The Fossil Record as a Testimony to a Protracted History of Life

Animal death has been considered an evil by many Christians, and not natural to God’s initial good Creation. Some conclude from this that fossils must have been emplaced into sedimentary rocks sometime after the Fall of Adam, probably entombed during the Flood of Noah. Some Christians have claimed, furthermore, that the order to fossils within the rocks is a fiction maintained by scientists hostile to religious faith. However, fossils do occur in an ascending order within the sedimentary rock layers. This was discovered around 1800 and has been verified repeatedly since, by thousands of practicing field geologists and amateur rockhounds. This phenomenon can be documented, for example, in the order of fossils on display in the stacked sequence of sedimentary rocks in the midcontinent, and elsewhere in North America. Christians who claim that this order is a fiction are incorrect and need to revise their approach. Furthermore, within a given stratal horizon there exist intrinsic evidences for elapsed time. Thus most practicing paleontologists see the fossil record as one of a protracted history to life. This has resulted in a highly emotive discussion among Christians about whether or not the flood can explain all the fossils and whether or not there is biblical support for the idea that animal death preceded the fall of humans