I prefer to be known as a theistic evolutionist

Albert, it was me who asked you about Darwin’s ever using “evolution” in relation to his discoveries in biology, are you sure about clearing his name in the issue of making his discovery an atheist scheme? If he did not explain his discovery as being evolution he would be not-guilty of the subsequent take-over of biological transmutation leading to speciation (his discovery) into an atheist scheme which in fact the universe is incapable of generating.

Having said that, as I point out in my book’s glossary he is still responsible for the prejudice against creation his work facilitated giving atheists a lot of power (responsible in a negative sense although not criminally guilty) but he did not do it with malicious intent, it was only the result of him not explaining speciation as being intelligent design; with enough persuasion to prevent atheists from using the biological evidence to strengthen their narrowminded view of the universe.

Thanks for responding to my answer. To my mind Darwins book is a brilliant scientific work. I do not experience it as atheistic at all.
The Intelligent design topic is too large for this space but I am not in favour of a God of the gaps hypothesis. That is a God who has to interfere everytime evolution is not powerful enough to cause speciation ( which it is…think of Hox genes)

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Albert, I rate Darwin’s discovery as one of the three most important ones (Berkeley’s immaterialism and Mendel’s genetics being the other two) and his intent I believe was not atheistic but in judgment day he could be charged with a serious offense: facilitating atheism, even if not done in purpose. Now, I would be surprised if he was convicted on such charge because in my frame of mind his discovery needed to be discovered. If I am right (if my metaphysics is correct) Darwin’s defense would be very much facilitated by the fact of him having discovered what was in need to be discovered which is biological transmutation leading to speciation, not biological evolution, there is no such thing as biological evolution in the universe.

I think this charge would be much much much more accurately leveled at a large number of Christians. Creationists would be on that list but hardly alone and probably not the worst. There has been a lot evil done in the name of Christ. But the distortions to make Christianity opposed to science has definitely promoted atheism to a very significant degree. By comparison, Darwin not so much. One of the first people to read and congratulate Darwin on his work was a priest. And the fact remains that the majority of worldwide Christianity supports evolution. No it is hard headed and divisive Christians who are the real problem as they always have been, and yes atheists have been quick to seize the opportunities this has provided.

IN FACT, this was probably the biggest contributor to Darwin’s disaffection with Christianity…

On moving to Downe, Kent in 1842, Darwin supported the parish church’s work, and became a good friend of the Revd. John Innes who took over in 1846. Darwin contributed to the church, helped with parish assistance and proposed a benefit society which became the Down Friendly Society with Darwin as guardian and treasurer. His wife Emma Darwin became known throughout the parish for helping in the way a parson’s wife might be expected to, and as well as providing nursing care for her own family’s frequent illnesses she gave out bread tokens to the hungry and “small pensions for the old, dainties for the ailing, and medical comforts and simple medicine”.

Innes inherited his family home of Milton Brodie, in the Scottish Highlands near Forres. In 1862 he retired there and changed his name to Brodie Innes,[66] leaving the parish in the dubious hands of his curate, the Revd. Stevens, while still remaining the patron. The meagre “living” and lack of a vicarage made it hard to attract a priest of quality. Innes made Darwin treasurer of Downe village school and they continued to correspond, with Innes seeking help and advice on parish matters. The Revd. Stevens proved lax, and departed in 1867. His successors were worse, one absconding with the school’s funds and the church organ fund after Darwin mistakenly shared the treasurer’s duties with him: Brodie Innes offered to sell the advowson – the right to appoint the parish priest – to Darwin but Darwin declined. The next was rumoured to have disgraced himself by “walking with girls at night”. Darwin now became involved in helping Innes with detective work, subsequently advising him that the gossip that had reached Innes was not backed up by any reliable evidence.

A new reforming High Church vicar, the Revd. George Sketchley Ffinden, took over the parish in November 1871 and began imposing his ideas. Darwin had to write to Brodie Innes, explaining what had upset the parishioners. Ffinden now usurped control of the village school which had been run for years by a committee of Darwin, Lubbock and the incumbent priest, with a “conscience clause” which protected the children from Anglican indoctrination. Ffinden began lessons on the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican faith, an unwelcome move from the point of view of the Baptists who had a chapel in the village. Darwin withdrew from the committee and cut his annual donation to the church, but continued with the Friendly Society work.

For two years Emma organised a winter reading room in the local school for local labourers, who subscribed a penny a week to smoke and play games, with “Respectable newspapers & a few books … & a respectable housekeeper … there every evening to maintain decorum.” This was a common facility to save men from “resorting to the public house”. In 1873 the Revd. Ffinden opposed it, as “Coffee drinking, bagatelle & other games” had been allowed and “the effects of tobacco smoke & spitting” were seen when the children returned in the morning. Emma got Darwin to get the approval of the education inspectorate in London, and just before Christmas 1873 the Darwins and their neighbours the Lubbocks got the agreement of the school committee, offering to pay for any repairs needed “to afford every possible opportunity to the working class for self improvement & amusement”. A furious Ffinden huffed that it was “quite out of order” for the Darwins to have gone to the inspectorate behind his back. Darwin’s health suffered as he argued over natural selection with G. J. Mivart, and in the autumn of 1874 Darwin expressed his exasperation at Ffinden when putting in his resignation from the school committee due to ill health.
From Wikipedia on the reigious views of Charles Darwin.

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Mitchell, thanks for sharing those historical details. My comments on Darwin began with me asking Albert whether Darwin used the term “evolution” in relation to his biological discoveries. Albert’s response suggest he could be a witness in Darwin’s trial about Darwin not being a proponent of evolution, the (atheist) evolution scheme emerged long after Darwin was dead. Therefore the possibility of putting Darwin on trial is based on a “duty” to prosecute serious offenses, it happens to be the case the results of the work Darwin did has become the strongest instrument of Atheism.

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I find your attitudes disturbing and offensive.

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That is like calling the opposition to the sexual abuse of children the strongest instrument of atheism because of all those priests accused of abusing children.

It is just nonsense. The problem isn’t evolution but those abusing the Bible to put Christianity in opposition to science.

The strongest “instrument” of atheism from the third century BC and Epicurus, has always been the problem of evil and suffering. The fact that Christians have always been ready to help atheism with their own outrageous and evil behavior is certainly another.

Evolution is of no help whatsoever to atheists in opposing the majority of Christianity since it accepts evolution. It has only been of help to atheists in tearing down the faith of those Christian putting their faith in opposition to science – something that wouldn’t happen if they hadn’t done so.

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Atheism and Deism have done quite well without Darwin’s help. I would agree with Mitchell that the YEC movement has done more to further the cause of atheism than anything. This has happened as Augustine warned,” If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?”

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Excuse me, according to Darwin’s Theory Variation is a random process in that it is based on random mutations or changes. However evolution is more than Variation. It is also Natural Selection which is not random, but directional. Natural Selection guides evolution in that it determines it direction and form. Are you familiar with the way Darwin defined Natural Selection by the Darwin Imperative?

Guidance does not violate the laws of nature since guidance is built into the system and is done indirectly through the laws of nature. God is not stupid. If we humans can use the laws of nature build complex airplanes to do our will, so can God devise complex processes to do God’s will.

Evolution and esp. natural selection are Not quantum processes. They are biological processes, which means that they are not linear, but holistic and interactive. We interact with our environment and learn from our mistakes

God does not have to tilt the table to make things go right… All God has to do is to reward right behavior. This does not guarantee that things will always go right, because we can always say No to what is right as we often do. God guides. God encourages. God makes possible what is right, God does not force us to do right.

The second law of thermodynamics only works in a closed system. The universe is not a closed system, nor is our world. Nor as I said do we live in a linear mechanistic world.

The world seems to demand that we must chose between bad science that says evolution is random, and bad theology that says it is predetermined and designed de nova. Neither is good science or good theology. Surely we can do better than this.

Hi Roger I read your response with interest. Exactly how does God guide/encourage/reward the process?

The main reason I’ve seen on the cited on this site is to lift the ambiguity with theistic evolution being deistic (god created the universe then ignored it).

But I like the reason you presented better.

It make me think we might need to find a way to clarify that both theistic evolution and evolutionary creation should be presented as theological theories rather than biological ones.

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Random means that their is no discernables pattern or predictability of the event. Random doesn’t say their is no God involved, it just says their is no pattern.

As for unguided, I’m not sure what we really mean. Unguided Evolution is a hypothesis brought to be conflict with any of the theist evolutions but doesn’t have scientific bases.

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It’s the other way around. Theistic evolution is what it says on the tin, not deistic, it’s the thin end of the wedge of ID. Evolutionary creation allows for more deism, eternal materialistic creation allows for even more. Deism is bunk of course as God can’t walk away from His own thinking.

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Whilst I’d like to agree, unfortunatly the tin can be misleading. For example, ID includes a lot more things like YEC and OEC than its name would imply.

I’ll just quote this article. What is Evolutionary Creation? - BioLogos

Third, many people have historically accused TEs of being deists. TE has at times been associated with the idea that God created the world and all the natural laws, but is no longer actively governing or involved in the cosmos. This is very different from how most ECs understand God’s involvement. In the BioLogos community we affirm the biblical miracles (most centrally the Resurrection), believe God answers prayer, and recognize that God works providentially through natural processes to accomplish his purposes. Natural processes and supernatural miracles both result in God’s handiwork.

Off course you are right. Theistic evolution/evolutionary creation to my mind is religion, a philosophical way of explaining (or trying to) the hard scientific fact of a unguided completely random process.

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Interesting. I have no dog in this fight but as an interested bystander it seems to me that TE can be thought of as putting a religious spin on a scientific theory … perhaps as a way of sanctifying it so it can be brought into a religious worldview. EC more or less declares that both evolution and creation are true without specifying exactly how God makes use of evolution. Like TE, it too is concerned with sanctifying the worrisome evolution which on the face of it would seem to be a challenge to a biblical view of origins.

Since as others have said the Bible imposes no religious spin on any other scientific theory, it seems reasonable from my POV to seek to understand Genesis as something other then a scientific theory. What other purpose could it serve its author and audience than to put out a scientific theory?

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I think that is only an impression, as people have noted before is that evolution is the only scientific theory that has another theistic theory named after it. And it appeared only because their was a unjustified opposition to evolution. It might appear in astrophysics but that it. Their definitely is not a major movement to sanctify scientific theories.

EC doesn’t really diverge from TE in anyway, they simply clarify some ambiguity. mainly that its not a scientific theory but a theological one and that it does not support deism.

Aye gavin. I find the BioLogos mish mash, which does reflect wider opinion, association of ideas of TE, an unworkable compromise. 99% of claims of biblical miracles are utterly irrelevant to and detract from the 99% centrality of the Resurrection. Most of the remaining 1% is the rest of the incarnation and its effects. God answers prayer in no statistically detectable way since then, which is pretty deistic of Him, apart from through us. Natural processes account for all we observe including the earliest documents of the Church. Nonetheless I want their claims to be true. My desire a work of the Spirit and/or of nature. And the grounding of eternal materialism and its transcendent, glorified continuation would then be an ongoing supernatural miracle: God couldn’t not be actively governing and involved in the cosmoses, by grounding and incarnating in them from eternity. And otherwise by the Spirit. Even here.

Genesis is a beautiful poem. One has to see it in connection with the Babylon myths that says that the earth was created in utter chaos with fights of the gods and that the moon and sun and stars were gods. The Genesis poem describes that God created earth by beating chaos and that the sun and moon and stars are not gods but creations of God. It is a revelation and not a scientific explanation at all

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I agree on the 99% importance of the resurrection. The rest including where we come from is of secondary importance