Evidence for evolutionary creationism

Faith & Science Conversation
122

Dear Terry, I’m not sure if you are considering the context of the point that Shaun Doyle was making in his article titled: " Do I have to believe in a historical Genesis to be saved?"
My take on the part that you are having a problem with, is that if one’s belief is that "there was no literal Adam and Eve in a literal garden with a literal tree and a literal deceiver, and there wasn’t a literal Fall—then Jesus is literally irrelevant. " simply, because, why did Jesus need to save us, i.e., what did He choose to save us from? The answer is of course from the fall of mankind when Adam and Eve rebelled against God and disobeyed His clear instruction to them both to NOT eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If there was no Adam and Eve, or literal Garden of Eden, or tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or rebellion against God resulting in the fall of all of Adams descendants (us and everyone who has ever lived), then there is no need for Jesus to Save us, He would be irrelevant.
But and will use the word BUT, of course the simple truth of the matter is that “there was a literal Adam and Eve in a literal garden with a literal tree and a literal deceiver, and there was a literal Fall—and therefore Jesus is absolutely literally relevant!
You can call it what you will, but to me that makes perfect sense.
Remember that in the same article by Shaun Doyle, he stated, " Simply put, believing Genesis is history, by the Bible’s standards, isn’t necessary to be a genuine Christian.”
Thus it is not a salvation issue, but not believing Genesis to be historical narrative,when God has gone to great lengths to make certain that it can be interpreted in no other way:

The Creation

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was a [a]formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the [b]surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the [c]surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “[d]Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

6 Then God said, “Let there be [e]an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 God made the [f]expanse, and separated the waters that were below the [g]expanse from the waters that were above the [h]expanse; and it was so. 8 God called the [i]expanse “heaven.” And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of the waters He called “seas”; and God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth sprout [j]vegetation, [k]plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to [l]their kind [m]with seed in them”; and it was so. 12 The earth produced [n]vegetation, [o]plants yielding seed according to [p]their kind, and trees bearing fruit [q]with seed in them, according to [r]their kind; and God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

14 Then God said, “Let there be [s]lights in the [t]expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall [u]serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years; 15 and they [v]shall serve as lights in the [w]expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light [x]to govern the day, and the lesser light [y]to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the [z]expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and [aa]to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

20 Then God said, “Let the waters [ab]teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth [ac]in the open [ad]expanse of the heavens.” 21 And God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind; and God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

24 Then God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to [ae]their kind: livestock and crawling things and animals of the earth according to [af]their kind”; and it was so. 25 God made the animals of the earth according to [ag]their kind, and the livestock according to [ah]their kind, and everything that crawls on the ground according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “[ai]Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and [aj]let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that [ak]moves on the earth.” 29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the [al]surface of all the earth, and every tree [am]which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every animal of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that [an]moves on the earth [ao]which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. 31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Footnotes

  1. Genesis 1:2 Or waste
  2. Genesis 1:2 Lit face of
  3. Genesis 1:2 Lit face of
  4. Genesis 1:3 I.e., a command, not a request; and so throughout the ch
  5. Genesis 1:6 Or a firmament; i.e., atmosphere and space
  6. Genesis 1:7 Or firmament
  7. Genesis 1:7 Or firmament
  8. Genesis 1:7 Or firmament
  9. Genesis 1:8 Or firmament
  10. Genesis 1:11 Or grass
  11. Genesis 1:11 Or herbs
  12. Genesis 1:11 Lit its
  13. Genesis 1:11 Lit in which is its seed
  14. Genesis 1:12 Or grass
  15. Genesis 1:12 Or herbs
  16. Genesis 1:12 Lit its
  17. Genesis 1:12 Lit in which is its seed
  18. Genesis 1:12 Lit its
  19. Genesis 1:14 Or luminaries, light-bearers, and so throughout the ch
  20. Genesis 1:14 Or firmament; i.e., atmosphere and space
  21. Genesis 1:14 Lit be for
  22. Genesis 1:15 Lit be for
  23. Genesis 1:15 Or firmament
  24. Genesis 1:16 Lit for the dominion of
  25. Genesis 1:16 Lit for the dominion of
  26. Genesis 1:17 Or firmament
  27. Genesis 1:18 Lit for the dominion of
  28. Genesis 1:20 Or swarm
  29. Genesis 1:20 Lit on the face of
  30. Genesis 1:20 Or firmament
  31. Genesis 1:24 Lit its
  32. Genesis 1:24 Lit its
  33. Genesis 1:25 Lit its
  34. Genesis 1:25 Lit its
  35. Genesis 1:26 I.e., indicating united action, not a request
  36. Genesis 1:26 I.e., have them rule
  37. Genesis 1:28 Or crawls
  38. Genesis 1:29 Lit face of
  39. Genesis 1:29 Lit in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed
  40. Genesis 1:30 Or crawls
  41. Genesis 1:30 Lit in which is living breath

All the best,
Your brother in Christ our Lord,
jon

123

You missed his point: the article is saying that people can be genuine Christians while making Jesus irrelevant.

BTW, since you decided to toss in that block of text, please tell us what ancient near eastern literary genre it was written in and the lesson that the account conveys by using that literary genre. Additionally, describe briefly the polemical purpose of the account and how we know that it has a polemical purpose.

124

Too right they’d be warmer. But do you know just how much warmer?

Let me tell you.

Twenty. Two. Thousand. Four. Hundred. Degrees Centigrade.

Four times hotter than the surface of the sun. Four times hotter than the highest known boiling point of any chemical element.

And that’s just from accelerated nuclear decay alone. Catastrophic plate tectonics, and all the other accelerated processes on top of it, would bump the temperature up even higher.

And no, this wasn’t some kind of “secularist rescuing device.” It wasn’t some sort of attack to “discredit creationism.” It was the young earthists’ own admission.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a link to the place in the RATE project technical report where they do the calculations:

http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Radiohalos-in-Granites.pdf#page=83

And here’s a link to the summary, where they admit that they don’t have any explanation of how the heat could have been removed:

http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/RATE2-Summary.pdf#page=27

Seriously, with admissions like that, is it any wonder that the world considers young earthism a joke and scientifically educated Christians consider it an embarrassment?

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125

ChristyChristy HemphillModerator

4h

People who accept an evolutionary creation also affirm this.<

Dear Christy, thanks for your post.

Regarding: “People who accept an evolutionary creation also affirm this.”
Yes, I absolutely agree and that is why we are ALL part of the one body of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour,whether we believe in the literal historical narrative as written in Genesis or we believe that evolution is how the diversity of life and we came to be here.

Regarding: “ICR is famous for recycling old material and pretending they are being current. Look at their citations. They are old. They actually have no idea what we believe or what we talk about around here. AIG does the same. They have sub-par journalistic standards.”
I must admit that I don’t know a great deal about ICR or AIG except that from what publications and media I have seen from those organisations I am convinced they’re comprised of honest conscientious Bible believing Christian people who are working hard to bring the lost to our Lord and Saviour with gentleness and respect.

All the very best,
jon

126

Dear James,

this is in reference to the effect of magma coming into contact with the seabed and ocean water resulting in higher evaporation rates, that as I described in my post is the only mechanism that makes sense regarding a cause for the one ice age directly after the flood, which may have lasted for several hundred years until the oceans eventually cooled down.

I have met Andrew Snelling and corresponded with John Baumgardner and can testify that they are honest dedicated scientists who are seeking to understand the mechanisms God employed in His creation. They do not state anywhere that they have all the answers and there are certainly unresolved questions that still need to be solved. The heat produced from accelerated nuclear decay is certainly a problem yet to be solved.

Regards,
jon

127

The first part, sure. The gentleness and respect part, no, not so much. They flat out lie and mislead people about BioLogos with no shame.

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128

What on earth are you talking about?? The 22,400°C was their own admission about what accelerated nuclear decay would do.

I think you may want to take a look at this:

Oh come on. The heat problem for accelerated nuclear decay is a deal breaker. It doesn’t take a “secularist” or a “materialist” worldview to see this, and it’s not a case of different worldviews giving different interpretations. Accelerated nuclear decay is a claim that is so bad that I’ve even had young earthists tell me they thought it was some sort of parody to “discredit creationism.”

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129

You might be interested to read some of the threads on this Forum by @gbob Glenn Morton. He passed away in 2020, but he was a geologist who worked with many of these YEC guys at one point in his career and could point out all sorts of places where they have been debunked and know it, which makes you wonder why they keep lying about stuff.

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130

Mount St. Helens aligns just fine with conventional geology, it’s nothing but a YEC squirrel. There are no sequence stratification there indicating alternating sea levels, metamorphosis, identity with formations separated by tectonic movement, or progression of index fossils including microfossils. A big pile of ash is what we expect, and that is what we get - nothing to do with the stratification which demonstrates epochs of geological age. Volcanic eruptions are very useful, however, for dating of sedimentary layers, correlating extinctions, and study of tectonic movement and erosion over hot spots, all of which indicate the passage of deep geological time.

Right where we expect them. A transitional fossil possesses characteristics of both groups, which benefited the animal at the time. Every time a new one comes to light, YEC responds with “that is just a fish, that is just a bird, that is just an ape, that is just a whale, that is just a weird creature.” Every year, more fossils are found, and there really is not much to speak of in terms of yawning gaps.

Others, including thousands of scientists performing these analysis, seem to know enough about radiometric dating to consider it a sound procedure that is solidly based on theoretical and empirical science and outputs reliable results regardless of worldview.

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131

You may know how to run equipment well, but you rather belie yourself with respect to understanding how science works.

Science is like plumbing – there’s no such thing as ‘secular plumbing’ nor is there any such thing as ‘secular science’. The latter is something that doctrinaire YECs pretend and believe exists. Christians as well as unbelievers may conflate philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism, the latter being science, but devoted and honest believers can stand side by side with unbelievers and do the same science.

I wonder if you’ve seen this – it’s a very cool account of Christians and unbelievers doing good science together (at remote distances) [and getting the science wrong]:

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132

  • Wait a second! It just hit me! What you and Shaun Doyle are saying is that,

    • Although the Bible doesn’t say that a person has to believe in a historical Genesis in order to be a genuine Christian, failure to believe the six articles of your creed, i.e. a literal Adam, a literal Eve, a literal garden, a literal tree, a literal deceiver, and a literal Fall "makes Jesus irrelevant."

  • LOL! Now that IS different than saying:

    • By your standards, and Shaun’s and Young Earth Creationists’ standards, failure to believe the six articles of YEC’s Creed “makes Jesus irrelevant.”

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133

Dear Terry, I certainly do not take you for a fool under any circumstances. I actually was not aware that Shaun Doyle is an Australian and I fail to see how that is relevant.
You are correct that we do have irreconcilable differences. I thought that I had explained your query, i.e., in my post 122

If there was no fall, then we (humanity that is) would be in our original state, i.e., sinless, blameless and innocent before God. There would be no need for Jesus to give of Himself unto death to pay the price incurred by His own Holy character. In the sense of the crucifixion and only in the sense of the crucifixion, there would be no need for that to have taken place if we did not fall. But unfortunately, we (right back to Adam) did fall.
Regards,
jon

134

I had a revelation, and have rewritten the post to which you just responded. In light of my revelation, I must point out, if I am understanding you (and all of YEC-dom) correctly, you have put yourself above the Bible and all of the authors in it. That is unacceptable nonsense.

  • According to Paul, writing in 1 Corinthians 1:23 “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness”. You have added to and perverted the Gospel.
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135
  • You thought you did, but you didn’t. You failed utterly to point out that, by the Bible’s standards, “a genuine Christian” doesn’t have to believe all six articles of the YEC Creed,

but by YEC standards, a genuine Christian must believe all six articles in the YEC Creed.

  • And all I can tell you is:

… over my dead body.

136

@Burrawang – Note my edit:

“…doing good science together… and getting the science wrong” may sound like an oxymoron, but if you’ll read the account, it will make sense. It’s also cool how the Christian scientist had to exhibit humility (rarely seen among YECists!).

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137
  • So at what point are you going to stop repeating the irreconcilable differences to me?
  • Here, let me help. I’m putting you on my “Ignore” list and I’m removing myself from this thread permanently.
  • Done! Now you can repeat your nonsense to your heart’s content, and I won’t see it anymore.
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138

YEC ‘geology’ is a wonderful place where crystals get bent without breaking in soft sediment layers and depositional layers don’t break – the problem being that in both cases what they claim is impossible.
I can barely make myself read YEC ‘geology’ claims any more since they put forth so many falsehoods that high school freshmen should notice it.

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139

Just what is this six-point YEC creed?

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140
  • According to Burrawang and Shaun Doyle’s Young Earth Creationism, their creed is that there was:
    • a literal Adam,
    • a literal Eve,
    • a literal Garden of Eden,
    • a literal tree of knowledge of good and evil,
    • a literal deceiver, the talking serpent, and
    • a literal Fall;
    • without which Jesus is literally irrelevant.
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141

I am disheartened by the bitterness that appears in your posts.
God knows my heart, your claim that I have put myself above the Bible is egregious and just plain wrong.
I respect the Word of our Lord and Saviour and would never do such a thing.
Please look hard at your posts, as you have put yourself in the place of accuser.

Here, again you make an accusation that is false. Why, I certainly don’t know?
I definitely affirm the veracity of Genesis as historical narrative. There is no ‘creed’, that I have ever heard of, that is a word that you have introduced into the discussion.

To clarify, if I understand correctly, the article written by Shaun Doyle, the thrust of it I understood to mean that if the Genesis account of the ‘fall’ of mankind into the knowledge of good and evil, did not actually happen as described, if there was no literal Adam and Eve, no tree, no deceiver, no fall, then Jesus would not have needed to die on the cross for our salvation. Shaun Doyle could probably have expressed it better because Jesus is always relevant and indeed He is holding the creation in existence right now. Without the Son who is Jesus there would be no creation, no you and me.

Please understand that we are all mere people who do not have all the answers, regardless of the differences in origins . All that matters is that each one of us has a relationship with Jesus. If I have offended you, please accept my unreserved apology. I do not wish that anyone be offended.
We look at the world, the creation through different sets of glasses, i.e., through different worldviews.

Regards,
jon