What can we prove about evolution

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Eddie

Does Romans 9 say some false things about God? The official teaching your own Episcopalian church is “No.” What is your answer?

I know your question is directed to BeagleLady, but let me offer an opinion:

I think all Literalist Evangelicals should conclude that God predestines some people to damnation.

But all Christians who think God is all powerful has to accept God’s role in natural evil… it’s a normal part of God’s cosmos.

George

[GJDS]

This is hilarious - I used the quote facility for this blog, and selected your statement, “Unitarian Universalists generally agree that the Bible doesn’t have things right about God”. I pointed out your gross error in such a statement.

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

I didn’t say God wasn’t “responsible”; I said he wasn’t “at fault.” He is certainly “responsible” for his general decision to give free will to human beings, but he is not “at fault” for the individual choices human beings make with their free will. But of course the case is entirely different with evolution. There God would be both “responsible” and “at fault.”

No, The Calvinistic God would be at fault. Especially after the first rape. Remember, this is the micro-managing God.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Eddie

But as I keep saying to you – though it doesn’t seem to be getting through to you – it is NOT (forgive the emphasis, but you aren’t responding to normal typeface) just the “literalist evangelicals” who have interpreted Romans in that way.

@Eddie,

Dear Sir, I don’t believe you are getting MY point.

It is the Literalist Evangelicals who I have seen REJECT Romans 9 as truthful … and ILLOGICALLY so. Only NON-literalists have the privilege of rejecting Romans 9 !

Got it now, Eddie?

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Eddie

A “literalist evangelical” would lean toward a hardcore Calvinistic interpretation of Romans 9,

Virtually ALL of the “literalist evangelists” of my acquaintance holds to 6 days of creation … and rejects Romans 9.

I think I have repeated this often enough for you to get the gist of my conclusions.

@Eddie

No; not even non-literalists have the privilege of rejecting Romans 9. No orthodox Christian, literalist or non-literalist, has the privilege of rejecting Romans 9.

That is just wrong, Eddie.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Eddie

So what you are telling me is that you know some “literalist” evangelicals who are badly confused about everything from hermeneutics to fundamental Christian theology. Well, if you say that such people exist, I will take your word for it!

Eddie,

I’d be delighted if you can name a PUBLISHED Young Earth Creationist who also ACCEPTS Calvinism. It would help change my world view …

George

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

[quote=“MattC, post:55, topic:4370”]
In my opinion, micro-evolution is a change in the current traits of an organism (see adaptation and mutation below) - e.g. switching them on or off, or a corruption of them; macro-evolution is a new type of trait that the organism has not had previously. Micro- causes, for instance, bacteria to adapt to new food sources or become resistant to antibiotics. Macro- causes that bacteria to change into a worm or a fish into a bird. In my opinion.[/quote]
Hello Matt,

I’m disappointed because I explicitly asked for your mechanistic opinion. You didn’t offer any mechanistic difference that I can see.

Does evolutionary theory really posit that “a” fish will change into “a” bird? Like evolution happens to single organisms?

Thank you. I’m not sure what the significance of putting it one way and not the other is. The ‘slash’ in the middle simply meant ‘either/or’.

Now I’m even more confused by what you wrote. Why would it be either/or?

Mutations happen; adaptations happen. Mutations are non-designed corrutions, whereas adaptations are the ability to change by design.

OK, so what’s the underlying mechanism in each case?

I believe that God designed organisms to adapt to their environment, but the fall allowed mutations to be produced.

So mechanistically, are you saying that God changed the fundamental laws of chemistry or changed the identities of the bases themselves? I ask because the most common mechanism of mutation is not a mistake, but the result of keto-enol isomerization of the base. We know it’s going to happen at a baseline temporal frequency.

[quote]Generally we (by that I mean those who are informed and of a learned position) understand more-or-less how ‘micro-evolution’ works - both adaptation and mutation.
[/quote]But you still haven’t even proposed any mechanistic difference between micro and macro.

Evolution is most simply defined as a change in allele frequency in a population. What proportion of the genetic differences between yourself and chimp are NOT merely allelic?

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Eddie

If I get more information on this subject (YECs and Calvinism), I will be glad to supply it. But you may have to wait a few days. In the meantime, can you name a published YEC who thinks that Romans 9 contains false teaching?

How’s this? On page 59 of the Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology
(by Roger Olson) we read the following:

“In The Openness of God and in his later volume, Most Moved
Mover (2001), Pinnock laid out an entire program for the renewal
of evangelical theism through an infusion of “biblical theism.”
God, he argues, voluntarily limits himself such that he can be
affected by the freewill decisions and prayers of his human
creatures. Furthermore, God does not know the future
exhaustively and infallibly, because much of the future is
determined by genuinely free decisions of human beings, and
God will not abrogate that freedom by determining all decisions
and actions …”

[Jon_Garvey]

@Eddie

Addendum: Clark Pinnock’s trajectory ought to include the fact that he became one of the leaders of the Open Theism movement. It’s become locally popular in America, and for various specific reasons even more locally popular in some Theistic Evolution circles. But it’s a distinct departure from orthodox Christianity, resembling more the Socianianism of the Reformation era.

Since the OTs claim to be reading their Bible more literally than the orthodox (God changing his mind or asking for information, for example, being taken as literal rather than anthropmorphic accommodation), they’d be inconsistent to call Paul out on error, so would need (I guess) to jump through some hermeneutical hoops on Romans 9.

The fact is, though, that the apostle Paul teaches quite clearly, if compactly, in those chapters - though not so clearly that certain people don’t manage to twist what he says of the beauty and mystery of grace into a crude picture of capricious despotism that Paul would not recognise.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Eddie

And you are right to say that Pinnock’s later view is far from classical Calvinism; but it’s also far from the view of YECs.

@Eddie,

So, you are saying that Pinnock is NOT a Young Earth Creationist?

[dcscccc]

if i may add. micro is a change in the species level and macro in the family level. the different usually mean a different in unique genes\systems. so the question is do we have a step wise way from something like a car into an airplane? (like a change of dino into bird). the simple answer is no.

[dcscccc]

@benkirk

Evolution is most simply defined as a change in allele frequency in a population

so evolution doesnt have any conection to a commondescent then?

@benkirk

But you still haven’t even proposed any mechanistic difference between micro and macro.

see my comment above.