Billions and Billions of Years Ago (Conclusion)

What is God Like?
If there is a God, and if He created the world and the universe, then what kind of a God is He? Science tells us the universe is 14 billion plus years old and the earth 4.67 billion. If it was “created” by God then why did He take so long? From the initial “big bang” until today is 14 billion years. That’s a 14 followed by nine zeroes. What was He doing all that time? Famed physicist Stephen Hawking suggests, “Science seems to have uncovered a set of laws… These laws may have been originally decreed by God, but it appears that He has since left the universe to evolve according to them and does not now intervene in it.”[1] This seems an apathetic God. Still others who favor this “deep time” timeline basically don’t care what He was doing. God is of no interest and they don’t believe in Him anyway. But for those who do believe in a Creator God this loooooonnnnnng, loooooonnnnnng time span from creation until man appeared on the scene presents an enigma. Why would he wait 14 billion years? Why would he wait 10 billion years to even begin the earth? That’s ten BILLION years! The Bible says, “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” [2]Still at that accelerated rate of experiencing time 14 billion years from Big Bang until man came on the scene would still be 14 million “God days” which is over 38,000 “God years.”

You see, the “god” of evolutionary process, the god of 14 billion years, is so slow that it almost appears He is doing nothing. He started the ball rolling with a bang, and then allowed thousands of millions of years to pass with change taking place at a glacial pace. In fact a glacier is like Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt (right) compared to the speed at which the 14 billion year god “worked.” Can it even be called working?

The God Who Cares?
This is in dramatic contrast to the God spoken of in the Bible. In our unfathomably long scenario, where is this God whose priority was to have relationship with man? Where is the God who sent His Son into the world on a specific date to save man from sin? Why did the God in Scripture suddenly part the Red Sea when his processes in nature took billions of years? Thousands of millions of years? Countless millennia? Endless centuries? Multiplied millions of human lifetimes? Someone said billions of years are a measurable fact while eternity is a philosophical idea. But I am not so sure. I can’t really wrap my head around 4.67 billion years. A giant Sequoia tree can live 2000 or 3000 years or even longer. The scientific guesstimate of the earth’s age is over 155,000 generations of 3000-year-old Sequoias. Just one and a half Sequoia lifetimes would take us back to the dawn of recorded history. We’re not talking ten generations of these behemoth trees, not 1000, not even 5000, for that would be just a small amount of the earth’s history.

The “god” who “creates” through evolutionary process is indeed quite different from the God in the Bible. The Bible God acts suddenly. We do see Him work out processes over decades or even several hundred years (as in his dealings with the Israelites in Egypt), but never millions, let alone billions of years! It looks like we’re talking about two different gods.

Can Science be Wrong?
Can the modern guesstimate be wrong? Science has been wrong before. Prolific writer Richard Harter summarizes, “In 1640 Ussher produced his famous calculation that the Earth was created in 4004 BC … Ussher accepted the Biblical account at face value… In the 1700's … Attempts to calculate the age of the Earth from physical considerations yielded estimates that ranged from 75,000 years (Buffon, 1774) to several billion years (de Maillet, Buffon)…By the early 1800's it was generally accepted that the Earth had a long history… There were various attempts to estimate the Earth's age…The attempts produced estimates from about 100 million years up to several billion years…In 1862 Lord Kelvin (left) estimated the age of the Earth to be 98 million years, based on a model of the rate of cooling. …Later in 1897 he revised his estimate downwards to 20-40 million years… his estimates were completely wrong ... The first radiometric dating was done in 1905; it and subsequent measurements confirmed that the Earth was several billion years old. Currently the best estimate of the age of the Earth is 4.55 billion years.”[3] Each generation of scientists has been pretty sure they have the right answer.

So how old is the earth, really? I don’t know. But I suspect it’s not as old as our pat scientific answers tell us. After all, the age of the earth is the foundation of the evolutionary, modern scientific worldview. It’s not just some random figure open for discussion by the establishment. Moreover, if God took 14 billion years to slowly evolve the universe, then what kind of a god is he? What kind of a creation is that?

So the next time someone rolls his arms outward on both sides and says, “billions and billions of years ago…” we might be justified in saying, “oh really?”



[1] Stephen Hawking, “A Brief History of Time,” (Great Britain, Bantam Press, 1988) p. 129
[2] 2 Peter 3:8 (NASB)
[3] Changing Views of the History of the Earth, by Richard Harter, Copyright © 1998-2005
(See entire article at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geohist.html)

Billions and Billions of Years Ago (Part 1)

Billions and Billions of Years Ago… (part 1)

The best scientific guesstimates of the age of the earth are in the ballpark of 4.67 billion years old. That’s a humongous ballpark. It’s a ballpark in which you cannot see the fence. 4.67 billion years is a really big number. It’s a 467 followed by seven zeros. Even 467 years is a long time! If we look back in time 467 years, we would be looking at 1542. What happened in 1542? Henry VIII’s fifth wife Catherine Howard (right) was executed for adultery, which seems to have been missing the point, and Cabrillo landed in what is now San Diego Bay. That’s what we call the “olden days.” Yet 467 years is only one millionth of the commonly accepted age of the earth. A million 467-year periods, a million of them… would take us back to the guesstimated beginning of the earth.

Two Views
I called the figure of 4.67 billion years a “guesstimate.” I used that word, because it’s sort of an educated guess on the part of experts. I mean, the earth might have started 4.7 billion years ago, or maybe it was 4.5 billion years ago. What’s 20 million years when we’re talking about 47 ten million year periods? But 20 million years is itself an unfathomable period of time. Even the experts can’t fine-tune the calculations much more than millions of years! It’s such a long span that 20 million years is considered insignificant. So 4.67 billion is an educated guess.

Is there evidence that the earth is 4.67 billion years old? Yes. That is primarily in the radiometric measurements of the decay of elements like uranium in organic matter. This form of dating materials is a complicated subject that is too deep for me. Basically fossils and rocks are dated with numbers followed by lots of zeros. Knowledgeable people will say there are many other proofs for the old dating of the earth. So it is an educated, guess.

The figure of 4.67 billion years goes hand in glove with the theory of evolution. In fact, a staggering time period is required by evolution. If the earth was much younger, then evolution could not be true, as it is now taught. One website puts it this way, “Mutation, Gene Flow, Genetic Drift, Natural Selection + 3.8 billion years = Macroevolution.” [1] The widespread presupposition now popular is that the earth is very, very old, and it must be old, or the modern scientific perspective based on evolution would crumble. A lot rides on those billions of years.

Is there evidence for an earth that is not billions of years old? Yes. Many claim proof exists in things like the relatively thin layer of silt on the ocean floor. This and many other anomalies, according to “young earthers,” seem to indicate the earth’s age might have a few less zeros. Qualified scientists still contend the evidence shows that the earth is not billions of years old. They are a minority and are pretty much marginalized and discredited by the majority opinion. However, they do exist. There is a counterpoint no matter how it is derided.

Deep Time

When we talk about billions of years we enter into what we call “deep time.” Basically deep time means it’s so long we cannot comprehend it. P.H.D. John Morris says, “One billion years cannot be grasped, neither can 4.67 billion years for the supposed age of the Earth or 14 billion years or so since the Big Bang. These words may be easy to say, and within our mathematical calculations, but I suggest they carry no meaning. The invariable accompaniment of the outward rolling of the hands, suggest that tales of "billions and billions" of years are nothing more than arm-waving, perhaps capable of impressing or intimidating, but not of communicating understandable information.”[2] The only way we can think about one billion years, let alone a 467 followed by seven zeroes… is by making a metaphor. Many geology students are given an assignment of creating a metaphor to give some kind of a concept of this time length that we can grasp. So how long is a billion years? One metaphor I liked says that if we compressed the 4.67 billion years into a 24-hour period, man only showed up in the last two seconds. For 23 hours, 59 minutes and 58 seconds came all the formation, cataclysms, evolution, extinctions, mutations, and natural selection prior to man.

To count from one to a billion would take 95 years. A fish tank that would hold 1 billion goldfish would be the size of a stadium. These word pictures describe the immensity of this number. But the common opinion across the board is that we can’t grasp it. It’s just too much for our puny brains to digest. The GSA website states, “For many people, however, deep time is a critical barrier to learning science; the meaning of immense spans of time is elusive and unfamiliar…”[3]

If we go back 4670 years, we’re kind of back at the dawn of recorded time. That’s the age of the earth minus six zeroes. That is 2670 years before the events of the life of Jesus Christ. Forty-seven centuries ago is a staggering amount of time. Yet that would be one ten thousandth part of the entire history of the world. You would have to have 10,000 lengths of recorded history, 10,000 – to equal the age of mother earth.

How do we reconcile this enormity of time with belief in God? That's coming in part 2.

[1] http:// evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/

[2] www.icr.org
[3] http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2009NC/