this “natural cause” is the word of God. As I said in another thread, evolution is regulated by his genius as in the process being based on his law of loving thy neighbour, e.g. survival fitness being the ability to lovethy neighbour like thyself,e.g. your parents, siblings and children which you identify as thyself, not yourself as in oneself. The latter would be the golden rule where you take yourself and your own wishes as a point of reference which leads to self centredness in the long run. In fact the major steps in evolution are realised by symbiotic events
as loving thy neighbour is an integrative function that leads to ever increasing complexity as recognised early by Lynn Margulis
Endosymbiosis: Lynn Margulis - Understanding Evolution,
and you see that not only in biological systems, but also in socio-economic systems, as the successful integration even of a resource competitor can significantly increase your capabilities. In the end it’s just logic, and you have to love logic 
If you believe 2 Tim. 3:15 then one’s majestic view of God and His word - should not differ.
“Before I thought the world and humanity were created perfect…” - I would think God is unable to make anything less than perfect …in the beginning… as it is a direct expression of God’s nature. I prefer Colossians 1:15-16 as an expression of God
“God has been scrambling in a way ever since” - I doubt scrambling is a biblical concept of Christ perfecting believers and his predestined plan for His creation.
EC does damage God’s majesty - if you hold to deism.
Evolution requires no god or supernatural guidance
EC supporters can’t agree on the ‘level’ or depth of God’s sovereign hand on DNA of all His creation whereas Psalm 139 is clear.
EC has to move sin and death back billions of years & reinterprets sin’s penalty in both OT & NT
EC has 10,000 or so first humans - with maybe God interested in only 2 - already imperfect carriers of death.
EC challenges basic bible concepts and offers vague and various explanations
EC is strong on science - and with good intentions seeks to re-interpret scripture,
??? That the Scriptures are sufficient to bring people to salvation was not a view I changed.
The Bible said God’s creation was very good, not perfect. Perfection is part of God’s nature, not the world. If God can only create perfect things, than he can’t be an ongoing Creator. But I think he is still creating, every moment, with every new life, and clearly though his creation is very good, it has not yet reached its potential.
It is a beautiful passage about Christology. Not exactly sure how you see it relating to the assumed perfection of creation.
I agree. That’s the view I had when I thought Jesus was God’s plan B. Or maybe plan C, because I was taught Israel and the Law was plan B, but it didn’t really work out.
Also, it wasn’t just EC that affected how I viewed the Bible, it was studying language, culture, translation theory, and missiology. It gave me a more realistic view of what words are capable of and the limitations of communication through language.
I still think the message of the Bible is amazingly powerful and can transform cultures and societies, and getting people access to the Bible is their language one of the most important means of building the church. I personally have a lot banked on that. But people need to be discipled into the meaning of the message as it has been handed down through the church and preserved and taught by the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing magical that exists in the words of the Bible on their own.
In another thread, someone mentioned that an argument that God, if He exists, would have to be omnibenevolent, is a straw man. Similarly, a “perfect creation” usually implies to us that omnibenevolence, where no one hurts at all. It seems to be a trap for misunderstandings about a fallen creation, when in reality not everything goes according to our comforts. I just listened to a sermon where the pastor put out the fact of pain and suffering, with natural disasters, as the evidence that Adam existed and fell; it seems to be a mistake.
That is the point of view from the secular-materialist atheist point of view. The Christian one states that a Supreme Being is needed to make the universe. Everything didn’t come from nothing.
There are those of EC like me who hold to the idea that God was close and intimate with His creation and guided everything to its goal for His glory and pleasure. EC doesn’t contradict Ps. 139.
While we may have to explain the issue of death which was neutral until the Fall, sin didn’t come about until Adam and Eve sinned.
I see no problem with God coming into contact with only two humans out of thousands, the same argument could be made for why God chose Israel to be His special nation out of all the other’s.
Depends on you’re theological point of view. I see no conflict with EC and Biblical concepts.
While I go to EC to understand creation from a Biblical point of view, I lean onto the Bible to know the God who made the universe and His plan of salvation.
I appreciate this; thank you for your good intentions, too!
Sort of a different response to this question of whether or not evolution diminishes the majesty of God. I would say that the question is inappropriate. If evolution happened, with or without God, and God exists, then the true nature of God cannot be affected by evolution either way. What can be affected is our impression of the majesty of God, especially if it is incorrect to begin with. If we are in awe of a mistaken impression of the nature of God, or what God did, then that mistaken impression is truly what diminishes the majesty of God. This is why we should, as Christians, always be pursuing the truth.
Wow, that’s a very good insight. Thank you.
Hello @MattReam. Whether it does or not depends on the flavour of evolution you’re talking about. Evolution a la Richard Dawkins diminishes God to non-existance. The YEC view of evolution enhances the majesty of God.
Remember that the fixity of species idea was abandoned long ago. Linnaeus held it early in life but later dropped it. God created the Kinds with the capacity to develop in many different species so they could adapt to changes and fill all corners of the world. This suggests a higher level of design than that to fit a specific species to a specific niche.
Evolutionists recognise that adaptive radiation can produce a multitude of new species in a short time without requiring hypermutation or special creation. This fits well with the Kinds from Noah’s Ark producing the many species of land vertebrates we have today.
I suggest you look again at the sound scientific basis of YEC.
But it seems that YEC literature sure changes. Fixity of the species and the inability of mutations to produce significant helpful change were main thrusts of what I used to read. It seems to me that if YEC, who are coming round to the idea of significant change, realized that time is required, there would be little to separate them from ID and OEC.
Huh? Everything you just said in your previous paragraphs is pure speculation with zero evidence and zero support from any scientists not on the payroll of a creationist organization.
You just said YEC “science” has the “kinds” developing into many different species and filling the earth in just a few thousand years. Who you callin’ an “evolutionist”?
I think YEC should look into the “sound scientific basis” of the Flat Earth. It makes just as much “scientific” sense as the “young” alternative.
@Randy, I don’t know what you used to read but fixity of species has never been part of the YEC viewpoint as long as I have been following them. I don’t think CMI or AiG have ever supported the fixity of species concept, and they certainly don’t today.
As even the NCSE says
The idea that species were universally thought to be fixed prior to Darwin is simply wrong — many creationist thinkers of the classical period through to the 19th century thought that species could change.
(Naturally I don’t agree with the entirety of that NCSE article)
Creationists would say that Darwin was correct to conclude that species could originate from natural selection but he extrapolated way beyond the evidence to suggest that all life today originated from a few, or only one, original life forms.
@Jay313
In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is a process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, creates new challenges, or opens new environmental niches.
Maybe I don’t recall it right. It was mainly “History of the World from the Christian Perspective” from Abeka Book (Pensacola Christian Correspondence School). They used the peppered moth as an illustration of change within species that wasn’t change of species, and that God made species unable to change from one to another, as I recall.
Thanks for the discussion.
You’re concerned about God’s majesty. The Scripture describes God as without beginning or end or limits. The God of the Big Bang initiated it roughly 13 billion years ago. The YEC God created the universe 6000 years ago. Which description of God more clearly demonstrates his eternity?
And what of the immense size of the universe? I’ll let Blaise Pascal speak for me here: “The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond all imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. In short it is the greatest sensible mark of the almighty power of God, that imagination loses itself in that thought.”
“Do I not fill heaven and earth?” the Lord asked Jeremiah. Which conception of God is more majestic - The limitless One who created and filled this immense space, or the deceptive one who made the stars a few thousand years ago with the appearance of age?
Christ was the “Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.” Hebrews 10:5 says that God prepared a body for him. Our ageless and limitless God spent 13 billion years preparing a body for Christ. Is that not majestic?!
So you are an evolutionist. Just a little hyper about it, that’s all. You should read Joel Duff’s blog on the subject. An article and a video for you:
Stranger Things - Creationists’ Views of Speciation and Natural Selection in the 1980s
Today, YEC leaders are continuing to tell their followers that evolution is impossible and at the same time assuring them that many new species have formed over time and not only does this speciation happen but it happens much faster than evolutionists have ever believed was possible.
Young-Earth Evolutionists? Talking about Hyper-speciation and Theological Implications
As with evolution, it depends on your perspective. To those of us who see an ancient universe, as evidenced by multiple unrelated measurements and observations, a young earth interpretation makes God deceptive and unreliable, the exact opposite of majesty. That conflict is not present with some other old earth interpretations like RTB, even though disagreement on evolution is still present.
Thanks! That is what I was thinking–@aarceng, Chris, I think it was @Joel_Duff’s writing that made me think of that. I’d be interested in what you think of his posts.
All of our understandings are “evolving,” so to speak; mine is still doing so. I’m learning a lot. I welcome this broadening on the part of AIG, though it may be a mistake to incorporate more assumptions to make that fit with a young earth (they can join my erroneous club).
This is like saying their is no majesty or greatness in farmers, shepherds, teachers, and parents, but only in artists and engineers – no greatness in servants but only in commanders and rulers. But this is directly contradicted by scripture showing that God’s view of the matter is the complete opposite. *Matthew 23:11 He who is greatest among you shall be your servant;
The truth is that YEC caters to the swaggering self-important Pharisees who like lording it over other people – like those of Victorian England for whom nobility and being a gentleman had nothing to do with character and behavior but with power and dominance. But the view of Jesus is just the opposite, where the true nobility, gentility, and greatness is measured by service. Thus in the evolutionary view where God’s role is more like the shepherd and teacher to help and serve rather than to design or control is more in line with Jesus view of greatness than that of the Pharisees.