One thing that may help you is to look up biblical concordism versus biblical accommodation.
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Hi BigBallerQueen!
If you want to discuss the reality of evolution, you have come to a good place, where there are a lot of Christians who live harmoniously with evolution and real, biblical Christianity. Can you give more background to help us understand your question. Why do you think the question is worth asking, for example? Is it important to you to find an answer, and if, so, why?
Thanks!
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It’s OK to be on a journey of inquiry, of exploration of ideas, while living your life fitting in with your family, friends, community starting with school. So are you a high school student? Might I ask in which state? You are very open and it’s a hostile world, especially if you challenge those around you. A natural adolescent proclivity. I’d want to spare you conflict, alienation from something that doesn’t matter as much as relationships. Is it safe for you to be curious publicly?
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Some other good options: Siliquariidae, Vermiculariinae, and Vermetidae are all called worm snails, due to their amorphous growth. They are about as closely related as herons and sparrows.
Tornidae and Cornirostridae: frequently, the only way to tell their shells apart is by larval shell morphology (the anatomy is quite different). They are about as closely related as ostriches and sparrows.
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@bigballerqueen. ranch, I am glad that you believe in the Bible, because that is how we learn about Jesus and salvation. However we must remember that if God had to explain evolution to the ancient Hebrews God would have to write a long book which would leave little space for the really important story of salvation as God worked it out over the ages. Besides there was no way they could have understood it.
If God had put in the Bible all the important information that humans might need, we would have an encyclopedia and we would not need any teachers or researchers because all of that work would have been done for us. I believe that God did it right. God gave us the good news of salvation before God gave us modern science, which has been good, but also has given us the horrors of modern warfare.
Evolution and the rest of science allows us to better appreciate the wonders of God’s Creation. Evolution is good as long as you don’t take too seriously the opinions of some evolutionists. Just remember, opinions are opinions, not facts.
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You’re asking some great questions!
Let’s take a careful look at this question: If the Bible does not talk about some aspect of science, should we not believe the science?
Here are some things we would have to stop believing if we can only believe what’s in the Bible:
- The germ theory of disease
- Molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles
- Galaxies and interstellar gas clouds
- Black holes
- The heliocentric solar system
- Gravity as a universal force
- Protozoa, bacteria, and microspores
- Etc., etc., etc.
There is a better way to look at this, and it’s called the doctrine of “The Two Books.” Those books are the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature, both of which help us learn about God.
I just wrote a mini-essay on the Two Books doctrine in another thread. Rather than repeat it, I will simply provide the link so you can read more if you find it interesting:
I accept evolution as I accept other well-established science because I believe in the God who gave us the Book of Nature.
I believe the teachings of Genesis, which show us (among other things) that God created the universe and everything in it, that He has given mankind the role of stewarding His creation, and that we are made to worship Him.
So yes, you can believe in God and accept the science of evolution.
This is a really good point, @Relates. Some scientists think that science is not just a way to acquire truth, as we Christians believe, but it is the only way to acquire truth. Of course we reject this notion because we believe that God revealed His truth in the Scripture and revealed the ultimate truth–Himself–in the Word made flesh, Jesus the Messiah.
I hope you find these thoughts helpful, @bigballerqueen. If you have more thoughts or questions, let’s keep this conversation going!
Blessings,
Chris Falter
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The Bible affirms that God is in control over everything that happens, whether it takes place using natural laws or not. This means that scientific explanations are physical descriptions of how God does things, not alternatives to God. The Bible also describes God as wise and powerful. So He is both smart enough and powerful enough to use or not use evolution, as He sees fit. Thus, evolution is not an alternative to God; claims like “God or evolution” are falling into the error known as the god of the gaps, where God is perceived as only present in things that happen miraculously, and scientific explanations are taking God out of the picture. For example, the silly claims about a photo showing Jesus’ face in the clouds of a hurricane show that He was there and decreased the damage from the hurricane suggest that if Jesus wasn’t there, the storm would have been worse. But the reality is that Jesus is always there.
Another mistake is thinking that evolution is only about animals violently killing each other. On the one hand, it is true that God is at work, even in the events that don’t seem as nice - Psalm 104 speaks of God feeding the lions, and Job tells of our inability to discern God’s goals from just looking at how things are going, for example. But also, evolution includes plenty of cooperation.
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It is utterly irrelevant what the Bible says about God. He doesn’t do things between grounding being and incarnation. His instantiating the prevenient dysteleological laws of nature is Shaddai. Evolution needs no help.
It seems to me that the Bible requires faith but most science only requires simple recognition of patterns in nature. I wouldn’t make nature the test of whether the Bible is true but neither would I make the Bible the test of whether what we observe in nature is true. Can you think of any good reason to make acceptance of either as real dependent on the other?
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We are not talking about the same God then. The God who is is quite capable of intervening providentially, although his interventions are undetectable by science. They are, however, obvious to the eyes of faith because of the meaning infused by their timing and placing. I surmise that as he intervened in the timing and placing of carcinogenic mutations, he also intervenes in evolution to accomplish his purposes, not the least of which is delighting us with beauty and awing us with complexity.
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I think this question is worth asking because I feel like, Christians can’t believe in evolution since the Bible doesn’t talk about evolution. For example, Adam and Eve were the starts of humanity were they not? It is a little important for me to find an answer because it is part of school work. Not only that, I genuinely want to know whether it is real because I tend to get mixed up on if it is real or not.
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And yet Christians talk quite well about cars, planes and number of other things not mentioned in the Bible. Why single out “evolution” for prohibition?
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Thanks for your answer. If you haven’t looked yet, you might consider, exploring the Common Questions section of Biologos’s website (Common Questions on Science and Biblical Faith - BioLogos) where you can find many articles that address some of the concerns you have expressed. Personally, I find a well-organized article more helpful than most discussion groups, because the discussion can quickly fragment into many different areas, and each participant focuses on a different splinter, rather than looking at a conhesive whole. Biologos also has excellent podcasts (see: Language of God) and a Youtube channel with many, many helpful videos. Some of the materials directly address your stated questions, for example about a literal Adam and Eve. I recommend you put your main energies into these resources, rather than the fora.
I am not a scientist (and I don’t play one on TV). But I find the issue of evolution and age of the earth important, because some small groups make claims about what I can/may and cannot/mayn’t believe with respect to those things, AND because of the hermeneutics they insist on. For me the hermeneutics are actually a bigger deal in this matter than the science, which I find interesting, but also overwhelming (there are many, many branches, all with their separate bodies of technical knowledge). Often, when we are confronted with statements about Adam and Eve, for example, the conflict really lies in assumptions about how we handle the text of the Bible, and whether we can actuallly read those texts without bringing our assumptions to them.
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Find a copy of “Finding Darwin’s God” by Kenneth Miller, a Biology professor at Brown University. Dr. Miller is a practicing Roman Catholic. He takes on the militant atheists and Christians that believe in intelligent design and all that. It is a very good book with tons of footnotes. It does a good job showing how there are answers to arguments based on “irreducible complexity” centered on the eye, blood clotting and so on. Read it!
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Evolution is a Scientific FACT.
However that does not change the Truth of Scriptures in the slightest. God created the First Humans with Adam and Eve, they have evolved ever since. God created the first Apes, similar to that of Humans, BUT ARE NOT, they too have evolved ever since.
Here is a True Statement:
Evolution within any given species is a Scientific FACT. People who try to use that FACT to try to explain how all life got on this planet are wrong in their beliefs.
Humans create species of humans.
Cats create species of cats.
Dogs create species of dogs.
Every species can evolve within its own species.
Evolution within any given species can be scientifically proven.
The problem is, when people try to use that FACT as a means to try to explain how all life Got on this planet. That is when the error in thinking begins.
No species has ever created a new, different species, than of itself.
For example. Scientist have extensively experimented with the Fruit fly. altering genes, cross breeding, you name it, they tried it, trying to come up with a NEW species that is NOT a fruit fly. They utterly failed. They are not able to cause anything but fruit flies. They can mutate a thousand genes in that fruit fly and it still ALWAYS produces a type of Fruit fly. NO exceptions. This is because of God’s word, that specifically said “After their kind”
This generation needs to understand the Power of God, If God wanted to create a NEW SPECIES, He merely needs to speak it into existence. He does not need to evolve anything to create it. That is the Power of God.
God could create a full grown Tree (rings and all) by merely speaking it into existence. A Tree that is a second old, but in every way possible appears to be a thousand years old. A Scientist comes along the next day, and cuts down that Tree that is a DAY old, and that Scientist with his methods of aging trees, counts the Rings, and says “This Tree is for a FACT a Thousand One Hundred and Twenty Seven Years old” he knows nothing at all, only thinks he does because of the evidence that he sees with his mortal eyes.
Believe the Word of God and what it teaches, not what Scientist proclaim to think they know.
Those are your FACTs, your Truths, your True Statements. How did you come by them? What happened to you?
And which human, cat, dog species create which species of their ‘kind’? Presumably all of them. There are multiple of each.
Will the tree rings themselves have the appearance of age? Will they reflect 1127 years of experience that didn’t happen? Any scientist who came across a tree with rings that don’t reflect the weather and the climate of the previous 1127 years should get extremely suspicious. Also the instant tree would have had no environmental impact. A scientist would notice that. It would have no insect fauna, no microbes, no mycelium. It would have had no effect on the soil and the larger ecology, on the water table. No squirrels. There are many tree species that can live that long as individuals and not just as clones. Even Great Basin bristlecones of that young age would each have an enormous environmental impact with a millennium of pine needles for a hundred meters and going a metre deep at the centre.
So God would have to lie upon lie upon lie to hide His traces from a scientist.
What’s your Gish Gallop of yeah buts to that?
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Let’s take Chesapecten as an example: in the lowermost part of the Yorktown Formation, one can find C. jeffersonius, an inflated shell with about 10-14 widely spaced, rounded ribs (based on the ones I have sitting around). In the lower-middle part of the same formation, one finds C. septenarius, with about 5-12 widely spaced, squarer ribs and low-ribcount type C. madisonius with 12-16 lower rounded ribs. In the uppermost part of the Yorktown formation, one only finds high-ribcount type C. madisonius with 20-30 lower rounded ribs.
If one considers these to have been gradually deposited (as pretty much anyone studying them does), then that suggests a transition from one species to another. Whether one agrees with the time period suggested is a different matter, and an issue on which I am slightly less familiar (would have to check which dating method was used).
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Yeahbut that proves DD’s point. A clam’s a clam right?