Yes…clearly. Here’s the definitive debate and some post debate thoughts to help clarify some things that didn’t get full discussion during our allotted time

Here are my notes for my opening:

The word ‘Trinity’ does not appear anywhere in the Bible, but we know from reading the Bible that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God. And we know that God is One. Anyone who denies the trinity is not a Christian. The biblical teaching of a young earth is more clear than the trinity. While people can deny a young earth and still be a Christian, we must wonder why denial of a young earth is so pervasive. For 18 centuries Christians have universally accepted the biblical account that the earth is young. But with the advent of the modern scientific paradigm of deep time at the end of the 18th century, some in the church began to look for ways to bring the biblical account into concordance with that deep time paradigm. It’s a trendy fad with many different ideas on how to do so. From postulating that days actually mean eons to inventing a billions of years gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, the ideas have been creative. The trendiest of ideas that is hyperbolically 15 minutes old, is that Genesis is agnostic to ideas of age and does not deal with “material” creation; just its functional ordering due to the influence of the writings of the Hittites, Sumerians, and other ancient near eastern people groups that were judged with destruction for their wickedness. ALL of these trendy ideas have one thing in common – a specialized guru who tells you that the words don’t mean what they are commonly understood to mean. They mean something unique that only the guru with his secret knowledge can reveal. They say that it is the text of scripture that must be redefined so that the Bible can be brought into alignment with the emergent dominant paradigm.

Is it valid to consider trendy ideas to make the Bible concordant with the worldly philosophies, or should we as Christians uphold the authority of scripture as the magisterial principium? If words have meaning at all, then accepting the Bible’s clear teaching of what we now call young earth creation is self-evident. It is at the expense of denying language itself that fellow brothers in Christ deny that the Bible teaches what I will defend tonight (Does the Bible teach that the earth is young?)

1. The earth, the universe and everything in it was created in 6 calendar days as the Bible says
2. The earth was created about 6000 years ago because of the ages given in the corresponding accounts of the unbroken royal lineage of the Seed from Adam -> Abram in Genesis/Chronicles and from Abram to Jesus (Luke) as the Bible says
3. Jesus confirms that mankind was made at the beginning of creation as the Bible says in Mark 10:6

As Christians, we do not want to hold onto things that are demonstrably false. Genesis and the rest of scripture very clearly tells us that God created in 6 calendar days about 6000 years ago. Most of God’s word was passed to us from the Spirit inspiring the prophets and apostles, but part of the case for young earth was literally written by the hand of God in stone. This was completely undisputed but for the rarest of outliers for about 1800 years until the end of the 19th century. Suddenly when Darwin’s idea of evolution took hold of academia more time was needed to explain his biological theory, so it became trendy to see if the words in the Bible could be stretched to accommodate these naturalistic ideas.

Text: Genesis 1 

1. “In the beginning” – This may come up later as we identify that one of the trendy tactics today is to stretch the word beginning far beyond all recognition. Hebrew grammar and narrative structure of Genesis 1 doesn’t permit a time gap between verses 1 and 2. The waw consecutive (“and”) at the beginning of verse 2 in Hebrew implies a direct sequence of events
   • Use of the word yom (meaning day) and it’s literally defined there in Genesis 1
   • Why did God not use any of the deep time words like:
     • Yamim (plural of yom) – Not used
   • Qedem (days of old) – Not used
   • Olam (days of old) – Not used
   • Some might object and say that Moses didn’t understand large numbers like billions of years, so God had to speak to the simpleton with simpleton language, but this objection would be ignorant of the covenant from Gen 22:17 “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore”, yet God did not communicate to Moses about his creation in this way
   • The only reason that God would withhold using large words to describe the time it took for Him to create is because it took only 6 calendar days – just as He said
2. “Sequential days” are confirmed by the ordinal usage of the text. Had God wished to communicate non-sequential days, it would have been quite easy for Him to say something like “some time later” or “many years later” or “as things developed over time”. Instead, He used language that we all understand to mean sequential consecutive days. The point is clear: God was not giving some ambiguous myth. The words of Genesis have meaning of sequential consecutive calendar days
3. The days are bounded by evening/morning patterns to separate the days. Not eons. Not years. Not months…but only days are bounded by evenings/mornings. God was being very clear that yom means a calendar day in this context
4. “But Matt! Can’t yom mean a time period like in Genesis 2:4?” Yes! Notice how they always choose Genesis 2:4. No one ever chooses Genesis 1 because the context shows us that the usage of “yom” in Genesis 2:4 is COMPLETELY different than the usage of “yom” in Genesis 1. But I do agree that Yom has flexibility of usage. As faithful Christians we should look to scripture rather than some outside false authority like the scientific paradigm or modern culture or ancient near eastern cultures. Where can we look within scripture to find a usage of “yom” in the context described in Genesis 1 to give us the correct boundary? Ex 20:9-11 and Ex 31:17
   1. “6 days you shall labor and do your work…for in 6 days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them”
   2. In the same way that God’s people are expected to work each week, we can be certain that it took God the same amount of time to create the entire universe because of what the Bible says
5. Here’s the meat of the matter: Genesis 5 and 11 record the ages when those in the unbroken royal lineage of Jesus fathered their children. The summation of these ages confirm that the earth is indeed young. For those who would object that there may be gaps in the lineage, I ask “Who is missing? How do you know?” For those who would object that it doesn’t necessarily mean they fathered the direct descendant because the Hebrew word Yalad might just mean “was an ancestor of” I reply “it doesn’t matter because the age of the patriarch is mentioned whether it be father or grandfather”. To those who object “why does it have to be an unbroken lineage?” Seed of the woman vs. the seed of the serpent. Genesis tracks the unbroken royal line of the Seed of the woman as each generation looked for healing of the curses of sin. We know that the Matthew lineage has purposeful omissions for purposes of symmetry, but the other lineages (with their ages) show that Jesus is indeed the promised Kinsman Redeemer, who would crush the head of the serpent. Those, who would assume that there are genealogical omissions in Genesis/Chronicles/Luke are faced with the unenviable task of trying to show WHO is missing, how they know it, and how the line of kings remains verifiable in Jesus
6. Lastly: Mark 10:6 “for at the beginning of creation God made them male and female” Jesus is confirming that it was the beginning when He created everything else that He made mankind. Remember, Jesus is the Creator: He would know. Those who have fallen prey to the lure of the modern scientific paradigm may say “That passage is just about marriage”, but this objection ignores the actual words that Jesus said. Would you contend with Him, that the very specific words that He used are unimportant? If beginning has any meaning at all, then it must be referring to the creation week and not as old earthers claim 13.787 billion years after creation. To say that “the beginning” can mean anything from 14 dozen hours to 13.787 billion years ago renders the word as meaningless. It literally destroys language

Consistency

If fellow brothers who deny YEC would apply the same level of skepticism they do against Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 to other parts of scripture, you might hear:

• “Of course the plagues against Egypt were just symbolic. There’s no way that an entire river turned to blood. God was just saying metaphorically that it’s the blood of Jesus that saves you. Besides there’s no record of the Nile turning to blood in Egyptian writings”
• “When we look at ancient near eastern writings like the Sumerians, there are many stories like that of Samson, who had superhuman strength, so the Bible’s account of a man whose strength relied on the length of his hair is figurative in nature. Samson, while interesting, is hyperbolic of a leader, who probably existed but never pushed over a building with his hands”
• “Jesus didn’t calm a literal storm. If you look at the Greek, you can reasonably surmise that Jesus comforted the storm in the hearts of his disciples. The storm was just a picture of the trauma that his disciples felt in knowing that their teacher would face persecution. Jesus’s words calmed the storm within them”

But it’s inconsistent for YEC deniers to declare “God could not have created the earth/universe in 6 days in the recent past…but it’s totally possible for a virgin to bear a child”

The text demonstrates that the earth (even though it is the oldest entity in the universe) is young, and Christians should not hold beliefs that are demonstrably false.

History

While the biblical text is the ultimate authority, is it worthwhile to see how Christians from the past have understood the text? Of course. If in my reading of the text, I ‘discover’ something that no one else in history ever thought or saw, I should question my own interpretation. To my knowledge, no Christian before the 18th century is recorded to have believed in what we would today call an old earth. To confirm the young earth consensus of the time from the earliest Christians to just over a century ago (a span of about 1800 years), let’s look back at some of those, who wrote about it (I’ll link the work of Ben Kissling in the show notes):

• Irenaeus 165 AD – Earth is less than 8000 years old
• Theophilus 180 AD – “All the years from the creation of the world amount to a total of 5698 years”
• Julius Africanus 221AD – From the creation to 221 is 5499 years
• Origen 248 AD identified his old earth atheist opponent with the implication that those who would deny the biblical age of less than 10,000 years are “assailants of the Christian faith”
• Augustine 426 AD who wrote: “reckoning by the sacred writings (the Bible), not 6000 years have passed”
• Johannes Kepler 1619 – Earth was created in 4997BC, so was less than 6800 years at the time of Kepler’s writing
• James Ussher 1650 Annals of the World – Earth was created in 4004BC, less than 6100 years old
• All Reformers accepted young earth (Did God Create in 6 Days? – Pipa)
• Charles Lyell in the late 1800s (while not a Christian, recognized the hold that Christianity and thus the dominant paradigm of his time had on scientific studies) in his writings he wished to “free the science from Moses” which as we all know is Genesis
• Jack Repcheck wrote a biography of James Hutton called The Man Who Found Time: “The age of the earth is the wedge that shattered the biblically rooted picture of Earth and separated science from theology”

As Christians, which we both are, we should want to interpret scripture consistently and rightly. Consistently by offering the same level of scrutiny to the passages that conflict with modern sensibilities (like Genesis) as those passages deemed crucial to Christian orthodoxy (like the miracles of Jesus). We’ve established that throughout all of church history before the dark times, everyone understood that the earth is young because of what the Bible tells us. And we have clearly established that the Bible teaches that the earth is young. The language demands it and we do not want to hold to teachings that are demonstrably false – especially the clear teachings of God’s Holy Word.

Closing

Thank you Keith for hosting this debate. You’re an above average timekeeper. Thank you Adam for a brotherly conversation on this important topic. Why is this topic important? I’m a Christian. Adam is a Christian. I love God’s Word and Adam loves God’s word. It is a matter both of authority and meaning. Dear Christians, if words have meaning, if language can communicate ideas, and since God has revealed history in his word, then we must hold to young earth creation. In Today’s culture redefining words to accommodate formerly abnormal views has become pervasive and acceptable:

• Abortion is healthcare
• Trespassing is an armed insurrection
• Sexual perversion is normalized by asserting love is love
• Anything certain parties don’t like is now defined as racism
• Woman is whatever a person feels in their mind
• Weird was used to describe the nuclear family

Sadly, this kind of thinking has leaked into the church when the foundations of scripture are compromised:

• Day has been redefined as billions of years
• Good has been redefined by John Walton as “functional ordering”
• God’s creation of the universe in Genesis 1 has been redefined as temple inauguration
• Death/suffering/thorns have been redefined as being very good
• The beginning has been redefined to be some mysterious eon of time in which virtually all of the supposed billions of years of history have been hidden

As shown tonight, the plain reading of the Bible in its context…what some call the young earth understanding of God’s revelation in the Bible is the correct understanding. Young earth creation has been clearly understood since Moses penned those words and in Christendom until the dark times, until it became fashionable to reinterpret the meanings of words to accommodate modern sensibilities. If you need a guru like John Walton or Hugh Ross to give new definitions to words that no one in Christian history has ever before believed simply to accommodate modern scientific and cultural paradigms, take caution brothers. As Paul warned the Colossians “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ”. If you start with the human traditions of evolution or ancient near east hermeneutics, it will never lead you to Christ as that is not their purpose. But the purpose of God’s word is to lead us to Jesus. Just as the Bereans were called honorable for “searching the scriptures to see if what Paul said was true”, we too should test ideas by what is demonstrably true in God’s word. The Bible tells us that God created the universe very good (completely absent of evil/harm/destruction), but sin affected all of creation – and right there in the garden after the fall, God promised a Redeemer to heal that bondage to corruption against which we still groan today. But because the Bible can be trusted about God’s revelation of the past, we can trust his revelation about the future as we eagerly await the redemption of our bodies and the end of harm & destruction when the knowledge of the LORD fills the earth as the waters cover the sea. As Christians we do not want to have views of demonstrably false things, and it is demonstrably false that the Bible is agnostic to the age of the earth because of text of the Bible itself says. And it says that the earth is young

Post Debate Thoughts

The debate was effectively over when during the cross-examination, asked Adam:

“To accommodate something other than YEC, I can think of dozens of changes that would need to be made to the Bible. Conversely, if God actually did intend to communicate to us that the earth is young, what changes to the text of scripture would need to be made?”‘

His reply was “If he eliminated the 1st two verses of Genesis.” We can deduce from his statement that all of scripture supports the view that the earth is young if you do not hold Adam’s presuppositions. Now Adam has presupposed that Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 refer to God’s assembly of preexisting materials into the planet we see today and there are eons of time hidden in those verses that prevent us from knowing how old the earth is. In order to hold this presupposition, Adam has to ignore Exodus 20:9-11 and Mark 10:6, which if you watch the debate, this is exactly what he did. He tried very hard to dismiss the obvious connections of the creation of the waters and the earth in Exodus 20:9-11 and even laughed off the words of Jesus as referring to “the beginning”. Adam’s presuppositions are also at odds with the biblical text itself. No English translation supports his view, and if you say “well, but the original Hebrew…”, then you must conclude that you know Hebrew better than the 1000s of Hebrew scholars that have translated the text for hundreds of years.

Another of Adam’s dismissals is the idea of what the church has taught exclusively for thousands of years: the earth is young. He said in the debate that it’s “irrelevant” to this debate. While it is not authoritative, it is certainly relevant. Adam and I are both Christians and we both agree that the Bible is the authority, so our difference is over interpretation. If this debate had some different opinions over the course of church history prior to the dominant and oppressive modern paradigm, he might have a point. But the young earth view is exclusive from the beginning to hyperbolically 15 minutes ago.

I’ll repeat my contention from the opening: If in my reading of the text, I ‘discover’ something that no one else in history ever thought or saw, I should question my own interpretation. YOU should question my new and exciting interpretations that no one has ever seen before. And this is what we see with Adam’s interpretation: no one has ever seen his view in all of church history.

Lastly, because there is a strong cultural pull to be in alignment with what “science” teaches, we will look to see what some of Adam’s underlying assumptions are. The allure of being concordant with the dominant modern paradigm can be enticing. You can see this enticement from Adam in his other interviews with/about young earth creationists:

“I would be all too happy to see young earth creationism to be proven correctly scientifically…The Bible is the driving force for pretty much all of this (YEC view) And not that the Bible shouldn’t be our authority…”

“The only reason that I don’t believe that (sun stood still in the sky) is because of modern day science“

“I’m willing to leave more of those discussions (age of the earth) up to the scientists”

“If I’m going to say that the earth is billions of years old, that’s clearly a scientific question. Unless someone can show me a passage in scripture, it’s a scientific question”

In matters of history, historical documentation is the primary and authoritative source for answering those questions. The Bible IS that historical documentation and Christians have abdicated the authority of the Bible in favor of the dominant modern paradigm. Adam is simply incorrect about history being a scientific question. Questions of history should be answered – not by extrapolations – but by historical documentation