As a fairly immature believer, I am constantly coming up with questions about my faith. Of course, I always seek the answers from the Word, but, on occasion, I will use other resources to help supplement and/or fuel my study. In this series, I will be doing a review of The New Answer’s Book, with General Editor Ken Ham. This book is a compilation of several essays which address many of the questions that have to do with how science and the Bible correspond. Particularly, Ken Ham and his colleagues support a young-earth standpoint and address questions from skeptics. I will go through several of the more compelling essays and give commentary. The purpose of this book review is to simply think about creation. Whether you believe in a young-earth or old-earth, you can still be a Christian. The way creation came about has nothing to do with salvation.

“Why Shouldn’t Christians Accept Millions of Years?” by Terry Mortenson (pp. 25-30)

It’s everywhere. We are confronted with the concept of a millions of years old earth just about every day, whether in the news, on the internet, talking with friends, or in our reading. In school, I remember being taught all about fossils and dinosaurs and how they proved that the earth was so old. Of course I believed it; it was science. My belief only solidified after taking a Physical Anthropology class in college. Unfortunately, I had never really given the other side of the argument any thought. After all, it doesn’t seem like all of this could really only be thousands of years old rather than millions.

Mortenson gives a fascinating argument in support of a young earth. He defends that Christians have historically had a hard time fitting in the scientific old-earth concept with the Bible because the Bible says the earth was created in only six days. Since the introduction of a millions of years old earth, Christians have developed several theories to try and explain the discrepancy. These theories include the day-age view, gap theory, local flood view, framework hypothesis, theistic evolution and progressive creation. But Mortenson and other young-earth creationists believe their view “to be the only view that is truly faithful to Scripture and that fits the scientific evidence far better than the reigning old-earth evolutionary theory” (25).

Mortenson’s largest concern is that compromising the story of creation to match old-earth theories seriously damages the gospel. He gives several reasons for this including word translations, genealogies, cross references, the Flood, words of Jesus, and more. The most profound evidence he gives is that “belief in millions of years undermines the Bible’s teaching on death and on the character of God” (26). Why? Because the Bible teaches that death did not occur until after the fall. God also called the creation “very good.” How could there be millions of years of death in animals before the fall, and, furthermore, how could that be called “very good?”

While Mortenson’s essay is clearly written, it serves more as an introduction to the young-earth theory. If you want the basic gist of it, it is a good place to start. Luckily, there are several more essays in The New Answer’s Book which give further insight and explore some of the more complex issues surrounding a young-earth.

Next Week: “Couldn’t God Have Used Evolution” by Ken Ham

Shouldn't Christians Accept Millions of Years?