The Age of the Earth

The apparent clash between palaeontology and the Bible is just that - apparent.  This claim might come as a surprise to many people who soak up the modern media, but in fact there is no clash at all.

It should be stated clearly at the outset that the Bible is not intended to teach science.  That is not its purpose.  Nevertheless we can reasonably expect that overlaps between the two should not disagree.  That said, let's start with Genesis.

If we read the first few verses of Genesis with care it is plain that there is no argument about the age of the Earth - for the very simple reason that the Bible does not commit itself on this subject.

Gen 1:1 states that God, at some point, made the Earth.  The crucial point is that we are not told when this happened.  It could have been just before the new creation, or it could have been many millions of years before that.  What we learn in Gen 1:2 is that at some point, and I believe that point to have been around BC4000, God swept the earth clean and began again.  If there is a problem it is here, with the new beginning, rather than with the age of the Earth as such.

In view of the serious doubts over systems of dating, of which the uncertainties of C14 dating is merely one, we are within our rights to question how scientists can be so sure that there was no such break around the year BC4000.

There are, of course, plenty of arguments which can be used here.  One is that if the Earth was covered by water, which Gen 1 seems to suggest, then we would have ample evidence of this in rock strata.  Well, we do indeed have just that, and if there is a difference of opinion here it isn't what happened but when, so we are back to the dating problem once again.

Directly connected to this topic is that of fossils and, particularly, of dinosaurs.  Fossils imply that animals and plants lived and died and left their remains in the rock strata, and no sensible person argues with that.  I think it puerile to try and argue that God placed all these things in the earth to fool us into thinking that the Earth is very old when it may not be.  In my opinion God simply does not work like that and, perhaps more importantly, has no need to do so.

The point is that, despite the claims of palaeontologists, dating these things is a very inexact science, and depends hugely on all sorts of assumptions.  While many of these assumptions may seem very plausible, the simple fact is that they are all driven by the reigning paradigm, the current belief system, and we are really in no different position to those in pre-enlightenment times who had to go along with the prevalent beliefs in their days.  Those beliefs we may now mock with some reason, but however irrational they now seem to us, they made sense to them, if only because they were careful to use only those pieces of information which fitted their world-view.  The position we find ourselves in today, whether we accept it or not, is closely similar in essence, and some very erudite and intelligent men (who are not creationists, let it be made clear) have stated as much.

We cannot date fossils accurately beyond a few thousand years and the page on C14 dating should make that clear.  Dating fossils beyond this is strictly for the birds.  The simple reason for this is that sedimentary rock strata cannot be dated, and the only way that this can be done is to try and date igneous intrusions into the cracks in the rock, and even that is hopelessly flawed because we cannot reliably date even igneous rocks.  It is well known that the age of exuded magma cannot be determined from the date of its emergence.  As I said, it is all based on assumptions.

So there is no actual clash between the Bible and science at all, simply because the Bible doesn't give detail and science is unable to.  This might seem dismissive and naive to those brought up on a diet of Richard Dawkins and other evolution worshippers, but having dug and delved now for 40 years in the subject, with two degrees, I am quite happy to make this statement.  If I had any doubts I wouldn't be writing these web pages.

To back all this up I have looked at several issues which bear on the age of the Earth (just click on each link).