Hi,
Here is my definition of evolutionary creation: It is the belief that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit created the universe and living creatures through an ordained, sustained, and intelligent design-reflecting evolutionary process.
Blessings,
Denis
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Great, thank you for that positive, succinct one, Dr Lamoureux.
Randy
Thank you Dr Lamoureux.
I want to post a relatively simple dilemm there for you to consider…
How do you know that there is a Father, Son and Holy Spirit? The only one mentioned specifically in the Bible regarding Creation is found in Genesis chapter 1. If that is allegorical, then how does one not take as also being allegorical the notion that Christ (whom we find in the New Testament) and the Holy Spirit (sent on the day of Pentecost) are real beings and that there is a triune God?
If you are going to cite Peters experience with Ananias and Saphira…how then do yo align that with Peter making reference to the flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorah as real events?
What i am getting at…even though your general belief there appears to be quite simple…it actually is anything but simple. It relies heavily on other biblical proofs in order to support the claim that there is a triune God. These are the very same passages of scripture that Biologos for example claim are allegorical. If allegorical, then the belief of the trinity is wrong.
I mean disrepect, however, I hope you understand the implications of my point here.
Woah!
That is a very sweeping statement that is not supported by all.
So any argument based on it fails.
Especialy as it claims that God either failed to create correctly or it has been corrupted due to the superiority of man.
Richard
Just to clear a few things up . . .
Evolution does not try to explain where the first life came from. It only tries to explain how life changed once it was here. So the whole “everything evolved from for example, a primordial soup of chemicals” isn’t an accurate portrayal of the theory. From what I can see, there is still a wide ranging set of beliefs among Evolutionary Creationists when it comes to the origin of life.
I also never meant to portray prayer over a meal as a reason to not bother with God. Obviously, Christians believe God provided the food in front of them even if all of the steps leading up to the meal were natural processes. Another example is people saying God blessed them with a child even though they also fully accept that human reproduction is a natural process.
You seem to have this hard line between natural and God. It seems that if we find a natural process to explain an observation this somehow means God is not involved. EC’s don’t view it that way. This is perhaps the difference that is a stumbling block for you understanding the EC position.
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I think you got to the heart of the matter. EC’s think the creation and our reasoning can be trusted. You don’t. What you describe is a tacit admission that the evidence supports evolution on its face. You invent the idea of nature being corrupted as a justification for ignoring the evidence. EC’s don’t find this to be a valid reason for ignoring the evidence found in the creation.
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I heard an interesting response to an declaration “I don’t need God!” – “I don’t need a bridge to cross the Columbia (this was near Kennewick, Washington), but it’s the only safe way over.”
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But do evolutionary mechanisms really reflect intelligent design? If God is for the weak, why is survival of the fittest so prominent? And why do so many not see God reflected in evolution, but the exact opposite?
but where did the seed come from?!
From seed suppliers:
I think you know what I mean.
Farmers buy seeds from seed suppliers. Other farmers grow the plants to supply the seeds. All of this is a natural process, and yet Christians have no problem with also believing God is a part of this natural process.
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If he does he is being obtuse.
Richard
Asking that question (also like asking if the chicken or the egg was first), illustrates a “magical thinking” mindset - or to put it in more religiously familiar terms: a “miraculous” or “special creation” mindset. This mindset separates “ordinary creation” (the kind we see - when babies grow to term inside a mother’s womb, or when seeds grow into trees over decades) from “special creation” where we expect or want something ‘magical to happen’ because of an uncharistically literal reading of some text. Since we want God to do something especially “whizz-bangish” that would impress any onlookers who are already accustomed to all the familiar sites and ways of life, we then fail to be as impressed as we should be that anything in the universe even works at all as it does. We don’t appreciate how much of a miracle everything already is just because “familiarity breeds contempt” so-to-speak. Yes - the cycle of plants producing seeds producing plants had to itself have “beginnings” as well, but those beginnings too can be gradual. And once again the “magic thinker” needs something special to happen lest he fail to be fascinated or impressed. The “Hopeful Monster” hypotheses and other caricatures and misunderstandings of evolution are all born from such thinking.
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I accept evolution. I was thinking more of how living things started in the first place.
I accept evolution. But Im not convinced life on this planet came to be purely ‘naturally’.
Then perhaps you could tell us where farmers get their seeds from? I grew up in the agriculture business in rural America. Everyone I knew got their seeds from various different seed companies. Is there a new advancement I’m not aware of?
Since this is about understanding Evolutionary Creationism we should probably hear from the Evolutionary Creationists. This article may be right up your alley:
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“Naturally” is a weasel word (just like ‘supernaturally’) - meaning that it can be used to freight all manner of baggage that any specific user wants to pack into those terms. We can’t even define any demarcation between those two things without quickly descending into circular or self-referencing. E.g. “what is ‘natural’?” “well, it’s how we see the world ordinarily working!” “How does the world ‘ordinarily’ work?” “Well, by following ‘laws’ we observe in nature.” “What is supernatural?” " … not natural." All of those answers may be true enough, but they tell us nothing precise or useful. Science can deal with what is repeatedly observable, and some stuff doesn’t give us much occasion for repetition. So that only works … until it doesn’t. Science can’t do anything except try to keep pushing ever more into the boundaries and edges of repeatability. Comets weren’t thought of as regular or repeatable events … until Halley calculated the period of one (around 76 years) and lo and behold! Yes wait long enough and something can be finally recognized as an “ordinary course of nature”. Earth altering collisions are not a regular thing to our civilization-spanning historical memories. And yet over geological time, lo and behold! That too happens (as seen in the fossil record) and has a probability and ‘regularity’ (of sorts) of its own from a geological time perspective. So these recent generations of geology (and other sciences too) have taught us humility about thinking that unusual observances can’t be regular in their own way and over their own time scales. The verse “my ways are higher than your ways” seems to only get levied against science thinkers trying to faithfully observe creation. It never seems to occur to those using that verse that those very words might apply to their own theologizing and their own use of the sacred texts too!
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Perhaps in the same way it took miraculous intervention to raise Jesus’ dead body to life (not to mention the raising of Lazarus and others by Jesus), so it may have taken miraculous intervention for life itself to begin. Perhaps it is another law of this current universe - the dead cannot and do not rise; life cannot and does not start ‘naturally’. God must over-ride, if that is the appropriate word, in both instances. As such I do not have a problem with using the word ‘natural’ as we have, in contrast, events that are supernatural and miraculous. Length of time cannot make some events happen if they are naturally impossible to happen.
I didnt quote ‘my ways are higher than your ways’ at you and I wouldnt, as to me the context is God’s surprising act of mercy and forgiveness towards the ‘wicked’. Humans typically arent forgiving towards those who hurt us. That is why His ways are not our ways. And of course we later find out, which Isaiah hints at, the shocking truth that God sacrifices himself for us - another reason I believe Christianity was not man-made, no human would have made that up - our ways are not His. Nothing to do with creation.
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