Dear Editor,
Jonathan Castro (en letters, January 2017) claimed that, in responding to the deficiencies of ‘the evolutionary narrative’, it would be wrong to retreat ‘into the cocoon of Young Earth Creationism’, because ‘the evidence against a recent creation is simply overwhelming’. By this, he is implying that Young Earth Creationists (YECs) are closing their eyes to scientific facts.
He suggested that we should turn to a website called ‘Rationalwiki’ to discover the truth – a website set up and maintained by atheists and humanists. A look at their page which supposedly exposes the errors of YECs reveals that many of their so-called evidences are totally wrong. A couple of examples will suffice. 1. The claim that stalactites only grow four inches in 1,000 years. This is easily refuted by examples of stalactites growing on modern structures such as railway bridges and tunnels. 2. The claim that the rocks of the Grand Canyon would have taken millions of years to form ‘using the normal rate of erosion seen in water.’ But what is ‘the normal rate of erosion’? There is no such thing. Under catastrophic conditions, erosion can be extremely rapid. Rationalwiki’s claims are based on uniformitarian principles and a misplaced trust in radiometric dating, which has many flaws. Has Jonathan considered what happened following the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980, where 185 metres (600 feet) of water-laid sediment were deposited in around two years? I suggest your readers would be better served by referring to www.creation.com/evidence-fora-young-world.
However, the theological problems with the old-earth view are even more serious. Genesis 1. 31 states that ‘God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.’ This was before the Fall of Genesis 3. Romans 5 and 8 clearly state that death and suffering are the result of Adam’s sin. Yet, according to the old-earth view, death and suffering would already have been present when God declared his creation ‘very good.’ Jonathan suggested that the church’s credibility depends upon embracing the old-earth view, but this would mean that we have no answer to the oft-repeated question: ‘If there is a good creator, why did he make a world with so much suffering and pain?’
If we are going to reject evolution – and there are sound scientific and theological reasons for doing so – what is the point in retaining the millions-of-years scenario? If God only needed to speak to create, where is the need for all that time, and where do we fit it into Scripture? The Bible states that God created the earth specially for humans to inhabit (see Psalm 115.16 and Isaiah 45.18). Why would he wait millions of years to create us?
Richard Dawkins has said that he respects YECs more than he does theistic evolution-ists because at least they are consistent. Trying to add millions of years to the Biblical record results in unacceptable compromise.
Yours faithfully,
