Speak for yourself.
Itis not an ontological truth that God does not guide events on earth (sometimes). Show me the evidence that God did not steer evolution. Don’t try to argue that because evolution could have unfolded with out God, then it must have. I could have had Italian for dinner, yet here I sit eating a taco. When I finish this taco, there will be a receipt in my wallet with the word Taco written on it. That is evidence. What evidence do you have that God did not steer evolution from time to time to bring about the world that we see around us? If you have no evidence then P2 is a faith statement.
It seems like you think God is pretty helpless when it comes to genetics…
Intelligent Design proponents don’t seem to have ANY of the problems that you seem to have … maybe you should go argue with them? Because you don’t seem to have less comprehension of the BioLogos points than Intelligent Design folks. …
Correct. I notice no one has yet presented any evidence contrary to my observation.
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The point of the Luke passage is not to “prove Genesis true” or “just about lineage.” Luke has a specific point to make that is missed when it’s just about “reading it literally.”
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My wife planted a garden. She had a purpose than transcended the natural processes through which the garden grew. So…are you arguing that the garden was not grown through natural processes?
Joe, have you read today’s column on a “third way” approach to the binary front-loading/non-interventionist vs occasional miraculous intervention views when it comes to God and natural laws? What do you think?
_Here natural selection is at work, favoring those phenotypes with greater fitness in the competition for finite resources in changing environments. - See more at: http://biologos.org/blogs/jim-stump-faith-and-science-seeking-understanding/miracles-and-science-a-third-way-part-2#sthash.2bvnUTIV.dpuf_
It says that Natural Selection favors those phenotypes who are able to best use the resources of a changing environment. If NS favors some phenotypes over others according to specific criteria as indicated here, then NS and evolution itself is NOT a random, purposeless process as is often claimed. It is very deliberate.
Now it seems to me that the most important aspect of this sentence is changing environment. This is the changing variable that gives NS and evolution its meaning and direction. Of course also it is God Who gives nature its form and direction, so God guides evolution through ecology.
Perhaps this is God’s SMALLEST miracle?
2Ki 6:5-6
But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed.
And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim [float].
God can divide and collide entire continents … and you think he would hesitate to trigger a mutation in a single gene in a single chromosome?
Just more evidence “that it takes all kinds”…
Because evolution says that life happened in a way that is completely contradictory to the way the Bible says it happened.
No, evolution does not tell us how life began… Evolution simply provides a biological mechanism for how organisms change their phenotype. Evolution says nothing, zero, zip, nada about the origin of life.
evolution says that the unfolding of life was a completely natural process. If purely natural processes are capable of bringing forth all life, then God is obviously not in the process at all.
First of all, science can point to no ‘natural process’ by which life can be brought forth. Second, you seem to be claiming that the existence of natural processes is antithetical to the existence of God? If so, explain?
So, what does the author of the first creation story say about life and natural processes? Quite a bit, actually. Let me point you to a much overlooked couple of verses in Genesis 1, verses 11 and 12. English translations tend to gloss over what is obvious in the Hebrew of these verses. Here’s the RSV’s translation (abbreviated):
(11) And God said, “Let the earth put forth … fruit trees bearing fruit …” And it was so.
(12) And the earth brought forth … trees bearing fruit… And God saw that it was good.
The RSV gets it almost right. Except the word ‘bearing’ as in “being present” or “being carried” is misleading. The verb the RSV translates as ‘bearing’ is oseh which in this form is better translated as ‘creating’, ‘making’ or ‘forming’. Let’s substitute ‘making’ for ‘bearing’ and see what we get.
In verse 11, God instructs the earth (nature) to produce “trees of fruit making fruit”. In verse 12 we read that the earth failed to do so. Rather, it brought forth “trees making fruit”. See the difference? God asked for trees that would, in effect, make fruit continously. The earth could not comply and produced trees that only produced fruit periodically (vis, in season). After Rashi (and others) noted this discrepancy in the 14th century, scholars have been spilling oceans of ink trying to explain it.
What’s important here is that the Genesis author was, as is so often the case in these two creation stories, advancing the radical idea that nature is inert. Nature has no will. It is limited by the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology - principles created by God and instantiated at the moment of creation.
One final note: it may well be that the scientific principles that constrained the earth was, in fact, the operation of evolution. But, that’s not what the purpose of the narrative is. If I were a concordist I think I could make a case for evolution from these two verses AND the observation that God feels it necessary to judge each creation day as if its outcome was not certain.
But, I’m not a concordist. Instead, we readers are to learn and accept that nature does not have a will. It can only do what the laws of nature, created and given by God, dictate. By contrast, we are willful (as we learn in the second creation story) and can choose paths that are counter to the ones nature (or God) would have us walk.
Blessings,
Michael
P.S. A more extensive commentary can be read here.
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Hi Joe,
Hope all is going well with you and yours. Sorry I couldn’t respond any earlier; it has been a busy week. I do appreciate your “thinking out loud” and your desire to clarify agreement and disagreement as much as possible.
I don’t think we disagree on whether purpose is inherent to physical processes. Purpose arises from outside natural systems–from the will of their Creator who providentially sustains them. In light of quantum physics, I’m not sure I agree with your take on 100% determinism, but that is a topic that we should probably leave to another day and another thread.
I share Eddie’s perspective on the relationship of purpose and evolution:
I mostly agree with what you stated here, Joe:
I would frame the point somewhat differently. My foundation is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Because He has captured my imagination, I then see His design everywhere else–in the stars, in human history, in the nature of living organisms.
Where we differ, I suspect, is in your view that the necessity of intelligent agency is a property of biological life that can be observed unequivocally by a religiously neutral observer. You seem to regard this point as a bulwark against the claims of atheists like Dawkins, Provine, and Dennett. I respectfully disagree. My view is that our bulwark is God’s dealing with us and our forebears throughout history, in both ancient times and modern, and most especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. If we instead rely on scientific observation to provide the foundation for our faith, we run the risk that the supposedly strong fortress of “irreducible complexity” will get blown up by observations of the emergence of nylonase from a frameshift mutation, or the emergence of citrate metabolism in a Michigan State lab, or the like. Scientists are very curious and resourceful folk; tell them that something like the emergence of a flagellum is impossible by a genetic/biological process, and they will work long and hard to show you are wrong.
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Chris gives a great response above … and to go along with that, read 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 which I believe shows the spirit of these thoughts:
And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. [NASB]
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You raise several issues at once here, Nick. So I have a few questions for you and a few points of clarification:
Questions:
- Do you believe that God Created Adam as the first man and Eve as the first woman?
- Do you see evidence of God in the night sky?
- If you do see evidence of God in the night sky, do you also see evidence of God in the information and the technology of life? If so, why, and if not, why not?
Clarifications:
- You have no disagreement from me that the Bible does not contradict active guidance. Indeed, the Bible makes it very plain and very clear that God has, in fact, actively intervened in His Creation to make man in His image. That’s kind of a big point I am making, Nick!
- I find it hilarious that you accuse me of making a straw man argument and just a few short sentences later, you characterize my position in the following manner:
" ID is not a magic formula for the conversion of the unwilling. If someone refuses to see the evidence of God in the night sky, then they will refuse to see the evidence for God in your arguments for frontloaded genetic thingamabobs," and:
“You have not addressed how you are contradicting God’s plan by trying to create an irrefutable argument for the existence of God.”
for now I will merely point out that I have never laid claim to “an irrefutable argument for the existence of God.” Nonetheless, two things remain true here: the information and technology of life are indeed powerful evidence for the necessity of a Creator of life. Once that much is established, we can follow a logical path to a reasonable conclusion concerning the identity of that Creator. Second, a naturalistic narrative concerning the origin and evolution of life being a necessary cornerstone for the atheist worldview, does, inevitably turn believers into atheists, especially inasmuch as such a narrative stands in stark contrast to the claims of the Bible. Meanwhile, ID - without having to lay claim to any sort of “magic formula” does indeed bring unbelievers face to face with the reality that they have been Created.
Front loaded genetic thingamabobs? Really? Good job, Nick!
I’d like to raise just one. Any thoughts on rain? Do you not see how identifying rain as a natural process pens the door wide for believers to become atheists? Isn’t “Intelligent Precipitation” superior to the idea that rain just somehow forms by itself in the air and falls to the ground in a completely unintelligent way?
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No, I do not.
Yep.
Yep. But I’m not going to be perturbed if atheistic evolutionists wake up tomorrow and come up with a plausible explanation for the cambrian explosion, or if they come up with a reasonable theory for the evolution of irreducibly complex watchumaycallem’s. This is because I am able to take on faith the fact that God directed evolution to conform to his plan. Will some other people look at the facts and refuse to take on faith that God directed evolution? Sure, but guess what? That too is part of God’s plan, because part of God’s plan is for us to have free will.
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Hi Casper. Thanks for the quiz! And true to my nature, I see these questions as much larger than simple yes/no questions. I will treat them accordingly and do my best to satisfy:
A. Here’s what I will say: embryonic development is an amazing example of precise programming in four dimensions. Therefore, what I am certain of is that embryonic development manifests clear evidence of an intelligent agent behind the process. So this much I do know: purely natural processes, in and of themselves, are not capable of creating such programming. Programming of this incredible level, sophistication, and precision can only be the product of intelligent agency.
Looks like my answer then is NO. Therefore, on to questions D and E
D. Unlike purely natural processes, embryonic development follows a clear logic gate sequence where wise choices must be made at a myriad of decision nodes in order to arrive at a targeted result. Such a process is purposeful, intentional, planned. Such a process manifests clear choice contingency. It is clearly the process of a Creator.
E. I don’t know. I lay no claim of knowledge concerning exactly how He Creates. I only claim that the evidence for a Creator is crystal clear.
Not really. I do not believe that (a) is a valid theory. I don’t even think its scientific, quite frankly. What I do believe is that when we teach that life is the result of purely natural processes; when we affirm the notion that evidence for a Creator cannot be found in living organisms, then we logically open the door for believers to become unbelievers.
Thanks for asking!