4h) What Rationale could Justify a Young Earth?
Personally, I don't see where the Bible is forcing the drama being played out on this Earth to be contained in exactly 7000 years. However, God may have set it up to be more on that order than on the order of billions of years. He would have to reveal His intentions in order for us to assess this. Our scientific methodology can explain how processes we observe work, but it cannot determine why those processes were created. I think we need to show some logical rationale to the Creator's plan, in whatever scenario we are suggesting. That logical rationale should agree with the observations.
Here's my logic: If God already had an entire angel universe with more than the 3 dimensions we have, then why would He be planning on a permanent sub-universe of only 3D. More logically, we could believe that He had some short-term purpose for this sub-universe, so we would read the Bible to see if He has told us about that.
What I read is that God created this universe already mature in six rotations of the planet Earth (Genesis 1). Notice that He created the stars and the other heavenly bodies after He had created this planet. Clearly those stars were not already there or in any position to be inhabited. He was speaking to someone during this process and I say it was to the angels, who already existed in some other universe. So, perhaps His rationale for the new creation had something to do with them. The Bible indicates that God wants to be with His created beings, so to do this in our model, He must think Himself into their world as one of them. They relate face-to-face to that Image of God as another angel in their world. Now, I can imagine myself in my thoughts, so why can't God do that at least as well? God is thinking of the angels, so now He thinks of Himself there with them. That angel "Who was like God" was Michael, the Image of God in the angel world. That angel is the Second Person of God, Who is God, but distinct. Because He is a thought in the mind of God, Michael has fewer dimensions than the Thinker God.
So, I see Michael explaining to the other angels what He is doing as the
Thinker, Creator God while He creates this new universe. Michael is what the Bible refers to as, “the Word of God”
(John 1:1-3). He speaks God’s thoughts so the audience will know what God, the
Creator is thinking. Listen to
His comments after each major event. He is crafting a world that these angels
can relate to. I say it is a model of what they have, just as we would have if
So, in my model, this universe was created in the image of the pre-existing angelic universe, as a temporary stage for some very important drama to be played out for the benefit of the angels. It had to look like their universe, so everything was created already mature. Light is already in motion – a literal snapshot of the pre-existing angelic universe, which had been around for eons. It would be a young (ie recently created) Earth that looks old. It would exhibit all the physical processes they are familiar with, but the starting point would not have been the singularity we call the Big Bang. Also, it had to have one less dimension than theirs, so all could see it, as we might see a movie, and not be living in it.
Does this fit in with Dr Allen's interpretation of the ice cores (Appendix 1a)? If it is to
fit, then the original Earth may have been
created with old layers of ice already indicating age. Likewise, it would have
already had mature trees with many rings indicating age. From this starting
point, the normal earth processes began and the new record is accurately
produced. At some point around 5 to 15 thousand years ago, the Great Flood
happens. It too is accurately recorded in the trees and the ice cores. However, this global catastrophe is no ordinary flood. It completely destroys all records of what
the Earth was like prior to that event!
Refer to “In the Beginning” by Dr Walter Brown (http://www.creationscience.com”) for
an extremely detailed, scientifically supported account of this Biblical
Flood. This is the only explanation that
will completely fit the dozens of physical observations around our planet
now. I have to defer to Dr Brown’s
absolutely convincing treatise on this subject.
It’s very thorough and understandable.
My point is that all the ice cores, deep sea cores, radioisotopes, tree
rings, and such, which we find today, had to be started during or after this
Biblical Flood. Anything that was there
prior is totally wiped out. That is the
kind of catastrophe the Bible depicts.
Hence, if there is evidence of sequential variations
in deposits in the sea floor or the ice caps as we dig down in them, they would
be best explained by the wave-after-waves of silt-ladened
tidal waves sweeping across the Earth during the Flood event. These observable records certainly fit that
sort of global event perfectly. I know
my colleagues would like to believe it took millions of years for the oceans
and Ice sheets to ebb and flow, rise and fall.
But that explanation requires so much time between
events (ie punctuated equilibrium), that too many contradictory situations
would be expected to intervene and destroy the records again and again. For example, you’d expect lots of erosion in
the layers of the canyons if those layers were laid down over millions of years
each. I’d say it is far easier to
believe that the punctuations between catastrophic events were following in
quick succession (ie days), not at millions-of-years intervals. One wave brings in diatoms from the oceans
and the next brings in silt from the land, then more diatoms and then vegetation, …This is what the record is showing us now. Also, I would suggest as did Dr Brown, that
the fountains of the deep erupted spewing muddy water into the atmosphere in a
pulsing fashion like a water hammer.
This pulsing would lay down layers of ice in the polar
regions very quickly; which would later appear to indicate seasonal
variations. However, the actual time
required would have been days not millennia.
What about the Biblical accounts of human lineage?
The Bible tells us that humans were living on this planet when the Biblical Flood happened. We know that some 134 historical cultures each have an account in their mythology about a very big Flood, at least in their own area of the planet. The physical evidence of these individual local floods are all over this planet. Some 70% of the rocks on the surface of our planet are sedimentary rocks formed under water. It all adds up to a global water-driven account.
We know that our absolutely best dating evidence is in the human records
(both physical and written and legends). So, if we try to retrace the timing of
this Biblical event from the Biblical accounts in Genesis 5 & 11, should we
expect to find out how long ago it actually happened? These
accounts seem to be intended as a legitimate historical log, but I wonder if
they could be off by a factor of two or three. I'm looking for some legitimate
reasons to date the Great Flood before the other historical records like
pyramids of
Before the Flood, I believe we have a different situation and if we believe the impact of this Flood, then we should not expect to have any way to determine the age of the earth prior. Regardless, I see no way to justify the earth being created millions of years ago just because certain rocks "look" very old. There is nowhere on earth showing the continuous geological column. Everything is pieced together with many assumptions and not enough absolute verification. All the evidence points to catastrophism and not uniformitarianism as the processes that left the evidence. Fossils indicate rapid and permanent burial. Things preserved in the rock strata show no evidence of erosion between the strata as would happen over eons of time.
Appendix 1a addresses this evidence. Appendix 1c has a dozen or so examples testifying to a young age of the earth and other planetary bodies for the record, but these arguments have been addressed elsewhere in far greater detail than I want to in this publication. This is just to let you know that there are many good reasons for thinking that the scientific evidence does support an earth that was completely changed within human history. In this regard, even if the Earth were old or at least created to look old, all our records now only go back as far as this Biblical Flood Event, which humans actually witnessed.
With this background, let's look at a few related questions quickly, knowing that we need to go into more depth on these in another publication.
15 August 2001, 31 December 2008
For more on this and a response to any questions, please email any comments to nasamike@nasamike.com