Are the explanations of the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible the Word of God?
Are there other interpretations? It seems that if you have to cite non-Biblical sources, you’re not very convinced of that particular interpretation. Correct?
Indeed. They do something in our genome whether we understand them or not. However, we do understand them quite well and just like with the fossil record they follow very specific patterns between different species. We’ve got some 200,000 of them and share all but 100 with chimpanzees (they have 200 unique ones that we don’t- but the other 200,000 are in homologous locations in the genome) so just like with the fossil record a good question to ask is how did it get that way? Did these things just so happen to all insert independently from one another or where they passed down through common descent? I’ll give you a little hint though – only one of those hypotheses survived.
4 Likes
Once someone understands the significance of the comparative genomic data, intellectual honesty demands concession to common ancestry as beyond reasonable doubt.
3 Likes
@Edgar if you are going to quote Gould the least you could do is not edit the quote to make it say what you want it to say. It is strange but the version you quoted back in post 114 contains the ellipses in exactly the same location in the quote as found on YEC sites.
For your edification here is the quote in it’s entirety. I have indicated where you made the cuts to change the meaning and added some bolding for the parts that don’t fit your message.
Comment?
3 Likes
That’s been done very well by others.
Here’s an idea: how about if you produce 5 quotes from the book that support your claim, which are not found on ANY creationist web sites?
1 Like
I’m aware of the Bible passages you cite and I believe all of nature is affected by human sin and awaiting redemption and the culmination of the re-creation initiated by the Incarnation and Resurrection.
What I don’t believe is that there is anything in the Bible that supports the idea that there was a second creation event post-Fall in which God fundamentally altered the existing perfect creation to the degree that would turn herbivores into carnivores (that requires new jaw and teeth structures, different digestive tracts, and predatory capabilities, not just a different appetite), invent billions of new harmful and parasitic species of plants, animals, and micro-organisms, design genetic mutations for birth defects and disease and proactively insert them in the genome. Or a second creation event that would alter the foundational systems of earth science and institute a new system of plate tectonics and weather that before did not cause any death with natural activity like earthquakes, tsunamis, or volcanoes, floods, wildfires, avalanches, and hurricanes, but because of sin, is now “unleashed.” How exactly would plate tectonics be unleashed? Either we live on a crust that floats on a molten mantle, or we don’t. Crust that floats on molten mantle means earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis.
YECs say we have an issue with death existing in God’s good world before sin, but how is it not more concerning that God cursed the world by initiating a second creation in which he proactively created all sorts of nasty stuff as a punishment for a sin event?
And I think it is a cop-out to pretend that there was this magical transformation and God simply “allowed” these things to “come about” because of the curse. YECs have no natural mechanism that explains that. It has to be God. Evolution proposes actual mechanisms for how animals adapt and become predators and how birth defects just “happen.” Creationism doesn’t have a real explanation other than “The Fall did it,” which is really “God did it,” because it was God’s curse and only God can radically re-design life in the way that is described.
It’s pure imagination to say “Maybe the genomes were such that something was triggered with the Fall and bada-bing, bada-boom, herbivores into carnivores.” We know a lot about genomes, and they don’t ever work like that. The fact that some creationists have agile imaginations and it sounds “plausible” to them, isn’t anything close to a working model. Plus, you still have God putting those “evil” futures into the genomes, just waiting to be triggered magically by sin, so God does not get off the hook as the creator of the bad stuff. There are even Scriptures where God takes delight in the predators he has created, and there is no hint that he only created them that way because of a curse.
3 Likes
I’m a little surprised that you allowed the discussion to go sideways the way you did here.
Of all the Creationists or Old Earth Creationists I’ve “tangled” with, @Marty is one of the nice ones.
You certainly know that I’m not known for coddling Creationists, or even necessarily treating them with too much TLC… so for me to defend any particular Creationist … I think that makes for a pretty strong endorsement for a Creationist’s sincerity and/or good intentions.
So… what is this you are doing here? You object to the phrase “Atheist Evolution”? And yet you and I have read it over and over again from all sorts of Creationists types. And it is isn’t exactly an incoherent phrase. So why are you treating the phrase like its an oxymoron or something?
In discussions with Creationists, I quite frequently have to insist that they understand that i’m discussing God-Guided Evolution, or sometimes God-Governed Evolution… and I even have a neat acronym: E.G.G., which inverts the syntax a little: “Evolution, God-Guided”!
The Mission Statement of BioLogos goes out of its way to distinguish between notions of Evolution that involve God, and notions of Evolution that exclude God.
So why would you say this bizarre sentence: “It is a nonsensical term and I wish that you’d stop using it.”
Really? You think it is a term that is nonsense? YIKES.
Let’s look at Statement #9 in the BioLogos page “What we Believe”:
.
.
.
“… we reject ideologies that claim that evolution is a purposeless process or that evolution replaces God.”
@Pevaquark, perhaps you were temporarily confused the day you had this discussion with @Marty
If you are a moderator for BioLogos, and you must somehow keep things straight between what BioLogos endorses and what it REJECTS, wouldn’t a phrase like “Atheist[-ic] Evolution” actually be virtually essential for you to know when someone was stepping into an ideological footprint that BioLogos rejects?
By insisting that @Marty should discontinue the use of the phrase, isn’t that going to create endless confusion and disputes over what is being discussed?
Of all the people I thought would have gotten along with @Marty (other than me) I would have expected you to have been an even better fit.
Do you care to explain what transpired in this part of the discussion? I’m absolutely bewildered by your stance, and would want to know if most of the other BioLogos moderators share your position!
@Chris_Falter Indeed it was worth the wait! Unfortunately I may need couple days to formulate a thoughtful response also. Back to you soon I hope.
@pevaquark I honestly did not mean to offend and I was quite surprised to read here that you found the term offensive. I have friends who are biologos fans and we have talked “terms” and agreed that “atheist evolution” may best characterize the position of those who believe there has been no divine intervention of any kind since life began. In addition, they have agreed that since they believe God has been involved “somehow” (though not detectable directly by scientific method), that this belief may make them progressive creationists (in addition to evolutionary creationists).
Terms do matter, and I am sorry that I offended. I am open to an alternative term that captures the essence without the offense.
@gbrooks9 Thank you for the defense. Perhaps per my comments just above, Matt can provide us with an alternative that does not cause him speed bumps, or perhaps he can accept the term from us after this discussion without it being a speed bump for him.
As much as I try to escape, these forums can be like the Hotel California… you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!
6 Likes
It is perfectly understandable why you would want to clarify “atheistic evolution” in philosophical/theological discussions. I think some of the response to the term comes from a bit of over-sensitivity because people fairly consistently (and ignorantly) insist that anyone who accepts an evolutionary model must concede or at least subconsciously adhere to an anti-God worldview.
There has been an effort to move away from the term “theistic evolution” (“evolutionary creation” would be the preferred term) precisely because it gives the impression that there are two competing scientific models, atheistic evolution which necessarily excludes God and theistic evolution which necessarily includes God. In fact, no one is proposing a scientific model theistic evolution that describes how God created through evolution. To assert he did is a theological claim that goes beyond science. To assert God was not involved in evolution is not scientific either. As far as science goes, atheistic evolution and theistic evolution are the same thing. (Hence all the comments about other areas of science that don’t get labelled atheistic or theistic.)
Since ID has proposed that science can uncover and model how God works through natural processes, and many Christian scientists who accept evolution are critical of the ID endeavor, they want to be clear that they are not doing anything similar, and they aren’t proposing a scientific model that accounts for God’s action. Evolution is just evolution.
I don’t know if that helps clarify where some of the angst comes from, but thank you for extending grace in your attempts to communicate here. I hope it will be reciprocated. 
3 Likes
There were two models that people were discussing. One where animals experience an unbroken chain of ancestry going back to some LUCA (last universal common ancestor, this model was called atheist evolution) and the other where there are lots of gaps where God spontaneous created each new step along the way from nothing (progressive creation).
There are many possible positions within the model previously labeled ‘atheist evolution,’ with only one of which being actual ‘naturalistic evolution.’ However, they all look the same from a scientific perspective and one can introduce faith components beyond that if they choose to. In this thread, there have been many people who have been arguing for the evolutionary model from a different array of backgrounds: Christian, atheist and others in between. So in this perfectly wonderful thread in discussing what evidence goes in to the class of models that are ‘evolutionary’ compared to models where God spontaneously poofs creatures into existence every million years or so, aligning them in a pattern that matches the idea of common descent it is a false dichotomy. It is a rhetorical ploy that many Christian groups utilize to create false dichotomies and equate atheist to evolution. Was @Marty following suit of how many Christians use the phrase? He clarified below so apparently not.
But the phrase is nonsensical when discussing scientific theories/models on why the fossil record came to be the way it is. It is equivalent to having atheist gravity or the theory of intelligent falling as @beaglelady posted above.
Okay George, thanks for saving me again with the BioLogos mission statement. Obviously BioLogos would be against purely ‘naturalistic/atheistic evolution.’ In the context of ‘progressive creationism’ vs. ‘atheist evolution’ however, it is entirely unhelpful to use the phrase as the thread was really only discussing the fossil record and the best explanation-progressive creation or the theory of evolution.
- I’m good with not using that term but we need to provide an alternative that captures the idea that there was no divine action in the history of life. Does “unguided evolution” work?
- You have a different definition of progressive creation than I do. I will be replying to @Chris_Falter with more detail. I do accept common ancestry but I am skeptical that random changes in the DNA without guidance could provide enough useful information for all the complexity we see. More to come on this.
- I have found “poofs” is an offensive term to YEC’s. I don’t have a perfect substitute, but “materialize” or “incarnates” might have less baggage.
Sure Marty, though I am not quite sure how one can determine whether or not such processes are guided vs. unguided in the same sense that one can’t quite say whether or not God influences hurricanes today.
Ah so that was our main problem. My apologies then for the confusion.
I’d also say that many old earth creationists (which is how I at least first heard the idea of progressive creation where God creates and intervenes sporadically–i.e. Reasons to Believe) would hold to the spontaneous materialization of species.
That is a tricky definition, as @pevaquark mentions. From a scientific point of view, if you say that evolution is guided then you need the data to back it or at least a methodology for detecting guidance. As it stands, there isn’t a signal of guidance in the scientific data.
It is also important to point out that the scientific conclusion is tentative and based on methodology. It isn’t an ontological or theological claim. The best science can do is say that there is no statistically significant signal for guidance. That is also the position that many atheists, myself included. I don’t make the ontological or absolute claim that there is no guidance in evolution. What I do say is that there isn’t any apparent evidence for guidance which prevents me from accepting the claim, at least for now.
Hi Marty,
Maybe you could just use the term "metaphysical naturalism," which claims only that which can be explained scientifically truly exists. No God, no angels, no resurrection, etc.
As an evolutionary creationist, I of course vehemently disagree with metaphysical naturalism as a philosophy. However, I would likely agree with a metaphysical naturalist that evolution is, from the scientific perspective, both unguided and the explanation for life.
I would just add that the scientific perspective is not the only one we should consider when we think about life. Or the most important one.
Blessings,
Chris
1 Like
I was as guilty as any about having fun with the idea of “atheistic evolution” but I never meant it to be insulting. Sorry if that is the way it came off.
I think science can be conducted by those who see the natural world as God’s creation as well as it can by people leaning toward scientism. But personally I would hope neither extreme would incorporate their bias into their practice. It is easy to see how YECs are guilty of doing exactly this. I think those who engage in what Chris has suggested calling metaphysical naturalism more often are guilty of twisting the way they report the implications of new findings. Perhaps what is needed is a kind of metaphysical neutrality when working in science.
1 Like
You’re barking up the wrong tree here.
I’ll take your word for it that Gould “propounded a stochastic model of evolutionary rates of change” in The Panda’s Thumb. He did that to explain an observation - the “extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record”, which he claimed represented an “embarrassment” to Darwin’s theory of gradualism, did he not?
In which case, I have no need to understand Gould’s explanation for that observation (the gaps) or what a stochastic model is - it’s irrelevant - because Gould’s explanation for the gaps in the fossil record doesn’t make the gaps magically disappear … they remain, regardless.
I quote Gould as an authority, to establish that extensive gaps in the fossil record do exist.
“The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils” - Gould.
… Sounds like your contiguous network of nested hierarchies is “inference … not the evidence of fossils” - imaginary, in other words. Nested hierarchies do exist, of course - eg, the many breeds of dogs that have been produced from the wolf - but they exist in isolation from other nested hierarchies. Think “lawn”, not “tree”.
Not sure what you mean by “kinds” in the history of life - the only “kinds” I know of are the “kinds” in Genesis 1, which describe the end-point of the creative process, not some intermediate stage (or first) stage.
That won’t be necessary - I just want them to confirm my suspicion that common descent is irrelevant to the efficacy of the SIFTER model.
I’m wouldn’t dream of proposing my Progressive Creation model as science - it is predicated on lots of miraculous creative acts by God.