What are the arguments against Theistic Evolution? What specific scriptures do you think contradict Theistic Evolution?

Faith & Science Conversation
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@Nick_Allen

Isn’t this a bit of a self-serving reach?

You are claiming that the Ancients had an UNUSUALLY vivid awareness of the spherical nature of the Earth … and yet they don’t have any sense at all that the Earth is whirling around the sun. If this is case for divine inspiration of the scribes by God… someone must have hung up the phone too early … because there an awful lot of revelations that the ancient world COULD have benefited from … but just didn’t have/know.

This seems like a classic case of cherry picking…

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@gbrooks9 I am claiming that the ancients often did not fully understand their own divinely inspired writings. This is not far fetched because I am going to sit in a room full of people this evening who also do not fully understand the inspired scriptures. Come to think of it, no one fully understands the inspired scriptures. Also, I do agree that for the most part, the commonly accepted cosmology of the ancient Semitic people was not scientifically correct. This is not a barrel full of pits from which to pluck a cherry, this is just the result of seeing the world as through a glass darkly.

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Nick,

A number of observations.

A major problem for concordances in general is that they try to, like yours, attribute passages in Genesis 1 as describing events throughout the earth’s history and going back billions of years when they are obviously describing things that existed at the time of it’s writing some 4,000 years ago.

Firstly, Genesis 1:2 cannot reasonably be considered to be describing the creating of our solar system. It’s describing an already created earth covered by water. Again, water didn’t start forming on the earth until 500 million years after its formation. You attribute the verse to the solar system formation by the use of the Ancient Hebrew word, “wabohu” (formless, void). But this is describing the early earth’s empty surface.

You wrote, “sunlight first reaches the surface of the rotating earth through the thick atmosphere.” We don’t know if that is true or not, but even if it were, there was no sun yet (4th day). So your first, “vision” corresponds neither to science or Genesis 1.

Your vision of the, “vault” also is problematic. For one you changed the time of it’s, “creation” by having it in early earth (no surface water) in your previous statements and in the 2nd Atmosphere, 3.8 billion years ago, in your vision post. There is water on the surface but only steam in that atmosphere, not rising up at the top layer but throughout the 2nd Atmosphere mixed with various other gases. Therefore there is nothing to separate. Beyond that, as I said before God called this vault the, “sky” and that is clearly the one of the Third Atmosphere, 2.5 billion years ago. The writer also held the ancient view that the vault held up the waters of heaven. In that case how can we even try to tie it to actual events that were given in a, “vision”?

Your third vision has a major issue. I’ll grant that land masses may have appeared at 3 bya per recent evidence, but cyanobacteria are not plants and the plants from Genesis 1’s day 3 are plants on land, which came in a much later.

You have vision (day) four stating that the 3rd atmosphere let light be visible for the first time creating the lights that are the sun and moon. However, you already have sunlight reaching the surface of the earth in vision (day) one.

It’s true that fish did evolve first, but birds came later.

Animals did come before man. However, they came before birds as well.

So, not only does the timeline in your visions contradict what we know from modern science, they contradict, in some instances, what you had posted previously.

Instead of eisegesis (reading what we want into biblical texts), which creates strained and complicated interpretations, exegesis (proper interpretation) will produce a simpler answer. It’s just simpler and IMO makes more sense that Genesis 1 is about God creating and ordering then about scientific explanations.

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@Richard_Wright
Richard,

My more recent posts may contradict earlier posts, but this is a work in progress, so take the whole thing with a grain of salt. Your assertion that the formless void describes the earth’s early watery surface is interesting. One difficulty with matching up the early chapters of Genesis with natural history, is that the scientific consensus (if there is one) as to the earliest natural history is a moving target. For instance, if we assume that the early earth was dry and water was deposited later by comets and asteroid impacts, then we can create one concordance and pat ourselves on the back until we read the following articles that dispute that the hadean earth was dry.

http://paleobiology.si.edu/geotime/main/htmlversion/archean2.html
So, that is a problem if you decide that early Genesis is concordant with scientific consensus A, B and C and then you wait 30 years and the college textbooks change to D, E and F.

So, for the sake of argument, let’s think about Genesis 1 as if it were visions or dreams being reported by a recipient of these dream/visions. From a viewpoint of 6 feet in height, the horizon is 3 miles in every direction. In order for our prophet to report to us that the Spirit of God hovered over a formless void, we require a circular area of liquid water 6 miles in diameter. In order for our prophet to report that the waters above and below to not yet be separated, we require for it to be raining. In order for our prophet to report that light became visible, although no sun and moon were visible, we require the voice of God and for it to be overcast at dawn.

The only thing that we require for our prophet to report to us that the waters below were separated from the waters above is for it to be foggy/raining, the voice of God and then for it stop raining/fog to lift. True our prophet thought that he was seeing a vault which held up the waters of heaven when he looked up at the overcast sky, and that he probably had this preconception (just like everyone he knew) before he was presented with this dream/vision. Apparently God did not disabuse him of this notion.

Thanks for granting the land masses. The plants are a bit more problematic. While it is true that cyanobacteria are not plants, it appears that photosynthesis developed first in cyanobacteria and then was passed to algae and on to plants. Evolution of photorespiration from cyanobacteria to land plants, considering protein phylogenies and acquisition of carbon concentrating mechanisms - PubMed This means that in order for our prophet to report he creation of plants to us, we require the voice of God, and that observed a sweep spanning from single celled bacteria with no nuclei all the way to seed bearing trees. This at first glance appears to pose a problem in that the evolution of plants overlaps with fish, birds and animals. This is resolved simply by the visions being differentiated by subject matter. Today’s nature program is on the subject of “plants”.

Note that we are not talking about when the sun, moon and stars came into being, but instead we are talking about when they became visible to our prophet. Our prophet is reporting what he sees, so it is what he sees that is important. The only thing that we require from our prophet on day 4 to report the creation of the sun, moon and stars is the voice of God and that the clouds part. On day 1, it was overcast, and light was visible although the source of light was not.

Fish evolved first, and then dinosaurs which evolved into birds.

I make the assumption that day 5’s nature episode is on the subject of livestock type animals and mammals in general.

Then, God made a bunch of people (not just two, although that came later).

So, somewhere it was dark and raining and there was at least 6 square miles of liquid water at some time in the past, and the sun came up. Then there was an overcast day when it was raining, and it stopped raining that day. Then there was an overcast day when a rock stuck up out of an ocean. Then there was a day when it was overcast until the clouds parted. Then there was a day when plants started to evolve. Later on, there was a different day when fish started to evolve, and thereafter birds evolved from dinosaurs. Then after that, on a different day, large mammals evolved. Then people evolved. And, did I mention that God made it happen? Did I also mention that a man with no knowledge of science watched portions of God causing all of this and then tried to explain it to all of his friends, who also had no knowledge of science whatsoever? And yes, within the retelling of the story there is embedded meaning about the relationship between God, the world and mankind.

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Here’s mine in a nutshell, Nick: the TE position is a logical fallacy. A purposeless process can not produce an intended result. Under the current model, the source of variation is genetic mistakes. Scripture is very clear and very consistent (not merely in Genesis 1, but from Genesis to Revelation) that one of the essential truths about God is that He Created life and in particular man, and that He did so intentionally. Rather than show you the Scriptures, I am going to encourage you to perform a concordance search on the words “formed,” “Created,” and “made.” I could throw in others as well. I will refer you to Isaiah 43-45. You simply cannot read these three chapters and come away thinking anything other than this: God is Who He says He is and He backs this up by telling us that He intentionally Created the earth to be inhabited by us (45:12 and 18). Indeed, in these three short chapters, there are no fewer than a dozen citations of God’s deliberate Creation of man.

A purposeless process cannot produce an intended result.

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@deliberateresult. the ‘t’ in TE stands for “theistic” so there is nothing purposeless about TE.

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That’s great Nick. Please help me understand your position a little bit better. Where exactly do you see the purpose fitting in? The reason I ask is because the source of variation under the current paradigm is indeed devoid of purpose.

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Proverbs 16:33 The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the LORD.

To a scientist every throw of the dice is completely random. To me every throw has been determined by God. Gene changes would be the same. Just because someone who denies the supernatural says a process is devoid of purpose does not make it so. I believe evolution does show the purpose of God.

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@deliberateresult @Bill_II I agree with Bill. It is impossible to disprove the influence of an omnipotent God on the outcome of a seemingly random sequence. For instance, if you flip a coin 50 times, you will find that it is impossible for you to disprove the influence of God on the outcome of the coin flips. Same with genetic selection in a population.

Notice that this defeats the straw man of “The God Of The Gaps”. Even if scientists were to someday create a Theory Of Everything and fill in all of the gaps in biology and reconcile General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics, you still would be unable to test for or disprove God’s influence on the universe.

The paradigm of TE is that the purpose in the universe comes from God’s plan.

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@deliberateresult,

Whenever someone wants to discuss either PURPOSE or RANDOMNESS … you HAVE to consider three different kinds of randomness or purpose:

  1. Dice represent RANDOMNESS to humans… but paradoxically, most people think DICE do not freewill, nor do they think dice behave like sub-atomic particles.

  2. A peg board can be designed to direct a steel marble to ONE SPECIFIC hole in the board. OR … a peg board can be designed so that the movement of a dozen steel marbles can still be quite chaotic, but it’s impossible to know which steel marble is going to go where.

  3. The apparatus could be for steel marbles… or it could be sized to shape the behavior of neutrons… but if God knows everything that is going to happen depending on how he sets things up … then he is DIRECTING how things happen if he makes SPECIFIC arrangements for each outcome.

Randomness from the Human viewpoint is not the same thing as purposelessness from God’s viewpoint.

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Here is a textual support for the creation of Eden being the local creation of a Garden, and for the creation of Eden not being the creation of life on earth on the 6th “day” of creation. Genesis 2:4 states that

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

Most people think that this is the preface to the account of Adam and Eve. However when we look at the Last verse of Leviticus it states:

34 These are the commands the Lord gave Moses at Mount Sinai for the Israelites.

Similarly, the Last verse of Numbers is:

13 These are the commands and regulations the Lord gave through Moses to the Israelites on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.

The final verses in Leviticus and Numbers wrap up those respective books. In the same way, we can plainly see that Genesis 2:4 is not the preface to the account of Eden, but rather Genesis 2:4 is the wrap-up or summary of Genesis 1:1 through Genesis 2:3 and echos Genesis 2:1. Genesis 2:4 refers back to the earlier chapters in Genesis, not forward to the later account of the Garden in Eden.

Therefore Eden is local, not global. The fact that the creation of Eden is a local special creation by God neatly explains why the creation order in Eden is different from the creation order in Genesis 1. Eden being local then implies that the Hebrew word “eretz” should be translated as “land” and not as “world” in the Eden account. That then sets the stage for translating eretz as land in the Noah flood account as well and helps with consistency when showing that the flood was local.

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Nick, George, and Bill: Thanks for the opportunity to have this conversation. I really appreciate it. I see two problems with what you are saying. 1. Genetic sequences are clearly not random. They are aperiodic, but they are very specific, and necessarily so. The clear “purpose” that is manifest in all living systems is inherent in the sequences, and the results those sequences produce. This is clear evidence of deliberate design and it is very good news for Christians. 2. to put it bluntly, the theory of evolution has no need of God. It is a theory that seeks to provide a purely naturalistic explanation for life and is therefore wholly independent of whether one believes in God or not. You are free to believe that purpose exists in life, but the naturalistic theory is complete and has no need for purpose. The logical incoherence remains: a purposeless process (which is what evolution is) can not produce an intentional result.

Concerning the coin flip example, it is completely uninteresting and non compelling whether a certain (seemingly) random sequence of coin flips has been influenced by God. However, if there is reason to believe that a certain result has been specified in advance and is favored for some reason, and that result is obtained, then it becomes clear that the “seemingly random” sequence is indeed an intended outcome and not a random one. In this case, we clearly see a purpose in the result of each of the 50 coin flips. Furthermore, if God Himself were to tell us through His prophets that this specific result of successive coin flips served to validate that He is Who He says He is, why, in the face of all of this, would we cling to the obviously false notion that this sequence was random and not intentional?

The TE insists, in agreement with the atheist, that the sequences of organic molecules appear to be random. The fact is that these immensely improbably sequences reveal clear purpose; a purpose that is wholly in line with essential truths that God has declared to us about Himself (have you consulted Isaiah 43-45?).

My testimony, in the most concise way I can deliver it, is that my embrace of evolution in college turned me into an atheist. By His grace, He brought me back after 30+ years in the wilderness. My story is by no means unique. Evolution and abiogenesis are foundational pillars of the atheistic worldview. Evolution turns believers into atheists. As the late Will Provine has noted, “Evolution is the greatest engine for atheism ever invented”

That’s why I have come to this forum guys. Ideas have consequences.

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Evolution is a scientific model to address a certain aspect of the natural world. Even if it doesn’t “need God,” it doesn’t mean people don’t need God. Science doesn’t attempt to explain all of reality, just the natural world. As Christians, we freely acknowledge there is an overlapping and intruding spiritual/supernatural reality that science does not speak to.

Just curious, did you come away from atheism simply because you rejected evolution, or was it something else.

You might be interested in this article comparing the natural and random processes involved in weather (which we accept God’s sovereignty and power over and don’t see as unbiblical) with the natural and random processes involved in evolution (which we have somehow made into a binary “either God is sovereign or evolution is natural and random” choice and we have to choose God to be biblical.) Why is one acceptable and the other not?

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@deliberateresult the TE says that although the sequence appears random, it is not actually just random. Sorry to hear about your college years. I can’t figure out from your posts if you are YEC or ID.

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I’m glad you’re here, Joe; we need to hear from other voices than those of us who usually pipe up with more frequency. And so of course you seem to be prepared for a bit of push-back.

I agree. There may be other important pillars for them too, but I think you’ve identified two big ones.

Is it also possible that those same “evolutionary pillars” are also pillars of a much larger temple than the tiny corner of said temple that naturalists have limited themselves to? I.e. just because I can see within only a certain radius that my naturalistic flashlight illumines, and just because there is only one or two pillars in my sight, it does not follow that this must be the entire edifice of existence.

Or put another way, mathematics may be a necessary pillar to some kinds of numerology (finding significant number patterns in sacred texts). While all numerologists must know something of math (it is indeed a necessary pillar for them), it does not follow that math cannot be successfully used for a much wider array of things or that all mathematicians of necessity must become numerologists. Does that make any sense?

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I strongly disagree that the theory of evolution has no need for God. It absolutely needs God.

For one, without God there is no universe. A very intelligent, powerful entity had to cause the Big Bang. The multiverse theory is a complete failure for that since, A: there is no evidence for the existence of the multiverse, and B: If there were one, where did it come from and how did it get to be fine-tuned so that it would produce universes with different physical laws (multiverse supporters don’t mention this usually).

Two, we need a universe overwhelmingly fine-tuned so that its physical laws allow the existence of life.

Three, these physical laws need to work on the the matter that God created at the big bang to allow for a life-friendly planet to create DNA/RNA, mutations and an environment for natural selection so that life will be created and become more complex, eventually evolving man who can see the world as a work of God and hopefully eventually have a relationship with Him.

So, as you see, evolution like everything else has a context, it didn’t appear in a vacuum. It needed a powerful, intelligent and loving God for it to do its work.

As well, we don’t need any, “direct” interventions by God to create humans since He created a process that from the beginning (Big Bang) to present is doing His work. Natural processes are from God, to argue that having no Gaps means no need for God is simply erroneous. God can chose any way He likes to create the universe and life, and the evidence overwhelmingly shows that He chose, "natural’ processes over long periods of time to do his work.

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Nick,

I’ll give you an, “A” for creativity but you’re inconsistent in attributing the contents in your visions to be of early creations or from the time of the prophet. You have cyanobacteria as the plants in your third vision, which in itself if a huge stretch since, as I stated before cyanobacteria are not plants and they were in the water. But, to have animals in a later vision than they would have had to be in if following the actual timeline of life on earth you have the animals being described as being those of the prophet’s time, which they obviously are.

Like I said, everything that is described in Genesis 1 is what the prophet would have phenomenologically and they take no direct insight from God. As strained as they are your visions only make sense to someone with knowledge of 4,000 years of accumulated scientific knowledge. They wouldn’t make sense to a person living 4,000 years ago and we know that to interpret the bible properly it has to make sense to the original audience.

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@Richard_Wright @Mervin_Bitikofer @deliberateresult Richard, i disagree that the bible had to make sense to the original recipients, based on the fact that so many things in the bible did not make sense to the original recipients. What is a Whirling Wheel? Ezekiel 10:13. Did it make sense to people to walk around Jericho 7 times? Jesus says beware of the yeast of the pharisees, so the disciples assumed he was mad they forgot to bring lunch Matthew 16:5. There at lots of examples in the bible where people got visions they did not understand. Interpreting dreams got Joseph out of jail. . . dreams that people did not understand. Also, Revelation is out of time. Genesis is similarly out of time. Revelation is a vision of the future. Genesis is a vision of the past. Some parts of the bible are written, such as the Psalms and Ecclesiastes. Some parts of the bible are reported. Remember to check your genre. Think of the days in Genesis as being the announcements of the commencements of long projects. The evening and morning imagery is the beginning and end of the individual visions.

Correct, God used evolution to create life on earth. Evolution seems like drift and advantage but is directed by God.

Correct, and even with no gaps, it would be impossible to prove that God did not use evolution to create life on earth.

Correct, and similarly it does not follow that evolution cannot successfully have been used by God to create life on earth.

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Hello Nick,

I agree with you that scriptures often didn’t make sense to the writers, but those were usually visions, dreams, prophecies or passages with difficult interpretations.

Dreams could be a prophecy or have a purpose for a future event, such as with Joseph. But in either case the meaning became clear at some point in the future.

Revelation is highly figurative, obviously, and as well has a lot of numerology that people of the time would have understood. I actually think most of Revelation is about things that have already happened.

“Genesis is a vision of the past.”

Not in the way that (parts of) Revelation is for the future. Like Christy previously stated, there is no biblical justification, or any other justification IMO to interpret Genesis 1 as a series of visions. Ezekiel revealed his visions as visions. The Genesis 1 writer does not. Everything mentioned in G1 was readily recognizable in nature at the time of it’s writing - there are no, “strange” scenes being described like in Ezekiel. Actually, nowhere does the writer say that he doesn’t understand what he is writing or even that it was, “amazing”, “overwhelming” or anything adjective like that, while other biblical writers did. And as well the mistakes in the cosmological and biological timelines loudly proclaim that the Genesis 1 creation story is not trying to relate to physical realities but theologic ones.

Aside from that, I think you could have used better examples to support your cause. The wheels in Ezekiel 10, though there are different interpretations out there now, usually are taken to mean that the living creatures could go in any direction, which is what I had always thought and I think that’s a reasonable interpretation and one that the ancients might have understood. 7 is a biblical number for completion so the 7 circles around Jericho is simply the complete number of times of circling before the attack. I think it would have been obvious for an ancient, who would have understood the numerology of the day. Why circle at all? Probably so they knew that the victory was God’s and not theirs, and to trust Him in it. And why is the yeast so hard to understand? A little was used in making bread and it spread throughout the whole product. Anyone in those days would have understood what Jesus was saying and the 12 should have, their knuckleheadedness having prevented them. So there are things in the bible that were more clearly understood by the ancients than by the moderns.

Let me ask you this, Nick. Do you think that Genesis 1 loses any divine authority if it’s not describing creation scientifically?

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@Richard_Wright

Genesis 1 loses divine authority if it is not true. Genesis 2:4 states: [quote=“Nick_Allen, post:112, topic:4659”]
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
[/quote]

If you would like to choose some other examples in the bible showing where the people in the bible did not have full understanding of God’s plan, please be my guest. How about Matthew 13:13 This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

Genesis 1 has to be true in the same way that the rest of the bible has to be true. That is not to say that we necessarily will understand the underlying truth contained therein.

[quote=“Richard_Wright, post:120, topic:4659”]
Actually, nowhere does the writer say that he doesn’t understand what he is writing or even that it was, “amazing”, “overwhelming” or anything adjective like that, while other biblical writers did.
[/quote] That is because this is Moses writing down the oral tradition of the Hebrew people. How did it get into the oral tradition of the Hebrew people? Somebody in antiquity saw it in a vision(s) and I am sure when he told all his friends by the well, he sprinkled it with plenty of adjectives.

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

See? Amazing.

Have you ever been to a ribbon cutting ceremony? How about a ground breaking ceremony? What do you think it would have been like to have a vision of God’s ground-breaking ceremony for the first continent? Do you think it would have been amazing? What about God’s ribbon cutting ceremony for vertebrates? What would it be like to have God spend a day showing you how he brought fish from worms, and reptiles and dinosaurs from fish, and birds from dinosaurs? Do you think it would have been amazing? Do you think that when Moses was writing down the cultural vision of the creation of the universe he called Aaron over and asked, “hey Aaron, do you think that I should add a verse in here telling folks that this is amazing, or do you think that they will be able to figure out that it’s amazing from the imagery and the subject matter?”