Chronology, together with prophecy, is one of my main areas of Bible research, so I am often asked why I avoid getting involved in the Young Earth vs. Old Earth debate. It’s a fair question. The simple answer is I don’t believe that man can establish a date for Creation because of what God said about the futility of trying to do so : “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11b)
The ancient rabbis placed the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Writings portion of the Tanakh (Old Testament), along with other works of wisdom such as the Books of Psalms and Proverbs and the unique chrono-specific predictive prophecies such as those found in the Book of Daniel. I believe that the books that comprise the ancient Writings section in the Hebrew Scriptures were given specifically to offer godly counsel to the Bible student, and I feel that the wise child of God will heed what they say.
I believe that the Bible means what it says in Ecclesiastes when it reveals that mankind can sense eternity (i.e., can sense that time extends seemingly limitlessly into the past and into the future), but that the how-and-when of Creation in the beginning and the details of the end of Creation are beyond mankind’s ability to know.
That’s why I don’t advocate any particular biblical chronology of Creation (i.e., one that requires setting dates) in my writings. In fact, if I could set a year for Creation, that would mean that God has contradicted himself by providing information that he said was impossible for me to know. Since omnipotent God contradicting himself is impossible, I don’t go there.
My chronological studies in the Bible are limited to the time span between the birth of Abram (aka Abraham) and the present age. As for Creation, I know that the universe and I are here, so, no matter what anyone believes about when and how it happened, one thing is certain, it happened. Knowing that, I believe what the Bible says about it, that God created everything, and I leave it at that.
—Dan Bruce