Beliefs about "Appearance of Age"
| Questioning Mainstream Science | |
 |
Appearance of Age |
| ATHEISM | AGNOSTICISM | DEISM | THEISM | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evolutionary Creationism | Old Earth Creationism | Young Earth Creationism | ||||
| without "gap" | with "gap" | |||||
Creationism
Young Earth Creationism (YEC)
"Appearance of Age" was elaborated as the "Omphalos Hypothesis" in a book published by Philip Gosse in 1857, two years before Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Omphalos is Greek for navel; Gosse's argument was that since Adam was created, not born, he would not have needed a navel, but still might have been given one as the appearance of having been born; similarly the Earth could have been created with an appearance of age. The idea was not taken seriously by Christadelphians until the Creationist Revival of the 1960s was felt.
- Christadelphian advocates of Appearance of Age included Ron Abel in Wrested Scriptures (1960s).
See also Beliefs re the Age of the Earth.
Old Earth Creationism (OEC) with "Gap"
The "Gap Theory" can be regarded as an alternative to Appearance of Age in explaining evidence for great age in the fields of paleontology, geology, astronomy and cosmology, in that it proposes a new creation as recent as 4,000 BC, preceded by a "gap" during which "the earth was without form, and void". Before that period, vast ages could have passed, leaving evidence behind in fossils, rock formations, stars, galaxies, etc. Thus things appear old because they are truly old.
Nevertheless if the "Appearance of Age" concept is accepted, it becomes credible that God could have created new things after the "gap" which appear to be much older.
Old Earth Creationism (OEC)
Brother Wilfred Lambert:
. . . we absolutely reject the idea put out by some that God deliberately put the fossils in the rocks in 4004 BC to deceive the (recent, western) scientists. This assigns a totally excessive importance to these people, and denigrates God by making him into a petty trickster. . . .
Full text of the the study is here.
Evolutionary Creationism (EC)
Evolutionary Creationists believe that the universe appears old because it is old. Bro Ken Gilmore speaks for many, though perhaps more confidently than most:–
There are some things in life about which one can be utterly certain. One of them is the fact that the Earth is considerably older than 6000 years, being around 4.5 billion years old, give or take a few tens of millions of years.
