I would draw a distinction between the reliability of scripture and its interpretation. We can consider the concept of somehow viewing all of time and space (and strawberry) from “outside”, but such a place is imaginary from physical perspective*. A concept may have meaning from a theological perspective too.
There are millions of Christians that dont believe all scripture is reliable when read literally!
@colewd @gbrooks9
To avoid going off-topic when what is already a diversion, I suggest we keep to how questions are defined, rather than how many subscribe to a particular interpretation.
Hi George
I agree but we need to define terms in order not to talk over each other. Confidence in the theological integrity of the story is very different than thinking the Serpent in genesis 3-15 is really a snake.
Bill, if we have defined terms to your liking, you still need to explain why God practiced a succesion of de novo creations in a way that gives the (deceptive) impression to human perception that God was using his natural laws of evolution.
Only if you define science very narrowly in terms of applying very specifically to disciplines like physics, chemistry, biology, etc.
It can also be defined more generally as a method of obtaining knowledge and determining what is true. By that definition, there is no reason the same method could not be used to determine whether particular statements made about God are true. In fact, that is exactly what you are trying to do in this discussion.
If, for instance, someone believes that God would never use evolution to produce human beings, then the scientific method demonstrates that the God in which he believes does not exist.
Hi George
I do not think that theological consistency depends on either evolution (universal common descent) or a separate origin model being true.
The question is what hypothesis best fits the data and current mathematical evolutionary models.
Debating these models seems to be beyond the scope of this post.
@colewd ,
If you have nothing to offer, then we are certainly done.
I am satisfied that God used millions of years of evolution to populate Earth with all life.
I am happy to construe the story of a global flood as a priestly exercise in JUDAIZING a popular pagan mythology. I suggest that it was a relatively recent story that was inserted into the patriarchal narrative rather hurriedly. Otherwise adjustments would have been made to allow survival of the “Cain-ite” lineage.
If it was, instead, a story meant to explain a regional flood, the story would have been about building a big wagon (to get out of flood country!).
If it was a regional flood it would be weird to have all the animals come, some of them from outside the flood area, just to get on the boat/wagon. Why would any effort even be needed to save species from a local flood?
Exactly! Which is why it is most likely the intent of the editors of Genesis was to present a Hebrew (“sanitized”) version of the pagan global flood story.
In the same way that the creation story is a sanitized version of the Enuma Elish?
Yes, exactly.
The Persians had their own creation story too … instead of humans being formed out of ['dm] (which allowed semitic word play with the Hebrew words for “blood” & “red earth/mud”), the Zoroastrian creation myth said: “the first human couple, Mašya and Mašyāne, came out of the earth in the form of rhubarb plants (Bundahišn 4, 10-28; 6F, 9, tr. Anklesaria, pp. 48-63 and 82-83; ed. Pakzad, pp. 58-66 and 112-13; Zādspram 2, 10-11 and 18-22; 3, 67-76).” [See Gayomard article at https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/index/ ] Rhubarb provided a visual play on words where Rhubarb leaves have a vivid network of red veins. But I digress.
I have suggested that early drafts of Genesis had not yet included the Flood story because we can see the lingering awkwardness where the descendants of Cain (either Kenites and/or Canaanites) somehow survive DESPITE only Noah’s lineages being saved!
These are good questions but I don’t think the lack of clear answers necessarily means that using it as a concept in the integration of Christianity and evolutionary science (Theistic Evolution, Evolutionary Creationism, CASE) is without merit. On one end of a spectrum of integration is the fundamentalist YEC camp that says (a particular interpretation of) the Bible trumps science. On the other end of the spectrum is an atheist interpretation that would say science trumps the Bible every time. In the middle is a place where people are trying to take both the Bible and science seriously as complementary means of finding out about what is true. It’s messy and complex to be in the middle, holding tensions, rethinking as data emerges. It can seem like a cop out, but when you consider that the science of molecular genetics is really new on the timescale of the history of Christian theology, I don’t think it is.
I wouldn’t see god-guided evolution as a hypothesis, certainly not a scientific one. It seems more like an inference based on a theological proposition that humanity’s existence is intentional and purposeful along with the historic Christian belief of God’s providence. The “how” of a god-guided evolution would then be open to investigation, which is what I think frustrates people. Also, I think many CASE folks use the phrase when they are trying to signal that they are not deists to fellow Christians, which probably also annoys some people. I’ve also seen it tied to the concept of the humanity being made in the “Image of God” when people are trying to work through what that means in light of common decent. I think this is an area where I see a lot of work happening in response to human evolution.
I think that I know what you mean (and I don’t wish to send us down a rabbit hole) but you clarify by providing an example?
It’s a hypothesis because the inference doesn’t follow, at least not uniquely from the assumption. I suppose it could be an inference based on three assumptions: 1) the one you state, 2) evolutionary history is more or less what we think it is, and 3) God’s activity is more than the setup of initial conditions. I’m not sure this makes the “how” open to investigation, though, as it offers nothing to look for.
What, in this instance, do we mean by “work”? Does GAE count? But of course that’s not a scientific hypothesis and leads to no research beyond the feasibility of universal genealogical ancestry.
My most recent example from FB, someone made a a simple claim that “Evolution never happens.” It’s simple to provide contradictory evidence, but the claim is actually an opinion, and doesn’t give any details of “what” never happens. Is it change in allele frequency, new species arising? Giving contradictory evidence is tacit acceptance of some specific claim that was never stated clearly.
I find asking for better definition of the original statement is a better approach. Often they cannot define what they mean in clear terms, other than they simply do not accept it (accept their opinion and move on).If they can provide a clearly defined claim, then giving contradictory evidence is appropriate and highly effective.
This approach can be difficult to apply in open forums, where some other eager skeptic jumps in to argue before you can establish there is no claim to be argued. I think @John_Harshman is doing this right now, insisting on arguing things that were never intend as claims to start with. 
Fair enough.
Good point. So I think perhaps it’s more like an inference in search of a hypothesis? My experience is that “god-guided evolution” has most often been used by people trained in science rather than those trained in theology. I think this probably means they are more likely to just focus on the inference and leave the hypothesis generation more undeveloped. I think @swamidass in GAE is an example of somebody trying to do this well by having both scientific and theological hypotheses as independent but interacting parts of a whole argument.
Good point, I should have been more clear. I meant theological work being done to unpack what the “image of God” means if it’s not about a de novo creation of humanity that genetically and biologically separates us from animals. In the GAE book @swamidass presents some questions around this that are helpful. I’ve seen a lot more discussion about vocation and relationship rather than substance and function in the last few years, although I am by no means a scholar in this field. My impression though is that common descent has motivated a deeper look into the doctrine. That is what I was trying to get at. Science informing faith and prompting new theological scholarship.
???
One would expect the opposite from the scientifically trained, as hypothesis generation is part of the scientific process.
Can anyone here point out the Hebrew of “in our/his image” in Genesis 1 and discuss its probable intended meaning within the story? It appears logically attached to dominion, judging by the next bit. Do these words appear elsewhere too?
IMO even unbelievers can (should?) find this kind of work interesting and important. The concept of the image of God is – to me – just a subsection of the big question that underlies PS: what does it mean to be human? An humanist like me needs to think about that in various situations but most notably when asking about human rights and dignity. Theological work might seem at first to just be about gods but I think much of that work will tackle questions that all of us need to confront.