Adam And Eve - Just An Allegory?

[Guest shiloh357]

 

 

I fail to see how this response addresses the counterpoints brought by bary. How do you respond to his point that you are making a priori assumptions about the very nature and intentions of God when regarding time, physical death, and God's omni's? I fail to find any response to them in your posts. Until then, I fail to see how you can say that evolution is in direct conflict with theism. 

 

 

 

Okay then I will mount a direct response to bary's comments.

 

1. has no bearing on anything. God could have created the multiplicity of everything in no time at all instead of 6 days. It happening in billions or years, days, or no time doesn't have any reflection on God's actual power. It's just what God happens to desire to do.

 

Evolution in the context of an all-powerful God makes no sense.  A God capable of creating everything perfect the first time doesn't and wouldn't use billions of years.  It simply doesn't work on an intuive level.   It would be like choosing to build a house using the most time consuming, expensive and difficult means possible to do it.

 

2. this assumes that God is in time and was 'waiting around'. I don't think a billion years is a substantial amount of time to God. In fact I understand God to be outside of time entirely, so these time scales which seem enormous to us are nothing whatsoever to God.

 

Not the point.  I am not saying that God was simply waiting around.  I am well aware that God is outside linear time and all of that.  But God does condesend and operate within time and again, all knowing, all powerful God choosing to create using natural selection doesn't make any sense.   Natural selection is about advancing to higher and more fit/evolved creatures.  Why would an all knowing God use that kind of method when he could create us perfectly?  In fact that is what He did. 

 

3. this is the same response as to God's power. God knew precisely what would happen. He could have his own reasons for preferring one method of creation over another. Presuming to understand God's intentions that fully strikes me as chutzpah.

 

It is the fact of God's omnsicience that makes Evolution contrary to His character/attributes.   God would not use such a imperfect system like natural selection to achieve his will makes no sense.

 

It is also logically flawed.  Natural selection is unguided and impersonal.   What we have in Genesis 1 is a guided and personal act of creation.  To say that God enacted the personal act of creation by an imipersonal process that precludes His involvement and causality is internally inconsistent.   It is also a dishonest representation of the ToE.  That is why arguments like yours are such a joke to REAL evolutionists who actually understand the theory and know what they are talking about.

 

4. This one is a lot more interesting than the others. Still, it may be that God's maximizing other Goods is sufficient to allow for things to play out via evolution.

 

Some of the most barbaric cruelty as been played out on the human experience by people who believed in evolution.  Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler are two very famous evolutionists.  Margaret Sanger is the founder of Planned Parenthood.  She popularized abortion and she did so because she adopted white supremist doctrines and she envisioned abortion being used to eliminate the evolutionay inferior African Americans and envtually the entire African race worldwide.   Adolf Hitler wanted to eliminate the Jews and other peoples because they were not has evolved as the white Arian race in his opinion.   Both of them subscribed to evolution.  Even today, white supremist groups still subscribe to evolution as their basis for believing that some races are inferior and need to be eliminated to make room for strong superior races of people.

 

Evolution when employed agaisnt human beings is cruel and despotic to say the least.   I mean, we can talk about evolution antiseptically when we are talking about tadpoles and small organisisms, but when we make it personal, it gets really messy.

 

 

5. This is a repeat of 1 and 2 and I have the same response. 

 

Because you are not theologically equipped to answer it.  It deals with God's purpose in creation, particularly God's purppose as our Redeemer.  Even more to the point is the fact that if Evolution is true, then man is just a higher animal.   He is not created in God's image and thus had nothing to fall from.  Sin is really nothing but human nature, if man is just a higher animal. 

 

 

 

6. this is silly.

 

Translation:    "I am theolocially incapable of mounting an intellgient response so I wil simply pretend that my dismissive attitude will make me look smart."

 

The point is that while evolution, in principle lies in the death of the unfit, God operates by a principle of grace where He dies to make fit the unfit.   God's attributes don't simply show up in his dealings with man, but they are seen in creation.  

 

God reveals Himself in the world He created and Paul tells us in Rolmans 1 that His power and Godhead (attributes) are clearly seen in the things He made .  But to that kind of claim you summarily brush it aside as being silly and not worthy of any serious consideration.

 

This is why liberal theology is so inept in how it handles the Scriptures. 

[enoob57]

simply we were created in God's image.... then did GOD evolve?

[Gandalf]

It goes against God's character? you certain make a lot of unsubstantiated claims but this about taking the cake here! *You* don't feel that evolution is proper for God.Ha!

• "Evolution is inconsistent with God's omnipotence. Since He has all power, He is capable of creating the universe in an instant, rather than having to stretch out His creating over eons of time.
• Evolution is inconsistent with God's personality. If man in His own image was the goal of the evolutionary process, surely God should not have waited until the very tail end of geologic time before creating personalities. No personal fellowship was possible with the rocks and seas, or even with the dinosaurs and gliptodons.
• Evolution is inconsistent with God's omniscience. The history of evolution, as interpreted by evolutionary geologists from the fossil record, is filled with extinctions, misfits, evolutionary cul-de-sacs, and other like evidences of very poor planning. The very essence of evolution, in fact, is random mutation, not scientific progress.
• Evolution is inconsistent with God's nature of love. The supposed fact of evolution is best evinced by the fossils, which eloquently speak of a harsh world, filled with storm and upheaval, disease and famine, struggle for existence and violent death. The accepted mechanism for inducing evolution is overpopulation and a natural selection through extermination of the weak and unfit. A loving God would surely have been more considerate of His creatures than this. �One (sparrow) shall not fall on the ground without your Father� (Matt. 10:29), said Jesus.
• Evolution is inconsistent with God's purposiveness. If God�s purpose was the creation and redemption of man, as theistic evolutionists presumably believe, it seems incomprehensible that He would waste billions of years in aimless evolutionary meandering before getting to the point. What semblance of purpose could there have been in the hundred-million-year reign and eventual extinction of the dinosaurs, for example? �Let all things be done decently and in order,� the Bible commands (1 Cor. 14:40).
• Evolution is inconsistent with the grace of God. Evolution, with its theology of struggle for survival in the physical world, fits perfectly with the humanistic theory of works for salvation in the spiritual world. The Christian concept of the grace of God, providing life and salvation in response to faith alone on the basis of the willing sacrifice of himself for the unfit and unworthy, is diametrically opposite to the evolutionary concept (See Eph. 2:8-9)."  (Morris, John. Scripture and Creation, pp. 39-40)

 

1. has no bearing on anything. God could have created the multiplicity of everything in no time at all instead of 6 days. It happening in billions or years, days, or no time doesn't have any reflection on God's actual power. It's just what God happens to desire to do.

2. this assumes that God is in time and was 'waiting around'. I don't think a billion years is a substantial amount of time to God. In fact I understand God to be outside of time entirely, so these time scales which seem enormous to us are nothing whatsoever to God.

3. this is the same response as to God's power. God knew precisely what would happen. He could have his own reasons for preferring one method of creation over another. Presuming to understand God's intentions that fully strikes me as chutzpah.

4. This one is a lot more interesting than the others. Still, it may be that God's maximizing other Goods is sufficient to allow for things to play out via evolution.

5. This is a repeat of 1 and 2 and I have the same response. 

6. this is silly.

The fact remains that evolution is simplly not consistent with how God is revealed in the Bible.  You can deny it in meaningless knee-jerk responses, but you can't really present a well thought out argument as demonstrated in the tripe you posted here.

Could you explain why the Theory of Evolution is not consistent with how God is revealed in the Bible? I have some sympathy with your view, but I'm not sure that its entirely clear-cut.

[enoob57]

I stand shoulder to shoulder with Shiloh in this and I too am a student of God's Word.... in fact it is my number one

priority in life - to know God through His Word's revealing of Himself! There is no greater pursuit than to know the truth

for in the knowing freedom comes! A  freedom from what men may think as any persuasion over me and what God says!

John 8:32
32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
NKJV
 

God verified morning and evening as day-like we know it by and reiterated this

period format in Ex 20:8-11... number one principle of hermeneutics when the plain sense makes sense seek no other

sense... We have loved you and testified the truth to you now you are warned by God here

2 Tim 4:3-5
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have

itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned

aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
NKJV

Love, Steven
 

[Guest shiloh357]

My suggestion doesn't violate that passage whatsoever.

 

 

Sure it does.  It is a direct violation of it because you are arguing for inserting human understanding and conceptions into divine revelation.  Peter and Paul make perfectly clear that this is not the case.

 

 

That you think this is a problem for my position suggests to me that you don't understand what I'm saying

 

I understand what you're saying the problem is that you don't understand the Bible or the doctrine of inspiration well enough to see the problem with your suggestion.

 

I'm fully away that prophecy doesn't mean simply 'foretelling of the future'. And, I never argued that authors were allowed to simpliciter write everything according to their own understanding. Of course there was restraint by God. The question is how far this went and that remains unsettled.

 

Wrong.  It is settled and has been settled for a long time. Just because you reject what the doctrine states doesn't mean it is isn't settled.  The doctrine of inspiration categorically denies any inclusion of human conception or understanding in the transmission of divine revelation.  The doctrine of inspiration allows for the personalities of the human authors and it allows that God used some cultural peculiarites as vehicles to communicate His truth.  But the doctrine of inspiration does not allow for any human understanding to be included in the transmissoin of divine revelation.

 

The text of Scriptgure is 100% inerrant and free of human influence and understanding.  You can kick agaisnt the goads but your denial of what is contained in an established doctrine of the church doesn't carry any weight.

 

 If the truths we are meant to get by some passage are maintained while the author uses some of his own concepts to frame things which are irrelevant to the primary goal of the communication that is not only entirely possible but plausible. That this was written down in finite human languages by human hands at all suggests at least a modicum of this.

 

Sorry, but that is not biblical and is not what is understood by inspiration.  You are speaking out of a deficit of knowledge on the limits of human agency in transmission of Scripture.  You need to go study more instead of peppering us with your endless speculations about a topic you known nothing about.

[Guest shiloh357]

1. Why not? That's pure conjecture about what God would do as God and find that dangerous territory. As I said, this strikes me as unmitigated chutzpah. And as candice pointed out, the length of a temporal period has nothing to do with God's power. That is poor reasoning.

 

It is not pure conjecture because Gold has revealed what He will do and not do in His word.  He provided us an excellent behavioral paradigm from which we can deduce what He would or would not do in situations not directly addressed in Scripture.  You are simply blowing a lot of smoke.  I never said anything about the length of the temporal period having anything to do with God's power. Candice was refuting an issue I never raised.

 

 

2. Why did God take 6 days instead of a microsecond? Why did God wait thousands of years before Jesus came? Why is God waiting now to end history?

 

Because the Creation account is a theological and historical account and not a scientific one.   There are theological principles in the creation account.  Jesus came at the right time, what the Bible calls "the fullness of time."   God is waiting to end history in order to give the scoffers and mockers mercy and time to repent.

 

3. My position is a joke to 'real evolutionists' because they label me as an IDer so that they can dismiss my view a priori. Why do you want to defend these sorts of people? Why are *you* taking the atheistic side?

 

I am not taking the atheistic side.  I am simply pointing out that I took the time to go to real evolutionists, the university professors who have advanced degrees and are in the best position to correctly frame the ToE.  I did my due diligence in this area so that I would have the firm footing I need to show why the Bible simply doesn't jive with Evolution.  What I have found is that these atheists are more honest about the problems that exist between the Bible and Evolution than people like you are.

 

You and BFA want to sit around trying to fit square pegs in round holes and dream and speculate about ways to make the Bible accomodate the ToE.  Your responses are nothing but meaningless speculations and ways to fit two mutually incompatible notions into a hybrid system and it is simply an intellectual joke.  Either believe the Bible or be an Evolutionist.  Stop living doubleminded and commit to something and have the courage of your convictions.   Stop trying to live with one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom of God.  Pick a side.

 

4. So what. You do realize this is riddled with fallacies? "people believed in x also did bad things, therefore is clearly untrue". That does not follow.

 

 

It does follow when you are talking about worldviews. From an evolutionary standpoint, racism is reasonable and ridding the world of the unfit members to make room for the strongest and fittest is completely consistent with Evolution.  The ToE only shows just how ugly it is when it applies to human beings.   We are okay with Evolution applying to every other entity on the planet except for human beings.

 

5. We have souls that are special to God. Evolution in itself cannot speak to our spirits, when we got them, or how they relate to God. Evolution deals with how our physical bodies came to be developed. Yes, most atheists also assert evolution, and they also deny that we have souls. That doesn't mean that evolution itself entails that we don't have souls. You need to demonstrate that the two views are incommensurable. 

 

The ToE is a wholly naturalistic theory.  It is a worldview that makes no room for souls or the supernatural.  Naturalists who advocate for the ToE do so because in the philosophical naturalistic worldview that drive the ToE, nothing outside this natural world exists.  To them, when you die, you die there is no soul.  This is why atheists are so prone to adopting evolution. It removes the need for a soul.

 

6. No I just didn't see any merit to it.

Which is not a response.   That you don't  see merity in it doesn't really matter.  It has an incredible merit regardless of your denial of merit. 

[Guest shiloh357]

 

 

 

 

 

Even if Jesus did refer to a literal Adam, doesn't necesarrly mean that the entire creation story in Genesis is meant to be literal.

 

And i know that some (though not all) Theastic evolutionists who do believe this, they believe there was some type of historical Adam and Eve even though they believe that much of Genesis is intended to be an allegory.

The entire NT refers to the events in the Garden as literal, not just Jesus.  Theistic Evolution is a very sad joke.  Anyone claiming to be a theistic evolutionist might as well claim he is also an atheistic Christian.  Both are equally oxymoronic.

 

 

Your not making much sense.  How can you compare "theistic evolutionist" to something that is quite impossible.  A christian CAN'T be an atheist becaue to be a christian you have to believe that Jesus is the son of God (therefore a belief in God) and died on the cross for our sins.  However, a Christian can also believe that evolution is a process that God uses.

 

A theistic evolutionist is also not oxymoronic because the theory of evolution is not inherently atheistic.  After all, the theory does not go into how life first got on earth, and instead deals with already existing life.  And the theory also does not state that there is no God, and instead neither confirms nor denies one.

 

So yes a man can be a believe in God and the fact that he created the world, and believe that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of Man, and that Jesus is the son of God, and also believe in evolution....and *GASP* still be a christian.  After all his belief in evolution does not destroy/overwrite his belief in God and the fact that Jesus is Lord, so its not like he is losing his christianity for believing in evolution.

 

 

You hit the nail on the head here. Evolution is science, not intrinsically atheistic or theistic. Science in general is not intrinsically attached to one particular religious mindset. It makes as much sense for someone to call the theory of evolution atheistic as to call Newton's theory of universal gravitation atheistic. Thank you for making this point.  

 

You are wrong on all counts.  Furthermore, you cannot comparre the theory of gravity with the ToE beacause the theory of gravity is not connected to any particular worldview whereas the ToE is diametrically opposed to a biblical worldview where, for instance, man is represented as a special creation of God and was created separate from the rest of the created order and was created in His image.  The ToE denies any spiritual or other intelligent causality and relies solely on natural selection.  The theory of gravity is not at all similar.

 

 

You mistake evolution for philosophical naturalism and materialism which I would say are opposed to the idea of God's existence. This is generally the view held by people such as Dawkins that you mention. When they make statements such as God does not exist, they are not making scientific statements but rather philosophical ones. However, evolution, as with any science, is not opposed or supportive of philosophical naturalism. You are claiming that science supports a particular worldview when all science tries to do is achieve knowledge of facts regarding our natural world. I don't see how this is opposed to the Christian worldview.   

 

Scientists are not robots or automotons and the scientific world is driven by an atheistic worldview.  The ToE is driven by a philosophically natrualistic bent that precludes God and precludes anything outside the natural world.

 

Scientists who choose to believe that God created the world are demonized and blackballed out of the scientific community.  Their research is deined peer review and their qualifications to be scientists are questioned because their research is not peer-reviewed. The scientific community is not a 100% objective group of researchers whatsoever.  They are human beings who hold passionately to their worldview same as anyone else.   Their worldview shapes how they do science, the same as it shapes their morality, their politics, their family life. 

[Guest shiloh357]

This isn't about 'sides'

 

Oh, it is all about "sides."

 

This is about truth and that is what you are confused about.

 

This is about trying to make evolution fit the Bible.  Itis about trying to get the Bible to accomodate an atheistic theory rooted in philosophical naturalistism which is diametrically opposed to the claims of Scripture.

 

If x is true it's true regardless of who accepts or rejects it. You keep making this about personalities and rhetoric. You argue I shouldn't believe in evolution because atheists do also. So what, atheists also believe in calculus.

 

And I bet you would stand shoulder to shoulder with atheists who oppose Creationism being taught in public schools.   Why would a Christian want to share a common worldview with an atheist??   The remark about calculus is not analogous to this because calculus is not a worldview.    The fact is that while claiming to believe in God you are advocating for a theory driven by worldview that denies that God even exists.   Yet you don't see why that is problematic 

 

I am not confused.  I don't have to spen my time trying to reconcile two muturally exclusive worldview and I don't have to explain why I share a common worldview with atheists and why I can believe as they do and still demand to recognized as a Christian.   At least I can be internally consistent and maintain a consistent message. 

 

You say atheists use it to try to argue against God's existence. Well it's not my fault they have terrible arguments. What is true is true, and that is what I aim to believe.

 

The difference between them and you is that they are internally consistent in their arguments.  They are wrong but at least they are internally consistent.  Your position isn't.  Your positon is rejected by Christians and Evolutionists alike.  At least they are honest about the problems that make evolution incompatible with a biblical worldview.

 

Now, evolution as common descent implies nothing about the existence of souls. Evolution as common descent entails nothing about the existence of souls. You are, once again, painting a *false dilemma*. It doesn't exist on its own.

 

I am not painting a false delimma at all.  Evolution as a methodological process cannot be divorced from the ToE. The ToE DOES preclude the existence of souls. 

 

Evolution denies one very important thing.   God created man separate from the animal kingdom.  Man is not descended from any other creature. The Bible says that man was created from the dust of the earth directly by God in God's own image.   Are you prepared to say that the Bible's accoujt of man's creation is incorrect?

God could absolutely guide the process of evolution as I defined it above. That you don't like that, and that atheists don't like it is irrelevant to whether or not that is the case.

 

But the ToE says that the process isn't guided.   So why be an evolutionist if you are not going to accept what the theory says?

 

God would not need the process of evolution because is smart enough to create perfectly the first time.  It is not about what God could do.  It is about what would do, and if you really knew Him, you could not advocate for the rather bizarre notions on evolution that you possess.

 

You have been given reasons why God would not use evolution.  You can keep waiting but those reasons have been supplied and you rejected them out of hand.  

[Guest shiloh357]

The facts about the world are facts. Me wanting something to be true, or thinking it shouldn't be true, is irrelevant to what actually is. Annoying or unpleasant people believing in a truth doesn't make it less true.

 

And yet you continue to try and make the Bible accomodate evolution when it can't.   You have made my point, thanks.

 

Evolution isn't a worldview. I have been pretty clear about what I mean by it. Evolution can be guided, there is no reason it actually can't be. If you want to argue that it can't be, rather than say you've studied it out and know better than me let's see your actual arguments. I'm still waiting for some serious content to tackle.

 

Sorry, but I have already done my due diligence in talking to experts in the field of science about evolution and it is clear that you are unable or unwilling to correctly frame the theory.  Evolution is ungided, impersonal, unplanned and wholly naturalistic.  I will take the words of experts and people who know what they are talking about over what you say.

 

The ToE is driven by an atheist worldview even if you don't have the integrity or courage to admit it.

 

 

I don't demand anything, shiloh. If you want to claim I'm an atheist go ahead. It's just absurd and will expose how ridiculous your line of thinking is. I've repeatedly reiterated the reality of God's existence, the resurrection of Jesus, the omnipotence and sovereignty of God. 

 

I never claimed you were an atheist, but it is evident that you are biblically illiterate and you don't seem to have a basic grasp on the core tenets of evolution or the worldview that drives the theory.

So tell me, how does the scientific model preclude the existence of souls? How does it preclude God's interference? Please, be specific.

 

 

I said nothing about the scientific model.  I said that the ToE precludes the existence of souls because in this theory, we are all nothing but higher animals.   If we are descdended from some member of the animal kingdom, then we are not made in the image of God.  

 

You have still not answered the question about how the Bible depicts the creation of man directly from the ground and not descended from another animal.    Why not address that and how you reconcile it with the ToE???

[Guest shiloh357]

All of science precludes God as a scientific explanation.

 

Yes, but God is the explanation. Science cannnot call it scientific, but just because scientists have ruled God out doesn't mean that God is the explanation whether scientists accept that or not.

 

 

Strictly speaking gravity is not "agnostic", it's "silent" the same as ToE. ToE talks about wholly naturalistic processes, i.e. mutations are 100% random, but by the very philosophical restrictions that science has placed on itself (which includes ToE) it cannot determine whether or not God is tinkering with the system. To say that God cannot ontologically be involved in evolution is a philosophical statement outside the scope of science. If God is tinkering with evolution science will never know it or be able to accept it, but it has nothing to do with ToE specifically, instead it is because of the general axioms of science. 

 

And yet, scientists black ball scientists that believes God is the explananation for what happens in our universe.  They black ball any scientist who has a Christian/biblical worldview and looks as at science as a means of understanding the scope of God's creation.

 

Scientists are not impersonal creatures that have no opinions on these matters and in many cases their atheistic worldview drives their science.

 

By definition God must be excluded from any consideration in science, regardless of the topic. When you explicitly or implicitly advocate that science consider God as real or controlling part of the universe in any way shape or form no matter how small, you are no longer talking about science but something else. 

 

You say that like its a bad thing.  If God is the explanation, then scientists should acknowledge that instead of demonizing scientists who have the temerity to believe in God and believe that God created and sustains our universe.

 

Creationism isn't science it's religion. ID is religion dressed up in science-sounding words. Those that oppose creationism in school do so because they value science and public education. As Barry noted the truth about this world is the truth, just because unpleasant people believe it doesn't make it not true. Atheists believe in gravity and use it to disprove God, look up Steven Hawking about this if you don't believe me. Barry said atheists have poor arguments on using evolution to disprove God, and I bet you would say something similar about atheists who use gravity to disprove God. But that doesn't mean gravity is a theory of Satan and should be shunned by believers. 

 

Those of us who believe in freedom think that Creation and Evolution can be taught side by side and let the children decide what they accept.  As it is there is one side that wants the other side silenced and marginalized and intimidated into silence on the matter.  They want the scientific world to possess the air of infallibility and they will demonize anyone who doesn't toe the line and blindlyh accept evolution without question.   They want no other view to be considered or explored.  I am not surprised.  It is that kind of intolerance and hatred of freedom that characterizes every country that is run by atheists.