Here is a dialogue I carried on recently with a good friend. I share it with you in case you have similar concerns about the age of the universe and the account of Creation in Genesis. If you wish to disagree, I would enjoy hearing your reasons. My comments alternate with his, beginning with his. I created this with different fonts, but they did not come through.
“These comments are the second time I’ve seen in your or others posts that make reference to an old universe which requires billions of years being attributed to the universe’s existence. That obviously has been proven not to be the case, in actual science. Evolutionists HAVE TO STATE an old universe as all other explanations involve the Bible’s explanation.”
“Here are some brief comments. The six day teaching is based on the assumption that the Hebrew word “yom” is intended to be translated as a 24-hour period. But in Hebrew that word can have several different meanings: a 24-hour period, the time between sunrise and sunset, or an arbitrary length of time, such as our word “eon”. To insist on the 24-hour translation is not accurate or necessary. Even in English we use “day” as something other than a 24-hour period. Examples are “in my day, we didn’t…” or the “day of the dinosaur”, which was actually a multi-million year period. In fact, recognizing that in the context of Genesis 1 “yom” could easily mean an eon. So that would say that God created the Earth in six eons or stages of time. How do you account for there being day and night on the first day, but the sun and moon were created on the fourth day? A better understanding of the process God used to create the Earth can easily explain this conundrum. God gave us the Word and God gave us Creation. It is the same God and He is never inconsistent. If we see inconsistencies, it is only because we lack the true understanding of what God said or did because there can be no inconsistencies with Him. Interpreting “day” in the English translation of Genesis as a 24-hour period is the basis of the inconsistency in the time of creation. God has allowed us to be able to learn from His Creation as well as His written Word. I could show you many examples of how God arranged things in such a way that we could discover His hand in the creation that He made. It is as if He intended us to be able to see His glory in the heavens, and in what the Word says. There is lots more I could tell you and if you give me enough time I could tell you more. I have a Sunday school lesson I prepared that shows how science confirms the Genesis account of Creation.”
“I believe any idea about the age of this universe is speculative and must assume certain things in order to conclude its age. I really don’t believe the Word claims God made the universe, the earth and all in it, then waited billions of years to make mankind. Is 6 days 6 actual days? I believe it is, which would negate the billions of years proposal.
I’ve read some Christian scientists believe all is 6,000 or 7,000 (?) years old, which sounds a whole lot more like God’s timeframe all things considered.”
“It is true that evolutionists require an old universe, but the Earth being only 4.5 billion years old is not long enough for evolution to explain the existence of the human species. In fact, to support evolution the evolutionists hung onto the theory that the universe has always existed and was never created. The only explanation that fits such a finite timeline (even though it seems very long to us) is the Creation account in the Bible. The evidence from geology, physics, astrophysics, and cosmology is that this is a universe that came into existence merely 13.8 billion years ago and an Earth that is only 4.5 billion years old. That timeline is way too short for evolution to explain life. Furthermore, the evidence from science is that there had to have been a Creator who was able to create and execute a plan far more detailed and precise than any human could ever imagine. That Creator had to be super super smart, purposeful and benevolent, i.e. the God of the Bible.”
“Why would God take billions of years to make what he created by simply ‘saying’ ‘breathing’ all things into existence? Why would anyone insist that God took billions of years? Makes no sense just like the earthly perspective claiming all in existence took billions of years. Just don’t see that at all. No need to explain more. We’ll know all sometime soon!”
“Since God could just say the word and it would be, why take such a long time (from our perspective, since time means nothing to Him, He created time)? Actually, the fact that he took so long is a tribute to His glory. It is because He caused it to happen in stages where each stage was a development as a result of the previous stage. All these stages show how wonderfully designed this whole universe is. Everything works together by the laws of physics He created. The fact that He took billions of years to create a special place in the universe for us to become His loving children is a testimony to how important we are to Him. That is far more impressive than if everything just came into being suddenly at the speaking of His word. In an instant He did create everything but it was bundled up and had to unfold like a beautiful flower that starts from just a small dull bud but over time blossoms into a beautiful flower. The whole process is much more amazing than if the flower just popped into being fully developed. So it is with the Universe. It started as a small insignificant bud that grew and blossomed into the wonderful creation we enjoy today. When He spoke Creation into being, it did not come as a full flower but it contained all the laws, mechanisms, and ingredients to become the Universe we see today. The heavens really do declare His glory the more we get to understand what He did and the way He did it.
“Here is another comparison I thought of. God has created wonderful tasty peaches, but to get a peach you must plant a small peach seed, water it and nurture it until it mysteriously sprouts and becomes a small sapling. That sapling must grow by mechanisms God built into the seed to control how it grows. Much time goes by and eventually all the mechanisms that were in the seed have caused the tree to grow fifteen feet tall with many branches arranged in just the way they are on a peach tree. At the right time those built-in mechanisms cause the tree to grow many flowers, all similar and all unlike anything else that has been on the tree before. The flowers are glorious, but God is not finished yet. In the flower there is a delicious nectar that bees and other insects enjoy. In a mysterious way God made the nectar and made the insects want it and caused them to gather pollen while eating nectar and take the pollen to other flowers causing fertilization. You could never have foreseen that when the tree was growing, but it was something that God had designed into the peach seed from the beginning. That germination inside the flower eventually grows into the wonderful peach that we enjoy eating. The whole process, which took many years before there were peaches on the tree, was created when God created the seed. God could just speak peaches into existence and then we would not have to wait years for the tree to grow and produce them. But God does not do that except in unusual cases, like feeding the five thousand and the manna every morning in the desert. The rest of the time we have to wait for the mechanisms God created to produce the fruit we need.
“The creation of the universe was much like that. In the original creation, everything that was needed to create human beings was there just as the peaches are there in the original peach seed. But just as the peach plant must go through many different stages before there are peaches, so the universe had to go through many different stages until it was ready for humans to be created. Peaches don’t grow overnight from the seed. The peach tree must go through years of growth before peaches can appear. It is the same with the universe, but since the universe is so much more complicated than a peach tree and humans are much more complicated than a peach, the timescale for the universe must similarly be very much larger.
“This whole process glorifies God much more than a simple sleight of hand instantaneous creation event would. How we get many peaches from a single peach seed is an amazing miracle. So much greater is the glory that is exhibited in God’s creation of the universe and us.”