Daniel Deen: Thank God for Evolution

[Ashwin_s]

@Philosurfer

It isn’t the Bayesian framework that I am too terribly interested in, but that a cumulative case or a consilience of inductions or an inference to the best explanation is developed for the resurrection. How is this methodologically neutral approach any different than when a paleontologist begins discussing what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? Philosopher Carol Cleland has done some interesting work on historical explanation in the sciences.

You missed my point entirely. The reasoning behind evolution is an assumption of natural causes and an outright rejection of any supernatural event. So the “inference to the best explanation” would be anything tat explains the facts best without resorting to a supernatural explanation.

@Philosurfer

If you are willing to admit these questions, then how would one decide whether science or theology gives the better answers?

Ashwin_s:

Neither give the best answers. In the end of the day, belief in a the bible must be consequent to belief in Jesus. Making the case that God exists and must be sought is important. Origins and history all connect to this. As paul said in Acts 17,
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
If people are not convinced that God made the world and all in it and , and all human beings… Why would they seek him?
As to Jesus, the first evidence i put forward is my experience of him, i.e my testimony. We are not called to prove anything, we are called to witness to what we have experienced.
This is the crux of apologetics as i see it. All the philosophy, theology,science etc are just to prepare the listener to hear a personal testimony. Whether of the apostles themselves, or our own… Maybe both.

@Philosurfer

I agree with this sentiment. In fact, we have seen @swamidass struggle with this on this very site! However, and I realize that this is distinctly Lutheran, but I can’t follow the downsize God, downsize Jesus. A Lutheran would say downsize Jesus and you downsize (or better, outright lose) God. Does evolutionary theory downsize Jesus? I do not think so, and to some extent that was the thrust of my blog post

Jesus is the second person of the Trinity through whom and for whom all things are created. He sustains all things by his powerful word.
So if you downsize God’s role as creator, you downsize Jesus… because He is the creator.
End of the day, nature witnesses to a creator… calling all people to seek him. And the one to be found is Jesus.Evolutionary theory calls that witness, an “appearance of witness” that can be the result of random chance + time. (I am sure people will object to this. But cut through all the semantics, this is the bare bones claim of the Science)
In short, the Triune God is one. Our concept of God applies as much to Jesus as it applies to the father or the Holy Spirit.