I’d highly recommend the book “Paradigms on Pilgrimage” by Stephen J. Godfrey & Christopher R. Smith. Someone on the boards recommended it to me, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it! In fact, I think it should be on the recommended reading list on Biologos.
The book is authored by two brother-in-laws, who share their journeys from YEC to TE. One is a scientist, who studied science to find holes in the acceptance of an old earth & evolution, only to find that once he studied the facts, YEC fell apart. The second half of the book is written by a pastor, who also was a YEC, but as he studied the Word more, found that YEC theology, and the “literalistic” viewpoint they push, has a lot of holes in it, when one looks at it more closely. He does a great job outlining the theologic issues of YEC, and gives a very good review of the Genesis creation account.
The book is written for laymen, and is very easy to read and understand. I’m very thankful for finding out about this book on the discussion forum, and I hope the book will be as enlightening to you (and your pastor!) as it was for me.
Yes, I concur. It’s a very strange thing to include if God is directly creating these creatures!
And how else are Christians to explain why the Earth is full of the skeletons of creatures never witnessed by humans!
Stone age camp sites exist all around the world… with the bones of animals used for food … and bones of these extinct creatures have ever been found in the debris of these camp sites!
I shared this material before, so I apologize if this is a bit repetitious.
“Psalm 139 12Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. 13For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.”
Nowhere does the Psalm mention developmental pathways, hox genes, or any of the other science that we now understand which undergirds the field of developmental pathway. Psalm 139 just says that God does it. You might want to ask your pastor if this also poses a problem for the Bible or his beliefs.
If your pastor has a sharp brain he would already know that his argument is an Argument from Incredulity, which is a logical fallacy. Just because something is hard to believe does not make it impossible. It was hard for ancient people to believe that the Earth actually moved about the Sun instead of the other way around, yet it was the truth. It was hard for some people to believe that there could be tens of billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, yet it is true. It was hard for people to believe that diseases were caused by little microorganisms, yet they were. “I just can’t believe it” is simply not a valid argument, especially when their is evidence to the contrary.
Thanks for those thoughts. I think Psalm 139 is very helpful and I have already passed that thought on to him.
He does have a sharp brain, and he might appreciate the challenge of your “Argument from incredulity” - though I have no desire to get into a logical argument by trading blows! I’d lose! He’s a lawyer by training! But he actually wants to see this from my point of view (He respects my brain too!), and I think he is enjoying having his brain stretched. It is something he normally does to other people. I have a lot of respect for him, being prepared to think it through. I think he does want to understand the science, and he wants to see the big picture of the temple/kingdom implications.
Actually, I don’t think his problem is with the vastness of it all - that is exciting! The challenge is that if you have had a diet of ID DVDs, you think that evolution implies purposeless mutations - and it is hard to see how they can develop into new skills all the way up to a human level of achievement. So I need to keep stressing that natural = supernatural. God is in it all!
Perhaps you could use a trial as an analogy. Imagine that there is a murder case where the defendant’s fingerprints, DNA, shoe prints, clothing fibers, and tire prints are all found on and around the crime scene. On the knife sticking out of the victim’s chest you find the defendant’s bloody fingerprints. Around the victim you find the defendant’s bloody shoe prints, as well as those same shoes with blood on the sole in the defendant’s home closet. In the defendant’s car you find those same blood footprints and bloody fingerprints all over the exterior and interior.
In response, the defense calls the defendant’s mother to the stand where she testifies that she just can’t believe that her child could commit that crime.
He would certainly get that, and that is definitely how his mind works. But he might stand up for the defense and say “I need to see all that evidence for myself”. So, I think I need to explain each bit of the evidence and make a good case! I’ve started doing that. But I probably need more modules of good evidence!
I personally prefer the endogenous retrovirus (ERV) evidence when discussing the genetic evidence with people who are seeing this stuff for the first time. If you want, you can start a new thread (or discuss it in this thread) on ERV’s and I would be happy to contribute whenever I can.
Perhaps his lawyer mind will appreciate finding precedent. The apostle Paul uses this – finding a practice people already have accepted or engage in and then using that to help them see how a new truth fits right into their existing custom.
In that regard, I like to bring up meal-time prayer. Your pastor probably has no trouble giving thanks to God for the food on the table. And he probably also accepts without second thought that farmers, processors, grocers, and even his own money and shopping efforts that he is blessed to be able to spend all played an essential part in getting that food to his table as well. Wouldn’t he/we all think it silly (and rightfully so) if someone tried to insist that it can’t be both, and that we need to decide whether it was God or all the observable work that got the food to our table? Yet this is exactly what so many do for evolution. We don’t expect God to magically make food just appear before us on our table, but yet so many demand just such a “magical” restriction on God when it comes to this particular issue despite the fact that the Bible teaches that God is involved in everything whether it looks ordinary to us or not.
Personal note: I, too, am Anglican, here in the UK (many years in Durham, now in Berkshire), and with charismatic sympathies.
He respects Collins; he has been taught by McGrath; he will have been exposed to real theological debate in training. You are actually in a really good starting position!
As with the other respondents, I would emphasise the theology and biblical hermeneutics over the science. The science can be a distraction.
You could point him towards McGrath’s “The Dawkins Delusion”. There is also Collins’ “The Language of God”.
But even above those, I would very strongly recommend Peter Enns “Inspiration and Incarnation”. Enns is an American Hebrew Bible (O.T.) professor, whose roots are strongly in the evangelical side of the church, and who is also Episcopalian (i.e. Anglican). Enns’ books are semi-autobiographical, and he often refers to his own struggles as his OT scholarship opened up some very awkward questions. For him the major turning point, which meant a complete re-evaluation of his understanding of scripture, was 1 Cor 10:4 “…they [the people in the Exodus] drank from, the spiritual rock that accompanied them…” That may look innocuous on the page, but it goes far, far deeper into how Paul did his biblical interpretation. Enns’ faith survived that shock, and was deepened and enriched by it. I really do recommend this book.
By the way, if the conversation drifts towards human origins, Adam & Eve, original sin, the Fall, Paul’s “first and second Adam” etc. it’s probably worth saying "hold that thought, we’ll come to it later; first we need to do ‘Inspiration and Incarnation’ to cover the groundwork. Just as I wouldn’t attempt to teach a five-year old multiplication without the groundwork of addition, nor an A-level student Einstein’s gravity without the Newtonian groundwork, nor Picasso’s perspectives before classical “vanishing point” perspective, then neither would I attempt those theological human origins questions with the “Inspiration and Incarnation” groundwork.
If he wants to look at science, then here in the UK he might also look at Christians in Science. The southern annual conference is usually in October in Oxford (I sometimes lead the songs and hymns); the northern one is in Spring.
Hope that helps. Feel free to contact me outside this forum if you wish.
Personally, I wouldn’t try to pressurise him into accepting evolution. The thing about evolution is that it’s not an easy subject to understand, there are a lot of misconceptions about it, and some people get pretty grossed out at the thought of humans and animals being related to each other, especially if they’re the kind of people who hated biology lab work at school what with all the dissections and experiments with worms and maggots and all the rest of it.
Instead, focus on the need to make sure that you know what you’re talking about and that your facts are straight. The line I tend to adopt is that even if evolution is false, there are some really bad arguments against it — bad, as in, blatantly untrue, and that ultimately causes more harm to the Gospel than good.
My personal advice to pastors anywhere is to make sure that anyone teaching in their churches on the subject should have a degree in science at the very least. I could even handle being taught YEC by a trained scientist, since then I could at least have a rational and informed discussion with them. What gets up my nose are the people who gave up science at sixteen and haven’t set foot in a lab ever since, yet think that they know more about science than “secular scientists” because they haven’t been “brainwashed” by a science degree. These are the exact same people who believe that evolution teaches that cats can turn into dogs overnight, who aren’t even aware that radiometric dating involves measuring things, and who will happily tell you that that Sir Arthur Keith said something about evolution being unproven and unprovable four years after he died.
While he isn’t a scientist, he did try to sort all of this out in his own mind as a young adult. It is unfortunate that most of what he found then was early ID and YEC materials. He thought he was being radical to go for the micro/not macro approach. And at that point in time in the UK, some scientists seemed to be going with that. Also, the recent chat we had about this was at his invitation. So I think he wants to address the issue of evolution. He genuinely wants to know where I am coming from and why. (He knows I’m “sound” and a person who thinks things through.) Because he is a pastor with influence, and because we are in the UK (where the status quo position is less rigid and there is less at stake politically), I think it would be good to see how much I can explain! I think he is actually enjoying having his mind stretched a bit on an issue that isn’t threatening to split the church! He can relax and enjoy the process!
Having said all of that, I agree with your advice about people having at least a degree in science - though if they don’t, he tends to send them to me for a chat first! So far, that has worked well! My main concern in the church is not people teaching YEC so much as people assuming evolution is very bad and saying so to young people or non-Christian scientists!
Yes I am! Added to that, his legal training urges him to sort it all out in his mind.
I have certainly started with theology and hermeneutics. I have training in that so we discussed that at length and I ran out of time for discussing evolution. But he wants to go there. He already knows and recommends McGrath’s “The Dawkins Delusion”. I think Collins book might be a bit too scientific though. I will definitely look into Peter Enn’s book. Thanks for the suggestion.
We are already holding the thought of Adam and Eve et al! Even he saw the need to leave that till later!
Christians in Science is a good call! I prefer BioLogos for materials! But CiS has some good leaflets for churches and the fact that it is a general organisation for scientific Christians, yet it agrees with BioLogos, is an important indication that most Christian scientists go this way.
BioLogos and CiS are different organisations in different countries with different remits.
BioLogos in based in the USA; CiS is in the UK.
The influence of YEC is, I understand, significantly stronger in the USA than here in the UK, and a major strand of BioLogos over there is focussed on that debate, including reaching out to lay people,
By contrast CiS (UK) is primarily aimed at fellowship of Christians employed within universities and scientific research organisations. Its work on the YEC front is significantly less prominent and quieter, simply because almost no scientist-Christians at all in such UK organisations seem to be YEC… or if they are, they are very quiet about it. I think I have heard of (but don’t personally know) one current YEC (but in engineering) at a university on the south-west, and one OE (but in Maths) at a university in the south-east.
Yes, I get there is quite a difference, but that actually helps - because my pastor could assume that BioLogos is a group that have a thing about evolution whereas CiS is a general group of Christian scientists. If they agree with BioLogos, that is significant!
And that is the best reason for the “final step” of Breathing the Breath of Life!
@Mazza_P Having come down this road myself, with Seminary and an M-Div and all, I think the previous suggestions on reading Walton is the place to start. Discussion on the hermeneutics is almost required before you get to the scientific evidence.
Many of the discussions here show that many of the BioLogos members tend to argue through Genesis 1-2 as if it is a technical document rather than an Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) one. If we charge into the science without getting grips with that, the struggle to release the Scriptures as we have been trained to see it, takes time and effort away from building confidence in believing the premise is actually true. (No offense to the Forum Members!)
This was my case as I dove into the science without a firm grasp.
Thanks for this. I’m shortly leading a devotional on Genesis 1 which will include the message of Genesis 1 without the controversial bits, so I think that will help.
But I think my pastor is chewing things over for himself. Today, he recommended BioLogos to someone else!
2 Likes
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.
