Just found BioLogos and have questions

Faith & Science Conversation
21

Welcome to the forum Raphael. I just read the thread of comments responding to your post. We have an engaging group, and I appreciate the thoughtful comments. I also really appreciate your going to scripture for context supporting your questions. Thank you for recognizing that God gives us the “Faith Gift” through the work of His Holy Spirit.

On another secular forum, skeptics accuse God of being dishonest if He creates things like the Earth or Adam & Eve with the “appearance” of age. The caveat is that line of logic leads to conclusions, as you voiced, like, “So the size of the universe and the stars were in my understanding stretched out rapidly and thus creating the appearance of size and age.” Nobel-level scientists like Max Planck, Albert Einstein, James Maxwell, and many others laid solid scientific foundations and evidential proofs supporting the Quantum Field Theory in extensive use worldwide today. God does not need to use appearances with smoke and mirrors to make us think His creation is what we want to see. John 1: 1-3
explains His creation clearly. It turns out that Genesis is the only “eyewitness” account of creation by the Creator himself. Please hear me out.
First, the best scientific explanation of our universal beginning is the universe expanded from an Initial Singularity as the Planck epoch, commonly called the Big Bang. The timeframe calculates back to the second picosecond of Minkowski Spacetime. However, John 1: 1-3 explains that the Creator spoke the initial singularity into place ex nihilo (out of nothing -physical) in that first picosecond from eternity. The Planck epoch occurred 13.8 billion years ago, as confirmed by the cosmic microwave background redshifted to our deepest space view.
Second, the Planck epoch creation event was about ten billion years before the Milky Way and our planetary system. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross points out that the building materials and rare minerals required to make Earth and support human life required the residue of three generations of neutron stars.
Third, our universal electromagnetic field with photons and companion fields like the electron and Higgs fields provide the operating system for Standard Model Elemental Particles used to de novo (new beginnings - Genesis) create the physical Universe. Biblically creation events are listed in Genesis and spoken into their initial form by the Word of God. From an evolutionary standpoint, I think the initial creation process possibly worked directly by the Creators’ instructions exciting the electromagnetic field to assemble physical products. It could have been like Jesus speaking to the sea of Galilee to “be still,” and the sea obeyed. However, once the initial creation was in place, I think evolutionary processes were placed in Nature to develop and maintain the creation from season to season and across the ages. All creation declares the glory of God, and it all shows His handiwork which is still under His careful management for His glory and His purposes.

So, there is no need for appearances regarding scientific findings or scriptural texts. But, yes, it takes faith to believe God delivered the Initial Singularity, the Planck Epoch, the Quantum Fields, the Standard Model Elemental Particles, and all the related “stuff.” He created the laws and principles we discovered as science and used them to make His creation. However, without faith, it is impossible to please God.

I encourage you to look again at "palemalocologist David Campell’s comments. I think what he said sheds a lot of light on your questions. Blessings!

1 Like
22

Thanks for taking the time to put your comments down for me.
My reply at this point is somewhat bitty but I just want touch on some of the earlier replies.
I do not cope well with all the mathematical principles you have described. The biological world is my area. Much of the information about genes and DNA is understandable to me. The initial discussion about “junk DNA” that Francis Collins mentioned was shown a few years later to be wrong. All of the very long molecules of DNA have functions. Even the external similarities of chimpanzee and human DNA are shown to in fact be very different. Man has a moral and ethical “constant” that does not occur in the nearest of the animals.
I will have to read more of the astronomical ideas and how the exact point of the “big bang” was defined. The concept of “ex nihilio” persists, God was there before that in the Trinity we know about.
The books of the Bible do have different forms but Genesis is in my mind a historical one. At which point in the book is the division from story to history?
Basil’s writing on the Hexameron fascinates me being such an early writing but is somehow very scientific. I need to read it again. Actually the reading of Francis Collins book has forced me to re-examine many subjects that I have left dormant for many years.
I will let it rest there.

23

I am an Orthodox Christian and was born and raised in the EOC tradition - however, when a student I became very critical of the EOC hierarchy, their involvement in politics and various other activities. I looked into the Protestant evangelical organizations and became impressed with their emphasis on the bible, and saw a similarity with their “born again” preaching, which seems to me to be a form of theosis taught by EOC.

Nowadays I am convinced that the EOC tradition is the closest to the original Church teachings and practices, but I remain critical of various leaders who are more political than priests (the situation of Russia and Ukraine is a tragic example). The views on science and faith vary in EOC, but overall there has been a willingness to consider scientific insights as additional knowledge and adding to our theological understanding. I can give Gregory of Nyssen as an example (the creation of man) where he considered in detail the understanding of his time - while it was consistent with the outlooks of the Greco Roman philosophies and sciences of the time, he clearly accepted erroneous ideas (which were not biblical). This does not diminish his theological understanding, but it provides an example of how science can be wrong and thus we should examine all things, motivated by a desire for truth, and not be caught up in debates and squabbles.

Regarding Genesis, I have always regarded the creation account as theology that reflects the understanding of Israel at that time, and the way they expressed this in the writings. This means that I believe every word written, and this in no way is in conflict with the current insights provided by the physical sciences.

2 Likes
24

He had no choice in the matter whatsoever. What works - the laws of physics - is prevenient of Him. They work in theory, first, even QM and relativity, and reality, as an afterthought. He instantiated nature, if anything.

25

I am glad to find someone of a like mind here. Have you read the Hexaemeron of St Basil?

26

Hello Raphael,

Welcome to the Forum! You are among friends here.

Thanks for sharing your faith journey. The Orthodox Church has preserved many valuable spiritual insights that can benefit every Christian. Of course, our friend George (@GJDS) is right to point out that the Orthodox Church is not without faults and can learn from other traditions.

According to Joshua @Swamidass , a Christian and professor of biology at Washington U Saint Louis: The science of evolution, on the one hand, and a faith affirmation of the miraculous creation of Adam and Eve some 7000 years ago, on the other, need not contradict one another. The key concept is that Adam and Eve are genealogically the ancestors of all humans today, but they are not the exclusive genetic ancestors. I refer you to his book, Genealogical Adam and Eve, for the details.

Since you have scientific training, I am sure that you value accuracy in discussing scientific research. Unfortunately, you seem to have accepted explanations of the ENCODE project which are not, shall we say, fully baked.

Your understanding of the ENCODE research and the actual implications of the research (and, indeed, the overall genetics literature in the past decade) are not well aligned.

I refer you to Palazzo and Gregory’s fine PLOS Genetics paper (2014):

a human genome contains eight times more DNA than that of a pufferfish but is 40 times smaller than that of a lungfish. Third, organisms that have very large genomes are not few in number or outliers—for example, of the >200 salamander genomes analyzed thus far, all are between four and 35 times larger than the human genome [18]. Fourth, even closely related species with very similar biological properties and the same ploidy level can differ significantly in genome size.

They also state:

The domestic onion, Allium cepa , is a diploid plant (2n = 16) with a haploid genome size of roughly 16 billion base pairs (16 Gbp), or about five times larger than humans. Although any number of species with large genomes could be chosen for such a comparison, the onion test simply asks: if most eukaryotic DNA is functional at the organism level, be it for gene regulation, protection against mutations, maintenance of chromosome structure, or any other such role, then why does an onion require five times more of it than a human? Importantly, the comparison is not restricted to onions versus humans. It could as easily be between pufferfish and lungfish, which differ by ∼350-fold, or members of the genus Allium , which have more than a 4-fold range in genome size that is not the result of polyploidy [21].

In summary, the notion that the majority of eukaryotic noncoding DNA is functional is very difficult to reconcile with the massive diversity in genome size observed among species, including among some closely related taxa. The onion test is merely a restatement of this issue, which has been well known to genome biologists for many decades [18].

The widespread misunderstanding of the ENCODE research arises from the fact that some members of the ENCODE team used a confusing definition of “function.” For them, any biochemical activity at all (typically transcription) was deemed to be function, even if transcription products were not used downstream. This is not how you define function, or even how all but a tiny minority of biologists define function, but it was how editorializing members of the ENCODE project defined it. Under a more typical definition of function, the claim of 80% function in human DNA is completely unsupported.

I refer you to the article I linked for your further edification, if you are interested in the details.

Grace and peace,
Chris Falter

4 Likes
27

Hello Chris, Your response has just blown me over with the in depth complexity of your reply. Puffer fish, onions and salamanders in one breath! Although you quote! I make no claim to be an expert on the subject, far from it. As I said I have a greater affinity to the biological sciences than the mathematical and astronomical ones.
I do not necessarily fully agree with ENCODE about DNA but simple logic seems to point in the direction of there being function and use in the very long DNA molecules and not just the ends, and it appears that since Francis Collins’ book was written much more has been found out about DNA.
Since I put my note into this forum I have spent many hours reading and listening to opinions across the board. It has been a reawakening for me in a way as I had put the subject on a back burner as I have been discovering the endless amount of Orthodox material that I feel I need to cover and attempt to understand. All the time my personal spiritual growth and the development of my “nous” has been my primary goal for a number of years rather than my knowledge of science and creation. This is the very big difference between Eastern and Western theology.
The different opinions and answers given to me are fascinating and I am very appreciative of the time and effort taken to answer and reach out to me.
I have just read a few of the reviews on Joshua Swamidass’ book and it looks as if I must read it. In fact a number of books have fallen into that category for me now.
Life is always a journey of exploration if it is to be of value.
Sincerely, Raphael

28

Excellent on ENCODE Chris, but why mention Swamidass’ pseudoscience?

29

I have tried to read as much of the Patristic writings as I am able, and I think that there is more and more to read. I think I went through the Hexaemeron many years ago, and you have given me a good reason to read it now.

1 Like
30

Why? Why should we require genetics from Adam and Eve? Did we require genetics from the second Adam? Where does this obsession with genetics come from? It is not in the Bible.

AND it doesn’t fit the scientific evidence, since human migrations over the world took place earlier than this. Furthermore the application of genetic comparisons to find the most recent common ancestor between populations does not agree that all groups have a common ancestor which is so recent. But even if it were possible to somehow make this agree with the evidence, why we would even think this would be of any theological importance? Can we only get a relationship with God through our genetics? What is going on with this?

In general, this kind of thinking causes people to push back the time of Adam and Eve 100,000 years or more to fit their obsession with genetics. This is something which I have frequently objected to because it greatly reduces their historical significance. It is more reasonable for me to discard the idea of an historical Adam and Eve altogether. But more than anything I am at a loss to understand the theological obsession with genetics which is driving this.

31

I participated in these discussions some time ago, and if my memory serves, the argument regarding genealogy is partly to refer to biblical genealogies, and also to counter the non-biblical arguments stemming from common ancestor genetics.

32

I don’t understand. How does a genealogy connecting Adam to Noah’s family, one connecting Jesus to David and one connecting Jesus to Adam, require us to connect all of our ancestries to Adam? If genetic descent was so important then wouldn’t Jesus have had children and wouldn’t we be hoping to connect our genealogy to Jesus?

Sin?

Do people think our sin only comes from our biological parents? We don’t imitate the bad habits of adoptive parents? And does the bad habits of biological parents somehow get passed on to us even if we had never even met them? Seems to me that we can imitate the bad habits of anyone we have met and genetic connections are of very little importance.

33

It doesn’t.

Sin is done by us - the EOC does not equate sin with biological descent as far as I know.

34

Oh. I thought you were trying to answer my question about the reason for the obsession with genetics with regards to Adam and Eve.

35

I cannot see a reason for such obsession - initially I thought people were using genetics to address the questions about original sin as passed on biologically (genetics), but the debate became obsessed with A&E as the original couple/ancestors, something about YEC, and eventually I could not follow the debate/arguments.

1 Like
37

As a short aside; in terms of theology where it has been mentioned that of inheriting from Adam and Eve. What I say may seem obvious but that the Eastern Orthodox Churches use the term Ancestral Sin instead of Original Sin, as seen in Western theology, and developed by Augustine, as the source of our sin nature. This does not assume a genetic connection but rather a spiritual one. Sin is not embedded in us but occurs as a result of our fallen nature, the potential to sin that came from Adam. Jesus as fully man had this same potential but did not sin. He had the ability to sin being fully man and if he was unable to sin he would not have been fully man and would not have fulfilled the criteria of required of being our Saviour.
In the same way we become one with Christ, the second Adam in salvation, there is a spiritual connection. Each person is responsible for their own sin and not inheriting any sin from Adam or our ancestors, just the ability to sin and then the consequences. Guilt is not passed down from generation to generation, what is inherited is death, the result of the fall. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:21-22. RSV.) Jesus conquered death by rising from the dead and that inheritance is received by salvation and so we see a huge emphasis on Pascha - the Resurrection of Christ.

2 Likes
38

That is something that orthodox Calvinists would very much agree with!

39

Glad you found my post to be helpful, Raphael. I admire your diligence in working on your nous! Hopefully this scientific reading can be integrated into the spiritual work.

@Klax - The reason I mentioned Genealogical Adam and Eve is that for some Christians, it is important to regard Adam and Eve as genuine historical figures who were miraculously created within the past several thousand years. Those reasons come from a particular hermeneutical approach to Romans 5:12-21 (that not everyone agrees on). Such Christians are inclined to reject science if it leads to a conflict with their hermeneutic. The GAE idea can help such a Christian to accept the science of biology.

GAE is not proposed as science; it is simply a thought experiment to show how the idea of miraculously created, recent Adam and Eve is not formally inconsistent with scientific findings. By definition, every proposed miracle which leaves no scientifically detectable traces is outside the realm of science. A key goal of the GAE book is to show why the miraculous A&E would leave no scientifically detectable traces.

Since the GAE is not proposed as a scientifically tractable proposition, it is inaccurate to classify it as pseudoscience, in my opinion.

Grace and peace

2 Likes
40

Hi Mitchell,

Some Christians think a genetic relationship with Adam and Eve is in fact present in Romans 5:12 - 21. I get that you do not agree with that interpretation of the passage, and I certainly am not here to defend that interpretation. I just want to make sure that anyone who IS inclined to defend that interpretation does not reject the science of biology on that basis.

Does that make sense?

I would agree that the GAE idea is hard to square with an Adam and Eve any later than about 10kya. The folks who push Adam and Eve back to 100kya or even 700kya are trying to promulgate a single ancestral couple, which is not at all the same thing as GAE.

Grace and peace,
Chris

1 Like
41

Noble Chris. But the demographic you’re trying to preserve biology for, must have other biology threatening claymore tripwires? Or is Rom 5.12-21 the only one?