A Relic of the Past

Perhaps an old leather garment that’s been broken in by years of wearing, a well-kept classic car from a bygone era, or an ancient piece of furniture that’s been gently worn by countless hands touching it over and over again.

There’s a connectivity to the past that is intrinsic to objects that have been around for so long, which is why many of us drop into antique stores or wander wide-eyed through museums, imagining the stories behind the artifacts that have been—or you hope will be—discovered.

And this love of the old has spawned a whole “retro” genre, which has become so popular that many manufacturers and craftsmen are now producing “pre-aged” products that have the look and feel of an older object but are in fact brand-new.

There are many items we see in this world that sure look old but simply aren’t.

Whether a comfy pair of jeans that have been prewashed and worn or even an electric guitar that has been “reliced” (yes, that’s a thing), there are many items we see in this world that sure look old but simply aren’t.

The biggest object that anyone could point to in this regard is the earth itself, which many believe to be immensely ancient but really isn’t as old as they’ve been told. And how can I say that?

Why Do People Believe Something Is Old?

You see, we typically detect age being attached to something because of our assumptions and prior experiences when we’ve witnessed—or even just imagined—specific processes having occurred.

For example, if I look at a piece of painted wood with a bare spot on it where it would have been natural for someone to have touched it repeatedly in its daily use (like the handle on a cupboard for example), I can logically deduce that it must be fairly old because of the number of times it would have taken to remove the paint layer in that area—almost imperceptibly, little by little—through repeated contact over time.

Now, I could accomplish the same effect much more quickly by using a piece of steel wool, even though it might still take a while to wear through the paint. However, if I brought out an electric sander, I could wear off the outer layer in short order—almost instantaneously. After some dusting and a little oil, it would have the appearance of being older than it really is.

And even though there may be some clues that experts in their respective fields might look for to detect whether something has been aged naturally or rapidly, the effect can be virtually indistinguishable in some cases.

Did God Create the World with the Appearance of Age?

A very common question I have been asked is whether God somehow imbued his creation with the appearance of being old when in fact it wasn’t. After all, God created trees fully grown and able to produce fruit, and Adam and Eve were created as mature adults.

On the other hand, I have also heard critics of a young-earth belief declare that it would have been deceptive for God to have made everything look so old if it really wasn’t, so the idea of a young earth just isn’t biblical. Of course, they rarely want to talk about how it would be even more deceptive for God to have declared it to be young—which he did—if he’d really used millions of years to create it, but more on that later.

However, this whole idea speaks to the difference between a mature creation and something that has experienced the effects of various processes and/or events over time.

Appearance of Age vs. Mature Creation

For example, Adam would have had the appearance of a mature man when he was created, let’s say for argument’s sake what a 25-year-old might look like today. And, based on our experience with the normal human aging process today, if you or I were to have seen him then, we might logically conclude that he was in his mid-twenties and had experienced that much time having occurred since he was born.

However, pre-fall, there would be some clues that he was not that old based on our post-fall understanding of genetics. You see, today we live in a sin-cursed world that has corrupted everything, including our DNA. A primary example of this corruption demonstrated by our visible appearance in relation to our age is brought about by mutations, genetic spelling errors that occur within our DNA in all our cells throughout our lives.

As a matter of fact, that is one of the main reasons that even a normal, healthy person will get more saggy, wrinkly, and crinkly and eventually die, as mutations accumulate inside each of our cells over the course of our lives, corrupting our original DNA and shortening it each time DNA replicates.

Think of mutations in our DNA like the rust accumulating on your car. At first, the effects are almost unnoticeable, then we might see a little bit here and there, but eventually, the rust will overtake the car in its entirety, and it will eventually fail and fall apart.

But in the sinless, “very good,” original creation, Adam would have had no such mutations as his maturely created body would never have felt the effects of them ever having occurred over time. It’s the same reason he wouldn’t have had a belly button.

Think about it, we all have a belly button because we were all attached to our mom at some point through our shared umbilical cord. But Adam never had a mom he was attached to and didn’t have what we would consider a baby’s normal growth cycle. He was created instantaneously and never experienced those events.

It’s the same reason the original mature trees God created wouldn’t have had tree rings, as these rings are brought about by varying cell growth rates linked to seasonal temperature changes that trees in temperate regions experience over their lifetimes.

But trees created within a day would have never experienced those types of events. For God to have placed the rings inside the trees when the specific processes and effects in history had never happened would make God seem deceitful—which he isn’t.

Why Do People Think the Earth “Looks” Old?

When people say they believe the earth “looks old,” what they are typically doing is allowing presuppositions regarding processes—whether imagined or observed—to influence their conclusions.

Considering all that we’ve discussed, when people say they believe the earth “looks old,” what they are typically doing is allowing presuppositions regarding processes—whether imagined or observed—to influence their conclusions.

So, for example, if we see a canyon with a river running through it that is slowly eroding a valley, removing and depositing only minute quantities of sediments each year, then most people would logically assume it could have taken millions of years to erode even larger canyons (such as the Grand Canyon).

Or, as another example, if we measure sediments accumulating at the bottom of a lake at a rate of one to two layers per year, then assuming a constant rate of them accruing (combined with the idea that these sediments might eventually dry out later on and become hard), it might be natural to assume massive sedimentary rock layers with thousands upon thousands of fine layers may have taken millions of years to form.

However, just like the example of using an electric sander versus thousands of individual touches from someone’s hand, we must remember that we can’t automatically assume what process accomplished the result we’re observing today.

An Alternate Explanation

You see, when someone says to me that they think the earth looks old, I respond by saying I think it looks devastated! I think it looks like it’s been run through the wringer, so to speak, and has been deluged and destroyed in the past. I believe that because the Word of God says that’s what happened in the past in Genesis 6–9, in the historical account of Noah’s flood:

The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. Genesis 7:18–23

When I look around the world and see the evidence, everything I observe corroborates that account. What I observe is a record of rapid deposition of sediments and fossils that must have been formed very quickly.

I also see examples of what Psalm 104:6–9 mentions—land features that are evidence of rapid erosion occurring when massive amounts of water scoured the earth as it drained off rapidly rising continents.

You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.

Which History Fits Best?

When it comes to how old people believe the earth looks, a main point to consider is that the layers of fossil-bearing rock found all over the world are either the result of millions of years of slow geologic processes or the much more rapid result of a yearlong global flood. So either a vast amount of time has elapsed since the earth was formed or else a major geological catastrophe has taken place.

The first view has been described as uniformitarianism, which is often summed up by its catchphrase “the present is the key to the past.” This is the idea that we should view history through the lens of whatever slow and steady processes we can observe today having always operated at that rate.

The second view, of course, is the biblical idea of a worldwide catastrophic flood that would have rapidly buried creatures not on board the ark God commanded Noah to build. So which history do the facts we observe fit best?

Well, the idea that fossils (including trees over 30 feet tall) could be buried, permineralized, and slowly transformed into rock makes absolutely no sense, which even evolutionary geologists such as Derek Ager have admitted.

If one estimates the total thickness of the British Coal Measures as about 1000 m, laid down in about 10 million years, then, assuming a constant rate of sedimentation, it would have taken 100,000 years to bury a tree 10 m high, which is ridiculous.1

The fact is, most living things decay quite rapidly, and some fossil organisms that have been found exquisitely preserved, like jellyfish and octopus, would have liquified into a slimy ball and fallen apart within hours. So rapid burial makes the most sense in the fossil graveyards we see worldwide.

And there are imprints of delicate footprints made by birds you would normally see when visiting the local beach that are preserved in rocks all over the world, and yet today, those same footprints vanish quickly when either the next set of waves wash over them or the wind and/or rain erases them like chalk from a board. So rapid rock formation under specific conditions at the time of the flood also makes better sense of these facts.

We’ve also observed the rapid formation of rock layers occurring in real time, such as over 600 feet of rock rapidly accumulating as a result of the 1980 and subsequent eruptions at Mount St. Helens. Over 16 feet of fine, sedimentary layers were observed laid down in only three hours during one of those events.

In a similar rapid fashion, a canyon system over 100 feet deep was carved into a portion of these deposits by a later mudflow just two years later in 1982, resulting in a canyon approximately one-fortieth the scale of the Grand Canyon,2 which is still massive.

And yet, if the event had not been observed and recorded, most people coming upon it for the first time—based on what they had been taught about how long such features are formed—would assume it must have occurred through slow and steady processes over a very long time period. Most would say “It just looks very old.”

Another startling example of something “looking old” that isn’t is an entire island off the southern coast of Iceland called Surtsey, which was born on November 14, 1963, just three years before I was born. On that day, some Icelandic fishermen noticed a column of smoke billowing out of the open ocean, and within a day, this new volcanic island came into existence.

What blew most people’s minds was the rapidity of Surtsey’s ecological maturation, which was incredibly fast and completely unexpected by most scientists. Within two years, it was already sprouting over 50 species of vegetation, had insects crawling all over it, and was being visited by all sorts of migratory birds and even seals.

Not only was Surtsey’s sudden ecology a surprise, but its physical appearance obviously wasn’t what was expected by most, which is highlighted by this quote from a National Geographic article discussing the smoothly shaped rocks that are typically said to have been rounded from more jagged pieces and shaped over long periods of time.

Boulders on Iceland’s Surtsey Island may look old, but they are actually as young as the island itself, which was born after volcanic eruptions on November 14, 1963.3

Did you catch it? They may look old, but they’re not. They look like they were subject to a slow and steady process that shaped them little by little over millennia, but they were actually less than two years old at the time of that quote.

You see, when you think it through carefully, there’s absolutely no reason to believe the earth isn’t as old as the Bible clearly teaches, approximately 6,000 years old. And by the way, for those who say the Bible doesn’t speak to the age of the earth, that figure is easy to calculate by simply adding up the time from creation to present day.

By adding up the Old Testament chrono-genealogies, we can see there were approximately 2,000 years from creation to when Abraham lived, and by adding up the time between Abraham to when Jesus was here doing his earthly ministry, we add another approximate 2,000 years.

When you add up the time from then to now, we have another 2,000 years, which is where we get the approximate 6,000-year total.

Uniformitarian Thought Foretold

The story of evolution and its required idea of millions of years of earth history has captured the minds of most people in the West due to the state-run educational institutions that the majority of young minds are subject to.

However, the story of evolution and its required idea of millions of years of earth history has captured the minds of most people in the West due to the state-run educational institutions that the majority of young minds are subject to. This should come as no surprise to those who read their Bibles.

You see, there is a prophecy in 2 Peter 3 that makes it clear that in the last days, people will arise that will not only deny that God created the earth covered in water, but also that he then destroyed the earth by water via the cataclysmal global flood described in Genesis 6–9. It reads,

Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. 2 Peter 3:3–7

Do you see it? “All things are continuing as they were from the beginning.” This is the entire “the present is the key to the past” idea in a nutshell, that present-day geological processes have always operated at the snail’s pace we observe today and that they can explain how rock layers and fossils formed and therefore determine how old the earth is. It just looks so old!

Life Happens Fast

But again, the earth doesn’t look old. It looks like a devastated relic of its former self, evidence of God having judged humanity in the past, which should cause us to consider the truth claims of his word and the reality of the coming judgment for all of us.

Many people today are using the story of evolution as a reason to reject the truth of God’s Word, but none of those excuses will stand. We’re reminded every day when we look in the mirror that we are indeed getting older, just one step closer to standing in God’s courtroom where we will be judged for our actions according to God’s standards not man’s.

And we will either be held guilty for the sin we have willingly committed or stand in the grace of our Savior Jesus Christ. As Psalm 103:15–17 reminds us-

As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.