Ken Keathley: How High Are The Stakes?

@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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@swamidass

Bravo !!!

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Do you mean essential theologically or essential in regard to variable interpretations of the data? Josh, I think you think macro-evolution is easily swallowed if you solve the Adam and Eve problem. I think this may be extremely wishful storytelling. But if that’s what you want to do, then go for it. Maybe many will follow.

Many believe macroevolution falls short in other areas than just hominid evolution, but they can still take a gracious position of saying, if you are a TE/EC you need to solve the Adam and Eve issue satisfactorily. Many see that as what you are doing for the TE/EC camp. They are not rubber-stamping macro-evolution by supporting your work in this area. (And it’s a bonus too if your model gives other forms of YEC and OEC more credibility by not conflicting directly with mainstream science in the issue of Adam and Eve.)

At least that is my understanding.

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I’m not talking about from a scientific point of view. I’m talking about a theological point of view.

Of course not.

You got it! Thank you.

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@Jordan (cc @AJRoberts )

One of the target audiences for Genealogical Adam are those Christians who want to save their view of Christianity and not dismiss all of modern science while doing so.

The easiest way to fit these overlapping criteria is, naturally, to accept the context of the miraculous creation of Adam & Eve recently but reject the idea that Adam & Eve were the “first couple”.

If the reverse conditions are sought (where Adam & Eve are the first couple, but are created more than 500,000 years ago)… you immediately run into both Biblical and Anthropological problems:

  1. Does the Bible warrant Adam & Eve being created at least half a million years ago?

And:

  1. Name a theologian ready to make a non-Homo sapien hominid the quintessential Man of God?

The only fit, if a fit is sought, is RECENT miraculous creation (in sync with the emergence of agriculture, and avoiding virtually any conflict about human hybrids), and Adam & Eve becoming ONE of several Universal Ancestral Couples, rather than the ONLY one.

I think you are neglecting the work of many excellent, thoughtful scientists and theologians if you stand behind this hubristic statement and if you define modern as let’s say, what? 12,000 years? Or less?

I won’t debate this further if that’s your position. You’re welcome to it, but don’t insist I respond by invoking my name with more or the same types of hubris without acknowledging differences in everything you make reference to… you are assuming a lot of things and asserting them as rather absolutes and setting up a false dilemma.

And it’s rather disappointing because I usually find you to be much more thoughtful and balanced in your contributions here. So, I’m not really sure why you’re being so provocative and contentious in this post.

Maybe before responding you can find Joshua’s previous posts on other threads on at least one position that doesn’t fit your choice of two options: recent and miraculous or more than 500,000 years old. Maybe, just maybe others dismiss some of your asserted absolutes.

And to answer your questions, as posed, because I hate it when others respond to my post and don’t actually engage my questions: 1) no and 2) I don’t know of one, but it doesn’t matter that I don’t know of one, because that’s not my claim and I think it’s a rather incredulous claim to make.

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@AJRoberts

I appreciate your implicit kindness, and I respect your disappointment.

But I have always favored offering a way for the most zealous of Evangelical audiences to embrace the physical evidence of Evolution, while maintaining the metaphysical operations of Christian redemption unimpeded.

When viewing the narrative themes with the above thoughts in mind, what else can I conclude?

A) Do you disagree that a 500,000 year genealogical chart is not quite what Genesis seems to be presenting?

B) If we are going to “stretch the meaning” of Genesis in one spot or another … isn’t it easier to stretch the idea that Adam & Eve are not the first humans … rather than to suggest they were the first humans, but half a million years ago?

I am a captive to this logic. But - - if you can present an alternative logic that still allows Romans 5 to function and modern physical evidence for Evolution to fit - - I will always be interested in learning about it.

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