Age of the Earth—How Old is it? – Part II

To determine the age of the earth, geologists point to the age of rocks, among other things, to date the earth. Dalrymple claims “that ancient rocks exceeding 3.5 billion years in age are found on all of Earth's continents.” In fact, the oldest rocks found on Earth so far are the Acasta Gneisses in northwestern Canada near Great Slave Lake (4.03 Ga) and the Isua Supracrustal rocks in West Greenland (3.7 to 3.8 Ga), but well-studied rocks nearly as old are also found in the Minnesota River Valley and northern Michigan (3.5-3.7 billion years), in Swaziland (3.4-3.5 billion years), and in Western Australia (3.4-3.6 billion years.

All right, earth rocks are billions of years old. So, what does this prove? No one is suggesting that earth rocks are not billions of years old. In fact, it would be silly to think otherwise. However, ages of rocks do not pinpoint the age of the organization of those rocks into what is called this earth.
Let’s take a young rural couple who find a country house just built by a contractor. The house, as it now stands, was completed the day they purchased it. Do they care that the wood was milled six months ago? Do they want to know when the nails were manufactured? Does it matter to them that the shingles were cut three years ago, or the rocks and sand used in the cement work are hundreds or thousands of years old? Nor, by the way, do they care that the barnwood used for certain decorative finishes was first used on a barn someone’s great-great grandfather built two hundred years ago. In fact, they are delighted that the builder used gnarled wood removed from the bed of the Great Salt Lake where it had weathered for five hundred years or more, as decorate pillars and supports.

The question is: Do they ask how old these parts of the house are? And even if they do, does that make the house older because the builder used older woods in its construction? Of course not. The house is dated to the time it was completed—not by the parts used in its manufacturer.

When Moses and Abraham spoke of the organization of this world, they did not bother with how old the parts were that the gods used to compile the planet. That these parts, referred to in LDS doctrine as "matter unorganized,” might have been once used in the creation of other worlds, or that it had remained unused prior to this time, did not matter to the prophets who wrote about its organization. The fact that the “unorganized matter” might have been millions or billions of years old by our calculable standards was never an issue.

The only thing that mattered to them in their writings was the fact that it happened, and the order in which it took place. That is, the earth was organized in six specific time periods, not necessarily of equal duration, but referred to by Moses as days. That the use of the word “day” in both Old and New Testament scripture can be shown to be 1,000 years, or a “day” to the Lord (or in the realm of God), suggests that the earth was formed over a period of time roughly amounting to six thousand years. And during the seventh “day” the Lord rested and Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, or that “innocent” state before becoming mortal. Were they in that state for a thousand years? Not very likely. The use of the term “day,” even in our own time, can refer to any portion of a day, whether hours or minutes, as long as it took place during some portion of that 24-hour period.

That man has felt compelled to try and determine the age of the earth, when it is stated clearly for us by the person who had it organized, but be unwilling to take the word of that God who both created them and the earth, is ludicrous. The question of “how old is the earth?” should never have been the question. If science wanted to know something, then the question should have always been, “How old are the parts of the earth used in its formation?” While science considers these two questions identical, the Lord never did.