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Genesis and the Cosmos: A Unified Picture?

How should the Bible and natural science be related, explained, or studied? At least two positions seem possible. On the one hand, there are those who hold that a conservative understanding of the Bible and the findings of science cannot be harmonized. On the other, there are those who believe that conclusions drawn from the two disciplines can be harmonized to fit into one overall view of the world.

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Archaeopteryx: A Flying Reptile?

Ever since it was discovered in 1861, Archaeopteryx lithographica has been a controversial fossil. Its remarkable finding has provided certain credibility to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Archaeopteryx has a mixture of characteristics found in birds, reptiles, and theropod dinosaurs, and for that reason, scientists are divided regarding its origin, flight capacity, and position in the alleged evolutionary sequence from reptiles to birds.

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Presenting Evolution and Creation: How? (Part 1)

The world is not divided into the good creationists and the bad evolutionists. Many scientists have never had opportunity to see reasonable alternatives to a materialistic evolutionary process. Many scientists, though convinced by the evidence for evolution, are unwilling to give up on God and/or are searching for some meaning in life. Do we want to draw these people to us or drive them away?

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Annotations from the Literature

A collection of short commentaries on scientific papers published in 2003, covering topics such as bird conservation, convergence in corals, biogeography, banded iron formations, Cretaceous and Permian mass extinctions, Mediterranean evaporite, Homo floresienses, Archaeopteryx brain, fossil patterns, fossil insect, fossil hummingbird, fossil mammals, and speciation. Published in Origins n. 57.

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Religion Always Loses?

Whenever religion and science have a dispute about some question of fact, religion always loses. So goes a common belief. The implication is that religion should never make any factual claims, as it has no contact with reality. For some religions, such an assertion is irrelevant, as these religions do not make any claims about the physical universe. But for biblical Christianity, such an assertion would be fatal.

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Issues in Intermediate Models of Origins

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.

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Ecological Zonation: Theory, Problems and Perspectives

Ecological Zonation Theory suggests that the order of fossils in sedimentary basins reflects landscapes sequentially eroded by rising Flood waters.

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What Happens to Biblical Truth if the SDA Church Accepts Theistic Evolution?

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.

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Creation — the Sine Qua Non of Adventist Theology

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.

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Consequences of Moving Away from a Recent Six-day 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.

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Time, Faith, and Fossil Whales

Currently evolutionary geology explains the fossil record as the result of slow processes and change occurring over long periods of time. However, an increasing number of rock formations and fossil occurrences previously interpreted within such an evolutionary framework must be reinterpreted as the result of rapid, or even catastrophic, processes operating on a different time scale.

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Adventist Theology and Deep Time/Evolutionary Theory: Are They Compatible?

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.

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The Use of Science in Theology: Case Studies of Langdon B. Gilkey and Thomas A. Torrance

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.

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Jesus: God’s Agent of Creation

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.

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A New Look at the Genesis 5 and 11 Fluidity Problem

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.

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The Genesis Flood Narrative: Crucial Issues in the Current Debate

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.

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Integrating Faith and Science

In the current debate between theology and science, many of the issues seem insoluble and irreconcilable. The conflict has indeed been great at times in my own mind and experience as a student. I would like to share my perspective and journey as a student in both areas.

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Fossil Birds

The known history of birds appears consistent with the idea that they were created. These new and spectacular avian fossils suggest is that the original creation produced a much greater variety of birds than previously imagined.

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Creation: The Foundational Importance of Scripture as Revelation

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.

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Evolution, Theology and Method: Part 3: Evolution and Adventist Theology

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.

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