Roughly 2-3 years a Christian at that point, the answer to the first question came pretty quickly, "Yes, He would create with an appearance of age." I can only say that the notion of soil passed before my eyes, and it seemed to me that soil is the result of a long process, but it is also necessary for plants to grow.
To the second question, "Was He trying to stump us?" I replied, "No." I had no insight at the time, I just didn't think God's intent was to fool everyone.
Since then, I've come to believe that God does sometimes set up conditions that permit foolish people to fool themselves (see the story of Micaiah and Ahab), but I would still say, "No." I've viewed it more like my setting up a sealed terrarium with the proper balance of plants and animals to establish a self-sustaining system.
Am I to question God on how He established the earth? (God to Job: who are you to question me on the foundation of the earth?)
Creating tools to enable tools to enable life.
The appearance of age.
God created Adam as a MAN and Eve as a WOMAN.
That implies full grown, fully functioning, with the appearance of age.
It wasn’t for the purposes of deception, as the God haters would like to imply, but practical functionality.
Science would date man as being say, 30 years old (for the sake of argument) on the day he was created as a full grown man.
The believer would say that man was one day old.
The *scientist* would mock the believer for being so stupid as to believe that instead of what the evidence presented, the appearance of age.
Who would be right?