The elephant in the room that people usually miss when talking about YEC is, strange as it first would seem, eschatology. I think the main purpose of Young Earth Creationism is to validate the millennialist (Premillennialist , Postmillennialist) view of the Last Things. Premillennialism especially places earth history on a 7,000 year timeline. YEC is just an attempt to give millennialism (in particular premillennialism) "scientific" credibility.
Christians with an amillennialist view don't have history on a neat timeline and they don't profess to have special knowledge of the future (other than that Christ said he would return "quickly," but he did not give us his schedule) so the age of the earth is of little theological concern to amillennialists. And not all amillennialists are liberals. Not all millennialists believe in YEC, but many (especially premillennialists, do).
If you are a Christian who is basing your salvation (or at least your sanctification) on your correct reading of the "signs of the times" (rather than on the work of Christ) then you will be likely to adopt a YEC view because this fits in with your view of the future.
So while it is good to refute the young earth theory on a scientific basis, keep in mind that the true, usually hidden motivation of YEC is based on a peculiar eschatology.
You see, I also perceive a 7,000 year period appointed to Adamic man (also an early Christian belief for hundreds of years) – but by my spiritual understanding that calendar didn’t start ticking down 6000 years + 6 days ago but rather it began at the moment Adam was banished to mortality (Genesis 4.)
This understanding of time has a counterpart in scientific theory, i.e. relativity. Time is relative to the observer traveling a worldline “in” space/time. For a photon traveling at the speed of light, no time passes (null path.) Moreover, from a perspective beyond space/time, time itself is merely a geometric property of a manifestation in space/time. (Tegmark’s Level IV Universe, et al)
By my understanding, the first three chapters of Genesis are written from the Creator’s perspective: namely, the Word (God) was in the beginning (John 1,) God was the only observer of Creation, that those Scriptures speak of the spiritual realm as well as the physical realm, that Eden was preeminently in the spiritual realm. For me, the location of the tree of life [midst of both Eden and Paradise] is particularly illuminating:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. – Revelation 2:7
Indeed, to me the physical realm is rich with analogical knowledge. The picture of the man is not the man but we can learn a few things about the man by observing the picture, the temple on earth is not the temple in heaven, etc. And we can absorb many spiritual truths by observing analogies and metaphors in the physical realm, e.g. Christ’s parable of the sower (Matt 13.)
The Jewish calendar also begins with Adam though I believe they begin counting when they believe Adam was created (as if he was created in the physical realm alone) and not when he fell. Since I perceive Genesis 1-3 speaking of both the spiritual and physical realms, and Adam being created in the spiritual realm and banished to the physical realm, I would not propose a birth date for him relative to our perspective “in” space/time.
The current Jewish year is 5769. If we perceive the Sabbath as also prophecy (Colossians 2:16-17) and Christ’s thousand year reign on earth (Revelation 20:16) as fulfilling the Jewish belief that the Messiah is a man anointed by God who shall rule Israel at peace with her neighbors, then using the Jewish calendar, Christ is due to return again in approximately two centuries and change.
The Christian calendar however accounts for approximately 6,000 years having passed and thus Christ is due at any time.
That said, man is prone to error and both should be seen as estimates. The main difference between them is that the Jewish calendar (which was revised within a few centuries A.D.) counts 5 Persian emperors over 53 years as compared to the Christian calendar which counts 13 Persian emperors over 207 years.
I don't know any Christians who based their salvation or sanctification on eschatology. There might be some, but I've really never encountered one. Christians are more likely to take the six days of Creation in the normal, literal sense in which they believe it was originally intended - for Scriptural, grammatical, historical and/or theological reasons. For example, I have heard it said that the very work of Christ to which you refer; namely, Christ as the Second Adam conquering sin and death, is unintelligible if sin did not enter the world through one man, if death did not come through sin, and that is really not the way death came to all men because mankind had somehow already been dying for a very long time before Adam, the first man.
As a linguistic example, and not speaking for anyone else, I personally cannot bring myself to think Moses really meant, "Six indefinite periods you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh indefinite period is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six indefinite periods the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh indefinite period. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath indefinite period and made it holy."
Cordially,
Depends on how you define science.
If you define science as observation, testing and repetition; it is impossible to 'refute' YEC just as it is impossible to 'refute' OEC. Both are philosophical positions.
If you define science as philosophical naturalism where interpretation and assumption are on equal standing with observation, testing and repetition then you can say anything you want.
It's pretty clear which definition of 'science' you are using.
Very interesting. I have never thought of that.
I was really into science, especially dinosaurs, before I even started first grade. I was reading about the adventures of Roy Chapman Andrews in the Gobi Desert long before dinosaurs were cool. I never questioned the old age of the earth and, when I was older and did question, I found nothing to make me doubt it.
I didn't give much thought to premillenialism until Hal Lindsey's books came out. I read rabidly on the subject and held to it for years. However, I began to have problems when I noticed that PM authors were inserting an awful lot of their own interpretations into the Bible text. The "Left Behind" books were positively dreadful. I'm now a semi-Preterist but am open to the option that there may well be another antichrist.
Most eschatology books concentrate on Daniel and Revelation. I've learned that the major and minor prophets also have a lot to say on the subject and that this material.
Premillenialism or semi-preterism are not hills that I would choose to die on. Christ is returning, I am looking forward to it, and I believe that it will happen within my lifetime. If there is a pre-trib rapture, I'm not going to argue with Jesus on the way up that he's wrong about eschatology.