Is the Earth really only 6,000 years old?

This is a question that invariably comes up when Christians are confronted with people who lean more towards scientific views and evidence.

So this is an article that will try to shed light based on scripture and scientific evidence. Before I lose you, keep in mind that God set the laws of physics in motion, as well as designing them, and as such, they will need to be reckoned with.

When did it all start? Genesis 1:1 is our foundation, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Perhaps The Big Bang as a science looks back at the beginning and agrees that there was some kind of major event that set everything in motion. Being consistent with all of Scripture that tells us the nature and character of God, we know that He is perfect, and therefore when He creates something, to be consistent with His nature, He would have to be perfect too.

Genesis 1:2 continues (?) “and the earth was without form and void.” Obviously there was no one there to record these events, so when the author of Genesis wrote these words in Hebrew, he was at the direction of Almighty God. The Lord uses words in scripture for a very specific purpose, and the words that have been translated into English, “formless and void” is “tohu wabohu”, which means “to become utterly, utterly, and unrecognizably ruined” or a “uninhabitable wilderness” and is used only one other place in all of Scripture, in Jeremiah 4:23 about a nation that was a land that had been filled with milk and honey, but was about to change due to the disobedience of Israel. Just look at Israel today and how tough the land is to grow almost anything.

The reason this is important is that in Genesis 1:1 God has perfectly created all the heavens and the earth and by Genesis 1:2 it had deteriorated to a place that was utterly, totally, unrecognizably ruined and uninhabitable. This is commonly known as the “gap” theory, sidestepping the possibility that a certain amount of time has elapsed between these 2 verses. There is no arguing that the state of the land is different in these 2 verses. Started out perfect, time passes, now ruined. How long, the scriptures do not tell us, but given the laws of physics and geological studies show it could be hundreds of millions or even billions of years. I will cover more on this later.

So if the Earth was created perfect but fell into ruin, some event had to have happened. In Matthew, Jesus says that he saw Satan fall like lightning to Earth. We also know that Satan ruins and destroys everything he touches (John 10:10). So is it possible that Satan was hurled down to Earth hundreds of millions of years ago and by Genesis 1:2 he has completely, utterly, and beyond recognition ruined the Earth, turning it into an uninhabitable wilderness? Could be.

Let’s tackle this “aging” issue. Yes, it seems that God created Adam (first man) to be an adult. Suppose Adam was created and, although he was in fact only 1 day old, he was able to be fully functional as if he were, say, 20 years old. Likewise, the Lord probably did the same thing when He created Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. Perhaps all living animals have been created as aged beings. In these cases, starting at “conception” would not have been a valid starting point. So which came first, the chicken or the egg? Probably a fully grown hen and her mate. Adam may have been created 10 minutes ago, but he appears to be 20 years old, can we intelligently argue that he is only 10 minutes old when all of science would say he was 20?

Next, let’s take a look at the Universe. Science estimates that the Universe is 14 billion years old, which means that light has been traveling for 14 billion years at the start of the Big Bang. The Hubble telescope has been able to see systems in which light has been traveling toward Earth for hundreds of millions, if not billions of years, at the very least, supposedly.

So here is the 6000 year scenario, in Genesis 1:1, God put the light that would have been emitted by galaxies, solar systems, planets, etc. in various places in the universe from their origin as if they were perhaps hundreds of millions of years or billions of years old but in reality they never existed and God simply placed the light in the right place in the entire universe to reach planet Earth in an Es time we can see these events now.

Our solar system is 26,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way. That would mean that light had been traveling for at least 20,000 years BEFORE Earth was created, so we can now see its center. It does not make any sense. What would God have to gain by deceiving us when science would suggest that it was much older?

This is just a small sample of events that could be analyzed for which we would need to find reasonable answers so as not to appear as if we were ignorant creationists with no regard for science, science set in motion by our Almighty God.

In conclusion, it’s easy enough to count back about 6,000 years to get to Genesis 1:3, but to hold that Genesis 1:1 and 2 were simultaneous events is clearly articulated in Scripture is an assumption and I believe only the opposite is true. . What would God possibly have to gain from aging an entire Universe for him to “seem” older than 6,000 years when he was like Adam, only a fraction of what he does? If, in fact, Almighty God has made everything “seem” over 6,000 years old, how can we intelligently argue that it isn’t? We just can’t.

I personally have no problem with the Universe being literally 14 billion years old plus or minus a few billion, the Earth being 4.56 billion years old, the Grand Canyon taking millions of years to form, dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago about 55 million years, an ice age that lasted millions of years and diamonds took millions of years under millions of pounds of pressure to form. And it makes us look ridiculous trying to explain this away, ruining any possible credibility to be heard about The Truth that can set people free.

None of these events contradict Scripture or alter the very nature of Almighty God. Nor does it encompass evolution, especially evolution within species that Darwin advocated, eg humans “evolving” from apes, God made man in His image (creation), not apes and then somehow turned into humans. I believe that Scripture and science are compatible and would go a long way in moving believers from being seen as ignorant and backward to intelligent people who have also embraced faith in God and received His love and forgiveness through His Son. Jesus Christ.