Created to Look Old?

Last week I visited a couple of local private schools where I distribute my Creation Clues for Kids to give them copies of my latest issue. As I was talking with one of the administrators, she mentioned a thought someone brought up recently. The thought was, basically, that since God created Adam as an adult man (not an infant or a child), couldn’t God have created other things fully mature as well? For example, the trees in the Garden of Eden would not have been sprouting seeds , but full-grown trees that were already producing fruit for Adam and Eve to eat. Going back to the famous question of “what came first: the chicken or the egg?”, God created fully formed-chickens (not eggs) because an egg would need a mother chicken to keep it warm or else it would die.

In answer to this question/comment, yes, I do believe that God created some things already mature, or with the appearance of age. The act of creation was a miracle. It is a very bad idea to underestimate the power of God.  However, this is a concept that we have to be very careful with because it can easily be misused and actually end up undermining the principles in God’s Word. Because of this, Answers in Genesis actually lists the argument that “God created things to look old” as one of their arguments that Christians shouldn’t use (please note: I do not necessarily endorse everything on Answers in Genesis’ list of “Arguments Christians Shouldn’t Use”).

Let me explain some of the problems that come with this idea. We could assume that God created not just Adam to appear old, but also the face of the earth and the light from very distant stars to appear older than they really are. We could think that God created the world looking basically like it does today.  But if God just created the earth to look old, then nothing we learn about the way certain geologic features and fossils were formed would really be true. This would be like a false history in the rock record because God would have just created it all the way we see it. In the rock record we find evidence of many bad things happening: animals killing each other, disease, pain, disastrous storms, and violent volcanos. We see evidence of catastrophic supernovas through the light of distant stars, so according to astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle, God did not create the stars with light already on it’s way  (please give some feedback on this topic in the poll bellow).

I know that some groups of Christians and Jews believe that God just put fossils in the rock layers to deceive people. God is not a liar (Numbers 23:19). It is not consistent with His nature to put a record of things that never happened here for people. Besides, He commanded us to “fill the earth and subdue it”. Using science is a significant way of subduing the earth, just like God commanded. Also, the fossils are records of death, pain, and disease.  God certainly would not put a false record of death, pain, and disease for people who obeyed His command to subdue the earth to find. These bad things in our world are a result of Adam and Eve’s choice to sin, not God’s “very good” creation.

I am sure that most Christians who believe God created things to look mature and fully grown don’t take this view so far (I believe that God created some things mature and that we can trust Him no matter what).  I just provided an extreme extension of this concept because I want to caution other Christians not to take this too far.   I love having questions like this to think, pray, and study about. Please feel free to ask me questions or put in comments.