Are Evolution & Creation Compatible if Genesis is Interpreted Metaphorically

Thanks for clarifying, though it is still an interesting question. Perhaps in your case, you adhere to Biblical literalism just to further your argument and support your position, but do not really feel it the way the Bible should be interpreted. Or perhaps you are holding the position that the Bible should not be interpreted metaphorically or abstractly but rather the only correct interpretation is literal and as such is thus is conflict?

I don’t hold to bible literalism either. The idea that god used metaphors to communicate ideas to ancient people seems reasonable. However I would expect there to be some relationship between reality and the metaphor. The metaphors in the bible don’t make any sense to me because they seem inconsistent with what evolution teaches us. What do you think of my opening post?

Thanks for your comments. What you said seems very similar to my first paragraph in my opening post? Is there anything specific that you disagree with ?

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I think this is accurate only with a very narrow understanding of the word “creation” as intelligent design.

So I would agree in the sense that compatibility would require a change in how we understand creation by God when it comes to living things. Instead of analogies to the watchmaker who makes things which are not alive, we would have to instead talk of the creations of farmers, shepherds, teachers and parents. I suspect that your understanding of the word “creation” would not include such examples and you would say that farmers do not create their produce and parents do not create their children – they only particpate in the process by which they grow and learn.

Anthony, thanks for your post and thoughtful analysis. I agree with you on many points that you’ve made, but I also see the Genesis narrative as having a different purpose than to explain the nature of suffering (and specifically that we should understand from the story that there was a period of time when there was none.) In reading the story (the Garden narrative), what I see are two things: first (as you say) that humans are different than the rest of creation, and second, that humans are prone to sin.

The focal point of the Garden narrative (in my opinion) is this: if two people were put into near paradise, in communion with God, and given just one rule to keep, they would still sin. If Adam and Eve would sin given those circumstances, so will every other human being. Because humans alone possess the image of God, only humans can sin, and we will!

If then, the purpose is to articulate our sinful nature and need for redemption, how then is evolution incompatible with the narrative? I think that it is entirely compatible, especially if one sees evolution as the means by which God created.

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In the first paragraph of my opening post I tried to summarise the main truths that genesis is trying to tell us. In doing so, I try interpret the metaphors. Do you agree with these?

In my second paragraph, I contrast this with what we currently know about evolution.

The two seem inconsistent?

Hi Michael and thanks for your comments. How do you reconcile the idea that humans were once free from death and suffering and what evolution tells us? Chimps suffer from many of the same things that humans suffer from, which implies that our common ancestor also suffered from the same things. The implication of your views are that we evolved from a species that could suffer, but lost that characteristic when we became human, but then again began to suffer after the fall?

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I don’t believe that humans were free from death and suffering at all. As I said, I don’t believe that is this point of the story. The point is that all sin, and all need redemption.

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I think you run into some of the same problems as mattconnally in the year 0 CE thread, that you unavoidably read things into the Biblical text because of presuppositions built in the very language as it is used today which invariably includes a great number of understandings of things from modern science as well as modern culture.

There is no such thing in the text. Not that there wasn’t any kind of suffering before this event, nor that there was a “human rebellion against God,” nor that creation is broken.

What is actually there in the text is an alteration of relationships between God, man, woman, snake (Lucifer) and the world. To be sure there are problems in these relationships (whichever you believe to actually exist) and suffering that comes about because of these problems.

Just because fire has no goals doesn’t mean the glassblower cannot have goals when he uses fire to make things. Furthermore you speak of evolution in an odd way, as a replacement for God. In reality what we really have are living organisms and it is incorrect to say that these living organisms have no goals of any kind.

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Are you then saying that god used evolution to give us our sinful nature, the same nature that would make it impossible for us to avoid punishment / enteral damnation?

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Thanks for your comments. Just to clarify, do you think there was a time when humans never experienced death or suffering ? Can you elaborate?

Your question is complex and you are using terminology that I don’t necessarily accept or agree with, so I want to answer carefully.

Humans are special, as you have said. They alone possess the image of God. I perceive the image of God to be the capacity to love and to sin, as well as to possess a soul which continues on after we die physically. God gave us this capacity because he desires a relationship with us. God gave us free will so that we could choose to love or to not. Love means nothing without a choice.

So then, given a choice, we all decide whether or not to be in a relationship with him or not. So yes, God is guilty of creating us, but that’s where His culpability ends. The rest is up to us.

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Well, I think the disagreement comes from the conclusion you draw about the incompatibility between Scripture and evolution.

From the evolutionary creation perspective evolution is the mechanism that God uses to achieve his purposes, so it does have a telos or end goal. I think is what @mitchellmckain was basically saying.

All of us who on the forum here who are Christians and who accept evolution believe there is no conflict between the two. That doesn’t mean there’s no difficulty in how we fit things together, there is, and it’s difficult work but BioLogos exists to help the Church do that.

I really appreciate the way you’ve come into the forum, and hope that through chatting with people on here you’ll come to see the harmony that can exist between the Bible and science, and so come to see yourself as a Christian again :smiley:

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Thanks for your kind response. In the second paragraph of my opening, I should have clarified that by evolution I meant evolution as it is understood by science today ie what the textbooks say

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What you’re effectively saying then is that god set us up to fail and when we do fail (which is 100% certain to happen), he punishes us. Free will, if it exists, only gives us a way to escape that punishment.

Most people would say the purest form of love is the love that a mother usually shows her children, where she will do anything to ensure the wellbeing of her children even to the point of sacrificing her own life. But a mother doesn’t choose these feelings since they usually already exist as instinct. She can only choose how she reacts. Also these are not uniquely human either since most mothers of most other species have the same instinct

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To be clear I was not raised Christian but rather by critics of Christianity (couple of psychology majors actually). I am and always have been a scientist first. I just happened to see some value in the Bible and Christianity despite of all of this. I sometimes describe myself as an agnostic theist because I don’t believe that objective knowledge of the existence of God is possible. Nevertheless, I am a 1.5 theist on the Dawkins scale because although I believe doubt is required by mental health I think living your life as if something were true is the only substantial meaning of the word “knowledge.”

My reasons for believing are found here.

I do not think there was ever a time when the members of the homo sapiens species or the organisms of any species never experienced death or suffering. Life and death, happiness and suffering are two sides of the same coin. Without death and suffering life would not exist. But I don’t think humanity should be reduced to that of a biological species. We are memetic organisms as well as genetic – children of both God and the apes with an inheritance from both.

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Hi Anthony. As with my earlier reply, I don’t agree with everything that you are saying here, so I’ll reply carefully.

God clearly gave us a choice, which means that he allows us to fail. Allowing us to fail is not the same as setting us up to fail. The thing is that sin (disobedience toward God) is not a one-and-done proposition. We all sin. It is a fact. God gives unconditional love and abundant opportunity for forgiveness. Free will exists to give love meaning. We could be programmed to “love” but it would mean nothing without a choice. That would reduce humans to meat robots.

When you say that we fail and he punishes us, what do you mean? You realize from the entirety of the remainder of scripture that God has provided a way out, right? We don’t disagree about this, do we? Faith in Jesus Christ’s resurrection and work on the cross are sufficient to overcome all of our failures.

So then, humans have been created with an appreciation for life, especially the lives of our own children. None of us should take issue with this. And, yes, most mothers will choose to protect and some will not. This is free will, right?

Right. Some aspects of humans are not uniquely human. These aspects are not differentiators between humans and animals, then, right? There are some aspects that are uniquely human, but some of them pertain to our relationship with God, alone.

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Interesting Mitchell. Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed your take on QM, especially.

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Perhaps there is some distinction to be made between what the science tells us, and some of the conclusions some scientists might draw from the science because of their presupposed naturalism?

On the point of human uniqueness you might find the following article by Jim Stump of BioLogos interesting - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://biologos.org/post/scientific-testimonies-to-human-uniqueness/&ved=2ahUKEwja3Oypu8fmAhXToVwKHeHdBt4QFjAAegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw0s8lYuS2VOmgsU5ENAG-TC

As did I.  

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