Depends what part of the theory.
That does seem to be an assumption, that if you dispute any of ToE you must dispute the lot, but TE does not rewrite all of Evolution, it just adds bits that science might find difficult to see or accept.
Common Ancestry is touted as a proof of ToE but it is not, because the dispute is over whether the science can develop everything, (The dreaded “gaps”) not whether they are actually connected in terms of linear creation.
Richard
The original question of this thread, “How do I explain my evolutionary faith to my conservative family?”, addresses how one might convey a transformed worldview. However, when considering our youth who live within an ecosystem shaped by evolutionism—and the broader framework of modern science and education that shares its underlying philosophy—our response cannot simply be passive acceptance or one-way indoctrination.
To truly guide the next generation and establish a grounded faith, I believe we as believers must take three essential steps:
Equipping Youth with Critical Inquiry: We must teach our young people to thoroughly research, critique, and evaluate whether evolutionism and its aligned educational frameworks are built upon solid foundations, helping them see that Scripture is historical truth rather than myth.
Reclaiming Scientific Tools to Restore Biblical Authority: We must acknowledge that since Darwin, as evolutionary philosophy expanded across modern science, education, and legal systems, the Church was often overly passive. Secular frameworks used “rigorous verification, empirical research, and scientific inquiry” as tools to push Scripture out of classrooms and institutions. It is not too late for us to turn the tide. We must use those exact same tools—thorough scientific research, experimentation, and critical verification—to expose the flaws in evolutionary hypotheses and restore biblical truth to its rightful place.
Sharing Concrete Research Accomplishments: We must present tangible research outcomes and scientific evidence produced by believers. Driven by this conviction, I have researched ‘Trinitarian Mechanics’ and published my work publicly on Zenodo and Academia. Likewise, researchers in creation science have already embarked on this journey and continue to yield valuable results.
In this light, I warmly invite the original poster, commenters, and the broader church community to reflect together: What scientific research or investigations have we undertaken to overcome these challenges, and what accomplishments can we present to our youth? If you have engaged in such work, I earnestly propose that we share our findings and collaborate to inform the next generation.
My message is simply this: let us no longer passively accept evolutionary theories and modern educational systems that shake our faith. Instead, through rigorous research, scientific engagement, and active collaboration, let us reclaim the authority of Scripture and discern the truth together.
My advice in this situation would be that, should your parents ask, simply explain that you believe that Jesus is Lord and rose from the dead and leave it at that. I agree with @RichardG that you aren’t pressed to prove yourself to your parents. Hopefully your parents will be respectful and understand that you still have faith and want to go about that in your own way.
I don’t see why not. It is a link to a public forum.
This comment is not a personal criticism, but a fundamental question posed to our entire community from a conviction rooted in the absolute authority of Scripture. All scientific inquiry must begin upon the unshakeable foundation of God’s Word.
As warned in Isaiah 28:10-13, attempting to compromise divine revelation by picking “a little here, a little there” to fit secular frameworks is not true faith. Theistic evolution claims to harmonize faith and science, but it ultimately contradicts core biblical doctrines.
Standing firm on the absolute authority of Scripture, we must pose three critical questions to those who advocate for theistic evolution:
The Denial of Creation’s Completion: Scripture clearly records that God finished His work, declared it “very good,” and rested on the seventh day (Genesis 2:1-3). Does claiming that creation is an ongoing evolutionary process not directly negate the biblical truth of a completed Creation and God’s Sabbath rest?
Undermining God’s Omniscience and Sovereignty: Is there any reason to doubt that an almighty God accomplished a perfect creation as recorded? Does claiming that the Creator relied on millions of years of random evolutionary processes not undermine His omniscience and absolute sovereignty?
Denying Christ as the ‘Son of Man’ and Salvation History: Jesus consistently referred to Himself as the “Son of Man”—tying His incarnation specifically to human lineage, not to a generic common ancestor or an evolving biological bridge. From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture is exclusively centered on humanity created in the image of God. If humans are merely a transient species destined to evolve into something else, who exactly did Christ die to redeem? Does integrating macroevolution into theology not fundamentally dismantle human identity, the title of the “Son of Man,” and the gospel itself?
We must stop conforming Scripture to modern secular theories. Let us stand firm on the absolute authority of God’s written Word first, and from that solid foundation, critically examine and restore true biblical faith.
I appreciate the honest intentions but what I’m reading is: “Let us stand firm on what I think God’s written word means and from the foundation I think is right, critically examine and interpret things based on my axioms of belief.”
I think what others might ponder is “What interpretation of God’s written word is correct, given the context and nature of our overall understanding?” For example, is each day as described in Genesis literally a 24 hour period or figuratively, an affirmation that God is responsible for the ultimate development of the world?" Basically, are they 24-hour days, days representing ages in a particular order, or some other metaphorical device meant to convey not a literal series of events but a relationship to God’s activity?
As others have noted, this is a often trodden topic (I’d say perennial) discussed previously in many other threads here and on many, many discussion boards.
Did you write the Bible? Did I? Neither of us, nor any modern theistic evolutionist, is the author of Scripture.
Scripture is the divine testimony (testimony) declared by God Himself. Equating God’s own testimony with mere human “personal interpretation” places God and human readers on the exact same level. This inherently reduces God from the sovereign Object of faith down to just another human commentator—a profound theological contradiction.
Refusing to accept this divine testimony as actual historical reality while reshaping it around secular science ultimately places evolutionary theory above—or at least on equal footing with—God’s Word. That is a fundamental compromise with secular evolutionism rather than standing firm on biblical faith.
Furthermore, on the absolute foundation of Scripture, I have already completed and made available over 30 academic papers on Zenodo under Trinitarian Mechanics, re-establishing modern science from the ground up through concrete proofs.
I am putting my publicly released research achievements and verifiable scientific evidence on the table. What is the concrete evidence or empirical research backing your position? Let us stop exchanging mere opinions and continue this dialogue using tangible, verifiable proof.
Your questions are legitimate and I’ve been through the same wrestling. Those three questions are precisely why I took a step back to see the bigger picture and then I realized something. The issue isn’t the questions themselves, it’s the paradigm behind them.
You’re framing this within the paradigm of chance and necessity (Monod’s framework) where evolution is affirmed as random and unguided. The moment you switch to the paradigm of teleology with Thomas Aquinas’ framework
the questions don’t just get answered, they get reframed.
Through that lens, God didn’t make a mechanistic world that He occasionally intervenes in. He made a teleological world, a world where purpose is built into the fabric of reality. Paul says we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” Ephesians 2v10. If God prepared works beforehand for us to walk in, then the entire created order is purposeful not random, not provisional, but intentional from the start.
This reframes all three of your questions:
A teleological world doesn’t need to be static to be complete. A seed is complete in its DNA even while it unfolds into a tree. Creation’s completion is in its purpose.
The question shifts from “Did God use random processes?” to “Is randomness real in a teleological world?” If God built purpose into creation’s fabric, then what we call “random” is our epistemic limitation not ontological randomness.
‘The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.’
Proverbs 16v33
Then the question shifts from “Are humans transient?” to “Is human identity fixed by purpose or by biology?” If humans are made for good works prepared beforehand, it follows that human identity is teleological because defined by God’s purpose and not by our biology. Christ didn’t become a biological species, He became the purpose for which humanity was created. He is the telos of man, not merely a member of a species.
This is where presuppositionalism and epistemology matter. The real question isn’t “Can science and faith coexist?” That’s a false framing. The real question is: What are your presuppositions about reality? If your presupposition is naturalism aka chance and necessity, then evolution will undermine Scripture because naturalism defines evolution as purposeless. If your presupposition is theism with a God who made a purposeful world for life then indeed evolution is simply the mechanism by which God deploys His intentionality in a world He designed for flourishing.
The choice isn’t between science and faith. It’s between naturalism and theism. The same data looks completely different depending on which paradigm you bring to it.
Ps : None of this conflicts with the problem of evil and biblical theodicy. If we account for the cosmic fall (Satan’s rebellion) as the source of natural evil rather than confining the Fall to Adam’s spiritual death, the theological tension dissolves. Creation can be purposeful and broken because the brokenness comes from a cosmic rebellion with a timeline that the Bible kept hidden, not from God’s ‘unfinished’ design.
As a non-believer, I heartily agree. They will discover that evolutionary theory and deep time are thoroughly underpinned by massive amounts of data.
So this:
is the opposite of the expected outcome.
Where is this research? Sorry if I missed your links but did you provide some in this thread or elsewhere?
Name three.
I’m not a Christian but I can tell that your perspective is pinched and fails to take account of what a human being requires to make sense of anything we read. @Christy explains this very well as a Bible translator. That would be a useful resource to keep available as a FAQ as she must be tired being the one every time. She is deeply committed to Christianity but also savvy about how we communicate and how our minds make sense of what we read - no matter the source.
This is not new. Scaling from mom and pop shops to well funded operations such as AiG which occupies Toyota’s former US engineering headquarters and runs a theme park and museum, there is no shortage of creationist messaging. You may add to it, it is still a free country.
Yes, but that would lead to conclusions antithetical to your outlook.
Rigorous verification, empirical research, and scientific inquiry are tools for understanding nature. Would you prefer “sloppy research, wild fabrications, and opinion surveys” for this purpose?
There are many Christians working in science producing tangible research outcomes, the great majority of whom accept the well evidenced conventional consensus concerning the history of the planet.
Simply – no. It depends on how one wants to define certain terms, and the adjectives selected to fit human tradition.
Again, no.
And lastly – no.
That is an unbiblical belief. Only very specific sections are recounted as “declared by God Himself”.
Is the proper way to treat the early chapters of Genesis because the text in context makes no such claim.
Look around. We live in an active, dynamic, ever changing world, alive with processes driving change and emergence. Completeness in growth, relationships or creation nowhere infers static and frozen.
Weather is random, but is under God’s control.
God is omniscient, sovereign, and eternal. He is not pressed for time.
Do you have a verse for say, an equation of state for Ammonia? Science is focused on and limited to the material world.
That’s not a problem with science, that’s a problem with education.
(Not just the lecturer, who should have kept themself up to date regardless of the textbook, but also the students since at university level they should be procuring their own textbooks and doing their own research).
Though I’m skeptical that any university professor would, in 1980, be teaching that Piltdown Man was genuine. Where was this? Which textbook?
It’s not true. The per nucleotide comparison of directly comparable genome sections is about 98.8%, not 99.87%.[1] Not even gene sequence comparisons are that similar.
Nor did the MinuteEarth episode you cite give that number. Your transcript is incorrect. The actual number given is 98.77, not 99.87. You have no excuse for getting this wrong because it’s not just spoken in that episode, but illustrated:
Assuming you have actually watched that episode. Since the transcript you posted is available on facebook, you may have simply copied the incorrect transcript - in which case there’s an obvious question: why are you citing a programme you haven’t seen?
You were complaining that science (really science journalism) ‘has proven especially untrustworthy’ - but you’re posting a number that doesn’t match your cited source. That makes you even more untrustworthy.[2]
You might try Gutsick Gibbon’s recent YouTube If You’re “99% Chimp”… What Percent Orangutan Are You? where she gives a very nice rundown on the various approaches and resulting numbers for comparative genomics, including intraspecies such as gorilla’s.
It should be noted that the 1.3% divergence number largely goes back to Mary-Claire King and Allan Wilson’s 1975 paper, Evolution at Two Levels in Humans and Chimpanzees, which was reasonably accurate for the constrained gene focused state of DNA data available at the time. They did predict that there would be more variation outside conserved protein coding regions, and that regulatory DNA would account for more differences between species.
Welcome!
How would you recommend I approach someone who writes, “We must stop conforming Holy Qur’an to modern secular theories” (or Bhagavad Gita, etc), when they are demonstrably wrong by science?
Thanks
I have watched the program many times over the years. I did not realize there was a printed version of it, and transcribed it myself. It was my mistake.
But you have changed the topic, which was Is the scientific community reliable in the origin debate? They are not for the following reasons:
It is hard to deny that Haeckel’s embryos are an “icon of evolution,” true even if “icon” now evokes Jonathan Wells’ “travesty” of a book (see Matzke). The embryos were reproduced in a majority of high school and college biology textbooks from the mid-1930s through at least the 1960s (See table). Generations of students took away the incorrect but easy to accept and generally cool idea that we pass through a fish-like stage, complete with gill slits, on our way to becoming human..
The reason I became interested in the creation debate was that after college, I realized that the best evidence for Darwinian evolution that I had been taught was not true. I was incensed, and believed that I had been intellectully abused by my professor.
When my daughter brought home her university textbook 5 years ago, and it had the 99% idnetical DNA comparison without any explanation, the same emotion welled up in me. These are the reasons I believe that science cannot be trusted if there is a financial or philosophical interest involved, as in the origin debate.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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