I believe in a young earth as I think scripture seems to try put that position forward. There is no difference between the Hebrew words for day, year or any aspect of time in genesis as compared to other parts of scripture. Further I think the whole truth of salvation history rests on Adam and Eve being literal people.
Further I find comfort in the testimony of the divine visions of the saints. Yes it’s private revalation but I think many people take approved private revelation to mean “do not believe” when in fact it actually means “The Church has no reason to doubt it but you don’t have to believe it”.
Anyway Bleased Anne Catherine Emmerich had a Vision on the history of man up until the time of Jesus. Of the creation she says this:
”I saw these false computations of the pagan priests at the same time that I beheld Jesus teaching on the Sabbath at Aruma. Jesus, speaking before the Pharisees of the Call of Abraham and his sojourn in Egypt, exposed the errors of the Egyptian calendar. He told them that the world had now existed 4028 years. When I heard Jesus say this, He was Himself thirty-one years old.”
She also comments on the creation:
“When in my sixth year I reflected on the first article of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth,” there passed before my soul innumerable pictures of the creation of Heaven and earth. I saw the Fall of the angels, the creation of the earth and Paradise, that of Adam and Eve, and the Fall of man.
I saw Adam created, not in Paradise, but in the region in which Jerusalem was subsequently situated. I saw him come forth glittering and white from a mound of yellow earth, as if out of a mold. The sun was shining and I thought (I was only a child when I saw it) that the sunbeams drew Adam out of the hillock. He was, as it were, born of the virgin earth. God blessed the earth, and it became his mother. He did not instantly step forth from the earth. Some time elapsed before his appearance. He lay in the hillock on his left side, his arm thrown over his head, a light vapor covering him as with a veil. I saw a figure in his right side, and I became conscious that it was Eve, and that she would be drawn from him in Paradise by God. God called him. The hillock opened, and Adam stepped gently forth. There were no trees around, only little flowers. I had seen the animals also, coming forth from the earth in pure singleness, the females separate from the males.
Near the tree by the water arose a hill. On it I saw Adam reclining on his left side, his left hand under his cheek. God sent a deep sleep on him and he was rapt in vision. Then from his right side, from the same place in which the side of Jesus was opened by the lance, God drew Eve. I saw her small and delicate. But she quickly increased in size until full grown. She was exquisitely beautiful. Were it not for the Fall, all would be born in the same way, in tranquil slumber.
The hill opened, and at Adam’s side arose a crystalline rock, formed apparently of precious stones. At Eve’s, lay a white valley covered with something like fine white pollen.”
