“You can’t think the Bible is true with its unscientific story for the creation of the universe.” Many people think the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old as scientific fact attested by most scientists. Furthermore, many academics including believers assert that the first book of the Bible speaks of how God created the universe in figurative details. Old-earth creationists perceive that the Bible attests to some facts including that God created the universe, a habitable earth, life, and man and woman in His image. However, they claim little beyond these points in the Genesis account.

            Both young-earth and old-earth views of creation have difficulty understanding the other position. Both old-earth and young-earth creationists recognize science as observations of God's revelation by His creation. The apostle Paul revealed, “For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom 1:20). Paul appears to have spoken from a young-earth perspective that humanity has been able to perceive God’s nature and power from the Creation.

            One of the problems that old-earth creationists must address is Jesus’s affirmation: “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’” (Mark 10:6; cf. Matt 19:4). The reader can see that Jesus referenced Genesis as factual and that God created humanity from the beginning of creation. Other problems for old-earth creationists include Moses’s interpretation of his creation account in Genesis: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day” (Exod 20:11; cf. 31:17). Furthermore, old-earth creationists need to explain the 9 billion year gap between the creation of heaven and earth in Genesis 1:1. The Bible does not say God created the heavens and 9 billion years later the earth. Old-earth creationists see these passages as figurative rather than literal including God’s creation of “the heavens and the earth” as an idiom for God creating the universe and that God would eventually form the earth.

            The problems that young-earth creationists must account are the age of rocks on the Earth, the distance of starlight, and geologic layers. However, most young creationists see these as supporting the Genesis account of creation. From a literal interpretation, Genesis 1 reveals that God created a mature and habitable Earth, used rapid progress sometimes to set things like starlight in order, and set the laws for each stage of creation in its completion. For instance, Genesis reports that God created a habitable earth implying the formation of mature rocks, the growth of vegetation to maturity in a day, caused starlight to appear in a day, and created man and woman fully developed in a day. From the creation days forward, God’s creation followed its God-given natural order and laws. Today, the details in Genesis do account for a young universe deflecting any assumption of long ages from radiometric dating of rocks and the arrival of distant starlight. With modern advances in science, Genesis still accounts for the apparent nature and state of the Earth.

            The scientific revolution began via creationists, and today's biblical creationist has nothing to fear. The biblical account of Creation between 6300 and 7500 years ago stands. No need exists to reinterpret the biblical text to harmonize God's creation with secular assumptions about the universe. Because God is the best explanation for the universe, scientists better advance the more they recognize God’s nature in design and His power to sustain the universe and life by natural laws that He set and upholds by His Word (Heb 1:3; 11:3). Thank God for the Bible! No biblical creationist needs to accept secular assumptions for the origin and formation of the universe.