An Old Earth Creationist typically believe that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, which is the most commonly held belief among secular scientists today.

An Old Earth does not mean that macroevolution happened. There are many Old Earth Creationists that do not believe in Darwin’s theory of macroevolution.

There are three main theories about old earth creationism.

1.) The Gap View

The Gap View believes that Genesis 1:1 accurately describes God’s creation, but in between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 Satan gets into control of the earth and leaves it in the state it is in now.

To myself personally, this is a very outside of the box idea and I see it as highly unlikely but possible.

2.) Day-Age View

Supporters of this idea believe that each “day” in Genesis is in fact “ages”, which is another translation of yōm, which is the Hebrew word for the day among other meanings.

So instead of seven literal days of creation, there would be 7 “ages” of God creating.

3.) Intermittent Day View

This view states that God used a literal day to create and then left the earth to be for periods of time afterward.

Many theistic evolutionists would support this view.

Why do Christians believe in an Old Earth?

Some evidence for an Old Earth is radiocarbon dating, both of rocks and fossils. Radiocarbon dating has been proved to be unreliable, but there is no evidence to suggest that it cannot give a range of time outside of freak explosions. If I am wrong on this, please send me the study.

Additionally, there are theories about the speed of light and how some stars are millions of light years away from earth.

One common objection to an Old Earth is the problem of pain before original sin.

However, Romans 5:12 says that the fall of man led to human death, not necessarily animal death.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin,and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned

Romans 5:12

Another common Old Earth explanation to the problem of death before original sin is that the soul is different then the body and that sin led to spiritual death, not physical death.

While this can be fun to study, it is more important that the earth was created than when it was created.

What do you think?

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