The Earth's Age

A friend of mine was asking me the other day about my thoughts on the age of the Earth, and therein essentially my view on creationism/evolutionism and the book of Genesis. As an Old Earth Christian who takes Genesis as more of a parable than a history book, I usually end up having to justify myself to both sides of the spectrum. My least favorite people to argue with are "Young Earth Scientists" who seek to scientifically justify a "literal" Biblical timeline. Following are critiques which summarize the most frequent proofs proffered by the individuals and why I take issue with them.

Proof by analogy is problematic: I have yet to hear someone criticize evolution without attempting to compare some effect of evolution to some impossible scenario. Unfortunately, the value of any such argument is inherently tied to the accuracy of the analogy, and good analogies for anything of substance are hard to find. David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published in 1779, annihilated any hope for proving the existence for God on the basis of analogy summarized by a phrase Christians must openly admit: there is simply nothing like God. Immanuel Kant, perhaps the seminal philosopher of all Western thought ever since, spent his entire career developing a way of thinking which could still accommodate God within the basically irrefutable context of Hume's dialogues. Even so, over two centuries later, people continue trying to use the same logic, and for whatever reason, people keep listening.

Proof by misuse is much more problematic: There is a book published by a young-earth scientist which makes the argument that a great part of what's wrong with evolution is that it has been used to support racism. While I am well aware that evolution has been used to justify racism, genocide, and a wide array of other ills, I would be very careful as a religious person to avoid postulating the argument that such usage invalidates the idea itself. Religion in all its forms certainly trumps virtually any other idea on the grounds of devastation through misuse. Evolution is a process through which changes occur in organisms. It is not designed to prescribe a path of action, nor does it come with a built in philosophy. Evolution says nothing about God save that he must be patient, and Christianity says almost nothing about how God chooses to do the things He does.

Proof by abuse of definition is contemptible: The most common arguments I hear come out of this movement rely on using very particular definitions. They create a single, unwavering definition of Christianity, then produce an equally rigid definition of evolution, and then somehow stand amazed that these two definitions conflict. I generally disagree with both definitions proffered. While scripture is full of historical truths and facts about humanity and the world around us, it is not at all times explicitly literal. To deny metaphor to scripture is to undermine the beauty of the psalms and the wisdom of the parables. What is gained if Genesis is literal rather than metaphorical? Neither rendition changes how we live in the present, and I'm fairly certain we won't be quizzed on it before the gates of Heaven. What we gain from the book is wisdom. If it is literal, than that wisdom is present, but I would argue shallow. An allegorical history is both beautiful in its ability to bestow an understanding of who we are without needing to sift through irrelevant data regarding unimportant events. If Genesis is history in the modern understanding of the word, then it is mostly meaningless. It has nothing more to offer then a list of events which transpired. If it is allegory, then the depths of its mystery can be endless, just like God Himself.