Re: ASA positions on science/faith issues

On Thursday, March 31, 2005, at 01:26 PM, Terry M. Gray wrote:
>
> It's the term "continuous creation" as one of the varietes of
> old-earth creation along side "progessive creation" and "theistic
> evolution". I think that Keith Miller also uses this term to describe
> his flavor of evolutionary creation.
>
> I'm wondering if anyone knows the history of this term and how it came
> to be used to mean what I think your document and Keith means it to
> mean. In my reading of various systematic theologies, "continuous
> creation" means that God re-creates the universe moment-by-moment
> giving only the appearance of continuity of existence. This is
> rejected as heresy (and different from a doctrine of sustenance). I'm
> not suggesting that Messiah's document or Keith is using the term in
> this sense.
>
I chose the term as I understood it from Moltmann, below.

Quoting Jurgen Moltmann, _God in Creation_:

A detailed doctrine of the _creatio continua_ must see God's historical
activity under both aspects: the -preservation of the world he has
created, and the _preparation_ of its completion and perfecting. The
historical activity of God stands between initial creation and the new
creation. Theological tradition has laid a one-sided stress on the
preservation of the world: _conservatio mundi_. In the new theologies
of evolution and process, a one-sided stress is laid on the world's
development. But if we discover the _creatio continua_ between the
_creatio originalis_ and the _nova creatio_, we shall perceive the
unremitting creation activity of God as an activity that both preserves
_and_ innovates." (p. 209)

Keith

Keith B. Miller
Research Assistant Professor
Dept of Geology, Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-3201
785-532-2250
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
Received on Thu Mar 31 22:12:46 2005