Worth Fourteen Billion Years

        Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a blog about my qualms in regard to the science being done in the area of Evolution. Hardly anyone read it because the moment I use a word like “qualms” on the internet, everyone rather reasonably thinks, “Sshh, Ginger, go study Chemistry or something.” But it helped me externally process, so that’s something. Well, here I am again after a year of taking several classes—some on religion, some on microbiology, some on history (because I’m nothing if not well-rounded, eh?)—and among other things I’ve found myself a convert to an old earth creation perspective.

            This not only sounds ridiculous to many of the people I know who don’t believe in God, but to many of the people I know who do. And it would sound ridiculous to the Ellie of five years ago. But in the last year I have come to realize that a four billion year old earth is not at all in contradiction to an exegetical interpretation of the Bible and certainly not at all in contradiction to good science.

The Struggle is Real

            I always struggled growing up with the infamous schism between science and “religion” or whatever you want to call my relationship with God, but because of the wee little part of me that enjoys rebellion, I ran headlong into the arguments. I am, in fact, equal parts Chemistry major and missionary (okay, maybe not exactly equal parts). And it was terrifying to look honestly at both naturalistic arguments for the existence of the Universe and a “literal” interpretation of the six-day creation account of Genesis and see little but cop-out explanations in both. Is no one in the world an objective, trustworthy source? Well, in a word, no.

            But I figured if (and admittedly that is a huge if!) the God of the Bible exists, then He is described as good and perfect. It doesn't make sense to me that a good and perfect God would lie in either His divine revelation to mankind (Scripture) or His creation (the Universe). I am convinced that we should be able to look at the world around us, and if we are using good observational skills, see evidence of this God whose intention is to be known without having to squeeze our observations through a weird theological loophole. That is, if He does indeed exist. Good science and good theology should both be rigorously true and mutually endorsed.

            I think everyone needs a little more honesty and a little more courage. Myself included of course. But I get it, it is truly terrifying to look at the evidence of a specific worldview with the honesty that would cause doubt and (God-forbid… literally) change everything I've ever believed. But I don’t want to believe something that is obviously not true regardless of how much nostalgia is attached to the idea. Truth—in the end, that is what matters (but according to Jack Nicholson, I can’t handle it). So I will test what I know, or what I think I know, until I arrive at what I believe to be objective truth. And then I’ll test it more, because if there’s one thing I know it’s that I know hardly anything.

Seeing the Beginning

            What I've found in this testing is a body of evidence from every different scientific field that points, with minuscule error bars, to a four billion year old Earth and a fourteen billion year old Universe. The beauty of astronomy is that it can directly probe the age of the Universe because of the nature of time. When we look out into the Universe, we see only the past because light takes time to travel--if we see a star that is ten light-years away, we are seeing the light from that star that began traveling towards Earth ten years ago. We're seeing the history of the Universe, and just recently we have been able to see the first moments of the Universe's existence.

           What I've seen often in Christian circles is a fear of science and a belief that all scientists who believe in Evolution or an old earth are personally trying to destroy our belief in God. Having been in the science field, I can say that the majority of scientists really don't care what anyone believes about God--they just want to do good, accurate science in their field and let the chips fall where they may. Do scientists come from a presupposition of naturalism? Sure, usually. But I come from a presupposition of the existence of God, and young earth advocates come from a presupposition of a specific interpretation of a specific passage in Scripture. I think it's virtually impossible to do science or any sort of rational thinking without coming from some sort of presupposition--the trick is to be able to test it and in humility change your perspective if you find that you are a believing a perspective that really doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

10,000 Years

          The Young Earth Creation perspective is based on an interpretation of the word “day” in Genesis 1 as a 24-hour period of time. But I find that in the Hebrew language, which contains significantly fewer words than the English language (on the order of 1%), understanding that word, “day” (yôm), as long periods of time is not a bad, cop-out interpretation of that passage of Scripture. There is no other word in the Hebrew language that describes what we would call an epoch--or a long, but finite period of time. Just one chapter later Genesis 2:4 says, "These are the generations of the heaven and the earth when they were created, in the day (yôm) that the Lord God made the Earth and the heavens." The same word day there is used as a period longer than 24 hours. Apart from how a person interprets the Bible, no scientist has ever come to the conclusion that the earth is only 10,000 years old unless they first hold to a 24-hour day interpretation of Genesis 1. However, there are scientists who have come to the conclusion that a divine Creator exists based on their studies of the Universe.

            My intention is not to give a rigorous argument against the Young Earth perspective. Many people would ask, “Does it really matter?” And in the end, no. It doesn’t matter really whether the world is ten thousand years old or four billion years old or how God has done anything! It is wildly humbling to me that you do not actually need to have intellectual integrity to believe that we are broken, sinful people, and that God offers us the gift of salvation through faith via the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Blessed are those who believe without seeing… It is not primarily an intellectual decision, but a matter of the heart and will. And thank God, because I am the unintelligentest. The things I don’t know astronomically outweigh the things I know, and the things I think I know are more probably not true.

Who Cares?

            So why talk about this at all? You might be asking yourself, “Why the heck am I reading this then??” I’d ask you the same question. But for me, the reason I care about brazenly seeking out the evidence of God’s existence in the cross hairs of the Universe and Scripture is because to me it is worship. In learning about the origin of a life-sustaining earth, I have fallen head over heels for the brilliant Creator who formed it ex nihilo. I am amazed that He took so much time, working through the minutest of details and waited patiently for the perfect timing to add imperative pieces of the puzzle. He prepared this place for us, and He did so with such wild beauty and organization. I don’t just believe that because it makes me feel good or gives me peace in life; I believe it because I've seen in science that there is significant evidence suggesting it to be true!

          It is scandalously overwhelming how much He loves us—and being able to believe Him and know Him with my brain makes me love Him with my heart. I wish more people could catch the passion of seeing God’s character within His creation of the cosmos if only to have some people with whom to externally process what I'm learning! And in having a couple wild moments of fearlessness—placing my faith and theology on the chopping block of objectivity and admittedly a perhaps unhealthy level of doubt—I have found that the Christian worldview (and the Old Earth perspective of creation) holds up remarkably well under scrutiny. Miraculously, I would dare to say. And of course it not only holds up, but also has satisfied me. I know, because I am alive to know it, that I am loved. And that knowledge fills me and overflows from me. So if I can use my passion for science to convince you of that knowledge too, then I will do everything I can to do that.

But there are several people who do a much more learned and eloquent job, one of them being Hugh Ross, whose website is www.reasons.org. He’s written several books, one of which I’ve read is The Genesis Question. Lee Strobel, in his book, Case for a Creator also writes from an Old Earth perspective although he doesn’t explicitly say so, and is a very good apologist.

The Upshots

So, my point: if the things I’ve been learning over the past year are trustworthy, they have rich and vibrant implications. It would mean that we can see how God used the chaos and entropy of the Universe to prepare the world for us, which shows us something about his redemptive nature. And it would mean that God meticulously planned out and formed the Universe over the course of about fourteen billion years, using all that time to prepare and build this beautiful, comfy nest for his prized image-bearers. Not because He had to—I have no doubt that in a moment, God could snap His fingers and come up with an equally breathtaking Universe—but perhaps because He wanted us to know that He finds us worth fourteen billion years. And he finds His ultimate plan of totally abolishing any (even possibility of) sin worth fourteen billion years. Because God Himself is worth fourteen billion years. And if we look at the rapidly growing discoveries in science regarding the history of the Universe, we can see some of the reliable hypotheses of how God did all these things. I’m telling you, it has incited more worship in me than nearly anything else! At the end of the day, since I believe in God, I get to believe that you and I are both infinitely valuable because we are infinitely and profoundly loved. And I know that because God has revealed that truth in what He’s done to take care of us.

I’d say that’s something worth looking into.