Creation – The Basics

Viewpoints:

Atheistic Evolution

Theistic Evolution

Special Creation

Atheistic Evolution

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Atheistic Evolution – man is the accident and random product of a blind and nonpersonal series of chemical and biological events. All living organisms have developed from the simple to the more complex life forms.

This is just plain wrong. Every organism in creation, even the “simple” ones are amazingly complex. The idea that things like DNA came about randomly is silly. Plus, this still doesn’t explain where the chemical, etc stuff came from in the first place.

Special Creation – man is the direct product from the hand of God and that the statements in Genesis 1 and 2 are to be taken at face value. Genisis 1 and 2 present a clear case for believing in a special twenty four hour six day creation week.

Theistic Evolution – one God, the Creator of matter, who chose the method of evolution to bring all things into existence.

People usually pick this if they want to compromise and fit science into the Bible. The main reason they do this is because the earth is older that Special Creationists can really explain for. However, the reason we got the idea that the earth is old is through testing, and to be perfectly honest our testing methods can be very inaccurate. There is also an idea that the earth was created with an appearance of age, just as Adam and Eve were adults, not children.

Gap Theory -

The theory goes roughly like this:

• God created the universe billions of years ago.
• Then the geological ages proposed by evolutionists took place over billions of years of earth’s history.
• Life-forms arose during that time that are now preserved in the fossil record, and these fossils allegedly verify that the geological ages took place.
• At the end of the geological ages, Satan rebelled in Heaven and many angels followed him.
• God then cast Satan down to earth, the earth underwent a huge disaster or cataclysm, and it was left without form and void, with darkness on the face of the deep (as described in Genesis 1:2).
• God then re-created the earth in the six literal days of creation described in the first chapter of Genesis.

(taken from: http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/gaptheory.html )

Gap Theory is used to explain the tons of fossils which we have dated (again) and presumed too old. My personal theory – they probably came from the flood.

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There’s my take of Creation. You can probably tell I’m a Special Creationist. (After all, we got the cool name!)

Apologetics – What Apologetics is:

Apologia – a greek word used in the New Testament 8 times, we use it to mean a plea, an answer, or a defense. We use the two latter meanings for Apologetics.

Times Used (in the KJV)

1) Acts 22:01 “hear ye my defence.”

2) Acts 25:16 “and have licence to answer for himself.”

3) 1 Corinthians 9:3 “mine answer to thee”

4) 2 Corinthians 7:11 “in all things ye have approved yourselves.”

5) Philippians 1:7 “and in the defence  . . . of the gospel.”

6) Philippians 1:17 “the defence of the gospel”

7) 2 Timothy 4:16 “At my first answer no man stood with me”

1 Peter 3:15 :be ready always to give an answer . . . ”

Apologetics, however, is only a small part of theology.

Theology:

“Theos” is a greek word which menas “God”.

“ology” is a field of study. (Biology, etc)

Therefore, theology is the study of God.

The Divisions of Theology:

1) Exegetica Theology – study of scripture – understanding it

2) Historical Theology – the study of theology and how God relates to his people, history of the Church, Missions history, Doctrinal history, Creedal (ew!) )  and confessional history.

3) Systematic Theology – take and organize a belief system   – Apologetics – defense, Polemics – refutting other’s opinions or Faith or religion, Biblical Ethics – how to live our lives

4) Practical Theology – Homlietics – study of preaching, church organization, church administration, worship, christian education, missions

5) Exegetical Theology includes: Biblical languages – hebrew, greek and arabiac

6) Biblical introduction – who wrote the text, who he wrote it to, the dating of the writing, the culture

7) Biblical Hermeneutics – where to place it

Back to Apologetics . . .

Bibliology – study of the Bible

Theology Proper (great name!) – the study of God

Christology - the study of Christ

Pneumatology – the study of the Holy Spirit

Angelology - the study of Angels

Anthropology – the study of Man

Soteriology – the study of salvation

Ecclesiology – the study of the church

Eschatology – the study of future events

Well wasn’t that fun? . . .