In modern circles, it’s common for us to hear that the earth is millions or billions of years old. Many Catholics have embraced this dating of the earth, but I believe that most or all of them have done so prematurely, and wrongly. I understand that this “old earth” idea of dating is common in schools and universities today, but there’s a problem with it that very few are aware of.
There is no demonstrative evidence that the earth is millions or billions of years old–nor can there be. No one who talks about these numbers has any evidence that can prove for us that it is so. These dates are proposed after a theory is first assumed, which most Catholics don’t even know about. It’s the theory of the uniformity of nature.
This theory is very easy to understand. It states that all natural processes occur at the same rate that they have throughout the history of the world. So, if a river running through a mountain causes one inch of stone to wear away every 50 years, and we see that 720 inches of stone have worn away, we can proposed–assuming the theory of uniformity–that this river has been running through this mountain for 720 x 50 years, or 36,000 years.
Pretty simple calculation–but there’s no evidence for it. It’s a theory based on a theory. It’s not, scientifically speaking, “true”–at all.
Archaeologists and other scientists make their calculations based on the same theory of uniformity, and this is where their dates come from when they say that the earth is millions or billions of years old. This is stated plainly by scientists, but few Catholics actually study and learn these things before pretending to “follow the science”.
It’s a theory based on a theory–and I, for one, see no necessary reason to grant the theory of uniformity as something certain. In fact, we’re warned about the constantly changing nature of the earth’s climate every day, by the same scientists.
This is why, in the Classical Liberal Arts Academy’s World Chronology course, I use a traditional Christian date for the creation of the world, and that date is 4,000 BC.
A few years back, a Catholic friend showed me that the Catholic Church’s traditional teaching supported my position, but that the Church assigned a different date to Creation: 5199 BC.
So, where was this date found?
Was it in some obscure writing of a saint or doctor of the Church? No.
Was it revealed by some questionable private revelation received by a saint in Church history? No.
The source of the date is much more authoritative than any such source.
The date of the creation of the world was published in the Divine Office–the official prayer of the Church. In the office of Prime, on December 24th, in the Martyrology, we find the following, which was read every year throughout the Church:
In the year 5199th from the creation of the world, when in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…Our Lord Jesus Christ was born according to the flesh.
This was published in the 1960 edition of the Divine Office–and the versions before that. It was published and recited by the clergy and religious of the Catholic Church–for centuries.
Now, some say that this old doctrine concerning the creation of the world was made obsolete by the discovery of evolution by Charles Darwin, which view was welcomed into the Catholic Church by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical, Humani Generis, but this is not so. The text of the Divine Office containing this dating of the creation of the world was published in 1960. Humani Generis had already been published 10 years ealier. Darwin’s “Origin of Species” was published in 1859–a full century earlier. If the modern theories of uniformity, evolution, etc., were embraced by the Church, this prayer should have been removed–but it wasn’t.
We cannot allow any Catholics to suggest that the Church ever supported the idea that the world was billions of years old or that man evolved over such a period of time. Those who embrace these modern scientific theories contradict published beliefs of the Catholic Church, in which the Scriptures were authoritatively interpreted by the Magisterium.
Suggesting that such a reading of Genesis is merely the error of some ignorant, private Christians who don’t understand the Scriptures is false.
Mr. William C. Michael, O.P.
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
