Adam was created with the appearance of age. Perhaps the earth was created with the appearance of age as well.
EVERY author puts their cast into a pre-existing setting.
I have — after MANY years beating the CrEvo anvil — come to the conclusion that what you suggest is the “Occam’s Razor” answer to this much-contested Ultimate Question.
GIVEN GOD is greater in power and scope than the Universe He created; He has commanding control over any of it He so desires at any and every moment He so desires, He could have made everything as you presently experience it, with all of history complete as you understand it, and He could have created it all in an instant, down to the very last quark, just seven seconds ago, and there would be ABSOLUTELY NO WAY you could tell. NONE WHATSOEVER.
SINCE that is True, the point of arguing over what we all respectively, differently, think we see is utterly moot.
I quite frankly believe “CrEvo” arguments to be among the very most — if not THE very most — destructive and divisive works of Satan in The Church.
We’re HERE. NOW. We haven’t any responsibility for what happened; our compelling mission, our ASSIGNMENT has to do with the future — ours and the lost around us.
We have a vital message for ALL humanity:
That this astounding GOD so loves and desires to hang out with them all that He has paid the most exorbitant price imaginable to forgive them all of everything (2 Cor. 5:11-21, esp v19) so as to pave the way for that to happen, and the ONLY things required of anyone to take advantage of this incredible offer is to believe it’s true, and repent of having lived like it isn’t.
And the entire universe was created with the appearance of age. So how can we be faulted for noticing that it has the appearance of age?