Creation was through the direct action of the Creator, as opposed to some naturalistic process. The creation took place at the beginning and was finished and complete. Creation did not extend over an important part of the supposedly vast evolutionary history of the universe. Creation was by the word of the Creator.
Our current culture is confused about the meaning of the word GOD. In today's culture, God could mean a set of moral standards, or an idea, or the universe itself, for an individual like Shirley MacLaine, or even for each individual himself. On the contrary, none of the alternative creation stories believe in the existence of a good and perfect world at first. A third reason is that the Bible's creation doctrine is integrally linked to its teaching on salvation.
Literal direct creationism conflicts with what Phillip Johnson has termed “theistic naturalism” (theistic evolutionism, progressive creationism, etc.) When it comes to their science departments, most Christian universities and colleges completely ignore the subject of creation and Genesis, or promote theistic evolution or some other harmonization of Genesis. They believe that I am misinterpreting Genesis by taking it literally and have therefore adopted a science biased toward literal creationism. But what if someone doesn't accept the biblical record and instead adopts a point of view such as progressive creation? Because all alternative views on origins hold that God used the process of natural selection for a long time to arrive at more advanced forms of life, these other views raise serious questions about God's character.
