Confessing Ex Young Earther
Roy Hershberger
Why I've changed my position on the age of the universe
A few years back I sent a letter to the Institute for Creation Research. I reluctantly asked them to remove me from their mailing list because I could no longer support their work. I informed them that after a great deal of study and thought I had reached the conclusion that their dogmatic young earth approach to creationism, which I had once supported fully, was scientifically and rationally unsound. I told them that not only is it bad science but that in the long run it may well prove to be evangelisticly counter productive. As you can probably guess my letter went over like a led zeppelin. The vice president at the time, Dr. John Morris, answered with a plea for me to reconsider my position.
Sure lives have been changed by John and his father Henry Morris' message. They are a loud voice in a world dominated by naturalistic philosophies, and they have brought a message of hope to many who were drowning in a sea of modernism. But how many more have been equally turned off from ever considering the Christ centered view of reality because of that same loud voice? How many thinking people who have carefully considered the evidence for the age of the universe after hearing the young universe advocates assume that this is the standard Christian position?
Growing up in a church and attending a college where young earth creationism was often considered the only alternative for those who believed the Bible, it was not easy to come to grips with the fact that I had been believing and participating in - well, a lie. To reject the concept of a young universe, that God had created in six literal days less then 10,000 years ago, was equal to pulling away the very foundation of Christian belief. For if you rejected what the book of Genesis was “clearly” saying about how God created, then it was only a matter of time and you would soon be questioning everything in the Bible., and if you question the Bible - well, you get the picture.
Haveing removed myself considerable from that mentality it is now easy to see that such thinking is only a result of insecurities. Is the Christian worldview such a weak philosophy that Christians can not look objectively at scientific evidence without feeling threatened? Shouldn't a concept of reality that is worth it's salt stand alone by virtue of pure reason? Is it wise to take a book that was written in a very different culture and a very different level of understanding than our own - a book that is very difficult to understand and impossible to always interpret correctly, and raise it to the level of deity? Isn't it presumptuous to believe that we can ignore objective evidence and cling to simplistic, modern cultural interpretations of scripture?
The Bible is an incredible, amazing book and is unquestionable inspired by God, but to treat our modern preconceived and often flawed interpretation as the foundation of Truth when so much clear objective evidence tells us that interpretation is incorrect is naive and shows a considerable lack of confidence.
The truth that there is an intelligent and personable God, that He is the basis of all reality, and that He created the universe by His endless knowledge can stand by itself on a fully rational and scientific basis. The Christian worldview is securely rooted in the evidence all around us. The Bible has been provided for us as a shortcut to get our feet on the ground and to help us to start understanding that reality much quicker then we could ever hope to from a simple observation of the natural world. But if that God is truly the basis of reality then true objective science will point to him just as readily as the Bible itself. And the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of a very old universe that has taken billions of years to create.
As I was confronted with that evidence I felt uneasy and afraid. I was shaken as my little simplistic and clean cut view of creation came tumbling down. But now it has expanded my horizons and stretched my concept of creation and the natural world as well as enhancing my vision of the awesomeness, beauty, and timelessness of the Creator. And I am now more committed to that reality then ever before.
Truth should never be feared only our unwillingness to face it.
For a more detailed exposé on the age of the universe see Jim Berge's article Evolution: Fact or Fiction.
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