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71 Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 15/1 (Autumn 2004): 71–92.  Article copyright © 2004 by Jim Gib son. Issues in “Intermediate” Models of Origins Jim Gibson Geoscience Research Institute Discussion of issues in creation is often focused on contrasting the theory of naturalistic evolution with the biblical model of a recent, six-day creation. The differences between these two theories are profound, and the contrasts can read- ily be identified in such issues as whether the universe and human life were pur-  posefully d esigned, th e nature and extent o f God’s actions in the universe, and the extent to which answers to philosophical questions can be inferred from na- ture and from Scripture. Biblical creation is based on a literal-phenomenal 1  interpretation of Genesis 1–3 and other creation texts. The biblical model affirms that humans were sepa- rately created in a supernatural act of creation, some thousands of years ago, at the end of a six-day creation. They were endowed with the image of God and the  possibility of eternal l ife. The original human pa ir f reely chose to distrust God,  bringing death and other evils into the world. By contrast, naturalistic evolution is based on a naturalistic approach to sci- ence, without respect to biblical teachings. Naturalistic (“scientific”) evolution claims that humans developed from ape-like ancestors, through strictly natural  processes, over several millions of years. Humans have no special st atus in na- ture, and there is no basis for believing in life after death. Death, disease, and suffering are simply natural by-products of the processes operating in nature and cannot be considered good or evil in any “moral” sense. The differences be- tween the two models could hardly be more dramatic. However, other models have been proposed that tend to blur some of the contrasts between the biblical and naturalistic theories. A number of attempts have been made to develop intermediate models in which elements of the bibli- cal story of creation are mixed with elements of the scientific story of origins. All of these models share the biblical idea that nature is the result of divine pur-  pose and the “scientific” idea of long ages of time. We cannot consider every 1  Real events described in the language of appearance.

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