If God hates sin, why would he create humans with a propensity to sin?

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

TOE is doing just that. It is claiming God is not involved.

You keep repeating this falsehood as though repetition will make it true

I really do not think you “see” what i am saying.

@St.Roymond

science has no tool for detecting divine activity.

So you have just stated what you claim is false.

The scientific explanations cannot include God. bcause he is invisible to it. Therefore…

@RichardG

If there is God’s control in evolution TOE does not (can not ) identify it, and therefore is not a description of the actual methodology.

@St.Roymond

Again you confuse methodology with philosophy.

No, you are just muddying the waters by claiming that you cannot mix science with philosophy. Of course you can. Philosophy covers any methodology. It is describing it.

@St.Roymond

God is a God Who hides Himself.

Yes, and science cannot see Him, so why won’t you acknowledge that this can be a problem?

Why do you try and separate science from your faith?

@St.Roymond

Which shows, once again, that you do not understand TOE.

Sigh,

just because I see things from a different perspective?

@St.Roymond

Many Christians

So what. There are almost certainly an equal number who see my viewpoint. It’s just that you refuse to see it as valid. IOW You are trying to dictate how TOE must be viewed. (and there is no other viewpoint in your eyes)

@RichardG

Fluke and chaos rarely produces elegance and order. They are incompatible opposites.

If you cannot see any fluke or chaos on Evolution (TOE) then this statement will fall on deaf and disbelieving ears.

Everything depends on how you view the way deviations occur. Traditionally there is no form or reason, (random) which is fluke and chaos. But, if you have decided that the deviations come from God then this no longer applies (but it is not TOE)

TOE is the specific name for the scientific viewpoint, where God is unknown. But for some reason you seem to not understand this.

Richard

[St.Roymond]

@mitchellmckain

If nothing exists apart from God then God didn’t create anything.

That is an unfounded assertion. It’s like saying that if a screen image doesn’t exist apart from electrons then electrons don’t do anything.
Paul agrees that “in Him we live and move and have our being” – a firm assertion that we at least don’t exist apart from God. The inspired writer also tells us that God upholds all things by His power, which tells us that every single thing there is depends directly on Him for its existence. Elsewhere we are assured that anything that exists is made by Christ, which tells us that nothing that exists does so apart from Him.
And all of those go back to the declaration to Moses, “I AM THAT AM”, an assertion that only He does not depend on some other entity for existence. In philosophical terms, it is a declaration that everything except God is contingent. As one ancient theologian put it, God was saying “I Am the ‘amming’ One”, the One Who sustains the existence of everything moment by moment, that apart from Him not the least tiniest piece of Creation continues to exist.

@mitchellmckain

But it is wrong to take such passages to mean that the world is nothing but a dream or figment of God’s imagination and thus just a part of God with no existence of its own

You’re the one imagining that – no one here has said it.

@mitchellmckain

Thing is a part of God == thing has no existence apart from God

But that’s a false equation. It only works in the direction you stated it in; flip it around and it doesn’t work – the converse of a statement does not logically follow from the statement.
“Apart from God” is the phrase the Apostle used describing everything that has been made, and that includes each photon given off by a computer screen as well as every sugar molecule metabolized from a carbohydrate. To the inspired writer, “apart from God” is the equivalent of “does not exist”: “Apart from Him has nothing been made that has been made”.

[St.Roymond]

@mitchellmckain

The difficulty here is understanding HOW God could ever create anything He does not control. It is possible but it is not trivial. And an important intermediate step is the concept of automation as we see in the mathematical space-time laws of nature.

@Dale

It’s too bad so few can allow for and trust in God’s providence, being able to know the Cause and the effect, the Who and the what, just not the wonder-full how.

Yes. “Automation” in terms of how Creation works is soft deism. As one of my grad school professors liked to put it, Creation is present tense because “in Him all things hold together”.
Which annoyingly includes whatever it was I stepped on in the sand at the beach two days ago that has me changing the dressing on my foot twice a day!

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

Your distinction looks completely meaningless to me, rendering such words as “creation” and “apart” completely without meaning. I can only say I don’t believe in that junk which I see no evidence to believe in whatsoever.

[St.Roymond]

@RichardG

@St.Roymond

science has no tool for detecting divine activity.

So you have just stated what you claim is false.

Not at all – I have just shown that what you claim is false: you say that science excludes God, but that would only be possible if science could detect God. Without a divine-o-meter, science can’t include or exclude God.

@RichardG

Yes, and science cannot see Him, so why won’t you acknowledge that this can be a problem?

The only problem is when people falsely claim that because science cannot detect God then science excludes God. The reality is that baking doesn’t include God, either, nor does architecture, nor does planning a new road.

@RichardG

Why do you try and separate science from your faith?

Why do you keep making that false assertion?

@RichardG

@St.Roymond

Which shows, once again, that you do not understand TOE.

Sigh,

just because I see things from a different perspective?

No, because you make false claims about TOE. First you say it excludes God, then you want it to include God, but both of those get both science and theology wrong. Science, including TOE, along with most human endeavors, is just neutral to God.

@RichardG

So what. There are almost certainly an equal number who see my viewpoint. It’s just that you refuse to see it as valid. IOW You are trying to dictate how TOE must be viewed.

All I and others are doing here is stating the definitions of things, specifically TOE, in order to provide clear thinking. The one trying to dictate is you because you keep trying to entangle things that aren’t connected. Or to put it another way, you’re trying to make a connection where one doesn’t belong: as I have related repeatedly, there have been atheists and agnostics who saw in evolution that there must be a Designer, something that wouldn’t be possible if TOE excluded God, which is the connection you keep trying to make.
The vast majority of Christians don’t see that evolution excludes God, and a large portion look at TOE and see God’s glory, and when they hear atheists making the case you support they laugh – and rightly so.

@RichardG

TOE is the specific name for the scientific viewpoint, where God is unknown.

That’s the only possible scientific viewpoint regardless of whether it’s biology, geology, cosmology, or any other branch – or for that matter, it’s the only possible viewpoint for baking, repairing a car engine, designing an irrigation system, or balancing a checking account.

Your approach is as though Paul arrived at Athens and demanded that the Greeks chisel out the names of all their gods and put “YHWH” in those places rather than noting the altar “To an Unknown God” and explaining Who that God is. TOE is like that altar because it leaves God unknown – and the solution isn’t to reject that altar but to use it as a starting point.
All you do by insisting that TOE excludes God is to aid the atheists.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

@St.Roymond

present tense because “in Him all things hold together”.

@mitchellmckain

I can only say I don’t believe in that junk which I see no evidence to believe in whatsoever.

This is decent evidence:

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1:3

It’s not an earthbound analogy about the standalone work of a craftsman, and it also fits nicely with the suggestion that QM might be hinting that the fundamental reality of the universe is information – if God ‘should cease to exist’ (a blasphemous suggestion!) and all information with him, so does creation.

[St.Roymond]

@mitchellmckain

Your distinction looks completely meaningless to me, rendering such words as “creation” and “apart” completely without meaning.

I’ll remind you that it’s a distinction the Apostle made – “apart” (or “without”) was the inspired writer’s word choice.

@mitchellmckain

I can only say I don’t believe in that junk which I see no evidence to believe in whatsoever.

You don’t count the scriptures as “evidence”?

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@St.Roymond

I’ll remind you that it’s a distinction the Apostle made – “apart” (or “without”) was the inspired writer’s word choice.

Different language. I like Aristotle. But it doesn’t mean I will use His language for things. I think modern science frequently provides a better language for ideas which are similar enough.

Equating “apart from God” to “without God” renders the distinction meaningless. The point is that God like a carpenter can make things that stand on their own and not have to hold them up because He doesn’t know how to make them properly. I think that is a misunderstanding of Hebrews 1:3. Sure God is involved in events aligning things to His purpose but no I don’t think it means they have no existence of their own like a dream which disappears when the dreamer shifts his attention elsewhere.

@St.Roymond

You don’t count the scriptures as “evidence”?

I don’t count your rewriting or interpretation of scripture as evidence, no.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

@mitchellmckain

I like Aristotle. But it doesn’t mean I will use His language for things.

Autofill and autocorrect are my worst enemas? And whom are we deifying?

@mitchellmckain

@St.Roymond

You don’t count the scriptures as “evidence”?

I don’t count your rewriting or interpretation of scripture as evidence, no.

Who was rewriting?:

@Dale

This is decent evidence:

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1:3

It’s not an earthbound analogy about the standalone work of a craftsman, and it also fits nicely with the suggestion that QM might be hinting that the fundamental reality of the universe is information – if God ‘should cease to exist’ (a blasphemous suggestion!) and all information with him, so does creation.

[St.Roymond]

@mitchellmckain

The point is that God like a carpenter can make things that stand on their own and not have to hold them up

But that’s not what God does, according to the scriptures: the Apostle plainly wrote that God does in fact “hold them up” – that’s the actual wording.

@mitchellmckain

not have to hold them up because He doesn’t know how to make them properly

That’s a strange view imported from outside scripture. Just because God upholds all things doesn’t mean that “He doesn’t know how to make them properly”.

@Dale

@mitchellmckain

I like Aristotle. But it doesn’t mean I will use His language for things.

Autofill and autocorrect are my worst enemas?

Besides the fact that John and Paul’s (and Apollo’s?) language has the imprimatur of the Holy Spirit.

[St.Roymond]

@Dale

This is decent evidence:

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1:3

It’s not an earthbound analogy about the standalone work of a craftsman, and it also fits nicely with the suggestion that QM might be hinting that the fundamental reality of the universe is information – if God ‘should cease to exist’ (a blasphemous suggestion!) and all information with him, so does creation.

Add Colossians, “… in Him all things hold together”.

It’s just a logical extension of the great “I AM” that relegates everything else to dependence in the old sense of Latin dependere, to hang from. In terms of reality as information, that information would be thoughts in God’s mind, and if God stopped thinking any bit of that information, the corresponding bit of Creation would cease to exist. We, and everything else, are utterly contingent beings, relying on God’s active will for every moment of existence.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

“The Ground of all Being” does not quite sound like an incompetent carpenter.

[St.Roymond]

@Dale

“The Ground of all Being” does not quite sound like an incompetent carpenter.

It sounds more like the master breaker in an electrical panel.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

I need to explain a few things to you about where circuit breakers are in electrical distribution, even in isolated power systems in surgical suites.

[St.Roymond]

@Dale

I need to explain a few things to you about where circuit breakers are in electrical distribution

When I worked at the county fairgrounds as a teen, getting the grounds ready for the fair and keeping things running during it, the master breaker in the main building could only be touched while standing on a 2" thick rubber mat on top of a wooden pallet on top of another 2" rubber mat, using a 3’ long wooden pole.

We joked that the ground for that must be “the ground of all being”.

Of course there were also jokes dependent on the similarity in sound between “master-breaker” and another word.

[My fourth summer working there an electrician was brought in to update the entire electrical system, and he told us we should have been using a 4’ pole if we’d ever had to pop that breaker during the actual fair, given the amperage running through it.]

[kocheesh (Tom Kocsis)]

Hi Roger,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for your question. I’ve been reading this thread since you posted your question and initially started writing a long response but instead will be very brief and hopefully have more discussion later.

You are asking a very crucial question and one the demands a satisfactory answer. God, in His revealed word, the Bible, does provide an answer to this question. God, the Creator, has revealed His character clearly in His word as well as His authority, plan and purpose over all things including sin. For in-depth Biblical teaching on your questions I would point you to the messages below that were given by pastor and Bible teacher John MacArthur.

Blessings,
Tom

The Origin of Evil:

The Origin of Evil

The Problem of Evil:

The Problem of Evil

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@St.Roymond

But that’s not what God does, according to the scriptures: the Apostle plainly wrote that God does in fact “hold them up” – that’s the actual wording.

No it is not. The actual wording is φέρων which means “brought.”

I reject your interpretation twisting the words in one passage which is really about how Jesus is greater than the angels and certainly not about explaining God’s relationship to His creation.

If God’s creations cannot even exist on their own then it is not a creation at all. It is exactly like a carpenter who has to hold up a table because it cannot stand on its own. It is incompetence in a creator. It is not even what I can do. It is NOTHING. It is what a child does when he dreams. I am not impressed. Such a ridiculous god does not interest me in the slightest. Atheism is preferable.

Frankly I think this is the invention of religionists to exaggerate their own importance, and to make nothing of the work of scientists who are the ones really listening to what God is saying in the earth and sky. It certainly doesn’t make God great. In my eyes is makes God nothing at all.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

TOE is the specific name for the scientific viewpoint, where God is unknown.

That’s the only possible scientific viewpoint

So why are you not acknowledging it? You claim to be a scientist?

@St.Roymond

definitions of things, specifically TOE,

Yes. Not evolution. TOE,The scientific explanation that you keep extolling.

@St.Roymond

then you want it to include God,

No, not in TOE! FCOL what is wrong with you?

@St.Roymond

Science, including TOE, along with most human endeavors, is just neutral to God.

Correct. But, that is not what the atheist sees. The Atheist sees an explanation that does not include God and there fore concludes that God is not needed.
If TOE works then God is not needed. That is what Dawkins (et al) claim. They do not care whether they are mixing science with Theology. It is not a crime.

@St.Roymond

All you do by insisting that TOE excludes God is to aid the atheists.

No, they know it already. But as you cannot see it you are not helping God at all.

It is not what you think you say that matters, it is what people hear.

If people hear you defending and promoting TOE they hear you say that God is not needed.

@St.Roymond

Your approach is

No, that is a false analogy. All it shows is your misconception of what I am saying. It might illustrate what you are saying, bit that is not how you are trying to use it. (stick to science)

@St.Roymond

you’re trying to make a connection where one doesn’t belong:

And that is the crux here. You refuse to believe that Theology and science have any connection.
You understand negative space? Well science is the equivalent of negative space in theology. It still affect everything and still has to be taken into account.

Richard

[St.Roymond]

@mitchellmckain

No it is not. The actual wording is φέρων which means “brought.”

φέρων is a participle and does not mean “brought”; it would have to be “bringing”, which makes no sense in the context – “bringing all things”?

φέρω is the actual verb, and it indicates “to bear, carry”, as in bearing a burden or carrying a load, or “bear/bring forth”.

@mitchellmckain

I reject your interpretation twisting the words in one passage which is really about how Jesus is greater than the angels and certainly not about explaining God’s relationship to His creation.

This is a common mistake: setting aside a plain clause by appealing to the overall statement. It’s a sort of reverse cherry-picking, a way to ignore unwanted points.

Verse 3 is a subclause of a statement about who the Son is that begins in 2b and continues through the end of 3. φέρων links back to ὃν, οὗ, and ὃς of the preceding subclauses and in that context is not about the relationship between Jesus and angels but about Who the Son is.

@mitchellmckain

If God’s creations cannot even exist on their own then it is not a creation at all. It is exactly like a carpenter who has to hold up a table because it cannot stand on its own. It is incompetence in a creator.

Reducing God to human limitations is always dangerous.
In the context of ancient thought, it would be more accurate to say that if God’s creations could exist on their own then they would themselves be gods because they would no longer be contingent but self-existent.

I don’t know where your prejudice on this comes from, but it is a flaw that makes you ignore the glory of God as continuous Creator Who holds all things together, maintaining them in existence. It reduces God to being nothing but a super-man with human limitations. It results in you forcing human definitions onto the scriptures rather than hearing the message the Spirit put into those scriptures.
When you make something it is not dependent on your constant attention because you are not a creator, only a shaper – when you can command things into existence by giving an order, then the comparison between you and God could be valid, but as it is you are making a category error because you are using things you did not create whereas God is calling into existence things which did not exist. It is certainly not anything like what a dreaming child does because the child can only dream of things he has not created because God is the Creator.

Saying that God should make things which would then not depend on Him for existence is just deism warmed over – at best. It is also a denial of the apostle’s declaration that in Christ all things hold together, which tells us that if He stopped holding them they would cease to exist – really the same point the writer to the Hebrews makes, and is also made elsewhere by John.

@mitchellmckain

Frankly I think this is the invention of religionists to exaggerate their own importance,

There’s that prejudice of yours showing again. What did someone do to you that you warp everything through this filter about religious oppression?
If it’s an “invention”, its an invention of the Holy Spirit since it is a theme than shows up in at least four different writers/sources.

@mitchellmckain

to make nothing of the work of scientists who are the ones really listening to what God is saying in the earth and sky

How is that even possible? All that scientist do is tell us what God is up to, and they can only do that because of the foundation that the scriptures describe, that God is faithful and not whimsical, and thus He runs Creation according to rules He selected. If He didn’t hold everything together it would cease to exist, but He does hold everything together and does so in a dependable manner, thus making science possible.

[St.Roymond]

@RichardG

@St.Roymond

That’s the only possible scientific viewpoint

So why are you not acknowledgin

I just stated it. Why do you refuse to read what people have actually said, instead assigning people to boxes you have invented?

@RichardG

TOE,The scientific explanation that you keep extolling.

I don’t extoll TOE, I just correct errors about it. If it didn’t show God’s glory, I wouldn’t care about it in the least. What I “extoll” is getting things right.

@RichardG

Correct. But, that is not what the atheist sees. The Atheist sees an explanation that does not include God and there fore concludes that God is not needed.

So why do you follow the atheists? Essentially on this board you are declaring that the atheists are right!

@RichardG

If TOE works then God is not needed.

That makes the same error someone else here makes on a distinct topic, basically saying that once God created everything He is no longer needed. It’s a serious error in either case!

@RichardG

If people hear you defending and promoting TOE they hear you say that God is not needed.

No, that’s what you hear. It’s really the same position that YECists hold. Both you and they seem to think that the atheists are correct.

Besides which, I haven’t defended or promoted TOE – you’re confusing insisting that you get it right when you talk about something with affirming that something. I also energetically correct people who get things wrong about Marx, and about Aristotle, but I am neither a Marxist nor an Aristotelian, I just think that if people are going to talk about something they should understand it correctly first.

@RichardG

All it shows is your misconception of what I am saying. It might illustrate what you are saying, bit that is not how you are trying to use it.

Sorry, but you’re the one who keeps insisting that we have to put God into evolution or else we’re saying God doesn’t exist. What I and others keep trying to get across to you is that there is no need to put God into evolution because science can’t exclude Him.

@RichardG

And that is the crux here. You refuse to believe that Theology and science have any connection.

That’s your issue – you insist on mixing the two rather than applying clear thinking. It;s the exact same thing the YECists do, requiring theology to need science and mutilating science by inserting theology, and thus ending up with some mix that ruins both.

The difference is like saying that fuel and cars are connected and using that to insist on pouring gasoline all over the entire vehicle including the seats and the steering wheel versus insisting that fuel goes in the gas tank. The first is what you’re doing while the second is what people are trying to explain to you.