Apologetics

Evidence of a Young Earth

March 21, 2021

Accepting the Word of God as absolute truth is critical for a strong relationship with God. Without that conviction, any Biblical account that man does not accept as true can be negotiated away as a difference of interpretation or opinion. This begins with an acceptance of the literal Biblical account of creation in six solar days in Genesis 1 and its place in human history. Although the secular world and even many Christians cannot accept creationism over evolutionism, the evidences for a young earth are overwhelming and become the strongest support of a literal interpretation of the creation story and therefore, the entire Bible.

If we trace our ancestry back to Adam through biblical genealogies, we come to the conclusion that man was created approximately 6,000 years ago. Since evolution teaches that the universe is 4.5 billion years old, we have a major difference of opinion. If the Bible is accurate, there should be real evidence. And there is.

Geological time clocks

There are a number of geological time clocks that support a young earth. These include:

The strength of the earth’s magnetic field has decreased 14% over the past 130 years. Given this same rate from the beginning, the earth could not support life as little as 10,000 years ago.
The sun is shrinking in size by 5 feet per second. At this same rate, the sun would have been twice its current size 100,000 years ago. The size and radiation of the sun could not support life 1,000,000 years ago.
Oil and natural gas are found in deposits of porous rock with many having extremely high pressure and this pressure would have been completely dissipated by now if they were more than 100,000 years old.
The erosional processes of wind and water provide evidence for a young earth. At its current rate, the continents could be completely eroded to sea level within 14,000,000 years.
The presence of comets in the universe suggests a young earth. Many scientists suggest that comets lifespan is not much more than 10,000 years.
When Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon, they expected to find 50 feet of cosmic dust on the surface when they landed. Instead, they found only a few inches, consistent with a young earth.

Noah’s flood explains it all

God’s greatest evidence for a young earth is supported by Noah’s flood, found in Genesis 7-8. The secular world has assigned millions and billions of years to the creation/evolution of the earth and universe with the ultimate goal being to explain away God as creator. But if the Biblical account is accurate, then it suggests that the earth and universe are young and the flood is a logical explanation for the existence of dinosaurs, unique geological formations (ie. the Grand Canyon), and even the continental divisions within that young earth paradigm.

On May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens, an active volcano in Washington erupted and the subsequent events demonstrated that a cataclysmic event like this could help explain realties that evolutionists assign millions of years to accomplish. Within a few months, the results of this eruption teach us that the stratified layers commonly characterizing geological formations can form very rapidly by flow processes. Such features have been formed quickly underwater in laboratory sedimentation tanks, and it should not surprise us to see that they have formed in a natural catastrophe. The same is true for “petrified” logs forming in Spirit Lake as well as a layer of peat accumulation suggesting that coal deposits do not have to take thousands of years to appear.

Dating inorganic material

There are a number of methods used to date inorganic materials (rocks, carbon). They are based on the science that radiometric elements are undergoing decay and gradually become a different element. For example, uranium is a parent element to decay into lead, its daughter element. Using modern scientific equipment, scientists attempt to date a sample by measuring the ratio of the parent and daughter elements. The results of these methods assign millions and even billions of years to various samples. These dating methods operate on three assumptions:

The system must have been initially made up of all parent elements and no daughter elements.
The rate of decay must have been constant from the moment the process was started.
The system must operate as a closed system. Nothing from the system can be taken away; nothing from outside the system can be added.

The fallacy of these assumptions is that they are not testable. One way to examine the accuracy of each method is to test a material of known age. There are many examples of rock formations like lava rock in Hawaii that the particular method dates as millions and even billions of years when the particular formation is only hundreds of years old. There are also many examples of the same sample being dated radically different, even billions of years different. How can anyone put confidence in these methods?

Dating organic material

The organic methods have similar issues. The carbon-14 dating system measures the existence of carbon-14 in living tissues to determine the date of death; the more carbon-14 present, the younger the age. Assumption behind this method include:

The amount of radioactive carbon in the earth’s atmosphere must be constant.
The decay rate must be the same in the past as it is today.
No contamination of radioactive carbon can occur since the death of the specimen.

There are many environmental factors which indicate that the rate of radioactive carbon has not been constant in the past, including the reduction of the power of the earth’s magnetic field, the increase in volcanic activity at different times in the past, variable solar flare activity, nuclear testing, and collisions of asteroids and meteorites with earth. These concerns make the results of any carbon-14 dating to be highly suspect at best.

Humankind looks young

According to the United Nations, the world population reached seven billion on October 31, 2011. If the biblical record is accurate, the 7+ billion people that exist today can trace their history back to Noah and his three sons, who survived the Flood some 4,500 years ago. The evolutionist believes that man first appeared 2.4 million years ago. If we look back over 400 years of human history and extrapolate the observed population growth, it suggests that it should take almost exactly 4,500 years for population to grow from the eight members of Noah’s family to its current level. To explain the millions of years of effectively no population growth required to support 2.4 million years of human history would take a major suspension of the rational mind to accept.

This young human history model is further supported by examination of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Research biologist Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson studied hundreds of mtDNA sequences representing all major people groups and found that all samples can trace their lineage back to three sources, representing the three wives of Noah’s sons. This research supports the conclusion that everyone alive today carries one of three unique ancestral maternal sequences. In addition, 4,500 years of history from three women would produce 115 mutations; it is observed by many studies that one mutation occurs every six generations. When we add eight mutations associated with the patriarchs prior to Noah and we come to 123 difference. This is supported by current study results.

Fossils look young

The existence of soft tissue found in some organic fossils also contradicts the evolutionist’s dating of dinosaurs as 65 million-80 million years. The soft tissue can only be explained in the context of a young earth. In addition, some dinosaur fossils found contain carbon-14 which is only possible in those less than 100,000 years old.

Conclusion

Given the fact that the theories of evolution or the creation model are not provable by direct evidence, at the very least the observable physical evidence should support the belief system we embrace. The fact that there has never been any “missing link” found which would support the current evolution model being taught, why would we abandon reason to accept such a theory and then base our entire world view on that theory. It takes a lot more faith to accept that position than to accept the Bible’s account as true.