His parable fails. Neither his response nor yours says otherwise.
The protest back to me will be that empiricism says a resounding “common descent does work”!
But empiricism amounts only to collected data, organized in such a way that common descent appears to work. Empiricism does not flip the switch in the laboratory to run the experiment to corroborate the empirical data.
This means that common descent has actually never been predicted and confirmed, it has only been postdicted and has only received confirmation bias by a majority of persuaded believers.
General relativity has been predicted and confirmed through experiment. Special relativity has been experimentally confirmed. Gravitational waves have been detected via experiment. They are saying now that even QM has been confirmed. Those are the big ones in physics.
What about the big ones in biological evolution?
How are you going to convince me and others that common descent is even a possibility without experimental confirmation?
No the protest is different. The protest is: “My point stands even if common descent is false, because the GAE does not depend on common descent being true.”
Yes, there is a debate that you are wanting to have about common descent. However, that debate is irrelevant to my point in the GAE.
No one is able to establish that this relationship is impossible IMO. So the reality is this possible relationship is up for debate. No? The GAE is very valuable because it moves the debate to a strictly scientific domain as it allows for a created Adam and Eve. What theological problems do you think this creates?
GAE would be true if Adam and Eve were the first human beings. However, it wouldn’t be relevant.
GAE become relevant only in a scenario where there are creatures outside the garden who are biologically identical to Adam and Eve. In such a situation, special creation of Adam and Eve becomes irrelevant or less relevant.
So, GAE fits well with common descent and not so well with the concept of special creation imo. Because, in a scenario where there are people outside the garden who are biologically human just like Adam, there is no point in the "special creation of Adam. It’s a redundant act.
From an outsiders (non-scientist) point of view, I think you are missing logic. @sfmatheson and @swamidass are pretty clear in their arguments, and you seem to be ignoring the logic altogether.
God created Adam who he would have a special relationship with. People outside the Garden could have evolved or could also have been specially created but the story of the personal relationship with man started with Adam inside the garden. Adam is the first human with a personal relationship with God and was specially created for that purpose.
Why would a man need to be specially created in order to have a personal relationship with God? Why couldn’t God just choose someone from the existing population?
I too need some elucidation. A&E were in a state of utopian perfection, not original righteousness, if they are who you are referring to. Are you perhaps trying to say that in mixing with populations outside of the Garden that they “passed on a sort of righteousness”?
Seems to me the difference between man and woman created in Gen 1 and Adam in Gen 2 is that Gen 1 humans did not have God breathe life into them. They were created and live as animals do, but not connected to God through Spirit. To me, and I could stand alone on this, it seems that there are many references to the Holy Spirit, the Word of Life, etc. as being God breathed referring to the connection of man Spiritually to God. Humans in Gen 1 do not have that reference, they seem to be in the image of God, but not God breathed. Gen 1 are called to rule over the earth, Adam is called to tend to the things of God. Just thinking out loud again…processing, not holding to anything.
Same goes for the covenant with Abraham vs. the rest of humanity. Abraham’s faith was accounted as righteousness by God and God blessed him and his future generations. The Jews became God’s chosen people and the rest of humanity did not know God until Jesus made the Spirit available to all. So, since Adam, the recurring theme is of two types of human, one in and one out of relationship with God.
Not that that has any relevance to a scientific discussion where humans are all considered the same…and in a secular humanists “everyone is equal” sense with MN as driving force, zero relevance…I already know…no need to argue it.
That sounds to me as if they weren’t human. But you could clarify. What does it mean to be connected to God through Spirit?
Actually, Adam is called to tend the Garden and nothing else is mentioned.
Most importantly, why should this require Adam to be separately created? Couldn’t God have breathed life, in the sense you mean, into an already-existing human?
I will explain in purely personal experience…before I knew God, my understanding of my personal history was dark and filled with anger, hate, hopelessness. I did not understand the bible, I did not believe in God. Then I was filled with the Spirit after crying out to God for help and my history was changed, my future had hope, I knew love, I understood the bible and God’s will for my life. I can only describe it as being connected to God through Spirit. In that sense, I was alive and human (in human terms) before knowing God. But I was born again by Spirit and became a child of God, connected to Him. Uniquely different existences to me, though in human terms I am the same human being.
No idea. I suppose He could have. It’s a good question, I don’t know. It just seems relevant that the story distinguishes Adam separately from the rest of humanity. It also seems relevant that Eve was created from Adam, set apart from the rest of humanity. Seems Adam could have just found a wife from the humans that were already created, but no.
Well, of course the story says that both of them were separately created in quite specific ways. If we allow a less than completely literal interpretation, or if we enquire into whether God’s actions make sense, we get into the problem. So yes, why couldn’t God have picked an existing human and filled him with spirit, and why couldn’t he have found a wife for Adam from the existing population? Just the act of filling them with spirit would set them apart, wouldn’t it?
Now, the story as told is absurd on many points. Why does omnipotent God have to use dirt to make a man? How do you even make a man from dirt? Why is a rib needed to make Eve? Why doesn’t God know from the beginning that Adam needs a helper? Why doesn’t he figure out immediately that the helper ought to be a female human rather than an ox or wombat? You really can’t take it literally, or God comes out to be an idiot.
…point where we can congratulate @r_speir for deftly sabotaging the conversation by obscuring the key point and turning attention to theological nonsense.
Are you suggesting that the people outside the garden could not have a relationship with God?
If Adam is specially created by God to be the first man with a relationship with Him (as opposed to calling someone out of the people outside the garden); there must be something different about him vis a vis those outside the garden. Else, the act of special creation becomes redundant.
I am suggesting this would be difficult given the requirements to be in a relationship based on the rules outlined in Leviticus for being in the presents of God.
Simply being born and living outside the garden may have been sufficient again based on the purity conditions outlined in Leviticus.