The Age of Rocks, Not the Rock of Ages

Hutton’s insight that the earth was much more ancient than the Bible suggested, and that there was actually no evidential support for a global flood was met with several Church reactions. The first was of course condemnation and denial. But, as the physical facts are readily observed, a more reasoned response was developed. In fact there were three that are still encountered today; 1) the Gap theory, 2) the Day/Age theory, and 3) the Omphalos theory. The latter is named from the Greek word for bellybutton because a key argument of this notion was that Adam was created as a mature adult, and must have had a navel. We more often today hear it as the “appearance of age” theory- the idea that God created the earth with a built-in age.

The Gap theory was never particularly successful. It proposed that there were long periods of time between each of the Genesis days of creation, or at least the first and second days and those subsequent. The problem of the time between the origin of the universe and the origin of the solar system, about 8.2 billion years, might be accommodated, but we know that the earth and moon formed at the same time following a collision of the proto-earth and another planetesimal slightly smaller than Mars. The six day literalist is forced to deny all of this by their interpretation of Genesis 1:14-18. (My longer critique of creationist notions about the origin of the moon is linked below).  

The Day / Age interpretation is the most easily reconciled with science. The days of creation in Genesis 1 are flexible in duration, and in the logical extension of this idea, are more metaphors than actual time periods. This is the interpretation preferred by theistic evolutionists, old earth and progressive creationists. They often cite 2 Peter 3:8, “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” It is rejected by young earth creationists.
 
Scientists use a growing number of methods to determine the age of things. Some of the most obvious are simply counting things that happen on a regular periodic basis, the easiest being annual events. Nearly everyone knows that trees grow with seasonal rings, particularly in climates with either a strong annual variation in temperature or precipitation. The width of the rings varies with the age of the tree, and the conditions it grows under. For example, tree rings are much narrower during droughts than when there is ample rainfall. In the tree cross-section photograph below from Henri D. Grissino-Mayer's “The Ultimate Tree Ring Pages,” we see that there is more than just an annual record of rain. These are not merely an “appearance of age,” but a complex history of forest fire, insect attacks, and survival. The annual deposit of sediments in lakes can be attributed to changes in seasonal temperatures, and river or glacial input. In the article from Science Magazine linked below, the varve record from a single Japanese lake is painstakingly analyzed yielding a year by year record for the last 45,000 years. This record includes detailed changes in the content and chemistry of 45,000 tiny laminations of sediments.  Varves, tree rings, unconformities – these are not merely year counters, but they are records of histories; fire and drought in tree rings, lakes and ocean basins.

There are two critical points to be made here; the biblical argument for a young earth is in direct conflict with the physical creation, and the physical creation is not merely a construct of scientific imagination but an actual, physical record of events. The “Appearance of Age” creationist argument claims that this is all pretend- that God just made it look that way by miracle. Science does not contend with supernatural miracles. If the universe has been hoaxed (which is certainly what we would call it if a scientist altered all their results), the creationists might expected to explain why they think this, particularly when it is directly contradicted by the Bible.