Should Christians Hold to any form of Theistic Evolution then?

[cjab]

No, given a timeframe of 500-1000 million years "anything" is not possible. If it cannot happen, it will not happen no matter how long you give the process. An impossibility is an impossibility regardless of how many times you attempt it. The importance of 500-1000 million years is the magic wand to make you extrapolate a process and imagine how it might have happened.
Much like the evolution of the eye, you have to imagine how it "might" occur.

The human race shouldn't expect to know about everything in the universe.

Just because we don't know how something happened, it doesn't mean it couldn't have happened. Thus, I read that most deep-sea animals do not have color vision. They have a single, blue-sensitive, visual pigment because 1) as you go deeper through water in the ocean, all the colors disappear except for blue and 2) most bioluminescence is blue. Such is consistent with evolutionary transition of the eye. For you to stress that "evolution of the eye is impossible," simply because you can't personally apprehend how it might have happened, is not a good starting point.

Of course I hold that all evolution is ordained of God. So it's not as if I hold that randomness alone accounted for the eye. When I use the term "evolution", I refer only to the biological mechanics of what God ordained.

And, inasmuch as that is all we ever see, there is no justification for extrapolation beyond the reasonable limits of what can be observed. Beyond that, you are not in any realm of science and you simply have a post-modern creation myth.

I'd doubt your view of "what can be observed" is very comprehensive. Thus in different species of moles, we find that their eyes are in a much less advanced state of evolutionary development, genetically speaking - likely because their was no genetic impetus in that direction. There may even have been reverse evolution, (like with whales which migrated to the sea from land), in the sense that it could be conjectured that the only reason moles survive as a species is because they remain largely underground. Hence the reason for their poor eye sight, or in some cases, having no eye sight at all.

It proves only what creationists have accepted for ages and is observable. I know that chihuahuas and great danes are related. They began as dogs and they remain dogs. The differences are extreme (and somewhat superficial) but, there are limits.
There is no scientifically rigorous reason to imagine that they are related to the banana.
I do not then "expect" inter-species mutation. I "expect" intra-species mutations.
If I already assumed the Darwinian myth, then, given the magic wand of 1000 million years I might imagine it.

Evolution isn't a "myth," as its observable in modern species. What isn't observable is evolution occuring over millions of years, except by reference to the fossil record. And YEC doesn't have an answer to the fossil record, except by positing "God created fossils." I don't read it in the bible.

 

[Ben1445]

And YEC doesn't have an answer to the fossil record, except by positing "God created fossils." I don't read it in the bible.

You deny the Genesis flood?
You deny that Noah and the events surrounding his life were true?

2 Peter 3:5-7
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

This explains fossils, if you will listen to it. If you want to deny it without consideration, you should not expect to ever hear an explanation from YEC because you shut your eyes and plug your ears when you know that they are giving you an explanation.

 

[Ben1445]

YEC is a cult, first because it is scientifically incomprehensible on any account, and secondly it invokes the bible as its authority.

You don’t know what a cult is. Look it up.

If you don’t believe that the Bible is God’s word given to men, how does God talk to you? Mystically? Audibly? Astrology?

Or if you do think it is God’s word, why would it not have authority?

Is God an all powerful being or just a crutch to hang your science on?
The way that you talk about God shows that you don’t believe in Him much. Your belief in Him is inconsistent with your belief in science and the two ideologies are scientifically irreconcilable.

 

[Reynolds]

As that seems to deny was a Creator, or at least that Mankind was a special creation in His own image?

IMO. If Gen 1 and 2 are allegorical then the entire Bible is allegorical and useless.

 

[John of Japan]

I am not here to debate the science of evolution, other than very generally. But consider this: the science of evolution and movement of the Earth's tectonic plates over millions of years makes more sense than the theology of God creating fossils of sea creatures on mountains, just to cater to YEC.

I don't mean to be offensive, but that is the most ridiculous view of creationism I've ever heard of. No one believes the idea that God created fossils on the mountains just for YEC. I read The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris 55 years ago for a geology class in college, and the flood fully explains that phenomenon (which actually is real). Seems like if you are going to oppose YEC, you ought to actually figure out what we believe.

With the eye, it seems to me that the mistake you are making is to posit "piecemeal evolution" as impossible. That line of attack is wrong, because no-one holds to it. Of course, the eye, as many other parts of the body, wouldn't have evolved piecemeal, but in a systematic way, where the eye system as a whole obtained ever greater degrees of sophistication.

That's a lame reply. I still doesn't explain how the eye "evolved." You seem to be saying, "Well it all evolved at the same time." What, from nothing to some kind of semi-eye that can't see and is therefore useless, then after a million years some sensitivity, again useless. Finally after 100 million years an actual eye? Really? That's all you have? I highly recommend you read the book yourself. I'd give some trenchant quotes from it, but I'm in a great German coffee shop with my sweet wife of 46 tears, and don't have the book.

Not every article on the WWW appears in a form that would be found in academic journals. It doesn't infer the article is untrue. If an article isn't true, it's up to you to adduce the evidence for its untruthfulness. I found nothing in it that makes me suspicious of its verity. Attacking its lack of academic credentials is underhand if the article wasn't intended as an academic publication, but only as a synopsis of other academic articles already published.

Again, my point is the anonymity. So someone can "correct" or "fix" someone else's article and lie or simply post in error, and there is very little accountability. I once read an article on a NT ms in Wikipedia and there were two different statements about the content of the ms. Again, I heard about a world class expert on a certain subject having his Wiki article "corrected" by an ignoramus.

If you have any professor friends, ask them if they allow Wikipedia, Gotquestions, or other such Internet sources as a source for a research paper. (Now we profs have to start dealing with AI in such papers.)

YEC is a cult, first because it is scientifically incomprehensible on any account, and secondly it invokes the bible as its authority. My reading of the bible doesn't make it any source of science. To read it so, is to misuse it. The bible makes it clear than many matters are for man to discover for himself. All misuse of the bible is impermissible. Misuse has been a constant source of religious persecution down the ages.

Being "scientifically incomprehensible" does not mean a cult. And what in the world is wrong with the Bible for authority for a Christian? Surely you believe the Bible, don't you? Did you happen to look at my previous post about science in the Bible?

I have met a cult member in Japan of the Aum terrorist cult. His beliefs were universes apart from any YEC advocate. Here is an authoritative definition of a cult: Definition of CULT. In Christianity, a cult has a charismatic, extremely controlling leader (who doesn't exist in YEC): Jim Jones, Asahara Shoko (AUM), Joseph Smith, etc.

I have already made my judgement concerning YEC. Seems we are going to be in eternal disagreement on it. Actually I have never considered it even worthy of debate. Radio carbon dating goes back 50,000 years, as does so much earth-science regress well before the era of Adam.

Yes, carbon dating, the proud hoax. I could link to many articles. Here's just one (with the author's name ). Carbon dating accuracy called into question after major flaw discovery

To say that the world was created in the same week that Adam was created isn't made out by any apostle of Christ, and so why elevate that theory to the status of an article of faith, as YEC do, even on this very board?

Yes, I'm very familiar with the teachings of the apostles and their followers. I've translated their books into Japanese, I've read the early church fathers, Eusebius, etc. Their concern was the Great Commission, and building the new church. There was no reason for them to discuss Adam and creation. That was nowhere in their purview. So your reference to them is a non sequitur.

 

[Craigbythesea]

First, the apostles acknowledge that Hebrew is authoritative over the LXX in respect of the OT. This is easily seen from Paul's quotation of Heb 2:4 in Rom 1:17, where he doesn't take the LXX literally (which adds a gloss to the Hebrew), but reverts back to the original Hebrew meaning.

This implies that we ought to discard the LXX as non-aithoritative, as far too late.

Most of the Christians in the first century could not read Hebrew. That is why the Tanakh was translated into Greek. Paul could read Hebrew but the majority of the time when he quoted from the Old Testament he quoted from the Septuagint. Other times he quoted from texts that we do not have. Furthermore, in Paul’s day, there was no standardized Hebrew text of the Hebrew Old Testament—and there were none for almost a millennium. Eastern Orthodox Churches reject the Masoretic text as a non-authoritative text and use instead the Septuagint not only for their Bible but also for their liturgies.

Reverting back to the Hebrew, the Hebrew word for firmament is רָקִיעַ which comes from the verb רָקַע which means to beat out, to stamp, to stretch.

Although used of beating out metal, the verb isn't restricted to metal, but can be used of anything beaten or stamped out. Thus Keil is right when he suggests there is no necessary implication of a solid structure in the Hebrew. The meaning is only what is beaten out, i.e. an expanse. The allegation is that the critical view is hopelessly conditioned by the secular ideas of the ancients, rather than being content with the simple unnuanced Hebrew concept of an "expanse". Again, I don't believe there is a case for imputing anything scientific into this word.

Let’s stick to the facts. This is what Keil actually wrote,

“There is nothing in these poetical similes to warrant the idea that the heavens were regarded as a solid mass [or dome], a σιδήρεον, or χάλκεον or πολύχαλκον, such as Greek poets describe.“

And again, there are no poetical similes in Genesis 1-11. Moreover, Genesis 1-11 is written in a genre of literature that does not use similes or any other kind of Metaphors. Furthermore, Genesis 1-11 is written primarily in prose.

In contemporary Hebrew, the word רָקִיעַ expresses the concept of “the sky as observed from the earth, especially at night.” Therefore, it is not a “technical” word! Its meaning in the Old Testament is determined by the context—and for more than a century, scholars of ancient Hebrew and the other Semitic languages have overwhelmingly agreed that it expresses in Genesis 1:6-8 a solid structure in the form of a dome covering a flat earth. The only dissenters are those people who, for religious reasons, believe that that Genesis 1-11 is a literal accurate account of actual events—including the flood story in Genesis 6-8! Genesis 1-11 is a totally (including “the windows of the heavens”) literal account, but not an accurate account of actual events.

 

[Ben1445]

I'm in a great German coffee shop with my sweet wife of 46 tears,

Are these the tears you have caused her or she has caused you?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.