geocreationism.com

GotQuestions.org give an excellent discussion on the differences between Theistic Evolution and Special Creation, including many of the difficulties that prevent Theistic Evolution from being accepted by many as a viable explanation for creation.  Following is an explanation for where Geocreationism either agrees with those difficulties, explains them, or gets around them. 

I suggest opening their article and reading along with my responses below:

Atheistic Evolution says that there is no God and that life can and did emerge naturally from preexisting non-living building blocks under the influence of natural laws (like gravity, etc). 

Geocreationism is not Atheistic Evolution.  I do not believe that life emerged “naturally” from non-living building blocks.  If God used non-living building blocks, then His active will was required for the transformation from non-living to living to first take place.  Now, I would be willing to change my mind on this detail if we were able to reproduce the production of life from non-life (some believe that the production of amino acids is a step in that direction).  I would also be willing to entertain the possibility that God was uniquely capability of creating the conditions under which the life would “naturally” come about, but frankly I think that God either created the first life from previously non-existing matter, or zapped existing matter into life.

Special Creation says that God created life directly, either from scratch or from preexisting materials.

I agree.

Theistic Evolution says one of two things… [1]at some point early on He stepped back and let His creation take over. He let it do what it does, whatever that is, and life eventually emerged from non-living material… [2]Or, that God did not perform just one or two miracles… He led life… down a path… from primeval simplicity to contemporary complexity, similar to Darwin’s Evolutionary Tree of Life… Where life was not able to evolve naturally… God stepped in.

Geocreationism is certainly not the first definition of Theistic Evolution, but it is close to the second.  However, where I part is that God didn’t only step in where life couldn’t evolve naturally, because that still suggests a type of subservience to the process.  Rather, I believe that similar to the tree of faith in Romans 11, God actively pruned and grafted the branches of the species tree to make it look exactly as He wanted it, using and discarding natural results as it pleased Him, and adding what could never happen naturally.

…Theistic Evolutionists believe that many creatures lived, died and became extinct long before man’s belated arrival. This means that death existed before man Adam’s sin. 

Geocreationism agrees with Theistic Evolution in this regard.  This would mean that death, in and of itself, is not sin.  From Adam on, God intended for mankind to live forever.  However, sin prevents that from occurring on earth.  I do not believe that animals or plants were ever intended to live forever, nor were the men and women alive before Adam.

Theistic Evolutionists tend to subscribe to either the Day-Age theory or the Framework Theory, both of which are allegorical interpretations of the Genesis One Creation Week. Biblical Creationists tend to subscribe to a literal 24-hour reading of Genesis One. 

Geocreationism subscribes to neither the Day-Age theory nor the Framework Theory.  On the contrary, I believe the days to be literal days from the perspective that there was a literal evening and a literal morning, but from the perspective of the Holy Spirit watching the earth rotate beneath Him.  Therefore, even if the earth revolved completely in 24 hours, evening only overtook the Holy Spirit when He wanted it to.

One more statement about the Day-Age theory.  There are several forms of it.  What they all have in common is that the Days are generally sequential, but may overlap, and the evening and morning of each “day” are figurative.  I believe the evening and morning of each were literal, from the Holy Spirit’s perspective, that the Days are completely sequential, and that any mapping to the earth’s great ages should be treated as coincidence.

The two Theistic Evolutionist viewpoints… agree on the Darwinian timeline… in conflict with the Genesis creation account… Some Progressive Creationists argue that the wording of Genesis suggests that the sun, moon and stars were actually created on Day One but that they couldn’t be seen through earth’s atmosphere until Day Four… the Genesis account is pretty clear that the earth didn’t have an atmosphere until Day Two… they should have been visible on Day One. 

Geocreationism is in line with Theistic Evolution and Progressive Creationism on this point.  The Geocreationist explanation however addresses the objections above where Progressive Creationism may not.  For example, the sun was visible 4.5 billion years ago, when the earth first formed.  Later, it was hidden behind clouds, when Day 1 occurred, 3.9 billion years ago.  As for the atmosphere, the firmament was not the atmosphere, but rather the space between the oceans and clouds… when the firmament was complete, the waters above were the clouds.  Hence the sun, moon, and stars were still not visible.  Day 3 saw more of an atmosphere than Day 2 (which had more than Day 1), but it was hazy (much like Jupiter’s moon Titan), hence still no visibility.  The oxygen from the plants of Day 3 however cleared up the haze for Day 4.

Another example of discordance is, the Genesis account clearly says that birds were created with sea creatures on Day Five while land animals were not created until Day Six. This is in direct opposition to the Darwinian view which says that birds evolved from land animals.  

In my own Geocreationist opinion, Day 5 didn’t occur until 65 million years ago, when the KT impact killed off the dinosaurs and much of the remaining life on earth.  It turns out that (according to the fossil evidence) sea life was the first to recover.  In Genesis 1:20, God merely commands sea-life to “abound”.  This only requires going from a state of non-abundance to abundance, which is what happened.  The next to recover were the birds; all scripture requires is that before God’s command the birds were not filling the skies (they weren’t), and then after His command they were.  Well, this is exactly what the fossil record suggests occurred.  On Day 6, the land animals finally recovered.  God’s actual command was to “let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind.”  The only thing required by this wording is that God remove any obstacle to the earth bringing forth land-species that can reproduce.  Mankind on the other hand is explicitly “made” by God on Day 6, to be “like” God, and have dominion over all other life on earth.  This allow for the special creation of mankind, or the divine addition of those qualities that make man similar to God.