Why I am a Young Earth Creationist

As a Christian and believer in God's holy inspired Word, of course I believe in creation. It is very easy and reasonable to be a creationist. And I think most people who would be reading my blog would also be creationists so I'm not going to belabor the point! It is interesting however, the many kinds of creationists there are - "old earth" creationists, "Biblical framework" creationists and "young earth creationists" like me who believe in a literal 24 hour/day 6 day week of creation. I'm sure there are other kinds of "creationists" too who combine evolution and creation and everybody also knows about the "Intelligent Design" position.

Back to my topic, Why I am a young earth creationist? First of all, the literal reading of Genesis chapter one refers to 6 days, repeating the phrase "and there was evening and there was morning" which was a Hebrew understanding of a literal day. And it makes perfect sense to me that it would be 6 literal days.

Yet, I also know that sometimes the literal interpretation is not intended and parts of the Bible are figurative. Like in Revelation - the dragon and many of the creatures are figurative and not meant to be taken literally.

So why do I think a literal interpretation is intended here? One reason is the emphasis on God's Word speaking things into existence. Repeatedly we read "And God said..... and there was." God made everything out of nothing - the earth was formless and void and dark. God created things just by speaking. When you do that, you don't need millions of years!

For example, I believe that God made full-grown plants and trees - yes even big oak trees with rings inside of them indicating that they would be many years old! He made the animals mature and grown. And it is generally agreed that Adam and Eve were created as adults, fully developed and grown-up looking. Why couldn't God have also made animals, plants, trees, and stars mature and "aged" looking?

I also believe that God was very pleased with His creation and called it all good. The sin that resulted in the curse hadn't fallen on creation until Adam and Eve sinned. Once they sinned, that perfect environment was changed and death came into the world. I do not believe that animals existed very long before the curse because I believe that there was no death until sin entered the world. I know that can be debated, yet I would find it very hard to believe that death existed before sin.

Also one of Adam's responsibilities was to name all the animals and I believe that the animals were safe and not predators. I believe that Adam and Eve could live safely with those animals in the garden - before sin and death entered the world.

I realize that the young earth theory of creation clashes with the dating of the world. However, I believe that God created this world fully mature. The stars, very distant and millions of light years away, can be seen by us today because He desired us to see them. They declare His glory!!!! Since He made them out of nothing, He was fully able to create them to be seen by us even though it would normally take millions of years for their light to reach us allowing us to see them. For me that is a very simple thing for the Creator of the stars to do! The distance of the stars does not require us to believe in an old earth!

And I also realize that the sun and moon were not created until Day 4. So some wonder, how could there be literal days without the sun? It is my belief that God created the day and night in Day 1 and that the sun was put in place according to that time table that God already established. Not the other way around. God made the sun to determine the time in our day according to His plan and purpose. I don't think our 24 hour day began in Day 4 with the sun!

Also, it is interesting to note that the vegetation, plants bearing seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit were created the day before the sun. I don't believe that fruit trees, plants, flowers, and vegetables were growing very long before the sun was created. Yes there was already light, but not the sun when these plants were created and growing.

What about the grand canyon? For me, that is very easy to explain since I also believe there was a literal flood covering the world! I think we don't realize how much that flood changed the world. The flood changed everything! That great catastrophic event changed the world in ways that it would appear to have changed over millions of years. It has affected the carbon dating and all human analysis of the age of the earth, which I believe was created mature to begin with.

Did you know that there are cowboy boots that have changed into petrified rock? Obviously cowboy boots aren't that old, yet they would appear to be very old due to the extreme conditions they underwent. There are many discrepancies when humans try to date things and scientists don't agree over the dating of the world.

Are there intelectual people, scholarly people, scientists with advanced degrees who actually believe in a literal 7 day creation? YES! Dr. Jay Wile, author of the Apologia science curriculum and the book Reasonable Faith believes in the young earth creation theory, as do many others.

I also realize that evangelical, Bible believing Christians can and do disagree about this. One's salvation does not hinge on this! I also know that I could be wrong, although I strongly think I'm right! God is all-powerful and He made all of His creation "very good", out of nothing, and I believe He made it all perfect, fully mature and in 6 days by speaking the words and it was so.