A guy at my church once told me that God created the universe with the appearance of great age. Asked me if I didn’t think God could do it.
God has a vat of patina solution in his basement to make stuff look old.
I’ve been laughed at for saying that God was smart enough to think up evolution...by folks on BOTH SIDES ;-)
Would we know Great Age if we saw it? What on this earth looks millions of years old? How would we know it? The oldest living thing on earth is, I think, 4400 years old. Roughly, just after “the deluge”
We think in a human constructs such as time. What would time be to a creator who could speak a world or universe into existence? Using carbon dating to prove or disprove the existence of God is a futile exercise because it confines something far beyond even our most basic comprehension to the same constraints that we, mere biological beings with a limited lifespan, have to live within.
Everyone has free will to decide for themselves what they believe or do not believe, but even the most brilliant physicists are incapable of truly explaining or defining the universe because it, like God, has no limits, no boundary, no beginning, and no end.
If we accept that we cannot understand “God” the world makes more sense (at least for me it does). Carbon dating as proof of the existence of God is no different than asking if God is subject to the laws of thermodynamics or gravity. At some point, it simply does not compute unless you accept the idea that a law of man could prove or disprove God or the Bible.
I always viewed God as the ultimate author. Ever read a fictional novel? Did the timeline start at page 1 or was there always a backstory? (Just explaining my view.)