In my June 29 blog post I mentioned a 2017 book (4 Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design) that I recently read and would like to spend the next few posts commenting on that book. I liked all the articles in it and would like to share my thoughts on the pros and cons of each viewpoint. After the posts are finished I’ll articulate my own position on the subject.

The Main Points of this View

There are a number of Christian organizations that hold to this view of scripture and science interpretation. The book that I am referencing presents the views of Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis and I will focus on their position as laid out in the book.

The primary biblical text about the origins of the universe, earth, life, and humans is the book of Genesis. Specifically, the first eleven chapters talk about creation, the first humans (Adam and Eve), the first human sin and its ensuing curse from God, the descendants of the first humans, God’s judgment by flood on the corrupt human race, the descendants of Noah (his family were saved by God from the flood), the plan of humans to ignore God again through a construction project, and God’s judgment on them by scattering them through the confusion of language.

The name of the Young Earth Creation (henceforth referred to as YEC) viewpoint comes from the plain reading of the biblical creation text. God spent 6 days creating the environments on the earth and filling them with life. He then rested on the 7th day. You can read the account in Genesis 1:1 through 2:3. The seven days of creation, along with the listed generations from Adam to Noah and Noah to Abraham leaves the age of the Earth somewhere in the vicinity of 6,000 to 10,000 years.

The YEC view begins with the Genesis account and then seeks to interpret scientific data in light of that biblical view. For example, since the promised curse on Adam and Eve’s sin was death (“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” – Genesis 2:16-17) all fossils, which are remains of dead organisms, must have died after the original human sin because Romans 5:12a says, “just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin.”

They also explain that all the fossils found in sedimentary rocks were deposited as a result of the global flood of Noah’s time. They interpret plate tectonics, mountain building, much of volcanism, etc. as cataclysms generated during the flood. They also use evidence from human oral and written histories that every culture has a flood account embedded somewhere in that culture’s past as evidence for a worldwide flood.

The YEC position places a lot of emphasis on distinguishing between “experimental” science and “historical” science. In other words, in their view, science is only really applicable in an experimental setting where events can be recreated, repeated, and observed. The historical assertions of modern science about the past (geological, astronomical, biological) should, in their view, be met with skepticism because “no one was there” to actually observe things. However, God observed (and did) it, and His eyewitness account in the Bible should be trusted.

The YEC proponents claim that to adopt a view of the antiquity of the Earth, the long development and evolution of life, and even the vastness of space with billions of years of light-travel time is inherently a rejection of the clear teaching of the Bible. In my next blog, I’ll discuss some of the pros and cons of this viewpoint.

And for the record, my own position on this topic, if you don’t know already, is from the standpoint of an old Earth (4.6 billion years) and Universe (14 or so billion years). I’ll detail my views in a later post.