Creation Science Rebuttals

By Greg Neyman

© Old Earth Ministries

    This question was published in Dr. John's Q&A by John Morris in January 2001.  At the end of the creative event, God called the creation "very good."  Morris does not understand how God could have had billions of years of death and suffering prior to Adam.  In the introductory paragraphs, he says "In the biological realm, everything dies."  Were not Adam, and the animals created before him, in the biological realm?

      One of the major issues in this article is time.  Why would God delay billions of years, waiting on evolution to do its thing?  Morris says God has "the power to accomplish it (creation) in a timely manner..."  What exactly does Morris think a timely manner is?  God is eternal.  He was here billions of years ago, and will be here for billions to come.  God clearly does not see time as a limitation (as young earth creationists do).  Time has no meaning to an eternal being.  If God chose to wait 400 million billion years, his actions would still be timely...they occurred just when He wanted them to. 

     In using this argument, Morris is limiting an infinite, eternal God to his human timescale.  We cannot put human limitations upon eternal God.

     Morris attributes death and decay to Adam's sin (through the Curse).  However, the curse was put on Adam, Eve, and Satan, and had no impact upon the animal kingdom (other than the fact that man would now oppress the creation...it was man's actions that would provide creation's groans...Romans 8:20-22).

     God told Adam that he would surely die (the same day!) that he ate the fruit (Genesis 2:17).  Adam did not die the same day he ate the fruit.  The process of physical death started, but he definitely did not die that day (24-hour day).  God meant spiritual death.  Sin causes separation from God...Adam died spiritually the same day he ate the fruit. (Actually, if you take the fact that the seventh day, God's day of rest, is still ongoing, then Adam did die that day.  See Hebrews 4.)

    Is physical death a punishment from God?  What is the result of physical death?  Can physical death separate you from God?  No, it cannot.  Physical death has no sting.  Spiritual death, on the other hand, can separate you from God, and send you to hell.  Physical death is unimportant...spiritual death is everything!

    I believe this misconception about "very good" stems from a young earth tendency to call the creation perfect.  However, we have no reason to believe the entire world was perfect.  God created a perfect Garden, a vision of paradise, for Adam and Eve to see.  It was a separate place from the rest of the world.

Genesis 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

     If the entire world were perfect, God would have no need to create a special place for man, and then after his sin, to prevent man from entering into this place.  This Garden was a vision of what we have to look forward to...the rest of the world is not part of this perfect vision.  

     The rest of the world was perfect in one sense...it had a perfectly designed ecosystem, self-renewing through the process of death and decay.  Scripture does not directly address this death and decay prior to Adam, but it does not prevent it either.  Since spiritual death is what is important, physical death has no consequences on the other doctrines of the Bible.

Dr. John's Q&A #145, published on the web at https://www.icr.org/article/what-could-god-scripture-call-very-good

     If you are not a Christian, and you have been holding out on making a decision for Christ because the Church always preached a message that was contrary to what you saw in the scientific world, then rest assured that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and you can believe in Christ and receive salvation, while still believing in an old earth.  Click here for more.

    Are you a Christian who believes in young earth creationism?  Now that we have shown the many difficulties of the young earth creation science model in this and many other articles, how does this impact your Christian life?  If you are a young-earth creationism believer, click here.