Changing Earth Creationists differ from Young Earthers and Old Earthers by the methods we use for interpreting biblical creation.
(1) We try to understand creation in the grammatical and cultural context of the biblical author. No biblical author had a scientific mindset. (2) We avoid interpreting the evidence with the first law (arche ktisis) of the last-day mockers: that all things remain the same (2 Peter 3:3 – 6). Since this idea is the historical foundation for western science, we try NOT to tailor the Bible to fit science. (3) We use simple, visible evidence, not mathematical arguments, to support biblical creation.
Hebrews 11:1 – 3 tells us: “By faith we understand (we continue to exercise our minds) that the aionas (the plural eons) were prepared by the command of God.” The verb “prepared” is a perfect, passive infinitive. He did not actively create eons by creating time. The Bible never states that God created time. He passively prepared the plural eons out of things that shine and appear, from things that do not appear.
Can we find evidence for plural eons? There exists more than 230 layers of coal in the Ruhr district of Germany. The coal consists of trees that once grew in marshes. The coal beds dip down towards the north, reaching a depth of 4000 meters (2.5 miles). The coal beds are separated by sandstone layers containing the fossils of giant ammonites. These creatures were free swimmers, like the nautilus. Forests grew and died and alternately the river valleys were flooded, which allowed the ammonites to swim (and get fossilized) between the layers. The image of a miner in one of the Ruhr coal seams was provided to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archive (Deutsches Bundesarchiv).
Job listed one of the markers for the few days of a lifetime during the dinosaur age as: the sea (Hebrew west) dried (Job 14). Indeed, we find layers of marine plankton alternating with salt, stromatolites and gypsum in the deep Mediterranean. This is clear evidence that the oldest sea repeatedly dried. The alternating layers if coal and layers of shale with marine fossils are similar to the and plankton and brine marsh products on the Mediterranean sea floor. Both support the writer of Hebrews – that God commanded the plural eons to passively form . Clearly ens have happened.
The writer says faith understands that things that are seen were assembled out of things not seen. How does faith know this? In our day, we can see the history of the universe with telescopes.
The Bible states that first God created the plural heavens and the Earth (completed action). However, at that stage the earth was not formed. Evidently its dark surface (Hebrew paniym) had limited extension. It was not until Elohim continued to command light to continue to be that visible things (extended matter) formed as a relation with light. We confirm the literal text with visible cosmic history.
Powerful telescopes show us cosmic history back to the creation age. In billions of galaxies, we see point sources shooting out pulsed jets as matter continues to receive form as a relation with light. We observe how the stars continue to form and continue to spread out as spreading things, exactly as the literal creation account states. We even observe great bursts of gamma light arriving from the early universe. Evidently he was giving form to matter by continuing to command light to continue to be, as in the creation account.
According to the Bible, He spreads out the plural heavens in unbroken continuity. He is not spreading the vacuum of space, as in scientific stories. He continues to form the galaxies as they visibly grew from things not seen, the unformed and dark material created first. Trillions of star streams emerged from point sources, from things not seen, as the writer of Hebrews claimed.
A young earth creationist might insist that the Bible refers to 24-hour creation days and that the genealogies only add up to a 6,000 linear years, which cannot encompass multiple eons. This is why it is so important for creationists not to be controlled by the first law (arche ktisis) of the last days. The concept of linear time did not even exist when Moses wrote. Moses quoted Jacob that the days and years of the son are shorter and worse than the days and years of the fathers (Genesis 47:9).
Indeed, we can see that the earliest atomic clocks pulsed at tiny fractions of the frequencies of modern atoms. We confirm that this is real because we see in billions of galaxies how the star stream orbits accelerated outwards along with the accelerating atomic clocks. The notion that all clocks are accelerating is supported by the Pioneer spacecraft. Local atomic clocks were observed to accelerate, relative to their previous rates that were reflected using the transponders on distant spacecraft. Local atomic clocks appeared to change frequency relative to distance and light-speed, just like the atomic clocks in hundreds of billions of ancient galaxies.
Not a single physical constant is visible anywhere as billions of galaxies intrinsically grew, which confirms the literal creation account.
This is an image of a PKS 0637-752 taken at radio frequencies by Dr Leith Godfrey, ICRAR and Dr Jim Lovell, UTas. The bright quasar on the left shines at 60% of the frequencies of modern atoms. The region around the quasar glows in X-rays that extend along the knotted jet until the bend. X-rays also extend to the left of the quasar to a large blob (evidently part of a counter jet) not shown in this view. The jet is far too long to support theories of magnetic acceleration. The matter in the jet goes straight and does not bend from gravity until far from the source. What we observe is evidence for biblical creation. God continues to give form to matter as it emerges from point sources, things not seen.