Appearance of Age:
Theological Questions

This page is part of
AGE OF THE EARTH (THEOLOGY)
and the sections in it are:
      Appearance of Age in a "Young yet Mature" Creation 
      Theological Questions about Appearance of Age in Starlight 
      1857 — Appearance of Age in Creationism of the Early 1800s 
      NOW — Appearance of Age in Modern Young-Earth Creationism  
      Other Pages about "Apparent Age Theology" 
      Young-Earth Scientific Alternatives to Apparent Age Theology 
 

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Appearance of Age in a Young-yet-Mature Creation

If there was a recent creation, then to produce immediate functionality — with mature humans (not helpless infants), complete ecosystems, and our energy-giving sun — some appearance of age would be necessary, because some features of the world would necessarily appear to be older than their actual age.  For example, in a 6-day creation Adam would actually be one day old on Day 7, but he might appear to be 20 years old.  Is this possible?  Yes, an all-powerful God could skip the pre-human history of nature and create everything in the world instantly (or in six days) as a mature creation that was exactly the way He wanted it.

• Did God create with the appearance of age? by John Morris (President, Institute for Creation Research) is a vigorous defense of apparent age.  (3 k)
• But a theological question is raised about The Integrity of God's Creation by Keith Miller, who doesn't think God would create nature with a misleading apparent history, because "God's creation, as a revelation to His creatures of who He is, should provide an accurate record of God's creative activity: of the way the universe actually was and is."  (2 k)
• In quotations from The Genesis Flood, Henry Morris defends the honesty of creating a world with appearance of old age, because a young-and-mature creation "would necessarily have an appearance of some age."  (8 k for Section 7, in a page from Creation Questions)
• The Appearance of Age: It's Morning in Creation-Land by Ken Miller, is a vigorous criticism.  (11 k)

Are the defenses too strong — do they ignore some relevant questions? — and is the criticism, for similar reasons, also too strong?

In a young-yet-mature world created with apparent age, what kind of apparent history might we see?   There are three possibilities:  a minimal apparent history, with only the essential apparent age that would be necessary for an immediately functional universe;  a total apparent history, including nonessential apparent age, to show us everything that "would have happened" before the instant of creation but never actually happened;  or a partial apparent history, between minimal and total.
• Apparent Age & Theology by Craig Rusbult, is a defense and criticism in an overview of principles, along with analysis of four views: apparent history (total, partial, minimal) and actual history.  (26 k + 1k)

 
Appearance of Age in Starlight — Theological Questions

If the universe is young, how can we see light from distant stars, from stars so far away that light coming from them would take billions of years to reach us?  If the universe is young, yet we can see faraway stars, which part of "distance/speed = time" is wrong?  Or is appearance of age, with light created "in transit to us," a satisfactory explanation?
• Distant Stars and Time by Robert Newman, clearly describes the scientific problem for young-universe creationists.  (10 k)

And what if the starlight "tells a story" of a specific historical event?  When scientists observe light that is changing in a way corresponding to the sequence of events during a supernova explosion, should they conclude that this supernova-event really did occur, or that it's a pseudo-event and is part of an elaborate apparent history (created by God) about events which never really happened?
• Distant Stars and Apparent Age by Robert Shier, and A Detailed False History? by Deborah Haarsma & Loren Haarsma, describe how multiple details, in a wide variety of independent old-universe evidences, lead to theological questions.  (2 k)
• Starlight & the Age of the Universe by Greg Koukl, explains that a functional recent creation does not require detailed appearance of age, and describes the "difficulties with details" for those who propose that God created a detailed apparent history, with events we see that never happened.  (11 k + 1k)
• How can we see distant stars in a young universe? by Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland, writing for Answers in Genesis, is a criticism (by some young-earth creationists) of explanations (by other young-earthers) that use "nonessential apparent age" theology, plus an optimistic description of scientific alternatives.  (15 + 2k)
• I.O.U. — Later, we'll find some deeper discussions/defenses of Apparent Age by young-earth creationists, especially for the "nonessential appearance of age" that ICR (Morris) ignores, and AIG (Ham, Sarfati, Wieland) criticizes.  But most young-earth websites avoid the question of nonessential apparent age.
 

1857 — Appearance of Age in Creationism of the Early 1800s

• A navel (belly button) is produced by the process of birth, but Adam was never born, so did he have a navel?  This question inspired Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot, a book by Phillip Henry Gosse who in 1857 proposed a radical "apparent age" theory.  Recently, it was summarized and critiqued in a book review by John Burgeson.  (6 k)
• The early history of an idea — as expressed by Chateaubriand and others in the early 1800s, and later by Gosse — is described by David Krause in Apparent Age and its Reception in the 19th Century.  (24 k + 6k)
• biographies of Phillip Henry Gosse, author of Omphalos, are in Wikipedia (6 k) and The Dictionary of Canadian Biography (8 k + 2k)
 

NOW — Appearance of Age in Modern Young-Earth Creationism

• Three Views of Young-Earth Creationists — Phillip Gosse, Henry Morris, Ken Ham — who, in their search for truth and harmony, developed differing views about apparent age in history, about whether the detailing is total, partial, or minimal.  [quotations selected, and comments added, by Craig Rusbult] (26 k + 15k)
• A New Creation: Creation Ex Nihilo and Apparent Age by Joshua Klose, is a coherent paper summarizing the views of Phillip Gosse (proposing a Total Apparent History), updating his arguments, and explaining why "the supposed conflict between a young universe and an old appearance is, most amusingly, merely apparent."  (51 k +11k)
• Young or Old?  Four Options for Christians by Jason Browning (young-earth creationist);  slides 8-12 (11 k of total text) are about the options, which include Apparent Age.

 
More about Theology of Apparent Age
• Creation, Time, and Apparent Age by Clarence Menninga, is a theological perspective on time-and-history.  (15 k) PSCF
• a starlight mystery (2 k + pictures) and question (2 k) by Hill Roberts
• if you want to explore more deeply, many posts (in 16 pages) are in The Mars-List Discussion on Creationism  (total estimated at about 700 k)
• And due to space restrictions, many good pages cannot be included in this section;  eventually, some of these will be in Additional Resources.
 

Scientific Alternatives to Appearance of Age,

in Young-Universe Astronomy and Cosmology
If the universe is young, how can we see distant starlight?  This problem, discussed above, has motivated young-universe creationists to propose "appearance of old age" as a theological solution, and to search for the scientific solutions — such as Setterfield's "change of light speed" theory, Humphrey's "white hole cosmology", and more — that are in the "Distant Starlight" section of ASTRONOMY: AGE OF THE UNIVERSE.
 
 

 

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