It is not normally too difficult to distinguish between babies and people in their eighties. People in their eighties are at least larger. While both might not have teeth or at least limited numbers of them, careful examination will distinguish the dental characteristics. The skin changes with age, along with many other characteristics. We can distinguish by many physical characteristics between very young humans and older people.
Is this also true for our planet and our universe? If as Young Earth Creationists (YEC) claim, the Earth is really less than 10,000 years old, then how would the Earth look physically different if it were actually billions of years old? Or if as YEC claim, most of the rocks on the Earth were formed during Noah’s flood, what would constitute evidence that the earth’s big piles of sedimentary rocks actually resulted largely from slower processes acting over long periods of time? Consider this as a challenge for YEC. They look hard to find some possible alternative interpretation for what seem to be ancient rocks. They search diligently for something that might be difficult to explain from an Old Earth standpoint. If the universe is not ancient, then what would an ancient universe look like?
This is the same type of question that you might ask a person who claims that Jesus did not raise from the dead. You might then ask them, “If Jesus was not resurrected, then what actually did happen?” When they try to produce an explanation, then you can proceed to point out problems with their proposals and why they do not fit what people, even skeptical scholars recognize about what happened. In this case, we are simply turning the question around. If the claim is that the physical characteristics of our universe are consistent with a young creation, then what would it look like if it were really ancient? What might a person arguing for a young earth advocate say? Here is one side of a hypothetical conversation about this.
“If the universe were really ancient, we would have expected to see evidence in outer space that would look that way. We would see evidence of stars and galaxies out there whose light wouldn’t have even reached us if it left the stars a few thousand years. You know, a lot like astronomers actually see. Oh, scratch that.” The heavens declare that a magnificent God created cosmos that have been sending light our way for a long, long time…. billions of years. (Issue #12: The size of the Universe… distant stars)
Moving closer, where we can actually do physical tests, what about the crust of the earth? “If plate tectonic had really been active for billions of years, with plates moving around the surface, then we would expect the rocks on earth to show evidence of many, many different phases of development. Oh, yeah. The rocks do show very complex phases of development, with mountain ranges that developed, were largely eroded away and then incorporated into younger ranges. The cycles are all different but share the same processes.” (Issue #11: Tectonic Rates)
“What about those claims of fossils that formed over millions of years? That would have meant that there was animal death on earth a long time before Adam chose to try to be equal with God and sinned. Those fossils are from animals that died in Noah’s flood. Those rocks were all deposited by a huge global catastrophic flood deposit.”
“If the earth were really old and life had really been there for billions of years, then one would have thought that life would have changed over such long times. Afterall, the energy delivered to earth over time would have changed and life should reflect that. Oh yeah, the fossil record really does show a lot of big changes that occurred over time. Bacteria and algae appeared really early. Strange forms appeared dramatically in the Ediacaran only to largely disappear and be dramatically replaced during the Cambrian explosion. “
“Of course, if complex life appeared hundreds of millions of years ago, compared to a few thousand years ago, one would expect that many forms would have lived over this time that we don’t see today…. Oh, yeah… that is what we see. Not trilobites, or dinosaurs or…… On the other hand, if complex life originated that long ago, we wouldn’t find evidence of most modern forms back through most of the record in the rocks… Hey, we don’t find modern forms in the ancient record.” (Issue #4: Fossil Record)
“Maybe if the Earth were really old, then one would expect that radioactive decay would show evidence of decay in rocks for millions of years…. Oh, it does. Maybe that is because for no apparent reason, during Noah’s flood, radioactive decay was really accelerated. If that were the case, then if the universe were really old, then when we examine rocks from off of Earth and away from the flood, we would still see evidence of radioactive decay over deep time coming from meteorites or from rocks from the moon. Don’t tell me… those rocks have radiometric dates that extend back billions of years.” (Issue #3 Radiometric dating)
YEC often say that truly ancient minerals and rocks would not have C14. There are at least two problems with this. C14 is to be expected in coal and hydrocarbon deposits. (Hunt, Carbon-14 in Coal Deposits, Bonvicini et al, 2018: The chemical history of 14C in deep oilfields) Other reports of C14 in ancient rocks are at levels to be expected from contamination and far too low to be considered valid signal. (Answers for Young Earth Claims)
Arguing for a global flood, they might say, “It is easy to see that most rocks were deposited by a flood. Afterall, if they were formed by processes like we see today, you would sure expect to find deposits from settings that couldn’t have formed during a flood. Just think about all of the environments today that would never occur in a flood. If the rocks weren’t deposited by raging waters, why don’t we see rocks that formed in dry climates or deserts? We do? Really, there are thick rocks from ancient salt flats and ancient sand dunes? (Llano Estacado in New Mexico and Texas Vs. YEC and Flood Geology; Collins, 2022, Eolian or Water Deposition of the Coconino Sandstone) Well, if ancient rocks weren’t formed by a flood, then we might expect ancient glacier deposits (Bentley, et al., Evidence of glaciation) or ancient reefs or swamps. (Ancient Reefs confirm Deep Time and sink Flood Geology, Dinosaurs and Noah’s Flood, Part 2) Afterall, they wouldn’t be part of global flood.”
Many YEC argue that if fossils were formed millions of years ago, we sure wouldn’t have dinosaur bones that have any soft tissue preserved. They might say, “Paleontologists don’t have any idea how that could happen… Don’t tell me…. They have demonstrated mechanisms that would isolate soft tissues so that it could be preserved. (Dinosaurs and Noah’s Flood, Part 3; Senter 2022 Soft Tissues in Fossil Bone). If such mechanisms didn’t exist, the soft tissue discovered could not have even preserved any soft tissue for the ~4500 years since their date for Noah’s flood.
Perhaps a YEC would say, “Folded layered rocks must have been folded while the sediments were soft. If they were folded slowly over deep time, they would show evidence that the rocks were folded slowly instead of shattered like would have happened if brittle rocks were deformed quickly. No, I don’t want to hear about those in Permian Basin, where they were hardened, then folded, and then partly eroded away, and then covered with later sediments?” (Issue #2: Deformation – folding and faulting of hard rocks)
“Maybe another way Earth would look ancient, if it really were, is that we might see evidence of huge igneous bodies that would take many thousands of years to cool, that had not just cooled, but has been deeply eroded. That would surely take deep time. Oh, we do find that and not only is it cooled and hardened today, but apparently the Sierra Nevada Batholith was cooled, hardened and eroded millions of years ago and pieces of the rock and their material caught up in Mesozoic sediments. Strange, but the Earth still can’t be ancient.” (Issue #10: Igneous Intrusions)
Comparison
The YEC attempts to put many ancient rocks into Noah’s flood and to explain rocks that obviously were deposited over much longer periods of time remind me again of an atheist’s explanations for the resurrection of Jesus. As one atheist put it: “any possible explanation for the resurrection claim, regardless of how unlikely it is, is more acceptable than the claim that Jesus resurrected”. In the YEC world, any possible explanation that might explain how rocks could have been part of Noah’s flood is more acceptable than the idea that rocks were laid down as God prepared the Earth over the course of deep time.
Take the folded rock example mentioned earlier. We find rocks that clearly are folded, and we all can agree that if solid rocks were deformed over a period of a few thousand years, let alone over the course of a one-year flood event, all of the strain would be in form of brittle deformation such faulting and shattering. Therefore, for the YEC, the rocks must have been soft and pliable at the time they were folded. Afterall geologists all recognize that some folds in rocks occurred this way through the process of soft-sediment deformation. The YEC explanation is deceptive in that although some rocks were deformed this way, many clearly were not. A good explanation for some rocks does not necessarily apply to all.
Many similar examples could be given. Ancient reefs could not have grown during a global flood, therefore any examples that are reported were not actually reefs because they had to have formed in a few days during the Genesis flood. Dinosaur tracks must have formed as the dinosaurs were running from the flood even though they go in many directions and can be found around ancient trees found in growth position and walking on ancient mudcracks. Starlight can’t have traveled millions or billions of years to get here, so maybe it was created on the way or there is some creative relativistic explanation. Etc., etc. Just as the atheist cannot accept the historical evidence for the resurrection and must grab onto some other explanation that contradicts what we know, the YEC cannot look at the evidence for deep time in a fair way, but must grasp at explanations that really don’t work.
What about for a naturalist?
This same type of argument could also be used for another disagreement. Naturalists would tell us that all that exists is the natural world and that natural processes are entirely adequate to explain our universe. If the universe had no mind behind it, what would it be like? This would seem to be a short conversation at this point, because take God out of the picture, and there are not planets, let alone ones that are hospitable for humans. (Mind behind the Universe and a Deck of Cards; A pattern of incredibly tuned characteristics makes stars and planets possible )
For the purposes of argument, an atheist might say that he still believes that blind chance is a better explanation. “Surely life is common throughout the universe, with billions of planets well suited for advanced life that might be different than what we know, but no special guided circumstances would be necessary. If God had really specifically designed Earth as a special place, you would see evidence of it at all scales and in many ways. We are just on a pale blue dot that is nothing special.”
For some people, the special character of our galaxy group or galaxy itself is just a coincidence, though why such coincidences should be possible in itself would seem a miracle. (New evidence of how and when the Milky Way came together; The New Story of the Milky Way’s Surprisingly Turbulent Past) What would a planet be like, if God chose to act over billions of years to fill it with life? Each part of our solar system and planet seems wonderfully orchestrated to make advanced life possible. If there is no God, then it as though the universe itself wanted someone here to appreciate it. Isn’t it easier to believe a loving God planned it?
We have a convenient long-term heat source in the radioactive material in the Earth’s core. (Earth’s Inner Core is Around 1.15 Billion Years Old…So?). It is questionable whether we would even have the long-lived plate tectonics that is so key to life if it were not for the fortuitous collision that gave us the anomalously large moon that we have. Indeed, that moon is turning out to be more and more important to life on Earth. (Our Marvelous Moon: fine-tuning becomes more and more clear; Our moon is critical to advanced life.. but why is it there?). Compare what we find on the nearest planets, Venus and Mars. They are so barren and lifeless and contrast starkly with the extravagant variety of life and environments on Earth. (Venus: Learning how special Earth is and Mudcracks on Mars… and Life? )
How important is plate tectonics to life? Perhaps when life first appeared about 3.7 billion years ago, plate tectonics had not yet been established, but it seems to have been really key in developing advanced life. In fact, life may well have been key in ways such as increasing the erosion rate of continents that keeps the continents moving. Thus, in fact, it may be that without life, long-lived plate tectonics might not have been possible. Here are some recent articles that show how the linkage between life and tectonic is becoming increasingly studied and clear:
Study: Location and Amount of Land on Planet’s Surface Can Significantly Impact Its Habitability; Supermountains were essential for the evolution of life on Earth; Goldilocks at the dawn of complex life: mountains might have damaged Ediacaran–Cambrian ecosystems and prompted an early Cambrian greenhouse world; Bio-geodynamics of the Earth: State of the art and future directions; Coevolution of Life and Earth
We could look at many, many ways that show that the universe, the Milky Way, our solar system, and our planet are optimized for advanced life. It is easy to conclude that an incredible mind went to great effort, not just create life here, but to place intelligent life here with the resources to be able to study the Earth and view the universe in order to appreciate its creator.
Does this mean that skeptics are now easily persuaded and rapidly turn to God? Just as the YEC does not hold his position, despite their protests to the contrary, because of its scientific support, most naturalists will maintain their position regardless of how highly improbable it seems to be. The YEC is firm in his position because his interpretation supports his particular interpretation of the scriptures and strangely enough, the same is often true for the naturalist. The naturalist often agree that the only interpretation of Genesis is that of a fable written long ago, and that the scripture proclaims that the Earth was created over six 24-hour days and that Noah’s flood covered the entire earth, despite the fact that they reject any historical validity to this. They are not interested in looking at other options, perhaps because this conveniently makes Christian claims illogical. Perhaps some fear that if the claims were true, that would require accepting God’s claims on their life. The YEC often are not interested in considering other options for how to interpret Genesis because they fear that they might be on a slippery slope that might lead them to walking away from the faith.
My own view is that one need not fear any discoveries from science or from studying the scripture too closely. I don’t claim to have the answer to everyone’s questions, even my own. I do trust that God is true, faithful and loving. I trust that His Word is true, though both scientific data and the scripture are subject to interpretation. The major themes of God as the creator, Jesus as deity, and salvation by grace through faith are abundantly clear and not in doubt. God has revealed himself in His Word and in creation and there is an exciting journey of discovery in both areas available for us.
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