Richard, if Genesis did not have a difficult interpretation, then there would not be a Biologos website.
Hi George…
I’m not really sure how to reply to you. I have not used the word “random.” My point is that the TOE is an attempt to provide a purely naturalistic account of the evolution of life. ANY purely naturalistic process is a process devoid of purpose. Given that God intentionally Created life and in particular man, it then becomes logically incoherent to propose that “God used evolution.”
Hi Christy…I understand what you are saying, yet the violation of the laws of logic remains, specifically the law of identity. Any purely naturalistic account of the evolution of life is, by definition, a process devoid of purpose.
Thanks for asking about my rejection of evolution. When it finally hit me that it is sophisticated data sharing and processing, as well as supreme engineering technology that lies at the foundation of all living systems, I realized that no purely naturalistic account of the origin and evolution of life could possibly suffice. I recognized that I was looking at clear evidence for the necessity of a Creator of life. Thus began my search for my Creator.
yes Nick, the TE “says” that, but the “E” does not.
Let me ask you this: In saying that a sequence is not actually random, are you making the claim that God has directly intervened in the natural world to arrange the sequences?
Hey Richard…Given that life is the product of advanced data sharing and supreme technological engineering, the evidence shows no such thing. Nevertheless, if you want to hold to a purely naturalistic account of the origin and evolution of life, you are, of course, free to do so. And if you want to believe in God, I applaud you. However, when you claim that God “used” purely natural processes to get from an abiotic world to a world with life, then you must either abandon any claim that God intended man (as, for example, TE Francisco Ayala does), or you must confess direct, intentional steering in the process, thereby abandoning your agreement that the processes were purely natural.
again Nick, the claim that “God used evolution,” understanding evolution as a purely natural process, remains a violation of the first law of logic, the law of identity. Evolution is a purposeless process. God intended to Create man. A purposeless process cannot produce an intended result. Something’s gotta give.
True. Which is why evolution fails as a Grand Theory of Everything. But most people here (myself included) also find a purely naturalistic account of the evolution of life unacceptable is addressing questions of purpose and design .
This is from the BioLogos What We Believe Statement
“We believe that the diversity and interrelation of all life on earth are best explained by the God-ordained process of evolution with common descent. Thus, evolution is not in opposition to God, but a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes. Therefore, we reject ideologies that claim that evolution is a purposeless process or that evolution replaces God.”
When you say that evolution is God-ordained, and the means by which God achieves his purposes, you affirm that evolution is a part of an inherently teleological reality. (At least that’s how I read the statement.)
The debate would be whether or not this teleology is something that can be scientifically studied or proven. But the EC folks here are not denying that life/creation is designed by God and headed in a direction that conforms to God’s will and purpose.
I assert that evolution is not a purely natural process. I assert theistic evolution.
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Joe, your paragraph just doesn’t seem responsive to anything the BioLogos articles have been stating or describing.
You seem determined to make God think and act like a human. You don’t know what he is trying to do. You don’t know how he does what he does.
I think what you are doing is just stating YOUR preferences.
If a devoted Christian is convinced that the science of Evolution is sound AND he believes God is in charge of the Cosmos… I don’t really think you are in a position to say that it is impossible.
Nick,
It’s a bit problematic to attribute Genesis 2:4 to the preceding creation account when every time the phrase, “This is the account” was used in Genesis it preceded the following section, as in 5:1, 6:9, 10:1, 11:10 and 27, 25:12 and 19, 36:1 and 37:2. As well, the passage uses, “Yahweh Elohim” for God where Genesis 1 uses, “Elohim”, the writer presumably wanting to emphasize the relational nature of God in this creation account with Adam and Eve. So Genesis 2:4 has to be an introduction to the Genesis 2, but both creation accounts have issues with science obviously.
Yes, the ribbon-cutting ceremonies would have been absolutely mind-boggling to experience. Only, the G1 writer doesn’t mention that he had visions of any of them.
Richard, if Genesis did not have a difficult interpretation, then there would not be a Biologos website.
@Richard_Wright All of those examples precede genealogies. Genesis 2:4 does not precede a genealogy. Not the same. Genesis 2:4 is a wrap-up of the preceding account in Genesis 1, in the same way that the final verses in Leviticus and Numbers wrap up those books.
Because Genesis 2:4 refers back to Genesis 1, that creates a natural break between Genesis 2:4 and Genesis 2:5. In Genesis 2:5 and throughout the story of Eden, we translate Eritz as land, and we thereby resolve the contradictions between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Eden is a land, Eden is not the world. Eden is local, not global.
Genesis 2 has creation in a different order from that in Genesis 1. Genesis 1 has plants, then fish (and dinosaurs and birds) created before mammals, and then last, man. Genesis 2 has Adam created first, then trees and last, animals. If Genesis 1 is the story of the creation of the earth and life on earth, but Genesis 2 is the story special creation in a garden, then there is no contradiction. God created the earth and people, and then later God created Eden’s garden and Adam.
Local Eden answers the question of where Cain’s wife came from. She came from outside the Garden.
Local Eden answers the question of who Cain was building his city for. He was building it for some of the people who lived outside of the garden.
Local Eden answers the question of how the genealogies can indicate Adam lived 6 to 10 thousand years ago, but people have been around for 100,000 years.
Local Eden answers the Problem Of Pain and eliminates the need for the false doctrine of Original Sin. I have written about this in other places on the Forum. In a nutshell:
Only God is perfect.
We are not God.
Therefore we are not perfect and will inevitably sin.
Adam was not perfect, because he was not God, but Adam was blameless because he did not know the difference between good and evil.
Adam chose to gain the knowledge of good and evil.
When Adam gained the knowledge of good and evil he became culpable for his actions and was no longer blameless.
All humans, given the choice would have made the same choice as Adam.
All humans, because we desire to know the difference between right and wrong and make our own decisions, we require something to make decisions about.
The evil in the world is composed of challenges to overcome or be overcome by, alternatives to choose from, and people who choose to do evil and these things are all necessary consequences of or prerequisites for moral freedom of choice.
God is not evil for creating people he knew would sin and a world with evil in it; because the evil in the world is made necessary by our own desire for the knowledge of good and evil.
Local Eden makes a nice foreshadowing of a local flood. A local flood fits with the geological column and does not require me to try to convince myself that two orangutans walked across the Himalayas to take a boat ride. Bonus.
@deliberateresult , Joe, I look forward to reading what Nick says in answer to your question, but I can answer IN THE AFFIRMATIV!!! God intervenes in the natural world… by his precise configuration of creation.
Some Christians can spend a lifetime disputing whether God intervenes DIRECTLY or INDIRECTLY … I say both is possible. But I am in no position to separate between the two…
I like your “Eden is Local” speculation …
But this “local flood” notion? It doesn’t solve more problems than it causes:
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If God’s inspiration can fail on the GLOBAL quality of the flood … how is this more reassuring than the Global Flood didn’t even happen?
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If God’s inspiration can fail on the question of whether Noah took a pair of animals from the whole world … how is this more reassuring than there was no Global Flood?
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If God’s inspiration can fail on the question of whether Noah’s family was a tiny percent of the “survivors”, rather than virtually all of the survivors … how is this more reassuring than there was no Global Flood?
You can have a “made up” story with Moral content?
Or you can have a CRAZY story where nothing makes any sense compared to what a regional flood would have referenced …AND hence no moral content?
You actually prefer the latter?
Here’s another way to look at it.
Mel Gibson’s movie THE PATRIOT, is sometimes criticized because of several changes to the history it was portraying. The movie used a different name for the rebel captain… rather than the historical one: “Swamp Fox”.
The movie didn’t depict the history behind the Battle of Guilford Courthouse or the Battle of Cowpens… but instead, presented a major battle which combined features from BOTH battles.
So… if someone said that The Patriot WAS historical, a case could be made… though many would say it is BAD history.
Let’s apply the same logic to the Biblical Flood. What would be considered an ALMOST HISTORICAL interpretation?
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Instead of Noah and his 3 sons surviving… what if it was a man named “Torah” (get it? it rhymes!).
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And he lived in a village on a mountain top. And the WHOLE VILLAGE (of say 50 people) survived?
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And instead of a boat, the village collected wild animals and kept them in a big wooden barn!
Of course… this is still a BOGUS story … to think that flood waters swamped ALL THE LAND of the world… except for one mountain top. But such a rendition would at least be a more natural scenario.
But what do we have instead:
- A somewhat slavish copy of a pre-existing Sumerian story.
- About an event that would have happened right in the middle of the Egyptian 5th or 6th Dynasty?
- But it’s a REGIONAL flood where Noah and his family wouldn’t have had to collect all the animals of the world…
- or even need a BOAT!
Ugh.
Nick,
I’d rather not get involved in a discourse on suffering here, it’s not the place and you and I come from different places on Adam and Eve (I hold to a literary, and not literal first couple). But now that you’ve brought it up I’ll just correct a few things. A strict reading of Genesis has Adam at 6,000 years ago, to get to 10,000 you have to assume generations between the people mentioned in the genealogies. Also, humans started appearing on earth at least 200,000 years ago, not 100,000. I might note as well that population genetics has there being minimally 10,000 humans on earth at any point in our history.
I don’t see how you can explain away the contradictions between G1 and G2 by claiming that the G2 creation account is the, “special creation story”. G1 has man after land plants and G2 has them before. If that doesn’t constitute a contradiction I don’t know what does.
“This is the account” is not used merely to precede genealogies, it would be more accurate to say it precedes stories about people, including Adam and Eve. 6:9 is used precedes the story of Noah. 11:27 is a narrative account of Terah’s family, 25:12 + 19 are narrative accounts of Ishmael and Isaac’s family lines, 36:1 is Esau’s genealogy mixed with narrative and 37:2 is Jacobs family history. There are varying degrees of actual genealogic listings in the text following, “This is the account of” with Noah and Jacob’s family histories having none. Therefore your genealogy, “theory” has no basis. One mistake that you may be making is using too literal of an interpretation of, “toldot”, which can mean a genealogy but more generally indicates a temporal or generational description. In addition I checked literally at least 15 English bibles and all but 2 had 2:4 either after a heading title for the 2nd creation account or clearly indicating that it was, including in all the, “major” versions.
You have 1 of 2 options for Genesis 2:4. One is that the, “redactor” in the JEPD+R schema added, “This is the account” at the beginning of, “the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” If that is the case, then the redactor was using, “This is the account” as a delineation of the 2 creation stories and an introduction to the 2nd since the phrase is used as an introduction in the other 9 times that it was used in Genesis. Or, one writer wrote 2:4. In that case the rule/pattern still applies. In addition, the phrase for God in 2:4, “Yahweh Elohim” is the one used throughout the rest of chapter which strongly indicates, along with pattern/rule that it is an introduction to the 2nd creation account.
You must either abandon any claim that God intended man (as, for example, TE Francisco Ayala does), or you must confess direct, intentional steering in the process, thereby abandoning your agreement that the processes were purely natural.
Joe, for an EC/TE evolution must be teleological. I don’t know the views of Ayala but if he argues that God didn’t intend man than I categorically disagree with him. I believe that God designed man, but that doesn’t IMO commit me to a, “special” creation. It is easily within God’s power and certainly His prerogative to design a process where the laws that he created will act on the matter he created in ways that will guarantee life and eventually man without Him having to, “intervene” here and there. For me it’s a much more ingenious method for it to be, “naturalistic” than to be one that necessitates God, “intervening” here and there. But for an example let’s look at the evolution of earth as an example, assuming you hold to consensus science on that. We know that ~9.3 billion years after the Big Bang solar dust gathered and formed a swirling disc which coalesced in the middle and eventually formed the sun. The leftover dust eventually coalesced and formed the planets, including Earth which was bombarded thousands of times by meteorites and comets to arrive in the elliptical orbit it has now, which is ideal for life. Was there any direct divine action there? Not that we can see, so the bible says that God created the earth and we know that it wasn’t from any miraculous interventions. Then why can’t God initiate a process that over long periods of time would guarantee the evolution (creation) of simple life forms that would diversify and become more complex?
God’s inspiration does not fail. Men fail to understand it. God’s word is infallible in that it contains truth, but men are repeatedly too dumb and fallible to understand it.
Mark 4:12 so that,
“‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”
Often because they choose not to understand because their incorrect interpretations serve their own interests. The free will inherent in God’s plan requires plausible deniability for sinners who choose to keep chasing idols.
God’s inspiration does not fail, but people often are not able to understand it. It is not our job to reassure people. I don’t care if people are reassured or not. I am not trying to reassure anyone that what they learned in 1947 at the feet of their Sunday school teacher in front of the flannel graph is the absolute unvarnished perfectly true way that it happened and that they can go home from church on Sunday and watch golf and not worry about anything ever again. I am interested in the truth, whether it is reassuring to people or not. Faith does not save. Jesus saves.
John 12:32 And I, when I am lifted up[a] from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Matthew 22
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 6:15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 7:2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
John 5
21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,
So, in order to be saved, one must seek God, treat ones neighbor as oneself, forgive others and then Jesus, to whom all judgement has been entrusted, may choose to redeem you. Jesus draws all men to himself, but some choose to resist and go their own way.
Cheap grace is for suckers.
Also, the flood really happened and it was local and whether or not someone is reassured by that fact is immaterial.
@Nick_Allen… who spends a year on a boat because of a regional flood? Who is told to build a boat because of a regional flood?
I have no problem with any of that.
Simple. G1 is the creation of the earth. G2 is the creation of a garden in Iraq. After God created the earth, he proceeded to do some gardening, in a small geographically limited area. G1 describes the creation of a big planet hurtling through space. G2 describes the creation of a teeny little park in the middle east. G1 is global. G2 is local. G1 is a planet. G2 is a little speck in a secluded corner on that planet. The planet was created starting 4.5 billion years ago. The garden was created 10, I mean 6 thousand years ago, in an arid part of a desert fed by artesian springs. Outside the garden people had been roaming around for 1, I mean 2 hundred thousand years, including the parents of Cain’s mysterious wife. Inside the garden, an experiment played out that proved the preferences of all mankind for knowledge and culpability as opposed to safety and obliviousness.
Ok, you got me.
So, since the genealogy theory doesn’t work, let’s try this. Look closely at the junction between G1 and G2. Genesis 2:3 is the wrap-up of G1. Genesis 2:4 is the towlĕdah passage. Genesis 2:7 is the creation of Adam and 2:8 is the planting of the garden. After 2:8, G2 is discussing the Garden. Between Genesis 2:4 and Genesis 2:7 we have 2:5 and 2:6. What are we to make of Genesis 2:5 and Genesis 2:6? They are setting the scene. No crops, no rain, no farming. The scene is a desert. Then a strange mist rises from the ground and waters the ground. Then God forms from this dust a man and breathes life into him. Then eastward in Eden, God plants a garden and puts this man into this garden. So, Genesis 2:5 describes a desert west of Eden, where God creates Adam from moist dust. Genesis 2:5 does not describe the entirety of the earth, just a desert somewhere west of Eden. The second half of 2:4 set scene in terms of time. ". . . in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. . . ". Apparently this is a way of saying , long long ago. It is not literally yowm Yĕhovah 'elohiym `asah 'erets shamayim on the same day that the earth and sky were made, because the earth is already part of the scene, as is the sky.
So, the first part of 2:4 tells us we are going to get a history, and the second part of 2:4 tells us this is ancient history. 2:5 sets the scene as a desert. 2:6 a mist rises from the land and wets the ground. 2:7 God forms a man from this moistened dust and breathes life into him. 2:8 God plants a garden and puts the man in it. The important points here for differentiating G1 and G2 are that 2:4 sets the time as in the far past relative to the invisible narrator, and that 2:5 refers to a desert and not to the entire planet. This goes back to the ol’ eretz as “land” and not “world”. Basically, in G1 we translate eretz as world, and in G2 we translate eretz as land.