David
I’m all for the overarching christological focus of the divine author of Scripture, and for the way it reinterprets itself as the story unfolds (eg, more or less at random, Jesus’s re-application of Daniel and the other prophets to his prophecy over Jerusalem).
At the same time, many problems (especially in Genesis) seem to come from misunderstanding what the text was meant to say in the first place - the first layer of the cake, in other words, colours what we get from the other layers.
I haven’t read every single one of P’s books, so I might not be giving the best possible answer. He almost never talks directly about the question you’ve raised. The closest I can find is this passage from Theology in the Context of Science, p.110: “While the exact details of what has emerged in the course of cosmic history was not fixed from the start, nevertheless the presence of the deep potentiality built into the given fabric of created nature, of the kind that anthropic fine-tuning implies, indicates the universe to be a world of purposed fertility. Five-fingered homo sapiens was not decreed from the beginning, but it seems no accident that that some form of self-conscious, God-conscious life has evolved.”
I’ll go beyond this passage a little to guess at how P might contextualize this a little, basing my speculation (which should not be read as any more than a speculation on my part, not on P’s part) on a general knowledge of his thought. But (again), I am the speaker here, not P. He probably thinks that God might very well have created other creatures, in other parts of the universe, that are also (perhaps) capable of responding to God in love. In other words, P probably thinks that we might not be the only creatures in the universe who bear the divine image, even though he absolutely upholds our
uniqueness on this planet in that respect. (We know that C S Lewis had such thoughts, and I suspect P also has such thoughts.) In any case, the contingent fact that we have five fingers on each hand isn’t something God put much thought into—there might be other creatures somewhere else, lacking fingers or
perhaps even lacking hands entirely, who are also capable of loving God. What matters to God is that we do love him, not whether we have five fingers—after all, lots of other animals also have five fingers. What matters is that we bear the image of God, which is one of the big things that God intended to accomplish in creating the universe.
I won’t be able to contribute further comments on this peripheral, but very important, topic, but I’ll try to read those of others as I travel about.
Yes, he discusses that possibility in the same book you mention. And this is not a new idea, as he mentions that theologians have discussed it before.
Eddie, I question your statement that “traditional Christian theology never … pits the free will of man against the absolute sovereignty of God.” I grant the real possibility that we might actually agree, if we both held the same view of every term you used here, so let me briefly ground my hesitation. My own sense of the Luther-Erasmus debate (for example), is that Erasmus believed in human freedom, in relation to the wishes and will of a sovereign God, in a way that Luther simply could not accept. Likewise, many Christians past and present would not agree with Calvin’s understanding of the sovereignty of God concerning unconditional election and irresistable grace. In their view, unless I badly misunderstand it, free human agents can deliberately and willfully frustrate God’s purposes and reject God’s grace. Whereas Luther and Calvin rejected the view that we can reject divine grace–did they not?
As with my other comment this morning, I have to leave this electronic room and won’t be able to keep this going. I will be traveling thousands of miles in the next 48 hours, without my books and often without access to this site, even if I had time to say more–which I don’t. Thank you nevertheless for the excellent questions, Eddie.
Patrick, if you read the series about him (https://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis-reading-the-book-of-nature/series/searching-for-motivated-belief ), you should see some of the ways in which P “harmonizes” physics and theology, though he doesn’t normally use that verb to describe things. He prefers to say that theology “complements,” or rounds out, the picture of reality that science provides, by going “beyond science” (to borrow the title of one of his books) into philosophical and theological realms. He hopes that the picture he then provides is consistent with science, but he doesn’t see it as scientific per se.
Yes, I have read those Biologos materials before I asked my questions. I see Polkinghorne’s writing as harmonizing physics and theology by, first, accepting the physics, and then, harmonizing the theology to the science. Thanks
I’m not totally clear what your scenario view is of Paul’s statements in Romans 5. Do you think that he was mistaken in his belief about Adam or that he has been misinterpreted by Augustine and others? Also, what should people use as a guide as to when in the Bible should it be taken literally?
if you look at the creation or a new human you use part of yourself to combine with the part of another self to create a new self, something that has not existed before. so we are used to the idea if conversion of material into material. From the philosophical definition of God, God is the will behind the emotion of materials and that is what life is when you for example look at the viability of bacteria, the ability to move materials according to your will, e.g the will encoded in the information you carry with you.
As humans we are aware of creation of emotional content in Art conveyed by material means using objects the printed word or sound or light and you start to see the transition between the material and the non-material element of reality.
As to the beginning of time and space and matter we accept the point that time began with the materialisation of energy in the big bang but I am not sure about the energy bit. We know that energy can’t be gained or lost in the system when it comes to the matter- energy equivalent. What we do not know yet is the conversion between emotional and physical energy but know that the physical energy can be released by emotional energy and visa versa, and in a recent debate with a member of CERN I suggested to consider love as a force as it has features not present in physical forces as not only can it breach the space-time boundary but it creates more energy over time and distance thus solving some of the fundamental problems of quantum physics. Whilst it is already difficult for people to understand that evolution follows the law of love thy neighbour in the world of particle physics it appears even more estranged but it starts to make sense once you look at a system concept when you realize that the loss of the independence of the individual particle lends stability to the entire system.
So if you look at the birth of Jesus in the metaphor of the word turning flesh you can see the impact of emotional energy on matter. You can look at the creation of Jesus as an act of magic explaining it with God using his magic wand to create Jesus in Mary - at which point the entire class of pubertarian kids will burst out in laughter or explain to them what would have happened when a girl fell pregnant with no father to show up for it whilst under the occupation of enemy military forces. Now one might be naive enough to believe that no girl before tried to pull the one of the miraculous son and no one around had a clue where babies came from, but the bitter truth is that if you did not kill yourself for the shame you brought onto yourself and the family your loving neighbours would have made sure of the abortion of a potential bastard - including it’s mother. Thus it needed the love and courage of Mary and Joseph to pull this through, but once you see how this word of God, to love thy neighbour like thyself, can turn an act of hate and oppression, still practiced by occupying armies all over the world, into the beacon of love and hope, you will realize that the word of God has more power than Harry Potters magical wand, particularly as it gives you the power to do exactly the same without any wands involved.
We certainly know a lot about the conversion between emotional and physical energy. It is called mental stress and it uses a lot of energy in the brain.
James, I like your distinction between a narrative that is “. . . INSPIRED BY a true story” vs. a narrative that is “. . . BASED on a true story.”
When the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre was first released … people variously described it along those lines. Upon further examination, historically-oriented movie goers eventually found out that the True Story behind the movie :
But what a movie!
I understand the desire of the traditionally religious wanting to keep as much of the Adam and Eve story as possible. But if we “reverse engineer” Eden, we are deconstructing the Eden story so that it is most compatible with the natural world as we find it. I don’t mean we can’t have miracles … but I do mean that the miracles should make sense at some kind of fundamental level.
How do I mean this? Well, I have heard Evangelicals explain to me that God purposefully created fossils/bones in the sedimentary layers of rock that he made to LOOK really old. Sure … miracles can happen. But does anyone think this is the kind of Miracles that God would do?
Does there NEED to be two literal trees? Or is the reference to trees a figure of speech?
Does there need to be JUST TWO HUMANS IN ALL THE WORLD? Or is the reference to these two humans a reference to the first humans with “moral agency”?
Thoughts?
George Brooks
I appreciate your scenario. It definitely has some appeal and I certainly am considering it. But in the spirit of numerous statements by you and others in BioLogos about the need for open discussion on different ways of handling the A&E issue, I am wondering, how that is to work in practice? Can there be any scenario’s other than those proposed by BioLogos (and in the form presented by them), that are worthy of consideration?
By the way, I agree that my scenarios longer time distance from literary history and the writing of scripture to be problematic if we are pessimistic about somewhat detailed ‘inspired visions’ from God. At any rate, every scenario has some drawbacks, right?
I am studying the Haarsma’s Origins book and find that their “Adam and Eve as Ancient Ancestors” scenario is quite similar to my scenario, although I think that mine solves some of the drawbacks of the one they propose. First, their scenario suggests that God had to make miraculous changes to A&E. I can understand that would be particularly problematic to scientists who would resist the idea of any blatant tampering with human development. But my scenario does not require any such biology changes - only that the appearance of God to the first two individuals (who were already anatomically modern and were at some stage of being perfectly ready) lead to their minds being opened up to God and spiritual things. By the way, if God was ever directly involved with humankind over the millennia, it seems to me that it is likely he might have wanted to be directly involved in the beginning of humans with souls.
Secondly, the Haarsma’s version of the scenario has a problem with the lack of genetic diversity, but mine has the DNA of contemporaries in the mix with A&E. I do suggest that they and their new behavior could have spread spiritual awareness (and the attendant ramifications) to virtually all other behaviorally modern (or emergent behaviorally modern) homo sapiens and that less advanced hominids around the world could have eventually died out, leaving A&E essentially the spiritual parents of (soul-based) humans.
The Haarsma’s scenario for this is listed at 150,000 years ago, coinciding roughly with the first anatomically modern homo sapiens. While I think there is some appeal for the later time period of 50 to 100 kya, my scenario could be stretched in its time period and geographic location (with some potential ramifications in the process) to allow such variations. In the end, it’s not “mine” if it has merit and BioLogos and others help develop it.
All I’m wondering is what it would take to be considered as one of the ‘plausible’ BioLogos scenarios. If there are serious reasons it can’t, I would be very interested in knowing why. I imagine that this is not for you to decide, but I assume that you have some ability to get it considered.
This topic was automatically closed 4 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.