Old earth creationism
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A large number of Christians accept the idea of Old earth creationism because it stays with the current scientific community's assessment of the Earth's age. Some have made alternate interpretations of the scripture in keeping with the evolutionary time line.
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Types of Old Earth Creationism
There are at least three major camps of old-earth creation science thought:
- Progressive creationism - is an attempt to harmonize the Bible with current scientific beliefs such as stellar evolution, and the fossil record. It assumes the days of the creation were actually broad lengths of time, and proposes that God separately created the various kinds of animals and later man, but over a long period of time. It also accepts the evolutionary time scale (simple to complex over millions of years) but has more input from God. Hugh Ross and the Reasons to Believe ministry teaches progressive creation. The illustration above is quite similar to a progressive-creationist timeline chart.
- Gap theory creationism assumes that a vast period of time elapsed between the first two verses of Genesis. Most variations of this theory interpret Genesis 1:1 as the first creation, which included the creation of the heavens, the earth, plants and animals, and even a race of humans preceding Adam. Perhaps billions of years then elapsed, during which time Satan and his angels fell and corrupted the inhabitants of the earth. God then judged and destroyed the earth and all its inhabitants. Thus, the earth became "formless and void" (Genesis 1:2 ) and remained that way for eons. The second creation, according to the gap theory, began in Genesis 1:3 with the first day of the familiar six days of creation of the (re)creation week.
- Theistic evolution accepts the theory of evolution as the description of the development of life on earth through descent with modification. Some believe abiogenesis is impossible without a direct act of God, and others believe God created the universe in such a way that life would eventually result.
References
Supporting
- Gerald Schroeder, Genesis and the Big Bang Theory: The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and the Bible, 1991, ISBN 0553354132 (articulates Old Earth Creationism)
- Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days: Resolving a Creation Controversy, 2004, ISBN 1-576-83375-5
- Hugh Ross, The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis, 2001, ISBN 1-576-83230-9
- David G. Hagopian, editor, The Genesis Debate : Three Views on the Days of Creation, 2000, ISBN 0-970-22450-8
- Alan Hayward, Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible, 1995, ISBN 1-556-61679-1
Refuting
- An Old Age for the Earth Is the Heart of Evolution by Jonathan Henry. Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3. December 2003.
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