How old is the world? The difference between believers and non-believers hits a seemingly impassible barrier when considering how old the world is. The other side insists that creation, though they never call it that, is 20 billion years old. Fundamentalists believe it was created six or seven thousand years ago. Bishop Ussher believed it was brought into being on October 23, 4004 B.C. at nine A.M.
Catholic Fundamentalists believe it was created between those dates and seven thousand years before them, giving us a range in age of 12 to 13,000 years. The extra seven thousand years comes from 2 Peter, 3:8 and Psalms 90:4. They tell us that “To God, a thousand years are like a day”. When that Scripture is applied to the seven days of Creation described in Genesis, we are left with some number of years between twelve and thirteen thousand years ago.
We also understand that it is possible (possible, remember!) for The Loving Programmer to have brought all creation as we know it into being any time He wanted, with all the history He wanted us to have programmed in place.
While one rationally resists taking that to its logical possibility, the conclusion that He could have programmed it into being a few minutes ago is not one that can be utterly discounted.
Still, it’s more likely that twelve or thirteen thousand years is an apt description of how long things have been here. We are in awe that He programmed and downloaded The Creation Program so brilliantly that we human programs could look around us and be free to believe that it was all made billions of years ago. Some try to make the process seem less complicated by saying, “Well, if you Catholic Fundamentalists are right, He did program us, too. All He had to do was make our programs only able to take in the parts He wanted us to see of the Creation Program.”
That, of course, is true, but only magnifies, rather than diminishes, the immensity of the accomplishment.
