Could Jesus have accepted Evolutionary Theory?

Discussion in 'Questions?' started by Tiffy, Oct 17, 2020.

  1. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Macroevolution remains scientifically unverifiable, and it requires a measure of faith to believe that things happened the way the evolutionists claim it did. It cannot be tested, it cannot be observed happening, and realistically it can only be inferred as a possibility from the physical evidence found to date.

    Look, we all have been taught (in school and by the media) the evidence in favor of macroevolution. But where does one get taught the evidence against it? The only way to learn the 'rest of the story' and form a balanced opinion is to read the best evidence the other side has to offer. That's where a group like Reasons to Believe comes in. I have read the evidence of the 'other side' and I've formed an opinion. YMMV, after you study and read. I can accept that. What I have trouble accepting is an attitude of denial. When some Christians choose to not inform themselves and they spend time belittling those who went to the trouble, I have no time or respect for them. I do think that you, Tiffy, are not so closed-minded as all that, however. :)

    BTW, here are a couple of brief statement from the Reasons to Believe website which I feel demonstrate their desire to be as even-handed and open-minded as possible.

    "God’s Word cannot and does not contradict God’s work in nature.
    RTB believes that God has revealed Himself to humanity in at least two ways – the words of the Bible and the record of nature. Reasons to Believe’s mission is to work rigorously to integrate both of God’s revelations into one harmonious picture revealing the identity and character of the Creator. When properly understood, God’s Word (Scripture) and God’s world (nature) – as two revelations (one verbal, one physical) from the same God – will never contradict each other." (--from FAQ page)​

    "The topic of theistic evolution (or evolutionary creationism) garners much attention among Christians these days. Reasons to Believe (RTB) does not doubt the faith of Christians who hold this view, but we affirm a different view. We believe that there are significant scientific, biblical, and theological problems with theistic evolution (TE). RTB argues, based on evidence, for more direct divine intervention than most theistic evolutionary models would posit. Despite our skepticism, however, we agree that TE models (and others, such as young-earth creation models) deserve a place at the discussion table where ideas can be developed and tested." (--from the page, 'Can humans evolve and still be "created in God's image"?')​
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2023
  2. Invictus

    Invictus Well-Known Member

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    In all fairness and with respect, what evidence do you have for this assertion? Are you saying such instances, if they occur, are the exception or the rule?

    Look, the notion that science cannot be free of bias is just postmodernist fluff. There are standard methods and procedures that scientists follow to eliminate their own biases from their research. They do so all the time. And then their work is either refuted or supported by peer review.
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2023
  3. Ananias

    Ananias Well-Known Member Anglican

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    The idea that institutional/academic "science" is somehow above bias is just ridiculous. A quick read of Retraction Watch should quickly disabuse you of any notions you have that scientists are somehow above the same petty jealousies, obsessions, vindictiveness, and greed as the rest of us mortals.

    Both Science and Nature, formerly august journals of rigorous scientific debate, have in last decade or so become essentially leftist op-ed rags.

    The vaunted scientific "peer review" has been a sick joke for decades now. There has been an increasing swell of outrage at the lack of reproducibility in many scientific papers, which is exactly the kind of problem peer review is supposed to prevent. And yet, even as the literature swells and bloats and the various journals proliferate, the problem gets worse as time goes by.

    You all remember the rolling oceans of hype that accompanied the advent of Theranos, and the relatively muted response when it emerged that the whole thing was a scam perpetrated by the Steve Jobs wannabe Elizabeth Holmes. Science writers were so gaga over a girlboss CEO presenting some Star Trek tech that they never bothered to actually look into whether the stuff she was spouting was possible or not. An undergrad chemist could have proved that her assertions were nonsense, but none did. Why not? Because the whole field has been politicized and monetized to the extent that no one wanted to speak out lest they get fired or lose their grants.

    And the COVID "science", as we now know, was mostly wrong. But that didn't stop the medical establishment from wholeheartedly locking down the entire planet and casting doubters into the outer darkness.

    Scientists, whether in academia or the corporate world, are some of the most ethically-challenged and personally-conflicted professionals you will ever run across. There is less malfeasance among ambulance-chasing lawyers, and that's because the lawyers have better standards and oversight.
     
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  4. Invictus

    Invictus Well-Known Member

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    You are knocking down straw men. None of your assertions demonstrate that science itself as a discipline and method cannot be above bias. The scientific method is just the combination of deduction and induction in ordered stages. Logic itself has no ax to grind. @Rexlion wants to say that because certain scientists might be atheists or agnostics, that makes their observations and their professional integrity not merely suspect but completely untrustworthy, and I'm saying that's patent nonsense. The idea that professionals in any field have to be religious to be reliable (or moral) is just silly. And I don't think the founders of Retraction Watch intend by their efforts to cast doubt on science itself as an endeavor. (Just look at who their big donors are.)

    It is pointless to argue about evidence when witnesses can be impeached by simple fiat, and it is disingenuous to claim that convincing evidence hasn't been presented when any evidence conflicting with a preconceived narrative is simply dismissed out of hand. There is certainly nothing scientific (or unbiased) about that kind of approach.
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2023
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  5. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    The exception, not the rule. Most scientists would not adhere to atheism, (if, in their case that is a motivating factor at all), simply because they fear losing their salvation if they contemplate turning to theism, salvation would mean nothing whatever to them, whereas most strong adherents of Creationist Fundamentalism would believe entertaining even the possibility that Evolutionary Theory might have something of the truth in it, would fear being shunned as heretics by other members of the faith and possibly losing eternal life as a result of their apostacy. That would perhaps be a much stronger motivating factor to keep them believing as they do.
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    Last edited: Apr 13, 2023
  6. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    Objectivity is a Subjective Possibility.

    Ultimately you will see the Alpha Point as either 'being' as in existence, or God. This of course is what Tillich was arguing when he suggested that God did not exist because God was more than existence and existence came into being in the context of God. His discussion about the precedence of ontology or epistemology whilst tortuous does ask some reasonable questions.

    The Genesis Creation Narratives leave many questions open. Of themselves, I am not even sure that you could affirm ex-nihilo as the only reading, and when you start allowing for the tenseless sense of Hebrew, we are not even exactly sure of what beginning means. We do know that we look at the concept of time rather differently from the ancients. They saw time as having a beginning, an ending, and the present as a point on that continuum. Of course, they had no concept of concept. We see time as going back from the present and forward from the present, and whatever point you get to, you can still go further.

    Do I expect Science to prove the existence of God? NO. I recognise that many scientists (certainly not all) in following the rigours of science come to a point where they need more, and ultimately embrace faith and spirituality beyond the physical. If Science could prove God, then it would be knowledge, not faith, and we know by grace we are saved through faith so we would be left in a decidedly worse position.
     
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  7. Ananias

    Ananias Well-Known Member Anglican

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    What's patent nonsense is your apparent belief that confirmation bias is not a thing. It absolutely is a thing, and it's currently in the process of rotting out the scientific establishment you are so enamored of. Euthanasia, "gender affirming" surgeries on minors, needless and endless public health "emergencies" based on flawed (but politically useful) public health theory, the list goes on and on. Your faith in science as a discipline is misplaced because science does not happen in a vacuum -- as a human endeavor, it is ultimately driven by human ability...and human frailty.

    The scientific method by itself is simple: advance a hypthoesis, conduct experiments to verify (or disprove) the hypothesis, then report your findings. The practice of modern science has corrupted every single aspect of that process. Money and ideology are the twin demons at work here. Just ask any engineer who worked at Boeing in the old days vs now, or someone who worked at JPL in the old days vs now. Top-tier medical schools used to produce cutting edge health technology; now they just produce woke nonsense. (I hope you're in reasonably good health, because in a few years if you want good healthcare you're going to need to travel abroad to get it.)

    We are going to reap a bitter harvest for the corruption of applied science and engineering in the years to come. I don't want to drive on bridges built by rainbow haired gender-warriors, I don't want to operated on by a doctor who believes that gender is a social construct, I don't want to fly in an airplane built by people who believe that animals are people or that plants have souls, and I don't want my food supply to depend on people who find it hard to get out of bed before noon and believe that their feelings impose a reality on the world around them. Yet we are producing an entire generation of young people who not only cannot function in the actual world, but who are actively trying to tear it down without having the slightest clue of how to rebuild it.
     
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  8. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    But what has all this to do with whether Jesus of Nazareth could have accepted Evolutionary theory driven by Natural selection, for an explanation for the physical existence of the human race, here and now, as opposed to a literalst interpretation of the ancient's narrative found in Genesis chapters 2 to 5? i.e. "God made a first man literally out of mud and a woman out of one of the man's ribs." What is the sum total of evidence in the scriptures, that Jesus taught Young Earth Creationism or Fundamentalist Biblical Interpretional method, of the text of the whole of scripture?
    .
     
  9. CRfromQld

    CRfromQld Moderator Staff Member

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    Down a different rabbit hole.
     
  10. Ananias

    Ananias Well-Known Member Anglican

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    You, like other liberals, seem to get completely stuck on the modern naturalist interpretation of reality as the only possible one there is. This is not only wrong, but shows a kind of temporal arrogance that renders you incapable of interpreting the Bible how a first-century believer would interpret it. Or really, any reader until the so-called "age of Reason" started. You're interpreting the Bible through the lens of a modern scientific worldview that is only a couple of hundred years old, but you don't realize it.

    You believe the Bible is a book about God written by men, where in fact it is a book written by God to men. You do not interpret God's word through the words of other men because the creatures do not judge the Creator.

    When you pose the question like you did above, you render the whole topic absurd. Jesus Christ is God made flesh; he made the cosmos and everything in it. He was there when it all happened. "Through him all things were made," John tells us in his Gospel. What Christ teaches about Creation, you can rely upon because he did it himself. What God wants you to know about Creation, he tells you in Scripture. Yes, Christ was speaking to first-century people and uses first-century idioms, but this does not render his teachings allegorical or fanciful. God does not lie, does not obfuscate, does not mislead. He teaches Truth, always. In fact, God teaches the only truth that matters to a Christian. (This is why orthodox Anglicans affirm the doctrine of sufficiency of Scripture laid down in Article VI of the 39 Articles.)

    Christ tells us that the Genesis story of creation is true, and so it is. The order of creation shown in the Bible is true because Christ our Lord tells us it is. No scientific discovery or theory will overturn that fact because Christ's authority is higher than all. I'm not going to get into the "young earth vs old earth" argument here for space reasons, but suffice it to say that you should always consider the Genesis account true regardless of the time span involved. We know it is true because Christ tells us it is (Matt. 19:4-6).

    But the inevitable cry rises up that this is anti-intellectualism, backwardness, "fundamentalism"*, or what have you. No, this is just orthodox Christian faith. If you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you place him above all human law and reason. Human reason is fallen and fallible; God's is not.

    *I don't understand why liberals think "fundamentalist" is an insult. Fundamentals in Christianity are a good thing, and should be taught and reinforced constantly. Every Christian should be a fundamentalist, and would be better for it. In the same way that players in sports who ignore fundamentals will perform badly, the same is true of Christians.
     
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  11. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    John 3:12 -- If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
     
  12. Ananias

    Ananias Well-Known Member Anglican

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    This is bad phrasing. I should have written, "We should not interpret God's word through the words of other men because creatures do not judge the Creator." I was using "You" in the collective sense, not the particular, but it's still not good English.

    Note: this is why I think the English language lost something important when it gave up on "ye" and "thee/thou/thine" as second person pronouns.
     
  13. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    1st century 'believers' believed all sorts of things which were ignorantly wrong about the nature of reality.
    I most definitely realise it, and wonder why you don't reason the same way 1st century 'believers' did about how our eyes work, and if you have changed your mind on that, why should your understanding of what is written in the Bible be any different if it does not accord with knowledge that 21st century thinking has revealed to us. Surely you don't think rays of light come out of our eyes to illuminate what we look at and thus 'see'. That's what 'believers' thought back then you know. So Jesus builds his metaphorical parable upon even that defective understanding of the actual physics of eyesight.

    The Bible is 'inspired' by God, not written by God. (Apart from the ten commandment and "Mene, Mene, tekel upharsin", which was actually 'written' by God.)
    No one is Judging God, just reading what God inspired using one's God Given intelligence and understanding, not just reading it like a robot AI word for word using a dictionary to understand its meaning. Inspiration is more sophisticated than that, and the writers of scripture were very sophisticated indeed. Truly wise men.

    Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to Salvation. I am not requiring of you to believe in Evolution by Natural Selection as an article of the faith, because Evolution by Natural Selection is not to be found in Holy Scripture. (See Article VI). Neither is there any mention in scripture though that I have to believe what you clearly do concerning the literal interpretation of the legendary tale of Adam and Eve and the talking snake. Nothing is mentioned in Holy Scripture to the effect that I must believe this legend to be literally historically true in every physical aspect, in its presentation of Biblical Truth. You cannot either read in it nor prove thereby that my or anyone else's salvation depends upon interpreting what is written there in exactly the way YOU DO.

    Jesus of Nazareth quoted from the Book of Genesis on a number of occasions to make specific points to those who had challenged and tested him, but he never anywhere "tells us that the Genesis story of creation is true". I believe you are quite incorrect in that assertion.I challenge you to prove me wrong by quoting the scripture chapter and verse where "Christ tells us that the Genesis story of creation is true".
    It is reported in scripture that Christ referred to things written in the Book of Genesis, but where do we have actual evidence that He "tells" anyone that that "order of creation" is TRUE? (You may be right, but I would like to see the proof of it).
    Jesus Christ is reported in scripture to have referred to this passage of scripture in Genesis to specifically point out that IT IS WRITTEN. He said nothing about it specifically being true, though he implies by quoting it that the people who were challenging and testing him believed it to be true and therefore it contradicted the way they chose to interpret the scriptures elsewhere, in connection with divorcing their wives for ANY reason whatever. This is what Jesus REFUTED. Not Evolution by Natural Selection. That was not what the argument was about at all. It was all about divorce.

    If Evolution by Natural Selection is truth, then Jesus Christ would fully support the whole notion, because Jesus Christ is God, and IS THE TRUTH, and he cannot deny himself.

    There is nothing wrong with anyone understanding and adhering to the fundamentals of the Christian Faith. These are to be found in the Nicene, Apostles and Athanasius Creeds. None of these state that a 'literalist' interpretational method is essential to ensure one's salvation. There is everything wrong with fundamentalists insisting that a literal and fundamentalist interpretation of the entire Bible is the only TRUE interpretation of what inspired scripture contains, and the only truthful understanding of the truth of scripture, concerning one's salvation.
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    Last edited: Apr 14, 2023
  14. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    No, the original thread title, actually. :laugh:
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  15. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Fact: at the beginning, God made them. He made them male and female, Jesus said.
    Fact: all people descended from one man (Acts 17:26).
    Fact: sin came through one man, Adam, and sin subsequently reigned through many generations (Rom. 5:12-13).
    Fact: the first man was not born of a woman, but the first woman came from the man (1 Cor. 11:8; 1 Tim. 2: 13-14).
    Fact: Adam was the first man, an actual living being (1 Cor. 15:45).

    If you are a Bible-believing Christian, then you believe these facts. Believing these facts may not be required for salvation, but if a person can cavalierly disregard these facts, then upon what basis does he believe any of the facts the Bible teaches concerning Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection for our redemption? For that person is treating the Bible as a mere collection of old stories which one may sort through and choose which parts to believe and which to disbelieve.

    The fact of Adam's creation, his fall into sin, and the consequences borne by every human being who has lived since then are entirely integral to the Gospel message! If Adam and Eve are merely 'symbolic' or allegorical or whatever, instead of the two genuine ancestors of us all, then many portions of the Bible suddenly make no sense. Without Adam and his sin, how can Christ be called the "second Adam"? Without Adam and his sin, what of the church's long-taught doctrine concerning original sin and the spiritual effect upon every human being? Without Adam and his sin, maybe each person can redeem himself; maybe he doesn't need a savior! You see, failing to believe the Genesis account in a literal fashion does great violence to the orthodox theology passed down to us by the church through the centuries and is a hazard-fraught step in the wrong direction on the spectrum of faith.

    Now on the other hand, if you do believe all these facts about Adam and God's creation of him... if you accept that writing literally and by faith (even if you don't understand how it can be so)... then it is only a small step to also believe and accept by faith the other details of the creation account. For we walk by faith...
     
  16. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Can you provide any historical (non-Bible) writing from the Apostolic era which supports the claim that most people of Jesus' day thought rays of light came out of the eyeballs? Because if not, I'm calling "BS" on it. This idea sounds like something cooked up by a modernist faux-theologian hack who devised his own interpretation of the scripture passage (in a way that it does not require) to bolster his own idea about Jesus' fallibility. After all, it wouldn't have taken a genius in those days to figure out that no light shines out of eyeballs... otherwise everyone back then could have seen in the dark and would even have noticed torch beams emanating from others' heads! O_o Common observation among B.C. and 1st Century people would have put the lie to such a ridiculous idea.
     
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2023
  17. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    How about this. Helenistic thought became a big problem for Jews, who considered that much of it was anti-scriptural. (Particularly wrestling naked, which had become increasingly popular wherever the Romans were 'in charge'). However common ideas of the physics of reality were commonly accepted by the whole of Jewish society. Emission theory was undoubtedly one of them. It does not however necessarily prove that Jesus of Nazareth accepted the emmission theory of sight. Only that it was so generally accepted by everyone else that Jesus of Nazareth could assume that they would all understand the metaphorical application of it to the parable he spoke concerning how evil and ignorance operates in human beings. A basic lack of truthful understanding at the fundamental level, can affect everything else we believe to be true. Common wrong assumptions can alter our perceptions in very general ways, even darkening our entire understanding of what is true and what is not true and even the nature of truth itself. This is what the parable means, or would you have a different explanation of its meaning? I don't think this saying of Jesus was spoken in support of Platonic or Euclidean thought on the Emission Theory of Sight or merely the physical role of the human eye in 'seeing'.
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    Last edited: Apr 15, 2023
  18. Ananias

    Ananias Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Well, this is the bedrock of the difference between the orthodox and the liberals, isn't it? That's why it is ultimately impossible to have a meaningful conversation. If you deny the divine authorship of the Bible, you deny a bedrock doctrine of the Christian faith. Christ teaches (see Luke 24 and John 5), and Apostolic teaching confirms, that Scripture is θεόπνευστος (breathed out by God).

    The clearest expression of this doctrine is in 2 Peter 1:16-21:

    Note well: knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.

    There was a time when all Anglicans understood this. This is at the heart of the doctrine of Biblical authority. Scripture is the very Word of God, not some invention of men. Men wrote while carried along by the Holy Spirit, their own personalities and judgement intact, not acting as automatons taking dictation but as reasoning beings hearing the Word of the Lord and writing it down so that others may know and learn from it.
     
  19. Ananias

    Ananias Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Plenty of 21st century moderns believe a lot of dumb stuff about the nature of reality as well. What's your point? Just living in a given era in the world doesn't grant anyone a special advantage over previous eras. I don't even think we're all that much smarter now than in ages past; it's just that we benefit from the technological advancements of previous generations to an outlandish extent.

    I argue that our ancestors had a much firmer grasp on actual reality than moderns do. They had to live much closer to the land. Death was always close at hand.They had to grow crops, slaughter their own meat, dig their own wells, grind grain for bread. A bad harvest meant they went hungry; two bad harvests might mean death by starvation. They might lose half of their children to accident or disease before they reached adulthood. Their entire lives might be spent within a twenty-mile radius of where they were born. This is not an abnormal state: this is the default setting of humans in actual reality.

    Reality
    isn't something you see through a computer screen, or read about on a website. Reality isn't mediated. The developed world, especially the USA, exists as a kind of technological Disneyland where everything is made available almost immediately. It's a place where the most prevalent health problem poor people have is obesity. Most of us have no idea where our necessities of life even come from: our food, our water, our clothes are all gathered together for us into convenient retail outlets where we can select from a plethora of options. But suppose a catastrophe occurred (natural or manmade) tomorrow. What would people do then? They'd starve or die of thirst, for the most part -- the knowledge of how to support themselves in actual reality is long gone.

    Most moderns have absolutely no idea of what actual reality is. They claim to "love science" but have not the faintest clue about how all the technology around them works. Technology might as well operate by magic for all they understand of it. I know of many people who have not so much as changed a tire in their whole lives. Our westernized culture is little more than a cargo-cult at this point: we worship at the altar of Science without having any real idea of the actual forces at work.

    This life most of us lead in the west is not "reality" by any historical standard. We live in a temporal bubble that isolates us from reality. To think that this bubble we live in is anything other than a temporary aberration is not only naive, but dangerous. As Christians we live for the perfect life that comes after this one; we accept this world as a fallen, unperfectable arena of pain and toil. "Reality" is the furnace in which we are annealed and made ready for Heaven, and there are many who will not survive that process.
     
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2023
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  20. Invictus

    Invictus Well-Known Member

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    It is against Christian doctrine to assert that God has a body or that he is corporeal in any way. God does not literally have ‘breath’. Breathing is also not the same as speaking. The phrase in 1 Timothy is thus a metaphor, and plenary verbal inspiration cannot be deduced from it.

    It’s also not clear how competing theories of scriptural inspiration are relevant to the discussion at hand. The original post was seeking opinions concerning a historical counterfactual, rather than about the sense in which Genesis 1 can be asserted to be ‘true’.
     
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2023