A Theological Critique of Young Earth Creationism
When I was growing up in youth group, I was told that dinosaurs were in the Bible. The classic example was the Behemoth in the book of Job, described as a massive beast with a tail like a cedar tree. As a kid who loved dinosaurs, I was in awe! My favorite movie was Jurassic Park, and I devoured paleontology books for fun. Even today, I’m still captivated by these ancient creatures. So I understand the appeal of wanting to fit dinosaurs into the Bible and show how they might connect with Christian faith.
Unfortunately, the teaching I received in youth group was simply wrong. Dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago—long before humans appeared on the evolutionary scene. The Behemoth and Leviathan in Job almost certainly represent mythical chaos beasts, not dinosaurs. They symbolize the wild forces of creation that God subdues and orders—a theme well recognized in Old Testament scholarship.
However, the idea that dinosaurs lived alongside humans only 6–10 thousand years ago remains common in many conservative Evangelical circles. This perspective is known as Young Earth Creationism (YEC). YEC arises from a strict, literal reading of Genesis 1–11, interpreting it as straightforward history: God created everything in six 24-hour days, and the entire world was later destroyed by a global flood. According to YEC, God created each “kind” of animal fully formed, including humans as a special creation (Adam from the dust, Eve from his rib). They also claim that the fossil record is largely the result of this catastrophic flood.
The problem with all of this is that it directly contradicts modern scientific knowledge in fields like astronomy, geology, and biology. I know many Christians who grew up with YEC only to later deconstruct it—sometimes because they encountered overwhelming evidence for an ancient universe and biological evolution, and other times because they discovered that the majority of Old Testament scholarship rejects the interpretive assumptions YEC relies on. Sadly, some were told that if YEC isn’t true, then Christianity itself must not be true, and they ended up walking away from the faith altogether. I don’t want to see that happen.
For that reason, I’m less interested in debating scientific evidence with YEC advocates—many of whom will not be persuaded by it anyway—and more interested in highlighting the theological problems within YEC itself.
Problem 1. Genesis 1 is not a scientific account but an ancient creation story about God bringing order from chaos.
The first theological problem with YEC is that it misunderstands the genre and purpose of Genesis 1. Rather than functioning as a literal scientific record, Genesis belongs to the world of ancient creation stories, which depict the gods (or, in Israel’s case, the one God) taming chaos and ordering the world into a home for creation.
The structure of the chapter itself makes this clear. Days 1–3 establish ordered realms—light and darkness (time), sky and sea, land and vegetation—while days 4–6 fill those realms with their inhabitants—sun, moon, and stars (to tell time); birds and sea creatures; land animals and humans. These parallels are intentional: God creates spaces of order and then appoints functionaries to inhabit and govern them.
At the heart of this narrative is Genesis 1:2, where creation begins not in perfection but in a chaotic, unordered deep. The story is not about God manufacturing objects out of nothing in six literal days, but about God shaping chaos into an ordered, life-giving cosmos.
Problem 2. The creation in Genesis 1 is not perfect, and the Bible never claimed it was.
The idea behind this is that if God, who is perfect, creates something and calls it “very good” then this must also mean the creation is perfect. Many YEC leaders and organizations believe this. They believe the original creation was perfect with zero flaws, blemishes, suffering, or death in it. The problem with this reading though is that it reads YEC theology back into the text. The words “good” and “very good” (tov me’od in the Hebrew) never means perfect, without blemish, without flaws, etc… instead it means functioning correctly, beautiful, or morally good. Now, one could argue that if it is morally good then there shouldn’t be any evil or suffering, right? Unfortunately, the text doesn’t say that the whole cosmos is perfectly ordered by God yet. We see this in the text in fact. For example, humanity has to “dominate” the wild creatures. The Hebrew word for “rule over” or “have dominion over” generally denotes war like conquest (given its other usage throughout the Old Testament). My point is that the task humanity is given seems to be dangerous, given the word choice, and isn’t merely cultivating a harmless, tame garden. What is considered “good” is what God has brought into order. For example, it is good that the sun, moon, and stars govern the day and night and serve as a way to measure time and seasons. This shows that proper function is likely the meaning of Tov in this instance. There are even other words that convey perfection or “being without blemish” if that is what the author of Genesis really wanted to convey.
Problem 3. YEC does not offer a satisfactory answer to the Problem of Evil
Many YEC advocates argue that the real problem with old-earth creationism or evolutionary creation is that suffering and death would have existed millions of years before humans ever sinned. If that were true, they claim, then suffering would have to be considered part of God’s “very good” creation—making God complicit in evil.
But this critique doesn’t hold up, and in fact, YEC itself faces far deeper problems when it comes to evil and suffering. YEC teaches that Adam’s sin brought death not only to humanity but to the rest of the natural world as well. This is scientifically false: predation, cancer, and natural disasters existed long before humans. More importantly, it raises serious questions about God’s goodness and justice. If God cursed the natural order because of Adam’s sin, then innocent creatures suffered for something they did not do. Imagine someone torturing your pet because you made a mistake—no one would call that person good or just.
The text of Genesis doesn’t even support this framework. God tells Adam that he will die as a result of disobedience, but never says that the entire natural world will be plunged into chaos as a consequence. In fact, such a warning would have made little sense to Adam if death had never existed and was therefore incomprehensible to him.
Some YEC defenders try to soften this by saying that God didn’t directly curse nature, but that Adam’s sin caused a natural chain reaction that warped creation. Yet this is no better. If God designed reality in such a way that one human choice could unleash untold suffering on the entire cosmos, and if—as most YECs affirm—God knew this would happen, then God is still ultimately culpable. A world so fragile that it collapses under a single act of disobedience hardly reflects the wisdom or justice of God.
In the end, YEC’s attempt to explain suffering by tying it to Adam’s sin creates more problems than it solves. It leaves us with a God who either punishes creation unjustly or designs a world so fragile that it collapses under a single human choice - neither of which matches the God revealed in Scripture.
Problem 4. YEC makes God a bad designer
Another major problem with YEC is that it forces us to see God as an incompetent or careless designer. If all animal kinds (whatever that means) were created fully formed only a few thousand years ago, then why do we see so many examples of “poor design” built into the natural world? Human bodies, for instance, are prone to back problems, impacted wisdom teeth, and a birth canal so narrow that childbirth is often dangerous. We share vestigial features like the appendix and tailbone with other animals, which make little sense in a framework of “perfect design.”
YEC responds by claiming that all of these flaws are the result of Adam’s sin. But again, this makes no sense—why would human rebellion suddenly rewire the anatomy of every living thing? The more straightforward explanation is that God created through an evolutionary process, which naturally involves constraint, adaptation, and improvisation. YEC’s view, by contrast, reduces God to a bad engineer whose once-“perfect” designs broke down almost immediately.
Problem 5. YEC makes God untrustworthy
Finally, YEC undermines God’s truthfulness by making it appear that God has planted overwhelming evidence for an ancient universe and evolutionary history while expecting us to deny it. The age of the earth is written into tree rings, ice cores, rock layers, and starlight traveling across billions of light years. The evolutionary story is embedded in the fossil record, genetic similarities, and the distribution of life across the planet. To dismiss this mountain of evidence as merely an “appearance” of age or as a deliberate test of faith makes God look like a trickster, not a God of truth.
If creation really is God’s handiwork, then it should reliably tell the story of its history. The psalmist declares that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1), not that they hide it under layers of deception. A theology that requires God to falsify the natural record in order to prop up a particular interpretation of Genesis is not a theology worthy of the God of Scripture. Also, such a view makes it impossible to do science in multiple disciplines. One can’t expect to do science when our tests for acquiring knowledge about the world can’t ascertain reliable information through those tests. What is the point of trying to scientifically figure out who hold the earth is when God made it to look one way that doesn’t accurately reflect what it is. Seems sketchy to me.
Conclusion
I want to be frank: I don’t particularly care if someone privately holds to YEC. I would prefer they didn’t, because I want people to believe what is true, but my greater concern is the way YEC is promoted so aggressively in Evangelical spaces. It creates a culture of science denial that goes far beyond origins debates. Many who embrace YEC also end up distrusting the scientific consensus on urgent issues like climate change or the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Even more troubling, countless people have left Christianity altogether because they were told that if YEC isn’t true, then neither is the faith. I can hardly blame them when so many churches elevate Ken Ham as an authority on the natural world over the voices of scientists who have devoted their lives to studying it.
If the gospel we preach cannot survive the truth about God’s creation, then it isn’t a gospel worth having.
About the Author
I’m a writer and theologian passionate about the intersection of science and faith, open and relational theology, and spiritual reconstruction. You can subscribe for future essays as I write about my own musings over the deep questions surrounding God, Faith, and Human Existence
Love it! Great reasoning.
Thanks for this. You might find the new book I was privileged to coedit, The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Monsters, of interest in light of its chapters on YEC as well as familiar figures like Behemoth and Leviathan.