Norman Geisler's Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics is an outstanding book.  It is a virtual "who's who?" and "what's what?" concerning anyone and anything related to apologetics.  As such, this book is extremely useful to the apologist as a reference work and we highly recommend it.  However, we must take issue with a particular article in the book.  The following critique comes from a letter that I sent to Dr. Geisler last month (I have not received a response yet - if I do and if he allows it, I will post his response).  I have edited it to be more readable as a critique.  If Dr. Geisler ever responds I will post the original letter as well.

     The section entitled “Genesis, Days of” contains some misleading statements and surprisingly fallacious arguments (surprising because Dr. Geisler is normally so solid in his arguments).  It is regrettable that Dr. Hugh Ross is cited as a reference in this section.  It would not surprise me to learn that this is where many of his points came from.  I do not mean to attack Dr. Ross personally in any way, shape, or form.  I believe he is a devout Christian man but I believe he has been less than academically honest in his works.  I will list several of the errors in the order they appear in the book and explain why I believe they are erroneous, misleading, and/or illogical. [the quotes are taken from the electronic version of Dr. Geisler's book]

     Before citing this list I would like to mention that I offer this in the same spirit as Dr. Geisler's critique of Hank Hanegraaffe’s The Last Disciple [available at www.normgeisler.com].  I realize that this is not a “salvation issue” and many have tried to avoid taking a stand on the issue.  Having read many of his books, it seems as though he tries to stay neutral (for the most part) on the issue, but I believe his view ultimately comes through loud and clear.  For example, in your first volume of Systematic Theology, Martin Luther’s belief in geocentricity (not taught in the Bible) is compared with his belief in a literal six day creation of approximately 24 hours each (which is taught in the Bible).  Apparently, Dr. Geisler believes that belief in a young earth is as silly as believing in geocentricity.  Please accept these points of contention from a young student of God’s Word and correct me if/when I am wrong.  

1) The article stated, “Finally, if every day in this series of seven is to be taken as twenty-four hours, then why is the phrase “evening and morning” not used of the seventh day? In fact, as we shall see, the seventh day is not twenty-four hours, and thus there is no necessity to take the other days as twenty-four hours either, since all of them alike use the same word yom and have a series of numbers with them.”^[1]

-    The conclusion “there is no necessity to take the other days as twenty-four hours either” does not follow.  Just because day seven does not include the phrase ‘evening and morning’ does not mean that it wasn’t a 24-hour day (it would be more accurate to say ‘approximately 24-hour day’ – we don’t even have a 24 hour day today as I’m sure Dr. Geisler is aware).  Moreover, even if day seven was longer than 24 hours, which I would dispute, it does not follow that days 1 – 6 must have been long periods of time.

2) A little bit later he stated, “Light was not created on the fourth day, as defenders of the solar day argue.”^[2] 

-    I have been studying the creation v. evolution controversy for more than a decade and I have never heard or read a YEC [Young Earth Creationist] claim that light was created on the fourth day.  Where did this information come from?  While there may be some people out there who make this claim, they certainly do not speak for the majority of YEC’s nor are they in the forefront of the movement (i.e., Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis).  I have never read/watched/listened to a single book, video, or audio tape/cd that has made this claim and these resources number in the hundreds.  All I have ever heard is exactly what you claim that it was made on the very first day when God said “Let there be light.”  This is clearly a straw man argument and I was shocked to find such a poor argument in one of Dr. Geisler's works.

-    Second, it is a bit misleading to call this view the “solar day” view as he does.  Maybe I’m nitpicking here but I do not recall any YEC who would choose this label for himself/herself.  It is misleading because the name “solar” is based on our sun (Sol), which we believe was created on Day Four just as the Bible declares.  So we would not call the first three days “solar days.”  I will write more on this subject in the following point.

3) Next, he stated “As to why there was light on the first day and the sun did not appear until the fourth day, there are two possibilities.”^[3]

-    This is an example of bifurcation.  He is forcing the reader to choose one of two options when there is actually a third.  He listed the following: 1) a parallelism between days 1 – 3 and 4 – 6 and 2) the sun was created on the first day but did not appear until the fourth.  There is clearly another option: God created light on day one and the sun on day four, exactly what Genesis one states.  What was that light?  It doesn’t tell us.  My guess would be that God Himself was that light as He will be in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21: 23 and 22: 5).  I realize that men like Hugh Ross like to make a distinction between the Hebrew words bara’ and ’asah (create and make) but they overstate the case as the words are often used interchangeably, even in Genesis one (see Genesis 1: 26 – 27). 

4) In the next section, Dr. Geisler declared, “Genesis does not mention [the creation of] all the plants and animals but only some.”^[4]

-    I think this statement needs clarification.  If he is making the claim that Genesis does not mention the creation of every “species” of animal and plant, then I agree.  But, if his claim is that Genesis one is not referring to the creation of every “kind” of animal and plant then I could not disagree with him more.  Exodus 20: 11 clearly states that God made everything in the heavens, the earth, and the sea in six days (I realize the six days are the main point of contention but is it even debatable that all creatures and plants were made in this time period – even if the days were long periods of time?).  God made plants to bring forth after their kind and the animals to bring forth after their kind.  Did God make all the different species of dogs on day six?  I don’t think so.  He made the dog kind, which included the genetic variability that we see in all the different dogs today.  The same is true with the different plants and animals.

5) The article cites Newman’s argument concerning the number of activities/events that occurred on Day Six as evidence that it probably was not a 24-hour day.  He concluded this list with the following statement: “It seems highly unlikely that all of these events, especially the second, were compressed within a twenty-four-hour period.”^[5]  

-    The second point on this list is “God formed man from dust as a potter.”  Does he really believe that God could not have done this in a portion of one day [day six] or did he mean to cite a different point on the list?  None of the items on the list offer conclusive evidence against a 24-hour day.  Adam did not have to name all of the thousands of species that are in existence now.  He only needed to name the “beasts of the fields” and the “birds of the air” (Gen. 2: 19).  Keep in mind, at this time, he would only have had to name the different “kinds” of creatures – not every single species because they were not in existence yet.  He did not need to name the fish or insects.  This is by no means an insurmountable task for the then-perfect Adam. 

-    I fail to see how Genesis 2: 23 indicates that Adam had anticipated Eve for some time.  Maybe the Hebrew makes this distinction but I do not see it in our English versions.

6) Dr. Geisler mentions that “Most scientific evidence sets the age of the world at billions of years. The age of the universe is based on the speed of light and the distance of the stars as well as the rate of expansion of the universe. Early rocks have been dated in terms of radioactivity and set at billions of years old. Simply given the rate that salt runs into the sea and the amount of salt there would suggest multimillions of years.”^[6]

-    All of these are based on the assumption of uniformitarianism.  There are numerous scientific problems with these arguments.  First, while the starlight issue may be problematic (not insurmountable) for the YEC, it is just as much of a problem for the Big Bang adherent.  Their “horizon problem” is nearly identical to the distant starlight problem for the YEC.  Radioactive dating is extremely suspect and gives wildly varying dates.  Every form of it is based on several unprovable assumptions (i.e., the object has not been tampered via leakage, a known amount of radioactive isotopes in the original object, and a steady rate of decay).  Even the saltwater argument is based on two major assumptions: 1) that salt has always been emptying into the ocean at its present rate, and 2) that the oceans started without any salt – or that we know how much was originally in them. 

-    I would strongly suggest taking a look at appendix 5 in Henry Morris’ The Defenders Study Bible for more on this topic.  He lists at least 68 different methods of dating the age of the earth using uniformitarian assumptions and the dates vary from "too small to calculate" to 500,000,000.  They are not even remotely consistent.  The scientific evidence Geisler cites is not nearly as strong as he may think.  To his credit, he later mentioned “there are unprovable presuppositions in all the scientific arguments for an old earth, that is, an earth of millions or billions of years old.”^[7]  If that is the case, why use the “old earth” arguments as evidence against a young earth?

7) He also stated, “There are known and possible gaps in the biblical genealogies.”^[8]  As evidence, you cite the extra “Cainan” from Luke 3: 36 (cf. Genesis 11: 12). 

-    First, even if this indicates a gap in the genealogies, it is no where near enough evidence to add tens of thousands, let alone millions or billions of years into the biblical chronology.  At best, it adds a couple of hundred years.

-    Second, Dr. Jonathan Sarfati in his work Refuting Compromise has ably demonstrated how this is probably a copyist error known as dittography. 

-    Third, there is no room for any gaps in the genealogy found in Genesis 5.  Jude 14 states that Enoch was the seventh in Adam’s line.  He was the father of Methuselah who died the year that the flood began.

     His conclusion includes a few of the critiques that I listed above.  I agree with him that the conflict is between man’s interpretation of the Bible and his interpretation of scientific facts.  I also agree that it is not a test for orthodoxy; however, one’s belief in this area can have (and has had) serious repercussions.  The major reason for this is that a belief in billions of years inevitably undermines the authority of God’s Word.  I would not accuse Augustine, Warfield, Walvoord, Schaeffer, Archer, or the signers of the inerrancy statement of denying the inerrancy of the Bible – in theory, but in practice, they have done so by compromising on this issue.  For the record, I have greatly benefited from their works as well (especially Walvoord and Archer) however, Archer makes the following startling admission: “From a superficial reading of Genesis 1, the impression would seem to be that the entire creative process took place in six twenty-four-hour days. If this was the true intent of the Hebrew author (a questionable deduction, as will be presently shown), this seems to run counter to modern scientific research, which indicates that the planet Earth was created several billion years ago.”^[9]  In other words, the text clearly teaches a literal six day creation but it can’t mean that because of science.  This is a classic example of eisegesis.

Dr. Geisler also failed to mention the strongest argument in the YEC’s arsenal.  The number one problem with an “old earth” view is that it necessarily places death before sin.  Every single compromise view (Day Age, Progressive Creation, Framework Hypothesis, Gap Theory, Revelatory Days, etc.) places death before Adam’s sin.  Tragically, for those who accept evolutionary dating methods, this means that certain people are outside the scope of those who can be saved.  Dr. Hugh Ross has claimed that Adam and Eve were created 10,000 to 25,000 years ago (he has recently adjusted that to 50,000).  What about the Australian Aborigines whom scientists claim have been around for 60,000 years?  Are they part of the soulless hominids Ross speaks of?  I doubt that he would say so but it is a logical conclusion of his belief. 

The problem with placing death before sin is that the Bible makes it clear that death was a result of Adam’s sin (Rom 5: 12; 1 Cor 15: 21).  Death is called the last enemy (1 Cor. 15: 26).  How then could a loving God call a world filled with billions of years of death, bloodshed, and disease “very good”?  I know that many will argue that the Bible specifically states that death only came to man – not to the animals.  For the sake of argument, I will grant that point (although I do not agree with it at all).  When did thorns and thistles originate?  According to Genesis 3: 18, they originated after the fall of Adam and Eve.  Why is it then that we find thorns and thistles in the fossil record that are allegedly 350 million years old?  Roses are said to have evolved to their present form (thorns and all) 35 – 40 million years ago.  One cannot have death, disease, bloodshed, thorns, and thistles before Adam’s sin.  It forces the Bible to contradict itself and science. 

The reason this issue is so crucial is that it undermines the message of the Gospel.  Jesus Christ came to redeem us from our sins – to die the death we deserved because of our sin(s).  The whole sacrificial system was based on the idea that we could have a substitute die in our place.  The first mention of death was when God made coats of skins for Adam and Eve (Gen. 3: 21).  In all likelihood, this was the first sacrifice.  If death was already a part of the world for billions of years, then what did sin do?  Why did God need to kill an animal to cover Adam’s sin?  In a very real way, this compromise undermines the message of the cross. 

If one teaches that death, even animal death, occurred before Adam’s sin then I believe he is making the same mistake as the Calvinist who inevitably makes God the author of evil (Dr. Geisler makes this connection in Chosen But Free).  According to the Progressive Creationist (and every other compromise view) death and disease is part of a “very good” world.  This makes God into a monster rather than a loving God who cares for all of His creation.

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