How do you talk to friends at church about science and evolution?

Faith & Science Conversation
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I just had a conversation like this with a friend from work. Without getting into all the details, I was able to say convincingly that there are a number of theologians I follow who are solidly evangelical and uphold covenant theology, and they say the text is not at odds with evolutionary science. His angle was on the “speaking breath” and man being given language as a gift. We wondered if it could be compared to a spiritual language like tongues. Which for a charismatic, is music to the ears.

Can anyone comment on language development in the ancient world?

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In what sense? Languages changed in the ancient world just as they do now, they met, they borrowed, some died out, all changed. Language almost certainly goes back tens of thousands of years if not well over a hundred thousand years. There are distinct language families which probably descend from a common ancestral language; however, unlike biological evolution, languages can merge (or as someone once said “English is a language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary”) or develop spontaneously (seen in for instance Nicaraguan Sign Language when deaf children across the country were brought together for schooling). How or even if all the major oral language families are connected is argued.
We have ancient written records for some language (ancient Egyptian over 5,000 years ago, Sumerian probably slightly older).

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This is what I was getting at. Animals certainly communicate, but at what point did reason become part of our communication.

I’ve often thought you can’t know if an animal is aware of its existence if you don’t have the words to communicate with it.

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There is certainly evidence that some non-human animals reason. They can solve puzzles, etc.
For existence awareness, the mirror self-recognition test is sometimes used though it is argued about what the results mean.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Animal Cognition might be useful Animal Cognition (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Thanks for the link. I’m going to check it out later. I was watching a video with my kids on YouTube with squirrels. Between the four squirrels, they possessed a remarkable ability to solve puzzles. Offhand, do you think there is a correlation between rational development and a species social instincts?

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