Group

I have now made my accounts: 1) senojes (sejones@...)
that of the Owner-Moderator; and 2) problemsofevolution
(problemsofevolution@...) an ordinary member but
with some limited Moderator privileges as a backup.

Stephen E. Jones
MODERATOR

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"As an old earth creationist I believe that unguided evolution
is not capable of producing the features we see in our
universe-not the universe itself, life, its actual variety, not
humankind. Nor do I think that God-guided evolution is the
way God chose to create, at least not to produce the large-
scale differences between the various plants and animals,
nor to make humans. Presumably God is capable of creating
everything we see either by means of miracles in just a few
days (even no time at all!) or by guiding purely natural
processes over a long period of time. But I don't think the
biblical or scientific evidence we have suggests that he used
either of these means exclusively. Instead, it seems to me
that God used some combination of supernatural
intervention and providential guidance to construct the
universe. Perhaps he did this so that the universe would be
of such a sort as to display design and structure far
surpassing its own innate capabilities, thus sending us a
message about the existence and character of our Creator
(Ps 19:1-4; Rom 1:19-20). This old earth position is also
sometimes called `progressive creationism.' This is ...
because we think God's activity in creation occurred in a
progression-a number of steps over a long period of time in
which God established and perfected each level of the
environment before he added a higher level that rests (so to
speak) upon the preceding levels. There are a number of
varieties of old earth creationism, just as there are varieties
of young earth creationism and theistic evolution. A sort of
intermediate position between young earth and old earth is
the `gap theory,' which sees God's original creation of the
universe and earth (taking ages) mentioned in Genesis 1.1
('in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'),
followed by the destruction of the earth's habitat (perhaps
due to Satan's rebellion) in Genesis 1:2 ('the earth was [or
possibly 'became'] formless and empty'). The rest of the
Genesis account then describes the restoration of the earth
just a few thousand years ago in six literal days. .... Most
varieties of old earth creationism, however, see the Genesis
account and the data of cosmology and geology as referring
to the same events-the creation of the universe, earth, and
their contents. Variations within this position commonly
concern how the days of Genesis are to be understood: Are
they long periods of time (day-age view), literal days
separated by long periods (intermittent-day view), or are the
days a literary device rather than an actual chronological
sequence (framework hypothesis)? Each of these views in
turn has subvarieties with different correlations between
features in the biblical text and phenomena in nature,
including the question of the antiquity and unity of the
human race." (Newman R.C., "Progressive Creationism (Old
Earth Creationism)," in Moreland J.P. & Reynolds J.M., eds.,
"Three Views on Creation and Evolution," Zondervan: Grand
Rapids MI, 1999, pp.105-106)
Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol) http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones
Moderator: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CreationEvolutionDesign
Book (draft): "Problems of Evolution":
http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/PoE/PoE00ToC.html
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