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A New Look at an Old Earth
A New Look at an Old Earth explores the impact of popular theories on Christianity and science, the importance of reconciling modern science with the Bible, and the way "facts" in theology and science are observed.
256 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 1, 2016
Easily debunkable. What little science the book actually draws upon is outdated and changed. The rest of the book pulls from parts of the Tanak / Old Testament, written around 2000-600 BCE. Completely an erroneous book that should be discarded by any serious student or layman of biological science. Full of non-facts.
September 7, 2024
Responding to the Young Earthers
3 August 2024
I need to first point out that a lot more has come to light since this book was published, but in general, I believe that it is still fairly on the mark when examining the geological ages of the Earth. The reason I say this is because I can see Young-Earthers (which I should probably put into the same category as Flat Earthers) using the theory of dark matter to claim that the universe is actually smaller than it really is. The other thing is that we know a lot of about the universe than we did in the 80s, and also there is the idea of Cosmic Background Radiation, which is basically the edge of the universe, or the limit that we can see because that is how far back the universe was created.
I personally liked this book, and I actually thought that he did a pretty good job aligning the account in the first chapter of Genesis with how scientists have come to understand how the universe was created. The ironic thing is that our modern beliefs actually come from some dude who actually postulated the scientific beginning of the universe based on the first chapter of Genesis. What the author seems to be doing in this book is bringing us back to his position.
Okay, my position is that the days refer to ages, and while in the past I believed in a young Earth because I thought it was cool that humans walked with dinosaurs, the reality is that the Young-Earthers basically hold the Bible as irrefutable, and that they force science to conform to their beliefs. The more I think about it the more I feel that they are trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Mind you, I’m not claiming that we are doing the opposite in trying to interpret the Bible in light of Science, but that is because my position is that we don’t need to.
My position is that the Bible is a theological text whose purpose is to point us to God and how God came to Earth in the form of Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins. The Bible is also an instruction manual on how to live in light of that. However, there is one thing that the Bible is not, and that is a scientific textbook. Sure, it might contain historical texts, but it is not, and was never meant to be, a book that taught us science. As such, the first chapters of Genesis are simply a poetical device written for the Israelites to explain how the world came into being in contrast to the general beliefs at the time. What we need to be doing is comparing Genesis to the creation myths of the Egyptians and the Babylonians as opposed to our own scientists.
Look, I could write quite a lot about this, and about the problems that the Young-Earthers cause. Like, it isn’t as if the loudest of them result in us Christians being labelled as anti-science. However, what we need to remember, and this is emphasised in this book, is that we cannot ignore the physical world when coming to the Bible. The Bible actually says that the physical world exhumes the glory of God. As such, we need to examine the world ourselves. In fact, my Dad, a scientist and a Christian, says that science is understanding the world that God created.
Honestly, me reading this book is like preaching to the converted, but he honestly raises some very interesting things that we need to consider. In fact, there is a suggestion that Adam was created as an embryo, which suggested that there needed to be a womb to incubate it. Even though the author doesn’t believe that humanity descended from apes, this reference actually makes you think that God intervened somewhere to allow the first man, and in turn, the first woman, to be born into this world.
Yes, this is a really interesting read. I might not agree with everything, but it does offer a lot of food for thought. If anything, it has given me a new word to use – Young-Earthers.
3 August 2024
I need to first point out that a lot more has come to light since this book was published, but in general, I believe that it is still fairly on the mark when examining the geological ages of the Earth. The reason I say this is because I can see Young-Earthers (which I should probably put into the same category as Flat Earthers) using the theory of dark matter to claim that the universe is actually smaller than it really is. The other thing is that we know a lot of about the universe than we did in the 80s, and also there is the idea of Cosmic Background Radiation, which is basically the edge of the universe, or the limit that we can see because that is how far back the universe was created.
I personally liked this book, and I actually thought that he did a pretty good job aligning the account in the first chapter of Genesis with how scientists have come to understand how the universe was created. The ironic thing is that our modern beliefs actually come from some dude who actually postulated the scientific beginning of the universe based on the first chapter of Genesis. What the author seems to be doing in this book is bringing us back to his position.
Okay, my position is that the days refer to ages, and while in the past I believed in a young Earth because I thought it was cool that humans walked with dinosaurs, the reality is that the Young-Earthers basically hold the Bible as irrefutable, and that they force science to conform to their beliefs. The more I think about it the more I feel that they are trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Mind you, I’m not claiming that we are doing the opposite in trying to interpret the Bible in light of Science, but that is because my position is that we don’t need to.
My position is that the Bible is a theological text whose purpose is to point us to God and how God came to Earth in the form of Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins. The Bible is also an instruction manual on how to live in light of that. However, there is one thing that the Bible is not, and that is a scientific textbook. Sure, it might contain historical texts, but it is not, and was never meant to be, a book that taught us science. As such, the first chapters of Genesis are simply a poetical device written for the Israelites to explain how the world came into being in contrast to the general beliefs at the time. What we need to be doing is comparing Genesis to the creation myths of the Egyptians and the Babylonians as opposed to our own scientists.
Look, I could write quite a lot about this, and about the problems that the Young-Earthers cause. Like, it isn’t as if the loudest of them result in us Christians being labelled as anti-science. However, what we need to remember, and this is emphasised in this book, is that we cannot ignore the physical world when coming to the Bible. The Bible actually says that the physical world exhumes the glory of God. As such, we need to examine the world ourselves. In fact, my Dad, a scientist and a Christian, says that science is understanding the world that God created.
Honestly, me reading this book is like preaching to the converted, but he honestly raises some very interesting things that we need to consider. In fact, there is a suggestion that Adam was created as an embryo, which suggested that there needed to be a womb to incubate it. Even though the author doesn’t believe that humanity descended from apes, this reference actually makes you think that God intervened somewhere to allow the first man, and in turn, the first woman, to be born into this world.
Yes, this is a really interesting read. I might not agree with everything, but it does offer a lot of food for thought. If anything, it has given me a new word to use – Young-Earthers.
July 10, 2022
Clear and easy to understand presentation of the science supporting an old earth creation and harmonizing that science with the Bible account in Genesis
May 25, 2012
A Hard Position From Which to Speak. Graciously done
Don Stoner is pretty much damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, advocate an Old Earth Creationist position. On the one hand, he faces empirical data that demonstrates clearly the age of the universe. He actually focuses on the scientific evidence and shows quite clearly using the data obtained from quasars and pulsars and the resultant red-shifting demonstrated in the light spectrums that unless one accepts the implausable possibility that the speed of light has not always been constant, the universe is Billions of years old. He then makes a compelling argument that if Scripture is to be taken as true it cannot be at odds with the truth of the creation itself.
Here's where Stoner (and all Old Earth Creationists) finds himself in the cross-hairs. The vast majority of scientists would find his arguments as basic foundational information and accept his science without necessarily seeing the need to accept his theology. At the opposite end the Young Earth Creationists, whom Stoner appears to be targeting, are so committed to their interpretation of Scripture they will reject his arguments de facto without the benefit of a great deal of thought going in to their rejection because their position is based in faith and they cannot accept anything that is counter to their espoused presuppositions. Witness other critiques of this book which pretty much deal with Scripture and ignore the strongest physical facts presented.
All this aside Stoner does a commendable job keeping the tone and tenor of his argument on the high road. He attempts to demonstrate to Young Earth Creationists how their positions in fact drive scientists and independent thinkers away because they see Christianity itself tied to what in effect is intellectual suicide. Stoner goes to great lengths to argue that the issue isn't Scripture itself; the issue is one's interpretation of that Scripture. There's room, even in Christianity for saying to some issues, "I don't know." "This is how understand it, but it is possible I am wrong." By making Young Earth Creationism tantamount to the Scripture itself, Young Earth Creationists repeat the mistakes of their intellectual ancestors who impuned Gallileo and espoused a flat earth based on much the same arguments.
Stoner does an admirable job. Unfortunately for him (or more to the point, unfortunately for many Christians) he is going to be met with indifference and unpopularity from both sides. Hang on though. Time showed Galileo right. Time may well just demonstrated Stoner's position to be right, or at least closer to right than the popular Young Earth Creationist movement, once they get past their unwillingness to accept that their position while scripturally based, is not the equivilent of Scripture itself.
Take a look objectively at both the facts AND the scripture with a willingness to listen and learn. Whether either side changes their mind, Stoner has done an admirable job, with a difficult subject and handled it with intellectual and Scriptural integrity and graciousness.
We all can learn a lot from that.
Don Stoner is pretty much damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, advocate an Old Earth Creationist position. On the one hand, he faces empirical data that demonstrates clearly the age of the universe. He actually focuses on the scientific evidence and shows quite clearly using the data obtained from quasars and pulsars and the resultant red-shifting demonstrated in the light spectrums that unless one accepts the implausable possibility that the speed of light has not always been constant, the universe is Billions of years old. He then makes a compelling argument that if Scripture is to be taken as true it cannot be at odds with the truth of the creation itself.
Here's where Stoner (and all Old Earth Creationists) finds himself in the cross-hairs. The vast majority of scientists would find his arguments as basic foundational information and accept his science without necessarily seeing the need to accept his theology. At the opposite end the Young Earth Creationists, whom Stoner appears to be targeting, are so committed to their interpretation of Scripture they will reject his arguments de facto without the benefit of a great deal of thought going in to their rejection because their position is based in faith and they cannot accept anything that is counter to their espoused presuppositions. Witness other critiques of this book which pretty much deal with Scripture and ignore the strongest physical facts presented.
All this aside Stoner does a commendable job keeping the tone and tenor of his argument on the high road. He attempts to demonstrate to Young Earth Creationists how their positions in fact drive scientists and independent thinkers away because they see Christianity itself tied to what in effect is intellectual suicide. Stoner goes to great lengths to argue that the issue isn't Scripture itself; the issue is one's interpretation of that Scripture. There's room, even in Christianity for saying to some issues, "I don't know." "This is how understand it, but it is possible I am wrong." By making Young Earth Creationism tantamount to the Scripture itself, Young Earth Creationists repeat the mistakes of their intellectual ancestors who impuned Gallileo and espoused a flat earth based on much the same arguments.
Stoner does an admirable job. Unfortunately for him (or more to the point, unfortunately for many Christians) he is going to be met with indifference and unpopularity from both sides. Hang on though. Time showed Galileo right. Time may well just demonstrated Stoner's position to be right, or at least closer to right than the popular Young Earth Creationist movement, once they get past their unwillingness to accept that their position while scripturally based, is not the equivilent of Scripture itself.
Take a look objectively at both the facts AND the scripture with a willingness to listen and learn. Whether either side changes their mind, Stoner has done an admirable job, with a difficult subject and handled it with intellectual and Scriptural integrity and graciousness.
We all can learn a lot from that.
September 1, 2012
Thought provoking and for the most part well done. At times I feel like he has to stretch his reasoning a little too far but overall a good read.
March 8, 2014
Read this book a number of years ago. This books was okay, I just wasn't thrilled with it.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews