Have a look at the description of the Garden in my paper to see all the symbols mentioned.
Satan is depicted on the garden as the serpent, but that does not mean that Satan is real. God created the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which gave the original humans the freedom to choose.
They has the ability to choose because they had minds which are able to think and choose. They did not need the serpent to know that they could choose to eat the fruit that was forbidden.
Rhetoric is not deception, is not lying.
I question the accuracy of this statement and the logic of your assertion. I am not interested in Satan, only in God. Satan is evil.
Roger, you and I differ slightly on how evolution operates, but mainly we differ on what constitutes Sin and Evil. If you believe at all in evolution, you must admit (as Darwin did) that it produced a wondrous variety of animal lifeâwondrous but amoral. God did not create a moral creature until recently (~50,000 yrs ago) when he gifted existent Homo sapiens with a Mind and Conscience. To that extent, God created the possibility of Sin, not the necessity of it.
Al Leo
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Incorrect. They certainly could have evolved and the evidence is conclusive that they have evolved. We have inactive DNA for body parts our ancestors had but we do not, like tails. We have lots of other junk DNA that we do not use which is nevertheless the same in as unused junk DNA in chimpanzees. The only thing that makes sense is that we have common ancestors. There is no other reasonable explanation.
DNA has absolutely nothing to do with sin. God could certainly supply the DNA but if wanted a fully human being then he would use the DNA from human beings that was already billions of years in the making.
Frankly you are making Jesus sound like and alien implantation.
I do not think you understand what I am saying. I am not talking about DNA evolving inside an organism, I am talking about something giving rise to DNA or RNA before there was any biological life. You cannot start life without it. All cells require it so the first life that ever appeared had to have it. You cannot have a functioning cell that will live and reproduce without it. Irreducible Complexity works here showing the Divine Creator we have in God.
I do not think Jesus could sin because He was God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Jesus was the Word. Jesus was in the beginning as co-creator. He was perfect and could not sin.
Satan was brought in to give us a choice to choose Him. Without it we have no choice and our love would be empty and not mean anything because we had no other choice. Having a choice matters to God. It is the reason and purpose we have, to choose to love God in everything we do.
Jesus was God, but also human. Humans can sin, and thus Jesus had the freedom to sin. In a real sense we must say that God can sin, because it cannot be true that God cannot so something that humans can do.
Please read my essay on God and Freedom posted on Academia.edu if you want to discuss this further.
We seem to have a philosophical problem. Darwin believed that God did not design the universe because hew came to the conclusion that the universe was amoral or even immoral. On the other hand God said that that universe which was created in part by evolution was âgood,â not wondrous, amoral.
Wi8th all due respect I accept Godâs word over Darwinâs. Also as I have pointed out John 1 points out that everything in the universe was created by Godâs Word, Jesus Christ the Logos, Who is Not amoral, but most moral. Therefore theologically the Bible says that human beings as moral beings were created by a moral, good process.
As you know my research indicates Darwinâs Theory of Natural Selection is based on a myth, the myth of Survival of the Fittest. See mu book, Darwinâs Myth for the details. Evolution is not based on conflict or sin. Evolution is based on harmony or order.
Humans are moral beings because they can make moral or immoral decisions. I think that they are also moral beings because they are created or designed to be good or moral. The universe is moral in this important sense. It benefits those who live right. All things work for good for those who love God.
Incorrect. DNA and RNA is simply an information storage mechanism. You can and do have life without it. But to be sure this was a very important step in the development of life. You are going for a god of the gaps in this idea of yours. But rapid developments in abiogenesis, metabolism first theories, and prebiotic evolution will close these gaps very soon. The cell is not an irreducible unit of life. On contrary, we not only see simpler units in bacteria, fungi, and viruses, but we see evidence that our cells, the eukaryotic cell, developed from the cooperation of these more primitive organisms. There is a continuity between life and non-life in the phenomenon of self-organizing systems.
There is not only no need for a watchmaker designer, but Christianity is better off without it. The old philosophical problem of evil and suffering which has plagued theism from 300 BC with the first observation of Epicurus goes right up in smoke without this conception of a creator which doesnât agree with the evidence. God is not the author of our problems because we are not the robotic creations of a designer. We as living organisms are the product of growth and learning and evolution is just an extension of this same process. Godâs role in this is the same role He has in our lives as Christians, as a participant who guides, pushes, and teaches, not a controller who takes our choices away from us to live our lives for us. We are what we make of ourselves and thus we need to listen to God when He gives warnings and advice.
In the quote above from your recent post, the first two and the last two sentences appear to apply to humankind, the only creatures with a conscience and the only ones that can act morally. In the middle sentence, you state that the âuniverse is moralâ, which to me implies that all the life forms it contains must act morally. This is puzzling to me, since animal life is guided by instinct and does not possess the freedom necessary to make moral choices. A simple example is the behavior of the cuckoo bird that shoves a songbirdâs eggs from the nest and replaces them with her own, which are then reared without any effort required of the âtrueâ motherâa clear benefit for one bird species but a disadvantage to the other.
This behavior is neither moral or immoral. It is simply amoral. Thus I think the important question that needs answering is: âHow did âdescent with modificationâ, the driving force required for Darwinian evolution, ever produce humankind, creatures with a conscience and the freedom to follow it, sometimes overriding their natural instinct?â It seems unlikely that it could arise from some fortuitous (set of) mutations in the Homo sapiens DNA. Unless, of course, God chose to direct the process. In which case this topic makes sense: Jesusâ DNA could have been significantly different than that of the rest of humankind.
From my reading of Darwin, I concluded that he found the Universe to be unbelievably complex and beautifulâand, yes, amoralâthis all the more marvelous because the evidence that it was NOT designedâat least in the manner that a Swiss watchmaker would go about it. Darwin never claimed that the Universe was immoral, but he did maintain, correctly, that it would be a mistake (or at least dangerous) to use evolution as a guide to direct humankindâs moral behavior. Am I flat out wrong in this?
Al Leo
I know Jesus felt the temptation to sin and did not because it would be so repulsive to Him, that He would never have done it, and could not have done it. If He did, He could/would not be who He said He was. So there was no way He was capable of sinning, because if He did He could/would not be the Perfect Lamb. That was the reason why He came. I see why you have your opinion and can see how you came to it, and I appreciate it.
I have seen no credible evidence for any precursors of DNA or RNA. Many studies have been done but lead nowhere. I have never heard of any simple units in bacteria and fungi than DNA or RNA. I am sure I would have heard of it since teaching about it is what I do for a living. Abiogenesis has had the same gaps for a long time and I think their arguments are weak and gaps will never be filled. The things that I am saying are irreducible are DNA and RNA. If you know of evidence of legitimate precursors could you point me to them (I would love to look into it again)? I am not in the bandwagon on viruses being alive since they are missing so many characteristics of life.
Where have you looked? There is an active literature on this topic.
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@Christopher
Yes and it is also pretty clear that RNA is a precursor for DNA. But his response makes it pretty clear that Christopher will find an excuse for rejecting any evidence for what he doesnât want to believe no matter what. The fact is that there is a continuum between life and non-life because there are numerous examples of things which have some of the elements of life but not all of them. His is a gaps argument through and through.
Could you point me to some of the best pieces you know? I would be very interested in looking at it. The searches I have done have not shown me much. I have looked at studies where they tried to fabricate precursors but were unstable and not found in nature. I have not seen anything that is a precursor to RNA. Or even working cells without ribosomes DNA and RNA (excluding RBCs, they live for short time and donât reproduce after their nucleus is taken out.
I am looking for evidence and I asked you to point me to some studies that could convince me and you just tried to make me sound stupid. I thought this was a Christian forum where we could discuss ideas and possibly glean information and insight off each other acting like Christians. Everyone else has been wonderful to talk to except you. You seem to attack people and try to make them feel stupid, that is not acting like a Christian. As a scientist how will I change my view if I am not given evidence to look at. You have yet to tell me anything that I do not already know about. Help me fill in my gaps if you can. I would appreciate it. But you must learn to do it in a loving way if someone is going to listen to you.
By the way science is not something you believe in it is something you observe. Our faith is what we believe in.
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Sure, but donât you think thatâs your responsibility? You wrote that you have seen no credible evidence for precursors, which implies that you have looked. In my opinion, you have a bit of an obligation to perform due diligence, since (as I understand it) you are proposing the extraordinary claim that DNA and RNA poofed into existence without precursors. If you proposed that without looking hard at the evidence, and without considering the full scientific context of your claim (chemical polymers existing without evidence that the monomers could come about too), then your claim isnât scientific. Thatâs not an insult, by the way; this is a forum based on Christianity, which makes lots of perfectly respectable claims that arenât scientific. So, my main response to you is that you canât be convincing or credible, on the topic of the origins of nucleic acids, unless you have carefully read and understood the relevant literature.
Studies of potential prebiotic chemistry do not need, and in fact should not attempt to, show things âfound in nature.â The reason should be obvious: the prebiotic world was very different from the ânatureâ that we know. As for âunstable,â I think you might be missing a lot of interesting recent papers on prebiotic chemistry that specifically try to understand how reactants and intermediates might have interacted, and their potential stability under likely prebiotic conditions.
Iâm confused by that claim. Ribonucleotides are precursors to RNA. Is that what you mean? If so, then you have missed the interesting and ongoing work on prebiotic origins (potential) of ribonucleotides.
This is not relevant to prebiotic chemistry, and should never be used as an argument in any discussion of the topic. I would urge you to think about why that is.
Here are some interesting places to start, but again, this is your responsibility, as the one calling a whole branch of science into question.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nchem.2878
https://www.cell.com/chem/issue?pii=S2451-9294(16)X0012-5
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/E7658.long
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07220-y
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The topic came up in a discussion with my eldest today in relationship to the perishable character of active yeast. One of the most dangerously destructive and chemically active molecules is now 20% of our atmosphere â an example of how much living organisms can alter their environment.
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âThus from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object of which we are capable of conceiving, names the production of higher animals, directly follows.â Origin of Species, p. 459. the last paragraph of the book.
Is war moral? How can humans be moral if we are products of the war of nature against itself? War is not a positive activity, so how can it produce good?
To be sure God did not design and produce species as a watch maker does a watch. God designed and produces a species as a car company does a model of a car. Of course they did not have cars and car makers in the time of Darwin, so we have been left with one example, the model of the watch.
My position is not that Darwin got evolution wrong, because he got much of evolution right. My problems is that those who came after him did not correct those mistakes he made. Science is not supposed to be perfect. .
Survival of the fittest as Darwin and Dawkins teach it is both wrong and immoral. The race does not go the strong, it does to the smart and the good. Flora and fauna are unable to make moral decisions, but they do have instincts that are God given and are good.
Also if humans are a part of nature and a product of evolution, and they are created in the Image of God, then they are good and cannot be created by a process which is not good and not designed by God to be good.