The "Old Earth" vs. "Young Earth" Issue

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As your children grow older, the question will likely arise whether or not God created everything about 6,000 years ago...or billions of years ago.

As your children grow older, the question will likely arise whether or not God created everything about 6,000 years ago...or billions of years ago. In other words, they will hear from some creationists (who believe in a Creator rather than evolution) very good arguments for a Creator God, but then will find that these creationists maintain that nothing in the universe was created prior to the time of Adam and Eve.

This is where a misunderstanding arises over the interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2. The United Church of God believes the evidence of the ScripturesThe divinely inspired writings of both the Old and New Testaments. The term Scripture is used in the New Testament to refer to both the Hebrew Bible (Luke 24:44-45) and the new apostolic writings accepted as inspired (2 Peter 3:16; 1 Timothy 5:18). indicates that God actually created the universe (including the earth) long before Adam and Eve. For a more thorough explanation, read pages 29-31 of our brochure Creation or Evolution: Does It Really Matter What You Believe?

In any event, the important thing to understand is that all creation originated with God, not by evolution, and that God made us— humans—starting with Adam and Eve. We take His Word at face value, and we are the creative product of the Creator, not of an evolutionary process of gradually developing primates.

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Posted June 3, 2001
Posted November 1, 2004

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Related Booklet

Creation or Evolution - Does It Really Matter What You Believe?

Creation or Evolution - Does It Really Matter What You Believe?

The BibleThe books (Greek, "biblia" ) that are acknowledged as canonical (authoritative) by the early Christian Church. It includes both the books of the ancient Hebrew prophets and those of the apostolic witnesses to Jesus Christ. was long accepted as a true and reliable account of our origins. But then Darwin's theory of evolution took the world by storm, with predictable and tragic consequences—proof that what we believe does matter.

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