Theistic Evolution?

No. I believe the Genesis account to be accurate and correct. God spoke. That was enough. IMO, evolution is a demonic scheme to take the Glory of God as Creator away from Him. Much as the Easter Bunny takes the focus away from the Resurrection and Santa Claus takes the focus away from the Birth of Christ. They are all counterfeits of demonic design invented for deception by the great deceiver. Sadly, they work.

 

No with a qualified yes.

Yes, if sin and death through Adam are not denied (although I personally believe theistic evolution to be an erroneous view).

No, if they are denied.

Theistic evolution which teaches an elan vital seeking a manifestation with an impersonal God (The Force) empowering it is atheism in disguise.

HankD

 

Hey, LE and I agree!

I believe that God created the world the way Genesis says He did. I think theistic evolution is an attempt to accept evolution and it compromises the Genesis account.

 

Unfortunately many professing Christians have compromised the Biblical teaching of creation with the claims of evolution and embraced a concept called ‘theistic evolution’ teaching that God uses evolution to accomplish His creative purposes. The term ‘theistic evolution’ is self contradictory since the fundamental postulates of evolution are unlimited time and chance without design. The following remarks by leading evolutionists [from The Modern Creation Trilogy by Henry M. and John. D. Morris] show the absurdity of theistic evolution.

Nobel prize winning biologist Jacques Monod writes:

“Natural selection is the blindest most cruel way of evolving new species. .... I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution.”

Evolutionist A. J. Mattell is even more perceptive:

“Those liberal and neo-orthodox Christians who regard the creation stories as myths or allegories are undermining the rest of Scripture, for if there was no Adam there was no fall; and if there was no fall, there was no hell; and if there was no hell, there was no need of Jesus as Second Adam and Incarnate Savior, crucified and risen. As a result the whole biblical system of salvation collapses. .... Evolution thus becomes the most potent weapon for destroying the Christian faith.”

 

Yes, of course. The problem is that it does not fit into the personal conception of Genesis 1 - 11 held by many Christians who are unfamiliar with ancient oriental literature and the basics of Biblical hermeneutics. They interpret Genesis 1 – 11 as if it is a literal, historical, scientifically correct narrative describing the creation of the world and the fall of man. If these same people would apply the same faulty hermeneutics to Eccles. 3:19-20, they would surely be lost in sin and despair.

19. For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity.
20. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.

 

Yes, of course. The problem is that it does not fit into the personal conception of Genesis 1 - 11 held by many Christians who are unfamiliar with ancient oriental literature and the basics of Biblical hermeneutics. They interpret Genesis 1 – 11 as if it is a literal, historical, scientifically correct narrative describing the creation of the world and the fall of man. If these same people would apply the same faulty hermeneutics to Eccles. 3:19-20, they would surely be lost in sin and despair.
</font>[/QUOTE]My o my, do I get weary in my bones,heart and soul from reading the not-so-subtle put-downs of those who believe Gen 1-11 as literal!


So, all of us who believe Gen 1-11 is literal -- and this would include:
1. All my pastors who have MDiv's
2. My Hermeneutics prof (who also teaches Hebrew, Greek and the OT)
3. Several other profs at other seminaries I know
4. Many, many solid, educated and intelligent believers in Christ
5. God Himself who reveals in Exodus when giving the 10 commandments to Moses that He created the world in 6 days (or is that also a parable/myth/metaphor/whatever?)
6. Myself

-- are unfamiliar with oriental literature and the basics of biblical hermeneutics (this would surprise my Hermeneutics prof!)? Really?

 

Yes, of course. The problem is that it does not fit into the personal conception of Genesis 1 - 11 held by many Christians who are unfamiliar with ancient oriental literature and the basics of Biblical hermeneutics. They interpret Genesis 1 – 11 as if it is a literal, historical, scientifically correct narrative describing the creation of the world and the fall of man. If these same people would apply the same faulty hermeneutics to Eccles. 3:19-20, they would surely be lost in sin and despair.
</font>[/QUOTE]I have a reply but it won't let me post the whole thing and I don't want to divide it up.

 

Reply to post by Craig:

My o my, do I get weary in my bones,heart and soul from reading the not-so-subtle put-downs of those who believe Gen 1-11 as literal!


So, all of us who believe Gen 1-11 is literal -- and this would include:
1. All my pastors who have MDiv's
2. My Hermeneutics prof (who also teaches Hebrew, Greek and the OT)
3. Several other profs at other seminaries I know
4. Many, many solid, educated and intelligent believers in Christ
5. God Himself who reveals in Exodus when giving the 10 commandments to Moses that He created the world in 6 days (or is that also a parable/myth/metaphor/whatever?)
6. Myself

-- are unfamiliar with oriental literature and the basics of biblical hermeneutics (this would surprise my Hermeneutics prof!)? Really?

You know, this is called an ad hominem and does not prove anything except that you are attacking people by saying they are dummies for not agreeing with you.

Eccl. is a poetic wisdom literature; it is not narrative and does not have the characteristics of the narrative style that Genesis has.

Tired of this.

 

It certainly does if you believe that the Bible is, indeed, God's word for mankind.

Because science has demonstrated that the earth is of ancient origin, 4.5 billion years for the earth, about 13 billion years for the universe, and all life on the earth is of common descent.

And, since God's truth as revealed in scripture and God's truth as revealed in the universe are from the same source of truth, they cannot conflict.

It is a marvelous thing that God's scripture is written in such a way as to be understandable and acceptable in all cultures and by men of every level of scientific development!

Originally, the creation narratives were understood by the readers to imply a dome over solid earth with water above held back the by the firmament/dome and water below the earth, which was held up in the waters by pillars.

And the temptor in the garden was a talking snake.

Later, the creation narratives were understood by the readers to imply a spherical earth (spherical, but not rotating) surrounded by concentric crystalline spheres of the heavens in which the stars and planets circled around; the earth was considered the bottom most part of the universe, sort of the "garbage pit" area.

We are all aware of the current paradigm in which the sun has replaced the earth as the center of the solar system, a rotating earth, the galaxies, etc. etc.

And we still read and understand the scriptures to be consistent with these views, although not literally consistent with them.

The inspired writer of Genesis set for the creation in six "days". God's word asserts that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and it is a perfectly reasonable position to take that, in view of the known age of the earth and the universe, we can accept these "days" as meaning the eons of time they have to represent.

The "days" are arranged not in chronological order, but in another order to suit the dramatic purposes of the inspired writer. Thus, on the first day, we have the creation of light; on the third day we have the placing of the Sun, Moon and Stars in the firmament.

The narrative is plainly striking a parallel between these "days"!

There is also similar parallelisms between days 2 and 4, 3 and 6; let the reader check them out.

By taking the final step of decoupling the "days" as being consecutive one after another but, rather, simply speaking of the creation of certain topics, we remove the final barrier between total acceptance of the Genesis narrative and the findings of science.

Note that there are, then, still six "days" of creation still, when we think of the creation in the same catagories as the narrative of Genesis One. For the writer's purpose, the catagories of creation as he wrote them were just as valid as our modern day narratives of creation, although no modern writer would have chosen to use the same catagories today.

What a marvelous miracle is God's word, able to be used and understood throughout all the ages!

 

I declare firmly that God is the Creator of everything that is, ever has been, or ever will be, precisely as all 66 Books of the Bible teach. Exactly how he did that I'm sure I don't know.

My theories change from time to time. For some time now I have suspected that God spoke the universe into existence, probably resulting in what we know as a big bang, and it's still exploding out there. I'm not sure how long He might have spent planning the whole thing - just kidding. I suspect His creation was brought forth in 6 literal days (as we comprehend time). Further, I suspect he created the earth and the universe completely mature, just as He created Adam completely mature, out of the dust, and not as a child or a single cell. I suspect the oil was in the ground from Day 1. The flood undoubtedly had a large effect on the earth as we know it today, and I suspect the fall had a lot to do with the earth's present condition, and the whole creation "groans for redemption" as we do.

Craig, I've enjoyed reading your posts. It's not a major point but, considering the context, I see no problem with a literal interpretation of these verses.

 

Hey, Old Regular and I agree, too, Marcia! It must be the End Times!

 

Excellent reply, IveyLeaguer.

I never understand why so many people can accept that Adam was created "mature" with our equivilent age of 25, 30, 33, or whatever, but that God created the earth atom by atom over some billions of years.

'Course I have read some that believe Adam was NOT created mature, but they give no explanation of how he managed to mature.

 

Might as well stop you right here. Science has demonstrated no such thing.

Evolutionary scientists have interpretted the evidence to suggest these ages based on the assumptions that: a) all things must have a naturalistic explanation, b) evolution is not only the best, but the only legitimate naturalistic explanation, c) since the whole process of species evolution is not witnessed in nature, the smaller events we do observe within a species must be the mechanism that somehow accumulates over time to transform one lower species into a higher species, and d) these changes would take a long time to produce single cell to man evolution therefore the universe must be very old.

This scenario fails at point "a". This notion is philosophical, not scientific. It is not falsifiable. You cannot prove it true.

 

Scripture and man's interpretation of natural observation do not come from the same source. Evolutions core premise precludes an active God. The God evolution is willing to accept is not the God of the Bible.

 

Someone so familiar with basic hermaneutics should obviously and immediately recognize that verse 20 clarifies the context. Our spirits were never dust. Our bodies were. In that sense, we are the same as the animals. When we die, our bodies decay into dust.

You will have to do much, much better than this to overcome direct statements made by God to Moses about creation.

 

Anyone mind if I sit this particular Dead Horse out?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

"Theistic evolution" is a compromise theory - it arose to ease tensions in the minds of those torn between two apparent opposites.

Any Christian who claims to be an evolutionist is obligately a theistic evolutionist. This would describe the stance which sees God as the all powerful creator but who accepts the advances of science and has no problem seeing Genesis 1 as being theological and not literal.

And Scott,

In response to your comment to Paul.... It's not a question of which is correct, the Bible or man. But rather the question is which MEN are correct in interpreting the bible, the literalists or the scientists.

 

I like to an observation from the scriptural account of the miracle of the wine at the wedding at Cana.

Jesus made wine in a moment of time.

The implied age of this wine gave the impression of several years because in order to make wine, grape seeds had to have been planted and nurtured to bring them to maturity. The grapes had to be harvested, crushed, aged, packaged, marketed and transported to the wedding site.

None of these events along with the necessary time "happened" yet Jesus made this wine in a moment.


HankD

 

Well Lady Eagle, whatever our disagreements in the past, as my dear dispensationalist friend says, I will see you on the way up!