Young Earth/Old Earth

[CrowCross]

Hi @CrowCross

"But I, the LORD, make the following promise: I have made a covenant governing the coming of day and night. I have established the fixed laws governing heaven and earth." (Jeremiah 33:25)



Light propagates through a vacuum at a constant speed regardless of its trajectory in a gravitational field. It is one of the many finely tuned fixed physical constants that God designed with high precision.

That said, it does change when it propagates through optically transparent materials according to Snell's law.



That's an interesting question.

The speed of light is related to the vacuum permeability and the vacuum permittivity that originates ("in place") from particle pairs that appear continuously in and out of existence in the vacuum of space.

The relation was discovered long ago by Maxwell in ~ 1864.

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...only if white-hole cosmology is real. No white holes have ever been detected to date.

Quick question: Has Dr. Humphreys modified his models since 1994?



Sorry. ^That^ is incorrect. What's real is that the Bible was the first text to mention the so-called "Big Bang". A better name for the phenomenon is the "everywhere stretch" of the universe.

Job 9:8; Isaiah 44:24; and 45:12

"He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea."

"This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the LORD, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself,"

"It is I who made the earth and created mankind on it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts."

View attachment 260

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I also forgot to mention Barry Setterfield.

There's a lot of people thiking about this.

 

[Inertia]

I also forgot to mention Barry Setterfield.

There's a lot of people thiking about this.

Barry Setterfield simply documented our ability to measure the speed of light as our methods improved in time. He never demonstrated that the speed of light changed.

______
.

 

[Wordsmith]

I believe in a "young" Earth.

Anyone who believes in an Earth that is, allegedly, billions of years old, has to ditch the creation narrative in Gen. 1-3, and use a rescue mechanism, like the so-called "Gap Theory", or "Day-Age Theory", or treat it as some kind of allegory, or just treat it as a myth. He also has to reject what the Bible says about death and suffering entering the world because of Adam's sin, which means that he undermines the reason for the Cross, the reason why we die physically, the reason for predation amongst animals, and the reason why we all sin.

Believing in an "old Earth" is really incompatible with biblical Christianity; and, any Christians who believe in an "old Earth" either have to be ignorant, or practising cognitive dissonance.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth.
Nothing here says when this was!
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Nothing in verse one and two says how long heaven had been created or how long the earth had been without form and void.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. It was only after God created light was time called the first day. All that God had done before He created light has no scriptural time stamp on it. So I take exception with your characterization that I am “ignorant, or practicing cognitive dissonance “. We just disagree and your theory is just a theory as is mine . Implying “if you don’t agree with me” one must be ignorant is a poor debate tactic.

 

[Arial]

Satan was already a master of deception by the time he met Eve. It was of his own doing—not God’s. He was attempting an early version of a “hostile takeover.” But our God is always a step ahead…

I tend to agree on the hostile takeover.
Here is my speculation on the matter. And it remains a speculation in the sense of being only a possibility, but that possibility formed from what we do see in scripture. First I will present that.
The serpent which scripture later identifies as the devil was already in the Garden waiting.
We see in the first chapters of Job a heavenly council in which he challenges God and God gives him permission to do certain things and also sets the boundaries of what he is allowed to do.
We see the evil one every step along the way attempting to halt redemption, going after those who play a crucial role in it i.e. Moses, and all those who bear the seed of Christ; attempting to destroy the child Jesus; tempting Jesus to sin; killing the King on the cross. In this we see he knows much but he does not know everything.
In Revelation, which I think is giving a vivid picture from an inside perspective, birds eye view if you will, of a war in which the evil one is fighting against redemption and the redeemed, through all of the history at least of Jesus, until Christ's return and redemption of all the earth through the redemption of a people.

So what if the Garden is where satan was cast down to, long before God created a place for those He would make in His image and likeness, and before He created them. Suppose satan challenged Him as he did with Job, only the whole creation was involved, God gave him permission to tempt the woman. The prize for satan should he win this war being that the earth and all who are in it would be his kingdom and he would be as God. The result of his losing would be his eternal destruction and the creation and all that is in it restored to perfection. Exactly what we see in Rev and what is promised to the saints.

 

[David1701]

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth.
Nothing here says when this was!
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Nothing in verse one and two says how long heaven had been created or how long the earth had been without form and void.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. It was only after God created light was time called the first day. All that God had done before He created light has no scriptural time stamp on it. So I take exception with your characterization that I am “ignorant, or practicing cognitive dissonance “. We just disagree and your theory is just a theory as is mine . Implying “if you don’t agree with me” one must be ignorant is a poor debate tactic.

The whole point about the "old Earth" suppositions, is to try to shoehorn evolution into the Bible. When there was no light, no heat, and no life of any kind, there could clearly not be any evolution (not that there is any macro evolution anyway). In any case, there is no indication of any significant time between God's creation of matter and his creation of light.

The reason why Day One is not until after light has been created, is that days are reckoned by darkness and light. Day One started in darkness and ended in light, as all the creation days did (evening, then morning).

 

[Wordsmith]

The whole point about the "old Earth" suppositions, is to try to shoehorn evolution into the Bible.

Maybe with some but not me. I absolutely do not believe in evolution yet I do believe it is very possible and likely there was some extended period of time between verse 1 and 2.

 

[Carbon]

The whole point about the "old Earth" suppositions, is to try to shoehorn evolution into the Bible.

You may be correct and I have heard that before. But I see it like this, the bible leads the way, it is true and that is what it is. If evolution thinks it could sneak its way into it, fine, go for it, but it is not evolution that defines anything. If something seems to fit evolution that's only because Scripture allows it.
Or, in other words, if secular science says the earth is 13 billion years old, the bible does not have to conform to it. It's only new news to them.

When there was no light, no heat, and no life of any kind, there could clearly not be any evolution (not that there is any macro evolution anyway). In any case, there is no indication of any significant time between God's creation of matter and his creation of light.

Okay

The reason why Day One is not until after light has been created, is that days are reckoned by darkness and light. Day One started in darkness and ended in light, as all the creation days did (evening, then morning).

Excellent point! I never heard it explained like this before.

 

[Musician]

According to the bible there was no BB

There are many things that are not in the Bible that man was intended to find out on his own. Which is why we were given brains that can learn, design, build and apply. We're on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy which is 2.5 million light years from Earth. They expect the collision to happen in 4 Billion years. You can look almost straight up and see it with a cheap telescope or good binoculars, and the light you see left it 2.5 million years ago.
That's science in it's most simple form, and any Astrophysicist or Astronomer can confirm this. God gave them a gift and some day their gifts will be applied in a way that will move mankind from this dying planet to a new home somewhere out there. Hopefully they'll take better care of the next Earth.

 

[Sparrow]

I tend to agree on the hostile takeover.
Here is my speculation on the matter. And it remains a speculation in the sense of being only a possibility, but that possibility formed from what we do see in scripture. First I will present that.
The serpent which scripture later identifies as the devil was already in the Garden waiting.
We see in the first chapters of Job a heavenly council in which he challenges God and God gives him permission to do certain things and also sets the boundaries of what he is allowed to do.
We see the evil one every step along the way attempting to halt redemption, going after those who play a crucial role in it i.e. Moses, and all those who bear the seed of Christ; attempting to destroy the child Jesus; tempting Jesus to sin; killing the King on the cross. In this we see he knows much but he does not know everything.
In Revelation, which I think is giving a vivid picture from an inside perspective, birds eye view if you will, of a war in which the evil one is fighting against redemption and the redeemed, through all of the history at least of Jesus, until Christ's return and redemption of all the earth through the redemption of a people.

So what if the Garden is where satan was cast down to, long before God created a place for those He would make in His image and likeness, and before He created them. Suppose satan challenged Him as he did with Job, only the whole creation was involved, God gave him permission to tempt the woman. The prize for satan should he win this war being that the earth and all who are in it would be his kingdom and he would be as God. The result of his losing would be his eternal destruction and the creation and all that is in it restored to perfection. Exactly what we see in Rev and what is promised to the saints.

I have similar thoughts… perhaps with the exception that Satan first left heaven of his own accord and a third of the angels followed him to a beautifully perfect earth, causing the “darkness over the face of the deep“ and chaos. But the Spirit of God, more powerful than the rebellious angel, “divided the light from the darkness” forevermore, condemning Satan and creating this age in which we can see both the dark and the Light, observe the consequences of darkness, and once “enlightened,” learn to love our Creator more. These are just my thoughts, but like yours, they are formed from many biblical examples of our sovereign God faithfully thwarting Satan and his followers at every turn and providing a way out of spiritual Babylon for us.

Revelation 12:1-6….

1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.
2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.

3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.
4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.

5 She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

 

[Sparrow]

The whole point about the "old Earth" suppositions, is to try to shoehorn evolution into the Bible.

Not so. The whole point is to explain that there was once another age in which living conditions were perfect over the entire earth before it was corrupted by Satan’s rebellion. It has nothing to do with evolution, and yes, we are all making speculations here that may or may not be so. God is eternal, so I fail to see how another age that explains the existence of now extinct animals and their fossils found in places where they would not be expected to thrive is not a possibility. The important thing for all of us to remember is that we will escape this age only by grace through faith in Christ. We can only speculate about what God has done throughout eternity. It is only given to us to know that everything He has done has all been for our good.

 

[civic]

Not so. The whole point is to explain that there was once another age in which living conditions were perfect over the entire earth before it was corrupted by Satan’s rebellion. It has nothing to do with evolution, and yes, we are all making speculations here that may or may not be so. God is eternal, so I fail to see how another age that explains the existence of now extinct animals and their fossils found in places where they would not be expected to thrive is not a possibility. The important thing for all of us to remember is that we will escape this age only by grace through faith in Christ. We can only speculate about what God has done throughout eternity. It is only given to us to know that everything He has done has all been for our good.

But your above scenario is in direct contradiction to Scripture. You have death and decay happening before sin. Its adams sin that brought forth death , corruption and decay with creation.

 

[Arial]

I have similar thoughts… perhaps with the exception that Satan first left heaven of his own accord and a third of the angels followed him to a beautifully perfect earth, causing the “darkness over the face of the deep“ and chaos. But the Spirit of God, more powerful than the rebellious angel, “divided the light from the darkness” forevermore, condemning Satan and creating this age in which we can see both the dark and the Light, observe the consequences of darkness, and once “enlightened,” learn to love our Creator more. These are just my thoughts, but like yours, they are formed from many biblical examples of our sovereign God faithfully thwarting Satan and his followers at every turn and providing a way out of spiritual Babylon for us.

Revelation 12:1-6….

1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.
2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.

3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.
4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.

5 She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

Very possible also. Obviously, unless it is figurative and I don't think it is, there was earth in some form before God made it our habitation and created us in His image and likeness. Two things however. The scripture you quoted in the post I first responded to:

“You were the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God;

That does sound like that may have been satan's original home with one third of the angels, and the place he originally rebelled against God, thus causing the chaos you mentioned. And what is now the Earth and the creation in it was at one time a part of heaven. This would help explain for me the perspective of God's choice of Israel and specifically Jerusalem, Judah, and Mt. Zion. And as well those passages that say things are built for worship as copies of the real in heaven, and the Jerusalem above.

The other however for me is that at our creation and all that is in our world, satan was already in the form of a serpent. That could be as a result of his first rebellion for sure, and the resulting chaos while the Garden of Eden---the place (sanctuary)of man meeting with God and abiding with Him. It was the temptation of the serpent and the treason of Adam and Eve that got them thrown out of Eden and all mankind with him.

Probably at that point satan thought he had won the earth and those in it for all time. In spite of the curse and promise that God put on him that the Seed of the woman would crush his head, the deceiver still did not believe God. The war began, but that was not the end of the story. God Himself would redeem a people for Himself, and through their redemption destroy the evil one and all the wicked who follow him, and restore creation for all time, by defeating the power of sin and its destruction unto death, by the Son. He would give people to the Son and the Son would come and take that penalty upon Himself.

The evil one understood God's holiness and His justice far better than a great many Christians do. He knew that God could not just say "I forgive you" and abandon His just judgement against sin. Even though His mercy is equal to His justice it does not take the place of justice. Thus it is said in a Psalm, in Christ Justice and Mercy kiss. That is why he was so intent on destroying the Justifier.

Sorry this got so long. I am thinking as I write and discovering things to ponder. So one more thing. If this scenario or something similar is correct, and certain aspects of it are in that they do not violate any truth that we are given and affirm much of what we are given, then it established the Calvinist/Reformed doctrine of the Covenant of Redemption. That the full plan of redemption was established in all it aspects within the Trinity with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each doing a particular portion (Father sends, Son does the work of redemption, Holy Spirit applies redemption and seals the redeemed), before the foundation of the world.

 

[Arial]

1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.
2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.

3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.
4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.

5 She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

I love that you quoted these verses in connection to what we are both presenting. It drives home, at least for me, and in such a beautiful and glorious way, how much more we can glean from the book of Revelation if we stop looking at it from that narrow idea of it being a foretelling of the last seven years before Christ returns.

When we stop viewing it as God giving us a time table, as nothing more than warnings, and see it for what it is. A revelation of the person and work of Jesus, the complete picture of Him from the viewpoint of heaven rather than earth.

 

[EarlyActs]

My vote was undecided.

I have many questions about the age of the Earth. One question being,

If the earth is young and created in six literal 24 hour days, and everything seemed to be around a 24-hour period, no indication of anything faster, no hyper speed etc... Then how could Adam name every animal in one 24-hour day, or less assuming he had to sleep?

19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. Genesis 2:19-20.

@Sereni-tea Thoughts?

There is not enough information there to evaluate your question. The text might just have meant each animal in the most generic form. Remember, these are all 'creative' names anyway: how does the animal strike you--what is one word for what it is like?

A more useful inquiry would be the details of 2 Peter 3. Here we have the universe described as 'ekpalai' "from of old." But the earth (in contrast) is referred to as being formed through water and with water using a verb from pottery-making, 'sunestosa'.

Just recently I heard an astro-geologist Dr. Giem in a 2015 doc on 'young Pluto' on how many objects in our system are smattered with craters (the exception is Pluto). His point was that, like Velikovsky, he believes there was a system-wide explosion or collision (just our solar system). But during his talk, he rather matter-of-factly validated 2 Peter 3 when he said that "our system is relatively young; I don't mean the universe, but just our system."

Velikovsky embarrassed NASA by predicting that when Viking went by Jupiter, the radiological readings would be 'hot' (relative). They were. That means recent. Likewise the ice of Saturn's rings and Pluto's mountains. They can't last very long.

It is instructive to compare with Ps 104 where it is difficult to distinguish creation from the cataclysm.

As you may now, we usually do a poor job of following the sense of the Hebrew in Gen 1. V1 is a section title, like about 15 other lines through Genesis, cp 5:1.
V2 is called the 'pre-existing condition' and the same form of writing is found with most of the other section titles. It is dark, formless, and empty.
V3 is the new material.

Thus, Genesis gives few clues as to what the earth was like, but there is obviously some room for some time before the creation week. I do not believe for a minute that creation week was epochs or anything like that. The language is in normal 24 hour cadence, and its foundation for lunar months.

But one clue from the darkness, formless and empty mass is a description of destroyed Jerusalem in Jer 4:23?. So it seems that the earth was something else and was destroyed (as far as the surface goes). There may have been a deluge and Ps 104 (as mentioned above) may be referring to both.

Another clue is the 'blackest darkness' of 2 Pet 3 and Jude, where super-human beings were imprisoned. Peter has no problem using this imagery from the Greek account of the Titans and the Deucalion. The term 'tartarus' is used as the 'darkness of blackness'--almost as if there was an understanding of a black hole. It was a prison of the evil beings. We might be living in a remodeled prison!

Perhaps the earth was there for a while. Who knows what God has been up to!

 

[EarlyActs]

I love that you quoted these verses in connection to what we are both presenting. It drives home, at least for me, and in such a beautiful and glorious way, how much more we can glean from the book of Revelation if we stop looking at it from that narrow idea of it being a foretelling of the last seven years before Christ returns.

When we stop viewing it as God giving us a time table, as nothing more than warnings, and see it for what it is. A revelation of the person and work of Jesus, the complete picture of Him from the viewpoint of heaven rather than earth.

See Larson's doc THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. These lines are part of what ancient astronomy saw in the sky until Christ came. The Gospel was in the stars, and the term given to Abraham about counting is more about meaning and interpreting than counting. I believe also it is a play on the word 'impute, credit, reckon' in the verse below, about righteousness. IOW: Go out and 'see' the Seed in the star formation; if you have faith, I will 'see' you as righteous through that Seed. who believe will tally up to as many as the sands of the sea. Cp. Gal 3.

[hi Arial, I recall your name from White Horse, maybe before]

 

[Sparrow]

But your above scenario is in direct contradiction to Scripture. You have death and decay happening before sin. Its adams sin that brought forth death , corruption and decay with creation.

Yes, death and decay entered this age through sin. In my old-earth view, there was another age before this one in which Satan sinned and rebelled against God. Sin always gives birth to death, decay, and chaos. I agree to that universal principle. But there was no grace applied to Satan. He was condemned at the time of His rebellion. He was already condemned when he lied and tempted Eve. But God did apply grace to His newly created people—the ones through whom a Savior would come, and later to others who would believe—because He SO loves us! And by His grace we can escape the death, decay, and chaos Satan causes.

 

[EarlyActs]

I love that you quoted these verses in connection to what we are both presenting. It drives home, at least for me, and in such a beautiful and glorious way, how much more we can glean from the book of Revelation if we stop looking at it from that narrow idea of it being a foretelling of the last seven years before Christ returns.

When we stop viewing it as God giving us a time table, as nothing more than warnings, and see it for what it is. A revelation of the person and work of Jesus, the complete picture of Him from the viewpoint of heaven rather than earth.

I think a detail about the Rev might help: that it is a revelation of him in terms of the foreground events of that generation, the destruction of Israel. The appeals to Israel to be his Messianic missionaries was very strong and decisive about that generation.

But then I have a book on this, haha. THE COVENANT REVOLT, at Amazon.

 

[Arial]

See Larson's doc THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. These lines are part of what ancient astronomy saw in the sky until Christ came. The Gospel was in the stars, and the term given to Abraham about counting is more about meaning and interpreting than counting. I believe also it is a play on the word 'impute, credit, reckon' in the verse below, about righteousness. IOW: Go out and 'see' the Seed in the star formation; if you have faith, I will 'see' you as righteous through that Seed. who believe will tally up to as many as the sands of the sea. Cp. Gal 3.

[hi Arial, I recall your name from White Horse, maybe before]

Yup. Good to see you here.

Thus, Genesis gives few clues as to what the earth was like, but there is obviously some room for some time before the creation week. I do not believe for a minute that creation week was epochs or anything like that. The language is in normal 24 hour cadence, and its foundation for lunar months.

I agree with this. Our earth as we know it is not the first of creation. And it may have existed in some way/form prior to as it is now. Gen. suggests that it did. But the creation account we are given in Gen I believe is a literal six days.

 

[David1701]

You may be correct and I have heard that before. But I see it like this, the bible leads the way, it is true and that is what it is. If evolution thinks it could sneak its way into it, fine, go for it, but it is not evolution that defines anything. If something seems to fit evolution that's only because Scripture allows it.
Or, in other words, if secular science says the earth is 13 billion years old, the bible does not have to conform to it. It's only new news to them.

The point is that no-one would ever come to the conclusion that we have evolved from pond scum, or that the Earth is billions of years old, simply from reading the Bible. The reason why some Christians think these things, is that they believe what the secular scientists say and then try to make the Bible accommodate those declarations.

This is entirely the wrong way to approach God's word. The right way is to believe what God's word says (the creation account is straightforward narrative) and assess any proclamations by people, in the light of that. The Bible is the authority, not the speculations of secular scientists about the distant past.

 

[David1701]

Not so. The whole point is to explain that there was once another age in which living conditions were perfect over the entire earth before it was corrupted by Satan’s rebellion. It has nothing to do with evolution, and yes, we are all making speculations here that may or may not be so. God is eternal, so I fail to see how another age that explains the existence of now extinct animals and their fossils found in places where they would not be expected to thrive is not a possibility. The important thing for all of us to remember is that we will escape this age only by grace through faith in Christ. We can only speculate about what God has done throughout eternity. It is only given to us to know that everything He has done has all been for our good.

The global Flood (and its aftermath) explains the fossils.

There was no "age" before Adam - the first man. There was no death before Adam sinned. These are facts, not speculation.