The Problem of Divine Timing in Creationism Debates

One of the most overlooked questions in the creation debate is also one of the most personal. It touches God’s character, his compassion, and his nearness to the world he made. The question is simple: How long has God allowed his creation to suffer without a clear, revealed word from him? This is what I call The Problem of Divine Timing. It is an argument for young earth creationism that is specifically against any form of old earth creationism. While it is not an argument that will convince a non-believer, I believe it is a strong argument that needs to be dealt with if one professes to be a Christian. Additionally, this is a slightly expanded form of the argument I gave in Contending for the Truth: A Biblical Look at Thirteen Contentious Doctrines.

Young earth creationism places the length of human history at roughly 6,000 years, with Scripture existing for the last 3,500 to 4,000 years. Within that window, the Messiah entered history, lived among people, and accomplished redemption. This timeline presents a God who is involved, attentive, and unwilling to let his creation flounder for ages without hope.

Old earth models paint a different picture. If the universe is millions or billions of years old, then suffering and death were present for nearly all of that vast timeline before Jesus ever came. That means untold ages of decay, pain, and death passed before God addressed the problem. This is where young earth creationists usually stop; however, I believe that the problem goes deeper. Any old earth model, unless it is posited that humanity itself is on the young earth timeline, must necessarily posit that humanity lived and died for hundreds of thousands of years before even the first word of Scripture appeared. And it means God waited until the last few thousand years of earth’s long history to reveal himself fully or offer redemption through Christ.

This raises a sharp theological concern. It is difficult to reconcile such a picture with the God revealed in Scripture, the God who is compassionate and near, the God who refuses to abandon his world. The idea that he watched creation suffer for eons before acting is not consistent with his character. The God of the Bible does not ignore his people. He does not leave them to endure misery for millions of years before doing something about it.

Old earth models require a version of God who is comfortable with that silence. Scripture offers a very different God.

But What About the First Two Thousand Years With No Bible?

A natural question follows. If young earth creationism is true, then how do we account for the first 1,500 to 2,000 years of history without written Scripture?

The answer is rooted in the biblical narrative itself. Before Scripture was written, knowledge of God passed directly from parent to child. This was not a perfect process, which is precisely why God eventually provided written revelation. Yet for the earliest generations, it was more than enough. According to Genesis, people lived extraordinarily long lives. Entire centuries of history unfolded with direct eyewitnesses to God’s earliest works still alive.

Adam lived more than nine hundred years. For almost a millennium anyone could speak to the man who walked with God in the Garden. After the flood, humanity again began from a single godly family that had direct, personal knowledge of God’s ways and God’s voice. Only when lifespans shortened and the world grew more scattered did written Scripture become necessary.

These conditions are nowhere close to the long millennia required by old earth models. Two thousand years of unwritten revelation within a tightly connected human family is not remotely comparable to hundreds of thousands or millions of years of divine silence. The scale is not even in the same category.

The God of Scripture Is Not a Silent God

At the heart of this discussion is not simply the age of the earth but the character of God. Scripture presents a God who speaks, a God who acts, a God who reveals himself. He does not abandon his people to grope in the dark for ages. He steps into history. He moves close. He redeems.

Young earth creationism preserves that picture. Old earth creationism challenges it in ways many do not fully consider.