Transitional Fossils and the Theory of Evolution in relation to Genesis Accounts

[Freddy]

You’re being intentionally obtuse. The reason that people want to believe it is because of Scripture, but there are other reasons, or the theory would be outright dismissed by anyone with two brain cells to rub together.

The reason is scripture. Period. It was always accepted as being 6,000 years because the bible said it was so. Then science advanced and the evidence pointed to a much longer age. But some Christians said ‘No, the bible says 6k years so science must be wrong.’ So they started looking for evidence that would confirm that (by using…you guessed it…science).

So the dust on the moon and the salinity of the oceans and the doubts cast on radiology aren’t the reasons for doubting the age. The bible accounts are the reason why people try to discredit the evidence.

If that’s not the case then show me anyone who thinks the world is 6,000 years old who isn’t a Christian.

 

[whatistrue]

I only said that the Church teaches all other meanings are founded on the literal sense

But “literal sense” to the Church is not the same as “literal” as it is defined in current dictionaries and as you seem to be using it.

 

[NSmith]

Summa, Question 1, Article 10 is very relevant to discussing what the Church teaches on the literal sense, but a few short quotes are:

Therefore that first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal. That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and presupposes it.

Thus in Holy Writ no confusion results, for all the senses are founded on one — the literal — from which alone can any argument be drawn, and not from those intended in allegory, as Augustine says (Epis. 48).

These three — history, etiology, analogy — are grouped under the literal sense. For it is called history, as Augustine expounds (Epis. 48), whenever anything is simply related; it is called etiology when its cause is assigned, as when Our Lord gave the reason why Moses allowed the putting away of wives — namely, on account of the hardness of men’s hearts; it is called analogy whenever the truth of one text of Scripture is shown not to contradict the truth of another.

It seems obvious to me that the events in Genesis are simply related in narrative form, and sometimes explain the reason for events, such as when it explains why the Flood was caused by God. But Genesis is not speaking of another part of the Scripture, and by the definition given by the Summa therefore cannot be analogy.
Furthermore, I am not aware of anyone that disputes St. Thomas Aquinas on this matter.

 

[NSmith]

I did see in several places a numerological significance placed on the eighth day, but I wasn’t sure why that was the case. Now I see that it is because Christ was risen on the eighth day, or the first day of the second week. The Church Father’s fascination with the eighth day makes more sense. Thanks!

 

[whatistrue]

Furthermore, I am not aware of anyone that disputes St. Thomas Aquinas on this matter.

You really know of no one who says much of Genesis is allegorical? No comment here.

 

[NSmith]

I know of many who claim that Genesis is allegorical, in other words they interpret it to have primarily spiritual meaning. I know of no one that disputes the definition of the literal sense given by Aquinas. They are merely being inconsistent.
Also, interpreting these passages spiritually, as my first quote explains, presupposes that the literal sense is true. So anyone that is saying it’s okay to get spiritual significance from the Genesis accounts, which all Christians must do in order to be faithful, are assuming the literal truth of the account, unless they specifically claim that the historical meaning is false. How else could the story of Adam and Eve have any spiritual significance, unless we at some point had first parents who sinned and were cast out?

 

[whatistrue]

Again, the literal sense as understood by Aquinas and by the Church is not the same as it has become in more recent times. That is why I use literalistic when differentiating between them.

 

[NSmith]

How has it changed?

 

[whatistrue]

“Literal sense” to the Church is the meaning that the author intended; the message that was meant to be conveyed. Modern “literal” is more like exactly what the most common definition of the word is, regardless of the use of poetic language or stylistic word choices common at the time of the writing.

 

[NSmith]

I agree that there are some who commit this error. But where in the Genesis accounts, particularly in the genealogies that are given, is there poetic usage of language or stylistic word choice?
And this meaning is exactly what I quoted the Summa as affirming, that is to say the meaning where the words themselves have significance. That significance is obviously related to the definition of the word, but it cannot be separated from the context and intent of the author.
The point I have been trying to clarify, so that I can know if I am incorrect, is that the authors of Genesis don’t provide indications that they meant something other than what they said. There are admitted usages of hyperbolic language in the account of the Flood, altough I am not sure what that establishes about the accuracy of the historical event. I’ve already spoken of the days in Genesis 1 as being not exact 24 hours, because I tend to agree with Augustine that God created everything instantaneously.
But no one has pointed me to sources that discuss the genealogies, nor have they quoted Scripture to establish them as being intended for anything other than historical narrative.

 

[whatistrue]

But where in the Genesis accounts, particularly in the genealogies that are given, is there poetic usage of language or stylistic word choice?

As one example, the entire creation narrative sequence is poetic in structure, according to the conventions of ancient Biblical Hebrew. Other examples are readily found with just a little research. As far as the genealogies, it has been explained elsewhere and by others that they were not necessarily recounted at that time and in that place in the same manner as we recount a genealogy today. In a similar way, the conventions and rules of historical writing at that time and in that place were not the same as we understand the rules of historical writing today.

 

[rossum]

In short, DNA is a huge problem for evolution, not a proof. The unanswered question being: Where is the new information coming from?

Jumping into the thread a bit late, I’m afraid.

The detailed answer depends on how you define ‘information’. Rather than dive into mathematical definitions I prefer a higher level overview.

The environment contains information. Information such as “there is no light in a deep cave” or “white things are difficult to see against a snowy background”. There is a lot of information contained in any environment.

What evolution does is to copy that information from the environment into the DNA of organisms living in that environment. Random mutations make random changes. Some of those changes are a better match for the environment while other changes are a worse match for the environment. Natural selection selects the changes that better match the environment and preferentially amplifies them into future generations. Over time this repeated process copies information into DNA.

If some fish are living in a dark cave, there will be random mutations for larger eyes, ordinary eyes or smaller eyes. Smaller eyes will be beneficial because less energy is wasted building a useless eye in a totally dark environment. Being beneficial, those mutations spread until you end up with a population of totally blind cave fish.

The environment might contain information like “snow falls in winter, not in summer”. There are many animals that change their coat colour to match: white in winter and brown in summer. Further north where snow is present in summer as well as winter, polar bears keep their white coats all year round. Further south, where winter snow is absent or negligible, animals do not change their coat colour. Information about local snowfall has been copied into those animals’ DNA.

Information from the environment is copied into DNA by an iterative process of repeated random changes and picking the best match with natural selection. That is pretty much the way that genetic computer algorithms work.

 

[NSmith]

I have already talked about Genesis 1 and don’t feel like repeating the discussion here. I am not disregarding what you’ve said.

I am not claiming that the genealogies are written as we would write them today, I am comparing them to the other genealogies in the Bible, such as in Ezra, Chronicles, and Kings, which we have historical sources that verify them as being mostly complete, except for some omitted Kings who led wicked lives. Scripture does not provide examples of genealogies with significant gaps, and by this I mean more than 3 generations. Therefore, to read the Genesis genealogies in a way inconsistent with Scripture seems to be unwarranted. But even if you put a 5 generation gap between every name in Genesis 5, which would be outrageous and would contradict other verses, you don’t get enough years to reconcile with the evolutionary timeline of Man.

 

[rossum]

Scripture does not provide examples of genealogies with significant gaps, and by this I mean more than 3 generations.

Matthew 1:1 “This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:”

How many missing between Jesus and David? How many missing between David and Abraham?

 

[NSmith]

Thanks for the detailed response! I think that it is reasonable to conjecture that this kind of thing might happen, and I myself have programmed simulations that accomplish similar behavior using artificial intelligence in order to “learn” more complex behavior.
However, saying that it is possible and saying that it happened are two different things. And statistically, the probability that what you’ve described would occur often enough to result in added complexity is so close to zero as to be negligible.
The kinds of changes we observe in the finches of Galapagos island, for example, are results of changes to already existing information in the DNA, not the addition of more encoded information to the genome present in the finch. In the program I wrote, for example, the algorithm didn’t ever increase in complexity, it only grew more efficient at doing what I had written it to do. Evolution appears to work the same way, as far as I understand. Yet people claim that evolution is creating more complexity. I am asking for evidence.

 

[NSmith]

How many missing between Jesus and David?

Only 3 names, and those because they were disinherited.

How many missing between David and Abraham?

None

Edit: I had them flipped! Wait…I have to check again…

 

[whatistrue]

I am not disregarding what you’ve said.

I would disagree with that, but no matter.

you don’t get enough years to reconcile with the evolutionary timeline of Man.

But the part that evolution would have played was over and done with before certain pre-humans became “Man” with the infusion of an immortal soul in our first fully human ancestors.

 

[NSmith]

But the part that evolution would have played was over and done with before certain pre-humans became “Man” with the infusion of an immortal soul in our first fully human ancestors.

If you want to say that God ensouled pre-existent creatures, sure. But scientists still say that the history of man began 200,000 years ago. Even an old-earth creationist has to contend with the length of human history, not only the age of the planet.

 

[whatistrue]

But scientists still say that the history of man began 200,000 years ago. Even an old-earth creationist has to contend with the length of human history, not only the age of the planet.

Couple of options there. One is that we cannot tell from this vantage point whether a given human-like creature had a soul or not, so are we talking about Man as understood as a composite of body and soul? Another is that you can’t really rely on genealogies as an accurate, or for that matter even useful, dating mechanism, for a variety of reasons.

 

[NSmith]

I agree that genealogies are not an exact dating mechanism. But if the genealogy seems to disagree by many thousands of years then there is a problem, so I would say that the sacred texts are useful at giving a ballpark figure for the start of human civilization. People seem to disregard the texts as a historical artifact of merit, but this is unwarranted. The existence of the genealogies is a historical fact that must be somehow explained, in the same way as the existence of the Egyptian genealogies has been explained, and the letter of Alexander the Great concerning the history of the ancient nations.

Even if you don’t consider Genesis 1 and 2 to be historically true, you still must admit spiritually that it is speaking of our first parents, so the genealogy still follows from the first human creature with a soul to Noah, and then to Abraham. This is why most IDvolutionists simply view the genealogies as pretty poetry, and the account of Noah and the Flood as a myth.