Love & The Outcome - He Is With Us

Michael Horton and the age of the earth

To be sure, science is better equipped to answer some questions than any other field. For instance, it is science and not theology that will tell us the age of the earth. The Bible does not provide that kind of information, nor does it care to. Nevertheless, it is an important and reasonable question.

Michael Horton, Putting Amazing Back Into Grace (Baker, 2002), 30.

Two-billion-year-old water found in Canada

Scientists found water that has not had contact with Earth’s atmosphere for roughly two billion years—making it possibly older than the dawn of multicellular life—in a Canadian mine two miles below Earth’s surface. “Water can flow into fractures in rocks and become isolated deep in the crust for many years,” said Barbara Sherwood Lollar, geoscientist at the University of Toronto, “serving as a time capsule of what their environments were like at the time they were sealed off” (Choi, 2013, par. 3).

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Charles Q. Choi, "Oldest water on Earth found deep underground," NBC News: Science [blog], posted May 15, 2013, http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/15/18278807-oldest-water-on-earth-found-deep-underground (accessed May 17, 2013).

“Billions-year-old sparkling water may hold clues for life on Earth and Mars,” University of Toronto Media Room, posted May 15, 2013, http://media.utoronto.ca/media-releases/billions-year-old-sparkling-water-may-hold-clues-for-life-on-earth-and-mars/ (accessed May 17, 2013).

Deborah Byrd, “Billion-year-old water found in reservoir under Ontario,” EarthSky [blog], posted May 16, 2013, http://earthsky.org/earth/billion-year-old-water-found-in-reservoir-under-ontario (accessed May 17, 2013).

G. Holland, B. Sherwood Lollar, G. Lacrampe-Couloume, G. F. Slater, & C. J. Ballentine, “Deep fracture fluids isolated in the crust since the Precambrian era,” Nature 497 (May 16, 2013), 357–360; http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7449/full/nature12127.html

Vern Poythress and evolutionary creationism

Now for the sake of argument let us suppose that the mainstream picture of gradualism is true, that is, purely gradual processes produced all living things. That picture is completely compatible with God having done it all for his own purposes.

Vern S. Poythress, “Adam Versus Claims From Genetics,” Westminster Theological Journal 75 (2013), 69.

Poythress includes a footnote referencing the fact that Alvin Plantinga similarly distinguishes between unguided and guided evolutionary processes in his book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (Oxford University, 2011), 16-17, 39, 55, 63.