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Views of Creation Origins Evidence Origins Education |
Views of Creation What do Christians believe Three Questions: |
Welcome
to Our Conversation
Most pages in "Views of
Creation"
are written by Christians, for Christians.* But
if you're not a Christian (or more generally, a Judeo-Christian theist)
or if you're not sure what you believe, feel free to eavesdrop on our
conversations, since this is the world-wide web and it's
open to everyone. In fact, we welcome you, especially if
what you see will help you gain a deeper, more accurate understanding
of people whose views differ from your own. {* The
questions asked by Christians and non-Christians are often similar,
so you may find your own questions being discussed. }
Three Questions
and Three Views
Three views of creation are defined
by answers to three questions:
who — creation by God? Is
our world designed and created by God, with the ideas-and-actions of God
producing
the material substance and characteristics of nature, and governing
the history of nature? A person with a theistic
worldview will
say YES.
when — age of universe? Is
the universe (including the earth) young or old, with an age measured
in
thousands of years or billions of years?
how — method of creation? Has
the formative history of nature involved only normal-appearing natural process
(theistically actualized and governed by God)
or has it also included some miraculous-appearing changes (theistically actualized
and governed by God)?
In the table below, the second row ("terms with more detail") shows that the three main views are theistic worldviews of creation — so they agree about the most important doctrine of creation, the question of WHO created — but they disagree about the WHEN and HOW of creation, in the second and third questions:
| terms
commonly used:
|
young-earth
creation |
progressive
creation |
theistic
evolution |
|
terms with more detail:
|
theistic
young-earth 144-hour creation |
theistic
old-earth progressive creation |
theistic
old-earth evolutionary creation |
|
theistic worldview? (who)
|
theistic
|
theistic
|
theistic
|
|
age of universe? (when)
|
young
|
old
|
old
|
| method
of creation? (how)
(using only natural process?) |
natural
plus
miraculous |
natural plus
miraculous |
only natural
|
Who — Creation
by God?
Yes! In contrast with
an atheistic view
that denies the existence of God, or a deistic view
that denies the ongoing activities of God, each of the three views can be
authentically theistic and Christian, affirming
that God exists and created our world and is active in
our world. Richard Bube, a former editor of the ASA journal, explains:
The ASA does
not take an official position on controversial questions. Creation
is not a controversial question. I have no hesitancy in affirming, "We
believe in creation," for every ASA member. The Biblical doctrine
of creation is one of the richest doctrines revealed to us by God. It
reveals to us that the God who loves us is also the God who created us
and
all things; at once it establishes the relationship between the God of religious
faith and the God of physical reality. ... We believe in creation. It
is unthinkable for a Christian to do otherwise.
• To learn more, use the educational
resources for Three Questions and
Three Views. (or maybe it's Four
Views because God could
do old-earth progressive creations independently or by
genetic modification)
Searching
for Truth (and harmony) in the Two Books of God
When we're searching for truth
by asking
these three
questions
about
creation — who,
when, and how — we can try to find answers by using information from two
sources
that God has provided
for
us: the Word of God (in the Bible) and the Works
of God (in
nature). What
are the best ways
to
learn
from these "books
of
God" and find harmony in what we learn?
Yes, harmony is possible,
despite the overly dramatic claims — which are disputed by modern historians — of
inherent
conflict
between scripture and nature that produces a "war" between theology
and science.
Various approaches to achieving worthy
goals — improved understanding and mutual respect in
our search for truth — will be explored
in two areas: here, in Views
of Creation, the main focus is theology (based mainly on human studies
of the Bible); in Origins Evidence the
main focus is science (based mainly on human studies of nature). But there
is some overlap between these areas because theology and science are mutually
interactive, with each influencing the other, and because an author may want
to discuss both theology and science in the same page.
• educational
resources about Searching for Truth
in the Two Books of God
The Bible clearly teaches WHO created,
but is it less clear about the WHEN
and HOW of creation?
When — Age
of the Earth?
Biblical Interpretations: Does
Genesis 1 describe a 144-hour creation?
Or when we examine the text, are other interpretations possible
or even preferable? What
was the historical context of Adam and Eve, and are the lists of human
descendants
complete? When
we carefully study the Bible as a whole, should we conclude that the earth
is young,
or
old,
or that
neither
view is clearly taught?
Death and Sin: Before
human sin entered the world in Genesis 3, was there no death in nature,
or was
a supernatural "tree
of life" offered only to humans? Would a natural creation
that includes death be compatible with the character of God?
Noah's Flood: Did
the flood of Genesis 6-9 cover the entire world or only a local region?
Apparent Age: Was
the earth (and the entire universe) created in a mature state, so it has
a false "apparent
history" and
appears to be much older than it actually is?
Linking the Gospel with a Young
Earth: Is
a young earth an essential
foundation for Christianity? Or
should we avoid this claim because it is theologically questionable (if there
are reasons to question the Biblical support for young-earth
claims) and is scientifically
questionable (with strong evidence against it),
and because a claim that "if
the Bible is true, then the earth is young" is equivalent
to declaring that "if
the earth is not young, the Bible is not true"? Is
it wise, for faith and evangelism,
to imply that a young-earth view is necessary for Bible-based theology?
• educational resources for Age of the Universe: Biblical Interpretations, Death and Sin, Noah's Flood, Apparent Age, and Linking the Gospel. { You can also learn about Age of the Universe: Scientific Perspectives. }
How — Method
of Creation?
As described above in Three
Questions — WHO (creation by God?), when (age
of universe?), and
how (method
of creation?) — two views (young-earth
creation and old-earth progressive creation)
propose that the current state of nature was created through a combination
of methods,
with some natural-appearing events and
some miraculous-appearing events. By
contrast, evolutionary
creation (theistic evolution) proposes a creation method with only
natural-appearing evolution during the formative
history of nature,
which could occur if the universe was designed so natural process would
produce everything God wanted. But most proponents of evolutionary
creation believe in miracles during the salvation
history of humans recorded
in the Bible.
In all three views, both types of
theistic action (natural-appearing and miraculous-appearing) are actualized
and governed by God, so "natural" does not mean "without
God". In each view, the natural involves the supernatural,
because natural process is designed, created, and sustained by God, and
it can be guided by God, in formative history or salvation history.
If there is an all-powerful God,
it's easy to agree that natural process "can be
guided by God" to
produce one natural-appearing result instead of another natural-appearing
result. But how much is natural process controlled by God, and
how often? Does a divine guidance of natural process occur always,
usually, occasionally, or never? During divine guidance is
God's "control of the result" partial or total,
and does the control vary from one situation to another? These
are difficult theological questions, and Christians disagree about the answers. A
related question is the extent to which God uses natural process, either unguided or divinely
guided, to produce desired results. God's use of
natural process appears to be normal and natural, so
these design-actions cannot be detected using
the
methods of science,
unlike
a third type of design-action, which is described
in Origins Evidence.
What is the scriptural support
for each view? And does information from nature, such as the characteristics
of biological organisms,
provide scientific support for (or against) non-natural creations
during history? Why
do some Christians claim that evolutionary creation is not consistent
with
the Bible, while other Christians claim it is theologically preferable?
• educational resources for Methods of Creation
|
|
You can explore these pages
in the area of Origins Questions: |
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| VIEWS OF CREATION Questions and Views Age of the Universe Methods of Creation Two Books of God |
ORIGINS EVIDENCE Design of the Universe Age of the Universe Evaluation of Evolution Design in Science |
ORIGINS
EDUCATION Public School Education Christian Education (in church, school, home) Informal Education |
This home-page for Views of Creation, written by Craig
Rusbult, is
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/creation.htm