I am both OEC and YEC (the affect of reading Genesis with an eye on relativity) as I believe both betty boop and TXnMA are. If anyone struggling with either doctrine would like to know how that is possible, we would be glad to explain it from our individual perspectives: theology, philosophy, science or math.
Indeed, TXnMA's graphics project will make it very clear to many who have a desire to know but little time or background in the disciplines involved.
But, as you say, the doctrines do not affect our salvation unless a distaste for either YEC or OEC keeps a potential or hatchling Christian from from being open to hearing the words of God.
Mature Christians already believe that God was enfleshed in the body of a virgin, made wine into water, healed the sick, made the blind see, raised the dead, walked on water, died for our sins, was crucified, resurrected, is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven and will come again. We believe all of this, so why would we doubt Scripture on Creation, Noah Flood, age of the Patriarchs, Jonah and the Whale, etc.?
To God be the glory, not man, never man.
There are far-reaching consequences to rejecting the inspiration of scripture. That is why we are in danger of injuring huge numbers of people when we refuse to listen to any reasonable explanation of difficult passages.
If we have our own interpretation, but we know it has weaknesses, then what does it hurt to inspect other ideas? If they don’t fit, then it’s too easy to just set them aside.
That’s one reason people should listen to your OEC/YEC model. If you are on a solid track — and I think you are — then rejecting out of hand something one has not yet seen has the potential to harm people.
We want them saved.
I think that's fair to say, dearest sister in Christ!
Someone might ask: How is it possible to be both an Old Earth Creationist and and Young Earth Creationist at the same time?
Trial answer: The apparent contradiction is resolved entirely using "relativistic time." Gerald Schroeder has shown us how that can be done.
There is a vast disparity between "God's time," which is unimaginable (by us) as timelessness, or Eternity; and "human time," which is an "artifact of temporal measure," as conditioned by human observation and experience, which therefore can only deal with conditions of finitude.
It seems to me the Holy Scriptures deal with us humans from the standpoint of God's time. So maybe that's why God also gave us "the Book of Nature," for "cross-reference purposes."
The totally amazing thing to me is that, so far in my investigations, I have found no disparity whatsoever between what God Says to man in the Holy Bible, and what modern physical scientists are discovering about the origin and order of the Universe. If anything, the very reverse is true.
Which is interesting; because "science popularizers" such as Richard Dawkins assert that "Darwinian biology" is "teaching us" that, not only is there no God, but that no God is needed, to explain "biology" or anything else in the natural world, including ourselves.
But of course, he has absolutely no way of demonstrating that, let alone "proving" it.
What I worry about is that Christians might read the Holy Scriptures as if they reduced to purely denotative language. The sort of language that one encounters in, say, an instruction manual, or a cookbook.
Somehow, I don't believe that that is what God is "doing" in the Holy Bible. Rather, I see the Holy Scriptures as an invitation to man to "walk with God" in order to see, by His Light and Grace as He permits, the Truth of the Creation He made in the Beginning; the Truth about the human soul and its destiny; the Truth that draws man into relation with Himself and his own close neighbors.
If my understanding is correct, then biblical statements cannot be evaluated as if they were "true/false" propositions. They are all about the "spiritual drawing" of the individual soul, the imago Dei, to his first and final Cause. And in this process, further reveal man's obligations, not only to God his Creator, but to man's relations with his fellow humankind (society) and the physical world itself of which man is somehow a "privileged" part and participant.
In short, if anything, late advances in science itself are making geniuses out of Christians who have placed their Faith and Reason in the God Who declared Himself in the Holy Bible, in the Beginning, unto the End — as borne out in study of the "Book of Nature."
Thank you ever so much, my dearest sister in Christ, for your splendid essay/post!
May His blessings always be with you and all your dear ones!
And: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
p.s.: I hope TXnMA will weigh in soon with his amazing "graphics project," of which you and I both have had an early "sneek peek," and clear up all doubt about the reconcilability of the disparity between "what God sees" from the immortal, divine point of view, and what humans see from the point of view of mortal creatures.