Reconciling Evolution with Adam and Eve

[drpmjhess]

The Bible is neither geocentric nor heliocentric. As far as the 2nd part, the Church got it wrong, Galileo got it right.

A literal interpretation of Joshua 10:12-13 implies a geocentric cosmos. Thus, if we acknowledge geocentrism to be astronomically incorrect, at least these two verses of the Bible cannot be interpreted literally, but must be interpreted figuratively. Of course, there are numerous other passages of scripture where a woodenly literal interpretation leads to contradiction. The beauty and value of the Bible endures, and is not impugned by acknowledging – as the medieval church did – that ther are at least four levels of scriptural meaning – and that the literal is not always the path to take.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

And He would have done that for what reason exactly? So I’m a little cog in some God pinball machine of making fun at the silly humanoids? Now that does demean God to a joke.

Can I try to answer this again?

Before sentient man came along, God was the only witness to events in the world/universe. Assuming that it ‘took 4 billion years’ for life to evolve, if God was the only witness, then of course we understand that God didn’t have to actually sit there for 4 billion years watching it happen. God doesn’t exist in time. God doesn’t wait for things. He sees all times at once. It’s similar to how we can see many points in space at once.

So, if God created this 15-billion year timeline, he created and continues to create it in less than an instant of time. Since the only witness was God, the 4 billion years of evolution aren’t something that happened, they are something he created.

So God doesn’t create the universe at any one time, and it doesn’t take any time for him to create it, whether the timeline within his creation is 6000 years or 15 billion years. He creates the whole thing at once. You can’t put a date on when he created it, and putting an age on the earth is only relevant in the context of studying the laws of physics that God built into the world. But to talk about time before there were any people (who experience time linearly) and when the only witness exists beyond time, is meaningless in a theological context. In geology and bioogy, we see that the billions of yeas make sense, but just remembe that God created all of that spacetime in less than an instant.

This all makes sense to me, sorry I can’t express it very well. I’m actually not crazy, I just have had this idea in my head for years and never attempted to explain it to anohter person, so its hard to write

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Neil Anthony, I recently had an argument about Moses with a group of archaeolgoists. I took what is more or elss the standard interpretation among both Catholic and Protestant Old Testament biblical scholars, namely that the Moses story and Exodus and Sinai narratives are the earleist strands of Hewbrew oral tradition, dating to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries BCE (scholars assume that the Genesis stories were added later).

To my discomfiture, the archaeologists generally rejected the idea that Moses was a historical character, arguing that no evidence independent of scripture has been found to support the story. I still think the core of the Moses-Exodus-Sinai narrative reflects historical events, although I doubt that two million Hebrew emigrated from Egypt.

Petrus

I suppose one would expect 2 million people living in the sinai deserts for 40 years to leave some trace. But if they lived in tents and lived on manna, maybe they wouldn’t have left much behind that would survive thousands of years?

 

[wildleafblower]

Thanks, Wildleafblower!

Thank you for thanking me.

 

[drpmjhess]

Before sentient man came along, God was the only witness to events in the world/universe. Assuming that it ‘took 4 billion years’ for life to evolve, if God was the only witness, then of course we understand that God didn’t have to actually sit there for 4 billion years watching it happen. God doesn’t exist in time. God doesn’t wait for things. He sees all times at once. It’s similar to how we can see many points in space at once.

Neil Anthony, thank you for your explanation, and as a thought experiment this sort of human solipsism is intriguing. However, it is an enormous assumption that God is the only witness. There may be countless rational civilizations sprinkled throughout the universe (that is what SETI is looking for). Considering 13.7 billion years of cosmic history, and the fact that there are 10 to the 22 power of stars out there, if even only a miniscule fraction of those stars have potentially life-bearing planets around them, there is still an enormous likelihood that life has evolved on some of those planets, and that some of that life has evolved into intelligent life. (The five CTNS-Vatican conference volumes have some articles on this).

There is a progression to the evolution of life. The Big Bang produced only hydrogen and some helium. All larger elements had to be combined by nucelosysnthesis in the giant “nuclear furnaces” of stars (see Timothy Ferris, “The Whole Shebang”). When this first generation of star began exploding in supernovae some billions of years after the formation of the universe, they spewed out these heavier elements (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron, silica, gold, copper, etc) into space. When intergalactic and interstellar nebulae composed of these elements began forming new stars through gravitational collapse, this second generation of stars included in their gaseous discs these heavier elements. The gaseous discs gave birth to planets – some huge and gaseous; others small and rocky.

The second generation of stars has existed for several billion years now, and the probability is very high that on suitable planets intelligent life has evolved and civilizations have arisen, declined, and perhaps gone extinct. All these civilizations --at least those with astronomical curiosity – would have been witness to the events that you suggest were witnessed only by God. This vision of God’s expanding and mind-numbingly beautiful universe should hold no terror for Christians!

Prayerfully yours,
Petrus

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Like I said, I don’t like that way of looking at it. But like I said it’s only one way of expressing it. Here’s how I think of it myself

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=2770298&postcount=43

Another way is related to the tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it, did it really fall? No. Just like there’s no one out in space 10 billion light years away, so those start aren’t really there. They’re just a backdrop for us. And no one was around to see dinosaurs, so it didn’t really happen. It’s just the time version of the backdrop. Even the earth is just a stage for our lives, existing only in God’s mind.

I would agree that these sound more sensible at least. And since its all mere speculation, we should rejoice in our individual and collective abilities to Imagine God in such wonderfully different ways.

 

[drpmjhess]

I would agree that these sound more sensible at least. And since its all mere speculation, we should rejoice in our individual and collective abilities to Imagine God in such wonderfully different ways.

Nice phrasing and vision, SpiritMeadow. My professional position requires me to serve as interface between evolutionary biologists and faith communtiies. It’s a challenge in to get Catholics (and other Christians) who don’t accept evolutionary biology, and biolgoists who don’t accept God, to respect each others’ “individual and collective abilities to imagine God.”

Petrus

 

[SpiritMeadow]

That’s not pantheism as commonly understood in Western thought. Typical Western pantheism simply equates the matter/energy universe with the term ‘God’, such that ‘God’ is worshipped and/or venerated. The notion of a “One” in any sense separate from the matter/energy universe is rejected. There’s nothing that emanated, nor nothing needing re-absorption.

I have problems with none of that.

Are you trying to pick an argument? You sound stern and condesending. Does that work for you in real life?

My experience is the same. Those who are fundamentalist in their outlook don’t have problems with the inconsistencies of their believes with daily life, nor with the other wonders of science they do enjoy. The reason is, the have an uncanny ability to hold two apposing views in mind at once and NEVER are compelled to examine them.

How do you do that? I had a great friend once who was a fundie…In response to any question that threatened “her book”, she replied “I don’t believe that”. It was a mantra…makes like so very simple I guess. But oh would it give me a headache…You might be interested to look further into the phychological structure of the fundamentalist mind. It’s pretty well documented.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Neil Anthony, I recently had an argument about Moses with a group of archaeolgoists. I took what is more or elss the standard interpretation among both Catholic and Protestant Old Testament biblical scholars, namely that the Moses story and Exodus and Sinai narratives are the earleist strands of Hewbrew oral tradition, dating to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries BCE (scholars assume that the Genesis stories were added later).

To my discomfiture, the archaeologists generally rejected the idea that Moses was a historical character, arguing that no evidence independent of scripture has been found to support the story. I still think the core of the Moses-Exodus-Sinai narrative reflects historical events, although I doubt that two million Hebrew emigrated from Egypt.

Petrus

Just wondering if you had ever heard of another theory. My husband and I saw it maybe a year ago on I think discovery or the history channel. It posited an incorrect dating for the biblical exodus, which explains why there is literally no physical evidence in Egypt or the environs. I cannot remember exactly, but it seems to move the date back 1500 or forward 1500 years. It also,given the new topography that this would present, showed a different route and along this route I believe there were some hebrew writings found at that age depth.

I recall they found no evidence for any exodus on the scale portrayed by the bible, but that there were small batches who left the area and moved toward the “land” over perhaps more than one generation?

My memory is faulty. Just wondered if it rang a bell with you at all?

 

[wildleafblower]

Nice phrasing and vision, SpiritMeadow. My professional position requires me to serve as interface between evolutionary biologists and faith communtiies. It’s a challenge in to get Catholics (and other Christians) who don’t accept evolutionary biology, and biolgoists who don’t accept God, to respect each others’ “individual and collective abilities to imagine God.”

Petrus

Hello Peter/Petrus (drpmjhess) You state above, "My professional position requires me to serve as interface between evolutionary biologists and faith communtiies. It’s a challenge in to get Catholics (and other Christians) who don’t accept evolutionary biology, and biolgoists who don’t accept God, to respect each others’ “individual and collective abilities to imagine God.” Peter, what exactly is your professional position? I’m confused (Are you a scientist and theologian? Two PhD’s! wow! ) Now, it appears to me that ‘the interaction between science and religion’ might at times be favored verses an ‘interface between evolutionary biologists and faith communities’. Why? Because your statement above suggests that you, Petrus/Peter (drpmjhess) , wish to have scientists such as biologists imagine God along with the religious folks. Is that true? We all should know by now that Science doesn’t need God. As far as myself, I believe in God so I don’t have to imagine God, and I love Jesus and haven’t a problem with SCIENCE.

I am a Roman Catholic who isn’t willing to give up Christianity for a global religion and new world order Nor am I willing to allow New Ager’s push their rap onto me then have them condemn me because I’m “intolerant” or a “fundi” because I don’t agree with them. And I’m definately not into pantheism or panentheism: *panentheism(Greek pan = everything and theos = God) the belief that everything is God or, sometimes, that everything is in God and God is in everything (panentheism). Every element of the universe is divine, and the divinity is equally present in everything. There is no space in this view for God as a distinct being in the sense of classical theism. *http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...s/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html

Petrus, perhaps I’m wrong, are you in favor of panentheism? You seem to me to be by your statement. I hope you don’t mind me asking.

 

[drpmjhess]

wildleafblower:
Wildleafblower, thanks for your questions.

(1) I am a Roman Catholic theologian working with a wide range of scientists in an organization founded originally to promote better understanding of science on the part of Christians and members of other faith traditions. The director hired me so that I could educate (a) scientists about what religious believers believe, and ((b) religious believers about how scientists operate. You can imagine what a challenge this can be. I was caught between Fundies and atheists last Thursday at a university lecture!

(2) I have no intention of converting scientists to religious belief, although if God leads them in this direction through my work I am delighted. Rather, I try to educate scientists – many of whom have a very simplistic and wrong-headed understanding of religion – to the fact that there are tens of millions of Catholics and other Christians who are in fact quite well educated and able both to place their trust in God and to understand how the methodological naturalism by which science works.

(3) Please don’t confuse pantheism with panentheism. The latter is not “new-agey” (I share your distaste for that); rather, it has a long and honourable pedigree, with elements held by none other than the great Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. You have to think in a more subtle fashion than you have expressed it above. (I atriculated panentheism in a preivous posting.)

Prayerfully yours,
Petrus

 

[Neil_Anthony]

The second generation of stars has existed for several billion years now, and the probability is very high that on suitable planets intelligent life has evolved and civilizations have arisen, declined, and perhaps gone extinct

Hi Petrus,
This is only if you assume that man isn’t the high point and purpose of creation. Science hasn’t proved one way or the other yet. Even if you don’t believe in God, calculating the chance of other life existing is a game of dividing one infinity by another… we really can’t calculate it. The number of stars is so large, but the chance of molecules randomly creating life so small.

 

[drpmjhess]

Hi Petrus,
This is only if you assume that man isn’t the high point and purpose of creation. Science hasn’t proved one way or the other yet. Even if you don’t believe in God, calculating the chance of other life existing is a game of dividing one infinity by another… we really can’t calculate it. The number of stars is so large, but the chance of molecules randomly creating life so small.

Neil Anthony, science could never “prove” that the human species is the purpose of creation, nor is that science’s purpose. Neither is it my assumption that one rationally inhabited planet out of billions of planets constitutes “the high point and purpose of creation.” I believe God’s wisdom and purposes are infinitely greater than ours ever could be, and that it is within the power of God to summon rational, morally responsive life into being wherever God wants it to appear!

Petrus

 

[drpmjhess]

Neil Anthony, here is a lovely poem by an English Catholic writer, Alice Meynell, that for many years has spoken to me about the contrast between the human experience of God, and the possibilities for divine creativity in the cosmos.
Petrus

    CHRIST IN THE UNIVERSE
    by: Alice Meynell (1847-1922)

        With this ambiguous earth
        His dealings have been told us. These abide:
        The signal to a maid, the human birth,
        The lesson, and the young Man crucified.
         
        But not a star of all
        The innumerable host of stars has heard
        How He administered this terrestrial ball.
        Our race have kept their Lord’s entrusted Word.
         
        Of His earth-visiting feet
        None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,
        The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet,
        Heart-shattering secret of His way with us.
         
        No planet knows that this
        Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
        Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss,
        Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.
         
        Nor, in our little day,
        May His devices with the heavens be guessed,
        His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way
        Or His bestowals there be manifest.
         
        But in the eternities,
        Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
        A million alien Gospels, in what guise
        He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.
         
        O, be prepared, my soul!
        To read the inconceivable, to scan
        The myriad forms of God those stars unroll
        When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.

“Christ in the Universe” is reprinted from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. Ed. Nicholson & Lee. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1917.

 

[wildleafblower]

Wildleafblower, thanks for your questions.

(1) I am a Roman Catholic theologian working with a wide range of scientists in an organization founded originally to promote better understanding of science on the part of Christians and members of other faith traditions. The director hired me so that I could educate (a) scientists about what religious believers believe, and ((b) religious believers about how scientists operate. You can imagine what a challenge this can be. [snip]

(2) I have no intention of converting scientists to religious belief, although if God leads them in this direction through my work I am delighted. Rather, I try to educate scientists – many of whom have a very simplistic and wrong-headed understanding of religion – to the fact that there are tens of millions of Catholics and other Christians who are in fact quite well educated and able both to place their trust in God and to understand how the methodological naturalism by which science works.

(3) Please don’t confuse pantheism with panentheism. The latter is not “new-agey” (I share your distaste for that); rather, it has a long and honourable pedigree, with elements held by none other than the great Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. You have to think in a more subtle fashion than you have expressed it above. (I atriculated panentheism in a preivous posting.)

Prayerfully yours,
Petrus
wildleafblower;2814329:

Hello Peter/Petrus (drpmjhess) You state (delete above now and replace with below, "My professional position requires me to serve as interface between evolutionary biologists and faith communtiies. It’s a challenge in to get Catholics (and other Christians) who don’t accept evolutionary biology, and biolgoists who don’t accept God, to respect each others’ “individual and collective abilities to imagine God.”

Peter, what exactly is your professional position? I’m confused (Are you a scientist and theologian? Two PhD’s! wow! ) Now, it appears to me that ‘the interaction between science and religion’ might at times be favored verses an ‘interface between evolutionary biologists and faith communities’. Why? Because your statement above suggests that you, Petrus/Peter (drpmjhess) , wish to have scientists such as biologists imagine God along with the religious folks. Is that true? We all should know by now that Science doesn’t need God. As far as myself, I believe in God so I don’t have to imagine God, and I love Jesus and haven’t a problem with SCIENCE.

I am a Roman Catholic who isn’t willing to give up Christianity for a global religion and new world order Nor am I willing to allow New Ager’s push their rap onto me then have them condemn me because I’m “intolerant” or a “fundi” because I don’t agree with them. And I’m definately not into pantheism or panentheism: *panentheism(Greek pan = everything and theos = God) the belief that everything is God or, sometimes, that everything is in God and God is in everything (panentheism). Every element of the universe is divine, and the divinity is equally present in everything. There is no space in this view for God as a distinct being in the sense of classical theism. *http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...s/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html

Petrus, perhaps I’m wrong, are you in favor of panentheism? You seem to me to be by your statement. I hope you don’t mind me asking.

Nice phrasing and vision, SpiritMeadow (#146). My professional position requires me to serve as interface between evolutionary biologists and faith communtiies. It’s a challenge in to get Catholics (and other Christians) who don’t accept evolutionary biology, and biolgoists who don’t accept God, to respect each others’ “individual and collective abilities to imagine God.” Petrus
SpiritMeadow;2813610:

Hi Petrus

1. Interesting! You aren’t a scientist.
2. Oh.

3.) Petrus (Peter, drpmjhess;2813623), my concern is that as a public educator if you are promoting panentheism then you are misrepresenting Roman Catholics that don’t believe in panentheism. The Vatican website document PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR CULTURE, PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE, JESUS CHRIST THE BEARER OF THE WATER OF LIFE, A Christian reflection on the “New Age” provided me this, *“Pantheism: (Greek pan = everything and theos = God) the belief that everything is God or, sometimes, that everything is in God and God is in everything (panentheism). Every element of the universe is divine, and the divinity is equally present in everything. There is no space in this view for God as a distinct being in the sense of classical theism.”

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p.../rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html*

 

[drpmjhess]

Hi Petrus Petrus my concern is that as a public educator if you are promoting panentheism then you are misrepresenting Roman Catholics that don’t believe in panentheism or pantheism.

I’m still not clear on where our miscommunication lies. Perhaps it lies in our respective assumptions of what education involves. The Catholic Church has many theologians teaching in many institutions, and in many fields, reflecting many interpretations on a wide range of topics. By suggesting that panentheism is a metaphysical perspective that has fruitful implications for Christian theology I am not forcing it on anyone; I am not “promoting” it. I am simply telling you that a number of excellent theologians in the field are thinking and writing about Catholic theology in a panentheistic context, just as there are many who think and write about theology in a Neothomist or a process perspective. Process or Neothomist thought are no more heretical than panentheism, even if I don’t find the process viewpoint particularly convincing. You don’t find panentheism helpful – that’s fine. I do. And again, you misrepresent the tradition if you confuse it with pantheism – they are quite different. The poem I jsut posted by Alice Meynell could be said to represent a panentheistic take on Christian cosmology.
Petrus

 

[wildleafblower]

I love the poem, Petrus because it’s metaphoric. A poem can be interpreted in many ways. I don’t see it the way you do. I ran out of room in my last message to you. I was earlier informed by a friend that SpiritMeadow had written you were a scientist on her blog. This is why I said in my last message to you, “You aren’t a scientist.” Am I correct?

Also, there is one thing I do know as a fact, Intelligent Design advocates are comprised of people who support panentheism and pantheism. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It is the truth. :yup: I read that you don’t support the Intelligent Design Movement. Correct?

Petrus, you stated in msg. 151, “The director hired me so that I could educate (a) scientists about what religious believers believe,. . . .” My messge 155 reference no. 3. addresses my concern.

Thanks and God bless you.

 

[drpmjhess]

Wildleafblower, I am scientifically educated, but professionally I’m a Catholic theologian.

(1) What do you disagree with in the Meynell poem? She was a Catholic. Do you disagree with the idea that God could create intelligent life elsewhere in this vast universe than on our planet? That there could not be an “Adam and Eve” line evolving into consciousness and moral and spiritual awareness from non-mammalian roots?

(2) I don’t know whether I’d call Intelligent Design a movement so much as a persepctive that incorrectly informs science. Michael Behe argued in “Darwin’s Black Box: the Biochemical Challenge to Evolution” (1996) that there are biochemical structures in nature that are far too complex for science to figure out. Well, ten years later science understands these structures very well and how they have evolved over billions of years. So the box is not black inside!

(2.1) Don’t assume that I reject Theistic Evolution just because I don’t find ID convincing or useful. In contrast to Richard Dawkins, et al., who are atheistic evolutionists, George Coyne and I and tens of millions of others are monotheists, including Christian, Jews, and Muslims. I do indeed believe that the universe was intelligently designed (any Christian has to believe that!) but I don’t accept ID’s drawing of protective belts around scientific problems and forbidding scientists to tread there!

(3) I have never met a pantheistic Intelligent Design proponent. Have you? I’d be interested in an example of one. What would he or she believe? Most ID people are Christian, and pantheism is contradictory to the Christian idea of God and God’s distinct creation.

I’ve got to run off to sing at our parish’s Latin Mass; back in a few hours.
Prayerfully yours,
Petrus

I love the poem, Petrus because it’s metaphoric. A poem can be interpreted in many ways. I don’t see it the way you do.Also, there is one thing I do know as a fact, Intelligent Design advocates are comprised of people who support panentheism and pantheism. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It is the truth. :yup: I read that you don’t support the Intelligent Design Movement. Correct?

Thanks and God bless you.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

sorry Petreus if i gave you more degrees that you have. I thought you had a degree of some sort in science as well as a ph.d. in theology.

The poem is simply breathtaking…It will appear on my blog in a day or two…It needs to be seen. It nearly made me weep, its just so sweet and loving.

Wildflower, I appear to have distressed you. I am sorry. I too am distressed. It has been such a shock to find fundamentalist Catholics. I would have thought it an oxymoron. My heart mourns the fact that if we ourselves are so basically at odds over things I would consider fairly simple and also fairly unimportant, there is little hope for Christendom of reconcilliation and even less for ecumenism as regards other faiths.

It was my blog today…Hopefully someone will restore my sense of hope.

 

[richardwy]

A literal interpretation of Joshua 10:12-13 implies a geocentric cosmos.

Nope. You infer that.

Let God make the sun stand still, and you see it, and you tell me how you’re going to record that in your diary.

No one on planet earth would say anything but “the sun stood still.”

Oh, and what you call a “contradiction,” I call a mystery.

The glass is dark compared to what often is a hellish thirst “to know.”