Does it matter

Although it does matter how much time was involved, it becomes a meaningless question with God, because the length of time would not put any burden on God who is transcendent to time, space, and so on in our universe. Where the real questions come into place is without an agent with an agenda could any of this occur through any other means? We are transcendent beings in this universe, we can produce meaning by arranging the material in the universe so that it is recognizable to others.

That leaves but two possible causes for the arrangement in the universe itself and life was an agent involved? I am telling you how much time doesn't matter, when you write a paragraph and I can read it does it matter that it took you 4 minutes to write it or 4 years? The fact meaningful words were arraigned in any medium in the material world speaks to an agent with a mind.

It does matter.

I get what you are trying to say, but it matters because the narrative of the Earth being millions or billions of years old runs into conflict with scripture. Creation week described in the book of Genesis took place over the course of 7 days, each 24 hours long (7th day God rested) and since then biblical scholars estimate the age of the Earth to be roughly 10,000 years old by adding up the ancestry ages the Bible shares and inserting them into historical events we do know the date(s) of.

It isn't that the literal age of the Earth matters, it is the direct inferences that such dates would convey. I recommend two books if these topics interest you:

- The Lie: Evolution (by Ken Ham)

- Creation: Facts of Life (by Dr. Gary Parker)

The age of the earth doesn’t conflict with scripture, it’s just the age of life and evolution that does.

Genesis 1 is in chronological order, so God created the heavens and the earth first, in verse one, then created light in verse 3 and called it “day” in verse 4, then further defined day in verse 5: “And there was evening, and there was morning: the first day.” So the problem with the age of the earth is that when Exodus 20:11 says that God created the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them in 6 days, you can’t use “days” to describe the age of the earth because you have to use the Bible’s definition of day, and God created the earth before he created days. Everything including earth was created before or during the first six days (or rather, the first six evenings and mornings), but whatever was created before day was created has no specific time frame. Everything that was created after verse 5, including all life that God created, is only about 10,000 years old, like you said, but the Bible gives no indication as to how old the earth is.

My belief is that God created the heavens and the earth for the angels, and then destroyed them when the angels rebelled. Read Jeremiah 4:23-28: it starts with the Hebrew “tohu wabohu” or “formless and void”, and it is the only place other than genesis 1:2 where that phrase is. There are some very clear similarities to genesis 1:2, such as the absence of light. Later on in verse 27 it says that God will not make a “full end” to the earth, and since we know that in the end, God will completely destroy the earth, this must be referring to something in the past, and the only place where this fits in the entire chronology of the Bible is between genesis 1:1 and 1:2. The passage says that the earth was destroyed because of God’s wrath, and since man wasn’t created at the time it must be referring to the angel’s rebellion. However, I would assume that the angels lasted more than 24 hours on earth without rebelling, so we really have no idea how old the earth is. It could be 10,000 years old, or it could be 10^100 years old, as far as the Bible is concerned.

I'm a young Earth creationist, but my beliefs I don't think I can back up with scripture, so I don't worry about time for age, but I do worry about time concerning timing. I'm young Earther more because of the attributes of God than my beliefs about Genesis 1:1-2 having an indefinite time between those verses. I think because it is vague I don't worry about it, what I take away is that God created it out of nothing. Since I don't believe He is limited by time, time is not an issue for me one way or another, and it can get in the way of the creation story. If what is proposed cannot be done, having billions of years to do it will not change that fact, people hide behind long periods, and if you spend time on something that we cannot prove we leave the discussion on a hill that can never have a clear winner given our limitations. Not so with processes, with the facts that we see with information driving the processes there is no mindless procedure that can account for that.