A difficulty of theistic evolution

[Gottle_of_Geer]

This **was **also an issue I had. Not just the rearing, but the idea that God would have a human gestating inside an animal womb. (Either that, or the destruction of the animal soul at some point and replaced with a human soul). Somehow or another, it seemed so demeaning that I couldn’t conceive of God doing such a thing. And then, just within the last few days, this thought came to my mind: **God—almighty God—put himself inside a human womb. He allowed humans to rear Him. **Suddenly, I felt ashamed - as tho’ I had been prideful. And, I was, and still am, overwhelmed at the humility of God.

I am still not an “evolutionist” - but one of my major “psychological” (so to speak) oppositions against it has gone up in vapor!

Nita

**Which is more demeaning: descent from simians - or descent from sinners ? **​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Theistic evolution is different from Creationism in the way that it believes that creation was a gradual process. It is different from Intelligent Design because it doesn’t directly state that God had to manually do everything to guide creation. That’s an easy thing to get muddled up over, because it seems to push God away, but it’s trying to be clear of the “God of the Gaps”. TE believes that God allowed for evolution to be a possible mechanism, able to construct our bodies, so that He could eventually create our immortal souls to be born into our bodies at their conception.

So it’s not like God needed a template, He just made it so that life could propagate to pass on life, and it could increase in complexity.

I like to think of it as being similar to God fastening us to the earth with gravity. He still wills it, but uses it as a tool to further His own end.

Is it useful or even intelligible to distinguish between evolution & TE ? IMO, no, because​

• **If one believes that God is in some sense responsible for all that exists - even it exists through evolution - one has TE; so a Darwinian Christian of 1860, say, would be a TEist. **
• **Evolution either is - or it is not; if it is, then it is neither “for” nor “against” God: it is simply a fact. But if it’s a fact, why should this particular process in the natural world be dignified (or disdained) by special adjectives, when others, such as respiration or gravitation, are not ? **
• **We don’t distinguish astonomers, economists & historians, etc., as “theistic” - so why do so with evolutionists ? **

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

You have been misinformed here. Species to species change has been observed. Even Answers in Genesis recognise this. See their articles Brisk Biters and Fast Mouse Evolution. To quote from the second of these:It may surprise uninformed evolutionists, but rapid diversification is an implicit prediction of the biblical Creation/Fall/Flood/Migration model. This is because the kinds on board the Ark had to diversify, even speciate, fairly quickly afterwards (dog kind into wolves, dingoes, coyotes, etc.; another kind into horses, zebras, asses, and so forth—see Speedy Species Surprise). Therefore, the faster such ‘downhill rearrangements’ can be seen to take place, the more neatly it fits the biblical model.
rossum

Here’s hoping that good biology is not used as a crutch for Fundamentalist exegesis of Genesis. ​

 

[vz71]

Is it useful or even intelligible to distinguish between evolution & TE ? IMO, no, because​

• **If one believes that God is in some sense responsible for all that exists - even it exists through evolution - one has TE; so a Darwinian Christian of 1860, say, would be a TEist. **
• **Evolution either is - or it is not; if it is, then it is neither “for” nor “against” God: it is simply a fact. But if it’s a fact, why should this particular process in the natural world be dignified (or disdained) by special adjectives, when others, such as respiration or gravitation, are not ? **
• **We don’t distinguish astonomers, economists & historians, etc., as “theistic” - so why do so with evolutionists ? **

I guess the distinction has to do with the involvement and role of God in the process.
Strict evolution does not involve God at all.
TE puts God at the controls.

 

[edwest2]

Scientists are linking strict evolution with atheism. The journal Nature tells us most leading scientists reject God. Of course, in the past, atheists were free to declare there was no God, regardless of what they may have heard about God. Throw in evolution, and PZ Myers, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and others, use it to say: here, here is how we got here. No God needed!

Atheism is being heavily marketed right now and evolution is the weapon of choice. As Pope Benedict has stated, there are other areas of reason we still need. If anything like evolution occurred, and I am skeptical, God was a direct causal agent. Further, there is design in nature as stated by Cardinal Schoenborn in the New York Times article: Finding Design in Nature.

Plumbing will not tell me about human origins or dentistry or auto mechanics, but evolution, as described in the textbook, is a self-contained, No God Involved, process. The universal propaganda program across the internet further convinces me that getting people to just say yes to evolution is opening themselves to science, which according to PZ Myers (in its present form) is corrosive to religious beliefs. The truth is fine. Facts are fine. But all these people want is a scientific dictatorship of atheist thought.

Peace,
Ed

 

[SeekingHeaven]

Even the most atheistic evolutionists admit that they have no answer to how that first single-celled organism came into being. A cell is TOO complex for ‘chance’ to have kick-started it all.

The best the atheistic evolutionist can come up with is that life on this planet was seeded from an extra-terrestrial life. Okay … so what about that extra-terrestrial life. At some point we get as far back as the first ever cell.

This cell is animated, alive.
This animation comes from God.

If we can see that God is the only rational explanation for the creation of life at point of initial cellular life, but why would I see his creation of a human with a soul any differently?

You ask a chicken/egg question about the first human with a soul and what the biological parents are, yet you are unable to ask the same question of the first cell.

I’m glad you asked the question though, I enjoy the process.

michel

That would be a reasonable explanation or response, however, the story of creation doesn’t state that God made a cell, it said he took clay from the earth and blew life into it and then a rib from that being and made another.

 

[cazayoux]

That would be a reasonable explanation or response, however, the story of creation doesn’t state that God made a cell, it said he took clay from the earth and blew life into it and then a rib from that being and made another.

The bible text doesn’t preclude God from making the first cell … no matter the size of the organism.

Do you think the first cell was made by chance from ooze and lightening?

michel

 

[williamric]

You have been misinformed here. Species to species change has been observed. Even Answers in Genesis recognise this. See their articles Brisk Biters and Fast Mouse Evolution. To quote from the second of these:It may surprise uninformed evolutionists, but rapid diversification is an implicit prediction of the biblical Creation/Fall/Flood/Migration model. This is because the kinds on board the Ark had to diversify, even speciate, fairly quickly afterwards (dog kind into wolves, dingoes, coyotes, etc.; another kind into horses, zebras, asses, and so forth—see Speedy Species Surprise). Therefore, the faster such ‘downhill rearrangements’ can be seen to take place, the more neatly it fits the biblical model.

rossum

You are using Answers in Genesis to prove speciation??? lol… that made my day

 

[rossum]

It would appear that Adam and Eve are special creations. It is unclear that man is related to hominids.

Homo sapiens is a Hominid. H. sapiens meets the definition of a Hominid and so all H. sapiens are Hominids. See Hominidae.

Being a Hominid says nothing about whether or not a particular species of Hominid has a soul or not. Souls are part of theology, not biology. ‘Hominid’ is a biological term and is defined in terns of biology, not in terms of theology.

rossum

 

[rossum]

You are using Answers in Genesis to prove speciation??? lol… that made my day

Glad to be of assistance.

I find that using AiG can get round the “everything you say is from atheist scientists so I can ignore it” syndrome. AiG are most certainly not atheist.

rossum