The basic rock of evolutionary thinking is uniformitarianism. Wikipediadefines it like this:

Uniformitarianism is the scientific principle that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. It has included the gradualistic concept that “the present is the key to the past” and is functioning at the same rates. Uniformitarianism has been a key principle of geology and virtually all fields of science, but naturalism’s modern geologists, while accepting that geology has occurred across deep time, no longer hold to a strict gradualism.

If we accept the truth of the Bible, then we can see that this basic assumption that things haven’t changed and therefore “the present is the key to the past”, is incorrect. There have been dramatic changes in the form of a Noahic Flood of devastating, world-wide proportions. The climatic conditions were clearly different after the Flood; people’s life-spans where dramatically  shortened.

How does this affect attempts to date the earth? Dating processes involve measuring tiny proportions of some element that decays over time. Knowing the present half-life, one can extrapolate back to a starting date. If however, because water is such a wonderful solvent, if the earth has been covered in water during the year-long Flood, it would leech out a proportion of what one is trying to measure and therefore make it appear older.

The other assumption is that there was nothing in the first place. That’s man’s assumption, which runs counter to what God has told us. Trees were created bearing fruit. Adam wasn’t a new-born baby! On that first sabbath Adam would have seen hills and valleys clothed with trees and fruits, birds laying eggs, animals, birds and fish fully grown and sea with salt in it. An apparently mature earth; certainly not new-born. That’s how God tells us He made the earth. It is our choice whether we reject or accept it. After all there are, I understand, many more evidences for a young earth than for an old earth.

With these background thoughts let’s spend some time looking at what Genesis tells us about each day.