I don’t think God needs to be involved with evolution. We don’t know enough about biogenesis yet for me to state if God was involved with that or not and we don’t know enough about how energy and so on started for me to say it God was needed for that. But if the timeline starts at living cells already here and matter and energy already here we can say evolution does not require God to have been involved.
I also have to recognize if God was involved, so far it’s not detectable and so it’s not necessary to bring up. It also impossible for me to say could it have all turned out different than it did or if there are alternate universes and dimensions.
But in this group you’ll see a wider selection of beliefs. Some believe in a literal creation in 6 days, and some believe in a worldview with no god at all. You have every belief in between.
Science does not affect my theology and my theology does not affect my science. I look at the stories in the Bible for what they are. Genesis 1-3 for example clearly seems to be wrote as an ahistorical tale. I believe that because of how it’s wrote and not because of my belief in evolution. I believe in evolution because it’s what the data is best currently interpreted as. I don’t believe in evolution because of my faith.
For example I believe 100% in angels and demons and that Jesus healed the sick miraculously and that he died and rose from the dead and ascended to heaven and that eventually we will be given eternal conscious life in a restored heaven and earth. Science does not support that all. But it’s what theology points towards and so I believe it.
I believe that romans 1:20 is true. I see God in his creation and understand it as a gift.
Which is my understanding of what Origen said 2,000 years ago - not that I find him a particularly meaningful source - but this is not a new direction…
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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I endorse that, an excellent move, go for it. It does create tsunamis of cognitive dissonance you will find, but they are worth it. It is remarkable how we deceive ourselves.
This way of saying one sees God involved in the world even when no (apparent to us) nudging is going on does make it sound as though creation were a sock puppet which collapses the minute God removes His hand. Makes one wonder if the creation has actually been created in all its substantial reality or only an illusion, a kind of dreamscape in the creators dozing mind perhaps.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
28
Grounding being, incarnating and yearning back across the Stygian cave gulf to us aren’t enough for you then Mark?
Oh that is far from nothing. What I was questioning was only concerns the durability and self sufficiency of what gets created. I tend to think of creation as an on going process with no clear beginning. If there is intention behind it it is there still.
I do to. God/Jesus does not really intervene in our lives, but Jesus does interact through the Holy Spirit with us which maqkes all the difference in our lives.
One thing that I have against evolution is that Darwin believes that it was caused by the struggle of God’s creatures against one another. That is not what Jesus taught. That is not what I see in nature.
Not that life is a party, but we are called to work together to help one another, not to struggle against one another. That is why I support ecological or symbiotic evolution. God does nudge us and all biota to be the best we can be in a loving manner, which makes God great and life worth living.
Really? How about Maggie? (Of course, that could be labeled ‘interact’ as well.) He does in mine, too , not to mention multiple biblical accounts and the accounts of Christians over the centuries. Since he is not limited by time, ‘interact’ and ‘intervene’ amount to about the same thing, being instantaneous and simultaneous, so to speak, from God’s perspective.
In the Bible the only instance I can think of that might be considered intervening is Jesus confronting Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus. I can’t construct a theology on one event that is not very clear.
Like one time when I was hiking and ended up going way further than I originally intended and ran out of water and it was really hot. I could see no clouds from where I was in a low spot with lots of pines all around. When I came up the path no one was there. By the time I was returning and felt like I was having a bad dehydration and heat exhaustion problem coming on. So I prayed while walking. Shortly after that lots of cloud covers shows up, wind picks up, and I come across a camper who set up sometime after I walked past the area originally and got some cold water from them.
I believe it was a prayer answered and I believe God was the one who answered. It was a blessing. However, that does not change the fact that I am aware that way before I prayed that guy was already headed there and he already had cold waters. If I never showed up he would have still showed up with cold waters. It does not change the fact that well before I prayed these clouds developed over the Gulf of Mexico and were making their way in my direction. They developed hours before they reached me. There is no reason why I can’t accept both. After all it says rain and seasons are a blessing for us. Does not undermine the natural aspects of it.
God uses and doesn’t have to break any natural laws to ‘intervene’ or ‘interact’ in his providence. I had just been rereading Maggie’s story to refresh (speaking of refreshment, @SkovandOfMitaze) my memory of the details. It’s pretty cool.
I agree he does not. I also believe that he does. I believe in the supernatural and that God can and does at times directly intervene. Such as with Moses and the Red Sea, Elijah and the ravens, Philip and the world wind, tongues of fire at Pentecost, and all the miracles preformed by the apostles and those they laid their hands on gifting the power of the spirit. I believe miracles , though not laying on of hands , still occur today. I believe in angels as literal beings. As a god that is eternal, with no beginning or end, creator of life and all knowing I presume he can intervene and manipulate in ways that are not verifiable. I don’t believe everything is just simply philosophical and mythological.
) my memory of the details. It’s pretty cool.