing to Adam & Eve? 7 days….. or hundreds of millions of years. How do we reconcile the bible’s explanation with the scientist’s explanation?
It seems to me that there are 3 ways to handle this:
1. The 7 days of creation are not literal days. Instead they represent 7 epochs……totalling up to hundreds of millions of years. The result is the world at the end of “day” 7…….roughly as we know it…… with Adam & Eve in the garden.
2. God created the world old. The universe is a very complicated place. Many of its systems are so delicately balanced and so completely interdependent that it is statistically impossible that they formed, one at a time, by accident. The cosmologists struggle with this problem. So…… God designed a finely balanced, interconnected, ecosystem and called it into being……already old. This means that all of the things that we dig up (yes……even the dinosaurs) were created right where we find them. They are not hundreds of millions of years old…….they just look that way. If you think about Adam & Eve, this makes sense. They were not put into the garden as newborns. They could not have survived. God put them there as mature adults. In short……God created Adam & Eve old. He had to, in order for them to survive. In the same way he created the world as a work in progress…….already finely tuned and interconnected. He had to, in order for it to survive. If God can create an “aged” Adam & Eve…….. he can create an “aged” universe.
3. The scientists are wrong. I hear this a lot. It usually involves some pretty strained interpretations of the fossil record. The trouble is that this explanation absolutely will not fly with our primary target audience, the secular humanist…..the unchurched. They just laugh. It does work beautifully………for preaching to the choir. But……….I don’t think it is going to save many darwinists……..and I believe that reaching them is one of our jobs. The greatest gift that we can give a friend, relative, or co-worker is God today…..and later…..paradise.
It is possible that all three things happened. I have to say that at this point I tend to favor option #1. I will flesh this out in a future post……..stay tuned.
Let me say that I’m struggling with this. So…….right now…….I don’t have a clue how old the earth is……and I really don’t care. I don’t see why it can’t be hundreds of millions of years old………I don’t see why it can’t be thousands of years old.
So……….don’t get distracted.
The key issue is not how old the earth is…….or how old it looks. The key issue is creation. Did it occur by trillions of random, constructive, cumulative, accidents that all interact flawlessly to make the incredibly complicated ecosystem that we call the universe. Or……is it the work of an intelligent alien life form…………God?
So, don’t let the Darwinists use someone’s time line to beat you up. The age of the earth is unknown. Even more to the point…….the age of the earth is unimportant. The important issue is that there is a creator………he cares about you and he wants to spend time…….a lot of time…… with you.