How can I be a Christian and believe in an "old earth" if there had to be death before "the Fall".

Question

Young Earth Creationists make an interesting point that you cannot believe the Bible and believe in an earth older than 6-10k years old because any other viewpoint than this indicates that there were many years of death (whether animals or human) before the Bible's story of the Fall begins. The Fall of man, the original sin, led to death. That said, there had to be a time when there was no death, if there was no death, then billions of years equals billions of animals and not enough resources and land mass to support this compounding problem. With this in mind, can I claim to believe the Bible and still somehow believe the earth is as most scientist (only Christian Scientists believe in a young earth) believe is billions of years old?

Answer 1

Is it possible for you to believe the message of the Bible while not believing it is literal? I know some Christians who are excellent geologists and accept science as a valid way to understand the Earth, yet accept the Bible as a spiritual guide without seeing a contradiction. If they decided to use it as a science textbook they would be using it for a purpose it was never meant to have, and they would not be very good geologist because they would be forced to ignore a major portion of what geology is all about.

Using the Bible as a science book for Earth's history because it mentions a few things related to that is as senseless as using it as an architectural blueprint for building a house because it talks about them. As a matter of fact, it has commandments that require you to build a balustrade on your roof. So your main question is of less urgency than one that asks if you can be a Christian without having a railing around your roof.

For whatever my opinion might be worth, if your faith isn't strong enough to survive the possibility of you discovering you might be mistaken on your current understanding of whatever point Genesis is trying to get across, then it isn't worth ignoring reality for anyway. Keep in mind you are reading words that have been translated, transliterated, and interpreted many times by many people with many agendas to make it down through several thousand years through a series of different forms from an unknown original document. Even the languages have evolved to have many different meanings for words during that time. Did the message change? Who knows. Did the literal meanings change? Doubtlessly, and they may not have been exactly accurate in the first place if they were intended to make a point regarding morality instead of provide an accurate history text about supernatural snakes, donkeys, and bushes; demons causing illness instead of pathogens; etc.

And keep in mind, when debating Creationism verses Science, your are supporting your chosen intepretation of the Bible, not the Bible itself. I think the Bible has a few valid things to say about pride. (yes, even as an Atheist I think the Bible has some valid teachings we can learn from).

Answer 2

Interesting question. If any Christians answer, you'll probably get the "well, plants died" (an objection that has been more than satifactorily answered) or "Genesis is allegory" (which really just side-steps the question) responses - along with the occasional Gap Theory thrown in for good measure. Oh - and lest I forget, there's the Old Earth Creationist position - championed by Hugh Ross, who has some interesting twists to the Day Age theory.
Me? It was exactly this question which God used to start me on my long and not always comfortable journey to the Young Earth position, so I'll be watching with interest any responses.

Answer 3

every primitive culture has a charming and mythical creation story. the ancient hebrews were no exception. It's nonsense of course, but primitive and stupid people will continue to beleive it no matter how much rational evidence is put before them because to do otherwise would threaten their whole world view - indeed their whole social structure (thinking of the US in particualr). If the bible is true, why are there several different versions of how judas died? why does only Matthew mention the wise men ( a tale which confirms astrology if ever there was one!) and why is hell, heaven and the devil only mentioned in New testament (becuase they were new concepts garnered from the persians thats why). Grow up and smell the (evolved) flowers. I used to be a 'born-again' christian until I grew up and applied just half an ounce of intellect and common sense to the whole thing. I havent got rid of Christ's basic concept - be nice to each other - but the rest is bunkum.

Answer 4

I don't think that you can believe in both, because then you would be contradicting yourself. I mean, come on, we have evidence of animals being millions of years old (dinosaurs), and the Bible mentions nothing of them.

Earth Science does not take kindly to the Bible or Christianity, there are to many holes in it and evidence against it for us.

Answer 5

As a scientist, and a Christian I have no issues with the contradiction. Human ignorance on the mysteries of the Universe and the message of God is our problem, not the bible's or science in general.

Let's start with an example from physics. Most science students will recognize the idea the twins paradox. It states that as one twin leaves Earth at speeds approaching celerity, when he returns he will be much younger then his twin. How is this possible? Go read a book, I won't bother wasting time on the math here.

Another example given is the "falling into a black hole" scenario. If you are observing your friend falling into a black hole (a horrible idea in my mind) then you will see him slow down to such a point that eventually you will not see him moving at all. From your point of view he is stuck. From his point of view he is dead. You will age and die and still it will appear that almost nothing is happening.

Take these two ideas into mind and you will see that in one, two objects that should be the same age are not, and in the other one object has two different ages.

Now in terms of religion if you conclude that God created all of the rules of science than you see that God must have also created these strange time distortion phenomenon. Now if you believe that God also has a sense of humor than you can imagine that as a mystery to us God may have played with time and offered us a riddle.

So here now comes my conclusion. God created the universe while standing close to a black hole. He knew full well the effect of time distortion as the Universe was being created. To him, 7 days passed. To us, untold ages. So too could this effect be done by God to explain the Bible and the age of the Earth, everything is written by God in God time, not human time.

So if you believe the Bible is a divine book handed down to us by God, and God has a sense of humor, and wrote everything in God time instead of us time, than the universe can have dual properties.

Earth can be billions of years old and yet to God only be 6-10k. So God creates a plethora of mystery and hands it to us as a challenge of faith. Is it possible to believe God and yet believe science? Of course, and there is no need to assume that scientists are wrong either. They are correct (in our time) and so is God (in His time.)

If you want to read more on calculating the age of the Universe mathematically along with the time dilation effects of a black hole, check out a book called the Permutanomicon. It has a good article that simplifies the ideas much better than I do.

So yes, you can believe in an old Earth and still be a Christian. Simply remember there was no death before the fall in God's time. Now congratulations, you are a science believer, and a faithful Christian.

Answer 6

i am agnostic...

hence i dont belive in god...
but if im given some (proveable) evidence i might change my mind
(like "doubting thomas"?)

why cant your "god" work through evolution?
why cant your "god's" "day" be longer than 24 hours
(if god can create everything, isnt 24 hours a little short for him to work with, why cant his day be millions of years?)

i have many faithful christian friends who belive in science
because they dont consider the creation storys as LITERALY "true"

good luck, i know how this can be confuseing

but at the end of the day...
its a matter of FAITH

defn "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence"

if you can "prove" it then you cant have "faith"?

Answer 7

You cannot take the Bible seriously and at the same time believe the earth is ancient.

The account of creation in Genesis is clearly written as historical narrative, as any Hebrew scholar will tell you.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4141/

It is popular to claim that it is allegory or myth or some such, but these are modern interpretations invented since evolution took a grip on teh public imagination. They are not Biblically sound ideas.

The New Testament contains at least 200 references to Genesis, of which over 100 refer to Genesis 1-11, and 25 of which are by Jesus himself. Jesus clearly accepted the Genesis account as historical. For example Lk 1, 70 "As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, Who have been since the world began,"
Also Mk 10: 6-9 "But at the beginning of Creation God 'made them male and female'. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."

Jesus expects us to believe Genesis "For had ye believed Moses you would have believed me: for he wrote of me.But if ye believe not his writings how will ye believe My words?"

It is interesting that if you listen to (typically evangelical) long-age apologists, they *always* try to justify their long-age position by recourse to (evolutionary) 'science', and not the Bible.

Christians should wake up and smell the coffee!
Evolution and old-earth ideas are easily scientifically refutable (http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3302/), it are utterly contradicted by the Bible (http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3049/).

We do have the answers.