How Old is the Universe?

§. I Biblical genealogies place the creation of Adam at around 4,000 B.C., therefore, placing the rest of the creation at 4,000 B.C. as well, for it was all in only six days. But this is only true if the word ‘day’ (translit. of the Hebrew is 'yom') written in Genesis chapter 1, verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, and 31 is a literal day (i.e., 24 hours of length). Since there is no specification, day could either have been literal or figurative. Thus, there is no way of determining the amount of time each day was. The majority of contemporary geologists and others who study the natural sciences would agree with the latter. This is so that the six days of creation, and the common, contemporary age of the universe, being billions of years old, can be in conformity with one another. This common contemporary claim, whereof the days are figurative, is hereby old earth creationism. The claim holding the creation at 4,000 B.C. is hereby young earth creationism. 

Old earth creationists claim there was death before man, meaning that living things were created subject to death. This is false, for death is bad, for it came into the world through sin (Rom. v. 12) and is within the power of satan (Heb. ii. 14). Moreover, sin is bad because it is lawlessness (I Jn. iii. 4). This removes the possibility of any death prior to sin, for God would not make any living thing subject to death because it is bad.

          God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. [Gen. i. 31]

If the finished creation was good, and death is bad, how could the bad be in the good? How can something unblemished have blemish? It cannot. Therefore, the good creation had no bad death. 

Considering this, the only possible excuse is that the creatures lived for billions of years and not a single creature perished until death came into the world through sin (whereof, the time of man’s creation varies among old earth creationists). I find this to be a bad excuse and inferior to the prior claim.

An objection may be that satan rebelled prior to the creation of man. Therefore, death came through him and this is the reason animals were subject to death before man’s creation. 

If this were the case, man would have already been subject to death, but he was not. Rather, he was cursed with mortality (Gen. iii. 19) which was the consequence of his sin. This makes death coming from satan spiritual death, because he is already spiritual (Eph. vi. 12); satan’s spirit would have no body to depart from. Bodily death is the departure of the spirit from the body when the body’s functioning has ceased. Moreover, death came through man (Rom. v. 12), not angel.

§. II The old earth creationists view the creation as being disorderly due to the random dispersion of the arrival of different creatures throughout billions of years. Why would God have made the creation disorderly? If the world is orderly, it is pertinent to say the creation was as well. All creationists will claim that the universe is fine tuned, so why not the creation?

§. III The Jews claim to have an approximate record of the years since the creation. This tradition will reach the year 6,000 in the century of 2,200. The creation is placed at around B.C. 4,000. This is likely because the creation was indeed around that time. Moreover, there was Flavius Josephus who wrote:

          Accordingly Moses says, That in just six days the world, and all that is therein, was made. 

          [The Antiquities of the Jews, Bk. i. Prgh. i., trans. W. Whiston]

These are the views of several renowned Christians. 

Theophilus Anthiochus (1st c.): 

          All the years from the creation of the world amount to a total of 5698 years, and the odd months and days.

         [Autolycus, Bk. iii. Ch. xxviii, trans. M. Dods]

Irenaeus Lugdunensis (130-202):

          For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded.

          [Adversus Haereses, Bk. v. Ch. xxviii. Prgh. iii., trans. A. Roberts & W. Rambaut]

Lactantius (240-320):

          Therefore let the philosophers, who enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, know that the six thousandth year is not yet completed…

          [Institutiones Divinae, Bk. vii. Ch. xiv., trans. W. Fletcher]

Basilius Magnus (330-379):

          Why does Scripture say “one day the first day”? …If it therefore says “one day,” it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that            they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day—we mean of a day and of a night…

           [Hexaemeron, Homily ii., P. Schaff]

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274):

          Thus we find it said at first that “He called the light Day”: for the reason that later on a period of twenty-four hours is also called day, where it is said that “there was                  evening and morning, one day”.

          [Summa Theologiae, Q. lxix. Art. i., trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province]