Young Earth Rationale

[nfinke]

I understand there are alot of young earth Catholics out there, and the Church has left it up to our discretion to have either a young or old earth belief. I’ve always (at least since I was old enough to understand) been on the old earth side.

I understand the young earth side, in so much as you want to take a literal understanding of the Bible. But I really need to understand your reasoning beyond that.

According to everything we know about science, which is a knowledge that has been building and growing even longer than the Catholic Church, the earth, and the universe it’s in, seem to be much, much, much older than ~6000 years. Multiple methods have come to the same conclusion, and been supported over centuries by the top scientific minds. The fact is, that according to all our knowledge on how to observe the universe, it appears to be billions of years old. Any theory or finding that may seem to point to the contrary is extremely insignificant in the face of the massive acceptance and evidence of an old earth and an old universe That it appears that old is an indisputable fact.

So, the way I see it, there are only two options, from a religious, biblical standpoint:

1. God created the world over billions of years, and described the creation to Moses in a relatable way that he could understand (I doubt there was even an easy way to say “billion” in ancient Hebrew), and to give a nice allegory that would give a reason for the Sabbath, and still allude to the technical truth that we would discover later, but which wasn’t really important.
2. God created the world in literally 6 24 hour days, but designed it so that every conceivable detail made it appear as if everything in it had already existed for billions of years, and made that so convincing that after examining the world for thousands of years it still appears that way to us.

Now, I’m obviously not saying #2 is beyond God’s power, and I don’t think any old earth person makes that claim. But it definitely seems like God would be going out of his way to will fully deceive every human on Earth. I don’t see anything that God gains from doing so, other than making scientists less likely to be faithful.

How do you square this idea with the fact that God didn’t make reason and faith directly incompatible in any other area of the universe except for how old it appears to be? People like to argue that every other time the word “day” is used in the other is in reference to a 24 hour day, but it seems like violating that pattern to use the language symbolically makes alot more sense than God essentially making every piece of matter in the universe a giant deception.

So it seems the only options for young earthers is that literally all of science done by thousands of scientists over multiple centuries is just wrong, or God wanted to deceive mankind for no apparent reason. Is there a third option I can’t think of or do you guys rationalize one of these somehow?

 

[Gab123]

St Augustine addressed this question in the 4th century.

In The Literal Meaning of Genesis, he wrote:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on the facts which they themselves have learned from experience and the light of reason?

 

[nfinke]

Exactly I’m very familiar with his thinking on that. And I do think, knowing alot of irreligious people and their opinions on faith, his view is correct.

It doesn’t really address my question, which is how do you rationalize your belief. It addresses the importance for christians not to seem like they reject science and reason, which is related, but not an answer to the question.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

I understand there are alot of young earth Catholics out there

I don’t think there are, actually. I could be wrong, but my impression is that this is a very small minority view among Catholics. Young-earth creationism is a hot topic often discussed among evangelical Christians and often considered a non-optional point of belief by them, but I am not sure if I have ever heard it brought up in Catholic circles. It is not a view that is usually taken seriously.

 

[nfinke]

Hm. I guess it’s possible the people I hear it from aren’t Catholics.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

Not saying there aren’t any. Just that (at least from my experience), one doesn’t run across them much. But then I came from a Baptist and evangelical background where “creation science” speakers were popular, and many churches included belief in a 6,000 year-old earth as part of their Statement of Faith. Then I became Catholic, and the creation/evolution debate was noticeably not the hot topic that it was in evangelical/Baptist churches. My impression is that while Catholics believe of course that God created the universe, they are not pre-occupied with exactly how He did it or how long it took unless they happen to be a scientist who studies evolution or the age of the earth or related topics in their field.

 

[JulianN]

I understand there are alot of young earth Catholics out there,

Honestly, while I’m sure there are, I’ve not met one. This may be because, in my work, most people have a pretty high degree of both secular and theological education. But I don’t know any Catholics who deny the scientific evidence on this topic.

 

[twf]

Oh you definitely come across them on CAF.

 

[IdaCatholic]

I have never met a young earth Catholic. Ever. I’ve met Catholics that don’t accept modern theories of evolution. I’ve met Catholics that don’t vaccinate. I have never ever met a Catholic who is a young earther. Now a Catholic could be a young earther and it would not affect thier salvation or faith. But you are going to have to search long and hard and ask one. If you can find one.

 

[IdaCatholic]

Can you ask an active one to join the thread?

 

[Nihilo]

…the Church has left it up to our discretion to have either a young or old earth belief.

I love this about the Church.

…the way I see it, there are only two options, from a religious, biblical standpoint:

1. God created the world over billions of years…
2. God created the world in literally 6 24 hour days, but designed it so that every conceivable detail made it appear as if everything in it had already existed for billions of years, and made that so convincing that after examining the world for thousands of years it still appears that way to us.

Now, I’m obviously not saying #2 is beyond God’s power, and I don’t think any old earth person makes that claim. But it definitely seems like God would be going out of his way to will fully deceive every human on Earth.

There are two answers to this.

One is that concentrating on it being an illusion of sorts, neglects to deal with the belief among those of us who believe God created a mature universe for His mature human creations to live in, is parallel to our belief that He also created Adam and Eve in a day. We believe He created our parents full grown, and not as some displaced embryos who gestated in the atmosphere and eventually developed into adults, but that they were biological human adults the day they were made.

The focus on them being full grown adults on the day they were made is not that they were made to appear deceptively older than they were, but that that day they were made, they were made full and whole. That their universe was also made full and whole and mature, to sustain them then, is a mere and fairly trivial parallel, especially when you charitably grant that such is within God’s power.

And the other answer is that, Scripture literally says it took God six days to make everything. What you picture as deception in Him making everything appear to be older than it is, to me, does not address that He authored Scripture that indicates that this is what He did. For Him to take, say, billions of years to make everything, but to tell us that it only took Him six days, is to me a greater deception than what you’re calling deceptive, which is that it literally took six days, He tells us it took six days, but it looks like it took billions of years.

fwiw. Peace.

 

[twf]

I’m not sure that I agree that the Church has left this issue to our discretion. Certainly many Catholics historically believed in a literal interpretation of Genesis…and certainly Catholics are not forbidden to hold that view. In that sense, it is at our discretion. But it’s not like the Magisterium has said “we have no position”. The Catechism teaches that the creation narrative in Genesis uses “figurative” language. When recent Popes have spoken on the issue, they’ve definitely shown an openness to modern science.

 

[nfinke]

they were made full and whole. That their universe was also made full and whole and mature, to sustain them then, is a mere and fairly trivial parallel

I definitely wouldn’t say making the universe seem billions of years older than it was is a trivial parallel to making a, what, 30 year old man? Also yes God had to make a universe that was “whole” for man to live in, but that doesn’t mean He had to create one that was billions of years old. There’s nothing about the existence of life that requires the universe or the earth to be (or seem) that immensely old. For example, how did Adam and Eve or the human race benefit from God putting deep within the earth the skeletons of creatures that never lived that also appeared to be millions and millions of years old? So if God truly did create a 40 billion year old universe in just 144 hours, it seems He did so on a whim, and things like fossils seem truly unnecessary and therefore malicious.

God also said that abrahams descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, which literally meant there should be more Jews on Earth than the total number of people who have ever lived. Why is it ok that God talks metaphorically sometimes but there’s no way he was talking metaphorically at all in the first few chapters of Genesis?

If day is not used literally, there are many examples of people mapping the actual creation timeline of earth on to a proportional 6 day period and it seems to match up pretty well, so I don’t think it’s a deception. I just think God was far far far more concerned with giving the ancient Israelites (and us modern) the moral law than He was giving them a cosmology lesson. But knowing the origin of the world was a natural thing for humans to wonder about, He gave them a version that they could easily accept in 1500 BC, and not be preoccupied with deciphering, without being untrue in essence.

But I can kind of see where you’re coming from with your reasoning

 

[tafan2]

We believe He created our parents full grown, and not as some displaced embryos who gestated in the atmosphere and eventually developed into adults, but that they were biological human adults the day they were made

We do not necessarily believed this. God could have ensoulded two individual “animals” at the moment of their conception with human, immortal, rational souls, and they could have grown up being fully humans (ie body and soul).

For Him to take, say, billions of years to make everything, but to tell us that it only took Him six days, is to me a greater deception than what you’re calling deceptive, which is that it literally took six days, He tells us it took six days, but it looks like it took billions of years.

I do not see this as a greater deception at all. Indeed, I would see no deception at all. The description of the universe given in the first chapter of Genesis is obviously inaccurate, so if you hold on the to 6 days being a great deception, out do you account for the rest of the “deception”.

 

[tafan2]

There’s nothing about the existence of life that requires the universe or the earth to be (or seem) that immensely old.

I am not for sure I agree with you on this. I am by no means an astrophysicist, but it seems to me that the solar system, or most of it, would have to be in place and in a stable state to support life on earth. It would further seem very possible that for our solar system to be stable, the Milky Way would likewise need to be established in a “stable” state. And so on, and so on. Could our solar system exist if the center of the milky way was the center of the universe, ie the point of the big bang? I suspect not, as it would be exploding apart and not one huge swirling mass of stars and planets. For all of this to occur, the universe would need to be (“or seem”) to be 1 billion years old.
As I have pointed out before, although there is no doubt God could have created the universe in the recent past with a history of billions of years built in: two thoughts come to mind. 1) Why do so, to God creating it over billions of years and creating it in an instant 10,000 years ago with that history built in is the same thing from a “time” perspective. God did not have to wait on the universe to form, He is outside of time. 2) Is there any real difference? And not just from what we see in studying the physical history of our universe, but in its ontological reality itself. If God created it with a history of billions of years, then he created time extending back that far. It seems to me that this only makes sense if one looks at it from the standpoint of eternity (as much as we can do so), and only God exists in eternity.

 

[nfinke]

I can see where you’re coming from from a cosmic perspective. But (not being an astrophysicist either), it’s not really the age of those things that matters, but like you said, their stability. God easily could have plopped everything to where it is now initially, right? So He could have made a stable universe without the need of letting it spread out for billions of years, and just made it appear that it had happened that way. I’m assuming young earth people don’t assume the big bang happened, since that by necessity happened billions of years ago.

But yes I agree it ultimately doesn’t make a difference

 

[tafan2]

God easily could have plopped everything to where it is now initially, right? So He could have made a stable universe without the need of letting it spread out for billions of years, and just made it appear that it had happened that way.

God could have easily done anything. But the universe He created is expanding, that is part of the “stability” I referred to. So for it to be expanding, it probably had to be spreading out for billions of years. God could have create a universe with physical laws such that it would be stable and no bigger than our solar system. I do not think the universe He did create could ever be so.

But we are really taking on the same side of the coin in the argument, just discussing rather the heads is Jefferson or Washington. I was reading Chesterton’s book on Thomas Aquinas the other day, and he pointed out that Aquinas took the position that there is only one truth, and if we observed in our world a condition that had to be true and it seemingly contradicted our interpretation of scripture, that our interpretation of scripture had to be wrong. Because scripture had to be true and cannot contradict what else we know to be true. While I won’t say 100% definitively the age of the universe being billion of years old is true, I will say I am convinced of it enough to say that any interpretation of Genesis which leads us to a conclusion the earth is only 10,000 years old is likely, almost certainly, wrong.

 

[Pattylt]

Has anyone ever met a young earthier that wasn’t religious? I’m not going to say 100% of them are but I think 99.9% of them are and it is due to their interpretation of Genesis.

 

[StephieNorthCo]

Not quite the same thing, but I’ve met flat earthers who were athestic. Whether or not they were serious or not is a different story.

Most young earthers I know are at least theists of some sort. I do a few non Christian ones.