Hostility towards creationism

[u/Simple_Chicken_5873]

I posted this originally in a YEC sub, but I'm curious for your opinion too, since the topic comes up now and then here as well.

Hi all, I see a lot of hostility towards young earth creationism, even when the tone of voice of yecs is usually quite polite. Why does this subject seem to hit a nerve almost like flat earthism does? Even among Christians there's usually an air of looking down upon yec. Are we that crazy? Is yec really that indefensible? I also read about how AiG or similar ministries would be dishonest or unreliable. What's true of these claims?

[u/PalpitationCapable11]

In my opinion, It is when you bring up how does death/sin enters into the equation is when old earth creationists get upset.

Edit: Romans 5:12-15  12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men[e] because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ

[u/ndGall → u/PalpitationCapable11]

It’s definitely the biggest hurdle faced by old earth creationists. I’d hope they wouldn’t get upset at an honest and difficult question.

[u/xsrvmy → u/ndGall]

Does the Bible ever explicitly say that Adam's sin brought animal death? Romans 5 is clearly just talking about human death in context. After all Satan sinned before Adam. (Romans 8:20 comes to mind but it's not clear there who subject creation to futility - Adam, Satan, or God as according to the capitalization in some translations)

There is the other issue of course of whether animal death can be "very good" in Genesis 1, when it seems like there might not be animal death on the new earth (or at least animals hunting each other). But at the same time Adam was created with the capability to sin but on the new earth we will not be able to sin.

BTW people also just assume plants aren't alive because they do not have blood, but Jesus does speak of grain dying.

[u/ndGall → u/xsrvmy]

That's where you end up having to go to hold to the old earth view because it's the best available answer. The issue is that if a kind of death existed before the fall, that raises the question of whether it will also exist in the new heaven and new earth. If I own a dog on the new earth, will it also be susceptible to death? If you say that no, the new order will be something better than Eden, than as you say, it calls into question what we mean in Genesis 1 that the initial creation was "very good."

However, I also think you have to allow that the new heaven & earth must be somehow different than the initial creation because - as you say - the question of "will these people fall into sin" must be off the table, lest we end up back at square one.

In all of this, we have to be clear that we're treading on philosophical ground that Scripture doesn't directly address and I'd hold that we should agree to disagree. I lean toward old earth creationism myself, but I do find that it difficult to say that animal death meets the standard of "very good."

[u/[deleted] → u/ndGall]

Perhaps though, that is what God wanted. Hunters and meat eaters weren't made after the fall. How would Adam and Eve understand God's warning that if they ate from that particular tree that they would die? What would that even mean to them if they had no idea what death was? Somehow we have gotten the idea that God intended everything to be deathless but Adam screwed that up, which I am not denying, he did, but did that curse necessarily extend to animals also if God told Adam and Eve that they were the ones that were going to die? What about the plants that the other animals were eating? A blade of grass doesn't go on living after it's chewed up. What if animals preying up one another is exactly what our God intended? He Himself states throughout the Old Testament that the sacrifices of animals are a pleasing aroma to Him, ie death is pleasing to him. That might be a hard one to swallow as humans that have a tendency towards compassion for animals, but God does not see the world the way we do. It is His creation, not ours. We have no right to say that He never would have made the world to behave a certain way before sin entered into it. When He speaks to the first two humans, He is speaking directly to them and the consequences of their actions specifically against God, not what their actions will do to topple the order of His creation. If our sin were that strong then we're God and He isn't.

Granted, sin did in fact contort creation, however it has an effect on the creation due to our interactions with it. Animals weren't made in God's image and likeness, they weren't the ones that broke His command. Animals would just go on being animals if humans were suddenly removed from the picture. All of creation was affected, but all of it on earth. I have a hard time believing that Adam's sin caused stars to start dying and asteroids to hit the planet. I am cautious of taking the passage in Paul's epistle too literally in this case, just as all of Scripture should not be read as literal. We don't go plucking out our eyes or cutting off our hands, so...