Dating the earth in years is tricky. We all know that there are those who believe the earth is billions of years old, and there are those who believe the earth is approximately 6,000 years old. Then, there are those who were or are somewhere in between; and there are those who simply say, "I do not know." Each of these, including the latter, claim observable phenomenon — or lack thereof — to support their positions. But can we really know how old the earth is?
What Does the Bible Say about the Earth?
I prefer to start with the Bible and go out from there. When I read Scripture, I realize that the history of the world is not an unbroken linear succession of years but is rather broken up into catastrophic events that altered everything in the world. This is what the Apostle Peter meant when he said that in the last days there will be scoffers claiming that things have been as they have always been.
“Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’ For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water” (2 Peter 3:1-6, NKJV).
These “mockers” (NASB) say that there will not be a cataclysmic in-breaking of the Kingdom of God in the second coming of Jesus Christ because, they would say, "Look at history!” Everything is just the same as it has always been from the beginning." The "cataclysmic in-breaking" concept is owed to George Eldon Ladd and Donald Alfred Hagner, in Theology of the New Testament. Those who hold to the biblical record, and the observable record in creation, are those who hold to catastrophism. The scoffers who don’t believe in a flood, in Peter’s epistle, hold to a philosophy of earth history called uniformitarianism.
“The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).
The Bible teaches us that there was creation, which in itself was a rather catastrophic rearranging of chaos, and then there was the fall (2 Peter 3:1-6). Both of these events changed their environments completely. After the fall and before the flood, there existed another epoch. After the flood, the world was significantly — dramatically — reconfigured. Indeed, the flood marked a discontinuity with the past and the emerging of a new geological, environmental norm for the future.
“Before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground” (Genesis 2:5-6).
All this is part of Peter's argument. Not only do I think it is a good argument, I believe that it is the inerrant and infallible Word of God. But I don't have to look far to see that the natural world confirms Scripture. Whether woolly mammoths or life species suddenly fossilized, the observable world tells us that something dramatic happened. Peter affirms this and says that the dramatic event was the Flood. Just as scoffers denied the event then, so they do now. If someone asks, "What do Siberian mammoths and fossilized placoderms have to do with dating the age of the earth?" That's a good question. The answer is, "Everything." Here's the thing: we can take present, observable information about the world and project it backward. There have been at least five significant cataclysmic events that totally transformed the environment, atmosphere, geology, as well as chemical, mammalian, marine life, and the rest of the earth.
What Do Catastrophic Events Have to Do with Dating the Age of Earth?
Creation itself is a catastrophic ordering and reordering:
- Pre-Fall (Edenic)
- Post-fall after the sin of Adam and Eve
- Ante-Diluvian (before the flood when it had not rained and a mist covered the earth)
- Post-Flood (catastrophic cosmological discontinuity)
Based upon Scripture and observable, general revelation, it would be difficult for me to say the exact age of the earth. Too many things have changed. To apply the scientific method would require two samples with exact if not similar constitutions. That is impossible. Thus, to borrow a phrase, the case is rife with difficulties. It is “apples and oranges” if you will.
With the data we may observe in special revelation — that is, again, the Holy Bible — one might argue that the genealogies leave no doubt as to the age of the earth (see Genesis 4:1-26, Gen. 5:1-32). As one who believes that the Bible is the inerrant and the infallible Word of the living God, I certainly understand my brothers and sisters who believe one can count off the years from Adam to Noah to get an accurate dating of the foundation of the earth. My concern is that the genealogies, while exact, include those people who lived through and were subject to the remarkable earth-changing events of history. Can I calculate the age of the earth by generations alone, if some of those generations lived through the flood for example? The antediluvian years? Eden?
I do not believe that nature is the 67th book of the Bible as progressive creationists say (those who believe in theistic evolution). Progressive creationists believe nature is as reliable as the Word of God, according to Dr. Terry Mortenson on answersingenesis.org. We would do well to remember that creation was cursed by God after Eden, and creation is non-verbal; therefore, it should not be used to interpret the Bible, which is God's Truth.
According to Peter, and the rest of Holy Scripture, the “sample” (in general revelation) has been spoiled—by sin. Or, if you prefer, a series of world-changing catastrophes compromised the specimen. It is difficult to imagine a comparison of our existence now with the existence after the fall and before the flood. Moreover, the six days of creation are given to us in 24 hour periods (the Hebrew word is "yom," and it certainly means “a day”). The problem with dating that is again one of accurate comparison. Can we really understand the fullness of what a day means on the second day of creation with what a day remains after creation was completed? I don't know.
The Job Factor: How Can We Know How Old the Earth Is?
I do believe the Earth was created in six days and that God rested on the seventh. Genesis 1 and 2 are not examples of poetry or mythology. The language in Genesis 1 and 2 is the language of a historian. However, even as I believe the earth was created in six days and God rested on the seventh, and as I trust the genealogies given from Adam to Noah, I cannot, therefore, assert the age of the earth. When I encounter the “Job Factor.” What is the Job Factor? When Job stopped his complaining before God because he ran out of words, the Lord answered him. God’s answer to Job’s assumptions about the secret counsel of God did not lack for sarcasm, a holy derision that underscored the divide between God and Man:
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth” (Job 38:4-7).
Ouch. The answers to the Lord’s interrogation of Job are painfully self-evident: “No, my Lord, I was not around when You laid the foundations of the earth. No, my God, I have no understanding. Father, I have no idea about how you determined the measurements of the earth. No, Lord, I do not know. Morning stars singing together? Lord, this is beyond my ability to comprehend. Sons of God shouting for joy? Can I take a guess? Okay, Lord, I will be quiet. Thou art God. I am not.”
So, too, I cannot provide a certain answer to how old the earth is. I was not there when God created it. I have the testimony of his Word, and from his Word, I will look out into the observable data that I find in the world. And when I do, I understand that the earth was created in six days and later underwent a dramatic transformation. I understand the world was infected by the sinfulness of mankind. I understand that there was a time when rain was unnecessary, for a mist went up from the earth. There was a flood. Once more, the very constitution of the earth and life on it changed. Dire events that fundamentally reshaped the earth’s system of life prevent me from comparing today to the beginning of the world.
I have the genealogy. I trust that. But when I returned to the founding of the world in six days I have God asking me if I was there when he created everything? He is challenging the presumption of man to explain what God did before he ever created man. I will tell you what I do know about the history of the world. The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that all of time is centered in one transformative event in the world: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Everything that has happened before and everything that has happened afterward, or will occur, is marked by the central act in cosmic history, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I might not know how old the earth is but I know the One who made it. I place my trust in Him. I have absolute certainty that the resurrection of Jesus Christ has changed everything.
One Event to Measure All Else By
There is one final cataclysmic event that will happen in the earth and the cosmos: the second coming of Jesus Christ, the judgment of the world, and an extraordinary molecular rearrangement of all things that will bring about a New Heaven and a New Earth. And here is the most important thing I could write: your faith or unbelief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ determines whether you will be part of that New Heaven and New Earth. I cannot date the age of the earth because so many things have changed. But I can say with certainty that because Christ is risen from the dead so we will rise again from the dead. We will live with him in a new heaven and new earth forever. I do not fully understand even that. But that's the whole point, isn't it?
Faith is trusting in God the things we cannot see: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).
At the end of every great question in the Bible (whether about the age of the earth or a mysterious doctrine — as in Romans 9 and predestination — ), the Holy Spirit appeals to the incomprehensible divide between man's finite existence and God's infinite reality:
“But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this” (Romans 9:220)?
In short, God is God and we are not. So trust in God. The creation of the world was a miracle of Almighty God just as the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a divine intervention. I do not fault those who struggle to affirm a specific dating of the earth's age. But as for me, I am content in knowing that God knows, that God cares, and that He will provide me what I need to know with unquestioned clarity. This I know:
God loves us so much he sent his only begotten Son to live the life we could never live and die the death that should've been ours. And on the day that I confessed that truth, God created a new person in me. The earth began for me on that day.
Bibliography
Alberts, Louw. Christianity and the Enquiring Mind.
Behe, Michael J. Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives.
Berlinski, David. The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions.
Dembski, William A. Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science Theology, Mere Creation: Science, Faith & Intelligent Design. The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design. Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design.
Hawking, Stephen. “Properties of Expanding Universes.” Thesis, University of Cambridge. “The Beginning of Time.”
Jacobsen, Stein B. “How Old Is Planet Earth?” Science 300, no. 5625 (June 6, 2003).
Johnson, Phillip E. Darwin on trial.
Ladd, George Eldon, and Donald Alfred. Hagner. A Theology of the New Testament.
McGrath, Alister E. Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology. The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine.
Meyer, Stephen C. Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. “Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design By.” The American Biology Teacher 76, no. 2 (2014).
*Unless otherwise noted this article utilizes the New King James Version of the Holy Bible (NKJV).
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/piyaset
Michael A. Milton (PhD, Wales) is a long-time Presbyterian minister (PCA) and a regular contributor to Salem Web Network. In addition to founding three churches, and the call as Senior Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Chattanooga, Dr. Milton is a retired Army Chaplain (Colonel). He is the recipient of the Legion of Merit. Milton has also served as chancellor and president of seminaries and is the author of more than thirty books. He has composed and performed original music for five albums. He and his wife, Mae, reside in Western North Carolina. His most recent book is a second edition release: Hit by Friendly Fire: What to do when Another Believer Hurts You (Resource Publications, 2022). To learn more visit and subscribe: https://michaelmilton.org/about/.