Ken Keathley: How High Are The Stakes?

I agree.

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But OEC have historically made a pretty big deal about the distinction between micro and macro-evolution. It seems like a pretty big leap to “everything but Adam”, that’s why I’m surprised. The local RTB group meets on my campus and the few times I’ve attended there was much to be said about the failure of macro-evolutionary explanations. The RTB website also seems to lean that direction as well. I get that “everything but Adam” is likely on the far end of the OEC spectrum, but it does surprise me. That makes OEC much more broadly appealing to Christians, and less “offensive” to secular scientists, I think.

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RTB is an excellent organization, respected in large part because of the person of Hugh Ross. RTB does not, however, speak for all OECs. They are also predominantly staffed with scientists and Samples is possibly an outlier in theology compared to most OEC.

@jack.collins is perhaps the most important theological voice in OEC, and perhaps WLC and @kkeathley after him. Jack is far closer to the mainstream of exegesis than RTB, and has already given his blessing to the GAE. I’m pleased to report he gave me permission to publish his response to the GAE as an appendix to my book, and I’m very pleased with how positive it is. Jack, notably, is a vocationalist, not a structuralist like Ken, Samples, and WLC.

There are three possible solutions for the structuralist.

  1. GAE with the Image of God outside the Garden, before Adam. This is default in my book, but not insisted upon. It works for both structuralist and vocationalists.

  2. GAE with the Image of God confined to Adams linage, with the structure completed with a spiritual refurbishment. @Andrew_Loke takes this view. So does @AntoineSuarez.

  3. Genetic progenitor with interbreeding in the ancient past, taking just about everything in Scripture as mythical.

I don’t know for sure what everyone will do, but I predict @kkeathley will pick either 1 or 2. WLC is a total wild card right now, but might be telegraphing 3. Collins I think will pick 2 with a vocation, no spiritual refurbishment. That is only a guess though. The point of the GAE is to accommodate differences, and to encourage creativity. It is possible that @kkeathley might think of a better way, which would be excellent to see.

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My theory, which is getting validated, is that the real anxiety is about Adam. None of them really object to macro evolution in an essential way. Rather evolution is fearful because of what it does to Adam. So fearful in fact that they go after distractions like the Cambrian explosion instead of dealing with their core challenge. Solve the “Adam and Eve” problem, much of that macro evolution oppositionalism will evaporate. I’m not saying we will agree, but the oppositionalism will be defanged.

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When the conceptualization is “creation VERSUS evolution” and the false dichotomy of what “nature alone” might do versus what “God alone” might do, what gets lost in the shuffle is that God also created and upholds nature itself, but is not limited thereby.
Just because there are MN practitioners who have a policy to exclude God’s action as an explanation doesn’t make it true.
It’s a good exploratory methodology, but entirely inadequate for explaining everything in a universe with a God Who is both immanent and transcendent.
There is no actual fundamental conflict inherent in “creation versus evolution,” only a short-sightedness as to the adequacy of “nature alone” as causative of everything we observe.
My two cents.

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A post was split to a new topic: Tim Keller is not an Evolutionary Creationist

Just in case this is the “more” you were asking for, @AJRoberts , I’ll repeat what seems to have gotten little comment or reaction so far, which I think is a central clarifying tenet.
Given what we know of genetics and evolution, not to mention of biblical Hebrew and theology, I’m totally comfortable with Job’s description of the situation of his own origins, and God’s specific role in it.
‘Remember now, that You have made me as clay; And would You turn me into dust again? Did You not pour me out like milk And curdle me like cheese; Clothe me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews? You have granted me life and lovingkindness; And Your care has preserved my spirit.’ - Job 10:9-12 NASB
Job uses terms involving God’s skillful artistry in making him unique, “de novo” even, one of a kind, formed from dust --while not thereby denying his normal birth to a preexisting human mother --“evolving” from her, so to speak, and from his dad --but not being identical with either of them.
So, even normal human births involve God’s active creative artistry and superintendence… which means that both OEC and EC are not actually fundamentally at odds.
“De novo” and “evolved” are different, yes, but not incompatible.
Every human being is “de novo.” That’s both genetically AND spiritually true, even in the cases of identical twins, or in species where it occurs, parthogenesis.
So, what’s the real controversy, then?
Only whether one is explicitly denying God’s active artistry and superintendence in the history of life.
I am aware that, in saying so, I am probably being more explicit on the question of “de novo” than Josh, but I am concerned to show that it is actually not in conflict with science, only non-demonstrable when using only MN scientific inquiry alone.

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@swamidass,

Scenario #2 rejects Genesis 1(and the quote on god’s image) as describing an evolved branch of humanity (since it requires Gen 1 to be another view of Adam’s offspring).

It is rather an incoherent compromise with Evolution … without actually trying to sync-up with the Evidence of Evolution.

Whereas #1 is more coherent with the evidence while still allowing for a Miraculous Adam/Eve.

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I have nothing to add to Mark Noll’s splendid analysis, already referenced: B.B. Warfield, Biblical Inerrancy, and Evolution - BioLogos

Whether Warfield counts as an EC/TE or an OEC depends on (1) how one interprets Warfield’s subtle analysis and (2) precisely how one defines EC/TE/OEC. See below for my views on (2).

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As for defining EC/TE/OEC, I offered my own definition of “Theistic Evolution,” not “Evolutionary Creation” per se, several years ago in my BL series on “Science and the Bible” here: Theistic Evolution: History and Beliefs - Articles - BioLogos
Please read the opening paragraph very carefully to see where I come down–and also please notice my willingness to consider other definitions, provided they are stated with comparably clarity.

BL prefers me to use the EC term, but my columns were written from an historical perspective (admittedly with one eye on contemporary conversations), and historically the TE terminology has been widespread and longstanding, so I stuck with it in that column. Many important voices have identified themselves under that exactly label, including Asa Gray when he lectured to the divinity students at Yale in 1880. Others have distanced themselves from that label; see my column for details about an historically major example, Canadian geologist John W. Dawson, who used the term even earlier than Gray. William Jennings Bryan famously dissed the term in the early 1920s, describing TE as is “an anesthetic which deadens the pain while the patient’s religion is being gradually removed.”

On my definition (not to be taken as definitive), Warfield probably counts as a TE. His sole exception was his insistence on a non-evolutionary (i.e., immediate creation) origi of the human soul. That is also the official Roman Catholic view today, unless I’m badly mistaken.

To see how hard for historians to impose our conceptual boxes on complex historical realities, see the little challenge below (separate post).

My definition did not touch the question of the historicity of Adam & Eve and all that comes with it. I won’t go into my own views on this here–and (to anticipate any calls for such), my silence should not be taken as implicit assent to any opinion on that offered by someone else!

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@TedDavis I’m fairly certain he insisted on the de novo creation of Adam and Eve from the “dust” and a “rib”. That would put him in the same category as William Jennings Bryan (Scopes Trial) and certainly outside the evolution camp as it had been defined for 150 years.

OK, here’s the little challenge to show how hard it can be to apply a conceptual box used for analytical purposes (such as a market model in economic theory) to the actual historical situation. I won’t identify the author of the quotes below, though it might be easy to identify the author by searching. Nor will I identify the historical period, though it’s obviously after 1859. To play the game, just go with what you read below, without additional information or context. From these quotations alone, is or was the author a TE, OEC, or ID?

(1) “The record in the Bible is therefore profoundly philosophical [i.e., scientific] in the scheme of creation it presents. It’s both true and divine,” so “there can be no real conflict between the two Books of the GREAT AUTHOR. Both are revelations made by Him to Man.”

(2) "With every step there was an unfolding of a plan, and not merely an adaptation to external conditions. There was a working forward according to preestablished methods and lines up to the final species, Man, and according to an order so perfect and harmonious in its parts, that the progress is rightly pronounced a development or evolution.”

(3) “Creation by a divine method, that is, by the creative acts of a Being of infinite wisdom, whether through one fiat or many, could be no other than perfect in system, and exact in its relations to all external conditions,–no other, indeed, than the very system of evolution that geological history makes known.”

(4) “Thus, by an abrupt transition, [humanity] stands apart from the ape and all brute races.”

Maybe in a few days, if people are good and play by the rules, I’ll come back and identify the author with some commentary. :slight_smile:

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Describing man as the “final species” puts the author much closer to the time of Darwin. Victorian thought still had a strong hold on science at that point, so the idea of higher and lower species was very much a thing, and you can still find echoes of that type of philosophy today. Since the author came from a time where TE, OEC, and ID were really not a thing, I don’t see any reason to force him into that box. The author would have lacked all of the evidence gathered in the last 100 years.

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It could be Wallace or even Darwin himself, could it?

@TedDavis

How interesting!

I don’t see the exact timing of when human souls are created as having much traction on evolutionary questions, do you?

@swamidass

So is it your thought, then, that PeacefulScience.Org by allowing for the especially miraculous in the creation of Adam and Eve are “outside the Evolution Camp”… even though this is a highly exceptional act (or 2) … and that we solidly embrace all the other conventional views of the current Evolutionary model?

Not exactly. It is what I wrote before,

People will still disagree with this or that but anti-evolution creationism will be totally obsolete. It won’t serve a meaningful function any more. In a generation or two it will be something of a different era, perhaps in just 20 years when the current crop of leaders in ID/EC/YEC/OEC goes on to a better place.

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On Catholics, evolution, and the soul, see this piece by Catholic physicist Stephen Barr, one of the most thoughtful (IMO) Christian writers on “science and religion.” (I absolutely love his essay on Dawkins as the “Devil’s Chaplain,” but that’s for another day.)

Here is Barr on evolution and the soul: The Design of Evolution by Stephen M. Barr | Articles | First Things

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On a related tangent, Stephen Jay Gould’s famous essay “Nonoverlapping Magisteria” was inspired by the Roman Catholic Church’s statements about evolution, science, and religion. Below is a quote from John Paul II found in Gould’s essay:

@TedDavis, you have been on online forums enough to know this is an exceedingly high bar to set! :slight_smile:

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