Intro: What is Progressive Creationism?

Progressive creationism is the religious belief that God created new forms of life gradually, over a period of hundreds of millions of years. As a form of Old Earth creationism, it accepts mainstream geological and cosmological estimates for the age of the Earth, but posits that the new "kinds" of plants and animals that have appeared successively over the planet's history represent instances of God directly intervening to create those new types by means outside the realm of science. Progressive creationists generally reject macroevolution because they believe it to be biologically untenable and not supported by the fossil record, and they generally reject the concept of universal descent from a last universal ancestor. (Wikipedia, Progressive Creationism)

Kirk Note, Progressive Creationism is something of a blanket term and may include elements of Special creation, limited evolution, or even common descent. However the term is generally not applied to those models which make chance-mutation the primary engine of variation.


Criticism of Progressive Creation Model

The natural world truly is the common ground we share with unbelievers, but we must always remember it is God’s ground. God created the ground on which we all stand, ordered the natural laws to keep us all standing there, and stamped His image on us. God gave us reason and curiosity to recognize Him through what He made (Rom. 1:19-20); He wrote His law on our hearts and gave us a conscience to convict us (Rom. 2:14-15). Like Paul in Acts 17, we need to preach the biblical storyline—God is the Creator of everything (v. 24), we all descended from Adam (v. 26), and we all need to repent in view of coming judgment by the resurrected Christ (vv. 30-31).


Dr. Falk, The BioLogos Foundation, and old-earthers surrender the only common ground that exists. They’ve departed from Scripture, and by preferring the middle ground, they’ve become comfortable in the enemy’s camp. Long ages of death before Adam, no literal Adam, death not a consequence of Adam’s Fall—call it what you want, but that’s not the Christian faith.

Travis Allen on the Grace to You (John McArthur Website)  http://www.gty.org/Blog/B100625

In what ways does Progressive Creation (or Old Earth Creationism) differ from Theistic Evolution?

(I hope I am not over quoting, the following comes from Dana at:

blog.bloghttp://rtbtaketwo.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/checking-out-the-menu/

Often viewed as the ideal alternative between giving up science and giving up faith, theistic evolution (or evolutionary creation) has gained significant menu space in recent years. Big-name proponents include geneticist Francis Collins (founder of The BioLogos Foundation), theologian Alister McGrath, and paleobiologist Simon Conway Morris. Even Pope John Paul II gave evolution a thumbs-up, saying there is no opposition between Darwin’s theory and the doctrines of the faith.


According to the BioLogos website, evolutionary creation  “does not require that God miraculously intervened in the process of evolution in the sense of working outside the laws of nature, and because BioLogos also claims that biological evolution is the way by which God created the world, it is not a form of Old Earth Creationism.”

Advocates of evolutionary creation hold a nonliteral view of the Genesis 1–2 creation narrative, instead defining it as mythic text (that is, “it has cultural significance in explaining the hows and whys of human existence, using metaphorical language to express ideas beyond the realm of our five senses”).

With respect to Adam, evolutionary creation maintains that he was not the first man. Some theories propose Adam was not an actual historical person. Concerning the image of God, it seems the jury is still out as to how and when humans developed moral consciousness. BioLogos writes, “We also cannot know whether God directly intervened in the evolutionary process at this point [Genesis 2:7], or whether the unfolding evolutionary process produced the human soul.”

On the other hand, old-earth creation (specifically day-age creation) affirms that the Hebrew word for “day” (yom) can be translated to mean long but finite periods of time. They also assert that the creation miracles ought to be rightly interpreted as God intervening in various ways throughout His creation and that Genesis 1 chronicles real historical events.

This view supports a historical Adam and Eve as the first human pair, endowed with the image of God and therefore distinct from hominids. Theologian and RTB’s dean of online learning Krista Bontrager addresses the concept of a nonhistorical Adam,

The New Testament makes a strong case for a historical Adam. For example, Adam is among those listed as part of Jesus’ genealogy (see Luke 3:23–28). If Adam were not a historical person, then one of the many listed in Jesus’ genealogy is fictitious.

Critique:

1) From the standpoint of those who advocate "Biblical Creationism" (YEC)  any model which holds to an old Earth represents a real compromise of biblical teaching:

The battle over the integrity of Genesis continues. In a recent article,¹ eight geologists, including long-time anti-creationist Davis Young, attempt to persuade the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) that secular natural history must guide, even determine, interpretation of the biblical text, even in the face of a clear contrary meaning.