Living With Theistic Evolution as a Paradigm

Special Creation: wonderful, but it is a quick and easy way out. There are seldom easy ways out in life. The ramifications of special creation are very complicated themselves. Cf: the book of Romans in the New Testament. Lovely realities described in Paul's epistle to the Romans but very heavy going and not as simple as you would think. Paul, the author of the epistle had what would amount to a Ph.D. in philosophy today.

Non-theistic Evolution: mostly for agnostics, atheists and theists who like a good intellectual challenge or are dissatisfied with the other two approaches. Some, though not all, adherents suffer from a delusion of intellectual superiority, smugness, or self-righteous condescension to anyone not buying into the belief that only evolution is necessary. "Let's not waste any more time and lets proceed with other issues or intellectual challenges" is the practical approach they prefer when considering the Evolution vs. Special Creation debate.

Intelligent Design: very tempting, at least to those who see the complexity and the aesthetic excellence of flora and fauna which seems a tall order to leave to chance alone. Simple organisms and mostly ugly ones being the result of non-theistic evolution makes a lot of sense, but physiological complexity, sentience, intelligence and symmetry that is capable of visiting other worlds and potentially continue intelligent life on yet-to-be-colonized worlds beyond our Earth, almost demands that, if not God, then some other Intelligent Designer is responsible for the marvels we encounter daily on planet Earth.

Theistic Evolution: the main difficulty is that there was sin in the world before Adam and Eve were created if you prefer this paradigm. If sin already existed before Adam and Eve also succumbed as well*, then why would Christ Jesus have to die to appease God's wrath against sin or to vindicate God's Law and its permanence. It also presents a problem for observing the seventh-day Sabbath since living organisms are no longer created in seven days, but rather, during millions of years. Presents quite a problem for orthodox Jews, as well.

Fourth Paradigm: awaits discovery. Any valid approaches need to be included as they become available or discovered.

Practical Paradigm:

Don't hurt anyone or anything. After all, you yourself don't want to be hurt either.

Improve the chances of the survival of the human race whether on this Earth of ours and eventually on other worlds.

Enjoy your life to the fullest and assist others in the enjoyment of theirs. Your well-being is intricately connected to the well-being of others.

If you haven't become aware of this interconnectedness of humanity there is still time to catch on.

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* If sin existed on another world, as well, then it becomes less of a problem if there was already sin in the world before Adam and Eve existed. Of course, the Bible says that everything that God created was good so there's no accounting for how there were fossils already buried in the Earth of another cycle of life that had experienced death already. After all, the Bible says that the wages of sin is death.

Some solve this problem by referring to the rebellion against God by Lucifer and cohorts in heaven itself as being responsible for the death and sin that would then have existed on Earth prior to Adam and Eve's Special Creation in the isolated perfection of the Garden of Eden were another pair of perfect beings (morally and physiologically perfect) were given another chance. Sadly, they also did not pass the test.

This footnote has the potential of never ending as another angle quickly suggests itself.

[Needs stylistic refinements, grammatical processing, etc.]