It would make lots of sense… except when Patrick is in the discussion. He has no ability to edit what he says.
To whom are you explaining these points?
Perhaps you could have quoted a more pertinent text… having the person’s name?
I am watching contributors very closely on just your point: theology can embrace science (that’s the job of theology)… but science cannot be harnessed to discuss theology. That is NOT the job of science… even when someone tries to get theology to say so!
The recent attempt at this practice was @Ashwin_s who attempted to use Theodicy issues as a way of disqualifying evolution as a method of creation used by God.
When I gave a Biblical example of an even more obvious Theodicy issue… he tried to deflect by saying he is no Theologian.
Just as there is no evidence for intelligence in a scientific view, so there is no evidence for non intelligence in a scientific view. For this, we see the necessity of FAITH. The faith that seems more in play for the theistic evolutionist is one called naturalism or scientism- in a nutshell, this is the truth about our existence that is only determinable by our observations through the lense of natural workings.
But then there are those ID advocates who are of a different faith that suggests that intelligence can be detected by science. I am one of those and many have demonstrated that this is by far more sensible within the minds that God gave us.
Irony has it that those bent towards naturalism have never seen an example of nature creating stuff, so it seems that evolutionism bent towards naturalism is a much more blind faith than a faith that declares that such complexity demands an intelligent source (which i believe is the God of the Bible)
Exactly correct. Science doesn’t tell us one way or another.
Faith is incompatible with science. Science asks questions and works to find truth through evidence, faith pretends to know the answers to those questions and proclaims them as truth without evidence.
Then evolution is a belief. Your belief. And dont get this wrong either: belief in evolution coupled w the idea of God says that God engaged His creative methods on the back of pain, death, suffering. Right? So the child suffering from cancer is God creating…He is weeding this weak one out of the population so the strong survive. The belief that the science of evolution is true suggests that Gods character is different. The Bible reveals a God who cares for the weak and downtrodden, not weeding them out so the powerful dominate!
Your inflluence effects the church, which my children, extended family and friends are apart. You are free to speak but not without good people stifling your voice so that our young children wont be effected. The Bible also says that th judgement u use will be applied to you. You say incorrectly in your accessment that God created on the back of survival of the fittest…that judgement you make about God not found in the Bible you will be accountable for when you meet Him.
Oh really?
But if the child was first born of Egypt during the time of Moses… whether free or slave, native or visitor, then that is completely different?
Hardly.
This argument assumes that natural selection is the driving force of evolution. That was Darwin’s view. It is not my view, and I’m pretty sure that it is not Joshua’s view.
What drives evolution, in my view, are changes in the environment, coupled with mutations that biological populations can use to allow them to better cope with a changing environment.
Yes, we observe pain, death, suffering. But the creationist also observes that. And so does the ID proponent. If that pain, death and suffering is a problem for evolution, it is just as much a problem for creationism and for ID.
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What is the Christian explaination for evil in this world? God gave mankind freedom to choose and he chose wrongly did he not? Evil is always going against God who is a good and gracious God and evil becomes permeated into the fabric of our essence when we go against Him.
Evolutionism not only misses explaining these grounds for evil but it also suggests that, as you insinuated, God is ultimately responsible for the heinous oppression imposed by Egyptian slaveowners! Not to mention the idea the God creates via pain, suffering, cancer, destruction, and discarding the weak and helpless for the strong to survive and pass along their traits.
To make things,worse for evolutionism, when we see traits like long necks in giraffes, stripes in zebras, symbiosis between plants and animals and even reproductive traits in all life, survival of the fitest evolution makes no sense to explain this so it goes into a realm of the utter ridiculous to proclaim that genetic mutation is the cause. That has to be the biggest load on the planet right now!
We are all free to believe what we want, but for myself and prayerfully my family, we believe the reason for evil is not God but any being other than He who disobeys Him. He graced the planet with life when He created it and called it goid. After man chose to disobey in order to “be like God” God in His infinite love offered to re-create us by sending His Son, “the better adam” to take away our sins.
I believe this info above is fact. Evolutionist beware of what your words say in regard to what you believe because one day, every word will be brought to account by our Maker
These postings are not so long that you have a good excuse for losing focus so quickly.
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God-Guided Evolution means GOD is the engine for how it works… no matter which element you think has the most proximate influence (whether it be natural selection via the environment, mutation, or miracles in either sphere of operation).
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The reference to the first Born in Egypt is not a reference to God being “to blame” for the degeneration of Egypt’s culture or political system.
It was a reference to God intentionally arranging circumstances so that he could kill hundreds of thousands of living things in the Nile Valley as a “molek sacrifice” (the royal sacrifice of the first born!).
So mutation is the driving force and selection is secondary. I get it. For those of us who identify ourselves as Christians, we still cannot truly explain how this PROCESS of a good God “creating” would be full of death, suffering and yes, according to you, secondarily behind mutation as the lead cause of evolution, selection which equates to those in a weak state being overcome and discarded by the strong. This is the eqivalent to the class bully picking on my friend Tony in high school because he did not “fit in” the environment that was more acceptable. Yes, Tony had handicaps, but it s our call as humans made in the image of God to stand up and protect the Tonys of the world, not discourage, torture and discard so they cannot be replecated in further generations!
To make this worse for evolutionism, without clear definition that God was fully involved in giving mutation or sudden change within our genetic makeup, one cannot escape the utter ibeccility of mutation causing things like highly complex reproduction qualities needed for life survival RIGHT NOW or life is doomed right now. My brain is smoking with cross circuiting thinking about how our brightest scientists still believe in the absurd like this!
Equally absurb is the scientist who agrees that it is only sensible that intelligence caused these mutations yet be unwilling to surrender to the idea that they are ID. Labels are just labels, but in the english language labels help us towards understanding so for someone to say, yea God did something to create life but not proudly wear a pin on their should that proclaims God as designer has some deep rooted issues to deal with in their life.
I did not say that.
Early life consisted of things such as algae. If it were all a matter of mutation and natural selection optimizing the population, then humans ought to be highly optimized algae. Clearly, we are not that.
Without changes in the environment, there could be very little evolution. However, without mutations, an organism cannot deal with a greatly changed environment. So you need both environmental/ecological changes and mutations.
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I misunderstand your point. God is sovereign and God created agents with the ability to choose, but God did not make them choose disobedience which is what evil is. According to the Christian worldview, evil is a result of any agent, human or angel choosing to go against God. When they do, the evil permeates the world around them. This entire planet is permeated with evil bc of sin in the garden.
However, if one is an evolutionist, they can make no philosophical or theological sense of that and for this, they MUST pin evil on God as you just did as an evolutionist yourself
Nope. This is just false. Try reading the link I already posted on this…
I would go further to say that there is no “evil” in evolution at all. To call an old earth evil is to strangely focus on the “suffering and death” while ignoring the “joy and life” that takes place too. It also requires ignoring how evolution works, because it does not require death and suffering, just differences in reproductive success.
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It’s a problem for YECs and for EC/TE proponents. It’s not a problem for ID in the strict sense, since ID claims only to infer a designer of some sort, not specifically the Christian God. There is no reason why a designer could not have designed a world in which there would be suffering. It’s only when you start arguing – as YECs and many TE/EC folks do – “God wouldn’t have created with a world with pain and suffering” that the existence of pain and suffering becomes a huge theological problem. But note that all such statements are speculations about what God would or would not do, based on particular theological commitments held by the speaker or writer.
Of course, most ID proponents are also Christians, and therefore as Christians they have to account for the existence of suffering in a world created by the Christian God. But as ID theorists, they don’t have to account for it at all. “The world was created by an all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving God” is neither a premise nor a conclusion of ID theorizing.
As a theological aside, I would point out that the notion that God would not deliberately create a world that included suffering is not sound, from a Biblical point of view. Isaiah 45 alone would be enough to establish that, but of course when in Job we are told that the lion seeks his food from God, we know perfectly well that the food God has provided for the lion is not a bowl of oatmeal, and that the food will not particularly enjoy being chased, caught, clawed, and eaten. The theological problem with both YEC and TE/EC (or at least many of the TE/EC writers I have read and debated with) is that people from these groups are too sure they know how God thinks, what God would do, etc. – so sure that they base their notions of God more on a priori reasoning from certain sentimental conceptions that they hold than on the actual description of God given in the Bible.
Exactly. The term “evolutionary evil” is a presumptive term that embeds theological presuppositions.
Cat’s eat mice. Is this reality evil? There is no way to determine this from science or from scripture. To say “evolutionary evil” is to presume that this behavior is fundamentally evil from the get go. I reject the premise.
Animals suffer, but to call this “evolutionary evil” is to presume that there is nothing that might be better than suffering. However a fundamental claim of our faith is that suffering is not to be avoided, because their are greater joys to be had through it.
Animals suffer, but it is also a misreading of science, as suffering is actually surprisingly uncommon in the natural world. Even when the cat eats the mice, the mice do not necessarily suffer. Even when animals suffer, in nature it is usually brief. It is almost exclusively in human care that animals are sustained in prolonged suffering.
Animals die, but Scripture only talks about death to mankind, not death to animals. Even in the ancient world people realized the value of death, in making space for new life, so imagined that the pattern of Enoch would have been in place in a death free world. In some conceptions, God would still translate people to heaven, as a replacement for death. What makes death sting is not merely the departure from this World, but the total end and destruction of persons. What animals have personhood, and to what extent is their death evil?
I could go on, but natural “evil” (and I do not think this is a real category) among humans does not seem to be nearly as bad as human evil. Even what we call natural evil is often really just human evil:
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And Pharaoh was going to concede to Moses… and so God HAD to harden his heart … so that he would have the cover story for the final plague.
For ID fans… please take note that nobody knew that God had Pharaoh’s heart hardened by God… until the Exodus scribe told the backstory!
In “Evolution and the problem of evil” by author unknown, i perhaps have never seen such theological gymnastics and apostacy. This is yet again how things like Biblical theology becomes flawed because the assumption and belief system of evolution takes precedence as being true FIRST then biblical theology makes that its foundation second.
In the article, the author says this:
“Heb 5:7-9 states that “during the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”
In these verses, suffering and perfection are clearly linked. Perfection in Hebrews is best understood teleologically—perfection is achieving God’s intended goal for a person or process.”
This explanation of Hebrews insinuates a highly fraudulent worldview. The author insinuates that suffering and perfection are linked IN GENERAL and uses the gospel to justify this. That perhaps is the biggest load of theological hogwash i have heard to date! The gospel is not attempting to associate suffering and perfection, but rather is God in the flesh suffering an agonizing death and the Son temporarily breaking fellowship w the Father AS A PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS. Jesus had this as a goal, and when it was perfectly accomplished for us. But do a word study on the word propitiation in Scripture. God in His perfection could not stand in relationship with sinful man so in His love, gave his one and only Son to suffer in our place to reconcile us back to Him. We deserve suffering and eternal damnation. Jesus saves us from that by taking Gods wrath in the form of brutal punishment at the cross in our place. Where the first Adam failed, the second “better Adam” in Jesus succeeded. Look up Genesis ch 3. EVEN IF YOU WANT TO CONSIDER GENESIS POETRY WHICH IS A STRETCH, consider what the text is saying. The result of disobedience is death. This is plainly written. The idea of death being the penalty for sin is reinforced at the end of the chapter when it is declared that mankind driven fr the garden so that they not be able to eat from the tree of life and live.
Jesus, becoming obedient to death was done in love in order to bring dead sinners to life as a great exchange. The idea that this somehow demonstrates Gods purposes of creation through suffering in evolution of the species is to absolutely belittle Christ’s act on the cross. And in this article, there is an insinuation that suffering as demonstrated by the gospel is needed IN GENERAL for " good to become perfect." But in the cass of Jesus suffering on the cross, this was accomplished to bring dead people to LIFE. The Bible says “There is no one good, not even one.”
I hear over and over that evolution does not have to disrupt solid Biblical theology, yet this is another perfect example how the belief in evolutionism devolves good theology to utter apostacy.
And remember that evolutiinists are not just suggesting that there could be death and suffering of poor animals before the fall, they are suggesting that God’s creative purposes were accomplished by the means of death and suffering. So not sure if any in earshot have experienced a loved one in suffering…what a theologically sound Christian realizes is that this is the result of the fall…yet Jesus suffered to take all suffering and death away at the cross. . What an evolutionist suggests instead is that that suffering is a means for God creating better humans that no longer carry those weak genes so the strong will survive. This picture is miserably far from anything Biblical or anything related to the true character of God.
Well I am not an evolutionist.
@greg, why are you here? You don’t really seem interested in understanding people with whom you disagree.
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That’s a Darwinist view, basing evolution on natural selection. Please remember that there are evolutionists who have rejected that Darwinist view.
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