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Transcript 230D — The Age of the Earth
CALLER: My question is, is there any difference between the age of the earth as determined by geometric method and as determined by the Bible?
HC: The question that was raised is: Does the age of the earth as found in the Bible correspond in any sense with the age of the earth spoken of by the archaeologists and the geologists and paleontologists, the secular scientists?
No, there is no relationship at all. You see, the secular scientists, and unfortunately some Christian scientists, also, look at the evidence that they find concerning what might relate to the age of the earth, but they have to make guesses as to how to understand this evidence. And these guesses are called assumptions.
Now the conclusions that they derive by examining the evidence in the light of the guesses or assumptions obviously cannot be any more accurate than the guesses or assumptions themselves. And therefore their conclusions are quite erroneous. Now they look at a rock, and they examine the content of that rock. They know exactly how much of certain radiometric minerals are in it, and how many isotopes of something else are in it, and they can measure this very accurately.
But then they make assumptions. They assume, for example, that all things have continued, without any catastrophic change, since the very beginning. And they assume other things of a like nature. And then they finally decide that this rock is 200 million years old, or whatever their conclusion may be.
Now their assumptions, of course, are only guesses. And in fact we know that some of their guesses are outright incorrect, because the Bible teaches that all things did not continue the same since the beginning. The Bible teaches that there was a flood in Noah's day, that absolutely changed the surface of the earth. And this must be taken into account, if we're going to look at any evidence that we find today.
Now the Bible teaches, I believe, that the earth is something like 13,000 years old. Scientists talk about an earth that is four and a half billion years old. Quite a difference, isn't it? The amazing thing, however (and not really amazing at all), is that when we look at the evidence carefully, we can find from the evidence that the scientists produce plenty of indication that the world is not millions and millions of years old, but rather that it is more like ten or fifteen thousand years old. And at another time we might go into some of that evidence.