Creationism: Could God have created the world in six days and created it with the "appearance of great age"?

Question

Philip Gosse, a geologist in the 1850's proposed that God had created everything with an appearance of great age. The actual age of the earth might be eight or ten thousand years, but the "ideal" age(the age which God simulated at creation) could be millions of years.

Ancient fossils, according to this view, never existed as plants and animals but had been created as fossils.

Creationist believe in an omnipotent God who has the ability to do such a thing. God is all-powerful and there is nothing impossible with God. Absolutely nothing.

The ;Creation-with-apparent age" is strongly upheld by Christian Scientists and creation advocates today.

God also created the starlight in situ.

Both the Bible and geology testify to a progressive creation: With the appearance of age.

Note: Job 26:7, Isaiah 40:22, 42:5,45:12, Jeremiah 12:12, Zechariah 12:1). There is no God like our God.

Answer 1

I'm not sure if the information above is something that I should believe in, but one thing's for sure is that God created all things, that had made me happy, regardless of how long did He take to create anything.^_^

Answer 2

You know, God COULD have done whatever "He" wanted. However, I think if you start insinuating that God made fossils have properties of something millions of years old, but not really that old, just to what, trick the scientists, or something??...then you're projecting onto God characteristics of scheming and conniving...do we really want to picture God as THAT sneaky??

Just b/c the Bible says "and the first day, blah blah, and the second day...and on the seventh day he rested", does not mean that that is LITERALLY what happened!! How long is a "day"? You do know that a "day" for us is simply how long the Earth takes to rotate one time...you think the creation of the Universe was really measured in Earth time?? Somehow I doubt it. Genesis is NOT a scientific nor even historic account...it is an allegorical, metaphorical representation that helps shed light (?) on our existence...but some fundamentalists get carried away thinking "every single word in the Bible (and WHICH Bible??) is absolute literal truth".

When I read the Old Testament, I get VERY concerned: if God really and truly said and meant all the crazy things that went on, it sure makes God look petty, jealous, and waaay too human. The human authors wrote what the people at that time needed to hear, but not necessarily exactly what happened...I truly wonder what God thinks of some of those passages.

Yes, creation WAS progressive; it WAS (I believe) initiated by a Creator whom I call God; it WAS done slowly over a very long time; and it DID include the progression of evolution, too...perhaps not exactly as Darwin supposed it, but evolution of some kind DID occur. We just need some new, more inclusive and far-reaching theories to explain it better.

Peace.

Answer 3

The beauty of this argument is that it is completely secure from being tested as there would be no way to prove or disprove it. The problem with it is that it atests to a deceitful god. Why would god go to such lengths to create a reality that completely contradicts the literal word in the Bible?

Unless one would like to believe that god is the ultimate prankster, capable of the cruelest of hoaxes, this position seems untenable.

The more logical view, in my opinion, is that the details of creation in the Bible are allegorical. We know that Jesus often used stories to illustrate a point. So, it is not unprecedented for god to use stories to make a point. Moreover, science is teaching us that creation was a very very complicated process. When your an omniscient god understanding that complexity is not a problem. But, try explaining it to a bunch of illiterate farmers who have just recently evolved from apes.

My guess is that god just dumbed it down for us in the Bible. The important points are there was a creation (no static state universe) and god made it. God then gives us a few outlines on the steps, then get to the really important moral lessons that the Bible is really all about.

Answer 4

Creationism wallows in its inability to explain anything. Ultimately, all of science to a creationist boils down "God did it that way" and there is no need for further discussion. This is intellectual cowardice. It is a crutch for those who do not want to think, but are content to let others tell them what to believe. My God does not create artificial stuff for me to discover to test my faith. My faith is not based upon words written by men (enlightened or not) who didn't know the earth was round, much less that there is such a thing as a galaxy. A classic example can be found in Genesis. Here the work of thousands of scientists trying to understand the origin of the universe is summarized in two pages that conflict with each other. Certainly it is simple to quote, but all subsequent questions are answered the same way (i.e."I don't know, that's the way God made it"). Simple, but not enough for my God-given curiosity(LOL).

Answer 5

You know what that implies right? God created the world with the appearance of age, to fool us into believing that the world is old. This is a trickster Going around and burying dinosaur bones, saying "This'll totally mess with em!"

Any God that does that, then makes as a requirement that we dont' believe things we percieve with senses he created us with, and the reason that sets us apart from animals that shows how we are special to Him, makes him Evil. It is akin to choping 3 legs off of one side of an ant and watching him try to struggle with his work load, because he's programmed to do just that. Such a god would not be God, it would be a devil. A liar and a cheat.

If you honestly believe this, you deny the teachings of Jesus that God loves us. If you honestly believe this, you commit a blasphemy against your concept of an all loving, all knowing, benevolent God.

Just think, why would an all powerful being do this? To test us? Such a test is wrong, unequivocally a cruel act.

Answer 6

OK, this is a bit like saying "Could God lie?"
If you say "no, it is impossible for God to tell a lie", then you admit that He is not omnipotent...there is something He cannot do.
If you say "of course, God can lie", you postulate a dishonest God.
How about the simple truth? Yes, God can lie, but He has absolutely no reason to, since He answers to no one but Himself.
Sure, God could have pulled the ultimate "fast one" on humanity, creating a world that looks much older, and even hiding fossils for us to find, but what possible reason would He have for such a ruse?
This is a ridiculous attempt by "flat earthers" to force God into a mold of their own making.
Stop being afraid of science, and learn to embrace it. After all, science, also, was created by God, and we all use it, every day of our lives.

Answer 7

Dude, this 'theory' is no better than evolution. It basically sets Christians up to be morons. The best response would be God could do this, but why would He? What would be the rationale behind such a move? All it would accompish is confusion and denial. Basically, such actions would say "Hey, I created the world in 6 days, but I am going to give the appearance of evidence to the contrary just to help you believe in Me."

I believe the earth is 6k years old and evolution is a load of dung. I also believe God COULD do this, but the process would be self-defeating. Mt. St. Helens is a better example of the process you are referring to. In that erruption, pyroclastic flows were created in 24 hours that are identcal to the 'historical' fossil record.

Answer 8

It is not our belief in God that is nothing but it is you who is nothing.Just say so that you are ignorant of the knowledge of the bible that is why you are commenting such comment which is not necessary.

Who are you anyway to measure the power of our God. Our God is the most powerful living spirit but not you who will soon die and whether you like it or not, you are bound to die and could not carry anything to your burial and grave, then you will return to dust but before returning to dust, your body flesh will be eaten by Worms.

You will die but our God have life everlasting as it was written in the Bible that God has no beginning and no end.How dare you can say that our God is nothing.

Who are you man to question God of his ability to create. In a seconds, he could even destroy the whole world if He like it to do but wait until the coming of Jesus for the judgment.
jtm

Answer 9

Creation with age? Just a theory, which I doubt.
Don't forget that during the flood, all living died. Obviously buried in the silt and all the other shifting ground.
Heavier animals and plants would for sure be buried, and quickly- some fossils look as though they died in painful positions.
There are very few human remains found. Reason?
A dead human floats. Decomposes.
The flood changed the entire land surfaces.

Answer 10

Yes, it is possible, however it doesn't pass the occam's razor test.

The results are exactly the same whether or not we include God as one of the inputs, therefore, God is an extra variable that has no effect on the outcome and can be eliminated (from the scientific theory) until we find some hard evidence that he's required to get the observed outcome.

Answer 11

The question is why? God, who is from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 90:2), is not restricted by time constraints as we are. In fact, what we call "days" could not have existed before the creation of sun, moon and stars. When the Bible speaks of the creation of the universe and all in it, "days" only refer to indefinite periods of time. You yourself speak similarly when you say that something occurred in your "day" or your grandparents "day".