Should Christians embrace evolution ?

[ricmat]

I once heard that there is nothing really wrong with evolution… especially if one understands that it is nothing more than “change over time in accordance with God’s will…” There is no doubt that things change over time. The longer the time, the greater the change COULD be.

Some definitions of evolution are as you say “change over time.” But the Theory of Evolution specifically denies the existence of any intelligent agent as part of the process - the process is based on random mutations, filtered by natural selection. The “random” part denies God.

If you want to believe that much of it was random, but that God stepped in on occasion (which makes it non-random), then that is a theory of evolution that would be acceptable. Some people don’t like it though, because it’s called ID.

 

[StAnastasia]

I am humbled, nicely, by your reply, StAnastasia, You do it every time, stand by your position, yet see things the way I do. Remarkable.

Thanks, Donsnow – humility is the position each of us should espouse. I am humbled when I read both theology and science, and when I see my fourth-grade basket-baller hit six three pointers in a row, as he did a few weeks ago. Life is too short for me not to be humbled by all the wonders around us. So we’ll humbly rejoice at Thanksgiving Mass tomorrow – the pastor asked our family to bring up a loaf of bread and bottle of wine as part of the offertory. I’m humbled by my parish’s generosity to the poor.

StAnastasia

 

[ricmat]

Abu, can you offer non-YEC sources to substantiate your accusation of “falsification”? Remember, you may not use YEC or IDC sites. If you cannot, I’ll assume you are not telling the truth.

So Dr. StAnastasia declares that YEC, or IDC sites provide false information, and non-YEC or IDC sites provide good information.

That’s quite a generalization.

It seems to me that it would make sense to look at the individual claims made, and see if they are true or false, regardless of the source.

 

[StAnastasia]

But the Theory of Evolution specifically denies the existence of any intelligent agent as part of the process - the process is based on random mutations, filtered by natural selection. The “random” part denies God.

Not necessarily. An intelligent agent would be outside the scope of science to observe, but that doesn’t mean such an agent doesn’t exist. The theory of plate tectonics does not include a role for God causing earthquakes and volcanoes by intervention, but it says nothing about God not existing.

 

[StAnastasia]

It seems to me that it would make sense to look at the individual claims made, and see if they are true or false, regardless of the source.

Quite right!

 

[Ismael]

Two things:

1. 
   *]What does that mean? “The tale is ALLEGORICAL”? The story of creation is not true? What exactly do you mean?

1. 
   An Allegory is a tale that tells something that is true but in a symbolical way.
   
   The difference between ‘metaphore’ and ‘allegory’ is that the metaphore uses ‘emotional’ symbolism and the allegory uses ‘rational’ symbolism.
   
   The bible often uses ‘rational’ symbolism (symbols which appeal to the intellect and reason), ie allegories.
   

   *]What does it mean when you say that the Bible is an authority on creation but it’s not a science book? If it tells a STORY, it’s no worse than the JUST-SO STORIES of evolutionists.

   It means it’s a symbolical account of what happened, not a scientific description of it.
   

   Nice swipe. But you’ve got your facts wrong. Perhaps you’ve never heard of Augustine’s work, “On the Literal Meaning of Genesis”?

   You hang yourself with this.
   
   You probably just know the title of De Genesi ad litteram but not its contents. The title simply means that Augustine is going to ‘dissect’ the creation tale word by word and try to understand it, not that he argues for a literal meaning of Genesis 1-3.
   
   Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted literally if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason.
   
   Augustine believed that non-Christians were also perfectly capable of understanding the world. He was convinced that whatever the Bible teaches, it won’t contradict the world as it really is.
   
   FOR EXAMPLE in *De Genesi ad Litteram * we find that:
   in 12. 24 he plainly argues that it’s illogical to think of the fisrt three days of creatione before the sun is even created!
   
   in 14. 28 he argues that the ‘six days’ in the story of creation are an allegory told to make the creation clear to the readers, not a literal account of what happened.
   

   In 1…1 (the very first paragraph) he tells the reader that the Bible contains both literal and symbolical truths.​

   In *De Genesi ad literam * Augustine proposed the idea that everything was created simulteniously and not in the 6 days proposed by the Genesis’ tale.
   He argues there that the ‘six days of creation’ represent a logical framework of creation and not a passage of time as such.
   The six days of creation according to Augustine are inteded in a metaphorical and spiritual way, not a physical one.
   
   –
   
   He makes similar points also in City of God and * Confessions*.
   
   Augustine, and also Aquinas (who has a lot in common qith Augustine in matters of theology) affirms that interpretation of the creation story is quite difficult and that we must be willing to change our minds about it if new physical information comes up.
   
   Both Augustine and Aquinas were very smart people, and although they did not the current scientific tools and knowlegde they recongnized the power of human intelligences (which they consider a gift of God) and that faith and intelligence work together not against each other
   

   When Augustine first attempted an exegesis of Genesis, he wrote, “A Commentary on Genesis: Two Books against the Manichees.” This book embraced a clearly allegorical approach and understanding. But Augustine later came to reject such an approach, and embraced one which understood the literalness of the event, and the need to allegorize certain terms.

   Not at all… As I said above, in De Genesi ad litteram he does NOT say that the Genesis should be taken literally if it contraddicts observable facts.
   
   Perhaps you should seriously study St. Augustine works… they are really worth reading, especially ‘Confessions’ and ‘City of God’ (in my opinion).
   

   Indeed. Which is what the Bible teaches us.

   Of course: Scripture is inerrant, however personal interpretation of the Scriptures is not inerrant
   

   No. How can humanity be the pinnacle of creation if there are other “pinnacles” out there? That doesn’t make too much sense.

   The bible does not say (certainly not literally) humans are the pinnacle of creation, but implies that man is superior to the other creations (eg animals).
   
   Hence humans are a ‘jewel’ of creation, but not necessarely the only one. We MIGHT be the only sentient beings in the physical universe, but we cannot know that for sure.
   
   Beside I believe the centre or pinnacle of the universe is NOT Man but God Himself, and in Christ, who is God Incarnate
   

   How convenient of your faith.

   My faith is in God and Christ, not in the literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3
   
   The Bible also says that Joshua ‘stopped the Sun’ (Joshua 10:13) but we very well know that the sun does NOT revolve around the Earth…
   Evidently the Bible tells that God performed a great miracle, stopping the apparent movement of the sun. This is very different that having the sun rotating around the earth and stopping, yet it still is a great miracle and does not diminish at all the truth of the Bible not the greatness of God.

 

[rossum]

Hello again, rossum. You should note that Ramapithecus is a falsification, if you want to call it that.

I correctly described Ramapithecus as a “perfectly good fossil”. It was misidentified initially as Ramapithecus rather than Sivapithecus, but it still exists as a fossil. Yes, scientists sometimes make mistakes. The misidentification of Ramapithecus was one of them. Other scientists corrected the mistake, that is why science includes error-correcting mechanisms.

As is the case with Ramapithecus, it was touted as a missing link, only to later be “recategorized” as no longer a likely ancestor of humans.

It still is a transitional, just not a transitional to humans but a transitional to Orangutans.

Amongst all of the chatter, it all comes down to the conclusions. In this case, evolutionists conclude that Java Man is a “potential intermediate form between modern humans and the common ancestor we share with the other great apes.”

Can you tell by looking at a fossil how many children that fossil had and how many children those children themselves had? Neither can the scientists, which is why they only claim what they can be sure of. “Potential ancestor” is the best that you will get. If you want absolute certainty then go and talk to a Jehova’s Witness. Science deals with probabilities.

As for Sinanthropus pekinensis (Peking Man), there are no extent fossils ANYWHERE for this supposed “ancestor” of man. What places Peking Man into the ancestry of man? Evolutionary speculation.

And you have fossils of Adam and Eve to show us? Sinanthropus pekinensis has since been renamed to Homo erectus and we have many H. erectus fossils. It is a pity that the Peking man fossils themselves were lost in the war, though we do have good casts of them. We do have many other erectus fossils to study.

Neandertals are considered by many to be human

For what definition of “human”? They are indeed part of Genus Homo - Homo neandertalensis - they are not part of our species - Homo sapiens. DNA sequencing of Neanderthal mitochondria indicates that they were a separate species which did not interbreed with humans:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/cache/MiamiImageURL/B6WSN-419B8BT-5-C/0?wchp=dGLbVzz-zSkWA

Source: Neandertal DNA Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans.

That chart also shows very well that Neandertals were closer to us than to Chimpanzees.

and Lucy was just an ape.

Lucy was a member of the Hominidae, along with Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Gorillas, Orangutans and ourselves. In biological terms we are also apes as we have all the required biological characteristics. Lucy was a mammal; we are mammals. Lucy was an ape; we are apes. Lucy was an Australopithecine; we are Homo.

rossum

 

[PEPCIS]

"StAnastasia:

As a rough estimate, I would say 200+ times in the last year. Duane Gish of ICR does the same thing: if you lie often enough, it takes on the odor of plausibility.

PEPCIS:

Yes, it always comes down to evolutionists resorting to base insults. Good job StAnastasia. You’re living up to your old standard.

It’s not a lie. I’ve heard Gish proven wrong on a point, and take the same falsehood to the next audience of unsuspecting, adoring fans of his and use it there. Truth means very little to a person like him. or to Kent Hovind, or Ray Comfort, or Kirk Cameron, or Ken Ham.

I wasn’t referring to Duane Gish, or Kent Hovind, or Ray Comfort, or Kirk Cameron, or Ken Ham, or any of a number of other Creationary proponents. I was talking about how you impugned the character of edwest by calling him a liar by association.

 

[StAnastasia]

That’s all quite interesting, but my question was “Why isn’t Earth teeming with life from multiple common ancestors?” If life could arise (without divine intervention) on other planets, it would seem that certainly it would have happened more than once on Earth, leading to more than one “common ancestor”.

Perhaps it did, ricmat – I haven’t studied the origins of life debate in any detail. Or perhaps when it did originate multiple times, the replication process was biochemically constrained to follow lines that would lead to DNA, Perhaps the inevitability of DNA is one of the constants of the anthropic argument – that given the chemistry that came from the “Big Bang” and stellar nucleosynthesis DNA is the only option. In a universe with different physics perhaps God could have chosen a different pathway for information transmission.

StAnastasia

 

[StAnastasia]

Perhaps it did, ricmat – I haven’t studied the origins of life debate in any detail.

Here’s a new study:

Origin of Life: Generating RNA Molecules in Water
sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091120124829.htm

“ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2009) — A key question in the origin of biological molecules like RNA and DNA is how they first came together billions of years ago from simple precursors. Researchers in Italy have reconstructed one of the earliest evolutionary steps yet: generating long chains of RNA from individual subunits using nothing but warm water.”

"Many researchers believe that RNA was one of the first biological molecules present, before DNA and proteins; however, there has been little success in recreating the formation on RNA from simple “prebiotic” molecules that likely were present on primordial earth billions of years ago.

"Now, Ernesto Di Mauro and colleagues found that ancient molecules called cyclic nucleotides can merge together in water and form polymers over 100 nucleotides long in water ranging from 40-90 °C – similar to water temperatures on ancient Earth.

"Cyclic nucleotides like cyclic-AMP are very similar to the nucleotides that make up individual pieces of DNA or RNA (A, T, G and C), except that they form an extra chemical bond and assume a ring-shaped structure. That extra bond makes cyclic nucleotides more reactive, though, and thus they were able to join together into long chains at a decent rate (about 200 hours to reach 100 nucleotides long).

“This finding is exciting as cyclic nucleotides themselves can be easily formed from simple chemicals like formamide, thus making them plausible prebiotic compounds present during primordial times. Thus, this study may be revealing how the first bits of genetic information were created.”

 

[StAnastasia]

Evidently the Bible tells that God performed a great miracle, stopping the apparent movement of the sun. This is very different that having the sun rotating around the earth and stopping, yet it still is a great miracle and does not diminish at all the truth of the Bible not the greatness of God.

Are you a literalist on this story?

 

[StAnastasia]

I wasn’t referring to Duane Gish, or Kent Hovind, or Ray Comfort, or Kirk Cameron, or Ken Ham, or any of a number of other Creationary proponents. I was talking about how you impugned the character of edwest by calling him a liar by association.

Is that how you interpreted it?

 

[PEPCIS]

An Allegory is a tale that tells something that is true but in a symbolical way.

The difference between ‘metaphore’ and ‘allegory’ is that the metaphore uses ‘emotional’ symbolism and the allegory uses ‘rational’ symbolism.

The bible often uses ‘rational’ symbolism (symbols which appeal to the intellect and reason), ie allegories.

Could you please tell me which part of the following is “allegory” and which part I can believe as “literal”?

[SIGN]1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.[/SIGN]

What does it mean when you say that the Bible is an authority on creation but it’s not a science book? If it tells a STORY, it’s no worse than the JUST-SO STORIES of evolutionists.

Ismael:

It means it’s a symbolical account of what happened, not a scientific description of it.

Why can’t it be a layman’s account, as dictated by God through His Spirit, as the Bible claims it is? But more to the point, how is the Biblical story of creation any different than the Just-so stories of evolutionists?

Nice swipe. But you’ve got your facts wrong. Perhaps you’ve never heard of Augustine’s work, “On the Literal Meaning of Genesis”?

You hang yourself with this. You probably just know the title of De Genesi ad litteram but not its contents. The title simply means that Augustine is going to ‘dissect’ the creation tale word by word and try to understand it, not that he argues for a literal meaning of Genesis 1-3.

But of course. My point was that Augustine rejected a straight allegorical approach for one that was literal. He insisted that we should only propose an allegorical interpretation for those verses which clearly could not be interpreted literally.

Ismael:

FOR EXAMPLE in *De Genesi ad Litteram * we find that: in 12. 24 he plainly argues that it’s illogical to think of the fisrt three days of creatione before the sun is even created

in 14. 28 he argues that the ‘six days’ in the story of creation are an allegory told to make the creation clear to the readers, not a literal account of what happened.

In 1…1 (the very first paragraph) he tells the reader that the Bible contains both literal and symbolical truths.

So Augustine was an evolutionist?

 

[ricmat]

Perhaps it did, ricmat – I haven’t studied the origins of life debate in any detail. Or perhaps when it did originate multiple times, the replication process was biochemically constrained to follow lines that would lead to DNA, Perhaps the inevitability of DNA is one of the constants of the anthropic argument – that given the chemistry that came from the “Big Bang” and stellar nucleosynthesis DNA is the only option. In a universe with different physics perhaps God could have chosen a different pathway for information transmission.

StAnastasia

Geneticists would have us believe that they can look at present DNA from multiple species and prove that we come from a common first ancestor, not many common first ancestors. I suspect that you’ve made similar statements as well, although I’m too lazy to go back and search for them…

But if DNA is “inevitable”, then that is yet another fine-tuning argument for the existence of God (where God here is defined in this context only as "creator of the universe, including it’s natural laws). It is interesting to note, however, that no such law has been observed, and it does not follow on from the known laws of chemistry and physics.

As I mentioned previously, the concept you are talking about above is called “chemical evolution” and it’s inventor has since abandoned it as an explanation (although his text books might still be in use somewhere). The book was called “Biochemical Predestination”.

 

[donsnow]

Thanks, Donsnow – humility is the position each of us should espouse. I am humbled when I read both theology and science, and when I see my fourth-grade basket-baller hit six three pointers in a row, as he did a few weeks ago. Life is too short for me not to be humbled by all the wonders around us. So we’ll humbly rejoice at Thanksgiving Mass tomorrow – the pastor asked our family to bring up a loaf of bread and bottle of wine as part of the offertory. I’m humbled by my parish’s generosity to the poor.

StAnastasia

Well, StAnastasia -

I’m humbled by a lot of things, when I take time to think, too.
I wish you and yours a safe and peaceful Thanksgiving Day, Mass and family Dinner.

 

[PEPCIS]

Can you tell by looking at a fossil how many children that fossil had and how many children those children themselves had? Neither can the scientists, which is why they only claim what they can be sure of. “Potential ancestor” is the best that you will get. If you want absolute certainty then go and talk to a Jehova’s Witness. Science deals with probabilities.

That’s hogwash. Mathematics deals with probabilities. Evolutionary proponents imagine that they can suspend the rules of science to declare that because they cannot prove that one fossil is the ancestor to another, that they can miraculously determine which fossil is related to another solely on the chance of probabilities - which themselves are not related to any aspect of paleontology.

As for Sinanthropus pekinensis (Peking Man), there are no extent fossils ANYWHERE for this supposed “ancestor” of man. What places Peking Man into the ancestry of man? Evolutionary speculation.

rossum:

And you have fossils of Adam and Eve to show us?

The point, which escapes you, is that evolution is SUPPOSED to be a science where speculation does not rule conclusions. Adam and Eve are literal people whose story is told by the Bible. As such, their existence is taken by faith.

When the Bible says “In the beginning, God…” Christians take it on faith that God exists. They don’t look for fossil evidence of His existence.

Neandertals are considered by many to be human.

rossum:

For what definition of “human”?

You make my point. See how easy it is to shift definitions within evolutionary science, so-called?

rossum:

That chart also shows very well that Neandertals were closer to us than to Chimpanzees.

Such subjective language.

 

[bankerdavid]

Why does anyone think that Creation in the Bible precludes or excludes evolution? As long as we don’t believe that our ancestors were apes, why can’t it be both/and? The Creation narratives explain things to people with more primative minds than ours.

 

[Abu]

St Anastasia cannot accept the facts of the falsification running throughout evolutionist history – another flight from reality!

Readers will welcome facts rather than fantasy. Dr Michael Denton is a secular, molecular biologist.

REALITY
Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, Dr Michael Denton, Adler & Adler, 1986 writes: “The failure to give a plausible evolutionary explanation for the origin of life casts a number of shadows over the whole field of evolutionary speculation.” (P 271).

“It is nonsense to claim that Darwin’s theory is a fact.” [P 76].

“His general theory…a highly speculative hypothesis without direct factual support.” [P 27].

“…the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century.” [P 358].

“There is no known living member of the order which represents the first erect, bipedal hominid. Nor does there exist any form which is transitional between the quadrupedal primates and the bipedal…” (P 116).

“All in all, the empirical pattern of existing nature conforms remarkably well to the typological model. The basic typological axioms that classes are absolutely distinct, that classes possess unique diagnostic characters that these diagnostic characteristics are present in fundamentally invariant forms in all the members of a class apply almost universally throughout the entire realm of life. …discontinuity (is) ubiquitous throughout the living kingdom.” (P 117).

In Nature’s Destiny, (New York: The Free Press: a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1998), Michael Denton does not just name these impressive “coincidences” in the structure of life and of the universe, he treats them in technical detail. At the end of his study he notes that the strength of the argument for intelligent design and purpose throughout the universe and the biosphere “lies in the summation of all the evidence, in the whole long chain of coincidences which leads so convincingly toward the unique end of life, in the fact that all the independent lines of evidence fit together into a beautiful self-consistent teleological whole.”
[LT122 - The Myth of the Self-Made Universe]](LT122 - The Myth of the Self-Made Universe]) [My underlining].

 

[edwest2]

Why does anyone think that Creation in the Bible precludes or excludes evolution? As long as we don’t believe that our ancestors were apes, why can’t it be both/and? The Creation narratives explain things to people with more primative minds than ours.

First of all, too many say the Bible is not a science book, but turn around and attempt to adapt science to the Bible. Here, at least, you will not be encouraged to believe that humans and apes do not have common ancestry. We are told there were pre-humans or hominids.

The more primitive minds argument is deceptive. We can watch Greek plays written 2,000 years ago and enjoy them. Even though we live in 2009, the basics of life have changed very little. Man himself has changed very little. To think man is somehow smarter denies the fact that the 20th Century was the bloodiest in history. Starting in the late 1960s, we were told that the nuclear arsenals of the world’s two superpowers likely had enough bombs to destroy the world several times over.

And you can’t ignore the militant atheism that has embraced evolution as their sword. Is there anything to evolution? Maybe. But the Holy Father did say, after referring to a statement made by Pope John Paul II: “But it is also true that the theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory.” That’s my view.

Peace,
Ed

 

[StAnastasia]

St Anastasia cannot accept the facts of the falsification running throughout evolutionist history – another flight from reality! Readers will welcome facts rather than fantasy. Dr Michael Denton is a secular, molecular biologist.

“Denton is beloved of creationists who conveniently overlook the fact that, in his second book Nature’s Destiny, he recanted his earlier anti-evolutionary stance, while remaining theistic.”