According to the Bible, God created the universe and everything in it. From this basic premise, Christian thinking goes off in all sorts of directions. Generally speaking, Christians believe one of the following about the creation of the universe:
- Young Earth Creationism: God created the universe in six literal twenty-four-hour days, 6,028 years ago.
- Theistic Evolution: God created the universe by and through the process of evolution, leaving room for God to personally intervene in human history when needed.
- Old Earth Creationism: God created the universe with the appearance of old age.
Yesterday, I listened to a podcast featuring an old-earth creationist trying to defend his beliefs. Things did not go well for him. Science aside, old-earth creationism posits that God deliberately deceived humanity by creating the universe with the appearance of age. Thus, they can accept what science says about the age of the universe while at the same time claiming God created everything.
In other words, God lied to us. The Earth “looks” old, but it’s not. God is just playing a trick on us. If the Earth is 6,028 years old, why do various testing methods say differently? Simple, God is playing a game with us. He’s a trickster, telling us a painting is thousands of years old, when it is, in fact, two years old.
Why would God do this? What is his endgame? Why would he lie to us? You would think that God would want us to have accurate information about creation and the age of the earth/universe. When science says the universe is billions of years old, this is a factual claim, old-earth creationists say, but — with a wink — they confidently say, “God created the universe with apparent age.” This, of course, is a faith claim.
Evangelicalism has nothing to offer when it comes to science. Their core beliefs about the universe are directly contrary to what science says about the matter. Even the theistic evolutionist is inserting God where none is needed. Science doesn’t have all the answers, but it is superior to the manic rants of preachers about the literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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