I pretty much agree with everything in your post, George. However, I would suggest that you refine the way you phrase the relationship between God and evolution. The statement “God is part of Evolution” (with a capital ‘E’, no less) sounds rather pantheistic, which I don’t think you intended.
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Hi Joe,
Atheistic philosophers have been claiming for centuries that science rules out the need for God. They based their claims on the sensational advances of astronomy, physics, chemistry, etc. long before Darwin wrote The Origin of Species.
This is why several folks in the discussion have been trying to point you toward a broader view of the relationship between science and theology. The theological questions that the theory of evolution raises are not fundamentally different, in my opinion, from the theological questions posed by predicting weather or understanding quantum physics, to offer just two other scientific disciplines.
If you can accept a providential role for God in a world whose weather and physics can be described by mathematical models, then I think you can get to the point where you accept a providential role for God in the process of evolution.
Does my comment help you to see the direction we’re urging you to try to take?
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While we may accept God’s providence on all matters (after all that is our faith), we need to be skeptical of any notion, be it scientific or otherwise, that seeks to negate God’s providential role - this distinction is especially acute when we discuss actual speculations on how evolution works. It is difficult to argue that weather works specifically in a way that removes God’s providence - in this case people arrive at their own belief. With TOE it is put forward as intrinsically negating God’s providence - if we argue against this, we must also argue against the form of TOE presented to the world. If we do this, evolutionists challenge people to come up with an alternate theory to account for life and bio-species (that would at least NOT remove God, even if it does not argue for a specific role for God).
This point is often overlooked by EC/TEs.
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I would start by explaining that the TOE is not mutually exclusive of the claims of God or of the narrative in Genesis 1, 2 or the story of Noah.
It is not necessary to “prove” the existence of God. It is enough to prove that God can exist. Once this is done, those people who choose to seek God will find him.
Just because the TOE does not need God, that does not mean that God cannot exist if macro evolution brought about the species that we see today. Active Guidance is not disproved if directionless TOE can be proven to be workable. Ice cream does not need chocolate sauce. Proving that ice cream can exist without chocolate sauce does not preclude there being chocolate sauce on my Sundae. I would talk about sprinkles, but I don’t want to get too metaphysical here.
True, if the Christian is allowed to believe that the TOE may be directionless, he may choose to abandon his faith. That is his choice. That is just fine. It is God’s will that he have that choice. We know this from Genesis 2. God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to choose whether or not they would have the knowledge of what is good and what is evil. There was no fence around the trees in the garden. The serpent was allowed to enter the garden and tempt Eve and Adam. When Adam and Eve chose to know the difference between evil and good, they choose to be culpable for their actions. Given that choice, each of us would choose the same. Once we are culpable for our actions and able to make moral choices, we by necessity need to live in a world where moral choices are possible. We by necessity need to live in a world where wrong choices can be made. We by necessity need to live in a world where there are challenges to be overcome through perserverance (a series of right choices). We require the freedom to choose to follow God or not. We require the freedom to believe in God or not. This is all part of God’s plan, as revealed in his book. Specifically in Book 1, chapter 2. The story of the Garden of Eden is not the story of creation. The story of Eden is the story of a garden, where God proved to us that we are responsible for the challenges and unfairness of life, and that God is just and good and fair by providing us with just such a world. This is true even when the most unbearable seeming things happen to people undeserving of such fate, and it is by adopting an eternal perspective and faith in God’s perfect outcome that we gain the ability to weather those tragedies.
So, your goal is well intentioned, but it is not God’s will. It is not God’s will that you create a formula using ID that will make it impossible for someone to reject belief in God. it is God’s will that we have the freedom to reject him or not. Someday every knee will bow and every tongue confess, but not right now.
Contained within the Bible, there is the truth of the universe. Unfortunately, we are sometimes not able to interpret correctly what we are reading in the Bible, and therefore we make mistakes. This is not because the Bible is fallible, this is because we are fallible. The traditional interpretation of the first two books of Genesis is incorrect. Again, this is not because the Bible is fallible, this is because we are people and we are fallible.
A riddle. The bat flew through the air. What is the bat made of? Hmmmm. The bat could be a furry rodent that flies. The bat could also be a baseball bat and made of wood. There is no way to know without context.
In English, the word “bat” can have more than one meaning. In Hebrew, there were many different meanings for each noun. Ancient Hebrew was noun poor. There are three words that we are concerned with when reading Genesis 1 and 2 and the story of Noah. Erets could mean the world, or it could mean “land”. Yom could mean a day or it could mean a long period of time. Har could mean mountain, or it could mean hill or an irrigation dike.
The word Yom cannot mean “day” all the way through Genesis 1, because we do not see the sun until day 4. The word Erets cannot mean the word “world” in both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 because Genesis 2 is clearly the story of the creation of a Garden and not the story of the creation of the planet. Genesis 1 is the story of the creation of the planet. The word Har cannot mean mountain in the story of Noah when it describes the mountains being covered in water because the evidence of a global flood is provably false. There were lots of little floods and lots of slow continental drift. The word Erets cannot mean world in the flood story because there was a local flood, not a global one.
Genesis 1 does not tell us the method by which God created the earth. Genesis 1 tells the order of major epoch’s and milestones in the creation of the planet and orders them by the order in which these processes began.
Here is my interpretation of Genesis 1
The smoking gun for evolution in the Bible is that Genesis 1 puts plants before the creation of the sun, moon and stars. If we interpret the creation of the sun moon and stars to be the visibility of the sun, moon and stars through the clearing atmosphere after the “great oxidation event” then that means that the Bible is claiming that the creation of plants was set in motion before the great oxidation event. The great oxidation event was caused by the respiration of photosynthetic cyanobacteria. some of these same bacteria became chloroplasts when they took up residence in host cells and this led eventually to the evolutionary development of plants. Evolution is completely compatible with the Bible. In Genesis 1 God announces that he is going to create something and then the next verse or two state that God created. The verses do not explain how God created, they just say that he did.
You can go all through the Bible and not find anything that specifically contradicts that God used evolution as the process to create mankind. God made Adam out of dust and breathed life into him, but Adam is a special case made through special creation to prove God’s point about the culpability of humanity for our actions.
more biblical support for old earth
Here is a link to the the first in a series of posts where I go passage by passage and explain that the verses traditionally cited to support YEC do not actually support YEC. Similarly, these passages do not contradict the Active Guidance that God used to lead the development of life on earth. Therefore the TOE and the Bible are not mutually exclusive if one allows for Active Guidance. It is true that one is left with the option of disbelieving that God directed the process, but it is God’s will that people have that choice to make. Going against that is going against God and therefore wrong. You have to allow people the freedom to make that choice. Interestingly YEC takes that choice away from people by demanding that people believe in something that is demonstrably neither true not biblical.
explanation of scripture
The bible does not contradict the TOE as long as one allows for Active Guidance. People have the freedom to disbelieve in Active Guidance if they choose. It is God’s will that people have that choice. Do not contradict God’s will.
Well said!
Macro evolution could be WITHOUT GOD … or part of God’s intentions!
its not an argument. It is a statement of fact. Now here’s a fact of logic: a purposeless process cannot produce an intended result.
Do you see the problem yet?
I believe that BioLogos believes what BioLogos writes that it believes. I understand what BioLogos writes. I am here to tell you that the statement that a purely natural process can produce an intended result is a logical fallacy. Just as the statement that God can make a square circle is a logical fallacy, so is the statement that a purely natural process can produce an intended result.[quote=“gbrooks9, post:64, topic:4944”]
) BioLogos bases these amendments on THE BIBLE… as interpreted in the context of the divine testimony of nature.
[/quote]
I am guessing that what you see as the “divine testimony of nature” in the context of life is very different than what I see as the divine testimony of nature[quote=“gbrooks9, post:64, topic:4944”]
BioLogos would say that while evolution could work in the absence of God, since we believe in God’s role, we do not expect that evolution WITHOUT GOD would produce the same kind of life forms that evolution WITH GOD has been able to produce.
[/quote]
In other words, your claim is that the evidence from life points to a purely natural process. THAT is the problem. When you make this claim, you cannot “enlist” God into this process simply because you believe in Him. Not the God of the Bible. Not the God who deliberately Created us with a clear plan in mind. You might be able to get away with invoking a god who simply wound things up and, what do you know, along came mankind. But you cannot logically say that the God of the Bible deliberately Created mankind using a purposeless process.
It defies the laws of logic.
Indeed, selection is choice contingency! However, that which we call natural selection is not. Natural selection is nothing more than differential survival and reproduction. There is no exercise of choice here (and certainly no conscious exercise of choice); it simply happens. And by the way, natural selection is being questioned more and more often as a causally adequate mechanism.
But here is what I am interested in hearing more on from you:
Can you specify what that theory is and how it differs from Darwin’s?
Thanks
So, you would advise such a Christian that the God who deliberately Created us in His image and had a specific plan for us does not exist? That’s how much your precious naturalistic theory means to you?
“(I) turn wise men backward and make their knowledge foolishness”
Isaiah 45:25b
what made you believe that the TOE is compatible with the Bible? I would love it if you could be as specific as possible.
Thanks
There is a problem though, James. It is logically incoherent to believe such a thing could be true. The problem does not put any limitations on God. The problem lies in the fact that this statement violates the laws of logic:
A purposeless process (purely naturalistic evolution of life) has produced an intentional result (God’s deliberate Creation of man in His image).
You keep repeating this [contradiction that you charge us with] … and I’m sure you believe it. Indeed something cannot be both purposeless and purposeful. So your logic on that one narrow factoid is unassailable. But beyond that it falls apart.
Imagine a few iron atoms bonded together but vibrating in place with their various kinetic and bond energies. These atoms (and all the fundamental forces acting on them) are entirely devoid of purpose. Not one whit or whiff of intelligence, teleology, intention, or purpose to be found. Now zoom out from that and see a host of other iron atoms also bonded to the first few … zoom out more and more and finally find a “surface”, and then a screw driver bit … in a drill that is busy fastening a screw for me. Voila! Purpose! … and all of it [purpose] found in me, my intentions, (and the makers of the tools I’m using). None of it whatsoever was to be found in the atoms themselves. They know no purpose, in fact “know” nothing at all. They of themselves have/give no purpose to anything. But the makers of that tool did. And I as the user of the tool do.
You won’t find purpose in any process in creation whether it be in inertia, gravity, entropy, or evolution because it was never there to be found. Purpose is found in a mind that can have and act with a will. That probably includes us (or anything with free will or that can exercise intention). And it definitely includes God. But nothing else.
So you are looking for purpose where there never was any to be found.
Now, look to God --the source of all purpose. What I hear you declaring is that God is not permitted to use certain things as tools. Apparently you are fine with Him using godless, atheistic, purposeless gravity. He can use godless, atheistic, purposeless conservation laws. But you draw the line at evolution and declare to God that this particular tool is off-limits to Him. You still have never answered why.
Of course, in God’s hands, nothing is purposeless or godless. So I don’t really believe anything is bereft of purpose. We just may not be privy to what God’s ultimate intention on it is.
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Hi Joe -
The question, Joe, is whether you see the problem in how the theory of evolution has sometimes been taught.
Your statement is, I believe, based on an assumption that needs to be challenged.
What has been happening, I suspect, is that atheist philosophers and/or scientists you have heard discussing the theory of evolution have made bold assertions about the lack of purpose behind evolution. And you have thus come to associate the theory of evolution with the absence of any purpose whatsoever. But let’s take a peak behind the epistemological curtain and see what kind of foundation their assertion has. The atheistic logical argument runs something like this:
PREMISE. The only valid way to discern a purpose is through the scientific method.
OBSERVATION. The scientific method identifies no purpose in the process of biological evolution.
CONCLUSION. Therefore, biological evolution has no purpose.
I sharply disagree with the premise, and it seems you now do as well, Because I disagree with the premise, I also disagree with the conclusion. As a Christian I believe that God has purposes for how the universe runs, and sometimes I can discern them by faith via His revelation.
Allow me to make an argument that makes my assumptions a bit more explicit, and tell me what you think:
PREMISE: A process whose purpose cannot be discerned by the scientific method can, nevertheless, have a purpose that can be discerned by faith.
OBSERVATION. The scientific method identifies no purpose in the process of biological evolution.
CONCLUSION. Therefore, even though the biologist can see no purpose in evolution, I can discern by faith that evolution has a purpose.
This is what I, as a Christian, believe. Notice the difference?
Philosophers can make this discussion a lot more complex by speaking of different kinds of purposes, different kinds of revelation, different kinds of language, etc. There is some value in all that. Before you delve into all that, though, I want to urge you to consider the fundamental reasoning first.
What do you think, Joe? Does believing in both God and evolution make more sense to you now? Is there some other problem that needs to be addressed, or does this address the issue in a satisfactory way?
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OK Eddie, you really need to help me here. Please find the thing that I said that gave you this impression. There is a misunderstanding here and we need to clear it up.
Perhaps it would help if I put my argument into a logical format for you:
P1. A purposeless process cannot produce an intended result.
P2. The TOE, being a purely natural process, is devoid of purpose.
P3. God intentionally Created life and mankind (This, according to the uniform and repeated witness of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation - not simply Genesis 1)
C: Therefore, it is impossible to believe that both the Bible and the TOE are true.
In all of my dealings here, I receive constant affirmation that God’s Creation of life was intentional. The objection that I repeatedly receive goes like this: We here at BioLogos believe that God used evolution. Do you see the problem with this objection? It is either saying that God “used” a purposeless process to achieve His intended result, which is a logically incoherent position, or else God actively intervened, deliberately steering the process toward His intended goal. In this case, we can no longer say that life is the result of purely natural processes. Instead, we must say that life is the direct result of agent causation.
However, to this point, it seems that folks here wish to maintain the naturalistic narrative while claiming that God achieved His deliberate result through it. It doesn’t work. It defies logic.
Hi Joe,
Eddie’s a really sharp guy, and he will probably reply with some very astute commentary. If I might be permitted to speak, your statement P2 is built on atheistic premises that no Christian should accept. To see why, please read my statement above, and Mervin’s beautifully framed analogy of the screwdriver.
Thanks!
Rejecting your premise as invalid is not the same thing as denying the logic of your argument. Repeatedly people have been rejecting your premise, not denying the logical coherence of your argument. You seem to be kind of deaf to this though.
We are asserting that the appearance of randomness does not entail the process has to be uncontrolled. It means the control is undetectable from our point of observation.
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You have a pretty binary point of view.
Either:
- Literal, six-day Creation…
or
- No God.
Is that true?
Because there are far more options than Christian or atheistic fundamentalism.
That’s what I was taught. I was smarter than just to accept everything I was taught.
I figured out that the Theory of Evolution is incompatible with a literal interpretation of Genesis 1, and that a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 is not the only option. It’s not even the best option.
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