You wrote:
<<I am still implacably opposed to the term
"Evolution" as describing my position: 1. I regard "Evolution" and
"Creation" as fundamentally antithetical concepts and to combine them
(eg. "Theistic Evolution" or "Evolutionary Creation") is IMHO
oxymoronic; 2. I find the evidence for Darwinist macro-evolution to
be somewhere between weak and non-existent (I do not regard evidence
for common ancestry as necessarily evidence for Darwinist
macro-evolution); 3. Apologetically the terms "Theistic Evolution"
and "Evolutionary Creation" are worse than useless. Naturalistic
Evolutionists are unimpressed with it since it adds nothing new
scientifically. OTOH they repel other Christians, especially YECs.
If Christians are ever going to be united on this topic, the "E" will
have to go from TE/EC! There is no way that YECs are ever going to
accept anything with "Evolution" in it. The alternative to not
changing is an endless war between TEs/ECs and YECs.<<
I agree with you. Evolution is too loaded a term, and really has been since
1925, when the great spin doctor Mencken made sure it would always have an
anti-religious patina about it. We can quibble about what it really means, Who
is really behind it, etc., but in the real world of the marketplace of ideas,
the term is almost self-defeating for Christians, IMO.
<<I see Mediate Creation as firmly in the Calvinistic Reformed
tradition as exemplified by Calvin, Hodge and Warfield. These men
reserved "Creation" for the initial ex nihilo bringing into being of
the raw material of the cosmos; but were prepared to allow much room
for God working through natural causes in the development of that
raw material. However, they rejected most strongly the idea that God
could not intervene supernaturally in that development, sometimes
calling it "Special Providence".>>
Interesting. I like it.
The real key is man as homo divinus. As you state in another post, biblical
man has the capacity to have a covenant relationiship with God. This would
involve sophisticated language and mental capacity, of course, and the ONLY
evidence we have of that is recent, e.g. shaman-art. This is decisive, in my
view.
How did God create him? I agree with Russ Matmaan that animal ancestry is out.
But even if God did "breath divinity" into a hominid at some point in
developmental history, that would certainly be an instance of special, mediate
creation.
Either way you look at it, though, homo divinus was sudden and recent.
Jim