Old Earth creationism

Old Earth creationism (OEC) is an umbrella of theological views encompassing certain varieties of creationism which may or can include day-age creationism, gap creationism, progressive creationism, and sometimes theistic evolution.

Broadly speaking, OEC usually occupies a middle ground between young Earth creationism (YEC) and theistic evolution (TE). In contrast to YEC, it is typically more compatible with the scientific consensus on the issues of physics, chemistry, geology, and the age of the Earth. However, like YEC and in contrast with TE, some forms of it reject macroevolution, claiming it is biologically untenable and not supported by the fossil record, and the concept of universal descent from a last universal common ancestor.

For a long time Evangelical creationists generally subscribed to old Earth creationism until 1960 when John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris published the book The Genesis Flood, which caused the Young Earth creationist view to become prominent.

Augustine postulated an instantaneous creation and interpreted the days of Genesis allegorically, whose view also influenced Gregory the Great, Bede and Isodor of Seville. Augustine was not alone in viewing the days of Genesis as allegorical, others include: Didumyus the Blind, possibly Basil the Great, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Athanasius, who interpreted the days of the Genesis narrative allegorically. However, this should not be understood as rejecting the literal interpretation, which patristic commentators believed could stand side by side with the allegorical.

Cyprian argued that each of the days of Genesis symbolically represented 1000 years of the world’s history, believing the world would endure for 7000 years. Irenaeus and Justin Martyr also suggested that the days of Genesis could prefigure 6000 years of earth history, quoting Psalm 90:4 and perhaps 2 Peter.

According to Hugh Ross, Thomas Aquinas supposedly denied the Genesis account as being literal with six 24 hour days.

Thomas Chalmers popularized gap creationism, which is a form of Old Earth Creationism. Additionally it was advocated by the Scofield Reference bible, which caused the theory to survive longer.

Probably the most famous day-age creationist was American politician, anti-evolution campaigner and Scopes Trial prosecutor William Jennings Bryan. Unlike many of his conservative followers, Bryan was not a strict biblical literalist, and had no objection to "evolution before man but for the fact that a concession as to the truth of evolution up to man furnishes our opponents with an argument which they are quick to use, namely, if evolution accounts for all the species up to man, does it not raise a presumption in behalf of evolution to include man?" He considered defining the days in Genesis 1 to be twenty-four hours to be a pro-evolution straw man argument to make attacking creationists easier, and admitted under questioning at the Scopes trial that the world was far older than six thousand years, and that the days of creation were probably longer than twenty-four hours each.