Proposal
The question of origins has always been an important part of the world view philosophy of humans. Most people in Western civilization used the Biblical account as the basis for their view of origins until the mid nineteenth century. From the 1850's to present there has occurred a constant decline in acceptance of the Biblical Creation view and a complementary increase in naturalistic evolution as the basis of their world view. Most educated people today have adopted the evolutionary naturalism paradigm.
Those who believe in the inspiration of the Bible face a dilemma. On the one hand, they believe that God created the universe including man, who as the most special part of creation was made in God's image. On the other hand, their formal educational training has taught them that all of the "scientific" evidence points to evolution from bacteria to man.
This dilemma is needlessly endured by millions of believers in God. Neo·Creationists must realize the need to present the alternative paradigm based on a creation model of origins in an organized and competent way.
As much of the origins puzzle as can presently be explained by the "Biblical Naturalism" model needs to be clearly identified. Those aspects of the origins puzzle that remain a mystery also need to be identified.
A necessary part of the dynamics of the shift to the biblical naturalism paradigm should be the presentation of scientific evidence for the unreliable and defective nature of evolutionary naturalism.
In this paper we will discuss what a paradigm is, define the biblical naturalism paradigm, and discuss the history of how the evolutionary naturalism paradigm came to be so universally accepted. We will present an analysis of origin science and operational science and primary cause versus secondary cause will also be explained. Finally suggestions for adoption of the biblical naturalism paradigm will be presented.
Print Reference
Pages 228-242
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Recommended Citation
Harsh, Robert
(1994)
"Biblical Naturalism: A Time for Paradigm Change,"
Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism: Vol. 3, Article 27.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol3/iss1/27