Do Evolutionary Theory And Scripture Contradict Each Other?

Faith & Science Conversation
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What do you think about the first half of my post??
@jammycakes

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In Deuteronomy 5:15 
 we are told that God brought the people out of Egypt with “a mighty hand and an outstretched arm;” (NRSV). Now I know you’ll agree (this is just to help see a point) that it would be the height of silliness for someone who was told this to object: “well, actually God, there were these 10 plagues and this man named Moses and his brother Aaron, and the Pharaoh and all you see. It was quite an ordeal, but in all of the story I don’t remember anybody mentioning any mysterious hand or arm.”

So is the Deuteronomy verse deceptive, then to say that it was with “a hand an an arm” that God delivers the children of Israel? You object of course that it is the Bible itself that supplied all the other details. Of course! But what if it hadn’t? Then we could be having this argument right now about whether it was deceptive for God to say simply that he brought them out of Egypt “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” when really he used quite a long and involved process to make it all happen. Yet our Biblical author (traditionally Moses for all accounts in question here) obviously (along with God) sees no conflict in using the cursory: “My hand did this” when referring to something that was a long process were you there to see it. And that is the point.

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@Mervin_Bitikofer
The fact that the Bible does not provide specific processes for how God created the world (as opposed to the example you provided) should be another bit of good evidence that He did not use evolution, but rather created the cosmos (and life) as he says in his word.

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Oh boy. Not sure where to go with this. I am aware of all the different models that have been proposed, from Lisle’s ASC nonsense to Russ Humphrey’s White Hole Cosmology.

Some of the most notable issues with White Hole Cosmology are: (1) This model is geocentric and extremely ad hoc. The only motivation to invoke a white hole is to stretch time in the desired way. (2) It separates the age of the earth from the rest of the universe, while there is a strong body of evidence that the earth itself is 4 billion years old. Also, many features of the earth are explained by “ordinary” planet formation. (3) It predicts a universal blue shift of light which we do not observe. On the contrary, we are observing a universal red shift due to the expansion of the cosmos. (4) It cannot deal with the Cosmic Microwave Background except by the ad hoc inclusion of a shell of radiating hydrogen as the outer bound of the universe, centered on earth.

The universe is in fact expanding at an accelerating rate. Not sure what you are getting at here as if space is expanding it would take longer for further objects to get here, not allow them to get here faster. Your mistake is understandable as you haven’t studied the material too in depth. At least I can almost respect Danny Faulkner’s model where he invokes a miracle to explain distant starlight (New Solution to the Light Travel Time Problem | Answers Research Journal). At least he doesn’t pretend that science actually converges on a 6,000 year world view like the other models. He believes it by faith and requires random miracles to make reality fit his version of Genesis.

Starlight doesn’t prove the universe is billions of years old. It is one of the pieces of the puzzle and the age of the universe is determined via electromagnetic radiation. Measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background help take us back to 13.7 billion years ago (of particular note are hundreds of things, not just starlight that help paint a picture of our old age: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_against_a_recent_creation). Lisle writes about 3 assumptions that supposedly Cosmologists make


  1. The starting conditions
  2. The constancy of rates
  3. The contamination of the system

He questions the constancy of the speed of light. I can’t believe he actually includes this nonsense, but he writes it to cast doubt upon the science despite it being completely debunked and rejected even by other creationists. He assumes time ticks slower on Earth, but light traveling into a gravitational well blue shifts light as noted above (and we don’t see this, we see the opposite, a redshift). He should know better because he actually has a PhD in Astronomy or something like that. But he still writes it in his book, deceiving many Christians as if ‘scientists’ don’t know and he accuses us of having ‘blind faith.’ Shame on him. We can measure how fast time passes elsewhere in space (i.e. Cepheid Variable Stars, Pulsars, and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis actually affirms that the laws of physics were exactly the same 13.8 billion years ago as they are today)

And then he goes on to equate inflation with the YEC distant starlight problem. Again, very dishonest as there is actually many pieces of evidence for inflation where there is no evidence for any YEC model.

He concludes his article by saying:

As creation scientists research possible solutions to the distant starlight problem, we should also remember the body of evidence that is consistent with the youth of the universe.

There is none Jason. Just stop. Spiral galaxies are quite stable for billions of years, blue stars are not a problem at all because it turns out that new stars can actually be created. A new one appears in the Milky Way about once a year. Comets and magnetic fields cannot last for billions of years? We have evidence of asteroids that are 5 billion years old and a detailed record of the Earth’s magnetic field in rocks highlighting it has been going quite strong for at least hundreds of millions of years.

The most evil thing he does is probably in the entire book Jason wrote is making Jesus teach their Young Earth model. So now it is not just an interpretation of Genesis vs. science but it’s Jesus vs. science. And of course we Christians choose Jesus, which when the world sees, making more atheists than Richard Dawkins ever could.

I’ve read pretty much every article related to Cosmology on AiG, CMI, and ICR and found they contain virtually no science. All they ever try to do is prove that ‘x’ is wrong and incorrectly conclude that it somehow proves the YEC view. They make you doubt science, to hate it almost, and certainly not to trust anything it ever says.

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If there was 1 example of cosmological evidence for the YOUTH of the universe, what do you think it would be?
@pevaquark

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Are you trying to trick me? Do you even read the things I write? There is no cosmological evidence for the youth of our universe.

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Mistakes are how we learn.

I’m saying, If the stars which are now distant were originally much closer to the Earth, wouldn’t it take less time for the light to reach us?

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@pevaquark
I am not trying to trick you. This was simply another “challenge” of the sort that I gave earlier


For instance: if pressed, I don’t think I could give an example of evidence for evolution that I believe myself
but don’t you think that could just as well be the result of ignorance as of “there being no evidence for Evolution” (I do)?

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The problem here is how did the stars get so far away? All the stars in the universe would have to be at most 6,000 or 7,000 light years away when they were created but since Abraham could see the stars (and likely Adam and Eve) they had to initially have been extremely close to Earth. Like all the stars in the entire galaxy would have to be condensed into an object the size of our solar system. Side note: that would have quickly incinerated everything on Earth alive and also created a black hole that instantly destroys the Earth in relatively the same time frame.

Anyways, the stars would then have to be ‘stretched’ out into space at an alarmingly fast rate. The average measurement for the Hubble Constant gives a rate of how fast space is expanding. We know that stars that are further away are moving away from us faster. This rate is approximately 70 km/s/Mpc. For the universe to get stretched out enough to bring all the stars away from Earth (ignoring the black hole that already destroyed it) the rate would have to been increased by a factor of 325 trillion temporarily to get all the stars away. In another strange twist, this would make all of the stars instantly disappear as the space between them has to expand faster than the speed of light, thus making the stars disappear and defeating the purpose of them in the first place.

Good questions though.

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@pevaquark
What’s the accepted theory of light these days (e.g. Photon?)

Assuming Photon

could there be some way that the photons could cover huge dimensions of completely empty space in virtually no time? (Questions are also how we learn, and I am assuming that you are a cosmologist)

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@J.E.S

I don’t think there is an important distinction in that difference.

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@J.E.S

Is there any part of the WWII plane story that actually includes facts and analysis?

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All,

I see a recurring fallacy in argument in this thread.
Becuase we are talking science, there seems to be much argument using the Scriptures, especially Genesis and John to refer to scientifc explanations.

If we go back to one of the basic tenants of what BioLogos is founded upon: The Bible was written TO ancient Israelites FOR mankind in general.
According to John Walton (bowing in respect :heart_eyes:) we cannot use the words of Genesis, or John to explain words like “making” and so forth with any kind of scientific rigor. The words were not used in that fashion and cannot be applied in that manner!

To me, much of this topic has missed the point in that the Scriptures does not contradict Science in the areas of Science, nor can Science contradict Scripture **as a moral and theological document. To do so is to cross categories that should not be crossed without confusion.

There still is a place to argue the topic, but it is deeper than what I am seeing here (not that I know what the deeper is, but that I feel I am missing something.

For what it’s worth
now back to our regularly scheduled debate
:sunglasses:

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Yes there is. I Quantum Physics there is “Entangled Particles” In effect, two particles (electron or other sub-atomic quark, pion, gluon ect) are somehow entangled (they don’t know exactly how yet). One travels a long distance. A force acting on one of the particle causes the other particle to respond the same way. This is instantaneous in every sense of the word. No time passes (except possibly a single Planck Unit of time).

The actual particle does not travel faster than light, but the effect does. Einstein called this “spooky action at a distance” though he did not agree with Quantum Physics as it stood at the time This gave rise to his saying “God does not play dice”
The result is indistinguishable from seeing an electron shed a photon of light at a long distance where no immediate force can be seen to cause the photon.

(Roger Penrose, Tubulin, and Qbit computation)

Roger Penrose used this in his premise of the brain protein tubulin which is packed with columns of electrons that seem to be paired, possibly entangled with each other, sparking what we term “cognition”. Only now is Quantum Physics being applied to this.

Okay scientists, knock me over If I’ve misstated this. This is a layman speaking (perhaps a well-read laymen) so details are certainly lacking.:sunglasses:

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There’s a reason that I classified this topic under “Theology/Philosophy.”

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There are still some questions that I have, a couple of which are of prime importance to this discussion:

  1. How do you think Evolution happened (and how does it fit into Genesis)?

  2. How do you think sin entered the world (apart from the literal interpretation of Genesis 3)?

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Yes, Jonathan, I understand that. I am pointing out the difficulty in connecting the two using two separate and not equal concept forms.

Let me take the first one which connects to the second.
Evolution does not directly connect to Genesis, excepting my opinion that only Genesis 1:1-2 is talking about the actual material creation. Al else after is an ancient Mid-eastern Cosmic Temple explanation for the creation. Whatever cosmological explanation of creation must take place in Physics and Biological sciences.

The structure of why and how it functions is the purview of the Creation account. Neither YEC, OEC, MN?MT, or Evolution can state Why it happened the way it did. The can only explain how. East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet (Rudyard Kipling).

However, having said that, the evolutionary model requires populations that change and grow into new forms. I don’t see this happening without some kind of Intelligent design (at the very least and which is woefully lacking). this is where scripture comes in to explain WHY evolution works the way it does. It requires a creating intelligence, loving crafting deity that only Christianity can provide. Adam and Eve as an archetype fulfills much in this role. They are the generic “man & woman” embodied in the work of evolution, as described in poetic form in Genesis.

However Christianity also requires an actual Adam & Eve to “create” the first “mortally aware” couple to fulfill the purpose of the Biblical creation as described. Otherwise there could be no sin or redemption.

Take a look at my post here: https://discourse.biologos.org/t/our-odd-view-of-the-tree-of-knowledge/35612/22?u=rlbailey where I try to describe my view of the sin and the fall (though I do not talk about sin directly. I assume it is sim by the act of eating. I am talking about the result of that sin and mortality.

Genesis 3 is required for the morality and mortality of humankind as created. The final act of creation in Genesis 2-3 was to create this awareness.

Let me know what you think!

\Jonathan, have your read John Walton’s “The Lost World of Genesis One”? If you haven;t you won;t get much of the conversations around here. It and “The Language of God” are “basic” to our arguments.
The Language of God
The Lost World of Genesis One

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Light is made up of electromagnetic waves meaning it is made up of both electric fields and magnetic fields oscillating throughout space. To change the speed of light means you need to change how both of the fields are able to travel through space. There is a limit to how the fields can propogate which is why the speed of light actually is dependent on how fast each of these fields can travel through space.

Mathematically this looks like:
the relation between c and the vacuum permittivity Δ0 and vacuum permeability ÎŒ0 established by Maxwell’s theory: c^2 = 1/(Δ0ÎŒ0).

If anything actually travels faster than the speed of light, then another interesting effect is that it also must start going backwards in time which violates a whole bunch of other laws.

The idea of entangled particles is quite interesting (like this 8 photon entanglement paper Observation of eight-photon entanglement | Nature Photonics) but the entire problem is that ‘one travels a long distance.’ To even get two particles entangled they must share a common origin. Naturally occurring entanglement would be subatomic particles decaying into smaller constituents (Particle decay - Wikipedia). The idea is that if you measure the property of one entangled particle, you automatically know properties of the other. You cannot transmit any information this way because if you actually interact with the particle you detangle the two states. If you somehow could transport a photon a very long way keeping it from ever interacting with any other particle (which is impossible), you also would have to wait for your photon to travel to its new location, which again would be limited by the speed of light.

In other words, since entangled particles must share a common origin, to separate, one must travel away which is still limited to be at the speed of light.

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@J.E.S
Whoops!! I got the citations switched. John 14:6 quotes Jesus as saying that he is the only way to the Father. John 6:44 quotes him as saying that no one becomes Jesus’ disciple unless the Father calls him, which has almost the opposite meaning. This topic, “Do evolutionary theory and Scripture contradict each other?” presumes that passages in Scripture never contradict each other, and so there is no problem picking the definitive one in making a comparison. Would that this was always so!
Al Leo

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@J.E.S,

If I may offer my 2 cents on this most important point:

If you are part of the Eastern Orthodox tradition (with the known exception so far of the Russian Orthodox community), they see Eve/Adam’s sin as the first sin by a mortal human, but the first couple’s sin is not anyone else’s sin.

So, based on how you define your terms,

  1. “Sin first appeared” the day Adam & Eve ate of the fruit;" and/or
  2. “The possibility to sin appeared with very creation of Adam & Eve”.

Even after the first sin, Adam’s ability to live forever was not curtailed by Sin.
God himself says that Adam remained in the Garden, he would be immortal by eating from the Tree of Life.

Ironically, the first thing to actually die after the creation of Adam & Eve was a fur-bearing animal:

The First Death

Genesis 3:21 - “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”

Gen 3:22 - “. . . the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever
”

[[ The New International Version puts verse 22 into more conventional syntax: Genesis 3:22 - "And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ]]

Genesis 3:23-24. “Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”