Forms of Old Earth Creationism

I have seen an article posted by Christie that tends to believe like the Rev. Dr. Al Mohler and accept YEC. As you all know, I must reject Young Earth Creationism. I respect them as fellow Christians; however, I disagree with them. I tend to believe in one of three ways: Progressive Creationism with Common Descent, Progressive Creationism without macroevolution, or some conservative form of Theistic Evolution. With Theistic Evolution, I believe as the late Rev. Billy Graham did. I take a different view than those who do not take some literal view with Genesis 1-11. These chapters may not follow completely what literally happened, but I feel it comes close enough to history that we shall get on this side of heaven. I cannot accept this as mere allegory. Rev. Graham was a Southern Baptist also. Dr. Mohler is president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, an institution that was once moderate to liberal. Most of the Southern Baptist pastors I knew believed in some form of Progressive Creationism. God bless everyone.

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PC with Common Descent

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My main theological problem with OEC, scientific evidence aside, is the fact that it seems weird to me that God would need to give little amounts of help on evolution here and there from time to time, that sounds to me a lot like an imperfect creation which needs to be rigged from time to time in order to get to the outcome the creator desires, like tuning a piano or adjusting a clockwork clock after too much time has passed and it gets off by a few seconds. If God is all powerful and perfect, why would he create a world like that instead of a world in which evolution and the emergence of life comes by naturally? It would make more sense either to create everything at once or to create a universe capable of giving rise to life, but not to create a faulty universe which can only generate life through several progressive bouts of divine intervention.

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I understand your views; however, I do not share them. I do respect what you are saying. However, as I have said before:

Nothing + Nothing = no creation
Deist God + Nothing = That is a Master that does not oversee his creation.
Theist God that stays around to watch his creation bring forth life + Nothing = is a God that cares and loves what he is doing. He brings forth a creation for which he cares and loves.

I do not have all the answers. None of us do. But this is how I feel.

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I lean toward a God that designed the equation of existence ( a grand equation ) ,and by his word set it in motion .
And yet still gives his chosen divine inspiration , knowledge , forknowledge , visions / dreams , etc etc …via direct contact ( holy ghost ) or by agent ( angels) …
That God need not directly effect individual lineages with the exception of Jesus Christ .

And I try not to exclude a person from Christianity if they hold a different veiw than mine , because I am not perfect , nor is my knowledge as complete as God’s .

My 2 cents anyway .
One love , God bless

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May God bless everyone here.

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I appreciate your sharing Edward, and personally, am fine with whatever anyone wishes to believe regarding origins along the lines you have stated as I do not think it really is an issue that should divide us or prevent fellowship. Essentially, I have come to see it as the same as meteorology. The weather forecast really is not a theologic issue. The problem comes when some factions present evolution as being a gospel issue.

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You are a good man of God, Dr. Phil. Take care. I always enjoy hearing from you.

You mean, @BoltzmannBrain, that it seems odd that God would create humanity … and then wipe out everybody except for Noah and his family?

The reason we are forced into this odd situation about God-Guided Evolution is because the historical evidence for speciation is quite clearly spread out over millions of years. It’s one thing to say it is odd, it is another thing to say it is so odd, we must dispose of the historical evidence and just pretend he didn’t do any of it. Follow me?

I do believe in divine action, however, when we frame it in the context of God’s interaction with mankind, it makes sense. For instance, the resurrection is a way by which God reveals itself to mankind, which is necessary act for a personal being to establish a personal relationship with its creation, so are many miracles described in the bible. Aiding evolution or other natural processes on the other hand, like doing special creation acts for man or “irreducibly complex” systems is not a necessary act for a personal creator, but rather a “quickfix” in a creation which was not good enough to bring about these things on its own.

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How do you know what is necessary and what isn’t necessary?

To paraphrase Job 38:

@BoltzmannBrain:
Have you personally been to the source of all the oceans? Have you walked the sea bottoms?
Have the gates to the world’s dead been opened for your inspection? Have you been to the surface of the Sun? Tell us how you got there. Do you know these things because you were alive when they were created? Have you seen where I store the warehouses of snow and hail? Have you orbited the Earth along with them?

Job 38:16-22
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?
Where is the way where light dwelleth? hat thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof? Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great? Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail…

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Hi George,

I think what BotzmannBrain is saying is if God used nature to get us here, then why would it be necessary for an omniscient god to have to, “adjust” nature to get the job done.

@Richard_Wright1

The first answer is the common one: “there is no way of knowing”.

But certainly, logically, whenever there is a set of interactions between the natural and God, there has to be “adjustments”.

You can’t depend on a natural process to replace God’s response to prayer if the response itself is supernatural, or if the prayer requires some supernatural activity.

And if free will interrupts the natural chain of causation, that would require constant modificiations to keep creation on track.

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I like your answer, George.

Hello George,

You seem to be engaging 2 separate issues, though, “there is no way of knowing” is probably the best explanation for a lot of issues discussed here (maybe, “no way of knowing for sure might be the very best”)

One, I do believe that God acts in real-time to answer prayers by affecting the physical world. That’s the first issue.

The second is God acting in nature to affect the outcomes of biological evolution. At one point there was free will (though I’m not exactly sure when) on earth before Homo Sapiens arrived. My view is that nature could have been designed to self-adjust to interruptions in the natural chain of causation so that God’s outcomes are still guaranteed. That view is in line with my theological stance that if God uses nature to create species, then His omniscience would lead us to conclude that nature was designed to get the job done on its own.

That is a good answer, George. Perhaps we do agree sometimes. God bless and take care.

@Richard_Wright1,

Agreed! I have that view as well!!

I think the difference is what we call this “self-adjusting process”; I call it God, or Divine-Will.

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