An experienced participant of these BioLogos fora should well know that this kind of objection gets no traction. Look at this text from chapter 38 of Job:
Job 38:22-27 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?
What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?
Shall we conclude, like your example, that snow and hail belong to a unique act of God’s creation and thus are also outside the purview of the Sciences?
Or that the rain that falls where no one lives is outside the purview of Science as well?
Come now, this is no way to dispute the issue. Does it make more sense to you that God keeps a supply of Hail and Snow in the heavens … just waiting for the right moment to use it?
Genesis specifically tells us that God ordered the earth to produce the beasts … and that this was God’s creation as well. The scribe of Genesis is practically begging us to see the work of the Cosmos and the work of the Creator as belonging to a single cloth.
I think the question being asked or the claim advanced here is not “Why is evolution uniquely revealing of God’s activity” but rather “why is evolution singled out as being uniquely disqualified from being God’s activity?” We have no trouble thinking photosynthesis is the process God uses to grow plants or that clouds are what he uses to bring rain. The incoherence seems to me to lie with those who want one process disqualified while they have always accepted everything else.
Hi Chris: You’re asking me to provide a Bayesian analysis that determines the probability for nature to design and create things like male and female human beings who have the perfect ingredients in their essence for things like sexuality and procreating is like asking me to provide a bayesian analysis for the letters, numbers and pictures from a page of a magazine article in Time magazine to fall from the sky and land perfectly in place and form as the original page! Except that the human organism is billions of times more complex than a magazine page! When we see a page in a magazine with intelligent information, only the insane would consider a statistical analysis for it becoming what it did without an intelligent influence. s
Think about this. Nature did not create sexuality. It has never created anything. We have never seen this in the lab and there is not one single strand of evidence on this planet that this is possible!
Of course this request from you is very sad for me because it suggests to me that you do indeed believe that nature is capable of doing this. For if you believed that God interacted within the process, the request for such an analysis is completely unnecessary and unwarranted because miracles defy statistical analysis which is gauging chance without intelligence.
So where is it that you really stand on this issue? You believe that God has some sort of magic in nature to create things like human sexuality and brains and eyes and the muscle lining of the esophagus etc and for the most part once the process began, His hands were off and nature took it from there? Or do you believe that God interacted significantly in the process of so called theistic evolution to where a Bayesian analysis is a waste of time in such a paradigm?
Absolutely I do believe that some can know Christ while missing main Biblical tenants and precepts! When Paul was warning the church in Galatia about the Judaisers who were tempting them to be circumcised for true salvation, I for not one single minute believe that Paul was immediately thinking that these folks in Galatia were all unbelievers…perhaps some but not all…but their movement as a whole to trust these false teachers could snowball into a schism and cult because afterall, faith that trusts in grace and works is not grace.
If you look at what I would consider cults today around the world, many of these started on the back of a new idea beyond the plain rendering of the Bible. I encountered some missionaries from a cult recently who so blundered the fall of Adam and Eve to the point that they believe that this step on their part of disobeying God was chosen as a pathway of blessing for procreation etc. I was dumbfounded.
I am happy to say that some of the most vibrant God fearing Christian churches today are moving towards creationism and a literal Adam and Eve, and away from evolutionism which suggests that God’s creative abilities were exemplified through a process of the fittest destroying the feeble and disease killing off the weak…if this represents God’s creative majesty where in the end He calls it “good” then I’d walk away from the faith. But this is not Biblical faith! I am a Christian because I have Biblical faith t hat trusts in God who after He instantaneously created beings, THEN proclaimed that His creation to be good!
There are a number of theories out there about evolution. I have read them on secular websites and from secular universities. And these theories are changing. I believe that if science is honest, they will end up at the place where good Biblical scholars were standing upon for centuries.
Semantics I think on the irreducible complexity issue. Even evolutionists see that there is an incredible amount of necessary ingredients on earth that are absolutely needed all at the same time for life to exist. I read a book by a couple of evolutionary thinkers who were Christians on this and they gave a blistering astronomical stat for the possibility for all of the necessary ingredients to be ALL in place for life to exist by chance. So if ANY of these ingredients are not in place on earth, then the complex environment necessary for life is no longer capable of supporting life. irreducible complexity.
Same with the body of a raccoon. How does evolution explain a process of a raccoon gaining a necessary organ such as a kidney when the slow process of becoming a coon means that it was gaining a necessary ingredient in the kidney in a process when the kidney was not fully a kidney and thus completely useless to the animal? And without that kidney, dead coon. Then we have flying birds, butterflies, brains, sexuality beauty…all by random selection and mutation? And then as believers we believe in a God who has existed more than a trillion trillion years (and then a lot more) before the earth was a twinkle in His eye and we think that He needed time to evolve organisms? We have the God of the universe on our side folks so why are we trying to prove evolution from the back of evolutionary naturalists? This is all like someone is trying to pull a prank on the church or something.
It’s pretty clear Grog comes to these pages to preach a sermon to the unwashed… to save as many of us untoward evolutionists as he possibly can. He’s not here to discuss the issues.
because God creating a being in a slow way does not make sense. A man with a half functioning kidney during the slow process of His creation is a man without a kidney and a dead man. the law of irreducible complexity.
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Also if God created via evolution where natural selection occurs for developmental processes, this means that when we go to visit the great Cincinnati Childrens’ hospital in the cancer ward, we are seeing according to evolutionists is what really boils down to God’s creative procedures taking place. We are seeing the weak getting weeded out for the strong to survive for their genes to be furthered. This is anti Bible and it is anti-God because the Bible over and over again states that he cares for the weak and poor and meek and humble, not snuff them out for the strong to survive in the name of creation…I have said this before…if this is God in action, I would walk away from such a faith and belief system.
Despite the contradictory argument in your own post, let’s say that you do indeed believe that Christ-followers can have different views of evolution than you do. So now let’s move on to step 2 – Do you also believe that God is evident in His creation? In other words, do you believe in God’s revelation through the “Book of His Works”?
I am here very very simply because after God created man and called it good, man rebelled because He wanted to displace God and make another ultimate. Adam and original sin is in me and I am in Adam. So God sent a better Adam, Jesus Christ of Nazareth to die on the cross to take away my sins and tendency to want to be god. I chose to take Christ as my own by faith and became born again into a new life. So religion repulses me. But almost every time I hear our pastor tell us about what He is as all together holy, transcendent and mighty and what He did for us on that cross, I am immediately touched to the bottom of my soul. There was nothing I did or can do to earn His favor in salvation. But by this grace I am compelled to proclaim the simplicity of this message! It is simple: God created the kinds and He created man to have dominion over all creation, He called it good, we messed it up and wreaked havoc on earth and God rescues us by grace through faith “So that no man may boast” Call me a simpleton…God is pleased with simpletons because boasting in in Him and His power through this simple message and not from an elaborate speech.
I am still disappointed with you Mr. Brooks for steering me to believe that Biologos made some monumental change and shift towards creationism and away from evolutionism. I don’t know if you did not understand the essence of all of this…from what I see, I don’t sense one single move from the original thinking…
@Grog, I think you are being quite disingenuous… especially since it was you who created the misimpression in me that you only needed to be convinced of the sincerity of BioLogos about teaching God’s sovereignty over Evolution and its results. But you have made it quite clear that you would quit Christianity before you would accept God’s role in evolution.
You don’t really need to care what anyone says about Evolution - - because to you, God’s involvement in Evolution is non-negotiable. Yes, Greg, you are right: I did not understand the essence of your view until just an hour or so ago…
I almost “flagged” your post … but you stopped short of impugning me. Your writing is improving. I commend you.
Greg, you don’t seem to realise why so many of us, as Bible-believing Christians, have a problem with young earth creationism.
God creating everything instantly — or in six literal 24 hour days — is not in and of itself the problem. A global Flood is not in and of itself the problem. Evolution denial is not in and of itself the problem. A literal Adam-and-Eve-and-nobody-else is not in and of itself the problem.
The problem is seeing these positions defended with claims that are not true, or that don’t make sense, or that advertise ignorance, or that sound evasive, or that are accompanied by accusations calling the faith or professional integrity of other believers into question.
I want to see the authority of the Bible upheld every bit as much as you do. But absurdities, falsehoods and accusations do not do that. Bad arguments do not build faith; on the contrary, they undermine it.
I do believe that God reveals Himself in nature. That is why I am building a cabin next to thousands of acres of tea trails and state land around Norris Lake! We love nature and when I am at the cabin working late hours, I like to go outside and rejoice in my God as I peer into the country skies without the city lights numbing the view of His heavens…to think that some of those small stars are actual galaxies etc…
And to further the point, right out of college a friend and I drove to Alaska and took a bush plane to Unalakleet to work at a Bible camp. During the first week, a native Alaskan half blind pastor from the bush country based the week’s lessons to these elementary kids out from Job 12 where He slowly read using his magnifying glass, "But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens and they will tell you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?
He taught these kids that God’s creation tells us that it was created. Evolutionism from common decent is the methodology on the back of GODLESS material naturalism…It declares that God cannot be discovered by science so we will not include Him. The problem with this theory is that if it is POSSIBLE that God did SUPER-NATURALLY create kinds of plants and animals with the ability to adapt (which seems more rational than all the other theories really) and science has chosen to ignore this because this cannot be detected by science, then they have made up their minds to not be seekers of truth but rather supporters of the current belief system already in place that suggests that all truth can only be detected by subjective human observation. Christians don’t have to buy this. We have the history in the Bible. .
@cwhenderson , I just wanted to clarify for you that Greg’s statement does not intend “adapt” as in Evolution.
He is offering a very modest concession … that God might have created populations of life forms that were able to “adapt without becoming a different kind” … you know, so-called “micro evolution”; he is not conceding real Evolution, even by God’s hand.
I agree to some extent. I know about some young earth guys and some can be obnoxious. I have defended old earth creationists and Christian evolutionists towards some of these as indeed being capable of being true growing believers in Christ…For goodness sakes, Tim Keller is one of my favorite authors! I believe he has it very wrong on evolutionism and I am probably really wrong about putting more effort in loving my wife…Anyway, some have told me out of this young earth camp that belief in a literal Adam is necessary for salvation etc. To me this is no different than gnositism that suggests that a special knowledge is necessary for salvation etc.
On the other hand, I have seen even worse theology out from the theistic evolution camp. that could take a book. Where belief in God as Creator of kinds who declared this “good” and belief in a literal Adam makes the gospel a lot more sensible and keeps the theology from quickly drifting towards apostacy, I still absolutely do not believe that we demand belief in these things for a person to be a Christian either.
Here is the thing we as Christians need to contend with: If Christians believe in the ONLY True living God who created the universe that makes the earth look like dust, and if we understand that this God is so beyond us in transcendence, and we believe that the precepts in Scripture that bases our faith are true, then WE HAVE to come to grips with the fact that unlike what naturalists will tend towards, the evidences for how life got to this earth may be utterly impossible to truly decipher scientifically. In the same way, when a young earth creationist tries to explain such and such scientifically, they are taking the grounds that God’s creative methodologies are discoverable via science too. All of these things make for good discussion and give a parachurch organization an income, but are they really helpful? I am not sure.
If I had my way, I would decline so much dependence on parachurches who get their bread and butter on a scriptural sound bite and encourage all church leaders within churches with elders and deacons to stand firmly upon the precepts even in early Genesis and declare that there is no way that the incredible nature of the Bible and the historicity surrounding the gospel and the sincerity and love in coverted Paul to the church, former persecutor of it and many many others equates to anything other than the voice of God and the mystery of his salvation being made known in the face of Christ. The Bible is indeed the Book written by the literal God of the universe, hands down, no doubt about it. And I would encourage these leaders to feed the sheep with God’s Word bit by bit and when a voice cried out demanding an explanation for the dinos etc, I will calmly still that voice and proclaim that the God of the Bible is the God who made us and we will know about the dinos in heaven someday for all of those who are in Christ. I would calmly declare that if God is who He says He is as the one who stands outside of time, then we don’t need millions of years and evolution to explain our existence either.
Of course I do Mr. Brooks! Look at the incredibly rich set of genetic possibilities in a wolf dog. Evolution would have reduced these over millions of years where God designing them with such possibilities for adapation and survival makes a lot of sense out from His character of kindness and grace. Marsupials may have a whole other set of genetic possibilities. And when the wolf dog and marsupial adapts, it DEVOLVES into a type with reduced complexity and thus reduced survival capability and more of a likelihood of becoming extinct. I will add that mutation cannot explain such possibilities either.
The only reason science goes for evolution is because it refuses to consider God. And by refusing to consider God, it refuses to line itself up as a legitimate seeker of truth and more a seeker of promoting a personal blind faith belief system that probably is partially responsible for achieving a paycheck. Just try to get a job at a university science dept with “creationist” on your shirt. I know its tough out there.
My point about this money issue is of utmost importance. Jesus spoke more about money than he did prayer because He knew that money was one of the biggies in the idol category.
I have commented about this on another post and will say it again: when a parachurch organization like AIG or like Biologos has a staff and sells books and supports an agenda that perhaps equates to money in their pockets, knowing what I know about my own sinful human nature, this can EASILY taint the argument in favor of that which supports me financially and perhaps away from truth. And for Christian scientists who rub shoulders with other scientists who tend to be anti creationists, for them to put out there a belief in God as creator can easily subject them to a loss of their job or potential. I even believe that a pastor of a church needs to be careful about attempt to generically inflate congregation size for increase pay or taking too much freedom about how much book sales pay they receive…All of these things can stifle the gospel and taint the pursuit of truth.
That is why I long to hear the voices of those who are not necessarily making a living upon the premise they are standing upon which causes me to realize that God’s chose vehicle for proclamation of truth from a church with elders, deacons, accountability etc should be uplifted and esteemed and less esteemed from a parachurch where their bread and butter comes from a sound bite portion of Biblical knowledge.
Thanks for your frankness in reply. I have come to a position through about 30 years of incredible journeys in valleys and mountains to really really really really revere the words on the pages of the Bible. thats all. Don’t take the “internet”'s word for it. There is a strange divide over this evolution/creation issue and I don’t buy it that this is a clash between the true scientists and non scientists…I believe that it is a clash of worldviews.
I really despised the Christian faith as a teen because my parents seemed more interested to make us look good to our peers in the name of religion that happened to be in Christian circles than they seemed interested to consider the idea of the literal existence of God, Creator. I thought little of Christianity because it appeared to me as a skit and not reality. Now by God’s grace, I am aChristian who is conscious of God much more than seemingly my parents were and the negative teenage history still causes me to be repulsed by the idea of cute little hold the hand of your neighbor in a circle and smile tolerantly and religiously. On the other hand, I am gladdened at the idea of unifying upon the fact that there is a God of love and a God of wrath towards sin and evil who literally exists and considers the wisdom of man as foolishness next to His transcendence and wisdom and I cannot help but to believe that this starts upon the premise that we go against the mainstream secular ideas in the hands of godless naturalistic which carved the foundation for evolutionary thinking and towards God as Creator of kinds instantly. The latter makes much of God from which I gladly will find unity. The former puts Him on the back seat which can tend towards smilely circles of love religion. Sorry to vent.
Dr. Kurt Wise a creationist scientist learned under Stephen Jay Gould at Harvard. I just watched a genetics debate between ivy league trained creationist from young earth AIG and a Biologos contributor from British Columbia. Watch that entire debate and not the cherry picked portions that may be recommended by your friends here in these circles.
So what are you talking about? There are BRILLIANT creationist scientists and most I treasure are much more honest than those who suggest that evolution is fact when there is more evidence for devolution than evolution.
and by the way, it is not irrational in the scheme of things to consider what appears irrational to the human mind on this earth when a God of transcendence exists. The gospel itself is about the most irrational and seemingly foolish idea to my flesh and my earthly sensibilities but since I have been saved by it, it is the power of salvation and is refreshing to my soul.
Folks have told me that God would not choose to fool us about the age of the rocks and fossils etc. Wrong way to look at these things-Instead we need to consider that God’s ways are sometimes going to be immeasureable and impossible to discover. God is not trying to fool us. We fool ourselves to believe that He and His ways are all together discoverable in our observations. For this, I most definitely treasure those scientists who are great scientists in and of themselves but chose to be humbly agnostics towards the observations of man and theists towards the things of God as stated in His manual we call the Bible.
If we use the criteria that any science reveals how God does this or that, I would agree with you in that whichever science makes such a claim, it is disqualified, as it cannot reveal God’s activity. So you are wrong in claiming ToE is singled out - instead I note is that ToE is singled out by some as “ordained” by God, or “it shows how God uses chance”, and so on. I do not find any other science that makes such preposterous claims. We do not say, this is how God causes rain - instead we say water vapour condenses under certain conditions, and we accept all activity as providential, and as Christians, we acknowledge the creation is sustained by its Creator.
Detailed discussion requires an in depth treatment of creation from nothing and sustaining by God. Such discussions continue to this day, and Christianity teaches us that we have the capacity to understand the creation. This differs greatly from claiming any theory of science reveals how God does this or that.