Creation Theories

In this section:

Can you be a Christian and believe the Earth is Old?
Why do many Christians believe the earth is only about 6,000 years old?
Common interpretations of the Genesis creation account by Christians
Points to Overcome for Old Earth Creationists
Day Age View
Theistic Evolution
Evidence for a global flood?
Early examples of Christians thinking that the Genesis Days of creation were not 24 hour days

Can you be a Christian and believe the Earth is Old?

This page is about some of the Christian theories of how the Earth can be old.

The Bible is written in the cultural context and with the understanding of the people at that time period. This makes it hard to properly understand and translate the Bible to our understanding. For example, the creation of the Universe does not mention galaxies, black holes, planets orbiting stars, and so on because the people at that time had no understanding of these things. They did not even have words in their language to describe these things. This would have made no sense to them and was not important. The important part of creation is not how God made everything but that He made man in God’s image and He loves His creation including us.

Unfortunately in the media today, it seems that religious viewpoints are mixed together with political viewpoints and finding the truth is very difficult. It is commonly portrayed that you can either believe in modern science or Christianity but not both. But there are plenty of Christians who believe in an Old Earth and different interpretations of Genesis that correspond with this. Due to the current political climate, many mainstream Young Earth Christians fight against these other Christians. I personally see this as more damaging than anything science has come up with. Neither a Young Earth or Old Earth violate the essential core beliefs of Christianity and telling people they can only believe the Bible if they accept the Earth is a few thousand years old is driving many people away from the Bible. There is not a single theory that leaves no questions unanswered (Science, Young Earth Creation, Old Earth Creation, Christianity, or any other religious view).

Why do many Christians believe the earth is only about 6,000 years old?

There are multiple genealogies in the Bible with some starting in Genesis with Adam. When adding up the ages of the various genealogies, these lead back to the Creation of Adam around 4000 B.C. There are some different opinions on the exact age, but they all have creation between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. This also assumes that the creation “days” in Genesis are literal 24 hour days.

The main date that is assumed to be close is 4004 B.C. This was determined by James Ussher in the 1600’s. Here is a quick overview of how he came up with this date.

Ussher added up the three distinct periods of history mentioned in the Bible. There is the early times (Creation to King Solomon), early age of kings (Solomon to destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by Babylon) and the late age kings (Ezra and Nehemiah to the birth of Jesus).
Ussher starts with year zero and then uses the chronologies in the Bible to add up the ages. The Bible provides this info from Adam to Amel-Marduk (Evil-Merodach). This is a total of 3,441 years after creation.
From this point forward, he has to use various non-biblical information to determine the dates because the Bible does not provide enough information. Using all this information he determines the date of creation to be 4004 B.C.
One problem with this method is it totally relies on the Bible for the first few thousand years. But different texts used different numbers. He used the Hebrew text which is what most English translations are based on. But the Septuagint and Samaritan provide different years so the date would be different if these were used.
Also, many Christian and non-Christian scholars believe the genealogies listed do not list every person or generation in the genealogy.

Common interpretations of the Genesis creation account by Christians

While the young earth creation theory is the most popular, there are many Christians who believe the earth is millions or billions of years old. These are not the only interpretations of Genesis but these are the more popular options. Just like some scientists intrepret some sceintific data differently, some Bible scholars intrepret what the Bible is trying to say differently.

Calendar day view - The first six creation days are six 24-hour periods. This along with the genealogies lead to the earth being six to ten thousand years old. These are the young-earth creationists.
Day age view - The first six creation days are extended periods of time. Each day can be millions or billions of years long. They typically accept the scientific view of an old-earth.
Theistic Evolution - This is the belief that God designed the universe so that the galaxies, stars, plantes, etc would form but not that He made them as they are now. He also designed the biological organisms so they would naturally evolve over time. So they believe in evolution and God.
Literary view - There are multiple literary view theories. These theories focus on the literary features of the creation story and don’t see it as six literal days of creation. They typically accept the scientific view of an old-earth as well. Some also accept evolution, it’s just that God started evolution.
Framework view - This is the idea that Genesis 1 uses a 7 day week as a framework to describe God’s work of creation. The first three days describe the creation of realms of habitation while days four through six describe the inhabitants of those realms. For example, on day one God creates light and separates the darkness. Then on day four God creates the Sun, Moon and Stars. Day one and four relate to each other. In this view, days two and five and days three and six relate to each other as well.

Foundation Days	Population Days
Day 1 Light created and darkness divided.	Day 4 Creation of Sun, Moon and Stars
Day 2 Created Sky and Seas.	Day 5 Created sea creatures and birds.
Day 3 Created dry land and plants.	Day 6 Created land animals and humans.

Points to Overcome for Old Earth Creationists

Here are the main reasons Young Earth Creationists (YEC) say the Bible must mean 6 literal days of creation thousands of years ago. All of the Old Earth Creationists theories have to overcome these points from YEC. Otherwise the Bible is contradicting itself.

Genesis 1 uses the Hebrew word “Yom” which can mean a literal 24 hour day or a period of time. YEC claims that how it is used in Genesis 1 can only mean a 24 hour day. Also at the end of each day in Genesis 1, it says “the evening and the morning” which also points to a literal 24 hour day.
Exodus 20:8-11 talks about keeping the Sabbath holy and refers back to the 6 days of creation in Genesis 1 as an example of how men should work for 6 days and rest on the 7th day like God did when creating everything. YEC say this does not make sense if God did not create everything in 6 literal days.
YEC believe that according to Romans 5:12 and Romans 8:20-22, there was no death or suffering on the earth before the sin of Adam. Since there was no death (not animals or people), the earth cannot be billions of years old with lots of animals dying.
YEC believe the Flood of Noah was a global flood that killed all land animals and people. The fossil record that is observed today is from this event so there cannot be billions of years before this.
The genealogies in Genesis that start with Adam. This is what YEC use to give the age of thousands of years.

Day Age View:

There are different theories within the day age view but I will go with the main points supported by Hugh Ross. He is an astrophysicist that became a Christian and is one of the more popular Day Age and Progressive Creationists.

Most Day Age believers say God has written the book of nature and the Bible for our instruction. Since God is the author of both, then they must agree. So what you observe and see in the universe must agree with the Bible. Most YEC put the Bible above nature.

How do they overcome the term “day” in Genesis 1

They interpret the Hebrew word “yom” as a period of time in Genesis chapter 1 as opposed to a literal 24 hour day.
This theory disagrees with the YEC notion that because “yom” is used with a number (Day 1, Day 2, ect) that this requires it to be a 24 hour day. It also disagrees with the use of the Hebrew words “ereb” (translated as evening) and “boqer” (translated as morning) requiring this to be translated as a 24 hour day. This simply means the beginning and ending of the long period of time. The creation days in Genesis 1 can be interpreted as long periods of time.
To add to the evidence that these are not 24 hour days, this theory points to the fact that Day 7 does not end with the phrase, “there was evening and morning” and that Day 7 of God’s rest is still ongoing. So if Day 7 is a long period of time, then the other “days” are as well.

How do they overcome the Romans scriptures that say there was no death or suffering before Adam's sin?

This theory disagrees with YEC interpretation of Romans meaning no death existed before Adam’s sin. Romans is speaking of human death, not animal death.
Romans 5:12 KJV - "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."
Even though plants and animals existed long before humans, this theory still claims God miraculously created the first humans, Adam and Eve. They don’t believe in evolution, they believe God created many living things over millions or billions of years.

How do they overcome the Flood of Noah?

The flood of Noah did not cover the entire globe but was a regional flood that covered the settlements in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. At this point in history, this was all the humans on earth so all humans other than Noah and his family were killed. Hugh Ross dates the flood to about 40,000 years ago.
Other evidence from the Bible is provided that the flood is not global.

Psalm 104:6-8 and Job 38:8-10 talk about the creation of the earth on day 3 and mention that the earth will never again be fully covered by water. So the flood of Noah could not cover the entire earth.
2 Peter 2:5 and 2 Peter 3:6 both refer to the flood but limit it so it does not speak of a global flood.

How do they overcome Exodus 20:8-11 speaking of the Sabbath day?

The Day Age believers do not conclude that when Exodus refers to the Sabbath in reference to God’s creation days, that this means the seventh day of creation was only 24 hours long.
The six days of work and one day of rest is appropriate for humans, but this is not true for everything.
Leviticus 25:4 talks about the sabbath for farming lands. It is 6 years of working the field followed by a year of rest. This year of rest is called a sabbath. So this means a sabbath does not have to be one 24 hour day.
God does not work on our timeline so His “day” of rest does not have to be 24 hours.

How do they overcome the biblical genealogies?

The Day Age believers don’t think the genealogies encompass all generations. They provide a link from Adam to Abraham but don’t include every generation.
Genealogies in biblical times were not used the same way we use genealogies today. It was common to only include the important and relevant people and leave out other names. Leaving out names is called telescoping.
In the Bible, many of the genealogies are telescoped to be a certain number of generations (like 7, 10 or 14).
In ancient Hebrew, there is the word “ben” which means son, grandson, great grandson, or descendant. They did not have separate words.
Also, ancient Hebrew only had the word “ab” which means father, grandfather, great-grandfather, or ancestor. They did not have separate words for these either.
There are multiple examples in the Bible of someone being referred to as “son” or “father” but they are not the biological son or father as we think of today.
In short, genealogies and ancestry were recorded much differently in biblical times than current day. So we can’t put the modern approach to the biblical genealogies.

Theistic Evolution

This theory has many different views and interpretations and is difficult to cover in a few bullet points. I will try to give some of the main points. Also this view point normally is a combination of evolotion, the framework view and the literary view. So I am just providing one example for these.

Here are the main beliefs of Theistic Evolutionists.

Theistic Evolution (TE) is the belief in evolution but that God is the creator.
TE believes the Bible is not a reliable source of scientific knowledge about the origin of the universe, earth and life. But the Bible is a reliable source of knowledge about God and spiritual things.
The Bible tells us that God created the universe but not how He created it.
TE believes living things evolved but how much God played a role has no consensus. It goes from God guided evolution to Him being totally hands off and evolution directed itself.
TE believers do not take the creation account in Genesis as literal. They accept the Genesis creation account as literary devices to communicate the story of creation in terms we can understand.
Genesis was written to counter the polytheism and pantheism creation stories from other cultures of the time. Polytheism is the belief in many gods and pantheism is the belief that God is just the laws of the universe. They claim this is why the Sun and Moon are not even named in the creation story, it’s an act of defiance against the Egyptians that worship the sun as a god. Also the stars are mentioned as an afterthought because the Babylonians worship them. The Eqyptians and Babylonians are the two cultures that would have had a lot of influence when Genesis was written down. (Genensis 1:16 KJV - “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”)
In fact, they see the first 11 chapters of Genesis (this includes creation and Noah’s flood) as a poetic introduction to the story of God’s people. While they may speak of real events, they do so in figurative language and theological ways as opposed to being plain narration of facts.
They do believe in Jesus and that he is the Son of God who died for our sins and was resurrected.

How do they overcome the scriptures in Romans that say there was no death or suffering before Adam's sin?

TE believe animal death clearly happened before humans. This is not a problem because they believe the Bible is referring to human death only, not animal death.
As for the Romans 5:12 original sin argument, there are multiple theories on the original sin but there does not seem to be a consensus on any one theory. But many don’t believe it happened in the Garden with Adam and Eve since they believe in evolution.
It seems most believe that the human death referred to is spiritual and not physical. Physical death could have always been part of the plan. One of the reasons for this is that the tree of life placed in the Garden is what would have allowed Adam and Eve to live forever, not that they were created immortal. Also the Garden is walled off from the rest of the earth and seems to be a safe place for them. Not that the whole earth was a perfect and safe place.
Animal suffering before the fall is also a difficult problem for TE. There are a few different theories.

One theory is that fallen angels created the natural evil (parasites, cancer, storms such as hurricanes and predators) messing up God’s plan. One main problem with this is that it had to happen before or at the same time animals exist since there is no evidence of animals without natural evils. This makes God calling His creation good in Genesis 1 before the fallen angels mess it up difficult.
Another theory is that animals don’t have the same consciousness as humans so they don’t suffer. They can feel pain but don’t truly suffer.
Another option is that while animals do suffer and earthquakes cause death and destruction, the good caused by the overall process that leads to more animals and species outweighs the bad. So this is not truly bad or evil.
They concluded that none of these theories are perfect answers but the evidence for evolution is overwhelming and this is how the world works.

How do they overcome the Flood of Noah?

TE don’t believe the flood of Noah was global.
The story of the Flood is about the meaning and not the actual events that took place. So it does not matter if the flood literally happened or if Noah actually built an Ark and put animals on it.
The purpose of the story is to show that God hates sin, loves His creation, and has grace and love for his people. So it could just be a literary story and not an actual event.

How do they overcome Exodus 20:8-11?

TE clearly don’t think the earth was created in 6 literal 24 hour days. Most see the Genesis creation story as either a framework or highly figurative work explaining the “why” of creation and not the “how”. They don’t see it as a literal description of the events that took place. So while it was described as 7 days, this was never meant to be 7 literal 24 hour days.
The scriptures in Exodus are meant to be an example of how humans need to rest on day 7 but this does not mean God had to "rest" for one 24 hour day.

How do they overcome the biblical genealogies?

TE don’t believe the genealogies encompass all the generations. In fact, since many of them don’t believe in a historical Adam, they don’t see them as true genealogies at all.
The purpose of the genealogies in Genesis is to show that the “image of God” is being carried down through the generations and also to show that despite human sin, God’s purpose for creation has not been thwarted.
The genealogies are there to make a point in the Genesis story and not to be an exhaustive list of all the generations.

Evidence for a global flood?

One of the biggest sticking points between YEC and everyone else is the flood of Noah. They claim the entire fossil record is from the flood. Is there any other evidence of a global flood?

Many ancient cultures all over the world have a flood story. Many of them say the whole earth was flooded by an angry god or deity but not all of them.
A flood story exists on every populated continent, the Aboriginals in Australia, the Native Americans, Aztecs and Mayan in the Americas, the Greeks in Europe, Sumerians in the Middle East, and China in Asia.
The major religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and of coarse Christianity all have flood stories.
Secular scientists have not found any geological evidence of a global flood in earth’s history. They have found evidence for large regional floods in different areas that they think inspired the various flood stories.

Early examples of Christians thinking that the Genesis Days of creation were not 24 hour days

One of the other major sticking points between YEC and old earth creationists is the seven days of creation in Genesis. YEC claim that people only started to think these could not be seven 24 hour days after science started to claim the earth was old. While it is true most Chrstians and people in general assumed the earth was not billions of years old, there are some early Christians who did not think the creation days in Genesis were 24 hour days. Below are a few examples.

Augustine of Hippo (Important Theologian lived 354-430 AD) - He thought God made everything simultaneously and that God put the story in a six day pattern to help us understand.
Clement of Alexandria (Jewish Scholar who lived around 200 AD) - He thought everything was created together in thought and that the six days were not to be taken literally.
Dr William Henry Green (Professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary and lived in the late 1800’s) - He disagreed with genealogies in Genesis being assumed to be complete genealogies since most of the other genealogies in the Bible left out names. This caused him not to trust the date of creation that was determined mainly based on the genealogies.