During the past few years, our planet has been experiencing an increasing number of natural disasters–earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, floods, and a devastating tsunami. Bible-believing Christians have pondered about the role that God and Satan play as the ultimate actors in a cosmic drama. Are these calamities pointing toward a culminating event in human history?
LITERATURE REVIEWS A review of the book, A Matter of Days: Resolving a Creation Controversy. Published in Origins n. 59.
The present dissertation seeks to develop a theology of judgment in Gen 6-9. Following an introductory chapter, the second chapter is devoted to analyzing the three main extrabiblical ANE flood stories (the Eridu Genesis, the Atra-Hasis Epic, and the Gilgamesh Epic) from the four aspects of judgment: date, cause and purpose, extent, and procedure.
Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection was inspired not primarily by his observations of the natural world, but by Thomas Malthus's theory of scarcity.
The last few years have shown that there are a number of views on creation within the Adventist Church. Not all of them can be right. Should theistic evolution become more and more accept ed, we will be in danger of losing the biblical foundation for the Sabbath and our understanding of salvation.
Review of The Origin of the Universe. Published in Origins n. 58.
Many 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 biblical 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 purpose and the “scientific” idea of long ages of time, but all suffer from serious scientific problems or are entirely ad hoc and conjectural.
Darwin’s view of God is contrary to the biblical view of God and should give Christians pause before buying into Darwin’s naturalism and attempting to wed it to the supernatural in a theistic evolutionary synthesis.
Creation is crucial for our theology because, I am deeply convinced, all our essential doctrinal points can be directly or indirectly traced to the Creation roots. Each of our 27 fundamental beliefs is somehow tied to Creation.
During the last two years we have heard many papers that challenge the traditional Adventist, biblically-founded position of a recent six-day creation. I believe there are many problems with the “objections” and the alternatives they offer.
The goal of this essay is to assess the compatibility of Adventist theology with deep time and the evolutionary reconstruction of the origins of earth history.
In response to the postmodern shift, Torrance proposes a Christocentric-dialogical model for the use of science in theology while Gilkey proposes a cosmocentric-dialectical model. There is comparison and contrast between the models in each area evaluated in this study.
One aspect of the person and work of Jesus Christ that has not been explored adequately is the work of the preincarnate Logos in the creation of the earth and universe. This study is an attempt to stimulate discussion relating to a biblical understanding of the work of Jesus in creation.
Since the nineteenth century, OT scholars have generally expressed the opinion that the genealogies in Gen 5 and 11 contain generational and chronological gaps and thus cannot be used, as James Ussher did, for chronological purposes. Such a view, however, is troubling to some scholars, mostly young-earth creationists, who insist that Gen 5 and 11 clearly present a continuous and no-gap genealogy.
The purpose of this article is to examine major interrelated issues that are present in current discussions about the biblical Flood narrative of Gen 6-9.
Did God create the world and its environs in six days or did He use a natural process through billions of years? Two studies help to answer this question: an examination of methodological naturalism in the light of recent contributions made by the Intelligent Design movement and an examination of Scripture as revelation.
Revelation, rather than reason, is the source of explanation and truth for those who believe in God and his revelation in Scripture. The Bible's words and inner logic, however, still need interpretation. That is why we need to place all Christian theologies, including Adventist theologies, under careful methodological criticism to make certain we understand biblical thinking on its own terms and not from hermeneutical presuppositions defined by philosophy, science, and culture. Only then can we say in practice that the Bible is the foundation of truth.
Revelation’s vibrant and sustained confession of God as Creator reveals a highly reflective consciousness of God that elicits both worship and moral response. His Creation, sovereignty, life and self-existence, holiness, throne, righteous acts, justice, and transcendence presuppose the Genesis narrative.
In this paper we will take a look at the NT references to creation, discuss the contribution of Jesus and his disciples to the theology of creation, and draw some conclusions for our present situation.
The fundamental issue in the debate between theistic evolution and special creation is the question of authority and knowledge. How do I know what I know, and upon what foundation is it possible for me to have an understanding of the world in which I live?
