TIME UPSIDE DOWN
Dr. Erich von Fange Ph.D.
Part 9
Conclusion: How Good Is Science?With all its great accomplishments, science has never been very good at reconstructing the past nor in forecasting the future. There is no need to stand in awe where the evidence is weak or non-existent. Honesty requires that theory and guesswork should be so labeled.
Many examples were given in this book which demolishes various age concepts evolutionists have attached to the past history of the earth. While the Christian who accepts the Old Testament for what it says about origins and time has no real problem, it is important that Christians be able to witness to others in the language of science. Evidence speaks louder than emotion. If there are compelling reasons for accepting the concept of an ancient earth, the evidence (without the ridicule) should be brought forward for study. An old earth is a belief required to support the theory of evolution.
There does not seem to be any convincing evidence that we live on anything but a young earth. There are, however, countless mysteries in our world which no one can unscramble. We do not know how old the earth is, and this question is not really an important one.
As an alternative to the conventional geologic clock, the following model is offered for study, with quotations from NIV:
THE FIRST AGE: The void earth in the beginning. Gen. 1:2 Now the earth was formless and empty… The great separations: light from darkness; the waters from under and above the firmament; the dry land from the waters; the day from night.
THE SECOND AGE: The good earth, from the sixth day to the Fall of man. Gen. 1:31 And God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.
THE THIRD AGE: The cursed earth, from Adam to Noah. The ground was cursed, not yielding its strength; thorns and thistles; high technology; earth corrupt and filled with violence. Gen. 5:29 (Noah) will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.
THE FOURTH AGE: The flooded earth in the days of Noah. Genesis 6-9 The story of the Flood; Gen. 7:23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out…
THE FIFTH AGE: The divided earth from Noah to Abraham. The ice, the hoary frost, the frozen deep, Job 38:29-30; The mighty hunter; The plastic and watery Post-Flood world; mankind ‘splattered’ over the earth from Babel; Peleg – when the earth was divided.
THE SIXTH AGE: The plagued earth from Abraham to Hezekiah. Sodom and Gomorrah with widespread destruction and formation of the Dead Sea; the ten plagues in Egypt and the Exodus; the ‘long day’ of Joshua; mountains skipping like rams; the great earthquake; the backward sun dial of Hezekiah.
THE SEVENTH AGE: The modern earth, about 650 B.C. to the present. This includes the rise of Greece, Rome, Japan, and so-called Western Civilization.
All of the ideas expressed in this book fit well into this model of the ages of the world since the creation – a young, created earth.