I was recently asked by a skeptical inquirer who knows I am a creationist how old I thought the world was. I had to admit that I didn't know for certain, as I have yet to find a place in the Bible that tells me exactly how many years ago the earth was created. Ussher and Lightfoot whom I admire greatly, did attempt to work out an exact age based on chronologies, but unfortunately there are probably a few gaps in those.
I do know however, that scripture tells us that just as man was created with the appearance of age (we are not told Adam was created as an Embryo, he was created a full-grown man), so too, the universe was created with the appearance of age. The trees and plants were grown, the dirt and stones were already there, as were the rivers, streams, mountains and valleys. The stars were already visible in the night sky, and we believe that it takes in some cases many millennia for their light to reach us and become visible, and yet we are told they were always visible from earth after their creation. Therefore, if I do believe in creation, and I do, then I know for certain that physical phenomena simply cannot guide me to an exact age for the earth any more than an observation of Adam immediately after his creation would have led me to conclude "he's a few minutes old."
Frankly, I also don't worry that Socrates might not actually have existed simply because we have no direct evidence that he did and in terms of the certainty of Scripture I didn't wait with baited breath to find out if there was really a King David, and then breathe a sigh of relief when archeological evidence for his existence was discovered. Most people don't live lives operating under a hermeneutic of suspicion, constantly demanding "proof" that they will accept for everything - even people who demand "evidence" in order to believe the Gospel. Neither have I ever met an individual genuinely converted by physical evidence to a Christian worldview - the only thing that accomplishes that is not persuasion but rather a change of heart accomplished by the Holy Spirit (Ezek. 36:26).
At this point in life, regarding "evidences," my conviction mirrors that of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and yes, I know that this is the kind of thing people sneer at especially when they don't recognize the existence of similar opposing (and sadly less coherent or beneficial) faith commitments in themselves:
Surgeon wrote - "At one time I might have needed evidence to make me believe in the Lord Jesus, but now I know Him so well by proving Him that I would need a very great deal of evidence to make me doubt Him. It is now more natural for me to trust than to disbelieve. This is the new nature triumphing. It was not so at the first. The novelty of faith is, in the beginning, a source of weakness, but act after act of trusting turns faith into a habit. Experience brings to faith strong confirmation.
I am not perplexed with doubt, because the truth which I believe has worked a miracle in me. By its means, I have received and still retain a new life, to which I was once a stranger. This is confirmation of the strongest sort.
I am like the good man and his wife who had kept a lighthouse for years. A visitor, who came to see the lighthouse, looking out from the window over the waste of waters, asked the good woman, Are you not afraid at night, when the storm is out, and the big waves dash right over the lantern? Do you not fear that the lighthouse, and all that is in it, will be carried away? I am sure I would be afraid to trust myself in a slender tower in the midst of the great billows. The woman remarked that the idea never occurred to her now. She had lived there so long that she felt as safe on the lone rock as she did when on the mainland.
As for her husband, when asked if he did not feel anxious when the wind blew a hurricane, he answered, Yes, I feel anxious to keep the lamps well trimmed, and the light burning, lest any vessel should be wrecked. As to anxiety about the safety of the lighthouse or his own personal security in it, he had out-lived all that.
Even so it is with the full-grown believer. He can humbly say:
I know whom I have believed,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which Ive committed
Unto Him against that day.
From henceforth let no man trouble me with doubts and questions. I bear in my soul the proofs of the Spirits truth and power, and I will have none of your artful reasonings. The Gospel to me is truth. I am content to perish if it is not true. I risk my souls eternal fate upon the truth of the Gospel, and I know that there is no risk in it. My one concern is to keep the lights burning, that I may thereby benefit others. Only let the Lord give me oil enough to feed my lamp, so that I may cast a ray across the dark and treacherous sea of life, and I am well content.
Now, troubled seeker, if it is so that your minister and many others in whom you confide have found perfect peace and rest in the Gospel, why should you not? Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?...Do not [His] words do good to them that walk uprightly?& (Micah 2:7). Will you not also try their saving virtue?" |
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