John Gerstner had a fascinating comment on this topic in his tape series on the Westminster Confession of Faith. He said something to the effect that in the 17th century, when the Westminster Confession of Faith was written, it was perfectly understandable for people of that time to believe in a young earth created in six 24-hour days. However, Gerstner could not imagine how any theologian in our time could possibly come to that conclusion, considering all the evidence for an ancient universe across so many disciplines of science.

The Roman Catholics were adamant to support geocentricity, in their interpretation of Scripture. Luther and Calvin also argued from Scripture that the earth must be the center of the universe (very good arguments at that). It’s strange that the geocentric/heliocentric debate rarely comes up, especially when compared with young earth/old earth debates (I just Googled “geocentric vs. heliocentric”, so I have to eat my words). Anyway, it appears that interpretations of Scripture concerning geocentricity have been adjusted in the last 400 years to conform to reality. I don’t think the intention of young earth proponents is to bring special revelation in conflict with natural revelation. Perhaps another 4 centuries are required to allow interpretations of Scripture to adjust to the reality of an old universe.

However, it becomes difficult at times to witness to Chinese (I work in China) because of the misguided enthusiasm young earth proponents have had on pitting Scripture against reality, and equating that with Christianity. If the young earth proponents are correct, I wish they would work harder to prove to critics (not the choir) that all of geology, astronomy, and science is misguided, and go the whole way back to geocentricty to show that Galileo has been playing tricks with his telescope all along.

Personally, I agree with Gerstner. I am not in the same class as Gerstner, and it’s a disgrace to even mention myself in the same sentence with such a great theologian. Anyone could refute my arguments, so ignore them. But, I would encourage you to at least consider Gerstner’s viewpoint.

Alan

Credo ut intelligan