Notable Christians Open to an Old Earth Interpretation

Brief Background: Dr. Aalders was a Dutch theologian, biblical commentator, and former profeseor of Old Testament at the Free University of Amsterdam.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• There have been many attempts to measure the creation day which God first established in terms of our standard of measuring time. There are still those today who are convinced that the creation days were simply 24-hour days. This is certainly without any substantiation in Scripture…. It will always remain an idle effort to measure the length of the creation days. It behooves us to humbly limit ourselves to the data given in the text of scripture.
  Source: Book - G. H. Aalders, "Genesis" Translation by W. Heynen Zondervan Publishing (1981 p. 58-59)
  
  
• It would be difficult to conceive of this ‘seventh day’ as an ordinary 24-hour day, as many claim, or as a day from sunup to sundown. This immediately raises the problem of whether God’s rest continued for only one 24-hour day. Certainly, we must consider the possibility that this rest of God still continues. For us humans a day of rest is always followed by another series of work days. But this is not the case with God’s creation days. With Him we have six days of creation and then one day of rest. But His day of rest is then not followed by more days of creation work. Our attention should also be called to the omission of any reference to ‘evening’ and ‘morning’ with respect to this day of rest. In the light of what has been said above, this is understandable. This seventh day began with a morning but it had no evening because it still continues.
  Source: Book - G. H. Aalders, "Genesis" Translation by W. Heynen Zondervan Publishing (1981 p. 75-76)
  
  

On line work:

• Book - The Problem of the Book of Jonah

Author of:

• Book - Bible Student's Commentary: Genesis
• Book - A Short Introduction To The Pentateuch
• Book - Recent trends in Old Testament Criticism
• Book - The Problem of the Book of Jonah

Brief Background: Oswald T. Allis (1880-1973) Noted Old Testament scholar and for nineteen years served as a professor of Semitic studies at Princeton Theological Seminary (1910-1929). In 1929, modernists managed to wrest control of Princeton, prompting Allis, J. Gresham Machen, Robert Dick Wilson and others to found Westminster Seminary. Dr. Allis was independently wealthy and it was his property in Philadelphia which served as the initial home of the new seminary. He taught at Westminster for six years, and resigned in 1935 to devote himself to study and writing. Among his notable works are Prophecy and the Church (1945) and God Spake By Moses (1951).

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The word "day" is used in various senses in Scripture. Exodus xx.8-11 suggests days of twenty-four hours; but Psalm xc.4 and 2 Peter iii.8 declare such an inference to be unnecessary. We cannot be sure, and must not be dogmatic.
  ...
  We may well hesitate to assert that the days of Genesis i must be taken literally as days of twenty-four hours. But we should not hesitate to assert that infinite time and endless process are no adequate substitute for or explanation of that fiat creation by an omnipotent God of which this sublime chapter speaks so clearly and emphatically. It is equally true that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years" and that "a thousand years are as one day"
  Source: Book - Oswald T. Allis, "God Spake By Moses: An Exposition of the Pentateuch", (1951 pp. 11, 159)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Modern Dispensationalism And The Doctrine Of The Unity Of Scripture

Author of:

• Book - God Spake by Moses
• Book - Five Books of Moses
• Book - The Old Testament: Its claims and its critics
• Book - Prophecy and the Church

Brief Background:  President and founder of The Ankerberg Theological Research Institute. Producer and host of the nationally televised John Ankerberg Show - seen in all 50 states. Holds numerous degrees including: Master of Arts in Church History and Philosophy of Christian Thought and a Master of Divinity degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (both with honors), Doctor of Ministry degree from Luther Rice Seminary. Ordained Baptist minister and former pastor. In addition to being a well known evangelist and producer of the John Ankerberg Show, he is the author and co-author of 65 books.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The Seventh “Day” Is Thousands of Years Long
  
  Everyone agrees that it has been at least thousands of years since the time of creation, yet the Bible declares that God rested on the seventh day after His six days of creation (Gen. 2:2-3). According to the book of Hebrews, God is still in His Sabbath rest from creation (4:3-5); hence, the seventh day has been at least six thousand years long, even on the shortest of all the chronologies of humankind.
  Source: Article - Dr. Ankerberg's Comments On Creation
  
  
• The Third “Day” Is Longer Than Twenty-Four Hours
  
  On the third “day,” God not only created vegetation, but it grew to maturity. The text says that on the third day “the land produced vegetation; plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds” (Gen. 1:12, emphasis added). To grow from seeds to maturity and produce more seeds is a process that takes much longer than a day, a week, or even a month for most plants. There is no indication in the text that its growth was anything but natural; it is its origin that was supernatural.
  Source: Article - Dr. Ankerberg's Comments On Creation
  
  
• The Sixth “Day” Is Longer Than Twenty-Four Hours
  
  It would also appear that the sixth “day” of creation was considerably longer than a solar day. Consider everything that happened during this one “day.”
  
  First, God created all the many hundreds (or thousands) of land animals (Gen. 1:24-25).
  
  Second, God “formed” man of the dust of the earth (Gen. 2:7). This Hebrew word (yatsar) means “to mold” or “form,” which implies time. Yatsar is used specifically of the work of a potter (cf. Jer. 18:2f.).
  
  Third, God said, “I will make a helper suitable for him” (Gen. 2:18, emphasis added). This indicates a time subsequent to the time of the announcement.
  
  Fourth, Adam observed and named this whole multitude of animals (Gen. 2:19). As Robert Newman noted, “If every one of the approximately 15,000 living species of such animals (not to mention those now extinct) were brought to Adam to be named, it would have taken ten hours if he spent only two second on each.” This is hardly enough time for Adam to study each animal and determine an appropriate name for it. Assuming a minimum of only two minutes each, the process would have taken six hundred hours (or twenty-five days).
  
  Fifth, Adam searched for a helpmate for himself, apparently among all the creatures God had made. “But for Adam no suitable helper was found” (implying a time of searching) (Gen. 2:20, emphasis added).
  
  Sixth, God put Adam to sleep and operated on him, taking out one of his ribs and healing the flesh (Gen. 2:21). This too involved additional time.
  
  Seventh, Eve was brought to Adam, who observed her, accepted her, and was joined to her (Gen. 2:22-25).
  
  In conclusion, it seems highly unlikely that all of these events–especially the fourth one–were compressed within a twenty-four-hour period or, more precisely, within the approximately twelve hours of light each day afforded.
  Source: Article - Dr. Ankerberg's Comments On Creation
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Dr. Ankerberg's Comments On Creation
• Article - Large 1500 article index

Author of:

• Book - The Facts on the King James Only Debate
• Book - Darwin's Leap of Faith: Exposing the False Religion of Evolution
• Book - The Facts on Creation Vs Evolution/ Facts on Series

Brief Background: Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [Refering to God's Sabbath analogy in Exodus 20:10-11:]
  
  By no means does this demonstrate that 24-hour intervals were involved in the first six 'days,' any more than the eight-day celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles proves that the wilderness wanderings under Moses occupied only eight days.
  Source: Book - Archer G., "A Response to the Trustworthiness of Scripture in Areas Relating to Natural Science,", in Radmacher E.D., & Preus R.D., "Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible", Academic Books, Grand Rapids MI, 1986, p329
  
  
• it would seem to border on sheer irrationality to insist that all of Adam’s experiences in Genesis 2:15-22 could have been crowded into the last hour or two of a literal twenty-four-hour day.
  Source: Book - Archer G., "Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties", Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids MI, 1982, pp. 59-60

Author of:

• Book - Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
• Book - New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties
• Book - The Genesis Debate

Brief Background: Dr. Eugene Ashby is a graduate of Loyola University, Auburn University and the University of Notre Dame. As a nationally renowned chemist, Dr. Ashby had been a member of the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry for 30 years at the Georgia Institute of Technology, before retiring in 1993 as Regents' Professor and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. He was awarded the Lavoisier medal of the French Chemical Society and the Herty medal of the American Chemical Society. He has lectured at more than 100 universities in 14 countries and has been a Sloan Fellow and Guggenheim Fellow residing at Stanford University. Dr. Ashby has published more than 280 papers in leading chemistry journals. He was a Research Associate with the Ethyl Corporation for seven years before joining Georgia Tech in 1963. He has been a consultant for Dupont, Conoco, The Ethyl Corporation, Pfizer, AFF Inc, The Department of Defense, The Department of Energy and the Georgia Department of Education. Two chemical plants have been built as a result of research carried out in his laboratory.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The scientific facts show that the universe is 17 billion years old and the earth is 4.6 billion years old.
  Source: Article - Tech Professor Tackles Creation-evolution Controversy
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Tech Professor Tackles Creation-evolution Controversy

Author of:

• Book - Understanding the Creation/Evolution Controversy: A Scientific Evaluation Consistent with Both Modern Science and the Bible

Brief Background: B.A., Highland College, 1967; M.Div., Faith Theological Seminary, 1970; S.T.M., Faith Theological Seminary, 1971; Th.D., Grace Theological Seminary, 1975. Assistant Professor of New Testament, Faith Theological Seminary, 1971-1977; Professor of New Testament, Faith Theological Seminary, 1977-1982; Associate Professor of New Testament, Western Reformed Seminary, 1983-1998; Professor of New Testament and Theology, Western Reformed Seminary, since 1998. He also currently serves as president of Western Reformed Seminary.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• In Mark 10:6, Jesus quotes Genesis 1:27: “From the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’” Many young-earth creationists have latched onto this verse, interpreting it in a novel way that provides evidence for their position of a 6,000 to 10,000 year old earth.1 However, careful study of this passage reveals the traditional understanding of Jesus’ words is correct and the passage does not support a recent creation.
  Source: Article - Examining Mark 10:6 Reasons To Believe - Seattle Area Chapter - News And Views (June 2004 p 2)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Examining Mark 10:6 Reasons To Believe - Seattle Area Chapter - News And Views (June 2004 p 2)
• Article - Charles Hodge, Inspiration, Textual Criticism, And The Princeton Doctrine Of Scripture
• Article - How Can God Be Just And Ordain Evil?

Brief Background:  Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) He was a contemporary of Abraham Kuyper and B.B. Warfield, both of whom he knew well. He graduated magna cum laude with a double major in Systematic Theology & OT. He was Professor of Systematic Theology at Kampen (1882-1902) and subsequently at the Free University of Amsterdam (1902-1920). He is best known for his magnum opus, "The Reformed Dogmatics" (Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, in 4 volumes). He also contended that the matter of time did not belong to the essentials of the faith and so was open to a variety of opinions on the days of Genesis 1.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The whole work of creation — according to the repeated testimony of the Scriptures — was completed in six days. There has, however, been a good deal of difference of opinion and freedom of speculation about those six days. No one less than Augustine judged that God had made everything perfect and complete at once, and that the six days were not successive periods of time, but only so many points of vantage from which the rank and order of the creatures might be viewed. On the other hand, there are many who hold that the days of creation are to be regarded as much longer periods of time than twenty-four hour units. Scripture speaks very definitely of days which are reckoned by the measurement of night and morning and which lie at the basis of the distribution of the days of the week in Israel and its festive calendar. Nevertheless Scripture itself contains data which oblige us to think of these days of Genesis as different from our ordinary units as determined by the revolutions of the earth. In the first place we cannot be sure whether what is told us in Genesis 1:1-2 precedes the first day or is included within that day. In favor of the first supposition is the fact that according to verse 5 the first day begins with the creation of light and that after the evening and the night it ends on the following morning. But even though one reckons the events of Genesis 1:1-2 with the first day, what one gets from that assumption is a very unusual day which for a while consisted in darkness. And the duration of that darkness which preceded the creation of light is nowhere indicated. In the second place, the first three days (Gen. 1:3-13) must have been very unlike ours. For our twenty-four hour days are effected by the revolutions of the earth on its axis, and by the correspondingly different relationship to the sun which accompanies the revolutions. But those first three days could not have been constituted in that way. It is true that the distinction between them was marked by the appearance and disappearance of light. But the book of genesis itself tells us that the sun and moon and stars were not formed until the fourth day.
  Source: Book - Our Reasonable Faith, translated by Henry Zylstra (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1956), pp. 172-173.
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Law-Gospel Distinction and Preaching
• Article - The Divine and Human Nature of Christ

Author of:

• Book - Our Reasonable Faith
• Book - In the Beginning: Foundations of Creation Theology
• Book - Reformed Dogmatics (4 volumes)
• Book - Doctrine of God
• Book - The Last Things

Brief Background: Michael Behe is a strong advocate for Intelligent Design and author of the groundbreaking book Darwin's Black Box. He graduated from Drexel University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. He did his graduate studies in biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and was awarded the Ph.D. in 1978 for his dissertation research on sickle-cell disease. From 1978-1982 he did postdoctoral work on DNA structure at the National Institutes of Health. From 1982-85 he was Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Queens College in New York City, where he met his wife. In 1985 he moved to Lehigh University where he is currently Professor of Biochemistry. In his career he has authored over 40 technical papers and one book, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, which argues that living system at the molecular level are best explained as being the result of deliberate intelligent design. Darwin’s Black Box has been reviewed by the New York Times, Nature, Philosophy of Science, Christianity Today, and over one hundred other periodicals. He and his wife reside near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with their eight children.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• It is often said that science must avoid any conclusions which smack of the supernatural. But this seems to me to be both bad logic and bad science. Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted. Rather, it is an effort to make true statements about physical reality. It was only about sixty years ago that the expansion of the universe was first observed. This fact immediately suggested a singular event--that at some time in the distant past the universe began expanding from an extremely small size. To many people this inference was loaded with overtones of a supernatural event--the creation, the beginning of the universe. The prominent physicist A.S. Eddington probably spoke for many physicists in voicing his disgust with such a notion:
  
  Philosophically, the notion of an abrupt beginning to the present order of Nature is repugnant to me, as I think it must be to most; and even those who would welcome a proof of the intervention of a Creator will probably consider that a single windingup at some remote epoch is not really the kind of relation between God and his world that brings satisfaction to the mind.
  
  Nonetheless, the Big Bang hypothesis was embraced by physics and over the years has proven to be a very fruitful paradigm. The point here is that physics followed the data where it seemed to lead, even though some thought the model gave aid and comfort to religion.
  Source: Article - Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference
  
  
• The Big Bang theory has struck many people as having strong theological implications, including many people who did not like those implications... but nonetheless it has been a very fruitful scientific theory firmly grounded in the empirical facts.
  Source: Video/Presentation - Irriducible Complexity: The Biochemical Challenge to Darwinian Theory, Princeton University, 1977
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference
• Article - Darwin Under the Microscope
• Article - Evidence for Intelligent Design from Biochemistry

Author of:

• Book - Darwin's Black Box

Brief Background: In October 2003, Blocher was appointed to the Gunther H. Knoedler Chair of Theology at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Previously (since 1965) he had served as professor of systematic theology at the Faculté Libre de Théologie Evangélique in Vaux-sur-Seine near Paris, France. A leading evangelical theologian and statesman, Blocher was a member of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization (1975-1980), served the World Evangelical Fellowship/Alliance in a number of capacities, and taught in schools in Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada and the US. He is currently president of the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians. Blocher studied at a number of institutions including the Sorbonne, London Bible College, Gordon Divinity School, and Faculté Libre de Théologie Protestant of Paris. He has written six books, four of which have appeared in English, and several dozen articles. His English publications include Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle, Evil and the Cross: Christian Thought and the Problem of Evil and In the Beginning: The Opening chapters of Genesis.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The literary interpretation takes the form of the week attributed to the work of creation to be an artistic arrangement, a modest example of anthropomorphism that is not to be taken literally. The author's intention is not to supply us with a chronology of origins. It is possible that the logical order he has chosen coincides broadly with the actual sequence of the facts of cosmogony; but that does not interest him. He wishes to bring out certain themes and provide a theology of the sabbath. The text is composed as the author meditates on the finished work, so that we may understand how the creation is related to God and what is its significance for mankind...
  
  To put it plainly, both the genre and the style of the Genesis 1 prologue, as our introductory chapter saw them, provide strong grounds for presuming in favour of the literary interpretation. We discerned a composite literary genre, skilfully composed. We admired its author as a wise man, supremely able in the art of arranging material and very fond of manipulating numbers, particularly the number seven. From such a writer the plain, straightforward meaning, as in two-dimensional prose, would be most surprising when he is setting out the pattern of seven days. From such a writer you would expect the sort of method which is discerned by the 'artistic' interpretation.
  Source: Book - In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (1984, p. 50-51)
  
  

Author of:

• Book - In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis
• Book - Evil and the Cross
• Book - Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle

Brief Background: (1938-2000) Boice was, until his death in 2000, the pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, the teacher on "The Bible Study Hour" radio program and chairman of the board of City Center Academy. He was as articulate spokesman for the Reformed faith in America and around the world. He was also a key defender of inerrancy, for ten years he served as Chairman of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. He also founded the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. He held a A.B. from Harvard University, a B.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Theology from the University of Basel in Switzerland. In addition to authoring numerous journal articles, he authored over 40 books and was a consulting editor for the Expositor's Bible Commentary.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• It (Genesis 1) is a theological statement, however, and we must acknowledge this because if we do not, we will inevitably find ourselves looking for a scientific explanation of things and will be misled. Not that the Genesis record will be opposed to any established scientific data; truth in one area, if it really is truth, will never contradict truth in another area. Still Genesis 1 is not a description from which we can expect to find answers to purely scientific questions. Rather it is a statement of origins in the area of meanings, purpose and the relationship of all things to God...
  
  Actually, there is no firm bibilical reason for rejecting some forms of evolutionary theory, so long as it is carefully qualified at key points. There is, for example, no reason to deny that one form of fish may have evolved from another form or even that one form of land animal may have evolved from a sea creature. The Hebrew term translated by our word let, which occurs throughout the creation account, would permit such a possiblity...
  
  There are, however, three significant points at which a unique action of God to create in a special sense seems to be marked off by the powerful Hebrew word bara, rendered "created." Bara generally means to create out of nothing, which means that the activity it describes is therefore a prerogative of God. And, ... , it is used in Genesis 1 to mark the creation of matter, of personality and of God-consciousness.
  Source: Book - Foundations of the Christian Faith (1986, p. 162-163)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - WANTED: Thinking Christians
  
• Article - Our Promise Keeping God
• Article - Recovering Our Lost Confidence
• Article - It takes Time

Author of:

• Book - Genesis: An Expositional Commentary : Genesis 1-11
• Book - Standing on the Rock: Upholding Biblical Authority in a Secular Age
• Book - Standing on the Rock: Upholding Biblical Authority in a Secular Age
• Book - Hearing God When You Hurt
• Book - Mind Renewal in a Mindless Age: Preparing to Think and Act Biblically

Brief Background: Raymond G. Bohlin is currently the Executive Director of Probe Ministries. Dr. Bohlin was born and raised in Chicago, IL and is a graduate of the University of Illinois (B.S., zoology, 1971-1975), the University of North Texas (M.S., population genetics, 1977-1980), and the University of Texas at Dallas (M.S., Ph.D., molecular and cell biology, 1984-1991). Dr. Bohlin has been with Probe Ministries since 1975 and has lectured and debated on dozens of college and university campuses. He has addressed issues in the creation/evolution debate as well as other science-related issues. Dr. Bohlin is an elder at Reinhardt Bible Church in Garland, Texas.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• However, we find the evidence from science for a great age for the universe and the earth to be nearly overwhelming.
  ...
  Earlier, we emphasized that the age question, while certainly important, is not the primary question in the origins debate. The question of chance versus design is the foremost issue. The time frame over which God accomplished His creation is not central.
  ...
  Scientists have observed supernova from galaxies that are hundreds of thousands of light years away. We know that many of these galaxies must be this distant because if they were all within a few thousand light years, then the nighttime sky would be brilliant indeed.
  Source: Article - Christian Views of Science and Earth History
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Christian Views of Science and Earth History
  
• Article - Are We Alone in the Universe?
  
• Article - Human Fossils
  

Author of:

• Book - The Natural Limits to Biological Change
• Book - Creation, Evolution, & Modern Science

Brief Background: Robert Brown was born in 1915. He is a physicist; Retired Professor physics, Loma Linda (California) University, 1980-88; Professor geophysics, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, 1973-80; director, GeoScience Research Institute, Berrien Springs, Michigan, 1973-80; President, Professor, Union College, Lincoln, 1970-73; Vice President, Walla Walla College, 1961-70; Professor physics, Walla Walla College, 1954-70; member faculty, Walla Walla College, 1947-70; Instructor physics, University of Washington, 1948-49; Head Science department, Canadian Union College, Lacombe, Alberta, 1945-47; research engineer, Sylvania Electronic Products Co., 1942-45; Assistant Instructor physics, University of Nebraska, 1940-42.BA, Union College, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1940; MS, University of Nebraska, 1942; Ph.D., University of Washington, 1950. Of special note is that Robert wrote for the CRSQ (Creation Research Society Quarterly) - a primarily Young Earth publication.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Dalrymple makes a good case for an age of about 4.5 billion years for the material of which the earth, moon, and meteorites are composed. He evidently believes that he has thoroughly discredited special creationism. His treatment in The Age of the Earth has made it much more difficult to plausibly explain radiometric data on the basis of a creation of the entire Solar System, or the physical matter in planet Earth, within the last few thousand years. In my opinion, the defense of such a position is a losing battle.
  Source: Article - An Age-old Question
  
  
• Astronomers have good reasons for believing that they are now observing galaxies and quasars that are tens of billions of light years distant from Earth. If the current estimation of distance for these objects is correct, the universe must have been in existence for at least tens of billions of years.
  ...
  The picture that emerges from all the data that relate to cosmic chronology appears to be one of dynamic physical processes operating over extended periods of time, during the last 4.5 billion years of which discrete entities of the Solar System have been in existence.
  Source: Article - Geo And Cosmic Chronology
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Science Through The Eyes Of Biblical Writers
• Article - The Upper Limit Of C-14 Age?

Author of:

• Book - Origin by Design

Brief Background:  William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) - Born in Salem, Illinois, he studied law and Received a law degree in 1883 from Union College in Chicago. After moving to Nebraska, he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1890 and served two terms. He became known as an accomplished author, lecturer, politician, publisher, and philosopher. He also became known as a rousing, impassioned orator. At the 1896 Democratic convention, he mesmerized delegates with his famous "Cross of Gold" speech and ended up the party's presidential nominee. He ran for president on the Democratic ticket three times (1896, 1900, 1908) but lost each election. Bryan also served as an Army Colonel in the Spanish-American War. He supported Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 election and became Wilson's secretary of state the following year. A devout Christian all his life, Bryan spent his later years campaigning for prohibition and against the teaching of evolution (He was a known proponent of the day-age theory of creation). In 1925, he served as prosecutor in the infamous "monkey trial" of John Scopes, a Tennessee teacher arrested for teaching evolution. He died of a heart attack on July 26, in Dayton, Tennessee, only days after the conclusion of the trial.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [In 1925, at the famous Scopes Trial1 in Dayton, Tennessee, William Jennings Bryan was cross-examined - part of the transcript follows:]
  
  Clarence Darrow (the ACLU lawyer) [D]: ‘Mr Bryan, could you tell me how old the Earth is?’
  
  Bryan [B]: ‘No, sir, I couldn’t.’
  
  [D]: ‘Could you come anywhere near it?’
  
  [B]: ‘I wouldn’t attempt to. I could possibly come as near as the scientists do, but I had rather be more accurate before I give a guess.’
  
  [D]: ‘Does the statement, “The morning and the evening were the first day,” and “The morning and the evening were the second day,” mean anything to you?’
  
  [B]: ‘I do not think it necessarily means a twenty-four-hour day.’
  
  [D]: ‘You do not?’
  
  [B]: ‘No.’
  
  [D]: 'Then, when the Bible said, for instance, "and God called the firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day," that does not necessarily mean twenty-four-hours?’
  
  [B]: ‘I do not think it necessarily does.’ ‘I think it would be just as easy for the kind of God we believe in to make the Earth in six days as in six years or in six million years or in 600 million years. I do not think it important whether we believe one or the other.’
  
  [D]: ‘And they had the evening and the morning before that time for three days or three periods. All right, that settles it. Now, if you call those periods, they may have been a very long time.’
  
  [B]: ‘They might have been.’
  
  [D]: ‘The creation might have been going on for a very long time?’
  
  [B]: ‘It might have continued for millions of years.’
  Source: The World’s Most Famous Court Trial, Second Reprint Edition, Bryan College, Dayton, pp. 296, 302–303, 1990.
  
  
• [Famous quote:]
  
  The Rock of Ages is more important than the age of rocks
  

On line work:

• Article - Cross of Gold
  
• Article - In His Image
  

Brief Background:  Walter L. Bradley received his B.S. in Engineering Science and his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Texas in Austin. He taught for eight years as an Assistant and Associate Professor of Metallurgical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines before assuming a position as Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU) in 1976. He has published over 125 technical articles. He also served as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University, and as Director of the Polymer Technology Center at TAMU. Dr. Bradley is currently working with Baylor University's engineering department and is a fellow of the International Society for Complexity Information and Design. Walter Bradley has also performed seminal research in the origin of life, having published journal articles and co-authoring the popular "The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reasse sing Current Theories" which remains the best-selling advanced level text on the origin of life.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• We believe that the "bara/asah" of Genesis 1 implies God working through miracle and process to effect creation. We believe that the "yom" of Genesis I may be interpreted either "day" or "epoch." In either case Genesis may still be interpreted to allow for the large total time indicated by geology and astronomy. This model, usually called progressive creationism, suggests that God created the major types of plant and animal life at various times in geological history in a miraculous way and then worked through process (God acting in His customary way) to develop the tremendous variety of plant and animal life we see today. To accept the compelling evidence for geological age should not be equated with accepting the general theory of evolution (macroevolution).
  Source: Article - The Trustworthiness of Scripture in Areas Relating to Natural Science
  [A reprint of Chapter 5 (pp. 283-348) from Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible, Radmacher and Preus, eds. (Zondervan, 1984)]
  
  
• While these various nonradiometric methods of dating may be inaccurate for giving absolute ages, they occur at rates that give incontrovertible evidence that the earth is much older than ten thousand years. Furthermore, one cannot postulate here an uncertainty in assumptions as is done with radiometric dating since no assumptions are involved. Unless God chose to create the universe with this clear impression of great antiquity, the earth must actually be quite old.
  Source: Article - The Trustworthiness of Scripture in Areas Relating to Natural Science
  [A reprint of Chapter 5 (pp. 283-348) from Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible, Radmacher and Preus, eds. (Zondervan, 1984)]
  
  
• In conclusion we believe that progressive creationism achieves a very acceptable harmony of the scriptural and scientific data without in any way compromising the inerrant view of Scripture or resorting to a metaphorical or figurative interpretation where the context does not seem to suggest this interpretation.
  Source: Article - The Trustworthiness of Scripture in Areas Relating to Natural Science
  [A reprint of Chapter 5 (pp. 283-348) from Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible, Radmacher and Preus, eds. (Zondervan, 1984)]
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Trustworthiness of Scripture in Areas Relating to Natural Science
  [A reprint of Chapter 5 (pp. 283-348) from Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible, Radmacher and Preus, eds. (Zondervan, 1984).]
• Article - What Non-Christians Ask

Author of:

• Book - Know Why You Believe: Connecting Faith and Reason
• Book - Know What You Believe: Connecting Faith and Truth
• Book - Witnessing: How to Give Away Your Faith

Brief Background: Dr. Cabal at one time was an athiest, he bacame a Christian while reading the Gospels so as to debunk them. He has an B.A. and a M.A. from Dallas Baptist University, as well as a M.Div. and a Ph.D. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is Dean of Boyce College at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He does not shy away from opportunities to defend the Christian faith. In addition to several published articles and lectures at numerous colleges, Dr. Cabal has participated in debates defending the existence of God. He also shares with his pupils the knowledge and experience garnered from nearly 15 years of pastoral ministry in three churches. He is also general editor of the forthcoming Apologetics Study Bible (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2006)

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The fact remains, however, that the assumptions made by Morris and others are unjustified regarding the historical and logical connections of old earth views to naturalism. They are also historically naïve to teach that Bible/science issues are so simple hermeneutically as to preclude old earth exegetical possibilities. But because some young earth creationists elevate the issue "to a degree of importance that it does not deserve," the fires of controversy are stoked by inflammatory and misleading language.
  ...
  If there is no demonstrable danger or biblical unfaithfulness in an old earth doctrine per se, then it is a mistake to make a young earth the essential component of evangelical creationism. The evangelical paradigm for creation should not necessitate a position on the age of the earth.
  ...
  Evangelicals should not view debate about the age of the earth as a matter of heresy or danger, and there is no biblical reason to break fellowship over the matter.
  Source: Article - Evangelicalism And Young Earth Creationism: Necessary Bedfellows?
  Based on a much shorter paper of the same title presented to the Evangelical Theological Society, November 14,2001, Colorado Springs, CO.
  (Available free of charge by request, Contact Zondervan via e-mail at ETS@zondervan.com)
  53rd Annual Meeting Schedule (depicting the original paper/lecture) available here: http://etsjets.org/meetings/2001-schedule/parallel-04.html
  
  

On line work:

• Audio - Age of the Earth: Core Christian Doctrine?
• Article - An Introduction to Postmodernity: Where Are We, How Did We Get Here, and Can We Get Home?
• Audio - Unpopular Truth: How to Tell Your Friends the Truth About Their Sin<
• Article - Scholars Ponder Providence - Does god Exist?<

Brief Background: John Calvert is a Christian who has utilized his his knowledge of law to help ID theory to taught in public schools..He is co-founder of Intelligent Design Network, which seeks to foster objectivity in origins science. He has been in the private practice of law since 1968. Although his specialty is corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and business litigation, he has practiced geology in a number of legal engagements involving mining and the oil and gas industry and has studied structural geology and paleontology as he has traveled throughout the world. Mr. Calvert acquired his interest in origins and design theory in the late 1970's when introduced to the structure of DNA, RNA and other features of cellular structure and cellular information processing systems which provide evidence of design. As a lawyer Mr. Calvert has studied the evidentiary reliability of the evidence of design that occurs in nature, the philosophical and cultural barriers which suppress the evidence and the legality of governmental actions which censor the evidence in publicly funded educational institutions. As a geologist Mr. Calvert has studied the extent to which the fossil record and the earth’s geologic structure support design inferences. Mr. Calvert is a member of the American Bar Association and Missouri Bar Association and has been admitted to practice in Federal and state courts.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Being a geologist, I find no fault with most geologic estimates concerning the age of the earth and the times at which various stages of life appear to have come into being.
  Source: Transcript - Remarks of John Calvert to the Kansas State Board of Education on May 11, 1999
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Technical Explanation of Objective Origins Science Policy
• Article - Ending the War Between Science and Religion
• Article - Are we designs or occurrences?

Author of:

• Book - Teaching Origins Science in Public Schools: Memorandum and Opinion, March 21, 2001.(On-line version)

Brief Background: (1780-1847) The Scottish church reformer and theologian Thomas Chalmers was a central figure in the 1843 secession of the Free Church from the Presbyterian Establishment. Chalmers attempted to broaden evangelicalism by reconciling its zeal with secular ethics, science, and philosophy and with concern for social and economic issues. He was highly regarded during his lifetime as a natural theologian.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• There is a prejudice against the speculations of the geologist, which I am anxious to remove. It has been said that thhey nurture infidel propensities. It has been alleged that geology, by referring to the origin of the globe to a higher antiquity than is assigned to it by the writings of Moses, undermines our faith in the inspiration of the Bible, and in all the animating prospects of the immortality which it unfolds.This is a false alarm. THE WRITINGS OF MOSES DO NOT FIX THE ANTIQUITY OF THE GLOBE.[emphasis in original]
  Source: Lecture - Delivered at the Church of St. Andrews in 1804. Taken from the book "Testimony of the Rocks" by Hugh Miller (1857 opening paragraph of Lecture Three "The Two Records, Mosaic and Geological" page 141)
  
  

On line work:

• Book - Discourses on the Christian revelation, viewed in connection with the modern astronomy. To which are added, Discourses illustrative of the connection between theology & general science.

Author of:

• Book - The works of Thomas Chalmers (Complete in one volume)

Brief Background: A devout atheist until his early twenties, Clayton was part of the same organized atheist group that made Madeline Murray O'Hair famous. He decided to write a book called All the Stupidity of the Bible, but instead found himself slowly becoming convinced about Christianity. He has a keen interest in Geology and origins and is recognized widely by those active in the creation/ evolution controversy as the originator of what is known as the Modified Gap Theory. Today, he travels the U.S. giving lectures on the subject "Does God Exist?". He is a teacher and geologist by profession. He holds a B.S. degree from Indiana. University in Education with a concentration in Physics and mathematics. He holds a M.S. degree from Indiana University in Education with a concentration in Chemistry and Psychometry. He also holds a M.S. degree from Notre Dame University in Geology and Earth Science. His most recent honors include: Distinguished Physics Teacher for the State of Indiana - 1985 by the American Association of Physics Teachers. S.T.A.R Instructor for Indiana Department of Public Instruction - 1990. "South Bend Community School Corporation High School Teacher of the Year" and "School Corporation Teacher of the Year" - 1991.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Genesis 1:1 is an undated verse. No time element is given and no details of what the Earth looked like are included. It could have taken place in no time at all, or God may have used eons of time to accomplish his objectives.
  Source: Book - The Source: Eternal Design or Infinite Accident (1976 p 147-148).
  
  

On line work:

• Article - God's Revelation in His Rocks and in His Word
• Article - What Was the Cause of the Beginning?
• Article - A Practical Man's Proof Of God
• Article - Why I Left Atheism
• Article - The Problem Of Human Suffering

Author of:

• Book - The Source: Eternal Design or Infinite Accident
• Book - Timothy- My Son and Teacher

Brief Background: John Colet (1466-1519) After early schooling in London, John went to Oxford, where he spent some 20 years as a scholar and lecturer, eventually receiving a doctorate in divinity about 1504. He became Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in 1505 and eventually founded St. Paul's School in 1509 with the fortune he inherited from his father. Colet is famous for translating (and reading) the New Testament in English for the common man to be able to understand. Colet became Henry VIII's chaplain and, in 1512 delivered a famous sermon in which he denounced the abuses of the Church. Colet did not, himself, break with the Roman Church, but his ideas on church reform were influential later. Most of his writings were unpublished until the late 19th century.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [Colet was well known to hold to a position approximating day-age or even framework interpretation of the days of Genesis]
  
  nothing could be more like night than these Mosaic days
  Source: Book - F. Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers (London, 1887, pp. 46-60) For an on-line summary see Westminster Theological Seminary's statement on the Days of Creation
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Letters To Radulphus On The Mosaic Account of Creation
• Book - An exposition Of St. Paul's Epistle To The Romans
• Book - John Colet's Commentary Of First Corinthians
• Book - A treatise on the sacraments of the church

Brief Background: Francis S. Collins is a physician, geneticist, and current Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH. Raised on a small farm in Virginia, he obtained a B.S. in chemistry at the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Yale University. He graduated from medical school at the University of North Carolina and completed a residency in internal medicine at Chapel Hill. Later, he returned to Yale for a fellowship in human genetics, and then joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 1984. His genetic research team identified the genes for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, and collaborated with others to identify the gene for Huntington’s disease. In 1993, Collins became the second director of the National Center for Human Genome Research, following in the footsteps of James Watson. In that role, Collins has overseen the successful completion of the Human Genome Project. He has been a member of ASA for over twenty years.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• I'm not a creationist. I don't believe in a young earth version, and I think I'm in a very large majority of people who have studied the bible for the last many thousand years. In many ways this new view that basically requires one to reject the evidence acquired by scientific study is a new appearance on the scene, and one that has done a disservice to cause thinking people to feel that they have to reject data that's put in front of them in order to demonstrate their faith.
  Source: Interview - Genomics Newswire Interview (April 2000)
  
  
• If the tenets of young earth creationism were true, basically all of the sciences of geology, cosmology, and biology would utterly collapse. It would be the same as saying 2 plus 2 is actually 5. The tragedy of young-earth creationism is that it takes a relatively recent and extreme view of Genesis, applies to it an unjustified scientific gloss, and then asks sincere and well-meaning seekers to swallow this whole, despite the massive discordance with decades of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines. Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason?
  ...
  Another issue, however—one where I am very puzzled about what the answer will be—is the origin of life. Four billion years ago, the conditions on this planet were completely inhospitable to life as we know it; 3.85 billion years ago, life was teeming. That is a very short period—150 million years— for the assembly of macromolecules into a self-replicating form. I think even the most bold and optimistic proposals for the origin of life fall well short of achieving any real probability for that kind of event having occurred. Is this where God entered? Is this how life got started? I am happy to accept that model, but it will not shake my faith if somebody comes up with a model that explains how that the first cells formed without divine intervention. Again, watch out for the God-of-the-gaps. However, I think it is noteworthy that this particular area of evolution, the earliest step, is still very much in disarray.
  Source: Article - Faith and the Human Genome
  
  
• [commenting on young earth belief]
  It breaks my heart to see young people raised in Christian homes who are told that they have to believe that perspective or their faith is in doubt or they're somehow betraying God Almighty. And then faced with the facts that science tells us about the age of the earth, what a terrible quandary they're placed into. Do they reject their faith? Do they reject science?
  Source: TV Show - Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly (July 21, 2006 -Episode no. 947)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly (July 21, 2006 -Episode no. 947)
• Article - Faithful to God, Science
• Article - I’ve found God, Says Man Who Cracked The Genome
• Article - Cracking The Code To Life

Author of:

• Book - The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
• Book - Principles of Medical Genetics
• Book - Genomic Medicine: Articles from the New England Journal of Medicine
• Book - Genetic Testing For Cancer: Psychological Approaches for Helping Patients and Families

Brief Background: Professor Collins background includes advanced studies in linguistics and biblical languages, and practical experience in Bible study and discipleship ministry. He has written extensively on biblical languages and interpretation, and on science and the Christian faith. He also served as Old Testament chair for the English Standard Version of the Bible. John is currently Professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Let's dispense with a few arguments that some have offered to support the ordinary day position. The first is the claim that since the 'vast majority' of readers in the history of the church have held that the days are ordinary, so should we - to do otherwise would be unbearable arrogance. The problem with this argument is that it assumes that the 'vast majority' are right, regardless of the reasons that led to their reading. After the first century, very few Christians read Hebrew at all, until about 1500; this means that this 'vast majority' arrived at their reading of Genesis on the basis of the Greek Old Testament in the Eastern church, and the Latin Old Testament in the West. These translations are good in some places and bad in others, and our 'vast majority' didn't have the resources to know which is which...
  
  [Another] faulty argument is the claim that Œthe doctrine of the clarity of Scripture is at stake. That is, the Bible must be transparent in its meaning, and this favors the 'simple' reading. This argument is faulty because it actually misuses the doctrine it is supposedly upholding. I know of no responsible statement of this doctrine that claims that all parts of the Bible are equally easy to understand, or that we should prefer a 'simple' reading no matter what...
  
  [Another] false claim is the idea that Christians changed their interpretation of the days in order to make peace with Darwinism. As a matter of fact, most of the interpretive options came into play before 1850 - and Darwin¹s Origins of Species came out in 1859. The big factor for many in the church was the new geology that began in the 1700s which seemed to most to prove that the earth was much older than a few thousand years. And if someone wants to make the counterclaim, 'You see, that just proves that geology is naturalistic, too,' he has to come to grips with the simple fact that most of the early geologists were devout Christians who were far from being naturalistic...
  Source: Book - Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? (2003 pp 78-81).
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Jack Collins: "What happened to Adam and Eve? A literary-theological approach to Genesis 3

Author of:

• Book - Science & Faith: Friends or Foes?
• Book - The God of Miracles: An Exegetical Examination of God's Action in the World

Brief Background: Chuck Colson (b. 1931) - conservative evangelical founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and host of the radio program "Flashpoint." Formerly Anglican and now Southern Baptist, he holds to Protestant distinctives but works for unity with like-minded Catholics, believing the two groups have more commonalities than differences. Colson was a leading architect of the declaration "Evangelicals and Catholics Together." His many books inlclude his autobiography Born Again, Six Million Angels, and How Now Shall We Live.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The Big Bang and Hoyle's Steady State were mere abstractions, unable to be tested. Then, in 1964, Drs. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of Bell Labs encountered continuous static on certain microwave frequencies. Rotating their antenna in a vain attempt to remove the noise, they realized it was coming from all directions-permeating the universe. Physicists hailed this as the first observational evidence of the Big Bang known as "cosmic background radiation" or "the radio echo of creation."...
  
  Today, advocates of the Big Bang think that their theory is a substitute for God. But it's just the opposite. Hoyle rejected the Big Bang in spite of the evidence because he knew that the Big Bang pointed irresistibly to the existence of God...
  
  As we read the obituaries about Sir Fred Hoyle, the man who named the Big Bang, we might ask our skeptical neighbors: If there was a Big Bang, isn't it reasonable to recognize what Hoyle did-that there behind it a Big Brain. And might that not be the God of the Bible and of all creation?
  Source: Article - The Big Bang According To Atheist, Sir Fred Hoyle
  
  

Author of:

• Book - How Now Shall We Live?
• Book - Loving God
• Book - Kingdoms in Conflict

On line work:

• Article - The Big Bang According To Atheist, Sir Fred Hoyle
• Article - Junk or Jewels? Creation and the Need for a Designer
• Article - The Da Vinci conspiracy
• Article - Article Index

Brief Background: Paul Copan is visiting professor of philosophy of religion at Trinity International University, and is on staff with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and holds a BA from Columbia Bible College, an M.A. and M.Div. From Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a Ph.D. from Marquette University. Dr. Copan teaches and speaks at universities and seminaries throughout the world. He is the author of True for You, But Not for Me, and That's Just Your Interpretation, and editor of Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up. He is general editor of the RZIM Critical Questions Series and a regular contributor to a number of academic journals.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Moreover, the theist can muster credible reasons for belief in God. For example, one can argue that the contingency of the universe — in light of Big Bang cosmology, the expanding universe, and the second law of thermodynamics (which implies that the universe has been "wound up" and will eventually die a heat death) — demonstrates that the cosmos has not always been here. It could not have popped into existence uncaused, out of absolutely nothing, because we know that whatever begins to exist has a cause. A powerful First Cause like the God of theism plausibly answers the question of the universe’s origin. Also, the fine-tunedness of the universe — with complexly balanced conditions that seem tailored for life — points to the existence of an intelligent Designer.
  Source: Article - The Presumptuousness of Atheism
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Creation out of Nothing: Its Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration
• Book - That's Just Your Interpretation: Responding to Skeptics Who Challenge Your Faith
• Book - The Rationality of Theism

On line work:

• Article - The Presumptuousness of Atheism
• Article - St. Augustine and the Scandal of the North African Catholic Mind
• Article - That’s True for You, But Not for Me

Brief Background: Dr. William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University in La Mirada, CA. With two doctorates - one in philosophy under the eminent philosopher of religion John Hick and one in theology under arguably the greatest living German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg - Dr. Craig is widely considered to be a leading figure in the philosophy of religion and the premier evangelical Christian apologist. He has participated in dozens of debates on the existence of God, the foundations of morality, and the contentious claim that salvation is in Christ alone. Furthermore, Dr. Craig has over 175 publications appearing in the best academic and top popular journals and presses. His diverse research interests include the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of time, and New Testament studies. He is the current president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and the Philosophy of Time Society.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The history of the Big Bang model for well over three-quarters of a century has been one of radical predictions repeatedly confirmed and the repeated failure of every attempt, some of them extremely speculative, to avoid the absolute origin of the universe posited in the standard model.{58} With each failure, the theory is corroborated anew. The defender of the kalam cosmological argument seems to be on secure ground in appropriating the Big Bang theory as empirical confirmation of the beginning of the universe.
  Source: Article - A Swift and Simple Refutation of the Kalam Cosmological Argument?
  
  
• With each successive failure of alternative cosmogonic theories, the Standard Model has been corroborated. It can be confidently said that no cosmogonic model has been as repeatedly verified in its predictions and as corroborated by attempts at its falsification, or as concordant with empirical discoveries and as philosophically coherent, as the Standard Big Bang Model.
  Source: Article - The Ultimate Question of Origins: God and the Beginning of the Universe
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology

On line work:

• Article - Creation and Big Bang Cosmology
• Article - The Ultimate Question of Origins: God and the Beginning of the Universe
• Article - A Swift and Simple Refutation of the Kalam Cosmological Argument?
• Article - Numerous (in many categories)

Brief Background: John Nelson Darby (1800–1882) One of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren. In 1827 he left a curate's post in Wicklow, Ireland, and joined with others in Dublin to found the Brethren. Later he formed congregations on the Continent, in Switzerland, France, and Germany. Between 1859 and 1874, Darby paid a number of visits to the United States and Canada. His followers, especially those on the Continent, came to be called Darbyites or Exclusive Brethren. Darby is called by many the father of modern dispensational theology, a theology made popular first by the Scofield Reference Bible and more recently by the Ryrie Study Bible. He was intensely committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Darby was unswerving in his belief that the Bible was the inspired, infallible Word of God, absolutely authoritative and faithfully transmitted from the original autographs. It should be evident from the foregoing that there is a distinct connection between the doctrines of the Brethren and the Fundamentalists who rose to challenge modernism shortly before and especially after the turn of the century. Well before publication of The Fundamentals: A Testimony of Truth in 1909, the Brethren were proclaiming the same basic truths of Scripture and staunchly defending them against all comers. The very character of Brethren fellowship and beliefs is such that to entertain liberal doctrines would destroy the movement altogether. Many of the greatest Fundamentalist leaders of the past have openly acknowledged their indebtedness to the teachings and ministry of Darby and the Brethren.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• But here some brief general remarks deserve a place. This revelation from God is not a history by Him of all that He has done, but what has been given to man for his profit, the truth as to what he has to say to. Its object is to communicate to man all that regards his own relationship with God.
  ...
  Thus also, as regards this earth, except the fact of its creation, nothing is said of it beyond what relates to the present form of it. The fact is stated that God created all things, all man sees, all the material universe. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." What may have taken place between that time and the moment when the earth (for it only is then spoken of) was without form and void, is left in entire obscurity.
  Source: Book - Synopsis of the Books of the Bible (Genesis Chapter 1)
  
  

On line work:

• Book - Synopsis of the Books of the Bible

Author of:

• Book - The Holy Bible: Darby Translation Online
• Book - Synopsis of the books of the Bible
• Book - Notes of Sermons Preached
• Book - Spiritual Songs
• Book - Notes on the Gospel of Matthew
• Book - Notes on the Gospel of John
• Book - Meditations on the Epistle to the Romans

Brief Background: William A. Dembski is Research Professor in Philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth. He is also a senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture as well as the executive director of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design. Previously he was the Carl F. H. Henry Professor of Theology and Science at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, where he founded its Center for Theology and Science. Before that he was Associate Research Professor in the Conceptual Foundations of Science at Baylor University, where he also headed the first intelligent design think-tank at a major research university: The Michael Polanyi Center. Dr. Dembski has taught at Northwestern University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas. He has done postdoctoral work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago, and in computer science at Princeton University. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago where he earned a B.A. in psychology, an M.S. in statistics, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, he also received a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1988 and a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1996. Dr. Dembski has published articles in mathematics, philosophy, and theology journals and is the author/editor of more than ten books. In addition to lecturing around the world at colleges and universities, he is frequently interviewed on the radio and television. His work has been cited in numerous newspaper and magazine articles, including three front page stories in the New York Times as well as the August 15, 2005 Time magazine cover story on intelligent design. He has appeared on the BBC, NPR, PBS, CSPAN2, CNN, Fox News, ABC Nightline, and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• To be sure, I am not a young earth creationist nor do I support their efforts to harmonize science with a particular interpretation of Genesis...
  Morris is right that anyone except pure materialists can take refuge with intelligent design. This, however, should not be regarded as a bad thing. Creationism is a package deal, with a particular interpretation of Bible being part of the total package. Intelligent design, by contrast, is a partial truth, not the whole truth...
  Christians have an obligation to confront the Genesis record. But having confronted that record, must they end up where Morris and his colleagues end up? In particular, does confronting the Genesis record require interpreting it as teaching a young earth and a global flood? ...
  If the criterion for intelligent design's success were whether it is accepted by people like Scott, Miller, and Van Till, then Morris's concern would have merit. But that is not the criterion for its success. ID's criterion for success is rather the following: whether its arguments are sound, whether its evidence for design is solid, whether its critique of materialistic accounts of evolution holds up, whether it is developing into a fruitful scientific research program, and whether it is convincing to people with no stake in the outcome of this debate. On all these points, ID is proving quite effective....
  Increasingly, I'm finding that they are impressed with ID as they never were with creationism. Take, for instance, the well-known former atheist Antony Flew, whose conversion to theism (albeit a weak form of it) recently made international news. What did Flew cite as a key factor in his conversion? Not creationism but rather design-theoretic arguments for the intelligent origin of life.
  By limiting itself to the design question and not getting distracted with the Bible-science controversy, ID is engaging the culture in ways that creationism never could. Young earth creationists have tended to operate in well insulated enclaves. True, they have been the butt of much ridicule and attack from the outside, but by having their own schools and publishing houses, they have tended to be well-supported internally. Design theorists, by contrast, have squarely confronted the cultural mainstream (scientific, academic, and media). ID's voice is heard in places where young earth creationism is ignored.
  
  But cultural engagement has come with a cost. Because ID advocates are unwilling to push design farther than its logic will go, we receive criticism from young earth creationists (Morris's criticism in his review of my book is mild by comparison with Ken Ham's).
  Source: Article - Intelligent Design's Contribution To The Debate Over Evolution: A Reply To Henry Morris
  
  
• First off, let me come clean about my own views on intelligent design. Am I a creationist? As a Christian, I am a theist and believe that God created the world. For hardcore atheists this is enough to classify me as a creationist. Yet for most people, creationism is not identical with the Christian doctrine of creation, or for that matter with the doctrine of creation as understood by Judaism or Islam. By creationism one typically understands what is also called “young earth creationism,” and what advocates of that position refer to alternately as “creation science” or “scientific creationism.” According to this view the opening chapters of Genesis are to be read literally as a scientifically accurate account of the world’s origin and subsequent formation. What’s more, it is the creation scientist’s task to harmonize science with Scripture.
  
  Given this account of creationism, am I a creationist? No. I do not regard Genesis as a scientific text. I have no vested theological interest in the age of the earth or the universe. I find the arguments of geologists persuasive when they argue for an earth that is 4.5 billion years old. What’s more, I find the arguments of astrophysicists persuasive when they argue for a universe that is approximately 14 billion years old. I believe they got it right.
  Source: Article - Intelligent Design Coming Clean
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Act of Creation: Bridging Transcendence and Immanence
• Article - America's Obsession With Design
• Article - Another Way to Detect Design?
• Article - Becoming a Disciplined Science: Prospects, Pitfalls, and a Reality Check for ID
• Article - Evolutionary Logic
• Article - Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information
• Article - What Every Theologian Should Know about Creation, Evolution, and Design

Author of:

• Book - The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory)
• Book - No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence
• Book - Mere Creation; Science, Faith & Intelligent Design
• Book - Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing
• Book - The Design Revolution: Answering The Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design
• Book - 5 Minute Apologist: Maximum Truth In Minimum Time
• Book - Unapologetic Apologetics: Meeting the Challenges of Theological Studies
• Book - Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design
• Book - Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology
• Book - Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA

Brief Background: Dr. Robert DiSilvestro holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Texas A&M University. He is currently professor of human nutrition at Ohio State University. Dr. DiSilvestro has published nearly 60 peer reviewed, life science-related research articles.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The journal Nature (377:99, September 14, 1995) calls the Big Bang the only theory in the field of origins of the universe. Some people assume that this means God isn't necessary to explain the origin of the universe. In actuality, as recognized by many astronomers, the best explanation for the Big Bang is a personal God. Upon some reflection, it can also be stated that the type of God who gives the best explanation would have the following traits:
  
  A. Exists outside of one dimension of time (this also solves the issue of: who made God? A God who exists in more than one dimension of time did not have to be made);
  
  B. Exists outside of the normal 3 dimensions of space;
  
  C. Must be capable of deciding to create a universe from nothing at one moment.
  
  The Bible is the only ancient holy book that speaks of such a God.
  Source: Article - Some Useful Information About Origins for Students in Undergraduate Biology Classes
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Rebuttals to Common Criticisms of the Book "Darwin's Black Box"
• Article - Mining Mineral Supplements   Nutrition Science News (July 2001)
• Article - Zinc in Relation to Diabetes and Oxidative Disease   Journal of Nutrition. (2000;130:1509S-1511S.)
• Article - Soy versus whey protein bars: Effects on exercise training impact on lean body mass and antioxidant status Nutrition Journal (Volume 3, 2004)

Author of:

• Book - Handbook of Minerals as Nutritional Supplements
• Book - Perspectives in Nutrition

Brief Background:  James C. Dobson, Ph.D., is conservative evangelical founder of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit organization that produces his internationally syndicated radio programs heard daily on more than 3,000 radio facilities in North America and in 15 languages on approximately 3,300 facilities in over 116 countries. He is one of the leading social/political activists among conservative Christians. He is also a prolific author, among his best-known books are Dare to Discipline, The Strong-Willed Child, Bringing Up Boys, Love Must Be Tough, When God Doesn't Make Sense, Love for a Lifetime, and What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew about Women. For 14 years Dr. Dobson was an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, and served for 17 years on the Attending Staff of Children's Hospital of Los Angeles in the Division of Child Development and Medical Genetics. He has an earned Ph.D. from the University of Southern California (1967) in the field of child development. He is a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, a licensed psychologist in California, and is listed in Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Let’s take that little matter of how the universe came to be. Scientists have done great work in following the astronomical evidence and tracing everything back to a theoretical "Big Bang." They’ve deduced logically that the universe began in that one cataclysmic moment. Assuming that’s what happened, what caused the Big Bang?
  
  That’s where you come to a fork in the road. If you’re willing to allow for the possibility that the supernatural exists you can say that a Creator caused it.
  Source: Article - My Truth, Your Truth, Whose Truth? Part 2 (Article by Focus on The Family's Randy Petersen)
  
  
• On the first page of his "The Heaven’s Declare God’s Glory" tract he expresses his appreciation for a book called God and the Astronomers, written by Dr. Robert Jastrow. He then writes,
  
  Dr. Jastrow reports recent scientific findings that leave no alternative for the scientist but to acknowledge that the universe had a definite beginning; that it has not always existed. That’s an idea which scientists have found very offensive for over a century... Now we see that the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world.
  Source: Tract by James Dobson.
  
  
• In response to the question: "Does Dr. Dobson believe the world was created in six literal 24-hour days?" I'm not sure whether Genesis refers to six 24-hour days or six 'eons,' or periods of time. I don't know. I certainly believe the Bible is literally true. I'm just not sure which interpretation of God's Word is accurate.
  Source: Letter quoted from in O Timothy magazine (Volume 12, Issue 12, 1995.)
  
  

On line work:

• Web Site - Focus On The Family

Author of:

• Book - Dare to Discipline
• Book - The Strong-Willed Child
• Book - Bringing Up Boys
• Book - What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women

Brief Background:  Dr. Don England is the distinguished professor of chemistry at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. England has taught for four decades in Harding's Physical Science Department, which he chaired from 1988-1995, leaving only for three years to obtain his Ph.D. from the University of Mississippi. He was appointed to full professor in 1971 and was designated Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in 1983. His research has appeared in such publications as the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Education, and the Annals of Arkansas Academy of Science. He has authored three books: A Christian View of Origins; A Scientist Examines Faith and Evidence; and God, Are You Really There? and is a member of the American Chemical Society, The Arkansas Academy of Science, and Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society. Known for his expertise and scholarship in the classroom, England continues to hold the reputation of being one of the most demanding professors on campus. He has also been the heart and soul of Harding's premedical program, helping prepare thousands of students for medical schools throughout the country.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• However, nowhere does a Biblical writer give us an age for earth or an age for life on earth... Inasmuch as Scripture does not state how old the earth is or how long life has existed on earth, one is free to accept, if he wishes, the conclusions of science.
  Source: Book - A Scientist Examines Faith and Evidence (1983 p 155-156)
  
  
• In March 1982, Dr. England lectured to a group of young people in Memphis, Tennessee. During that series, he told these youngsters that although he had spent a lifetime searching for “proof ” that the days of Genesis 1 were 24-hour days, he never had found any.
  Source: Article - What is the Multiple Gap Theory? (Apologetics Press Article accessed Aug 30 2006)
  
  

Author of:

• Book - A Christian View Of Origins
• Book - God, Are You Really There?
• Book - A Scientist Examines Faith And evidence

Brief Background:  A world-renowned scholar and highly respected theologian, Millard Erickson joined the faculty of Truett Seminary in fall 1996. His degrees include: BA from University of Minnesota, BD from Northern Baptist Seminary, MA from University of Chicago, and a PhD from Northwestern University. Much in demand as a speaker and conference leader, Erickson also is a prolific writer. His most recent publications include Does It Matter How I Live?; The Evangelical Mind and Heart: Perspectives on Theological and Practical Issues; God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Understanding of the Trinity; and Where Is Theology Going? Issues and Perspectives on the Future of Theology. Erickson also is the author of one of the most frequently used theology textbooks, The Christian Theology, for which he received the Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. At Truett, he teaches specialized courses and counsels students.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [In his book Christian Theology, the view Erickson finds most satisfactory is a variation of the age-day theory. Erickson states that there are too many exegetical difficulties with the gap theory, while the flood theory involves too great a strain on the geological evidence. He continues with outlining the difficulties with the other theories and concludes:]
  
  While the age-day theory seems the most plausible conclusion at present, we cannot be dogmatic. The age of the universe is a topic which demands continued study and thought.
  Source: Book - Christian Theology (1983 p 382)
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Christian Theology
• Book - Introducing Christian Doctrine
• Book - Making Sense of the Trinity
• Book - The Postmodern World

Brief Background: Dr. Robert Gange is a research scientist, certified professional engineer, and adjunct professor. He was on staff for over 25 years at the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, New Jersey. His experience includes guided missle technology, holographic memories, computer systems, image processing , and electron devices. Educated in five universities (Ph.D. 1978 for extensive research on the application of cryophysics to information systems), he has made pioneering contributions in several scientific fields, has published numerous papers and is a member of several professional societies including the New York and New Jersey academies of science. Dr. Gange has received numerous corporate awards, has been honored nine separate occasions by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and holds over thirty base patents with foreign filings in over twenty-three countries.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• In the Big Bang theory, our hands were tied because we could not go back in time to the actual beginning. A small impenetrable interval of time, called a `Planck time' separated us from seeing the true beginning. But the New Inflationary Theory frees us from this limitation and gives us a picture of the universe from the moment it unfolded. Were we to condense its implications into one sentence, it would be this: The universe seems to have come into existence out of nothing. That's right; out of nothing.
  Source: Book - Origins and Destiny (1986 p 19)
  
  
• Scientists start to conclude that the universe is billions of years old because they are finding objects whose light is reaching us now, which must have taken one to four billions of years to reach us. Is the universe said to be billions of years old only on the basis of light reaching us from space? The answer to that is "No." There are other ways that scientists measure the age of the universe.
  ...
  When you take a look at these 3 independent techniques: the Doppler Red Shift, with all of the galaxies moving away from each other; globular clusters, where the stars leave the main sequence on a chart; and nuclear pronometers, these radioactive clocks based on the emission of particles from the center of atoms, they all roughly give us a range between ten billion and fifteen billion years.
  
  Three independent techniques date the universe at approximately 10 to 15 billion years. Is this a problem with respect to the Bible as some Christians seem to feel it may be? The answer to that is certainly "No."
  Source: Article - The Fingerprints Of God: The Origin of the Universe
  
  
• MIRACLE OF BIG BANG
  
  What is astonishing is that one second after creation, space-time curvature was neither open nor closed, but flat to within one part in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion. This means that:
  
  (a) the spacial and energy distribution of the mass;
  (b) the total amount of mass;
  (c) all of the physical properties of this mass;
  (d) the way that mass unfolded within space-time curvature--
  
  All of this must have occurred with miraculous precision. Stated differently, it teaches that our universe was tuned at inception to better than one part in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion!
  
  Let me summarize this in as simple a way that I can by examining the question: "What does the Big Bang theory imply?"
  
  The answer has four parts:
  
  (1) Our world had a beginning;
  (2) Space-time's fabric arose from nothing;
  (3) It was supernaturally tuned at inception to better than 10 multiplied by itself sixty times;
  (4) The Bible proved trustworthy.
  Source: Article - Is Big Bang Biblical?
  
  
• I was interviewed on television a while ago, and was asked "Are you a creationist?" I said, "Well, if being a creationist means that the earth is 6,000 years old, I'm going to have to say no. I'm not a creationist.
  Source: Article - The Fingerprints Of God: The Origin of Man
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Question Of Earth's Age
• Article - The Fingerprints Of God: The Origin of the Universe
• Article - The Fingerprints Of God: The Origin of Man
• Article - What Are The Creation Days?
• Article - Sun, Moon & Stars
• Article - The Time Of Creation
• Article - Is Big Bang Biblical?

Author of:

• Book - Origins and Destiny: A Scientist Examines God's Handiwork
• Video - Scientist Looks At Creation (1992)

Brief Background:  Dr. Norman Geisler is author or coauthor of some fifty books and hundreds of articles. He has taught at the university and graduate level for forty three years and has spoken or debated in all fifty states and in twenty-five countries. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Loyola University and now serves as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Of course, there are many Creationists who argue for an old earth. Biblically, this position that the word for day is used for more than twenty-four hours even in Genesis 2:4, the events of the sixth day surely took more than twenty-four hours, and Hebrews 4:4?5 implies that God is still in His seventh-day rest. If the seventh day can be long, then the others could too. Scientifically, this view does not require any novel theories to explain the evidence. One of the biggest problems for the young earth view is in astronomy. We can see light from stars that took 15 billion years to get here. To say that God created them with the appearance of age does not satisfy the question of how their light reached us. We have watched star explosions that happened billions of years ago, but if the universe is not billions of years old, then we are seeing light from stars that never existed?because they would have died before Creation. Why would God deceive us with the evidence? The old earth view seems to fit the evidence better and causes no problem with the Bible.
  Source: Book - When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook of Christian Evidence (page 22 9)
  
  
• Creation and Time is the best book on this topic in print. It is a must for anyone interested in the conflict between science and Scripture. Dr. Ross' pleas to overzealous 'young earthers' not to make the age of the earth a test of orthodoxy is long overdue.
  Source: An endorsement of Creation and Time by Hugh Ross - Next to last paragraph under Book Description
  
  
• The creationist points to the evidence for the Second Law of Thermodynamics that the universe is running down as evidence that it had a beginning along with the other evidence for the Big Bang theory. This, combined with the principle of causality, yields the conclusion that:
  
  1. The cosmos had a beginning.
  2. Everything that begins had a cause.
  3. Therefore, the cosmos had a cause (see Kalam Cosmological Argument).
  Source: Book - Baker encyclopedia of Christian apologetics, Geisler, N. L. 1999
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Need For Defending The Faith

Author of:

• Book - When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties
• Book - Inerrancy
• Book - Christian Apologetics

Brief Background:  John CL Gibson is former professor of Old Testament studies at the University of Edinburgh. His many publications include editions of Semitic texts and commentaries on Genesis and Job (The Daily Study Bible series). He served as president of the Society for Old Testament Study in 1984 and is presently auxiliary minister of St. Philip's Church, Joppa.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• ...this argument begins with an attempt to go beyond the literal meaning and to take the week assigned to Creation as a parable of a much longer period, it is to be commended.
  Source: Book - Genesis (Daily Study Bible (Westminster Hardcover)), vol. 1 (p 55)
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Genesis (Daily Study Bible (Westminster Hardcover))
• Book - Language and Imagery in the Old Testament
• Book - Job (OT Daily Study Bible Series)
• Book - Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscription: Vol 1, Hebrew and Moabite Inscriptions

Brief Background: Dr. Godfrey has taught church history at Westminster Seminary California since 1981, having previously taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Stanford University, and Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Currently he serves as the third President of Westminster Seminary California and is a minister in the United Reformed Churches.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• A fresh look at Genesis 1 must begin by recognizing the variety of views that have existed among conservatives up to our time. Orthodox scholars have taken several different interpretive approaches to this part of the Bible in the history of the church, especially in relation to the days of creation. In broad terms we can say that there are two basic views. The first and dominant view, which we will call the traditional view, sees the days of Genesis 1 as twenty-four-hour days. The other view understands the days of creation as figurative or literary expressions. This second view takes several different forms. Augustine, who taught that God had created all instantaneously, believed that the days represent God¹s progressive illumination of the darkness of our understanding. Other interpreters have understood the days to stand for long periods of time. This view is often called the day-age interpretation. Still others see the days as providing a framework, which is not really chronological, for the relationships between elements of creation.This view is often called the framework interpretation. Whatever interpretation one takes of the days of Genesis 1, most of what follows in this book should be acceptable to all those who believe that the Bible is the revelation of God.
  Sorce: Book - W. Robert Godfrey, God's Pattern for Creation: A Covenantal Reading of Genesis 1 (2003, pp 15-16).
  
  
• How does Genesis use the word day in its early verses? That question is important since the days of creation are the most apparent part of the structure Moses gave to the introduction of Genesis. It is also important since many people today argue that it is obvious that the word day must mean a twenty-four-hour day in Genesis 1. We need to see that the word day is used in as many as seven different ways in the short space of Genesis 1:1-2:4. First, 'day' in Genesis 1:5 means daylight - in our experience twelve hours, not twenty-four hours. Second, later in that same verse 'day' means the whole day of evening and morning, apparently twenty-four hours long. Third, the first three days of Genesis 1 - at least according to the traditional interpretation - are distinct as presolar days. We cannot know with certainly how long such days would be. Fourth, the solar days after the creation of the sun are another use of the word day. Fifth, the seventh day of Genesis 2:1-3 is at least described differently from the other days in that evening and morning are not mentioned relation to is. Sixth, in Hebrew the numerals of the sixth and seventh days are preceded by the definite article, whereas there are no definite articles preceding the numerals for the other days....Finally, and significantly, Genesis 2:4...the word day stands for the whole period of the creative activity of God. This use of the word 'day' is particularly significant because it shows that in summarizing the work of creation at the beginning of the first of the generations in Genesis, Moses says the creation took place in a day.
  Source: Book - W. Robert Godfrey, God's Pattern for Creation: A Covenantal Reading of Genesis 1 (2003, pp 69-70).
  
  

On line work:

• Article - What Do We Mean by Sola Scriptura?
• Article - The TV Church

Author of:

• Book - God's Pattern for Creation: A Covenantal Reading of Genesis 1

Brief Background: Guillermo Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Iowa State University, He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy in 1993 from the University of Washington. He has done post-doctoral work at the University of Texas, Austin and at the University of Washington and has received fellowships, grants and awards from such institutions as NASA, the University of Washington, Sigma Xi (scientific research society) and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Gonzalez has extensive experience in observing and analyzing data from ground-based observatories, including work at McDonald Observatory, Apache Point Observatory and Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory. He has also published over sixty articles in refereed astronomy and astrophysical journals and captured the October 2001 cover story of Scientific American.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• How does the Sun’s metallicity (high relative to stars without planets and low relative to stars with planets) affect life on Earth? Assuming the Sun and its planets formed together from the same molecular cloud about 4.6 billion years ago, then the metallicity of that birth cloud supplied a very important initial condition to the formation of the planet-for Earth is made almost entirely of metals. If a lesser metal abundance were available early on, smaller terrestrial planets would have resulted.
  Sorce: Article - Rare Sun
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Rare Sun
• Article - Design Update: How Wide the Life Zone?
• Article - Home Alone in the Universe
• Article - Alien Intelligences?: Think Again

Author of:

• Book - The Privileged Planet (video produced as well)

Brief Background: Billy Graham is the conservative pioneer of evangelical revivalism. Graham is highly insistent on inerrancy. Mr. Graham has preached the Gospel to more people in live audiences than anyone else in history -- over 210 million people in more than 185 countries and territories -- through various meetings, including Mission World and Global Mission. Hundreds of millions more have been reached through television, video, film and webcasts. Since the 1949 Los Angeles Crusade vaulted Mr. Graham into the public eye, he has led hundreds of thousands of individuals to make personal decisions to live for Christ, which is the main thrust of his ministry. Billy was Ordained in 1939 by a church in the Southern Baptist Convention, Mr. Graham received a solid foundation in the Scriptures at Florida Bible Institute (now Trinity College in Florida). In 1943 he graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois. He has also authored 25 books. His writings include an autobiography (Just As I Am), theological books (Angels, The Holy Spirit, Death and the Life Hereafter, and devotional works (Hope for the Troubled Heart). His book How to Be Born Again and tract Steps to Peace with God have led many to Christ. Graham is semi-retired and has been succeeded by his son, Franklin Graham (author of Rebel with a Cause).

Old Earth Quote(s):

• I don't think that there's any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God.
  - Billy Graham quoted by David Frost
  Source: Book - Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man (1997, p. 72-74)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Justification by faith

Author of:

• Book - Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham
• Book - Death and the Life After
• Book - Angels

Brief Background: (1825- 1900) Presbyterian theologian. Educated at Lafayette College (A.B., 1840) and Princeton Theological Seminary (1846). In 1848 he was ordained and became pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in 1849. In 1851 he bacame professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. He wrote extensively and almost exclusively in his field of specialization and until his death was chairman of the Old Testament section of the committee that produced the American Revised Version (1901) of the Bible. In 1868 he was elected president of Princeton University but declined to accept. In 1891 he served as the moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Like his other 'Old' Princeton colleagues, he was firmly committed to the divine inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. He was resolute in his opposition to the mounting influence of biblical criticism in America. Among his contemporaries he took the lead in refuting the documentary hypothesis of the origin of the Pentateuch. These emphases were reflected in his two-volume General Introduction to the Old Testament (1898) and The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch (1895).

Old Earth Quote(s):

• It should be remarked here that no computation of time is ever built in the Bible upon this or any other genealogy. There is no summation of the years from Adam to Noah, or from Noah to Abraham, as there is of the abode in Egypt (Ex. xii. 40), or of the period from the exodus to the building of the temple (l Kin. vi. 1). And as the received chronologies and the generally accepted date of the flood and of the creation of the world are derived from computations based on these genealogies, it ought to be remembered that this is a very precarious mode of reckoning. This genealogy could only afford a safe estimate of time on the assumption that no links are missing and that every name in the line of descent has been recorded. But this we have no right to take for granted. The analogy of other biblical genealogies is decidedly against it. Very commonly unimportant names are omitted; sometimes several consecutive names are dropped together. No one has a right, therefore, to denominate a primeval chronology so constructed the biblical chronology and set it in opposition to the deductions of science, and thence conclude that there is a conflict between the Bible and science.
  Source: Book - The Uunity Of The book Of Genesis (1895 p 49-50)
  
  

On line work:

• Book - The Uunity Of The book Of Genesis

Author of:

• Book - The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch
• Book - Conflict and Triumph: The Argument of the Book of Job Unfolded
• Book - The Pentateuch Vindicated From The Aspersions Of Bishop Colenso
• Book - A Hebrew Chrestomathy
• Book - The Hebrew Feasts
• Book - Moses And The Prophets

Brief Background:  Dr. Hamiltons education consists of:M.A., Ph.D. Brandeis University, 1969/1971 (Mediterranean Studies); B.D., Th.M. Asbury Theological Seminary, 1966/1967 (Biblical Studies); B.A. Houghton College, 1963 (Biblical and Pre-Ministerial). He has taught at Asbury College in the Department of Bible and Theology since 1971. Over that time he has preached and taught in numerous local churches, retreats, family Bible conferences, camp meetings, revivals, and pastors' conferences. Dr. Hamilton was a member of the translation team of the New King James Version. Nelson, 1981, as well as a member of the translation team of the New Living Translation. Tyndale House Publishers, 1997.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [Hamilton treats the 'days' of creation as analogies and appeals to a "literary reading"]
  
  A literary reading of Gen 1. still permits the retention of “day as a solar day of 24 hours. But it understands “day” not as a chronological account of how many hours God invested in his creating project, but as an analogy of God’s creative activity. God reveals himself in a medium which they can identify and which they can comprehend.
  Source: Book - The Book of Genesis (New International Commentary on the Old Testament Series 1-17) (1990, p 55-56)
  
  

Author of:

• Book - The Book of Genesis (New International Commentary on the Old Testament Series 1-17)
• Book - The Book of Genesis (New International Commentary on the Old Testament Series 18-50)
• Book - Handbook on the Pentateuch

Brief Background: Hank Hanegraaff (b. 1950) - conservative evangelical known to radio listeners as "The Bible Answer Man." president of Christian Research Institute, which focuses on exposing doctrinal error and warning against aberrant religious groups. Hanegraaff is known for applying memory techniques to apologetics. Among his books are Christianity in Crisis, Counterfeit Revival, The FACE that Demonstrates the Farce of Evolution, The Third Day, Fatal Flaws, and 99 Reasons Why No One Knows When Christ Will Return.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The question of whether the earth is 4.5 billion years old (as modern geology affirms) or roughly 10,000 years old (as some evangelical scientists and theologians are now maintaining) hinges largely on whether the "days" of Genesis chapter one are to be taken as indicating literal 24-hour days or as poetic references to indefinite periods of time. An analysis of the biblical material reveals that the answer to this is not eminently clear, and that some justification can be found for both positions.
  Source: Article - CRI Statement DA060: Age Of Creation
  
  
• The truth is that the scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports creation. Let me attempt to point out just some of this evidence here. First, the scientific community is now almost unanimous in affirming that the universe had a beginning. This is usually referred to in scientific terms as “The Big Bang Theory.” Of course, this implies that someone or som thing brought the universe into existence.
  Source: Article - CRI Statement CP0103: Evidence For Creation?
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Christian Research Institute Articles
• Radio - Bible Answer Man Archives

Author of:

• Book - The Bible Answer Book
• Book - Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction
• Book - Counterfeit Revival
• Book - The Face That Demonstrates The Farce Of Evolution
• Book - Christianity in Crisis

Brief Background: Dr. R Laird Harris has a M.A. from University of Pennsylvania, a B.S.from University of Delaware, a Th.B. and ThM. from Westminster Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Dropsie University. Biblical exegesis has been Dr. Harris's field and he taught this for twenty years at Faith Theological Seminary, first as instructor (1937 - 1943), then as assistant professor (1943 - 1947) and finally as professor (1947 - 1956). He then became one of the founding faculty members of Covenant Theological Seminary. He was professor there and chairman of the Old Testament department from 1956 until he retired from full-time teaching in 1981. Harris has not only been a teacher and church leader, but an author as well. He has published his Introductory Hebrew Grammar, the prize-winning Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible, and additional works such as Your Bible and Man--God's Eternal Creation. He was editor of The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament and a contributing editor to the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, and has written articles for the Wycliffe Bible Commentary and Expositor's Bible. He also served as chairman of the Committee on Bible Translation that produced the New International Version.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [He lays out his day age theory in “The Length of the Creative Days in Genesis 1,” in Did God Create in Six Days? pp. 101–111.]
  
  Just as Galileo recognized that the heliocentric view of our solar system was not contrary to Scripture, so we may hold that the long-day theory fits the words of Gen 1:1-2:3 without compromising in any way the full inspiration of the Bible. Our infinite God chose words that, when rightly interpreted, would not contradict modern theories of great age for the universe if those theories are, or eventually prove to be, correct. Dogmatism on the interpretation of such ancient literature in not justifiable.
  Source: Book -The Length of the Creative Days in Genesis 1 (Mar 2005 p 105)
  
  
• [He also depicts day age theory in his book "Man--God's eternal creation"]
  Source: Book -Man--God's Eternal Creation (1971 p 47)
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
• Book - Introductory Hebrew Grammar
• Book - The Bible And Cosmology
• Book - Man--God's Eternal Creation
• Book - You and Your Bible
• Book - Exploring the Basics of the Bible
• Book - Inspiration and Canonicity of the Scriptures
• Book - Fundamental Protestant Doctrines

Brief Background: Jack Hayford (b. 1934) - founding pastor of the Church on the Way, a Foursquare Gospel church. Also founder and chancellor of the King's Seminary. Hayford hosts the Living Way TV and radio programs and has composed many choruses based on charismatic theology. His books include Answering the Call to Evangelism, Fearless Faith, How to Live through a Bad Day, The Beauty of Spiritual Language, The Spirit-Formed Church, Praying in the Spirit, and His Majesty, His Servant. He also produced the Spirit-Filled Life Bible and The Hayford Bible Handbook.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [Introductory comments for an old earth creationism presentation]
  
  One of the issues that face spiritual leaders today is how are we going to relate to an increasingly scientifically brainwashed society, that is very very prejudiced against the word of God because it presumes that there is no meeting place between the Bible and the revelation of God in His creation. And obviously these will not be at sword points with one another any more than you can find issolated texts in the Bible that may seem to argue against one another , but don't if you know it all. If you know all the Word it fits. And the more we understand about the realm of the physical creation, the more we'll see that what is discovered, more and more, examined and pursued, by, unprejudiced scientists, more and more, it reveals the greatness of God, and does not conflict with His Word...
  
  But there is a very real, a very real, point of conflict that has been created in much of the church. Because of attitudes of biggeted, as often times prejudiced position is self righteous, if you don't believe in creationism THIS WAY then you are not a Bible believer, that's simply not true. And the this way that they are describing is usually called the young earth approach...
  
  To go the distance, we need to not let ourselves be cornered by small mindedness at any point, such as ones I gave examples of. If you should be here today and you hold the position that I cited as seeming, to my view untenable in our times, you probably wouldn't be here if you held the biggeted attitude of some that I've described. I want to say that if any hold such a postiion this is not presented as though we were endorsing this as an opponent to every other position. I personnaly believe this is the most viable approach.
  Source: Introduction - Hugh Ross Introduction (11/05/2002)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Creation Shall Praise Him
• Article - I Believe In The Resurrection
• Article - Worthy Worship
• Article - The Sabbath Question

Author of:

• Book - The Trinity
• Book - Worship His Majesty
• Book - I'll Hold You in Heaven

Brief Background: Science writer Fred Heeren has devoted the last seven years to a quest to get to the bottom of life's big questions. As a skeptic, he has carried out the task, not by visiting gurus, but by looking at the pieces of evidence from science and history that bear on questions about the ultimate purpose—or meaninglessness—of the universe. Not trusting his studies of the scientific discoveries alone, Heeren has gone directly to the discoverers themselves: Nobel prize-winning astronomers, NASA team leaders, and theoretical physicists like Stephen Hawking and Alan Guth. Fred Heeren serves as editor of the quarterly journal, Cosmic Pursuit, a magazine for people who want to explore and debate the ultimate questions raised by science. He speaks at astronomy conventions, participates in debates, and talks to groups that are interested in hearing more about the latest evidence for the intelligent design of our cosmos. The world's only cosmic reporter lives with his wife and five children in Olathe, Kansas.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• A Skeptic’s Questions
  
  How am I supposed to take you Bible believers seriously when so many of you say that the universe was created within the last 10,000 years, in obvious contradiction to the facts of science?
  
  A Believer's Response
  
  The fact that so many Christians believe that may be more of a cultural phenomenon than any sign of what the Bible actually teaches. I won’t deny that there’s a conflict between science and traditional beliefs among many Christians, but as I can show, there’s no conflict with the Bible itself.
  Source: Article - The Bible and the Big Bang
  
  
• The Big Bang’s Harmony with Your Witness
  
  For Christians, talking about the stability produced by an expanding universe and the tremendous time and care God took to prepare the world for us can be a natural way to bring God into a conversation. However, advancing the young earth view poses a serious stumbling block to many who fear they must subscribe to it in order to believe the Bible. Reasonable people who have some knowledge of science will tend to dismiss your gospel along with your geology. How much better it is to present facts that witness rather than private interpretations that scare unbelievers away.
  Source: Article - The Bible and the Big Bang
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Bible and the Big Bang
• Article - How Old and How Big Is the Universe?
• Article - How Far Back in Time Can We Actually See?

Author of:

• Book - Show Me God: What the Message from Space Is Telling Us About God

Brief Background: Carl F.H. Henry (1913-2003) Carl Ferdinand Howard Henry was perhaps the leading American Evangelical theologian of the twentieth century. He is the father of the "new evangelicalism", founding editor of the magazine "Christianity Today", founder of Fuller Seminary, and helped launch of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942, and served on its Board of Administration.Carl F. H. Henry is the author of 38 books, the latest being The God of the Ages and the gods of this Age (Broadman Press). He has lectured and taught on campuses throughout the world.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The biblical record does not settle the uniqueness, antiquity, and unity of the human race... The fact that, after Genesis 1:1 the narrator deals with a mediate creation, which involves the actualizing of potentialities latent in the original creation, should caution us against the one-sided invocation of divine transcendence.
  Source: Book - Science and Religion, in Contemporary Evangelical Thought: A Survey, [1957] Baker: Grand Rapids MI, (1968, reprint, p.282)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Canonical Theology: An Evangelical Appraisal
• Interview - Interview
• Interview - Another interview:
• Address - November 9, 1968 to the Asia-South Pacific Congress on Evangelism (held in Singapore)

Author of:

• Book - The Origin of the Bible
• Book - The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism
• Book - God, Revelation and Authority
• Book - Wycliffe Dictionary of Christian Ethics
• Book - Baker's Dictionary of Theology
• Book - Revelation and the Bible
• Book - Gods of This Age Or... God of the Ages?

Brief Background: (1797-1878) Famous biblical commentator. American theologian, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 28th of December 1797. Graduated in 1819 from the Princeton Theological seminary, where he became an instructor in 1820. In 1821, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. He died at Princeton on the ~9th of June 1878. Hodge was one of the greatest of American theologians.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Nature is as truly a revelation of God as the Bible; and we only interpret the Word of God by the Word of God when we interpret the Bible by science. As this principle is undeniably true, it is admitted and acted on by those who, through inattention to the meaning of terms, in words deny it. When the Bible speaks of the foundations, or of the pillars of the earth, or of the solid heavens, or of the motion of the sun, do not you and every other sane man, interpret this language by the facts of science? For five thousand years the Church understood the Bible to teach that the earth stood still in space, and that the sun and stars revolved around it. Science has demonstrated that this is not true. Shall we go on to interpret the Bible so as to make it teach the falsehood that the sun moves around the earth, or shall we interpret it by science, and make the two harmonize? Of course, this rule works both ways. If the Bible cannot contradict science, neither can science contradict the Bible…There is a two-fold evil on this subject against which it would be well for Christians to guard. There are some good men who are much too ready to adopt the opinions and theories of scientific men, and to adopt forced and unnatural interpretations of the Bible, to bring it to accord with these opinions. There are others, who not only refuse to admit the opinions of men, but science itself, to have any voice in the interpretation of Scripture. Both of these errors should be avoided.
  Source: Book - The Bible In Science, New York Observer, Mar, 26, 1863, pp. 98-99.
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Protestant Rule Of Faith

Author of:

• Book - Systematic Theology
• Book - Commentary on Epistle to the Romans

Brief Background: Past editor at Mission Frontiers. Founder of Sonlight Curriculum for home schoolers. Recent convert of openess to OEC.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• My point is simply this: that what many Young-Earth advocates believe is an “obvious” interpretation of Scripture may be wrong. While it is clearly “obvious” to them, it is not so obvious to others! Indeed, some very different interpretations are “obvious” to others...
  Source: Article - Young- and Old-Earth Creationists: Can we even talk together?
  
  
• I ask these questions because it is this kind of behavior I find too many homeschoolers engaging in as they listen to the Young-Earth creationists. When YEC speakers brand Old-Earth creationists as unbiblical, and when they associate OECs’ positions with those held by people of unsavory character, far too many homeschoolers are ready to accept the YEC speakers’ statements as “gospel,” without evaluating carefully whether they are even valid.
  Source: Article - Young- and Old-Earth Creationists: Can we even talk together?
  
  
• Therefore, I believe, not only is it a grave injustice to those dedicated brothers and sisters who are engaged in scientific research, but it is a grave mistake for any of us to suggest that we cannot, or ought not, to use science to help us interpret the Scriptures or to do the work of God.
  Source: Article - Young- and Old-Earth Creationists: Can we even talk together?
  
  
• I believe the Old-Earth creationists would have every bit as much right, if they wanted, to say that they are no more "compromising" than their Young-Earth creationist brethren who are not also geocentrists. “On what grounds are you willing to reject the ‘obvious’ meaning of the Scripture passages that ‘teach’ geocentrism?” the Old-Earthers might ask. “If it is modern science that has led you to reject a literal interpretation of those numerous portions of Scripture that ‘obviously’ teach geocentrism, why are you unwilling to permit the same science to lead you to at least consider alternative (i.e., in this case, Old-Earth) interpretations of Genesis 1-11 without branding them as unScriptural?”
  Source: Article - Young- and Old-Earth Creationists: Can we even talk together?
  
  
• Psalm 102:25 says the foundations of the earth were laid “of old.” Elsewhere we read that the heavens are “of old.” What does “of old” mean? Six thousand years? Maybe. Micah 5:2, however, seems to suggest that it could be a bit longer than six thousand years.
  Source: Article - Young- and Old-Earth Creationists: Can we even talk together?
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Young- and Old-Earth Creationists: Can we even talk together?
• Article - How Do You Determine Biblical Dates?
• Article - God’s Purpose in World History

Author of:

• Book - Dating With Integrity

Brief Background: Colin Humphreys is a Christian, a physicist, and serves as; the Goldsmith's Professor of Materials Science at the University of Cambridge since 1990, Professor of Experimental Physics at the Royal Institution in London, the Director of the Rolls-Royce-Cambridge University Technology Centre at Cambridge and also the Director of the Cambridge-Thomas Swan Centre for Gallium Nitride (a material which emits brilliant light). He was the President of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining for the two years 2002 – 2003. He is now the Chairman of its Managing Board. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and is a member of the John Templeton Foundation. Professor Humphreys has conducted creative and original work on semi-conductors, electron microscopy, ceramic super-conductors and inter-metallic compounds and has received eight awards recognizing his contributions to the field of materials science. He is the author of more than 450 publications and is a member of several UK National committees in the materials field. He is on the Editorial Board of seven high quality international journals, including Journal of the Physics and Chemistry of Solids and the Journal of Materials Science - Materials in Electronics. He is Editor-in-chief of Reports on Progress in Physics. He was recently honoured by the Queen with the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for his services to science research and communication. He has also writtten a book of great interest for inquiring Christians namely, "The Miracles of Exodus" where he provides evidence for the veracity of the Exodus account and deatils possible scientific explanations for some of the Old Testament miracles. He also believes the true Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments, is not in the Sinai Peninsula, but in Saudi Arabia. The mountain Professor Humphreys identifies as the true Mount Sinai (the volcanic Mount Bedr) does seem to fit the biblical description of Mount Sinai in detail.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• I believe that radioactive dating methods may not be as accurate as many people claim, but nevertheless I believe they are sufficiently accurate to show that our earth really is very old.
  Source: E-mail - Response to the direct question of the age of the earth by the author of this paper Oct 03, 2005
  
  
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Star of Bethlehem
• Article - The Date of the Crucifixion
• Transcript - Can Scientists Believe in Miracles - lecture on 2nd March 2004 in at Trinity College, Cambridge Ma.
• Audio - Can Scientists Believe in Miracles - lecture on 2nd March 2004 in at Trinity College, Cambridge Ma.

Author of:

• Book - The Miracles of Exodus
  Can physics explain miracles? (Physics Web Review of "The miracles of Exodus")
• Book - Studies in Christianity and Science: Creation and Evolution

Brief Background: Lee Irons has a B.A., University of California, Los Angeles, M.Div., Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and was an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He has authored, with Meredith G. Kline, a defense of the framework interpretation in, The Genesis Debate: Three Views on the Days of Creation, ed. by David G. Hagopian (Crux Press, forthcoming). He also has written articles for publications such as Modern Reformation, Reformation and Revival, Kerux, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, and Ordained Servant.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• I will state at the outset that I find the empirical evidence for an old earth and universe to be compelling, if not incontrovertible. And I believe that this evidence is consistent with a firm commitment to the authoritative, inspired, and inerrant Word of God.
  Source: Article - Animal Death Before the Fall: What Does the Bible Say?
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Animal Death Before the Fall: What Does the Bible Say?
• Article - Framework Interpretation: An Exegetical Summary
• Article - Some Common Theonomic Arguments
• Article - Paul's Theology of Israel's Future
• Article - The Reformed Theocrats: A Biblical Theological Response
• Article - Righteousness for the Unrighteous
• Article - The Law-Gospel Contrast in Lutheranism, Dispensationalism, and Pauline Theology
• Article - The Sabbath as an Eschatological Sign of the Covenant

Author of:

• Book - Christian Body Politic: 21st Century Reformed Christian Perspectives On Church And State
• Book - The Genesis Debate : Three Views on the Days of Creation

Brief Background: Johnson was born in Aurora, Illinois in 1940. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature, from Harvard University in 1961. He studied law at the University of Chicago. He served as a law clerk for the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, Earl Warren. He is an emeritus professor of law at Boalt School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, where he served on the active faculty from 1967-2000. He is best known as the founder of the intelligent design movement and principal architect of the Wedge Strategy. He is one of the ID movement's most prolific authors and a serves as program director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC). Johnson has advocated strongly in the public and political spheres for the concepts of Intelligent Design; that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause. These concepts are a common theme in his many books, including "Darwin on Trial," "Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education," "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds," and "The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism." Johnson is a Christian and elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [In answer to the question: "Do you think the age of our planet is closer to 4000 million years or closer to 100,000 years?" by Richard Dawkins Johnson answered:]
  
  The former, but with the caveat that I have made no effort to investigate the subject personally and am merely accepting the current scientific consensus. In lectures, I tell the audience that I assume that the earth is about 4.6 billion years old.
  Source: Article - Phillip Johnson's Weekly Wedge Update(July 9, 2001)
  
  
• I am not interested in any claims that are based upon a literal reading of the Bible, nor do I understand the concept of creation as narrowly as Duane Gish does. If an omnipotent Creator exists He might have created things instantaneously in a single week or through gradual evolution over billions of years. ... The essential point of creation has nothing to do with timing or the mechanism the Creator chose to employ, but with the element of design or purpose. ... a 'creationist' is simply a person who believes that the world (and especially mankind) was designed and exists for a purpose.
  Source: Book - Darwin on Trial(pg 113)
  
  
• I am a philosophical theist and a Christian. I believe that God exists who could create out of nothing if He wanted to do so, but who might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary process instead. I am not a defender of creation-science and in fact I am not concerned in this book with addressing any conflicts between the Biblical accounts and the scientific evidence.
  Source: Book - Darwin on Trial(pg 14)
  
  
• According to this survey, approximately 47 percent of Americans can be described as creationists, in that they say they believe that God created mankind in pretty much our present form sometime within the last 10,000 years. ... Those who regard Scripture as more authoritative than scientific theories, and who are confident that they know the correct way to interpret it, may choose to defend the Genesis account as literally true and employ scientific argument to discredit the alternatives. Fundamentalist creationists of this kind make up perhaps half of the 47 percent that the Gallup poll defined as creationist. Unfortunately, the commitment of this large group to a literal interpretation of Genesis has confused and divided the Christian world, and even played into the hands of the evolutionary naturalists. Darwinists assiduously promote the notion that the only possible alternatives are six-day Genesis literalism on the one hand, and fully naturalistic, neo-Darwinistic evolution on the other. Given such an understanding of the alternatives, anyone who suspects that the cosmos may be billions of years old, or that life may have been created through some long-term process of development, becomes an "evolutionist" who by definition rejects "creationism." ... Darwinists have given the world the impression that the significant divide in public opinion about evolution is that between the Genesis literalists and everybody else. This is a sorry misunderstanding. For the fundamental disagreement is not over the age of the earth or the method of creation; it is over whether we owe our existence to a purposeful Creator or a blind materialistic process.
  Source: Article - Creator or Blind Watchmaker?
  
  
• [Dr. Eugenie C. Scott referring/describing Philip Johnson]
  
  Like many conservative Christians, Johnson is concerned with the implications of evolution. Although he states in his book that theistic evolution (evolution that is God-directed) is possible, he doubts it. He is not a young-earth creationist, and in fact, is almost contemptuous of their point of view. He accepts that the earth is old, but rejects evolution, thus he is perhaps describable as an old-earth creationist.
  Source: Article - Dr. Eugenie C. Scott Darwin Prosecuted: Review of Johnson's Darwin on Trial  Originally printed in Creation/Evolution (Issue Number 33, Winter 1993)
  
  
• For centuries, scriptural literalists have insisted that God created Heaven and Earth in seven days, that the world is about 6,000 years old and fossils are figments of the paleontological imagination. ... Now comes Johnson, a devout Presbyterian and accomplished legal theorist, and he doesn't dance on the head of biblical pins. He agrees the world is billions of years old and that dinosaurs walked the earth. Evolution is the bridge he won't cross.
  Source: Interview - Interview of Philip Johnson By Michael Powell Washington Post Staff Writer  (Sunday, May 15, 2005; Page D01)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Creator or Blind Watchmaker? (Reprinted from Reprinted from First Things, January 1993)
• Article - What is Darwinism?
• Article - Keeping the Darwinists Honest
• Article - Darwinists Squirm Under Spotlight
• Article - The Church of Darwin
• Article - The Religion of the Blind Watchmaker
• Article - Article Index
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Darwin on Trial
• Book - The Wedge of Truth
• Book - Reason in the Balance
• Book - Testing Darwinism
• Book - Darwinism Defeated?
• Book - Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds

Brief Background: Dr. Walter Kaiser is currently President of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and the Colman M. Mockler Distinguished Professor of Old Testament. His primary concerns are responsible Bible interpretation and eexpository preaching of the entire biblical message. His key doctrinal emphasis is the continuing relevance of the Old Testament. He is the author of numerous books including, Hard Sayings of the Old Testament, Toward an Old Testament Theology, The Messiah in the Old Testament, and, most recently, A History of Israel. He also served as editor for An Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• I would opt for the day-age theory, given all that must take place on the sixth "day" according to the Genesis record. Incidentally, this day-age view has been the majority view of the church since the fourth century, mainly through the influence of Saint Augustine.
  Source: Book - Hard Sayings of the Bible (1996, p. 104)
  
  
• he notes, contrary to claims by young earth creationists, that a simple reading of the text would lead the reader to the conclusion that the author is using the term ‘day’ with quite a bit of elasticity.
  Source: Book - Toward an Old Testament Theology (1991, p.74-75)
  
  

On line work:

• Interview - Creation Update, March 25, 2004
• Article - Hermeneutics And The Theological Task (Trinity Journal 12:1, Spring 1991, p.3–14)

Author of:

• Book - Hard Sayings of the Bible
• Book - Hard Sayings of the Old Testament
• Book - Toward an Old Testament Theology
• Book - The Messiah in the Old Testament
• Book - A History of Israel

Brief Background: Derek Kidner (M.A., A.R.C.M.) was formerly warden of Tyndale House at Cambridge University in England (Tyndale House is an unparalleled resource for biblical studies). He has written several volumes in the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary Series.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Our present knowledge of civilisation, e.g. at Jericho, goes back to at least 7000 BC, and of man himself very much further.... the chapter (Gen.5) neither adds its figures together nor gives the impression that the men it names overlapped each other to any usual extent.....note the three fourteens in Matthew 1.
  Source: Book - Genesis: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 1 in the series of Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, 1967)
  
  
• to corroborate the data of Scripture and nature is not to dishonour biblical authority, but to honour God as creator and to grapple with our proper task of interpreting his ways of speaking...
  Source: Book - Genesis: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 1 in the series of Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, 1967, p 31)
  
  
• He also also draws a comparisson with Psalm 90:4 (thousand years as a day) and the Genesis creation days]
  Source: Book - Genesis: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 1 in the series of Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, 1967, p 56)
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Genesis: an introduction and commentary, (Tyndale Old Testament commentaries)
• Book - Genesis (The Tyndale Old Testament Commentary Series)
• Book - Psalms 1-72 (The Tyndale Old Testament Commentary Series)
• Book - Psalms 73-150 (The Tyndale Old Testament Commentary Series)
• Book - The Wisdom of Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes: An Introduction to Wisdom Literature
• Book - Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: (Scripture Union Bible study books)

Brief Background: Meredith G. Kline is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He received his B.D. and Th.M. degrees from Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia) and his Ph.D. degree in Assyriology and Egyptology from Dropsie College. Professor Kline maintains an active writing and teaching ministry, serving at present on the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary in Escondido, California. He has taught Old Testament between these two universities for nearly 50 years. He is also an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The collection of essays in the recently-published Creator, Redeemer, Consummator, a festschrift written in honor of Dr. Kline, attests to the indelible influence his work has exerted on contemporary biblical and theological scholarship.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• In short, if the narrative sequence were intended to represent the chronological sequence, Genesis 1 would bristle with contradictions of what is revealed in Gen. 2:5. Our conclusion is then that the more traditional interpretations of the creation account are gilty not only of creating a conflict between the Bible and science but, in effect, of pitting Scripture against Scripture. The true harmony of Genesis 1 and Gen. 2:5 appears, however, and the false conflict between the Bible and science disappears, when we recognize that the creation "week" is a lower register metaphor for God's upper register creation-time and that the sequence of the "days" is ordered not chronologically but thematically.
  Source: Article - Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony (1996, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, vol. 48, no. 1, p. 2-15.)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony
• Article - Because It Had Not Rained

Author of:

• Book - The Genesis Debate : Three Views on the Days of Creation
• Book - Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview
• Book - The Structure of Biblical Authority

Brief Background: Greg received his B.A. in Bible from Azusa Pacific University, his Masters in Christian Apologetics from Simon Greenleaf University and is working on his Masters In Philosophy of Religion and Ethics at Talbot School of Theology. He hosts his own radio talk show advocating clear-thinking Christianity and defending the Christian world view.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• A young-universe creationist is in a very difficult spot. If he holds that God created the light in transit, he also has to hold that we have no way of knowing that anything further than 10,000 light years away actually exists. We can't see it. We're not seeing it; we're seeing an image that God created in transit. The light from it won't reach us for a billion years.
  Source: Article - Star Light & the Age of the Universe
  
  
• As an old-earther, I'm going to say that evidence for an ancient universe is in the heavens because scientific testing shows us that these stars are far away and their light takes a long time to reach us. Therefore, if we're seeing light from those stars, and they're a billion light years away, then those stars must have existed for at least a billion years.
  Source: Article - Star Light & the Age of the Universe
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Star Light & the Age of the Universe
• Article - Designed by Natural Selection

Author of:

• Book - Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air
• Book - Precious Unborn Human Persons

Brief Background: Famous apologist. Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland on November 29, 1898. He was attending Oxford college in 1917 when he joined the British army to fight in World War One. He was later wounded in the Battle of Arras. He returned to Oxford after the war. In 1925, he became Fellow of Language and Literature at Oxford. Lewis had always been an athiest but became a christian in 1931. He then became a prolific Christian writer. Lewis's books about christianity have been some of the most read books of our time. He also wrote fiction and was a person friend of J. R. R. Tolkien. Lewis died on November 22, 1963, the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [Even though C. S. Lewis was a theistic evolutionist it is notable that he firmly believed in an old earth.]
• I am not either attacking or defending Evolution. I believe that Christianity can still be believed, even if Evolution is true. This is where you and I differ.
  Source: The Acworth Letters - Letter of December 9, 1944
  
  
• I have read nearly the whole of Evolution [probably Acworth’s unpublished “The Lie of Evolution”] and am glad you sent it. I must confess it has shaken me: not in my belief in evolution, which was of the vaguest and most intermittent kind, but in my belief that the question was wholly unimportant. Source: The Acworth Letters - Letter of September 13, 1951
  
  
• The existence of pain in the animal kingdom especially troubled Lewis, who devoted an entire chapter to the subject in The Problem of Pain. Theologians, he noted, had previously attributed the origin of animal suffering to the Fall of man. But the scientific evidence that carnivorousness was “older than humanity” had led Lewis to conclude that evil had manifested itself long before Adam in the law of tooth and claw. To account for this fact, he postulated a hypothetical pre-Adamic fall, in which Satan corrupted the world and caused animals to live by preying on one another.
  Source: The Acworth Letters - Summary at Apologetics.org
  
  

Author of:

• Book - The Problem of Pain
• Book - Mere Christianity
• Book - Miracles

Brief Background: Dr. Timothy Lin was born to a minister’s family in Chekiang, China. He was taught to read the Bible when he was 6, began to preach when he was 15. He attended Central Theological Seminary of Nanking. He served as the pastor of Jubilee Church in Shanghai from 1934-1937. In 1938-39 he was principal of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Bible Institute of Kwangsi. In 1940 he came to the United States to study Hebrew and Greek at Concordia Theological Seminary and Washington University. During World War II, Dr. Lin was in charge of Bethel Orphanage as well as being the principal of Bethel High School. He was also the dean of Shanghai Bible College. After the war, Dr. Lin was invited to be the president of the East China Theological College of Hangchow. Then in 1948 he came again to the United States for advanced study, receiving a B.D. and S.T.M. from Faith Theological Seminary, then in Wilmington, Delaware, and a Ph.D. from the College of Hebrew and Cognate Learnings of Dropsie University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In addition, he holds several other earned and honorary degrees. Dr. Lin was a member of one of the Old Testament translation committees for the New American Standard Bible. He was also a professor in the graduate school of Bob Jones University, in South Carolina, where he taught Systematic Theology, Biblical Theology, Old Testament Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, Classic Arabic, and Peshitta Syriac. Moreover, he was a professor at Talbot Seminary, Los Angeles, and Trinity Evangelical Seminary, Chicago, and the president of China Evangelical Seminary in Taiwan. Dr. Lin has also been a popular teacher and Bible conference speaker, being in great demand by ministers, teachers, and church leaders for training in biblical interpretation and church growth in the Far East as well as in North America.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• No one knows how long the earth had been desolate and covered with water before God began His recreation. The period of time in Genesis 1:2 could have been a long one, since a thousand years in His sight are but as yesterday or as a atch in the night.
  Source: Book - Source: Genesis A Biblical Theology (p 41-42)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Genuineness And Mosaic Authorship Of Genesis
• Article - The Inspiration And Inerrancy Of The Bible

Author of:

• Book - Genesis A Biblical Theology
• Book - HOW THE Holy Spirit Works In Believers’ Lives Today
• Book - The Kingdom and What It Means to the Life of the Believer

Brief Background:  Paul Eagleson Little was born to Robert J. Little (of Moody Bible Institute) and Margaret Eagelson on December 30, 1928, in Philadelphia. He married Marie Huttenlock in 1953. They adopted 2 children, Deborah Ann (1957) and Paul Robert, Jr. (1958). His education consists of a BS in 1950 from the University of Pennsylvania, a MA in Biblical Literature from Wheaton College in 1958, and was a PhD candidate at New York University in 1975 when he died in an automobile accident. Some of his notable positions include numerous posts with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, Assistant Professor of Evangelism at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Director of the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization for Billy Graham, and served on the board of Trustees for Wheaton College. Paul had a vary prolific career - he was one of the leading evangelical writers and speakers of 60s and 70s, many of his books are still in circulation.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• In the light of all these things we can conclude with Ramm's statement: "Genesis 1 now stands in higher repute than it could ever have stood in the history of science up to this point. We now have means whereby we can point to a moment of time, or to an event or cluster of events in time, which dates our present known universe. According to the best available data, that is of the order of four to five billion years ago. A series of calculations converge on about the same order of time. We cannot with our present information force a verdict for creation from the scientists, though that is not to be considered an impossibility. Perhaps the day will come when we have enough evidence from physics, astronomy, and astrophysics to get such a verdict from the scientists. In the meantime we can maintain that Genesis 1 is not out of harmony with the trend of scientific information."
  Source: Book - Know Why You Believe (chapter 2 - Is There A God?)
  
  
• It is thought by many people, including the famous Lord Bertrand Russell, that all Christians actually believe creation occurred in 4004 B.C. Some time ago I was visiting a non-Christian student on a Midwestern state university campus. I picked up a true-false exam in a course on Western Civilization. One question read, “According to the Bible, the world was created in 4004 B.C." “I suppose your instructor wants you to mark this question true," I said.
  
  “That's right," the student replied.
  
  “Interesting," I mused. Pulling an Oxford edition of the Bible from my pocket, I said, “I wonder if you could show me where the Bible says that." Source: Book - Know Why You Believe (chapter 9 - Do Science and Scripture Conflict?)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - What Non-Christians Ask

Author of:

• Book - Know Why You Believe: Connecting Faith and Reason
• Book - Know What You Believe: Connecting Faith and Truth
• Book - Witnessing: How to Give Away Your Faith

Brief Background: J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) was a Presbyterian theologian, born at Baltimore, Maryland, studied at John Hopkins, Princeton University, and the universities of Marburg and Gottingen, Germany. He taught New Testament literature and exegesis in Princeton Theological Seminary (1906-1929). Hw was an outstanding conservative apologist and theologian at Princeton, he left the school because of Modernism. Offered the presidency of several schools; but refused each offer. In 1929 he founded Westminster Theological Seminary and became president and professor of New Testament from 1929 to 1937. Protesting against the liberalism of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, he established an independent mission board. Charged with insubordination, tried, found guilty, and suspended from the Presbyterian ministry. He along with a group of sixteen other clergymen and laymen withdrew in 1936 and founded the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He dies of pneumonia during a preaching engagement.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• It is certainly not necessary to think that the six days spoken of in that first chapter of the Bible are intended to be six days of twenty four hours each. We may think of them rather as very long periods of time
  Source: Book - The Christian View of Man  (1947, p. 131)
  
  

On line work:

• Book - Christianity & Liberalism
• Book - The Christian Faith in the Modern World
• Book - The Origin of Paul's Religion
• Book - The Christian Faith in the Modern World
• Letter - Machen's advice on deciding moral and ethical conflicts.
• Article - The Atonement
• Article - The Resurrection Of Christ
• Article - What Is Christianity
• Article - Christianity and Culture
• Article - My Idea Of God
• Article - The Necessity of the Christian School
• Article - Jesus & Paul

Author of:

• Book - New Testament Greek for Beginners
• Book - Christianity and Liberalism
• Book - The New Testament: An introduction to its literature and history
• Book - The Christian View of Man
• Book - Virgin Birth of Christ
• Book - God Transcendent
• Book - What Is Faith?

Brief Background:  Dr. Allan A. MacRae [1902 - 1997] Founder and President of Biblical Theological Seminary. His academic and teaching experience include: A. B., Occidental College, 1922; A.M., Occidental College, 1923; Th.B., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1927; A. M., Princeton University, 1927; University of Berlin, 1927-29; American School of Oriental Research, Jerusalem, 1929; PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1936. Instructor in Semitic Philology and Old Testament Criticism, Westminister Theological Seminary,1929-30; Assistant Professor of Old Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary, 1930-37; Professor of Old Testament, Faith Theological Seminary, 1937-71; Professor of Old Testament, Biblical Theological Seminary, 1971-1983; President of Biblical Theological Seminary, 1971-1983. He was committed to the Bible as the infallible and inerrant revelation from God to man. He also was a defender of the Historic Christian Faith and defended the Bible from higher criticism. He was also a staunch defender of an old earth and the day-age theory.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• He is documented as a day age advocate
  Source: Book - The Report Of The Committee To Study The Framework Hypothesis Presented to the Presbytery of Southern California (OPC) at its Meeting (October 15-16, 1999)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Charles Darwin: The Man And The Myth
• Article - Facts on the Textus Receptus And The King James Version

Author of:

• Article - The Creation Six 24-Hour Days or Six Day-Ages? (Biblical Christianity, Letter # 31, 1967, p. 80-84)
• Article - Did God Make or Merely Reveal His Creation in Six Days? (Biblical Christianity, Letter # 34, 1948, p. 88-89)
• Book - An Introduction and response to the higher criticism of the Pentateuch
• Book - The millennial kingdom of Christ
• Book - Studies in Isaiah
• Book - The gospel of Isaiah

Brief Background:  Ken Mathews is a Reformed evangelical Southern Baptist scholar. He defends the historicity of Genesis from an old-earth perspective and is an expert in textual criticism, Hebrew, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. His book, The Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll was the first full study of the Leviticus Dead Sea Scroll. Ken wrote the commentary on Genesis 1-11 for the New American Commentary series - and serves as associate general editor of that series. He also translated "Leviticus" in The Holy Bible, New Living Translation. His other books include Amos: Repentance or Ruin and Foundations of Biblical Interpretation (co-editor/contributor). Ken is currently the Old Testament and Hebrew professor at Beeson Divinity School. Previously, he taught at Dallas Baptist University and The Criswell College.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Ken defends the historicity of Genesis from an old-earth perspective using "long days" in his commentary on Genesis
  Source: Book - Genesis 1-11:26 (New American Commentary)
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Genesis 1-11:26 (New American Commentary)
• Book - Foundations for Biblical Interpretation
• Book - The paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll

Brief Background: Stephen C. Meyer is at the forefront of the intelligent design movement. He received his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge in 1991. Formerly a geophysicist with the Atlantic Richfield Company, he is currently Director of the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture at Discovery Institute and an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Whitworth College as well as serving on the board of directors of ARN (Acess Research Network). He is a past recipient of a Rotary International Scholarship, the American Friends of Cambridge scholarship and a Templeton Foundation science-religion teaching grant. He has contributed articles to several scholarly books and anthologies including The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: An Encyclopedia, Darwinism: Science or Philosophy, Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for An Intelligent Designer and Facets of Faith and Science: Interpreting God's Action in the World. In addition to technical articles on the philosophy of science, he has published many editorial features in newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and National Review.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [In a profile of Stephen C. Meyer under the heading: "Young Earth Creationists - NOT!"]
  It's interesting - when I first came to Whitworth, some people thought I must be one of those people from the young Earth creationist camp, which is simply not true...
  We're not absolutists, we're not fundamentalists in the sense that we want to commit to a certain story and we're not young Earth creationists, We're fairly minimalist. What we want to say is that however life arose, design is certainly detectable from the things we see.
  Source: Article - By Design: A Whitworth professor takes a controversial stand to show that life was no accident
  
  
• With explanatory power rather than rational compulsion characterizing epistemic support, the cosmological theory of the Big Bang and the Christian doctrine of divine Creation can now be brought into a relation of mutual epistemic support.
  ... Doesn’t this simply mean that if we assume the Christian doctrine of Creation as a kind of metaphysical hypothesis, then the Big Bang is the kind of cosmological theory we have reason to expect? Doesn’t this also mean that the Christian doctrine of Creation is consonant with the Big Bang? We submit that the answer is yes to both questions.
  Source: Article - Fruitful Interchange or Polite Chitchat? The Dialogue Between Science and Theology
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Fruitful Interchange or Polite Chitchat? The Dialogue Between Science and Theology
• Article - Christianity Challenges the University (reprinted from Eternity, May 1985)
• Article - Teach the Controversy (Reprinted from Cincinnati Enquirer, March 30, 2002)
• Article - The Cambrian Explosion: Biology’s Big Bang
• Article - A Note to Teachers
• Article - Befuddled by Life's Origin (Reprinted from Christianity Today, Nov. 14, 1994)
• Article - Darwin in the Dock (Reprinted from Touchstone Magazine, April 1, 2001)
• Article - DNA and Other Designs (Reprinted from From First Things 102, April 1, 2000)
• Article - Large Article Index at the Discovery Institute

Author of:

• Book - Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe
• Book - Darwinism, Design, and Public Education

Brief Background: Rich Milne is a former research associate with Probe Ministries for 16 years. He has a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary. Rich works in the area of the philosophy and history of science, focusing in particular on the origin of the universe and the origin of life, and the history and philosophy of art. He and his wife, Becky, are currently on staff with East-West Ministries in Dallas, Texas.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• However, we find the evidence from science for a great age for the universe and the earth to be nearly overwhelming.
  ...
  Earlier, we emphasized that the age question, while certainly important, is not the primary question in the origins debate. The question of chance versus design is the foremost issue. The time frame over which God accomplished His creation is not central.
  ...
  Scientists have observed supernova from galaxies that are hundreds of thousands of light years away. We know that many of these galaxies must be this distant because if they were all within a few thousand light years, then the nighttime sky would be brilliant indeed.
  Source: Article - Christian Views of Science and Earth History
  
  
• Dr. Sailhammer carefully develops the view that in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for "In the beginning" often describes a period of indeterminate time. Genesis 10:10 says "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh." Jeremiah 28:1 describes "The beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year." Genesis Unbound suggests that we picture God creating the whole universe, "the heavens and the earth," over some unspecified time in the past.
  Source: Article - Article - A New and Different Genesis 1 (Book Review of "Genesis Unbound")
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Origin of the Universe
  
• Article - Christian Views of Science and Earth History
  
• Article - A New and Different Genesis 1 (Book Review of "Genesis Unbound")
  
• Article - Being a Christian in Science
  

Brief Background: Patricia Mondore graduated from Houghton College and received her Masters from Syracuse University. She is the Pediatric Residency Program Coordinator at the SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. She is also a free lance Christian writer. She and her husband Robert have had numerous articles published and have co-authored several book manuscripts. She also writes and sings her own songs. Their latest project has been a study on the scientific accuracy of the Scriptures.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Our most recent and most conclusive scientific evidence points to a creation event; the starting point of the universe; a Big Bang. The Scriptures are in complete agreement with the concept of a Creation event. God created the universe from nothing. All of the stars, planets, galaxies, as well as all of the life that covers this earth came to be, because God spoke the word and it came into existence. No one was there to hear the sound at the moment of creation but the cosmic microwave background radiation still resounds with the radiant energy of an explosion from long ago. Though they have the proof of its happening, scientists still struggle to understand what the First Cause was, the mighty force that brought an entire universe into existence from nothing. Those who have studied the Bible understand that when God speaks, things happen. The Word of God was given and the universe sprang into existence at His command. It was a mighty big bang, indeed.
  Source: Article - A Very Big Bang
  
  

On line work:

• Article - A Very Big Bang
• Article - Designer Genes
• Article - The Code Word
• Article - Ask the Animals
• Article - Maternal Instincts Betrayed: Post-Abortion Syndrome
• Song - Flow Mighty River (MP3)

Author of:

• Book - Proclaim His Praise in the Islands
• Book - A Perennial Faith : Finding Courage to Grow in the Garden of Life

Brief Background:  Dr. Moreland is a dynamic speaker. He has spoken on 175 college campuses around the country, spoken or debated on radio over 100 times and on television four times. He has made over eighty presentations to professionals. Dr. Moreland is also a prolific writer. He authored the book Love Your God With All Your Mind. He has contributed dozens of books, magazines and professional journals. Dr. Moreland has a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Missouri, masters degree in both Theology (Dallas Theological Seminary), and Philosophy (University of California-Riverside) and a doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Southern California. He has planted Campus Crusade chapters on two college campuses in Colorado and started Campus Crusade in the state of Vermont. Additionally, Dr. Moreland has served as interim pastor or co-pastor for several churches. Currently, Dr. Moreland is professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, La Mirada, California.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Now, when it comes to the days of Genesis...I'm of the view on this that while we ought not allow science to dictate to us our exegesis of the Old Testament, nevertheless, if there is an interpretation of the Old Testament that is exegetically permissible-- that is, and old age interpretation; that is to say, if you can find conservative, inerrantist, evangelical Old Testament scholars that say that the interpretation of this text that treats the days of Genesis as unspecified periods of time, and that is a completely permissible thing to do on exegetical grounds alone, then my view is that that is a permissible option if it harmonizes the text with science because that option can be justified exegetically, independent of science.
  Source: Lecture at Northshore Church in Everett, Washington on February 2, 2002. Transcript article here - The Age of Earth
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Is Science a Threat or Help to Faith?
• Audio Lecture - Education Crisis

Author of:

• Book - Love Your God With All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul
• Book - Three Views on Creation and Evolution

Brief Background: Robert C. Newman is Professor of New Testament at the Biblical Theological Seminary of Hatfield, Pennsylvania and Director of the Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute there. As a theologian he has earned the degrees of Master of Divinity and Master of Sacred Theology. He has done further graduate work in biblical geography at the Institute of Holy Land Studies, and in biblical interpretation at Westminster Theological Seminary. In the field of science, Dr. Newman received his under-graduate degree in physics from Duke University and his doctorate in theoretical astrophysics from Cornell University. He is co-author of four books: Science Speaks, Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth, The Evidence of Prophecy, and What's Darwin Got to Do With It? A Friendly Conversation on Evolution . He has also published a number of articles in magazines, scientific and theological journals, dictionaries, and multi-author books.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The universe gives every appearance of being old, but of finite age, probably in the range of ten to twenty billion years
  Source: Article - A Critical Examination Of Modern Cosmological Theories - Multimedia powerpoint version available here.
  
  
• Robert wrote in defense of Progressive Creation in the book Three Views on Creation and Evolution
  Source: Book - Three Views on Creation and Evolution
  
  

On line work:

• Article - A Critical Examination Of Modern Cosmological Theories
• Article - Evangelicals and Crackpot Science
• Article - Beliefs and Physics: Some Lessons from the Ancient Greeks
• Article - A Designed Universe
• Article - The Status of Evolution as a Scientific Theory (critical of the theory)

Author of:

• Book - Three Views on Creation and Evolution
• Book - Genesis one & the origin of the Earth

Brief Background:  Greg Neyman is founder of Answers In Creation, an old earth website ministry aimed at advancing the acceptance of old earth belief. He is a graduate of Memphis State University, with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Geology. He received the Outstanding Senior Award in Geology as the senior with the highest grade point average. He has done graduate level work towards a Masters in Religion at Liberty University. His works include over 100 online articles in support of old earth creationism.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The Bible does not say, "Thou shalt believe in a young earth." The fact is, no verse in the Bible makes any claims as to the age of the earth. All the so-called verses that young earth proponents point to can be interpreted by the reader to mean old or young. The key doctrines of the Bible are not affected by either interpretation.
  Source: Article - Can You Be a Christian and Believe in an Old Earth?
  
  
• The (young earth) author uses the verse from Job, 'Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?' (Job 38:4) to admonish the old-ager. To the author I say, "Where were you when God laid the foundations of the earth?" You were not there either! So you can't "assume" a 6,000-year-old earth, just like we can't "assume" a 13.7 billion year old universe. What we have to decide this issue is the evidence from God's creation, and not our assumptions. Job 12:8 says "speak to the earth, and it will teach thee." Secular and Christian scientists, outside of a religious framework, have examined God's creation, and it says, "I'm 13.7 billion years old.
  Source: Article - Are Dating Techniques Accurate?
  
  
• Nowhere in the Bible does it state that the days of creation are 24-hour days. Young earth creationists will argue over the correct translation of "day." The translation of "day" is irrelevant. If you are in the middle of space, what is a "day." If you are eternal, what meaning does time have? Are we going to have clocks in heaven? Wow, there goes another million years! Only human arrogance would insist on limiting God, an infinite being, to a finite 24-hour day.
  Source: Article - Are Dating Techniques Accurate?
  
  
• Does it matter which position you believe in? No, it doesn't. The doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ is not affected by the age of the earth, nor the method God used to create the earth.
  Source: Article - Old Earth Belief
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Answers In Creation (numerous articles)

Brief Background:  Mark A. Noll, Ph.D. is the McManus Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College. He also teaches in the History and the Bible and Theology Departments. Dr. Noll is the Senior Director of the Institute for the Study of America Evangelicals (ISAE) at the college. He holds a BA in English from Wheaton College, an MA in comparative literature from the University of Iowa, an MA in church history from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in American religious history from Vanderbilt University. Dr. Noll's main academic interests concern the interaction of Christianity and culture in 18th- and 19th century Anglo-American societies. He has written extensively on that subject, and his essays and reviews have appeared in a number of academic and popular journals. He is author of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind and A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, and many other books relating to Christian history and theology.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The word creationism by rights should define all who discern a divine mind at work in, or under the phenomena of the natural world. Yet by a most unfortunate set of events, the term has come to mean only the view that God created the world ten thousand or fewer years ago...
  Source: Book - The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1994, p 188)
  
  
• Creation science has damaged evangelism by making it much more difficult to think clearly about human origins, the age of the earth, and mechanisms of geological or biological change. But it has done more profound damage by undermining the ability to look at the world God has made and to understand what we see when we do look.
  Source: Book - The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1994, p 196)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Ignorant Armies - A review of The Creationists by Ronald L. Numbers
• Article - Charles Hodge and B.B. Warfield on Science, the Bible, Evolution, and Darwinism

Author of:

• Book - The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind - For this work, Noll was awarded the 1994 National Association of Evangelicals "Book of the Year".
• Book - The Princeton Theology 1812-1921 : Scripture, Science, and Theological Method from Archibald Alexander to Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield
• Book - America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln
• Book - The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys (History of Evangelicalism, 1)
• Book - Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity

Brief Background:  James Orr (1844-1913) - Within conservative Protestantism, the Scotsman James Orr is one of the most important apologists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He was a reformed evangelical theologian with the Scottish Free Church who wrote books on the superiority of Christianity as a worldview, and defended biblical inerrancy and the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ. In America, Orr largely has been forgotten, but he does have a legacy amongst some evangelicals, including Southern Baptists and other conservative Baptists. Specifically, Orr's work has influenced the evangelical American Baptist theologian Carl F.H. Henry. His many works include The Faith of a Modern Christian, The Christian View of God and the World, The Process of Dogma, The Problem of the Old Testament, and God's Image in Man. Orr also contributed to the Fundamentals and was the original general editor for the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.

Old Earth Quote(s):

Note on the Fundamentals:
The articles presented in The Fundamentals were written as a response to the modernism and liberal theology of the latter part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. They were written in order for ministers of the gospel, missionaries, Sunday School superintendents, etc. (see volume prefaces) to have at their disposal articles which would be useful in affirming and reaffirming the fundamental truths of Christianity in the face of ever increasing attacks against it. Those who funded the writing and publishing of the series did so at their own expense and all the books which were printed in the original twelve volume series were given away free of charge as a service to the recipients.

• It does not follow that because the Bible. does not teach modern science, we are justified in saying that it contradicts it. What I see in these narratives of Genesis is that, so true is the standpoint of the author, so divine the illumination with which he is endowed, so unerring his insight into the order of nature, there is little in his description that even yet, with our advanced knowledge, we need to change. You say there is the "six days" and the question whether those days are meant to be measured by the twenty-four hours of the sun's revolution around the earth--I speak of these things popularly. It is difficult to see how they should be so measured when the sun that is to measure them is not introduced until the fourth day. Do not think that this larger reading of the days is a new speculation. You find Augustine in early times declaring that it is hard or altogether impossible to say of what fashion these days are, and Thomas Aquinas, in the middle ages, leaves the matter an open question. To my mind these narratives in Genesis stand out as a marvel, not for its discordance with science, but for its agreement with it.
  Source: Article - The Fundamentals - The Early Narratives of Genesis (Volume 1 ch. XI)
  
  
• Does science, then, really, contradict Genesis I.? ... The "six days" may remain as a difficulty to some, but, if this is not part of the symbolic setting of the picture-a great divine "week" of work--one may well ask, as was done by Augustine long before geology was thought of, what kind of "days" these were which rolled their course before the sun, with its twenty-four hours of diurnal measurement, was appointed to that end? There is no violence done to the narrative in substituting in thought "aeonic" days-vast cosmic periods-for "days" on our narrower, sun-measured scale. Then the last trace of apparent "conflict" disappears.
  Source: Article - The Fundamentals - Science and Christian Faith (Volume 1 ch. XVIII)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Fundamentals - Holy Scripture and Modern Negations: Volume 1 ch. V
• Article - The Fundamentals - The Early Narratives of Genesis: Volume 1 ch. XI
• Article - The Fundamentals - Science and Christian Faith: Volume 1 ch. XVIII
• Article - The Fundamentals - The Virgin Birth of Christ: Volume 2 ch. XI

Author of:

• Book - God's Image in Man
• Book - The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
• Book - Revelation and Inspiration
• Book - The Resurrection of Jesus
• Book - The Christian View of God and the World
• Book - The Problem of the Old Testament Considered With Reference to Recent Criticism

Brief Background: James I Packer is one of the preeminent evangelical theologians today. In addition to his work at Regent College, he writes books, serves as a Senior Editor and Visiting Scholar of Christianity Today, and contributes to a variety of theological journals. He is a strong supporter of biblical inerrancy, and a theologian who combines the evangelical reformed tradition with Puritan tradition. Saying he writes books is an understatement - he is quite an accomplished author, his book "Knowing God" is considered a classic of evangelical literature. James I. Packer was born in Gloucestershire, England in 1926. He attended Oxford University from which he earned a D.Phil. degree in 1954. Packer served briefly as a curate and then held a series of academic posts at Tyndale Hall, Bristol and Trinity College, Bristol until 1979 when he became professor of historical and systematic theology at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• It should be remembered, however, that scripture was given to reveal God, not to address scientific issues in scientific terms, and that, as it does not use the language of modern science, so it does not require scientific knowledge about the internal processes of God's creation for the understanding of its essential message about God and ourselves. Scripture interprets scientific knowledge by relating it to the revealed purpose and work of God, thus establishing an ultimate context for the study of scientific ideas. It is not for scientific theories to dictate what Scripture may and may not say, although extra-biblical information will sometimes helpfully expose a misinterpretation of Scripture.
  Source: Book - God Has Spoken (1988, p. 170)
  
  
• I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, and maintain it in print, but I cannot see that anything Scripture says, in the first chapters of Genesis or elsewhere, bears on the biological theory of evolution one way or the other. On the theory itself, as a non-scientist, watching from a distance the disputes of experts, I suspend judgment.
  Source: Book - The Evangelical Anglican Identity Problem (Packer, Oxford Latimer House, 1978, p. 5)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - J I Packer Appreciates The Many Facets Of C S Lewis
• Article - Freedom And Authority
• Article - Sola fide: The Reformed Doctrine Of Justification

Author of:

• Book - Knowing God
• Book - God Has Spoken: Revelation and the Bible
• Book - Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God
• Book - Concise Theology
• Book - God's Words: Studies of Key Bible Themes

Brief Background:  Nancy R. Pearcey is currently a visiting scholar at Biola University's Torrey Honors Institute, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and managing editor of the journal Origins and Design. Mrs. Pearcey is a frequent speaker at conferences and universities, and has been writing on science and Christian worldview since 1977.For nearly nine years she was policy director of the Wilberforce Forum, and executive editor of Colson's "BreakPoint," a daily radio commentary program analyzing current issues from a Christian worldview perspective. She also co-authored with Colson a monthly column in Christianity Today. Pearcey studied under Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland in 1971 and 1972, earned a master's degree from Covenant Theological Seminary, and did graduate work at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. She is co-author with Charles Thaxton of the book The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy, and has contributed chapters to several other books, including Mere Creation, Of Pandas and People, and Pro-Life Feminism. Her articles have appeared in numerous journals and magazines.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Naturalists simply have no way to avoid the challenge posed by the big bang without twisting themselves into impossible logical contortions. The [scientific] facts clearly indicate that the universe is not eternal, and it cannot originate itself.
  Source: Book - How Now Shall We Live? (1999 p 58)
  
  
• For centuries, conventional scientific wisdom taught that the universe was eternal. But Big Bang theory has given dramatic evidence that the universe had a beginning—just as Scripture teaches. And if the Big Bang is the origin of the universe, its cause must be something beyond the universe, a transcendent cause.
  Source: Article - Quoting the Bible Isn't Enough Christianity Today (Volume 41, Issue 9 August 11, 1997)
  
  
• [Nancy quoting Behe (favorably)]
  
  Catch up with the late-twentieth century. It was 60 years ago that the Big Bang theory was proposed, and cosmologists had to confront the idea of an ultimate origin of the universe-no matter how philosophically "repugnant" (A. S. Eddington's word) they found that idea because of its implication of a personal creator.
  Source: Book Review - Darwin's Black Box (review by Nancy Pearcey)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (Book review of Darwin's Black Box)
• Article - Our "Tailor-made" Universe
• Article - DNA: The Message in the Message
• Article - Phillip Johnson was Right: The Unhappy Evolution of Darwinism
• Article - Scopes in reverse
• Article - Article Index

Author of:

• Book - How Now Shall We Live?
• Book - Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity
• Book - The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy
• Book - Developing a Christian Worldview of the Problem of Evil

Brief Background: Software Quality Assurance Engineer, Comverse Network Systems. PhD in astrophysics; MDiv in theology; MA in Hebrew.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Some Christians hold that God took six literal days to accomplish this task, while others are convinced that God used processes that spanned millions and billions of years. Why the difference of opinion? The answer is that ample evidence exists, both scientific and biblical, that raises questions about a literal six day creation period. Source: Article - Are The Days Of Genesis Longer Than 24 Hours? The Bible Says, "Yes!"
  
  
• Since radiation from some objects has taken billions of years to arrive, the universe is at least billions of years old. Source: Article - A History and Analysis of the 15.7 Light-Year Universe
  
  
• Varve deposits display great age. The Salido, Castile, and Bell Canyon formations of west Texas contain 260,000 couplets. Hence, this formation is most naturally considered to be 260,000 years old. Core samples have also revealed that these varves have uniform thickness over many square miles.
  
  Young Earth Creationists, of course, reject such an old age for this formation. They attribute its origin to Noah's Flood, which lasted about one year. To lay down 260,000 varves in one year, however, requires that about 720 couplets be laid down each day, or about one pair every two minutes - an implausible scenario given the evenness, extent, and alternating composition of the layers. Source: Article - Varves: Layered Sediments as Evidence for an Old Earth
  
  
• Thus 8 millimeters per year cannot be far from the actual growth rate of the Eniwetok corals. Using this value, the age of the reef is calculated by dividing 4,610 feet by 8 millimeters (about .3 inch) per year, which is about 175,000 years. But this is a minimum age since we have not taken into account the time periods (represented by the unconformities mentioned above) when the reef was not growing. Source: Article - Coral Reefs: Indicators of an Old Earth

On line work:

• Article - Are The Days Of Genesis Longer Than 24 Hours? The Bible Says, "Yes!"
• Article - A History and Analysis of the 15.7 Light-Year Universe
• Article - Varves: Layered Sediments as Evidence for an Old Earth
• Article - Coral Reefs: Indicators of an Old Earth
• Article - The Status of Evolution as a Scientific Theory (critical of the theory)

Brief Background:  William D. Phillips is truly an exceptional Christian scientist. He is an American physicist whose experiments using laser light to cool and trap atoms earned him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997. He shared the award with Steven Chu and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, who also developed methods of laser cooling and atom trapping. Phillips received his doctorate in physics (1976) and completed his postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1978 he joined the staff of the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) in Gaithersburg, Md., and it was there that he conducted his award-winning research. Building on Chu's work, Phillips developed new and improved methods for measuring the temperature of laser-cooled atoms. In 1988 he discovered that the atoms reached a temperature six times lower than the predicted theoretical limit. Cohen-Tannoudji refined the theory to explain the new results, and he and Phillips further investigated methods of trapping atoms cooled to even lower temperatures. One result of the development of laser-cooling techniques was the first observation, in 1995, of the Bose-Einstein condensate, a new state of matter originally predicted 70 years earlier by Albert Einstein and the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. In this state atoms are so chilled and so slow that they, in effect, merge and behave as one single quantum entity that is much larger than any individual atom.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• As for the age of the earth and the universe, within the usual limits of any scientific conclusions, I believe that the present calculations of about 4 billion years for the earth and 14 billion years for the universe are not far wrong, and I see no conflict with that understanding and my understanding of the Bible.
  Source: E-mail response to the direct question by the author of this paper May 24, 2004
  
  

On line work:

• Lecture transcript - Nobel Prize acceptance lecture, "Laser Cooling and Trapping of Neutral Atoms"
• Thesis - I.The magnetic moment of the proton in H2O ; II.Inelastic collisions in excited Na.

Brief Background:  Mike Poole is currently Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Education at King’s College, London. With a background in science education, his research interests have centred on the interplay between science and religion with special reference to its educational context. He is the author of several books and some fifty articles and papers on the topic.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• One of the most dramatic ideas of modern science is the Big Bang. But the Big Bang was not a cosmic explosion at a point in time in empty black space, but the beginning of space and of time itself (space-time). The idea that time is part of the creation is very difficult to grasp. But it is similar to the view which St. Augustine held, back in the 4th century! Realising that the Bible teaches that God transcends time, he said that creation was 'with time', not 'in time'. So the Bible's opening words, 'In the beginning', better express the idea than the traditional 'Once upon a time'.
  Source: Article - God And The Big Bang - And Other Arguments About Science And Faith
  
  
• Although science is corrigible, across cosmology, astronomy, geology and physics a remarkably coherent picture of the age of the universe emerges. We are convinced that the majority of Christians who have studied the evidence have no problems with the current scientific view of auniverse which is 12 - 15 billion years old.
  Source: Article - 'Young Earth Creationism' in Schools
  
  

On line work:

• Article - God And The Big Bang - And Other Arguments About Science And Faith
• Article - Evolution and/or Creation?
• Book - God, Humanity and the Cosmos (online version)

Author of:

• Book - God, Humanity and the Cosmos: A Textbook in Science and Religion
• Book - A Guide to Science and Belief
• Book - Beliefs and Values in Science Education

Brief Background: Vern S. Poythress received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University, a Th.D. in New Testament from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, a M.Litt. in New Testament from the University of Cambridge, a Th.M. in apologetics from Westminster Theological Seminary, an M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary, and a B.S. from California Institute of Technology. He is presently Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Westminster Theological Seminary.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• scientific theories do affect biblical interpretation at least to the extent that they become the occasion for reassessing the interpretation of a few passages (Genesis 1-2; 6-8).
  Source: Article - Science and Hermeneutics (1988 p 24)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Analyzing Today's NIV Below the Surface
• Article - Gender in Bible Translation: How Fallacies Distort Understanding of the New Testament Gender Passages
• Book - The Church as Family: Why Male Leadership in the Family Requires Male Leadership in the Church

Author of:

• Book - Science and Hermeneutics
• Book - God-Centered Biblical Interpretation
• Book - A Guide to the Book of Revelation
• In addition to authoring the above books, Vern was a contributor to the following:
  • Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible
  • Inerrancy and Hermeneutic: A Tradition, A Challenge, A Debate
  • The Foundations of Christian Scholarship

Brief Background:  (1916-1992), Bernard was an evangelical, a bold defender of inerrancy, as well as a Baptist Theologian. He taught at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. (He suggested the name "Biola" when it changed into a college). He also briefly headed the philosophy department at Bethel College and Seminary (St. Paul, Minn.), he then became director of graduate studies in religion at Baylor University in 1954. Later he taught at California Baptist Seminary (Covina), Eastern Baptist Seminary (Philadelphia), and the American Baptist Seminary of the West (Berkeley). Ramm also had a keen interest in science - in particular, combining Christian faith and science. He urged Christians not be afraid of education and the sciences. He was active in the American Scientific Affiliation for over forty years.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• In discussing the Biblical cosmology we must return to our general position defended earlier in this chapter; the references of the writers of the Bible to natural things are popular, non-postulational, and in terms of the culture in which the writers wrote. This principle applies directly to Biblical cosmology. The language of the Bible with reference to cosmological matters is in terms of the prevailing culture. Biblical cosmology is in the language of antiquity and not of modern science, nor is it filled with anticipations which the future microscope and telescope will reveal...
  
  The cosmology of the Bible is not systematized and is not postulational. It is neither for nor against any of the current and ancient theories of the universe except where they might be polytheistic or in conflict with basic Christian metaphysics. But the Bible does not support Aristotle or Ptolemy or Copernicus or Descartes or Newton or Einstein or Milne. Certainly, the Bible works as a negative criterion in telling us that dualisms and pantheisms and materialisms are wrong, but it gives us no positive cosmology.
  Source: Book - Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954, p 65-66)
  
  
• To this point we have shown that evolution with all necessary qualifications has been adopted into both the Catholic and Protestant evangelical theology and has not meant the disruption of either. The charge that evolution is anti-Christian, and that theistic evolution is not a respectable position, is very difficult to make good in view of the evidence we have here given.
  Source: Book - Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954, p 202)
  
  
• Ramm quoting Warfield:[The antiquity of the human race] has of itself no theological significance. It is to theology, as such, a matter of entire indifference how long man has existed on earth.
  Source: Book - Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954, p 216)
  
  
• What disturbs me the most about the most rigid creationist views is that they drive Christians and scientists millions of miles apart. Some of them amount to a total denial of anything significant in geology. There's a unity to the sciences and the borders of the sciences overlap. You can't just pick out geology and say, "Science is all wrong there, but it's right in all these other territories." Take the use of atomic materials, high-speed atomic particles, X rays and so on; going to the doctor to get an X ray is one piece of the science, but it spills over into geology. It's odd if you have to say that almost 100% of the world's geologists are wrong, but once you get away from geology the scientists are pretty right. That seems to me to be something creationists have to come to terms with.
  Source: Interview - ASA Resource - An Interview with Bernard Ramm and Alta Ramm by Walter Hearn
  
  

On line work:

• Interview - An Interview with Bernard Ramm

Author of:

• Book - Christian View of Science and Scripture
• Book - Protestant Biblical Interpretation; A Textbook of Hermeneutics
• Book - A Christian Appeal to Reason

Brief Background: John Rea is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Regent University. He has a Th.D. from Grace Theological Seminary, a Th.M. from Grace Theological Seminary, a M.A. from Wheaton College Graduate School, a B.D. from Grace Theological Seminary, and a B.S. from Princeton University. He served as manuscript editor of the Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, and also was one of the original NASB translators.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The first direct scientific evidence for a big bang universe dates back to 1916. That is when Albert Einstein noted that his field equations of general relativity predicted an expanding universe. Unwilling to accept the cosmic beginning implied by such expansion, Einstein altered his theory to conform with the common wisdom of his day, namely an eternally existing universe.
  
  All these scientists, however, were upstaged by 2500 years and more by Job, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other Bible authors. The Bible’s prophets and apostles stated explicitly and repeatedly the two most fundamental properties of the big bang, a transcendent cosmic beginning a finite time period ago and a universe undergoing a general, continual expansion. In Isaiah 42:5 both properties were declared, “This is what the Lord says—He who created the heavens and stretched them out.” Big Bang - The Bible Taught It First!
  Source: Article - Big Bang - The Bible Taught It First!
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Big Bang - The Bible Taught It First!

Author of:

• Book - Wycliffe Bible Dictionary
• Book - Charisma's Bible Handbook on the Holy Spirit
• Book - The Holy Spirit in the Bible: All the Major Passages About the Spirit : A Commentary
• Book - The Holy Spirit in the Bible: An Exploration from "Genesis" to "Revelation"
• Book - The layman's commentary on the Holy Spirit

Brief Background:  Jay W. Richards is Vice President of the Discovery Institute, as well as Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Jay has a Ph.D.(honors) in philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was formerly a Teaching Fellow. From 1996-1998, he was executive and associate editor of The Princeton Theological Review, and president of the Charles Hodge Society at Princeton Theological Seminary. He has published in academic journals such as Religious Studies, Christian Scholars' Review, The Heythrop Journal, Encounter, The Princeton Theological Review, Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith: The Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation; as well as editorial features in The Washington Post, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and IntellectualCapital.com. He is editor and contributor, with William A. Dembski, of Unapologetic Apologetics: Meeting the Challenges of Theological Studies (InterVarsity Press, 2001), and editor and contributor with George Gilder of Are We Spiritual Machines?: Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong AI (Discovery Institute Press, 2002). He is also author of The Untamed God: A Philosophical Exploration of Divine Perfection, Immutability, and Simplicity (InterVarsity Press, 2003), and co-author, with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, of the book The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery (Regnery, 2004).

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Look through a small telescope at the moon, and you will see a few large maria (dry "seas") and many craters of various sizes. Impacts are responsible for all these features, most prior to 3.5 billion years ago.
  Source: Article - Good Reason to Shoot for the Moon
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Good Reason to Shoot for the Moon
• Article - Intelligent Design Theory: Why it Matters
• Article - Natural Selection Found in Report on Science Education
• Article - Scientific Test for God a Valid Scientific Goal

Author of:

• Book - The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery
• Book - Unapologetic Apologetics
• Book - Are We Spiritual Machines?
• Book - The Untamed God

Brief Background:  Vaughan Roberts studied law at Cambridge University before a brief spell doing student ministry in South Africa. Since 1991 he has been on the staff of St. Ebbe’s Church Oxford, England where he now Senior Pastor. He is the author of God's Big Picture and Life's Big Questions. He is also a popular speaker at Spring Harvest and a founding member of "9:38" (www.ninethirtyeight.org) which encourages people to consider full-time gospel ministry.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Whether [God] completed the job in six literal twenty-four hour days or over a longer period does not really matter...
  Source: Book - God's Big Picture: Tracing the Story-Line of the Bible
  
  
• The writer of Genesis ends his description of each of the other days with the words, 'And there was evening and there was morning - the first [etc.] day.' But no such end to the seventh day is recorded; it continues. In a sense, God has rested ever since. He lives in a continuing Sabbath, the seventh day. That does not mean that he is not working. He continues to sustain his creation; without him everything would fall apart. But he has rested from his work of creating.
  Source: Book - God's Big Picture: Tracing the Story-Line of the Bible
  
  

On line work:

• Article - How do you spot a gospel minister?
• Article - Getting the Message Out
• Article - The Place of Music and Singing in Church
• Article - The Nature of Gospel Ministry
• Article - Interview

Author of:

• Book - God's Big Picture: Tracing the Story-Line of the Bible
• Book - Life's Big Questions: Six Major Themes Traced Through The Bible
• Book - God's Big Design: Life As He Intends It to Be
• Book - Turning Points

Brief Background: Pat Robertson (b. 1930) - former Baptist pastor, now chairman of the Family Channel and founder of the Christian Coalition and the Christian Broadcasting Network. Also hosts the 700 Club and ran for US president in 1988. His books include The Ten Offenses, Six Steps to Spiritual Revival, The End of the Age, America's Date with Destiny, The New World Order, The End of the Age: A Novel, and Beyond Reason: How Miracles Can Change Your Life.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [During a 17 June 2002 CBN 700 Club broadcast concerning Patrick Henry College's failed bid for accreditation]
  
  Robertson said, I sure wish he’d get off that 6/24 business,, [speaking about Michael Farris, founder and president of Patrick Henry College in Virginia, who requires his teachers to believe and teach a six 24-hourday Creation].
  
  He went on to say, I totally disagree with the evolutionary hypothesis. I think it is clearly flawed. It is not good science. And I think more and more top-notch scientists are saying this isn’t true. But Terry, if somebody set before you a piece of paper and said, Sign on penalty of your life God created the world in six 24-hour days, what would you say?
  
  Terry Meeuwson, co-host of the 700 Club: ‘I couldn’t do it because I don’t know. No-one was here at that time. [Robertson laughs.] The Bible says a day is as a thousand years to the Lord. I have no idea the specifics of what that was like.’
  
  Robertson: I’m with you, I couldn’t either because, you know, we could be looking at a solar day; we could be looking at a universal day; we could be looking at a galactic day. It doesn’t have to be one revolution of the Earth. And I mean, [as] you say, “nobody was there.”
  
  Terry: ‘When you’re talking about the creation of a universe, I think it’s very presumptuous to think that we could understand or even should understand every element of that and be able to define it and put it in a box system.’
  Source: TV broadcast - The 700 Club, The Christian Broadcasting Network, 17 June 2002
  
  
• [During a 02 August 2005 CBN 700 Club broadcast]
  
  Robertson said, The so called creation science is kind of bogus you know, it starts with the world has been here for 6,000 years, and goes from there. It just doesn't have good science. Source: TV broadcast - The 700 Club, The Christian Broadcasting Network, 02 August 2005 (11 Min 24 seconds into broadcast)
  
  

On line work:

• Vast resources - The Christian Broadcasting Network

Author of:

• Book - Bring It On
• Book - The Ten Offenses
• Book - Six Steps to Spiritual Revival
• Book - The End of the Age

Brief Background: Born in Montreal and raised in Vancouver, Canada. By age eight he was reading physics books and had decided to make astronomy his career. In the next several years his study of the big bang convinced him that the universe had a beginning, and thus a Beginner. In high school he set out to see which of the "holy" books seemed to agree with what he saw in nature. He was disappointed until he began to read the pages of the Bible. He was amazed at how in the very beginning (Genesis) not only did it's author correctly describe the major events in the creation , but placed those events in the scientifically correct order and properly identified the earth's initial conditions. He soon came to trust the Bible's authority to the same degree as he trusted the laws of physics. Soon after he acknowledged Jesus Christ as his lord and Savior and became a Christian. Not long after that he founded Reasons To Believe in an effort to give others reasons to believe in the God of the Bible.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Christian apologists trained in the physical sciences and familiar with the Scriptures see no danger in connecting big bang cosmology with biblical teaching because the connection is based on well-established, thoroughly tested science and clear exegesis. Further, they understand that big bang theory refers not to one particular scenario but rather to a whole class of cosmological models. Understanding this one point may be the key to dispelling big bang phobia among Christians unfamiliar with science.
  Source: Article - Facing Up to Big Bang Challenges
  
  

On line work:

• Vast resources - Television, radio, interviews, magazine articles, research papers, etc.

Author of:

• Book - The Creator and the Cosmos
• Book - The Genesis Question

Brief Background: Senior Professor of OT at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, also teaches Biblical Hebrew & Aramaic. B.A., California State University at Long Beach; Th.M., Dallas Theological Seminary; M.A., Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles. Teaching at SEBTS since 1999.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• ... in Genesis 1:1 --"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Since the Hebrew word translated "beginning" refers to an indefinit period of time, we cannot say for certain when God created the world or how long he took to create it. This period could have spanned as much as several billion years...
  Source: Article - Genesis Unbound (1996, Introduction, pp 13-15)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - An Interpretive Translation of Genesis 1:1-2:4a

Author of:

• Book - Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account
• Book - New International Version Compact Bible Commentary
• Book - How We Got the Bible
• Book - Biblical Archaeology
• Book - Old Testament History
• Book - Introduction to Old Testament Theology: A Canonical Approach
• Book - Pentateuch as Narrative

Brief Background: Schaefer is the Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and the director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia. He has served in professorships at the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Texas-Austin, the University of Paris, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and several others. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1994, he was cited for the period 1981-1997 as the sixth most-quoted chemist in the world.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The 1965 observation of the microwave background radiation by Arno Penzias (1933-) and Robert Wilson (1936-) of the Bell Telephone Laboratories (regrettably partially dismantled following the breakup of AT&T) convinced most scientists of the validity of the Big Bang Theory. Further observations reported in 1992 have moved the Big Bang Theory from a consensus view to the nearly unanimous view among cosmologists: there was an origin to the universe, perhaps 13-15 billion years ago.
  Source: Article - Stephen Hawking, the Big Bang, and God
  
  
• Only if we lived in imaginary time (not coming soon to a neighborhood near you!) would we encounter no singularities. In real time the universe was created ex nihilo 12-15 billion years ago.
  Source: Article - Stephen Hawking, the Big Bang, and God
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Stephen Hawking, The Big Bang and God

Brief Background: Francis Schaeffer was a Presbyterian minister with an ability to see how the questions of meaning, morals, and value being dealt with by philosophy, were the same questions that the Bible dealt with, only in different language. Once an agnostic, Schaeffer came to the conclusion that Biblical Christianity not only gave sufficient answers to the big questions, but that they were the only answers that were both self-consistent and livable. He opened his Swiss home to travelers to discuss these things. Later he began lecturing in universities and writing a number of books. Perhaps no other Christian thinker of the twentieth century, besides C.S. Lewis, has had more influence on thinking people.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Francis A. Schaeffer on ³day² in Genesis 1
  
  What does day mean in the days of creation?
  
  The answer must be held with some openness. In Genesis 5:2 we read: "Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created." As it is clear that Adam and Even were not created simultaneously, day in Genesis 5:2 does not mean a period of twenty-four hours.
  
  In other places in the Old Testament the Hebrew word day refers to an era, just as it often does in English. See, for example, Isaiah 2:11,12 and 17 for such a usage.
  
  The simple fact is that day in Hebrew (just as in English) is used in three separate senses: to mean (1) twenty-four hours, (2) the period of light during the twenty-four hours, and (3) an indeterminate period of time. Therefore, we must leave open the exact length of time indicated by day in Genesis.
  Source: Book - Genesis in Space and Time; The Flow of Biblical History (1972 p 59)
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Genesis in Space and Time
• Book - Trilogy
• Book - How Should We Then Live?

Brief Background: Dr. Mary Schweitzer is an assistant professor of paleontology with a joint appointment at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences. Her area of research is in the preservation and detection of original molecular fragments in well preserved fossil specimens, as well as the examination of exceptionally well preserved fossils with soft tissues. She further strives to ascertain how and why they are preserved and what environmental and biogeochemical conditions leads to such preservation. Her education consists of: Ph.D. (Biology) Montana State University, 1995; Certificate (Secondary Ed./ Broadfield Science) Montana St. U, 1988; and a B.S. from Utah State University, 1977. She is mainly famous for discovering extremely well preserved soft tisue and possible celluular preservation in a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil. Young earth Creationists have tried to seize upon her work to prove that dinosaur fossils are at most only a few thousand years old - something that distresses her.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [From an article about her called "Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery"]
  
  Schweitzer's first forays into paleontology were "a total hook," she says. Not only was she fascinated by the science, but to her, digging into ancient strata seemed like reading the history of God's handiwork. Schweitzer worships at two churches—an evangelical church in Montana and a nondenominational one when she is back home in North Carolina—and when she talks about her faith, her bristly demeanor falls away. "God is so multidimensional," she says. "I see a sense of humor. I see His compassion in the world around me. It makes me curious, because the creator is revealed in the creation." Unlike many creationists, she finds the notion of a world evolving over billions of years theologically exhilarating: "That makes God a lot bigger than thinking of Him as a magician that pulled everything out in one fell swoop."
  ...
  The reports were quickly embraced by biblical literalists who believe God created life on Earth less than 10,000 years ago. For decades they have been working to place a scientific patina on their ideas.
  ...
  Some creationists, noting Schweitzer's evangelical faith, have tried to pressure her into siding with them. "It is high time that the 'Scientific' community comes clean: meaning that the public is going to hold them ACCOUNTABLE when they find out that they have been misled," reads a recent e-mail message Schweitzer received. She has received dozens of similar notes, a few of them outright menacing. These religious attacks wound her far more than the scientific ones. "It rips my guts out," she says. "These people are claiming to represent the Christ that I love. They're not doing a very good job. It's no wonder that a lot of my colleagues are atheists." She told one zealot, "You know, if the only picture of Christ I had was your attitude towards me, I'd run."
  
  Ironically, the insides of Cretaceous-era dinosaur bones have only deepened Schweitzer's faith. "My God has gotten so much bigger since I've been a scientist," she says. "He doesn't stay in my boxes."
  Source: Article - Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery
• Article - Heme Compounds In Dinosaur Trabecular Bone PNAS (Vol. 94, pp. 6291-6296, June 1997)

Brief Background: (1843-1921), Bible student and author, born in Lenawee County, Michigan, reared in Wilson County, Tennessee, and privately educated. Fought in the Civil War from 1861-1865 under General Lee, his distinguished service earning him the Confederate Cross of Honor. Admitted to the Kansas bar in 1869, elected to the Kansas House of Representatives where he served for one year. President Grant appointed him United States Attorney for Kansas in 1873. Worked as a lawyer in Kansas and Missouri from 1869 to 1882. Converted at 36, he was ordained to the Congregational ministry in 1882, and served as pastor of the First Church, Dallas, Texas (1882-1895), and again (1902-1907); and of the Moody Church, Northfield, Massachusetts (1895-1902). Later years were spent lecturing on biblical subjects on both sides of the Atlantic. The work for which he is best remembered is his 1909 dispensational premillenial Scofield Reference Bible. (From "The Wycliffe Biographical Dictionary of the Church," page 362, Elgin S. Moyer, 1982, © Moody Press, Chicago, IL)

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The ancient creation view was held by conservative theologian whose Reference Bible helped publicize the famous "gap" theory (which proposed an age-old earth before Adam). Scofield wrote of genesis 1:1:
  
  The first creative act refers to the dateless past, and gives scope for all the geologic ages. . . . The frequent parabolic use of natural phenomena may warrant the conclusion that each creative ‘day’ was a period of time marked off by a beginning and ending.
  Source: Book - 1909 Scofield Reference Bible.
  
  

On line work:

• Book - Rightly Dividing The word Of Truth
• Article - The Biggest Failure Of The Church Age

Brief Background:  Matt Slick is founder of the apologetics ministry CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry). The ministry has a wealth of articles pertaining to apologetics. It also has on-line training as well as a Radio show. Matt is a evangelical Protestant apologist and a leader in the counter-cult movement. He graduated from Christ College Irvine (Lutheran) in Irvine CA, in 1987 with a bachelors in Social Science. In 1991 he received a masters of divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary (Presbyterian) in Escondido CA. He was a pastor for 2 years and is still ordained. He is Reformed in doctrine, amillennial in eschatology, contemporary in worship, and believes in the spiritual gifts.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• the Bible does not teach that the earth is 6,000-12,000 years old. There are Christians who hold that position and there are other Christians who do not. Quite simply, the Bible does not tell us for sure how old the earth is. I hold to a very old earth position as do many Christians and we interpret the "days" of Genesis to be periods; particularly since the days mentioned were before the creation of the sun and the sun and earth rotation together determine day length.
  Source: Article - Additional response to criticism of "lack of belief" and "Is atheism viable"
  
  

On line work:

• Web site - Numerous articles on CARM
• Web site - Additianal material on Matt's Calvinist Corner

Author of:

• Book - Right Answers for Wrong Beliefs

Brief Background: Chuck Smith Jr. started Capo Beach Calvary in Capistrano Beach, California, and has served as its pastor for 30 years. His father founded Calvary Chapel, a Southern California church that developed innovative ministries in the 1970s to reach young people in the counterculture. Today, Chuck is doing the same thing for emerging generations of the postmodern age. The father of five children, he and his wife, Barbara, also have five grandchildren.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Dr. Ross graciously examines the scientific merits of a young-earth creation and its biblical foundation. He not only demonstrates the more likely age of the universe, but he also celebrates the greatness and majesty of its Creator.
  Source: Book endorsement - for Matter of Days (by Hugh Ross)
  
  
• I wish to congratulate Don Stoner for his courage and compassion in producing this excellent work. Courage because, though accurate, his views run contrary to popular fundamentalist dogma. Compassion because he cares for intelligent people who have experienced unbearable tension straddling scientific discovery and young earth theories produced by people who claim there is only one way to interpret the biblical data - their way. As Roman Catholic Cardinals were afraid to look into Galileo's telescope for fear of what they might discover, some closed-minded Christians may choose not to take a look at A New Look at an Old Earth. But those who do look are likely to find an important truth about our universe.
  Source: Book endorsement - for A New Look at an Old Earth (by Don Stoner)
  
  
• Growing up in Sunday School, our impressionable, young minds were filled with pictures of God creating the earth in six days--as we understood a day, i.e., a twenty-four time period.
  ...
  Unfortunately, the implication of my early Christian education was that a fundamental tension existed between science--which was controlled by atheists trying to disprove God's existence--and us Christians who had the responsibility of defending the truth.
  ...
  Insistence on a young earth has not been universally held by orthodox believers through the centuries.
  ...
  The issue is not whether God could have created the universe 6,000 years ago in six, twenty-four hour days, but whether the Book of Genesis demands this type of interpretation and whether the evidence of our universe supports it.
  ...
  A mistake which young-earth Christians repeatedly make regarding those who accept the scientific evidence for an old universe--or even the Big Bang--is that they must also be evolutionists.
  ...
  Old-earth Christians are not less likely to believe in the inspiration of Scripture. They are not skeptical of the Bible, but of certain people who pose as teachers of the Bible--and their skepticism is warranted (1 Ti. 1:7). In fact, a high view of Scripture demands the best possible interpretation, a willingness to look at all the facts, and a refusal to embrace unenlightened systems of interpretation (1 Th. 5:21-22). On the other hand, old-earth believers don't champion every scientific discovery, but are very concerned with how such discoveries are made and how they will be applied. The hard questions of bio-ethics temper their endorsement of scientific progress.
  Source: Article - Integrity
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Integrity

Author of:

• Book - Frequently Avoided Questions
• Book - The Nature Of Prayer
• Book - There Is A Season
• Book - The Final Curtain
• Book - The End of the World...As We Know It

Brief Background: Sir William Smith (1813 - 1893) English lexicographer, was born at Enfield in 1813. He was originally destined for a theological career, but instead was articled to a solicitor. In his spare time he taught himself classics, and when he entered University College he carried off both the Greek and Latin prizes. He was entered at Gray's Inn in 1830, but gave up his legal studies for a post at University College School, and began to write on classical subjects. He next turned his attention to lexicography. His first attempt was the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, which appeared in 1842. The greater part of this was written by him. In 1849 followed the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, and the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography in 1857. In this work some of the leading scholars of the day were associated with him. The most important, perhaps, of the books edited by Smith were those that dealt with ecclesiastical subjects. These were the Dictionary of the Bible (1860-1865); the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (1875-1880); and the Dictionary of Christian Biography (1877-1887). From 1853 to 1869 Smith was classical examiner to the University of London, and on his retirement he became a member of the Senate. He sat on the Committee to inquire into questions of copyright, and was for several years registrar of the Royal Literary Fund. In 1867 he became editor of the Quarterly Review, which he directed with marked success until his death. But, Smith is probably best known as the The Father of English Geology and acquired the nickname of Strata Smith for his work on fossils and their association with unique layers (strata) and also for his geological map he created while working for canal and coal companies. He created the first geological map in 1815 - it has been called The Map That changed The World. The honour of knighthood was conferred on him the year before his death.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• He believed that all of the sedimentary strata were deposited during many long ages before the flood by a long series of supernatural catastrophes and recreations of new forms of life. Source: Book Phillips, J., Memoirs of William Smith, London, p. 25–26, 1844.
  Smith, W., Deductions from Established Facts in Geology, Scarborough, 1835.
  (This a large one-page explanatory diagram was Smith’s last and clearest statement on his view of earth history).
  
  

On line work:

• Books - Facsimiles of: A Geological Map of England and Wales and Part of Scotland, Strata Identified by Organized Fossils, Geological Table of British Organized Fossils
• Book - The Map That Changed The World (A Geological Map of England and Wales and Part of Scotland)

Author of:

• Book - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1842)
• Book - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1849)
• Book - A Smaller History Of Greece

Brief Background:  Dr. David Snoke received his Bachelor’s degree in physics (magna cum laude) from Cornell University in 1983 and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1990. He is presently Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has been since 1994. Before that, he was an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Physics in Stuttgart, Germany, and worked in industry at various times for the Westinghouse Research and Development Center in Pittsburgh and the Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles. He has published two books with Cambridge University Press on the physics of Bose-Einstein Condensation, and he has published over 50 articles in refereed scientific journals on his research on the optics of semiconductors and other materials - as well as several articles on Christianity and science for World magazine and for Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, the journal of the American Scientifc Afilliation. He is director of the Photonics program at the University of Pittsburgh and directs a laser laboratory funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. He is currently preparing a new textbook for Addison-Wesley on general solid state physics theory. David Snoke is also a licensed preacher and an elder in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), and has published several articles and a short book on the relationship of science and faith. He and his wife have homeschooled their four children for the past 14 years and are active in the Pittsburgh East Area Christian Homeschoolers (PEACH), their local homeschool support group. Natural Philosophy: A Survey Of Physics and Western Thought was developed from materials originally used in a physics class taught for that group.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• In this book I argue that the Old Earth position is a valid conservative, orthodox interpretation of the Bible.
  Source: Book - A Biblical Case for an Old Earth
  
  
• It is unfortunate that some people oppose "Big Bang" theory out of the feeling that it implies randomness in creation, because nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps the name leads people to the wrong picture, of a chaotic explosion. On the contrary, modern science (see, for example, The Accidental Universe by P.C.W. Davies) has shown that incredible balances and tuning were involved in the Big Bang, with precisions on the order of one part in 10100 (ten followed by 100 zeroes).
  Source: Book - A Biblical Case for an Old Earth
  
  

On line work:

• Book - A Biblical Case for an Old Earth
• Article - Personal Articles

Author of:

• Book - A Biblical Case for an Old Earth
• Book - Natural Philosophy: A Survey of Physics and Western Thought  - You can read excerpts here.

Brief Background: Don Stoner is a research and development scientist. He has been awarded two U.S. patents and has been involved with the development of the optical disc and the Precision Motion Chiptester. Don was introduced to the controversy surrounding Genesis in the second grade when he came home from school and asked his father why he was taught in Sunday school that the earth was created in six days and in elementary school that it was created over a much greater period of time. Fortunately, answers were available; his grandfather, Peter W. Stoner, was the author of Science Speaks, a best seller on the subject of scientific proof of the inerrancy of prophecy and the Bible. The subject has fascinated Don since - and over the years he has himself become an authority on the subject of creation. Don and his wife Debbie have four daughters and two sons.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• In his book A New Look At An Old Earth Don makes a compelling case for an old earth.
  
  Source: Book - A New Look At An Old Earth (older free version now on-line
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Old Earth Evidence I: (Annual layers)
• Article - Old Earth Evidence II:(Starlight)
• Article - Death Before the Fall
• Article - God's Word or Science?
• Article - Should Truth be Second Priority?
• Article - Is Light Slowing Down?
• Article - Good Enough for Paul the Apostle

Author of:

• Book - A New Look at an Old Earth

Brief Background: An award-winning journalist for thirteen years with the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers, was a spiritual skeptic until 1981. Author of the Gold medallion Award-winning books The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith, he is a teaching pastor at Saddleback Valley Community Church. He and his wife live in Orange County, California.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• In his books, Lee embraces science and draws heavily from the big bang and other cosmological arguments.
  
  
• Thanks to scientific discoveries of the last fifty years, the ancient kalam cosmological argument has taken on a powerful and persuasive new force. As described by William Lane Craig, the argument is simple yet elegant: first, whatever begins to exist has a cause . Even renowned skeptic David Hume didn't deny this first premise. In fact, atheist Quentin Smith's contention that "we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing" seems intuitively absurd.
  Source: Article - Summary piece for chapter 5 from a web site devoted to his book "The Case for a Creator"
  
  
• The cosmological constant, which represents the energy density of space, is as precise as throwing a dart from space and hitting a bulls-eye just a trillionth of a trillionth of an inch in diameter on Earth. One expert said there are more than thirty physical or cosmological parameters that require precise calibration in order to produce a universe that can sustain life.
  Source: Article - Summary piece for chapter 6 from a web site devoted to his book "The Case for a Creator"
  
  

Author of:

• Book - The Case for a Creator
• Book - The Case for Faith
• Book - The Case for Christ

Brief Background: Professor Charles H. Townes is an outstanding Christian and scientist. He is the father of the laser and winner of the Nobel Prize in physics 1964, and just recently the Templeton Prize in 2005 for progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities. His education consists of a BS degree in physics and BA degree in modern languages from Furman University, graduating summa cum laude in 1935, at the age of 19. He went on to receive a MA degree in Physics at Duke University in 1936, and then entered graduate school at the California Institute of Technology, where he received a Ph.D. degree in 1939 with a thesis on isotope separation and nuclear spins. Some of his other accomplishments consist of: Working for bell labs 1933-1947, Builds the first maser device in 1953, Shares patent for laser with Schawlow in 1960, Appointed Provost and Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961, Chairman of the NASA Science Advisory Committee for the Apollo lunar landing program 1966 and 1970, Uses an array of moveable telescopes for obtaining very high angular resolution of astronomical objects at infrared wavelengths employing a technique called spatial interferometry in 1988, Recently he led a research team which demonstrated the existence of a large black hole at the center of our galaxy. No other living physicist has had a greater impact on the present scientific and technical culture than Charles Townes. The laser has revolutionized numerous applications in business, medicine, and science. He is a committed protestant Christian and a deep thinker who has dedicated much time to sharing his thoughts on ways in which scientific and religious thinking are converging. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Southeastern Seminary. He recently made his preaching debut at Christ Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Sunday, June 12, 2005 and is currently a member of the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, California.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• I do believe in both a creation and a continuous effect on this universe and our lives, that God has a continuing influence — certainly his laws guide how the universe was built. But the Bible's description of creation occurring over a week's time is just an analogy, as I see it. The Jews couldn't know very much at that time about the lifetime of the universe or how old it was. They were visualizing it as best they could and I think they did remarkably well, but it's just an analogy.
  Source: Article - Nobel Prize Winner Charles Townes on Evolution and Intelligent Design   June 17, 2005
  
  

On line work:

• Video - Interview
• Article - The Convergence of Science and Religion  IBM's 1966 THINK Magazine Article Vol 32, No. 2
• Article - Nobel Prize Winner Charles Townes on Evolution and Intelligent Design
• Lecture - Production of Coherent Radiation by Atoms and Molecules  Nobel Lecture
• Lecture - Templeton Prize Acceptance Speech

Author of:

• Book - How the Laser Happened
• Book - Making Waves (Masters of Modern Physics)

Brief Background: Dr. Bruce K. Waltke is a preeminent Old Testament scholar, holding doctorates from Dallas Theological Seminary (Th.D.) and Harvard University (Ph.D.). His teaching appointments at Dallas Theological Seminary, Regent College, and Westminster Theological Seminary won for him a reputation as a master teacher with a pastoral heart. He has written prolifically and his publications include, Intermediate Hebrew Grammar, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, Understanding the Will of God, and a commentary on Micah. He served as Old Testament editor for the New Geneva Study Bible and co-editor for the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Dr. Waltke recently completed a commentary on Proverbs and is writing a commentary on Genesis. He was also a member of the translation committee for the New International Version. He served a term as president of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• First, Genesis and science discuss essentially different matters. The subject of the Genesis creation account is God, not the forces of nature. The transcendent God is a subject that science cannot discuss.
  
  Second, the language of Genesis and science is entirely different. The creation account is formed in everyday speech, nontheoretical terminology, rather than mathematics and technical terminology. More important, Genesis 1 is concerned with ultimate cause, not proximation. The intent of the creation account is not to specify the geological and genetic methods of creation, but to definitively establish that creation is a result of God's creative acts. ...
  
  Third, the purposes of Genesis and science also differ. Genesis is prescriptive, answering the questions of who and why and what ought to be, whereas the purpose of science is to be descriptive, answering the questions of what and how. The narrator of the creation account is not particularly concerned with the questions a scientist asks; rather, he wants to provide answers to the questions science cannot answer -- who has created this world and for what purpose?
  
  Fourth, since they are addressed to different types of communities, Genesis and science require distinct means for validation. Science, speaking to the academic scientific community, requires empirical testing for validation. Genesis, addressed to the covenant community of God, requires the validation of the witness of the Spirit to the heart (Rom. 8;16). For these reasons, the Genesis creation account cannot be delineated as a scientific text.
  Source: Book - Genesis: A Commentary (2001, pp 74-75)
  
  
• Since the biblical narrative is non-scientific, we draw the double conclusion that it cannot be a satisfying scientific account of the origins of things and that it can be supplemented by scientific theories. The Bible and a scientific theory of origins clash only when the latter is set forth as the complete explanation of origins and the former is interpreted as a scientific treatise. ...
  
  Natural theology and exegetical theology are both hindered by a continued adherence to the epistemic principle that valid scientific theories must be consistent with a woodenly literal reading of Genesis. Because of the attempt to harmonize Genesis with science, such implausible interpretations of Genesis 1 as 'the Restitution Theory,' commonly called 'the Gap Theory,' and 'the Day-Age Theory,' have vexed biblical exegesis, and scientific theories presupposing a young earth and denying evolution, unnecessarily have discredited their advocates, despite their unconvincing protests that they are not influenced by Genesis. Let each book speak its own language and be appropriately exegeted and exposited, and let each in its own way bring praise to the Creator, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
  Source: Book - The literary genre of Genesis, Chapter One": Crux, vol. 27, no. 4,.(1991, p. 2-10.)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Aims of OT Textual Criticism
• Article - When Times Are Bad

Author of:

• Book - Genesis: A Commentary
• Book - An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax
• Book - Knowing the Will of God

Brief Background:  (1851-1921), B. B. Warfield studied under Charles Hodge and was a strong defender of the divine inspiration and authority of Scripture as well as a pillar for Reformation in his day. Warfield’s life-long ministry was to refute theological liberalism. He was also a great Biblical commentator of Western Theological Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary fame. Warfield wrote extensively, and his many articles continue to be published and translated around the world. He was also known for his keen interest in science.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• In a word, the Scriptural data leave us wholly without guidance in estimating the time which elapsed between the creation of the world and the deluge and between the deluge and the call of Abraham. So far as the Scripture assertions are concerned, we may suppose any length of time to have intervened between these events which may otherwise appear reasonable. The question of the antiquity of man is accordingly a purely scientific one, in which the theologian as such has no concern.
  Source: Book - "On the Antiquity and Unity of the Human Race" (1911, p. 261) also, reprinted in Biblical and Theological Studies (P & R, 1968), pp. 238-261
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Christianity The Truth
• Article - A Brief and Untechnical Statement of the Reformed Faith
• Article - Darwin's Arguments Against Christianity And Religion
• Article - Some Thoughts on Predestination
• Article - The Authority and Inspiration of the Scriptures
• Article - The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Fact
• Article - What Is Calvinism?
• Article - Index of numerous articles at Bible Teacher

Author of:

• Book - Studies in Theology
• Book - Works of Benjamin Warfield

Brief Background:  Wenham is senior professor of Old Testament at Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education in Cheltenham, England. He is a recognized expert on the Pentateuch and has written commentaries on Genesis, Leviticus and Numbers in addition to numerous studies in the Old Testament.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• It has been unfortunate that one device which our narrative uses to express the coherence and purposiveness of the creator's work, namely, the distribution of the various creative acts to six days, has been seized on and interpreted over-literalistically, with the result that science and Scripture have been pitted against each other instead of being seen as complimentary. Properly understood, Genesis justifies the scientific experience of unity and order in nature. The six-day schema is but one of several means employed in this chapter to stress the system and order that has been built into creation. Other devices include the use of repeating formulae, the tendency to group words and phrases into tens and sevens, literary techniques such as chiasm and inclusio, the arrangement of creative acts into matching groups, and so on.
  Source: Book - Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 1 Genesis 1-15 (1987, pp 39-40)
  
  
• If these hints were not sufficient to indicate the schematization of the six-day creation story, the very content of the narrative points in the same direction. In particular, evening and morning appear three days before the sun and moon, which are explicitly stated to be for "days and years" (v 14). Also, this chapter stands outside the main historical outline of Genesis, each section of which begins, "this is the (family) history of.
  Source: Book - Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 1 Genesis 1-15 (1987, pp 39-40)
  
  
• The Bible-versus-science debate has, most regrettably, sidetracked readers of Gen. 1. Instead of reading the chpater as a triumphant afirmation of the power and wisdom of God and the wonder of his creation, we have been too often bogged down in attempting to squeeze Scripture into the mold of the latest scientific hypothesis or distorting scientific facts to fit a particular interpretation.Whenb allowed to speak for itself, Gen 1 looks beyond such minutiae.
  Source: Book - Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 1 Genesis 1-15 (1987, pp 39-40)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - The Date of Deuteronomy: Linch-pin of Old Testament Criticism. Part One
• Article - The Date of Deuteronomy: Linch-pin of Old Testament Criticism. Part Two

Author of:

• Book - Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 1 Genesis 01-15
• Book - Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 1 Genesis 1 -50
• Book - Exploring the Old Testament: A Guide to the Pentateuch
• Book - Leviticus (New International Commentary on the Old Testament)

Brief Background:  (1909-1999) Dave was a Christian financier and he created The Stewardship Foundation in 1962 for this purpose. The original goal of the Foundation was to contribute to the propagation of the Christian Gospel by evangelical and missionary work and to teach the Christian faith as laid down in the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Scriptures. He was born October 22, 1909 in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was the grandson of Frederick Weyerhaeuser, founder of the lumber and paper products company. He graduated from Yale University in 1933 and then joined Weyerhaeuser Timber Company. He retired in 1958 as Vice President of Forestry, Land and Timber, and remained on the Board until 1980. Over the years, Dave served on the boards of more than 60 Christian organizations, and it was primarily to these organizations that his philanthropy was directed. Dave’s attitude was very much one of wanting to recycle his wealth to benefit those less fortunate than he. The Weyerhaeuser Company’s reforestation program had been an appropriate allegory for Dave, reseeding his wealth into the development of people’s spiritual lives around the world. On April 27, 1999, at the age of 89, C. Davis Weyerhaeuser passed away.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• As a committed believer that the Bible is God's revelation to man, I can see no reason to believe that the days of Genesis 1 are of only 24-hour duration as measured by our clocks (2 Peter 3:8). Mr. Stoner's A New Look at an Old Earth, in my opinion, is a credible resolution of an age old problem which is both scientifically sound and faithful to the Word of God.
  Source: Book endorsement - A New Look at an Old Earth (by Don Stoner)
  
  

Brief Background:  Dr. Wiens has a PhD in Physics, with a minor in Geology. His PhD thesis was on isotope ratios in meteorites, including surface exposure dating. He was employed at Caltech's Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences for seven years where he continued the study of meteorites and worked for NASA on the feasibility of a space mission to return solar wind samples to Earth. He is presently employed in the Space & Atmospheric Sciences Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory where he is the head of a progect to collect solar wind named Genesis! You can check out this progect here: Genesis: Search for O.igins. He has published over twenty scientific research papers and has also published articles in Christian magazines. Dr. Wiens became a Christian at a young age, and has been a member of Mennonite Brethren, General Conference Baptist, and Conservative Congregational, and Vineyard denominations. He does not see a conflict between science in its ideal form (the study of God's handiwork) and the Bible, or between miracles on the one hand, and an old Earth on the other.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• We have covered a lot of convincing evidence that the Earth was created a very long time ago. The agreement of many different dating methods, both radiometric and non-radiometric, over hundreds of thousands of samples, is very convincing.... All of the different dating methods agree--they agree a great majority of the time over millions of years of time. Some Christians make it sound like there is a lot of disagreement, but this is not the case. The disagreement in values needed to support the position of young-Earth proponents would require differences in age measured by orders of magnitude (e.g., factors of 10,000, 100,000, a million, or more). The differences actually found in the scientific literature are usually close to the margin of error, usually a few percent, not orders of magnitude!
  Source: Article - Radiometric Dating A Christian Perspective
  
  
• Some Christians have argued that something may be slowly changing with time so all the ages look older than they really are. The only two quantities in the exponent of a decay rate equation are the half-life and the time. So for ages to appear longer than actual, all the half-lives would have to be changing in sync with each other. One could consider that time itself was changing if that happened (remember that our clocks are now standardized to atomic clocks!). And such a thing would have to have occurred without our detection in the last hundred years, which is already 5% of the way back to the time of Christ.
  Source: Article - Radiometric Dating A Christian Perspective
  
  
• As Christians it is of great importance that we understand God's word correctly. Yet from the middle ages up until the 1700s people insisted that the Bible taught that the Earth, not the Sun, was the center of the solar system. It wasn't that people just thought it had to be that way; they actually quoted scriptures: "The Earth is firmly fixed; it shall not be moved" (Psalm 104:5), or "the sun stood still" (Joshua 10:13; why should it say the sun stood still if it is the Earth's rotation that causes day and night?), and many other passages. I am afraid the debate over the age of the Earth has many similarities.
  Source: Article - Radiometric Dating A Christian Perspective
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Radiometric Dating A Christian Perspective
• Article - Joe Christian Needs to Hear From Us

Brief Background:  John Wiester is a scientist (masters in geology from Stanford), serves as the American Scientific Affiliation's Science Education Commission Chairman, writes, and runs a cattle ranch!. In his capacity with the ASA, he has worked with education boards to enable critical thinking to be added to school curriculums. He is liststed by Access Research Network as "A Friend of Arn". He has taught science classes at Biola as well as Westmont College in Santa Barbara California. He is an oppenent to evolution and has worked hard to point out it's short comings. He has a charming disarming style that is effective in dealing with these controversial situations.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• [John's entire book The Genesis Connectionis written around old earth creationism.]
  Source: Book - The Genesis Connection
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Paradigm Shifts in Geology and Biology: Geosynclinal Theory and Plate Tectonics; Darwinism and Intelligent Design
• Article - Doubting Darwin - A World Magazine article that features Wiester
• Article - Opening the "Big Tent" in Science: The New Design Movement - A Leadership University article that features Wiester

Author of:

• Book - The Genesis Connection
• Book - Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy
• Book - What's Darwin Got to Do With It: A Friendly Conversation About Evolution

Brief Background:  C. Gordon Winder is Professor (emeritus) of Geology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, has published research results in professional journals on micropaleontology; limestone; sandstone; coal; stratigraphic principles, geology of southern Ontario; geology of London, Ontario; and science and religion. In 1963, a sabbatical leave was spent at the University of Wales.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Today I feel confident that the Earth is over four billion years and probably older.
  ...
  The directory of the American Geological Institute lists over 400 geoscience departments in the United States and Canada with over 8000 faculty members. Geology in these departments is taught on the basis that the Earth is old, including such church related institutions as Wheaton College and Calvin College.
  ...
  I could wax eloquently and at length about the individuals living over a century and a half ago such as James Hutton, William Smith, and Charles Lyell, who gathered the evidence and initiated the modern understanding that the Earth has great age. The book by Claude Albritton, ‘The Abyss of Time’ (Freeman, Cooper, 1980) provides an excellent summary. In the late nineteenth century, such prominent geologists as James Dwight Dana, Yale professor, Michigan geologist Alexander Winchell, and Charles Hitchcock, Dartmouth professor, acknowledged a great age for the Earth, and at the same time were committed Christians. Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield believed that the Scriptures are inerrant but acknowledged an ancient earth.
  Source: Article - I Was First Convinced...
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Science and Christianity: The Positive Attitude
• Article - God's Compatibility Triangle for Christianity and Science
• Article - Earth's Old Age Evidence Confronts The Young Age Myth
• Article - Niagara And The Age Of The Earth
• Article - What Is Life? Define Life
• Article - An Abbreviated But Complete History Of Time
• Article - Conclusions, Musings And The Bottom Line

Author of:

• Book - William Edmond Logan 1798-1875: Knighted Canadian Geologist

Brief Background: Daniel E. Wonderly is a contemporary practicing geologist, devote Christian, old earth creationist, and firm believer in the inspiration of scripture. He has also written extensively on proofs of great age using non-radiometric geologic data, especially regarding coral attolls - such as Eniwetok, Bikini, Bahama Banks, and elsewhere around the world. His writings include the excellent God’s Time-Records in Ancient Sediments. His materials are even utilized in Christian home schooling curriculums such as Sonlight. Of special note is that Dan used to himself be a young earth creationist!

Old Earth Quote(s):

• Non-radiometric evidences for long periods of time in earth's history which do not however indicate an evolutionary origin for life on the earth are abundant. Data concerning these evidences are available in the literature of petroleum geology and in other geologic reports, but these have been overlooked or disregarded by the recent creationist movement.
  Source: Article - Coral Reefs & Related Carbonate Structures As Indicators Of Great Age
  
  
• One of the most important -- if not the most important -- evidences for long periods of time in Earth's history is the presence of large calcium carbonate structures in the oceans and within the sedimentary formations of the earth, which were built up by living organisms... It is universally recognized by both Christian and non-Christian scholars that the life processes (cell metabolism, digestion, excretion, secretion, etc.) of living organisms have remained essentially constant since the origin of these organisms.
  Source: Article - Coral Reefs & Related Carbonate Structures As Indicators Of Great Age
  
  
• The evidences against an evolutionary origin of life are very strong, but the arguments in favor of an earth only a few thousand years old are exceedingly weak. Yet many evangelical Christians, students and public officials in our nation are regularly being told by young-earth creationist leaders that these weak arguments should be given a prominent place in the teaching of origins. These arguments are in conflict with a great deal of high quality scientific data, and usually create an unwholesome anti-science attitude in the minds of those who feel they must accept a young-earth view. They must therefore ignore or reject the great mass of scientific data that cannot logically be interpreted as fitting into a young-earth model. This position among evangelical Christians has, in turn, greatly perplexed our nation’s educators, and caused them to assume that the Bible (our “handbook”) has anti-science and illogical characteristics.
  Source: Article - The Date of Creation: Bible-Compatible Evidences for Great Age
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Coral Reefs & Related Carbonate Structures As Indicators Of Great Age IBRI Research Report #16 (1983)
• Article - The Date of Creation: Bible-Compatible Evidences for Great Age IBRI Paper (2002)
• Article - Fanciful Bible-Science Stories' Harm: A Call to Action [From Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 44 (June 1992): 131.]

Author of:

• Book - God's Time-Records in Ancient Sediments: Evidences of Long Time Spans in Earth's History
• Book - Coral Reefs and Related Carbonate Structures As Indicators of Great Age

Brief Background: In 1978 Davis Young joined Calvin's fledgling geology program as its second faculty member. His arrival had a decisive influence on the identity and development of its geology program. At the time, Christian geologists with a Reformed outlook were few in number, and many in Calvin's constituency suspected that the findings of geological science were at odds with the Bible. Some still do, but thanks to Professor Young’s pioneering scholarship, they have far better answers to address these concerns. After earning his undergraduate degree from Princeton, his M.S. from Penn State, and Ph.D. from Brown in geology, with specialization in mineralogy and petrology, he taught at New York University (1968-1973), University of North Carolina (1973 to 1978), and then came to Calvin College in 1978. His years at Calvin have been marked by extraordinary scholarly output, meticulous writing, departmental leadership, dedicated teaching and mentoring of students, tireless promotion of the importance of the earth sciences, a wonderful sense of humor, and a quiet and deep piety. He has also authored or co-authored five books including Creation and the Flood (1977), Christianity and the Age of the Earth (1982), and The Biblical Flood (1995). Wrote two landmark articles published by the Westminster Theological Journal (1987): “Scripture in the Hands of Geologists”, parts I and II. Founded the Affiliation of Christian Geologists, serving as its first president.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• The facts are that the modern view that the Earth is extremely old was developed by Christian men who believed wholeheartedly in creation and the Flood and who were opposed to evolution. They came to their view, not because of a preconceived evolutionary philosophy, but because of their intimate knowledge of rocks gained over the years from thorough field study. The traditional ideas of a six thousand-year-old Earth and a global flood simply could not account for what they saw.
  Source: Article - Christianity and the Age of the Earth (1982, pp. 66-67)
  
  

On line work:

• Article - Geology and Faith in Contact
• Article - The Christian Public and Geology
• Article - The Great Evangelistic Task

Author of:

• Book - Christianity and the Age of the Earth
• Book - Mind over Magma

Brief Background: Edward J. Young (1907-1968) - Reformed Old Testament professor at Westminster Seminary from 1946 until his death in 1968. Young was a giant of biblical scholarship as well as theology. He was a close friend of John Murray and a bold defender of inerrancy. Titles: In the Beginning; Introduction to the Old Testament; Thy Word Is Truth; The Way Everlasting; and commentaries on Isaiah and Daniel. He was also the original editor for the New International Commentary on the Old Testament.

Old Earth Quote(s):

• But then there arises the question as to the length of the days. That is a question which is difficult to answer. Indications are not lacking that they may have been longer than the days we now know, but the Scripture itself does not speak as clearly as one might like.
  Source: Book - Encyclopedia of Christianity, Vol. 3 (1972, p. 242, [ed. P. E. Hughes Wilmington, DE])
  
  
• We must now ask the question, What does the Bible mean when it speaks of "day"? How long a period of time is meant? This is a question concerning which Christian scholars have widely differed. At least five views have been held in the Christian Church … Which one of these five views, then, is the student to hold? We answer that we cannot dogmatically say that any one view is the only correct one. Let the student consider each one carefully and prayerfully, and let him choose that which seems to him to be the one most in accord with Scripture teaching. But let him remember that we simply cannot say definitely and dogmatically just what the word "day" here does mean. The author is inclined to believe that the word should be taken in the first sense, that is, a day of twenty-four hours.
  Source: Book - Study Your Bible: A Self Study Course for Bible Believing Christians (1934,p 16-17, [Eerdmans])
  
  
• 1. The pattern laid down in Genesis 1:1-2; 3 is that of six days followed by a seventh.
  
  2. The six days are to be understood in a chronological sense, that is, one day following another in succession. This fact is emphasized in that the days are designated, one, two, three, etc.
  
  3. The length of the days is not stated. What is important is that each of the days is a period of time which may legitimately be denominated mwOy (“day”).
  
  4. The first three days were not solar days such as we now have, inasmuch as the sun, moon and stars had not yet been made.
  
  5. The beginning of the first day is not indicated, although from Exodus 20:11, we may warrantably assume that it began at the absolute beginning, Genesis 1:1.
  
  6. The Hebrew word mwOy is used in two different senses in Genesis 1:5. In the one instance it denotes the light in distinction from the darkness; in the other it includes both evening and morning. In Genesis 2:4 b the word is employed in yet another sense, “in the day of the Lord God’s making.”
  
  7. If the word “day” is employed figuratively, i.e., to denote a period of time longer than twenty-four hours, so also may the terms “evening” and “morning,” inasmuch as they are component elements of the day, be employed figuratively. It goes without saying that an historical narrative may contain figurative elements. Their presence, however, can only be determined by means of exegesis.
  
  8. Although the account of creation is told in terms of fiat and fulfilment, this does not necessarily exclude all process. In the second work of the third day, for example, the language suggests that the vegetation came forth from the earth as it does today. This point, however, cannot be pressed.
  Source: Book - Studies in Genesis One (1979 p. 103-104, [Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.])
  
  

Author of:

• Book - Studies in Genesis one
• Book - An Introduction to the Old Testament
• Book - The Book of Isaiah
• Book - The prophecy of Daniel: A commentary