Who best reconciles the Bible and Evolution?

Faith & Science Conversation
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I thought I had posted a reply with a link to see the answer I gave to @pevaquark, but I no longer see it so I’ll just cut and paste it here.

I am no trickster. My questions here have been sincere.

Let’s imagine that Hugh Ross (or you can insert Ken Ham or any other YEC or non-BioLogos OEC) thinks to himself: “You know, if I’m honest, I have to admit I’ve encountered some doubts lately about my position on evolution. Is this the devil trying to lead me away from God’s truth or is this the Holy Spirit leading me to a better grasp of truth than I’ve had before? I don’t know, but I think if I go with an open mind to the BioLogos people asking honest questions and trusting God, then He will lead me to the truth. He will either show me that I was weak to have doubted Him, or that I had been hard-headed about evolution - either way I should be humble because one way or the other, I have not honored Him properly. One way or the other, I need to repent. Let me get at the truth - whatever it is - and I will repent and serve Him with all my heart.”

Now if Hugh Ross (or whoever else’s name you want to insert in his place) were to come to this forum on that basis, and you are convinced you have the truth that he has not had, would you answer his honest questions…or would you react to him in some other way?

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@Mike_Gantt

Obviously, Mike, you have to be willing to accept that somebody (i.e., Bible scribes) got some of the details confused, or they were overwhelmed by the erroneous views of the culture and civilization they were a part of during the time of their writings.

Millions of Christians have no problem with this understanding. The ones who don’t apparently would be the ones who would throw away an entire book on George Washington if they found a part that mentioned him cutting down the cherry tree as a fact.

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@Mike_Gantt

And as many of us have already implied… if you can rely on the science as a fact established by your witness of the science, then how can you reject the history the science leads us to in favor of something you have only read in an ancient text, with no eye-witness by your eyes at all?

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@Mike_Gantt

I don’t follow your reasoning.

Science provides a way for humanity to be a witness to how God constructed His creation and how he uses natural processes to augment how he accomplishes His will.

A 3000 year old book is how humans attempt to record information they believe is true - - even if they themselves did not witness it, nor did we witness what is being described.

How can you compare the reliability of your witness of the revelation of Science to the purported reliability of a book written in by unknown individuals, in an uncertain context, about things they could only know about by imagining it, or by thinking God put the words in their minds to write?

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@Mike_Gantt

I think you have me all wrong. You don’t upset me - - you fascinate me. And sometimes people who fascinate me need a boat load of correction.

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Realizing that some my thinking is as much a mystery to you as some of yours is to me, let me explain how I understand some of these terms.

For me, the difference between science and history is simple and clear: science tries to explain what happens while history documents what happened.

Now, a little more about history. Somewhere in my education I was taught the definition I just gave you. Another way of saying it is that history is what happened that got written down. Thus what is pre-historic is what happened before things were written down. However, many people today use the term history more loosely: just what happened (whether it was written down or not). This is the way I have used the word throughout my posting on this topic. I’ve felt a little sloppy doing so, but it seems to be the way most people use the term today, and even the first definition Google gives for history doesn’t mention writing. Therefore, I’ve chosen to just go along with the way most people today seem to define history.

One point of agreement between evolution and more traditional interpretations of Genesis is that humans are latecomers to the universe. That being the case, humans cannot bear witness to anything created before them. There are, therefore, only two ways I can think of that they can know about pre-human times: God can reveal it to them or through science they can speculate on what it must have been like - that is, divine revelation or human speculation.

It may seem to you that I am using the word speculation in a pejorative sense but I am not. Scientists can be so confident of their speculation, coming as it does from multiple and independent lines of evidence, that they can conclude evolution to be true in the same way that most people don’t need eyewitness testimony to believe that O. J. did it.

The question then becomes, and the question for me in this topic discussion has consistently been, how then does one reconcile this confidence with divine revelation (i.e. what the Bible at least seems to be saying).

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Yes.

Much as with @Christy, I find it difficult to follow your terms and definitions. Perhaps you could review some of my recent exchanges with her: here and here.

Your general view seems to be that I am inferring a degree of precision in the Bible’s statements that is both unwarranted and unnecessary. That is possible, but I hope you can appreciate my difficulty in accepting this as a Swiss army knife with which I can in MacGyver style get out of all the interpretive dilemmas that a belief in the history evolution implies brings on.

Just how far can a loosening of precision requirements get the exegete? Let’s take an example.

It does not matter…to a point. After that point, it does matter. Let me be specific.

Does it matter to our faith whether Christ’s earthly lifespan was 0-33, or 4 BC to 30 AD, or something similar? No. Would it matter if His lifespan occurred entirely in the second century AD or the first century BC. It could. Would it matter if His lifespan occurred in Muhammed’s time…or, conversely, Nebudchanezzar’s time? It would. The reason that the latter two cases matter and the first doesn’t, of course, is because historicity is a key issue for Christ. As Paul makes emphatically clear in 1 Corinthians 15, the whole of Christianity rises and falls on the historicity of the resurrection and the resurrection is, of course tied to His earthly lifespan. I could take more time to make the point more finely and more firmly but I trust this is enough to demonstrate that a loosening of precision requirements is not an all-purpose tool for resolving the kind of conflicts we have been discussing.

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I don’t deny that scribes were involved in the creation and preservation of the biblical texts. However, I take my cue for how to regard these texts from Jesus. Jesus regarded the Old Testament texts as the word of God, expressed through His servants the prophets. Jesus did not seem to think that scribal involvement was sufficient reason to discount the value of those texts. To be more specific:

  • He explicitly referred to the Old Testament texts as the word of God (John 10:34-35).

  • He said that even the finer points of the scribal markings mattered (Matt 5:18)

  • He chose these texts as a means to resist the devil even when he could have invoked instead the unique supernatural affirmation He’d just been granted (Matt 3:16 - 4:11).

  • He chided His followers for disregarding anything that the prophets had spoken (Luke 24:25)

To be sure, Jesus also said that that some things written in these texts were more important than others (Matt 23:23-24). Nevertheless, He made a spiritual point based on the tense of a verb (Matt 22:23-33) and His apostle Paul made a spiritual point based on a noun being singular and not plural (Gal 3:16).

As important as all this is, and I think you could realize there is even more I could say on this point, it does not in and of itself mean that evolution cannot be true. What it does mean, however, is that we must go to the Scripture, and before we even attempt to interpret it, treat it with the respect and awe with which Jesus treated it.

Christians are not our guide. Neither Ken Ham, nor Herb Ross, nor Francis Collins, nor any other human being is our guide for how to regard Scripture. Christ is.

Why wouldn’t you throw away a biography of Washington that had falsehoods in it? Are you not willing to get your child a more reliable account of the man’s life?

I did not come to Christ because I was seeking God. I did not come to Christ because I was seeking religion. I was not interested in God or religion. I came to Christ because I was seeking truth…and found Him. He rewarded my search for truth and confirmed for me that searching for truth was a good thing to do. Ever since then I have continued seeking truth - many times in my life, alas, not vigorously enough - but seeking it nonetheless. I am still seeking it. Quite vigorously right now on the point we have been discussing. Because He has rewarded my searches with measures of truth throughout my life, I have the hope that He will do so again in this matter.

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“Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.”

(Please note carefully that I am not here refusing to believe evolution; I am only saying why I am willing to disbelieve evolution. In other words, I am not here arguing with you about evolution; rather, I am merely answering your question about it would possible for me to reject evolution.)

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Possibilities for Resolution

I came here asking for help in resolving the conflicts I see between the Bible and evolution.

Through our dialogue I’ve been able to be more specific in my request by saying that it’s the conflicts between what the Bible says about history and what evolution says about history that concerns me, not the science of evolution. Therefore, it’s the biblical arguments that have gotten you over these conflicts I’m seeking, not scientific arguments.

You have seen me reject the “you’re expecting too much precision from the Bible” argument as valid but insufficient to resolve the conflicts. I’ve explained why above and won’t repeat it here.

You have also seen me reject biblical arguments that dilute the idea that the Bible is the word of God. These come in the form of statements like “We don’t know who wrote these texts” and “The scribes got things wrong.” I don’t deny that scribes are human and that there is a need for textual criticism. Neither do I deny that there are textual variants that are difficult if not impossible to resolve. I just deny that any of the unresolvable variants are material. In other words, I adopt the view of the Old Testament that Jesus held. As I have expounded on this above, I won’t do so here.

I also reject arguments which suggest that idioms in the Old Testament are ancient people trying to teach false science. Thus when, for example, @pevaquark says that Ecclesiastes 1:5 is teaching that the sun revolves around the earth I wonder if he would accuse my local meteorologist of the same thing for saying “the sunrise will be 6:16 this morning.” I think it’s anachronistic to say that the biblical authors were “speaking in the science of their day.”

There may be other categories of biblical arguments that I’m overlooking right now, but I think I’ve left for last the one that I think holds the most promise for a resolution. It’s the category of figurative arguments.

Jesus often gave a figurative interpretation of something in the Old Testament - and it was often a figurative intepretation that no one was expecting. Such interpretations heightened rather than diminished devotion to Scripture. I’m open to that sort of thing with respect to the creation account, Adam as a real person, the flood, etc. As I’ve stated, it’s not enough to say “Well, it could be figurative.” One needs a specific figurative interpretation to resolve a specific conflict. A general figurative guideline could have utility, but not unlimited utility.

I hope this is helpful. I am certainly not trying to be difficult. As I’ve said, I will cease my posting today. (I have a family commitment which will consume my attention for the next 5-6 days). I have no plans to post after that (though I am not ruling out the possibility). Therefore, I hope you will give me your best responses in time for me to respond to you before I “sign off” around 3-4 eastern time.

Sometime after today, I will review this entire discussion giving even more thought to all you have said.

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I guess natural history has a lot of uses. I was using it in the sense of the scope of work encompassed by anthropology, geology, paleontology and astronomy along with botany and zoology.

By theological history I mean a history of God’s redemptive and relational work in his creation.

No of course not. The whole idea of Scripture is that it is God’s revelation. I just think God is most interested in revealing himself, his character, and his will for his world, not facts about history or science.

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But they did speak in the science of their day. Fact: the Bible contains ancient science.

Science is a good thing:
Psalm 111:2 reads ‘The Lord’s works are great, studied by all who delight in them.’ We are meant to take part in looking to His creation, as it also says in Job 12:7-8 that we can and ought to learn from the animals, the birds, the sea. We are of course also encouraged to examine the wisdom of other creatures as in Proverbs 30:24-31 and His wisdom ought to be seen at all levels of creation including the Earth and the Cosmos where wisdom is personified as His delight and the work of the cosmos is that of a skilled craftsman (Prov 8:22-31).

Augstine has a fairly lengthy quote from His Literal Commentary in Genesis (emphasis mine):

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

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I don’t see anything wrong with the way you used it, but I hope you can understand that I and others might consider that term, using the stricter definition I gave you above, as pre-history. No one’s doing anything wrong; we’ll just sometimes stumble a bit in trying to understand each other.

I don’t object to such a term but I have a hard time intuiting what you mean by it as compared to just plain old history. To choose a less controversial example, physical lineage from Abraham and David is crucial in God’s description of the messianic plan for our salvation. Tracing that involves some earthy, and sometimes non-theological, history.

I would completely agree with that sentence if you were to remove the words “history or” from it. I say this not because I believe that every single historical detail that the Bible mentions is as important as God’s being, character, and will, but rather because the Scriptures often use history as evidence of these aspects of God. For another relatively noncontroversial example, consider the Exodus from Egypt.

In other words, I see in the Bible hardly any concern for science, but I can’t say the same about history.

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This may have already been addressed somewhere above --but at the risk of repeating … There are also at least two different definitions of “science” in use here causing some misunderstanding. There is science more broadly construed: that is any knowledge at all about creation or how it works. Under this understanding the ancients had a lot of science even just when they spoke of rain coming from clouds,etc. Then there is science more strictly defined (“modern science”) which demands the application of what we now call modern scientific methods. In that latter stricter sense, it would indeed be highly anachronistic for any science to be found anywhere in the Bible. Perhaps something similar could be said for how we refer to “history” (even within just the written sort), but if so, others here could articulate that much better than I could.

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Any issue between us here is probably semantic. However one defines “ancient science” I doubt that it includes reference to the scientific method, methodolocial naturalism, and certain other aspects of modern science.

As I’ve suggested somewhere above, I consider Lamoureux respectable, but not altogether persuasive.

I’ve stated multiple times that I wholeheartedly agree that science is the good thing, and I love that list of scriptures you reference. However, science is not the first, much less the only, thing that comes to mind when I read them. Moreover, there are plenty of “the Lord’s works” that science won’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

Unlike my feeling toward Lamoureux, I find Augustine’s logic quite compelling. In fact, you can probably recognize by now that my mission here has been motivated by just this kind of thinking, if not Augustine’s actual words. I’m trying to find out if I’ve been a fool for Christ or if I’ve been a fool on my own account who brings discredit to Christ. As I’ve said, I’m willing to live with the former but not the latter.

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I just mean that the significance of the history is revealed in the theological truth claims associated with it. The reason we care about the history of Abraham is because of the theological importance of the covenant, and of the establishment of Israel as God’s chosen people, and of the promised Messiah. The fact that the actual historical events objectively happened in exactly the way described is less essential than what the storyline reveals about God’s interaction in our world. That doesn’t mean that I don’t care whether or not it is a “true” story. Obviously for something to count as history it has to have some relationship to a reality that actually happened. But I don’t see the OT narratives as a bare recounting of historical facts. There is a theological agenda to their telling and it doesn’t bother me if something I would consider a facet of “historical accuracy” gets sacrificed or manipulated to serve the theological agenda.

Yes, I think the Bible is true history as well, and the history is what reveals God’s character and will. To clarify better, I meant that I don’t think the significance of the history it reveals is summed up in mere facts. It is the whole storyline and trajectory that matters, and the meaning God gives to the facts and events that matter, not the bare factuality of the facts .

I think people get hung up on treating the Bible like a document to be fact-checked. I think that is a reductive approach to God’s revelation. The Bible’s authority rests on an a priori acceptance that it is the the true revelation of a God whose person is Truth, not on it’s ability to pass some kind of test we subject it to where we decide how well it holds up against what we have already decided is objectively true. I think a lot of Evangelicals want to establish the Bible’s credibility by historically (and sometimes scientifically) fact-checking it, and if it passes the test, we are authorized to believe what it says about God. I think this is backwards. We encounter God. His Spirit testifies to our hearts that his word is truth. The authority of Scripture derives from the Person who inspired it and uses it in our own lives and contexts, it’s authority is not something we ascribe to it when we have determined it is factual enough to meet our standards of truth-telling.

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My tool is more of a scalpel than a sledge hammer. History in the NT is very close to being correct and for example the year of Christ’s birth is probably known to within a few years. As you progress back through the OT the adjustments need to grow larger but are probably in the range of a few hundred years. This accuracy is largely due to the presence of written history not necessarily the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Now what happens when you get back to Genesis 1-11? This is before recorded history and there are few extra-Biblical sources that can be used to verify the history. Likewise there is little the Holy Spirit could draw on except the oral stories that the author of Genesis knew. Could the Holy Spirit have provided this history by inspiration, yes certainly. Did He, no simply because the history doesn’t match what we now know the history of the earth to be. I am not saying Genesis 1-11 was not inspired, just that the history it contains is not the point when you read it. Hence my comment about coming to grips with the actual age of the earth first.

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Ancient historians, both scriptural and secular, operated differently than we expect from our modern ideas of history and the writing of history. They were not concerned with simply recording facts for later generations. They were not dispassionate reporters. Their biographies focused upon a subject’s good character as an example for readers to emulate. Their histories interpreted events to highlight their ultimate meaning, and Greco-Roman historians frequently noted the guiding hand of “fate” in ordering history and giving it direction. The evangelists also interpret the flow of history, but as Jews they attribute the guiding hand to God, both explicitly and through the leitmotif of prophetic fulfillment that connects their works to the history of God’s dealings with Israel. The modern conceit of “objectivity” in writing history did not exist for the ancients. Like their Greco-Roman counterparts, the evangelists had a greater purpose than simply preserving bare facts for later generations. Rather, in their choice and arrangement of material, they sought to provide an interpretive framework for their audience to grasp the significance of Jesus.

Here are some examples of “theological history” that may help you. Jeroboam II was the longest reigning (41 years) and most successful monarch in the history of the northern kingdom of Israel, but the author of 2 Kings basically brushes him aside in just six verses. Minor kings receive far more attention because the author wants to make a theological point about God’s dealings with Israel, not simply record the nation’s history, as we conceive of history.

Within the gospels, Luke gathers a great deal of diverse material and gives it shape in Luke 9:51-19:47. Sometimes called the “Travel Narrative” or the “Journey to Jerusalem,” almost all of this material is lacking any specific time markers. In other words, these stories and parables and etc. could have occurred at any point during Jesus’ ministry, but Luke does not record them in the chronological order that they happened. Instead, he gathers this material and gives it shape to make a theological point about discipleship and following Jesus on “the way” (the first name for the Christian movement) to the cross. For Luke, the inspired author, the theological point was more important than the chronological details. This is not the only time that happens in Scripture.

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Figurative Interpretations

When Oscar Hammerstein II wrote “The hills are alive with the sound of music/With songs they have sung for a thousand years,” I don’t think he was wanting us to think about 1,000 years as opposed to 1,001 years or even as opposed to 2,000 years. Neither do I think I will be able to find one of these “songs” on iTunes. Yet Hammerstein did mean something when he chose the word “songs” and the expression “for a thousand years.”

The value of a figurative interpretation is having some idea of what the something is. Without this, it’s impossible to say that the figurative interpretation is meaningful. That’s why I’ve maintained that to merely say “It’s figurative language” without giving the figurative interpretation does not bring an interpretive gain. It denies the literal meaning without giving you anything in exchange. It’s a net loss.

Now, figuring out what the something is, is not just a matter of finding another word to substitute. If it were, then there’d be no purpose to poetry. Poetry seeks to convey that which is not always easy to nail down. Still, we’ve got to find some way to understand the somethings - else our figurative interpretations are actually non-interpretations.

Could we be content with saying that “Maria liked the hills” was Hammerstein’s main point (the way some people seem to say “God did it” was the main point of Genesis 1)? Well…I guess…but don’t you expect more from Hammerstein’s writings (and God’s, for that matter) than that? What did Hammerstein mean by “alive”? What did he mean by “music”? What did he mean by “a thousand years”? By reflecting on these words, meaning comes to us - not always, as I said above, by word substitution, but by understanding, which can then be articulated in our own prose or new poetry. Yes, Maria liked the hills, but the rest of the words in that song have purpose and that purpose is more than just providing poetic or musical filler than can be removed from the song without a loss of meaning.

That’s why I spoken of “points of correspondence” in a figurative interpretation. If I’m to understand something figuratively instead of literally I need to have figurative meaning that includes one or more points of correspondence with reality. This is the way I see Jesus speak. Even when He says something that seems to be filler (e.g. “Truly, truly I say to you”), it’s not. God speaks no empty words.

This is the difference between saying, “I take that passage figuratively” and “Here’s how I take that passage figuratively.”

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Because it can’t. There is nothing testable about someone who claims God healed them for example. There is no way to detect the direct interaction and trace how a non-material being just interacted in the physical world. Yes, God is called the healer in the OT and Jesus clearly healed people, but it is not a scientific question. The healing prayer experiments have turned out quite badly in general. Or someone who claims that God spoke to them. Did He? Well maybe but it is not a scientific question, especially if it is a non-audible/metaphysical voice that produces no signal for an instrument to detect.

Can you name some just wondering, that scientists just won’t touch? The beauty of science, as opposed to how many Christians view the Scriptures is that as there are no sacred tomes and no untouchable truths. If it can be tested and examined, it will be.

And I put the Lamoureux article in there, since he sums up what I was trying to say in many posts, knowing full well that you don’t agree with him (I was assuming you could remain somewhat neutral in this particular book chapter since it is not his particular interpretation of Genesis). Are there any actual examples of something you can point out that can show to me that this is not ancient science? In all my study of other Cosmologies in other creation accounts, the Bible is not unique in its scientific claims, though is unique in some of its theological claims. In other words, the whole reason I am talking about this point so much is that the Bible, being written in ancient science, can be very flexible in how it is understood concerning the material world while still gleaning and hearing the deep theological truths contained therein. So again, being ancient science, it doesn’t matter if the scriptures appear to contradict the Big Bang, Evolution, billions of years. I can still come alongside the text and hear God speaking through it without worrying about what science provides as a better idea of reality in those areas it can test.