CT book review: Four ways of harmonizing Genesis and evolution

Faith & Science Conversation
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Thank you. The sentiment is shared.

80,000 years ago, give or take, is the midpoint of globularity, which extends from 100 ka to 35 ka. The caveat is that future discoveries of may change those numbers toward an older spectrum.

Based on my understanding of Gen 1-3, humanity was “expelled” from the Garden of God’s presence and barred from re-entry. God “withdrew” from the scene and left us to our own devices, which was his choice as you say. Just a couple of points: God’s decision was a reaction to the human decision. We can propose all sorts of other choices, but all that comes down to thinking that we could’ve created a better world than the one we have.

Perhaps the sense of God’s presence prior to humanity’s premature “declaration of independence” isn’t much different than a child’s sense of God when they are young?

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You know the story about the frog and the scorpion, right?

; )

The metaphor don’t work. When we were dumb enough, we walked with God? We were innocent? Morally unaccountable? Nobody had to die for our sins or we’d burn in Hell forever and ever?

Trying to make the historical-grammatical hermeneutic (which would be fine in itself, alone) work on top of any degree of literal, fundamentalist hermeneutic of an entirely subjective hermeneutic in the minds of the writers and characters of the Bible, is triply wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

We’re still innocent. As wolverines in the driven snow. As we have no choice. Look at Putin. Does he have any whatsoever? The man is colossally ignorant and stupid and bitter and twisted. Who’s fault is that fault? No one’s. Because Bush snr. and the Chicago Boys dumped on poor Russia, for sure, but they couldn’t help that either. Our brain shape still isn’t up to the job. It never will be.

Again, and again, and again, and again… there is no theism in human evolution, brain shaping and emergent cultural development, to be atheistic of. Except Jesus.

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Wow, Mr Johnson @Jay313 . Really well done! This is very important. Thank you!

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I can see your point here, too, and anticipate good discussion on this. Thanks.

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Thanks @Christy for sharing this review, and for all the valuable (and sometimes spirited) discussion that’s gone on about it, @Jay313, @Klax, @dale, @jpm & @mitchellmckain. While I’m in no hurry right now to frivolously settle on one thing or another, I need to start real investigation. “ThatstuffI’veutterlyrejected” will need to be replaced with fruits of serious study. This book seems like a good place for me to start.
Stepping away from a fundamentalist denomination (for more than just science reasons) that I have felt more and more out of place in (as it shifted in ways I could no longer tolerate), means starting to look for what I think fits-not having it handed to me. Some here would say I’m going from one thing to the same (fundamentalism to fundamentalism), but it seems Haarsma’s book indicates that even if that’s the case (which I don’t believe it to be), there is enough breadth to accommodate what I’m looking for.
Thanks for letting me hang out and listen (and throw in a silly pun now and again).

(Martin, I gorged myself on “Blood Music” on our trip to Indy and back. My head is still buzzing. Thanks for that title as well.)

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Should it be called ‘Science’? Or should it be called ‘reality’?

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Haha. Innocence isn’t moral perfection; innocence is ignorance, as Kierkegaard pointed out. Humans (in the hominin sense) were never dumb. A toddler isn’t dumb, and neither is a child of 6 or 8 or 10. They’re different stages of development with different brain and language capacities and moral decision-making experience. I don’t think animals are morally accountable. Do you? I’d say the same about human infants and children. My personal opinion is that those who die in infancy or childhood aren’t subject to “judgment” or “hell,” however defined. I extend the same reasoning to the eons of humans who lived and died before humanity reached moral maturity. The didn’t have the same capacities as humanity post-100,000 years ago, but that’s not a moral failure. I trust they will, like children, inherit the kingdom. Maybe I’m wrong.

Putin is either a narcissist or a sociopath. I don’t know him well enough to say which, but both lack empathy and what we would call a “conscience” in any normal sense. He’s an abnormal psychology, but he understands “right” and “wrong” behavior. Narcissists and sociopaths understand the rules of society and can “play along” until an opportunity presents itself. They’re not without choice. I don’t subscribe to determinism.

Now now. You’re jumping on your hobby horse instead of hearing what I said. We can make educated guesses about authorial intent, and we can analyze the story by accepted literary conventions. None of that is wrong wrong wrong. It’s simply not definitive. I’m not saying God revealed the scientific story of evolution to the biblical authors. I’m also not saying that there’s some sort of one-to-one correspondence between early Genesis and evolution (concordism). What I am saying is that nothing in Genesis 1-3 rules out evolution, and I see some rough (not exact) parallels in the biblical and scientific accounts.

Yellow Card! You asked me a question about God’s presence, and then object that my answer included God. haha. The story that I tell about the coevolution of brain, language, and morality is consensus science. No miraculous intervention required. No surprise, that’s where we agree. Now, if you ask me about God’s involvement in evolution, I’m going to give you a religious answer based on my faith seeking understanding. I also connect it to Jesus. I just take a short detour through the Bible to get there.

I take the Spirit hovering over the waters at creation as an indication of God’s “presence” on Earth from the beginning. How that might have manifested itself, I have a bunch of guesses and spiritual-sounding answers, but who knows? The Garden harkens to temple imagery and YHWH’s “shekinah” glory, which was his localized presence on Earth in the Holy of Holies in the first temple. God removing his presence from the earth is comparable to Ezekiel’s vision of the presence of God departing the temple. All of that looks forward to Immanuel, God-with-Us. Jesus was the culminating presence of God on Earth.

None of my last paragraph can be proved by science. It’s the sort of harmony Haarsma talked about.

The sort of “harmony” Haarsma seeks isn’t a one-to-one correspondence between the details of Scripture and science. Instead, he advocates “a harmony reminiscent of J. S. Bach’s counterpoint,” which employs two melodies played simultaneously. Each can be enjoyed independently, but “played together, they form a richer whole.”

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Good thoughts. It’s getting late here. I’ll try to come back tomorrow. Before the Kansas game, of course! haha

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This is basically making a distinction between the bad behavior we can see in animals and the misuse of the gifts we have from God. Certainly it is not my claim that all violence and other bad behaviors comes from Adam and Eve.

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I believe that I am morally accountable according to my personal morality, my personal kingdom in which I seek to do no harm, to be fair in all my dealings. The development of which is full of weakness, guilt, shame, ignorance, compulsion, failure, suffering in me and those who hurt me and whom I hurt. And no, you cannot be wrong. If there is transcendence all that suffers is balmed, restituted.

I do as I see no evidence whatsoever for any alternative. In Putin or anyone else. Lenin said that we have to kill compassion. Putin is no Lenin. And is less accountable for it. Lenin was, of course, historically determined.

Your opening rhetorical sally may actually be right, but I cannot hear it. I hear what you are saying louder than whatever it is you think you’re saying. I agree with youe saying say what you’re not saying. But why are you saying that ‘nothing in Genesis 1-3 rules out evolution’? The obvious rough parallels have nothing to do with it. Nothing in Genesis 1-3 rules out quantum mechanics, electro-magnetism, chemistry, relativity or gay rights.

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This statement of yours puzzles me, Martin. In a totally determined life could it really be a failure of imagination which proves it? Put another way, must every aspect of our existence present evidence comprehensible to you in order for you to desist from insisting vehemently that it could not possibly exist to anyone who will listen? Since when did lack of evidence itself become conclusive evidence of non existence? I think your expectation that all of existence be comprehensible is unwarranted.

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I have no such expectation, including of determinism.

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The problem with the doctrine of original sin is that the Genesis 3 passage makes it clear that neither Adam nor Eve new the difference between right and wrong until after they ate the fruit. That means that they did not know it was wrong to disobey. The supposed punishments for their actions were not really punishments but the reality of the conscious awareness of those activities such as toil and giving birth. This a story about how humans became self - aware. Death came into the world because we became aware of death. Evolution tells us a similar story with a similar story line. We once were animals of the field or of the trees. We ultimately transformed into self - aware creatures capable of having conscious relationships with our creator and fellow human beings. We also know that our brains are accretive with layer after layer overlaying deeper layers. At the base of our brains is a layer that is equivalent to a reptile’s brain. It is all about survival of self and progeny. The Eden story includes a snake that tempted humankind into folly. We now know that the reptile is not exterior but interior, and we deal with it every day. Fortunately, we have the way of Jesus who teaches us a better way.

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I’m not sure I understand this. If they were told not to do something, isn’t that by definition disobedience; and if it’s God talking, doesn’t it sound wrong? Thus, the “knowledge” would be more like “experience” of good and evil from the inside–sort of how the older term of “knowledge” would imply–more of an experiential rather than an abstract concept?
Thanks.

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I can’t make heads or tails out of the previous two sentences, so I’ll start here with the obvious. Genesis says nothing about “quantum mechanics, electro-magnetism, chemistry, relativity or gay rights,” but it does say something about the creation of plant and animal life, including human life. That obviously involves biology and evolution. Some Christians have been told that Genesis rules out evolution. I’m sure you’ve run across more than one here. Others have questions. I see nothing wrong with attempting to answer those questions.

(And the imago Dei has something to say about gay rights, but that’s a different discussion BioLogos doesn’t want to host.)

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It’s a non question as Genesis 1-3 has nothing whatsoever to do with biology and evolution any more than it does quantum mechanics.

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While that seems logical enough I wouldn’t assume that God’s logic is our logic, or the means which would be necessary for us also binds Him. Of course I start out assuming that what God really is isn’t a unitary being carrying out a plan. I prefer to think it is something baked into everything in the cosmos which imbues it all with a degree of consciousness. I’ve given up the idea that consciousness is something that arises as an emergent property of living things which in turn emerge from matter and energy.- God only knows how. That life and consciousness are emergent properties of pre-existing phenomena would seem to be the case given what little we are in any position to know about origins. But is it reasonable to think that matter, life and consciousness are all the handicraft of a being we cannot know anything about except what He Himself chooses to share which Christians choose to believe is what the Bible represents. So if we wish to harbor any opinion at all about origins we are forced to believe fantastic things which we cannot justify except to others who share out assumptions. Since God Himself seemingly has no back story or describable characteristics except what we infer He has chosen to share with us -and those are not very specific- I conclude that origins is beyond our reach and any conclusion we settle upon will of necessity be a mere echo of the assumptions with which we start.

This is why I do not see why anyone would insist on linking what they take to be the holy spirit or the counsel they experience in prayer and (occasionally) revelation to ‘the creator’. I suppose it answers a requirement of making sense of how whatever it may be is actually capable of answering prayers and providing authentic revelation. But again what must be true just amounts is to what we would like it to be rather than anything we have really have good reason to believe.

Don’t get me wrong. I think what gives rise to God belief is real and important. I just don’t think we should insist what it is is what we feel we need it to be in order that it make sense to us. Why shouldn’t it be enough to admit that we do not know what it is or how it works but still retain faith that it is what it is and amazingly cares how we are doing and can support our progress?

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You’re just being obstinate now. Gen 1-3 may be mythological, but even a perfectly naive reader understands it tells a story of origins. It’s not “reading into the text” to ask how the text relates to biology and the other sciences of origins that we understand today. It’s faith seeking understanding, as I said before. Seems we’ve reached the usual dead-end. Haha.

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Good, challenging questions, Mark. My brain is about done for tonight, though. Composing anything thoughtful will not happen until sometime tomorrow.

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Just skip it by if it stresses you at all. Im a fan of sharing challenging views, but an even bigger fan of faith on whatever terms work for each soul.

But I had to postpone viewing the atomic Cafe when Lia reminded the Ken Burns documentary on Ben Franklin began tonight. Hearing his impressions about virtue, salvation, all interesting

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