If we were to take the YEC position seriously and Genesis 1 represents 6 literal days, how much of the universe would change, what would have to change about the physics, chemistry, and biology? I know that there would be significant ramifications but I do not know what they would be.
1 Like
I adore this question because I love asking the same thing, but backwards. When I ask YEC friends “what would the universe look like if it was old then?” they are lost for words. Every time 
Before we can address physics, chemistry, and biology, we have to address the nature of God. We are told in Scripture, again and again, that the Cosmos declare the glory of God, and we are implored to explore nature with questions and it will answer us (I think in Job is one example). YECs approach this whole issue from such a backwards way that they resort to coming up with all kinds of Scriptural contortions, inconsistencies, and hermeneutical backflips to eliminate the threat of “evolutionism”, which has a lot more to do with “holier-than-thou” than searching for truth. It’s literally virtue-signaling which causes so many adults who grew up in YEC households to abandon the faith, even temporarily. It’s just so bizarre.
God is not the deceiver. As a civilization we have been wrong about science in the past, but YECs go ten steps further and say that the illusion is an inherent part of creation. It was created with the intent to deceive. That’s not reflected in Scripture or even the oldest Christian traditions.
Why create light to have a speed, but also create starlight already in transit in order to appear like it had traveled? Everything would fall apart. Radiation itself would change its nature.
Why did He create observable geological processes, only to make it appear that the continents had moved across hundreds of millions of years? How to account for the distribution of animals in the fossil record and their increasing divergence as the continents separated and more and more isolated from one another? Let’s say the continents did break apart during the flood. Do you know how much energy the earth would have to expel to get those continents to move so quickly? Noah and the giraffes would have boiled alive. Then, why did the continents slow down?
Why create elements with radioactive properties measurable across time, if only to change their very physics at some unspecified point in history?? Again. Radiation can change, but the laws governing radiation don’t change. If they did change, we’d be toast. Literally.
These measurable things are interrelational, corroborative, and more consistent than YECs can claim. The inconsistencies are so common that in a world in which YECs are right about anything applied consistently, the universe would be an incoherent, tangled mess. Matter likely wouldn’t even be able to form because the nature of the universe would change at different points. For example, did the laws of physics fundamentally change after the Fall? Well, that’s what they mostly believe. Did they change again after the Flood? I’ve heard this stated a few times. Simply put, we would be unable to trust God’s testimony through Creation.
It’s surreal to watch them invent a whole cosmology out of thin air in an attempt to fortify the idea that they are the ones who are grounded in Scripture. Oddly, YECs have this mostly indirect notion that scientists around the world are involved in some grand conspiracy. But really, under their worldview, it’s the Creator who is guiding the conspiracy through some cosmic deception.
I love them as family, but wish they didn’t ostracize us. When I first became enamored by evolutionary creationism I heard someone at my church casually mention in conversation that “theistic evolutionists are the slime of the atheists.”
Tasteful.
If Genesis 1 represents 6 literal days, everything about the universe would literally have to be a lie.
Well chemistry and biology would cease to exist, prior to whenever every physical constant achieved their modern values:
Attempting to keep as many physical constants the same as possible: the speed of light would have to have been between 1.4x10^7 and 1.4x10^10 times higher than it is now to get starlight here. In order to get E=mc^2 working, then all masses must decrease by a factor of 2x10^14 to 2x10^20, and G would have to be stronger by than same amount. This would make every non-fundamental particle fall apart.