One of the reasons I have decided to take the OEC view is because I just don't believe the universe looks young. I do think that those who take the "apparent age" view of the earth can reasonably argue their case. I fully grant that it is possible that God created the earth 6,000-10,000 years ago, and also created all the fossils in the ground already. I know it is possible that for those stars that are too far away for their light to reach earth within a 6,000-10,000 year period that it is fully possible for God to create the light already in transit. I know that. After all, God created Adam and Eve with the look of apparent age. Why couldn't he have done this with the rest of the creation?
Still, I find it a much more intellectually comfortable position to take the view that the earth really is old, and that the creation days of Genesis are not meant to be literal 24 hour days. One key reason I feel this way is because the history of the church has never been uniform in its understanding of the creation account, and there have been many who have not taken a literalistic approach to understanding the creation days. Indeed, taking the Bible as God's inspired, authoritative, infallible Word has never meant that every single passage is meant to be understood in a wooden or literalistic kind of way. That being the case, I fail to see why I should feel some kind of pressure to affirm the YEC view out of some fear that the OEC view is a slippery slope toward theological liberalism.
There is obviously a whole lot more to be said on this issue, and at this point, I'm probably not competent enough to argue the position as well as I would like, but I will just list a few points:
1. While I hold to OEC, I am not claiming to affirm evolution. These are two different issues. The age of the earth is a geological question, while evolution is a biological question. On the question of evolution, I'm not convinced that every type of evolutionary view is incompatible with Christian theism, but I do believe that the view that all species eventually evolved from a single-celled organism is incompatible with the Christian worldview.
2. I have still not decided exactly which view of the creation days I am going to take. I lean toward the Framework Hypothesis, but I am still studying that issue.
3. I still believe that Genesis 1-3 describes real events. I believe Adam and Eve were real persons who were really tempted by that old serpent, Satan, and that the Fall was a real event. I believe the rest of Scripture treats these events as real events, and not just poetic stories with spiritual meanings. I believe that the first Adam was a real person, just like the second Adam, Christ, was a real person.
4. Finally, I believe that science is a friend of Christianity, and not an enemy. By science, of course, I mean the discipline of doing science, since obviously there are many scientists out there who most certainly are the enemies of the faith. But science is a helpful aid in helping us know how to understand and apply Scripture. To this effect, I will quote John Frame:
"Here I wish to make the general point that like linguistics, logic, and history, all sciences help us to apply and therefore to interpret Scripture. It is true that many sciences, perhaps all, today are dominated by unbelieving presuppositions, and therefore, we must spend a lot of effort in separating wheat from chaff. But once we are clearly operating on biblical ground, we can learn much from the sciences.
"(1) Sciences will sometimes lead us to reconsider the truth, not of Scripture but of our interpretations of Scripture. Galileo and others led the church to reconsider its view that Scripture taught geocentrism. In my opinion, that was a good thing, something that the church should have done earlier, rather than disciplining the heliocentrists. Geologists who believe in an "old earth" have led theologians to reconsider their exegesis of Genesis 1-2, convincing some evangelical and Reformed scholars to interpret the temporal indications in these chapters figuratively. At this moment, I do not know where the truth lies on that matter. But the discussion is a proper one. The geologists may turn out to be wrong (as the Creation Research Society argues), but until that is proved to the satisfaction of most Christians, we ought to consider at least the possibility of a revised exegesis..."
"(2) Science also aids application by describing the situation to which Scripture is being applied. Medical science gives us important data about the unborn child that may well influence our thinking on abortion. We must know what the unborn child is to know how Scripture relates to him. (Of course, Scripture also has some things to say about what the child is.) Similarly, we must know what an IUD does before we know whether the use of it is biblically right or wrong. To know that, we must consult some medical specialists."
--John Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, pp. 314-315.
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