Where is the proof beyond doubt that the Universe is billions of years old? Where is the indication in Genesis that a meaning other than natural days was intended to be conveyed and understood by the reader? The sacred writer could easily have informed us that the Creation took place over millions of years. Did the Fathers and Rabbis get it wrong, in holding that Genesis is primarily historical revelation, until the revisionist theological impact of the Darwinist era suggested otherwise? Where is the consistency of reasoning in arguing that the Days of creation were much longer, but the hundreds of years ages of patriarchs were much shorter than that?
Hugh Ross, a leading non-Catholic proponent of Progressive Creation, claims in Creation And Time that the bondage to decay following Adam’s sin refers only to entropy, yet entropy would have been in operation even if Adam had been obedient. He also asserts that the death brought on by Adam’s sin was only spiritual death, and physical death was always part of the good Creation. The 1994 CCC (400,1008) rejects this view; the original sin of Adam definitely brought on physical death as well as spiritual death.
Perhaps the Creator left clues within Scripture, on Earth, and within the Solar System to confound the modern doubters. As co-equal in the Divine Trinity , Jesus Christ has always known that in modern times there would be many doubters who would, wittingly or unwittingly, seek to deny the true historicity of Genesis. Genesis is foundational to crucial Christian doctrines, and so the Origins debate is all about the very integrity of vital foundational doctrines. Perhaps this is why Christ ensured that the mysterious polonium radiohalos were scorched into the granites around the world, suggesting rapid creation. Perhaps this is why Christ ensured that Janus and Epimetheus, two moons of Saturn which overlap by thirty miles, would swap places every four years instead of colliding. Perhaps this is why, in teaching on marriage, Christ asserted “from the beginning of the creation, he made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). Why mention “beginning of the creation” unless he deliberately intended to verify what he knew to be true.
Special Creation
The fourth alternative concept, Special Creation, holds that God created the angelic realm, the physical Universe, and all living things ex nihilo (out of nothing) by divine fiat less than 10,000 years ago, with subsequent changes within kind. After the Fall, He engineered a global flood that produced most of the fossil record.