“Common descent” and “progressive creationism” are two non-contradictory labels, in my book. It’s a mere add-on to the first perspective, not a rejection of the usual regularities of nature.
With all due respect, @Guy_Coe, that is rubbish.
They are 2 different positions. The natural evidence is for common descent. There is zero evidence for progressive creationism… because it can never be demonstrated.
Special Creation of Adam/Eve is the non-contradictory fusion.
But special creation of key or novel non-human species templates is a refutation of the natural interpretation of fossil evidence and even of the logic of Old Earth.
He is not the only one who thinks so. Many people call theistic evolution a type of progressive creation.
Progressive creation will not “unite” Creationism with Evolutionism.
The point of Union and Fusion is the dual creations of HUMANITY only!
The day this place moves to Progressive Creation I will submit my walking papers.
The genius of this work is being able to acknowledge both sides of Human Creation …
not just ONE side… where half of the side “kinda looks like Evolution”.
I don’t care if others personally affirm common descent. Science doesn’t care about what you believe in your heart.
I just want to pull us back from the cliff, so we aren’t pushing stupid stuff in public.
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George, you go ahead and submit whatever papers you want.
“My way or the highway” is the rubbish in your statement.
“Conform, or cast off” is not how this forum operates.
It’s clear to me you have no idea what you’re talking about. So, of course it seems like “rubbish.”
GIGO.
Cheers.
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I signed onto the @swamidass model… not something else.
When Joshua tells me he is rejecting Evolution with Common Descent, then I will go.
Thanks for the encouragement.
No; that was friendly confrontation. All the best.
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I knew perfectly well what it was. Every once in a while, we will encourage each other in the same way.
As far as the thread title is concerned, Progressive Creation is the OPPOSITE of Evolution, except to the extent someone allows minor evolution to occur until such time that variations from the Created Species go extinct.
Progressive Creation doesn’t even allow Natural Selection to continue indefinitely, should there be even MINOR evolution. An “imaginary barrier” appears to be conceived of by which a population is not allowed to continue its evolution for millions of years thereafter.
They are different labels for the same evidence; one flies better among academic scientists, of necessity; the other flies better under the rubric of those who know better than to place some kind of artificial limit upon how God is “allowed” to act in nature.
They are not contradictory, and forcing a choice between them is a false dichotomy.
That much is clear to everyone in the room; even to you, I suspect. Even Patrick has not raised on objection to the labels; only to how one employs them in the name of the currently popular conception of what constitutes a proper scientific method.
No particular scientific method is implied by the label “progressive creation,” only philosophical background.
This is plain dumb. You cannot say Special Creation of a million separate species populations is EQUIVALENT to the evolution of a million species by common descent, ultimately derived from a single original population.
@jongarvey… for some reason, a few folks turn dumb as soon as you leave the room!
Did I say they were equivalent? That would just be dumb.
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He is saying something else.
He is saying that Progressive Creation is a an overarching category that includes Theistic Evolution / Common Descent as one sub-type. On the other hand, special creation of species all the time (e.g. the RTB model, or what I tested the watter with here: A Better Way to Reject Common Descent - #2 by swamidass ), is not an example of Common Descent / Theistic Evolution.
Isn’t that a possibility?
One value of that is it challenges OEC Christians to figure out why exactly they are objecting to common descent. Especially in light of the Genealogical Adam, that is getting harder for them to justify on theological grounds alone. If they already accept “Progressive Creation,” claiming TE is just another type of Progressive Creation provokes those conversations. That, I think, is why @Guy_Coe is doing it.
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Yes. Another way of saying this is, even if evolution is shown to be a perfectly adequate explanation, the fact that God is the Creator of nature makes it a means of His progressively creating all things. But, I don’t think that natural evolution, all by itself, is adequate to explain all that we study in nature, and to me, it’s obvious that both things are going on --the regular AND the highly unusual, especially when it comes to humanity.
I personally see RTB rejecting common descent as totally unnecessary, because it is not a repudiation of progressive creation or even of special creation.
This is JUST as dumb. The only over-arching is the word GOD.
Guy
Too true. But once again, so much of the confusion is caused by weasel-words like “natural”, whose meaning varies between “independent of God”, “following regular God given laws of nature,” “having a rational chain of efficient causes including irrational randomness…” etc, none of which appear demonstrable (except my definition, which is simply “regular or repeatable”, cutting through the metaphysical mush).
As far as science is concerned, there is no explanation for those “regular laws”, which might be anything from brute fact, through divine creations, to occasionalism (ie God’s daily habits).
Science is even less equipped to talk about unexplained contingencies as “natural”, at least unless it is a bit more clear and less metaphysical than it is about what that word “natural” means. Paul Nelson, at BioLogos, linked to a paper (paywalled) by a philosopher of science demonstrating that citing “unique events” in biological history is effectively indistinguishable from citing “miracles”.
I guess behind the paywall the paper would be considering the old chestnuts like origin of life, but evolutionary history is actually a catalogue of unique events, so deciding “natural” or “miracle” appears to be a metaphysical choice, not a scientific one, in every individual case.
What’s dumb is regarding God as a mere word, rather than the active sovereign He actually is.
GIGO.
You’ll have to unwrap the implied meaning here. Nothing I have written entails that I don’t treat God as the active sovereign.
While, at the same time, you are trying to subsume
“God’s use of mutations, natural selection and common descent from a single original population of living things”
under the topic heading of “Progressive Creation” - - which is a phrase specifically embraced by its users to EXCLUDE anything that involves common descent from a single population of living things.
Look, I support efforts to use terms creatively … but I don’t think it is necessary to try to overhaul the entire range of terms that are commonly used by the various schools of Creationism that line up in opposition against those schools Christianity that support Evolutionary operations as real and valid.
No more calling ideas dumb. Got it guys?
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Okay… not “dumb”… I will rely more on the adjective: “incomprehensible”.