Debate: Does the Bible Teach a Young Earth?

Debate Format and Opening Remarks

Your Calvinist Podcast is filmed before a live studio audience. And welcome to Your Calvinist Podcast. My name is Keith Foskey, and as always, I am your Calvinist. Does the Bible present an age of the earth?

And if so, does it present an old earth or a young earth? Depending on who you ask, you're going to get different answers. Well, tonight I have two men who have come to me wanting to debate one another, and I am happy to have them on the platform to be able to let them debate this very important subject.

I'm going to bring them on in just a moment, but before I do that, I want to very quickly remind you that this podcast is a ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida. So if you're in the area, please come visit us, and you can find out more at sgfcjax .org.

Also remember that we are a partner with tinybibles .com. You always see it sitting on the table next to me. This is my tiny Bible, and you can have one of your own. If you go to tinybibles .com, you can get a percentage off by using my name, Keith, as a discount code.

Well, again, I'm so thankful to have the brothers with me today, and I'm going to bring them up now. I have Matt, also known as the Apollo Jedi, and Adam from Curious Christianity. Brothers, thank you both for being with me on the show today.

Thanks for having us, Keith. Yes, sir. Adam, are you there? Did you—okay.

I tried to—. We're looking forward to the conversation. Appreciate it.

Absolutely. Now, I want to also mention that this is a live show, so if you are watching this show on YouTube, know that this is happening in real time. So if you leave a comment during the live show, I'll be able to see it here on my computer, and during the live—or during the Q &A portion, we're going to take questions from the audience.

So if you have a question that you want to ask either Matt or Adam, please put in the question that this is a question for whoever it is, if it's for Matt or Adam, and that will let me know who to direct the question to when the time comes.

All right. Before we get started, I think it would be good to get to know our debaters a little bit, so I'm going to ask each of these men to just take a couple of minutes, share with us who they are, tell us about their ministries, and what position they take in tonight's debate.

All right, Matt, we'll start with you.

All right. Thanks, Keith, and thanks again, Adam. Before we get too far into it, this is a brotherly conversation, as we both recognize that we are both Christians in this conversation, but a little bit about myself.

Mrs. Apollo Jedi and I have been married for 26 years. Our Padawans are out of the house, and so I am a layperson at a Presbyterian church in East Texas, a faithful Presbyterian church. We're very thankful to be there, and my ministry, I guess, consists mostly of just writing blog posts and helping out in my local area.

Excellent, brother.

Thank you so much. And Adam? Yeah, so my name's Adam, and I run the YouTube channel Curious Christianity. I'm kind of just getting started on hosting a lot more conversations about Christianity, and my passion is really for broadening the conversation and having conversations with Christians that I agree with and disagree with.

I think that that's how we really can help weed out the truth. And then lastly, you know what? I'm out here to kind of help set the record straight concerning Genesis 3. I've done primarily a lot of work in Genesis 3, 14 through 19, and I'm really looking forward to bringing that to the rest of the world.

All right, my friend. Well, thank you both again for being on the program today. And I know the people who are watching came to see a debate, so we don't want to put it off too much longer, but I am going to give them the outline of what to expect because we're thinking it's going to be about an hour and a half debate, and here's how we break that down.

It's going to be two 10-minute opening statements. Both men are going to get an opening statement. Matt is taking the positive. He's taking the thesis that the Bible teaches a young earth, and so he gets the first 10 minutes.

He also gets the last closing statement. And so he will begin first, and then Adam will come in with the second 10-minute opening statement. After that, there will be a five-minute rebuttal period, after which there's going to be 30 minutes of cross-examination, where it'll be five minutes of questions from one man to the other, going back and forth until we have exhausted all 30 minutes.

And then once that is completed, we're going to look at the audience questions. We're going to probably give about 20 minutes to audience questions, unless there's just a ton of them that we need to go longer, we can, but we'll see how it goes.

And again, this is the opportunity for you to participate, so if you're watching, please be watching and leave your questions so we know that you're there. And then at the very end, each man will give a five-minute closing statement telling the world why they were right and the other person was wrong.

So this is how the debate's going to go, and I would like to ask the audience, again, please pay attention to what these men are saying. If you came here with your own position, that's great. Most of us do have a position on this, but that doesn't mean we don't have anything to learn.

And one of the things about debates that is sometimes frustrating is people come in and they don't listen to the other side. If you came in with a position tonight, please open your heart to the other side, not because you think they might be right, but because you always have something that you can learn and be listening as both sides present their case in the debate.

So let's get started. If you gentlemen are ready, you are ready. All right. I'm going to turn everything over to Matt, and he is going to have his opening 10 minutes. Matt, the floor is yours.

Matt's Opening Statement for a Young Earth

Thank you. 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 within the last 200 years, 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 the ideas of age and does not deal with material creation. It's just a functional ordering due to the influence of the writings of the Hittites, the 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 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, that the Bible teaches that the earth is young.

I have three points. One, the earth, the universe, and everything in it was created in six calendar days as the Bible says. Two, the earth was created about 6 ,000 years ago because of the ages given in the corresponding accounts of the unbroken royal lineage of the seed from Adam to Abram in Genesis and Chronicles and from Abram to Jesus in Luke as the Bible says.

And third, Jesus confirms that mankind was made at the beginning of creation in Mark 10, 6. As Christians, we do not want to hold things that are demonstrably false. Genesis and the rest of scripture very clearly tells us that God created in six calendar days about 6 ,000 years ago.

Most of God's word was passed on to us from the spirit inspiring the prophets and apostles, but part of the case for a young earth was literally written by the hand of God in stone. This was completely undisputed for the rarest, but for the rarest of outliers for about 1800 years until the end of the 19th century.

And 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.

Let's look at the text. Number one, 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. The Hebrew grammar and the narrative structure of Genesis one doesn't permit a time gap between verses one and two.

The valve consecutive and at the beginning of verse two in Hebrew implies a direct sequence of events. Use of number two, use of the word yom, meaning day. It's literally defined in Genesis one, number three.

Why did God not use any of the deep time words that are available in Hebrew? Like yamim, which is plural of yom, or kadem, the days of old, or olam, the days of old. None of those are used. And some might object and say that Moses didn't understand large numbers like billions of years.

So God had to speak to this simpleton with simpleton language. But this objection would be ignorant of the covenant from Genesis 22, 17, where God says, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.

Number four, God didn't communicate to Abram this way in Genesis one. He told him days. Number four, 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 sometime later, or many years later, or as things developed over time.

But 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.

Number five, the days are bounded by evening and morning patterns to separate the days. Not eons, not years, not months, but only days are bounded by evenings and mornings. God was being very clear that yom meant a calendar day in the context.

And number six, with the objection, but Matt, can't yom mean a time period like in Genesis two, two, four? Yes. Notice how they always choose Genesis two, four, and no one ever chooses Genesis one because the context shows us that the usage of yom in Genesis two, four is completely different than the usage of yom in Genesis one.

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 the modern culture or ancient near Eastern cultures.

Where can we look in scripture to find a usage of yom in the context described in Genesis one to give us the correct boundary of yom, Exodus 29 through 11 and Exodus 31, 17. It's very clear when it says six days, you shall labor and do your work for in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them 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. Number seven, here's the meat of the matter in Genesis five 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. And lastly, in Mark 10, six, for at the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Jesus is confirming that it was the beginning when he created everything, everything else that he made mankind.

Remember, Jesus is the creator. He was there. He would know those who have fallen prey to the lure of the modern scientific paradigm may say, well, this passage is just about marriage. But this objection ignores the actual words of Jesus.

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 renders the word as meaningless.

It literally destroys language. Let's test the consistency. If fellow brothers who deny young earth creation would apply the same level of skepticism they do to Genesis one and Exodus 20 and to the other parts of scripture, you might hear something like, well, of course, the plagues of 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.

Or you might hear something like when we look at the 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. Or maybe something like 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 his disciples. But it's inconsistent for YEC deniers to declare God could not have created the universe in six 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 the Christians should not hold beliefs that are demonstrably false. We can look at the history of the church as well.

While the biblical timeline 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 the 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.

One minute. Irenaeus, Theophilus, Julianus Africanus, Origen, Augustine, Johannes Kepler, James Usher, all of the reformers accepted a young earth. Charles Lyell, though not a Christian, wrote in the 1800s and his desire, knowing that the Christianity was the dominant paradigm, he said in his writings he wished to free the science from Moses, which we know as Genesis.

In his biography of James Hutton, Jack Rapcheck wrote in The Man Who Found Time, The Earth, 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 would we should want to interpret scripture consistently and rightly, consistently by offering the same level of scrutiny to passages that conflict with modern sensibilities like Genesis, as those passages deemed crucial to Christian orthodoxy, like the miracles of Jesus.

We've established throughout that through that throughout all of the church history before the dark times, everyone understood that the earth was 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. We do not want to hold teachings that are demonstrably false.

All right. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Wonderful. Matt, I appreciate that opening statement. Could you hear me when I gave you the one minute? Did that come through? I was trying not to just holler.

But I wanted you to be able to hear me. Okay. All right. And Adam, I'm going to turn it over to you now. We got some people that are interacting. I'm watching the questions as we go and starring some questions that I'm going to save for later.

So keep them coming. We appreciate it. All right. It's your turn now. Turn it over to you, Adam.

Adam's Opening Statement for an Agnostic View of Earth's Age

Okay. Tonight's debate is about if the Bible teaches that the earth is young. My opponent will have his work cut out for him since the Bible does not teach an age of the earth. So if you're a young earth creationist, here's my question for you.

Are you willing to change your mind if the Bible does not teach an age of the earth? For tonight, I am offering a biblical case as to why the Bible does not teach an age of the earth. This debate is not about Adam, animal death, evolution or even science.

This is about what the Bible teaches. And if the Bible teaches that there was a material earth created within six to ten thousand years ago. My opponent has the difficult task of showing that the Bible teaches an age of the earth and must show that the Bible gives us specifics as to when the earth was materially created.

If he cannot show when the earth was materially created, he cannot declare how old it is. For if one does not know when something begins, how can he know how old it is today? The Bible teaches that Genesis 1, 1 through 2 are the preconditions for the six days of creation.

Those verses read like this. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was void and formless. Darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters of the surface or over the surface of the waters.

The first two verses are the preconditions of the earth before day one of the six days of creation. If there is earthly matter that pre-exists day one of the six days, one cannot know the age of the earth.

The first day of creation begins in verse three when God says, let there be light. The assertion that when God creates, he creates from nothing during the six days of creation is a presupposition. One should not simply read the text as referring to all matter coming into existence without solid biblical evidence.

Instead, the six days of creation all refer back to the first two verses, which is where the material of the earth is mentioned. Let's take a closer look at the context. Every good Bible student knows that when you read a passage, you must read it in context.

Let me ask you this question. On what day did God create water? It is not during the six days of creation. It is before day one in the first two verses. Notice Genesis 1 .1 does not say the first day God created the heavens and the earth.

The following days of creation are responding and presuppose the first two verses. Why does God separate light from darkness on day one? That's because there was darkness on the earth in verse two. Why does God separate the waters in day two?

He does so to give form and address verse two. Each day of the six days of creation is calling back to Genesis 1 verse two. The days of creation are addressing the emptiness, formlessness, and darkness of verse two.

The days are complete and accomplished when that task is over. Second, the structure and patterns of Genesis 1. Even if one wants to assert that Genesis 1 is history, one must consider the way this history is being expressed and accept the way the message is being delivered.

To ignore the way the text is written is to miss out on how and what is being communicated. Consider this question. Why isn't day two good? Each day of creation, God says, is good except for day two. Is day two less than the other days?

Was there something wrong with the second day of creation? Perhaps you never noticed. Honestly, most don't. The answer is because Genesis 1 uses the word good seven times. The use of good seven times communicates to the reader that all of the days of creation are good.

This highlights the writer is intentional with the structure and usage of words in Genesis 1. Other such notable word structures are the other occurrences that have symbolic or significant repetition.

For example, God said occurs 10 times. Let there be occurs 10 times. To make occurs 10 times. According to the kinds occurs 10 times. Most recognize 10, as well as a significant number which often symbolizes completeness.

These are not the only ones, but it's enough for the listener to understand that the structure of words in Genesis 1 are intentionally written. Therefore, one should consider the structure that Genesis 1 is written in when seeking to interpret what it says.

There are several elements that are evident in days one through six. This creates a tight grouping that connects and helps us understand what should be considered in the six days. First, each day begins with God said and ends with, and there was evening and morning.

Second, days one through three match with days four through six in that there was a creative act in each day with a double act in day three and day six. Making the days symmetrical. Third, in a thematic way, days one through three match with days four through six.

Day one matches with day four concerning the light and the darkness and that matching with the sun, moon and stars. Day two matches with day five, where it separates the waters below and the waters above create an expanse in the heavens for the birds and the waters for the sea creatures.

Then day three matches with day six. God separates the waters from the land and said to the earth and produces plants so that the land animals and mankind may enjoy the land and the plants. All of this works on a model in which day one begins with verse three.

However, none of this works in verses one and two, if verses one and two are included in the six days of creation. It is the young earth creationist assertion that Genesis 1 is largely about material creation.

If that is the case, then why is there so little material creation happening? According to days one through three, there is hardly any material creation happening at all. On the first three days of the primary event that takes place is the separating of things, not the material creation of them.

God is clearly ordering the earth and arranging it. But what is he separating? He is separating the stuff from the first two verses. The rest of Genesis 1 presupposes that which was said in verse two.

They are the context for the rest of the chapter. Now, the point here is that verses one and two are not a part of the six days of creation, but rather that they precede the six days of creation. They are the presupposition which we must now begin with.

Now, at the moment, we must turn to Hebrew. Day one of the six days of creation cannot consist of verses one and two. So the first day cannot be verses one through five, but rather it begins with verse three.

Hebrew has something called a vav consecutive. The vav consecutive serves to create a sequential narrative flow in the Hebrew language, linking actions or events in the story. It acts as a storytelling device to propel the narrative forward and stringing together actions.

The first vav consecutive begins in verse three with God said, let there be light. And then it continues throughout verse one or throughout chapter one, all the way through the six days of creation. This shows the connection between days one through six while entirely leaving out verses one and two.

This shows that even in Hebrew, the first two verses were not included in the first day. Instead, the reader is supposed to see that the first two verses are the initial setting which the reader is to understand the six days of creation.

Lastly, if you're not convinced, I want to try and clear away two presuppositions that are often brought to the table. Many assume that day one of the six days of creation account must be the first day of all time, space, matter and energy.

Often it is because of passages such as Exodus 20. For in six days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Because by pointing out Exodus 20, because if you have, because of what I've laid out is correct, then God creates in six days the heavens and the earth using that which was before day one.

It is assumed but not proved that the first day of the six days of creation was also the beginning of time and the first day of any creation. The text of Genesis is specific in saying that it is a creation account for mankind.

This explains why such things as the angels are not mentioned. There are other things that are likely created before the six days of creation. For example, Job 1 minute 38 says, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Tell me if you understand. When the morning star sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy or who enclosed the sea doors when bursting forth, it went out from the womb when I made a cloud, its garment and dense gloom, its swaddling band.

This creation, this is a creation passage which speaks of the angels shouting for joy at the creation. This passage as well presupposes that the angels were created before this six day creation and were in fact present to celebrate it.

If the angels were created before day one of the creation account, then the first day mentioned in Genesis one is not the absolute beginning of time. There is one other presupposition, and that has to do with creation.

This is the notion of create or make. One may appeal to Exodus and say that it declares that God made or created everything in six days since it uses the term create or make. Talking about materials such as water, earth and the like, this is demonstrably false since day one of the creation is not physical at all.

On the first day, it is supposed to God is supposed to create light, which is then called day. The day is is simply not the daytime and the nighttime. It has nothing to do with material creation, but the time of day and night.

All right, you both had a lot to say, had a lot to squeeze in there. You did a great job. Thank you both very much. I do want to say this, watching the comments, if your comments, if your questions are not related to the debate, please do not continue to vote the comments with things unrelated to the debate.

It's not helpful and it makes it difficult to see what questions really revolve around this question. So please ask questions related to the debate. Don't argue with one another and don't post things that are irrelevant.

That would be unhelpful. All right. So moving on now, we're going to do our five minute rebuttals. Each man is going to get five minutes and we're going to turn it back over to Brother Matt.

Rebuttals on Genesis 1, Exodus 20, and the Meaning of Creation Days

Thanks, Adam, for your opening. A few things that he talked about were some of the preconditions that Genesis 1 .1 and 1 .2 are actually some sort of time before time. And we may have to talk about that in the cross exam.

But he's proposed that there is some sort of matter that can exist without time, that God created all this matter, but there was no time for it to exist when. It's a strange belief, and he may be able to clarify further as we go forward.

The concept of something prior to day one would fit well for eternity. But since the earth and the sea and everything in them have to exist at a time and in a place, then his proposal is somewhat strange to say that there's some sort of time or mysterious.

He'll have to declare that a little further because when we look at the text itself, especially in Exodus 20, we see very clearly God says in six days I made the heavens, the earth, the sea and all that is in them.

It's there's there is no, there had to be a day prior or at some sort of mysterious time prior to day one. God literally says and wrote with his own hand in stone, I created the heavens, the earth, the sea and all that is in them in six days.

So it's a it's a it's a we'll let him talk about that a little more. He talked a little bit about the the way that there is some organizations, some patterns in Genesis one. And it and just because there's a pattern doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't truly a part of history.

As we look at the way God would have expected his people to pass down his words when he revealed them, they would have been passed down through oral tradition until until it could have been. It could have come from writing.

So a memory technique of remembering certain patterns in the way that he created makes makes perfect sense. We wouldn't have let's see here if I've got. We'll we'll move on, I should have looked a little harder on that.

And then the last thing he said was create and make don't mean what we think create and make means. This is kind of what I talked about earlier. All Bible translations use the word create and to make there's not an English translation anywhere that talks about this, these words create and make being used as some sort of ordering or drawing together from preexistent material.

If that were if that was a possible combination, perhaps we would have found a Bible translation that had that sort of usage. But when we see very clearly and look at all every English translation is going to have create and make, which we understand to have a meaning.

If it if we need to have someone come in and tell us, no, no, it means something else, something that is not in the text itself. It's it means something according to this presupposition. We have to be questionable about it, especially since it hasn't been found anywhere else in Christian history that someone said that the creation week was just a functional ordering of things for some preexisting matter.

That's a that is a trendy idea. And we can maybe talk about that a little more. Those are the those are the notes I had, I'll turn it back over to Adam for his rebuttal.

Adam's Rebuttal on Preexisting Matter and the Structure of Genesis 1

Oh, all right. Thank you, brother. Well, that that gives you you came in right at four minutes, so held it down. Good. OK, Adam, I'll turn it over to you for your five minute rebuttal.

Yes. So this debate is about what the Bible says, history, these other matters. And regardless of however the church has interpreted history, which I do think there are arguments that can be talked about that.

But in this case, the history is irrelevant. The fact that many people may have interpreted the Bible one way or another does not play a role in this debate. The first six days of creation does not entail, therefore, that it is the first day of all time.

That is a presupposition that the reader is bringing to the text. If you just ask yourself, well, what was the first day? Well, what do we see when we read Genesis? We see in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.