I am afraid that you are incorrect Bethany. Evolution cannot be used to fill in the details. Aside from Biblical interpretation issues, scripture alone interprets scripture. Using evolution to interpret scripture is like using another religion and its theories and books to interpret Christianity. We would never want another religion to like atheism, or Buddhism to be used to interpret Christianity.
Just to be clear Albert, I donât think Original Blessing is your concept⌠
But even if it is, it is impossibly incorrect. You are again trying to reconcile two things that donât need to be, and shouldnât be reconciled, religion one evolution, and religion two Christianity. Christians have made attempts to reconcile Christianity to other religions i.e. modern evangelicalism is tolerant of many religionsâŚ
Firstly, I am not Bethany.(@BethanyB )
Secondly, you are incorrect about Bethany being incorrect.
You write that âusing Evolution to interpret scripture is like using another religionâŚâ
This is, of course, not at all the case. Using Evolution to interpret scripture is the same as using evaporation to interpret how God makes rain occur when and where he wants it to rain.
Using natural law to fill in the details is not like we are changing the meaning of Godâs work.
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Then why would the early Church Fathers not take Genesis literally? They certainly werenât trying to make it fit evolution.
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Back that up, most of them believe in 6 literal day creation semantics about literally arenât helpful
Apologies that was directed to Bethanyâs post.
Evidence would be helpfulâŚ
Evolutionary theory is certainly not on the same plain as evaporation science, it is historical science which is a completely different field from real empirical science.
A shameless copy from http://www.thomisticevolution.org/disputed-questions/interpreting-genesis-1-with-the-fathers-of-the-church/
Are you really not aware of this?
And Evidence is what evolutionary scientists have lots of. Naturally, it is disputed.
But the point I was making was more about the methodology of your thinking, than about anything else.
If we can accept the physics of Evaporation to fill in the hidden details behind God making rain when he wants to ⌠it is no different from accepting the physics of molecular changes in DNA.
Your original argument was a denial of any use of natural explication behind Godâs actions. This seems obviously wrong.
Now all we have to do is establish whether or not evolutionary science is as sound as meteorological science!
Iâm sorry, but that is not correct. Historical science is no different from real empirical science. It works on exactly the same principles: formulate a hypothesis, construct tests for that hypothesis, gather evidence to feed into those tests, confirm, amend or discard hypothesis as required, lather, rinse, repeat. It has exactly the same requirements of peer review and reproducibility.
YECs claim that for findings to be repeatable, we have to do everything end to end in the lab. That is nonsense. For findings to be repeatable, you just have to have different studies using different methods give the same results. For example, if Ar/Ar dating, Rb/Sr dating and U/Pb dating all give the same ages for a rock sample, that is repeatability. If directly measured rates of continental drift then confirm these findings as well, that is also repeatability. If the measured ages are shown to correlate with the principles by which rock layers are laid down, that is repeatability. If they also give consistent ages all over the world for the same types of index fossils, that is repeatability. If they also show a clear progression consistent with evolutionary theory, that is repeatability.
And no, they donât just give the same results because they make the same assumptions of uniformitarianism. You might be able to argue such a proposition if your definition of âthe same resultsâ were âgive or take an order of magnitude or threeâ and the results actually had a spread as wide as that, but when most of them give the same values to within a few percent (and in some cases, to within a few parts per thousand), that argument simply doesnât have any credibility whatsoever.
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Lucid & quotable. I hope to remember this one to be able to link to it in future; non-repeatability is a common refrain we hear from YEC commenters.
P.S. @BradKramer, is there any way to eliminate the âmiddle fingerâ option from the emoticon-ready hand gesture palette here? 
I think this group is a bit too genteel to go using that, but I wouldnât want to tempt anyone!
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This artificial distinction between historical science and âreal scienceâ is fabricated by creation ministries. Historical science involves the same scientific method based on empirical data and testable claims and predictions as observational science.
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[quote=âdanswoodtree, post:85, topic:37546â]
Just to be clear Albert, I donât think Original Blessing is your conceptâŚ
I did not claim to be the originator of the phrase, 'Original Blessing". Mathew Fox, a Dominican priest, wrote a book with that title. Earlier Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest, used this concept as a basis for many of his publications. Both men were chastised by the Catholic hierarchy for teaching that Christians could do away with Original Sin. This is not surprising, since a church that offers an exclusive way of avoiding the âcurseâ of Original Sin gains considerable power over its adherents. IMHO, both Catholic and Protestant churches seek this power.
Daniel, it is obvious that the concept of Original Blessing and Godâs choosing evolution as his method of creation will have little appeal to you. You may even be in the majority in your belief. But that doesnât mean you are right. The belief in YEC may serve you best in leading a purposeful life, while a version of EC does likewise for me. May God bless us both.
Al Leo
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What you are saying is that Christians shouldnât do science. I think that is going to be a hard sell.
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The idea that Christians shouldnât do science is unbiblical anyway. Psalm 111:2:
The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.
As written above the entrance to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.
John Walton won when it comes to this âŚ
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[quote=âT_aquaticus, post:96, topic:37546â]
I am afraid that you are incorrect Bethany. Evolution cannot be used to fill in the details. Aside from Biblical interpretation issues, scripture alone interprets scripture. Using evolution to interpret scripture is like using another religion and its theories and books to interpret Christianity. We would never want another religion to like atheism, or Buddhism to be used to interpret Christianity.
What you are saying is that Christians shouldnât do science. I think that is going to be a hard sell.
[/quote"
You must not have read my post. I never said that Christians shouldnât do science. I merely said that Christians shouldnât use science to interpret scripture. I think we can agree, science is a very useful tool for many things.
Thanks Al,
If you think that I am wrong and you have a good argument, convince me. Original blessing doesnât appeal to me because I believe it is wrong, and I can use the Word of God to prove it.
Historical Science is different from ScienceâŚ
Definitions
Real Science is a tool that can give us a limited amount of useful information that is reliably accurate in its predictions, and most accurate in its predictions when it predicts things that are closest to the current natural state used in making those predictions.
Historical Science Gives us broad information that could be possibly be correct but is most likely incorrect and more likely incorrect the older it gets.
The reason why:
A fundamental assumption in science is that things continue in the normal stateâŚ
For example, I want to build a skyscraper in downtown Manhattan and I want to build it so that it will last 100 years. So I do some science, some engineering and lots of fund-raising :)) and then I build my sky scrapper.
Science told me that my 6042 aluminum alloy for webbing should last for 150 years normal stress strain, normal acid rain exposure⌠I even over designed. I went to extreme scenarios 50% acidity, hurricane winds, the worst case scenario that I could design for that was still in my budgetâŚ
So I build my tower⌠and it was around for about 75 years and then there was a huge seismic shift in the earth, solar flares developed on the sun causing a shift in atmospheric pressure, and suddenly my tower fell flat, the aluminum disintegrated and it didnât last for 100 yearsâŚ
The point is we donât know what will happen 100 yrs from now that will force us to change how we go about science, it may even force us to change what we think about scientific law⌠What about the ancient scripture writers and the philosophers who are ridiculed every day on this blog⌠because they âdidnât know that the earth is roundâ and they âbelieved there were storehouseses in heavenâ Just wait, some day not to long from know it will be you and I who are ridiculed.
This seems to me an obvious difference btw. âHistoricalâ and âRealâ ScienceâŚ
It doesnât seem like you have a very accurate understanding of what goes into historical science, or even the scientific method in general.
Do you believe there is any such thing as a scientific fact? Can we measure anything accurately?
Hi Daniel,
Just to pipe in for a moment here:
Iâm fairly sure that nobody here â including even the atheist regulars who hang out here â intended ridicule to the ancients in discussing what they believed about the natural world. Nobody is laughing, sneering, mocking, or the like, and if somebody was, I would encourage you to bring it to the moderatorsâ attention.
Rather, we absolutely honor ancient wisdom and ancient wise men. We just recognize that people in every age, including our own, have limitations to their understanding. Someday, certainly, people will look back on our current state of knowledge and think itâs quaint that people actually believed in string theory, or that â can you believe it â we still didnât understand how dark matter worked!
Please donât read ridicule into our tone (and I think I can speak for just about everyone here in this). I donât think itâs there.