Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ \\ PROGRESSIVE  CREATIONISM

\\ The  Fourth Viewpoint-  an overview.

Dale  Tooley \\ \\ \\ Most  people, sometimes even Christians,  will be aware of only three alternative views used to explain the existence of the natural world in which we live and the seemingly infinite universe beyond.

\\ \\ First there are the Young Earth Creationists, who are often seen as putting strong emphasis on God having created everything instantly and out of nothing all in the matter of six days, some 6000 years ago.

Genesis chapters one and two must be taken "as read" in a very literal way, without pictorial input,  and are held to be historically and scientifically correct when read in this way.

So according to this view about six to ten thousand years ago God spoke everything into being in six literal sun days and then rested on the seventh twenty-four hour period.~*

\\ Often there is no recognition of the fact  that many Christians, calling themselves Creationists,  do not hold to the Genesis account of Creation quite so literally.

\\ \\ NATURAL FORCES:   \\ In sharp contradiction to the above are the Secular Evolutionists who see the whole of existence as purely material with "matter" as eternally existent and all life coming into being by accident over many millions of years.

A big problem they have is that modern science tends to verify the Big-Bang theory.

That is , that the universe is exploding and can be traced back to a single point.

If the Universe has a beginning , it must have a beginner!

A question that  that can be asked of the secular  evolutionist is : "How can you go back forever without accepting a supernatural concept"?. \\ \\ Of course it is accepted that there are "natural forces" at work.

These natural forces provided a home for the millions of species of the earth who evolved by the "natural selection" of those most fitted to survive in their environment.

\\ \\ It should be pointed out that it actually takes an enormous leap of faith to believe that these natural forces themselves exist by blind chance.

This viewpoint is more accurately described as Blind Chance Evolution and is frustrated by two contradictory assertions: life comes only from life;  and life originally rose from the inorganic.

Science historian Frederick Burnham commented that for scientists, " Belief in God is more respectable today than at any time in the last hundred years (Science & Religion are discovering  Commonality in Big Bang theory."

Los Angeles Times , 2 May 1992).

\\ \\ A third view rejects the blind chance element of evolution, contending instead that a higher intelligence engineered the first forms of matter and the first life form, or forms, and arranged for natural forces  He~/She or "It" put in place initially to evolve upwardly.

Along with the Creationist positions  the Theistic Evolutionist can see in the physics of the universe  harmony, consistency, pervading beauty and elegance of design.

It's interesting that when you see science fiction programs on film or television nobody can come up with anything more beautiful than earth scenes or the human form!

Unearthly forms  are always ugly, never beautiful, to our eyes at least.

\\ \\ In  the *Theistic Evolutionist's* view Natural Selection and the Transmutation of Species are seen as the tooling used to bring about higher and higher life forms.

\\ Here, usually, God does not supernaturally intervene at any point, although convictions do differ widely and it would be quite wrong to say that all who believe in evolution deny the intervention of the miraculous.

Both Creationists and Theistic Evolutionists are often mocked as believing in "the God of the gaps" but the opposite of this is "no God of the gaps".

The facts are that there are gaps, everywhere ,which science cannot fill with purely natural explanation.

By leaving God out of the equation naturalism is constantly stretched to find answers.

Some will claim that science is closing the gaps where Christians put God as the only explanation.

But while some gaps are closing bigger and wider ones are opening up elsewhere, so the gap-filling exercise is never ending.

\\ \\ Pantheism - the view that God and nature are one  shares much in this viewpoint but denies , or greatly downgrades, the idea of a personal God.   \\ \\ SOMEWHERE BETWEEN:   \\ A fourth view, which I am surprised many Christians do not know by name, but which without considering the mechanics, many instinctively believe, is called* Progressive* *Creationism.

*It is fair to say  it lies in  between Theistic Evolution and  Young  Earth Creationism, drawing some points from both.

\\ \\ It agrees with the former in believing that there was a much longer time frame than six twenty-four hour periods and holds that each new life form was not, necessarily, created out of nothing, or out of previously non-living material.

It agrees with the latter, not only in affirming the verbal inspiration of the Bible, but that God was present at every stage of the creation of life and that every new life form was a deliberate and miraculous act of God.

\\ \\ The word  "evolution" is often so emotionally charged among Christians  that its mere mention is upsetting.

However in its ordinary usage it simply means  "change in respect to time" whether short or long.

To some Christians its definition is restricted to the narrow biological one  implying natural processes that gave rise to all the different species.

Christians  need to learn to react  less aggressively to a mere mention of the word.

\\ \\ The Progressive Creationist accepts the flood story as truth and not myth.

He accepts all the fundamentals of conventional, mainstream theology, including the creation of man as a totally unique being, capable of spiritual communication with God, his fall into sin and the redemption provided by the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I have yet to find a Progressive Creationist who does not take an historical Church view in his approach to Scripture.

\\ \\ TOO LITERAL:   \\ He differs only with the Young Earth  Creationist in that he believes (based on his knowledge of the Word of God and the revelations of true science) that the words of the Genesis Creation and Flood stories are, of necessity, partly of an eastern pictorial nature and can be taken more literally than the Holy Spirit ever intended.

He is most concerned that many  educated people find a stumbling block to the Gospel from misconceptions of what Genesis  chapters 1 to 11 really say.

He hears this sort of question often put: "Why consider the message of a book  that right from the beginning  contradicts established facts of science?"

It will not do to respond by saying something like: "Evolution is a totally unproved theory".

There is much more to the subject  of origins than just "natural selection and the transmutation  of species"  and there are many things that can rightly be held under a more general heading of  "Evolution".

\\ \\ The Progressive Creationist is often dismayed at the scorn poured on honest and hardworking scientists in their legitimate research of natural history.

The Christian community should acknowledge that Copernican astronomy, the existence of the Antipodes, surgical operations and vaccinations, just to name a few matters, were all attacked, in their time, by some who could be loosely termed "fundamentalists".

\\ So the question should be posed:  Have we made in geology and similar sciences, a monster out of a balloon?

Surely, if Genesis is silent about secondary causes and science is ignorant about first causes, it is only as we bring them together that we can get a full understanding of the geological record.

The Bible, unlike any other book , is intended to be read  and understood  by  all cultures and spanning several thousands of years.

This  places some serious  restraints  on the extent and quality of science it can contain.

\\ \\ St. Augustine warned: "be on guard against giving interpretations of Scripture that are farfetched or opposed to science, and so exposing the Word of God to the ridicule of unbelievers."

\\ \\ There are certain basic facts that are beyond dispute here: For instance, light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second and come from galaxies, some of which are billions of light years away.

We can check just how far the light has come by the distinct variations in colour in relation to the distance traveled.

On February 23, 1987 there was a supernova, in space that actually happened 160,000 light-years away but observed on that day.

Modern man, because of the huge time lags in space, has the privilege of actually witnessing some of God's handiwork.

Psalm 90:4 says: "For a thousand years are in your sight as a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.." \\ \\ Surely the intention of the creation narrative is not about time but to evoke the worship, adoration, obedience and love that belongs to God, and to dismiss any view of nature which denies the existence of One Personal God who existed before nature and is the master of His own creation.

\\ \\ Jeremiah 10, verse 12 states, "He [God] has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens at His discretion".

\\ \\ The Bible depicts God as the God of natures laws, who has unlimited ability to work through His own laws of nature.

The crossing of the Red Sea is an example: \\    "The Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that \\     night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided".

\\ (Exodus, 14:21) \\ God here is seen to be active within nature.

Certainly wherever there is life anywhere in the universe it has to be the result of God's activity within nature.

\\ \\ FOSSILS:   \\ The Progressive Creationist does not accept that "Flood Geology" can even begin to explain the rich geological order of the earth and its fossils.

Land masses arise gradually as a result of volcanic activity and plate tectonics.

These wrinkle the  Earth's surface and, after the added effects of erosion, create the geological strata.

As plate tectonics and volcanic activity superseded erosion  land masses rose above the ocean to cover  about 30% of the Earth's surface.

It is from these forces that we get the geological  formations we have , not  enormous  earth shattering events triggered by a deluge of the kind the "Flood  Geologists" envisage.

\\ Coral reefs, for instance, are very fragile and could never survive this deluge.

Varves are annual layers of sediment that form distinct layers of seasonal deposits in lake beds and the chemical deposits are different in the summer than they are the rest of the year.

The green river formation consists of more than 20,000,000 annual layers!

There are fossils neatly set between the layers making them impossible to be there as a result of a single flood.

\\ \\ The Progressive Creationist  holds  to the conviction that the Genesis Flood was regional, for which he has some  overwhelming biblical and rationally deduced evidence.

For one thing, the several million species in the world have their own ecological niches.

There are thousands of distinct life forms that exist in Australia and New Zealand alone and they live a long, long way from where the Ark came to rest.

The three-toed sloth is an animal that only travels at , top speed, 0.068 m.p.h.

(!)  and the fossil record says they have always been indigenous to South America only.

\\ \\ Present indications are that there were anywhere up to one billion species that existed in the past but are now extinct.

Those that think that the million plus species that now exist descended from a much smaller number of species in the Ark really believe in incredibly swift  macro-evolution!

Its just not feasible for it to happen within the limits of micro-evolution.

\\ \\ There is in Western Asia a deeply depressed area extending from the Sea of Aral to the Steppes of the Caucasus and around the southern shores of the Caspian, which includes the hilly regions of Ararat (where the Ark came to rest ( not Mount Ararat, the Bible does not say that)  and the Great Salt Desert.

It is the recognized centre of the human family at the time of the Flood.

This is an area of considerably over 300,000 square kilometers and more than enough reason for the need of an Ark the size that Noah built.

It is perfectly within the bounds of Scripture to believe that the Deluge was universal only in so far as the area and observation of the narrator extended.

The word "har" as in "mountain" is actually a generic term for any elevation and "under all heaven" is a figure of speech common to the Bible, e.g., Deut.

2:25 and Isaiah 13:5 ,7.

\\ The writers of scripture often used a form of speech known as synecdoche, where a whole is used for a part.

\\ When God told the Israelites that He would put the fear of them upon the people under the whole heaven (Deut.

2:25) surely He meant only those known to the Israelites.

When Genesis 41:57 says that all countries came to Egypt to buy grain, it must mean only those countries known to the Egyptians.

Did Ahab look for Elijah in every country of earth?  1 Kings 18:10 says he ignored "no nation or kingdom".

Must we believe he searched through India and China?

\\ \\ These observations are just a start.

I doubt whether many Christians have ever thought through the implications of a fully universal flood.

The number of species in the world is infinitely vaster than those animals on show at the zoo.

What happened to the thousands of species dependent on fresh water then mixed with salt?

What happened to all the flora of the earth crushed under 9 kilometers of water (if indeed the Flood covered even  Mount Everest)!

\\ What about geographical distribution where species have been isolated.

The marsupials of Australia are a good example.

Kangaroos, koalas, wombats, Tasmanian devils (and the now extinct dog like Tasmanian tiger) and all sorts of rat like marsupials and their fossils are only found in this region.

Moas , kiwis and many other distinctive species of bird,  only in New Zealand.

\\ The queries just go on and on.