In what ways does the God of Evolution parallel the God of the Heavens?

[Gottservant]

If an honourable addition to Mendel's work is all Evolution tried to be, we would not have a problem.

 

[gluadys]

Just discovered this thread, so there are responses to a miscellany of messages here.

How does science prove that we don't know?

It doesn't. It just says that knowledge of God cannot be obtained through science. That doesn't mean we can't know God, but that we need a different way than science to know.

Science merely presumes the nonexistence of special acts of God (miracles), a priori in any given area of investigation. If that presumption is true, it is a very valuable method. If that presumption is false, it's usefulness diminishes.

It is not a priori, it is methodological. IOW, when exploring any phenomenon, science doesn't rule out miracles, but it asks the question: "Assuming no miracle, what would produce this phenomenon naturally?" Can you think of a better way to discover natural causes of phenomena in nature?

What do you think it means about God when natural causes of phenomena in nature are discovered?

God is inherently super-natural. He made nature and is above it. He is like a carpenter who makes a box and fills it with ants. The ants inside the box could not tell you what is outside the box based upon what they observe going on in the box.

Although you mean well, and make a good point (the ants in the box can't investigate what is outside it) I think it short-changes both God and humanity.

God is not just outside and above the box. God is also with, through and in the box. No, we can't determine that scientifically. But we have other ways of knowing and experiencing the presence of God with us. Science is a powerful way of knowing, but it is not the only way of knowing.

I think too many of us on all sides of the controversy look at God and nature as if your analogy was the whole picture. And a big shortcoming of that picture is this: not only can the ants not study what is outside the box, but God can only interact with the ants by miraculous intervention into what it going on in the box. When God is not intervening in this way, all the activity in the box happens without God being present or active.

That is not the view of Christian tradition or scriptures. God is not excluded from the box. God is in the box right along with us ants, and God is active in all the doings of nature. We really need, as Christians, to reject the view of autonomous nature. It is an atheistic idea that has no proper place in any Christian theology whether pro- or anti-evolution.

But you are right about scientific tools being useless to prove or disprove God.

It's like we are fighting just to believe there is such a thing as faith, when in fact, that is the first most obvious fact about anything in life. For some reason, Evolutionists think this "blindness" to life is a good thing, like its sunglasses or something, only not the kind you can see through.

Any other topic and there is a divine way of interpreting it. Farming, is like sowing seeds in Heaven. Cooking bread, is like waiting for the reward of Heaven to mature. Building a house, is like establishing your house on the Word. But what is Evolution? How do you have a spiritual dialogue with someone who voids their own mind before the conversation even starts. It's just so frustrating. And yet we have lives that need meaning, that crave meaning and Evolution refuses to let anyone answer it.

Actually, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I disagree with your view of "Evolution". In fact, many Christians who accept evolution are working hard at developing a divine way of interpreting it. Check out web sites like Biologos, Celebrating Evolving Creation, and An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. There are plenty more.

I agree entirely that we need meaning. But I have not found at all that evolution robs us of meaningful lives. Accepting evolution does not involve any decision to "steer clear of God" as many of us here will testify. For many of us, our relationship with God was strengthened when we stopped fighting against the evidence that evolution is a big part of God's world. Generally speaking, people do not choose to accept evolution out of fear of God or hate for God. That is a vicious slander that does not apply at all to the majority of people who accept evolution. It may comfort you to believe this is the case, but it is simply not factual. The overriding reason to accept evolution is the evidence in creation that we live in a world where species evolved, where we evolved.

I think I agree insofar as we need to separate evolution (and science generally) from atheism. In my opinion atheists have blended the two to strengthen their arguments against God. Christians contributed to this mess by persecuting science. . . . By the very act of opposing its natural partner in knowledge (science), the Christian church provides atheists with the opportunity to say that Christian theism opposes knowledge.

Right on. And, in many ways, by accepting some atheist norms such as that "natural" = "godless". Christians who set up an equation between evolution and atheism contribute to a false dichotomy which is entirely needless. Almost all atheists I have conversed with on this topic originally learned this false dichotomy from Christian churches, not from atheist sources. And given the choice and the evidence, they chose evidence with atheism rather than a blind belief that what they know ain't so.

Of course, the notion that science and faith are engaged in a hostile struggle was a 19th century meme that was much overplayed. As you say, that argument is really a distraction.

I've reached an impasse with Evolution, but I am not sure what it means. [snip] The thing is, I still can't get them to cave on morality or a moral standard and they do not reason well. Meaning I can't get them to see the whole in the theory for the gaping hole in their morality, they don't infer a connection between the two, at all.

Science doesn't do morality. So evolution doesn't do morality. There is no connection. Biology is not destiny, certainly not moral destiny. Discovering the ways in which genomes change tells us not one single thing about what humans should or should not do either in general or in specific situations.

People often find themselves opposing evolution because "Evolution teaches X" when evolution teaches no such thing at all.

 

[Calminian]

...It is not a priori, it is methodological. IOW, when exploring any phenomenon, science doesn't rule out miracles, but it asks the question: "Assuming no miracle, what would produce this phenomenon naturally?" Can you think of a better way to discover natural causes of phenomena in nature?

Yes, but even you would have to admit, that's a big if. Not only that, even if a viable natural explanation is found, that could never disprove the supernatural explanation. Someone could have examined the wine after Jesus made it and come up with a natural explanation for its existence. A doctor could have interviewed and examined Lazarus after his resurrection, and concluded he was never dead. That would be a natural explanation that would explain the evidence. Yet it would be wrong.

Just recently John Shelby Spong made the same arguments you have made to dismiss every statement the book of John made about Christ. He makes the same mistake you make, but applies it more consistently.

 

[gluadys]

Yes, but even you would have to admit, that's a big if.

I certainly wouldn't dispute that.

Not only that, even if a viable natural explanation is found, that could never disprove the supernatural explanation.

True. Back in the late 13th century the consequences of this provided food for thought for a Christian philosopher named William of Ockham (yes, the one for whom Occam's razor is named.) He proposed this thought experiment.

You are sitting at a table in good light looking directly at a tangerine about three feet in front of your eyes. You are wide awake, not under the influence of drugs, and are paying attention to what is before you. This would seem to be the optimum case for knowing something: that there is a tangerine on the table.

What, asks William, does this knowledge consist of? It consists of the meeting of two conditions: an actual object (the tangerine) and your capacity to perceive and intuit cognitively that it is there. That we would agree is what we see as "normal" or "natural".

However, suppose we posit an intervention by God. Could God directly act on your cognitive faculty to cause you to perceive a tangerine on the table, when there is not in fact anything there? Clearly the answer is "yes". So, how do we know that there really is a tangerine on the table?

About 400 years later, Descartes ran into the same problem: how can I trust my perceptions to be of something real? His answer came down to a profession of faith: God is not a deceiver, therefore, so long as I check them out carefully, I can trust the evidence of my senses.

Occam's Razor is the origin of the scientific exclusion of miracles from scientific method. Because any and every possible natural cause may be imitated by miraculous intervention and cannot be distinguished from it, miracle becomes an always given possibility, but one which cannot be distinguished from an ordinary natural cause where such exist.

Science can never show that "no miracle happened here". What it can show is "no miracle is necessary here".

But please note that "no miracle is necessary here" is NOT the same thing as saying "God is not necessary here."



Let us suppose that in fact no miracle is necessary to explain some natural phenomenon. In fact, let's go further and assert that no miracle occurred. Ockham's observer saw a tangerine because a tangerine was there to be seen.


From your perspective, how does God relate to that phenomenon? Has God become superfluous?


Here is another question. Is it theologically justified to posit miracles which God has not informed us of? Miracles which have left no evidence of having occurred?

 

[Fascinated With God]

Hi there!

Just a thought. Darwin was a considerably theologically minded person, when writing about his motivation to research Evolution he said (paraphrase) "I cannot imagine that God would allow His creatures to suffer [what therefore is the mechanism by which they can survive]" (exact reference unknown). In what way does this reflect the God of Evolution? Does God not manifest Himself to Evolutionists even as they seek Him through Evolution?

The thing that comes to mind is that certain rules apply no matter how God manifests Himself. For example, His Word says He will not always strive with man, so too we must imagine God will not always strive with Evolutionists. But what else? Certainly the Law does not change. I have witnessed to Evolutionists on this site simply by pointing to the golden rule from the perspective of Evolution (would you let someone evolve before you?). Other laws apply.

But there is a big leap from this to witnessing about Jesus and at the moment, I just can't see how to do it. For example, does the God of Evolution ask Jesus to work more or work less, or does he simply ask Jesus to discern? As you can see, I am confused. It is no good talking about the God of Evolution if you can't mention Jesus, Jesus as the example of something. At the moment Evolution has nothing, not even a general recognition of the possibility of a god of Evolution.

Thoughts?

No one is addressing your question: where is Christ in evolution?

My answer is that God is a cosmic genetic engineer, creating bodies that are more suited to embody a saintly soul, and that Christ pays special interest in this process. That is why only certain people today experience life saving miracles associated with Christ. (As well as life changing events that would effect whether or not one has progeny or how well their progeny is prepared for life.)

So Christ is very much involved in evolution, deciding who lives and has many children that prosper and who dies childless, or has only a few children who are not raised properly.

Christ isn't responsible for all outcomes, but He does intervene in many cases.

 

[Gottservant]

Wow, you guys have really spurred me on so well.

The example of Lazarus being thought never dead is great (I will use it in subsequent arguments).

I have decided that the fight against Evolution is not mine, but the Lord's.

Thankyou so much for participating and addressing the question as best you know how.

This kind of cooperation would be the normal in the Church if we were not so oppressed.

 

[Calminian]

....Science can never show that "no miracle happened here". What it can show is "no miracle is necessary here"....

Indeed.

Problem 1 is, God told us a a series of miracles a relatively short time ago. They were described in detail, and given an explicit timeframe.

Problem 2 is, the scientific version of origins posits a universe that leapt into existence for no reason uncaused. That's the best it could do. That's the dead end that we get when we look to science for answers about ontological questions which ultimately lead to origins.

You see, those who choose to reinterpret the Bible for the sake of science are merely trusting in naturalism until the get to a dead end like the BB, and then they merely put a miracle of God in front of it to complete the theory.

My view is, if a miracle is necessary 14 billion years ago anyway, not just just accept the one God described in Genesis?

 

[gluadys]

Indeed.

Problem 1 is, God told us a a series of miracles a relatively short time ago. They were described in detail, and given an explicit timeframe.

Problem 2 is, the scientific version of origins posits a universe that leapt into existence for no reason uncaused.

That's a misinterpretation. It should be "for no reason known to science". To state that because science cannot pinpoint a cause, therefore there was no cause, is not itself a scientific statement, but a theological statement.

In the case of a miracle, science would always be left unable to pinpoint a cause. That doesn't mean there was no miracle, only that science can neither affirm nor deny that there was a miracle.

But notice your focus on miracles. In another thread, I said this was characteristic of creationism. As if evolution had anything to do with denying miracles. (It doesn't). You accused me of making this up, but here you are illustrating the very attitude I was naming.

Meanwhile, you have twice evaded what to me is the much more important question.

Where is God when nature is doing what nature does?

When I see a tangerine on a table because a tangerine is actually there, where is God in that?

When Newton discovered that rainbows are formed by the prismatic quality of raindrops, does that mean God has been excluded from the task of rainbow making?

Do natural explanations of natural processes mean nature is deprived of God whenever human ingenuity figures them out?


Are you capable of taking your mind off of miracles long enough to consider normal nature and God's relationship to normal, scientifically explained, nature?

What should a Christian keep in mind when exploring nature scientifically and miracles are not an issue?


My suspicion is that creationists put so much emphasis on miracles because they have lost faith in a God of nature.

My view is, if a miracle is necessary 14 billion years ago anyway, not just just accept the one God described in Genesis?

Well, I don't know if a miracle is necessary 14 billion years ago. I think the only miracles we know about are those for which we have a testimony.

OTOH, I don't know that Genesis is referring to a miracle either. It simply says that what God wanted to be came to be. "God said . . . and it was so." Doesn't say that God had to invoke a miracle to make it so.

One problem with hermeneutics is that what the biblical terminology refers to as "signs" does not cover the same linguistic range as what modern English calls "miracle". The frame of reference is different. Biblically, all that is required of a sign is that it evokes wonder and amazement. There is no requirement that any natural process be overridden, although in some cases that clearly appears to be the case.

Furthermore, in the case of Genesis, the creative events are not even called "signs". I think the first "sign" alluded to in scripture is the rainbow after the Flood. But it is certainly not clear that this was a "miracle" as defined in modern English. What was not natural about that rainbow?

 

[Calminian]

That's a misinterpretation. It should be "for no reason known to science". To state that because science cannot pinpoint a cause, therefore there was no cause, is not itself a scientific statement, but a theological statement.

No, the BB is even more problematic that that. You have a singularity turning into a universe for no reason. Certainly you can speculate about a natural mechanism, but it would have to be one counter to the laws we understand now. It's sort of the naturalistic way to define a miracle.

But notice your focus on miracles. In another thread, I said this was characteristic of creationism. As if evolution had anything to do with denying miracles. (It doesn't). You accused me of making this up, but here you are illustrating the very attitude I was naming.

No, you were claiming that creationists deny that God upholds the natural laws of the universe. You got called out on that one, as you completely made it up.

Speculating about miracles is really the achilles heel for theistic naturalists. None of you seem to be able to come to grips with the concept.

OTOH, I don't know that Genesis is referring to a miracle either. ...

Yes you do. Your views are not based on hermeneutics. They are based on naturalistic theories.

 

[gluadys]

No, the BB is even more problematic that that. You have a singularity turning into a universe for no reason.

Why do you say it is for no reason? If God decided to make a universe, is that not a reason?

Certainly you can speculate about a natural mechanism,

Does "reason" necessarily entail a natural mechanism?

Is what you mean by "no reason" really "no natural mechanism"?

I don't see how that applies, since the natural mechanism seems to be what we do have some information about relative to the big bang.

What we don't know, scientifically, is why this mechanism got kick-started in the first place. So we don't know scientifically why the universe exists.

But not knowing the reason doesn't mean there is none. And we have non-scientific sources that provide a reason.

No, you were claiming that creationists deny that God upholds the natural laws of the universe. You got called out on that one, as you completely made it up.

Well, as I explained in my other post, it is not that creationists don't know what they are supposed to say when asked directly what they believe about God and nature. Sure they will tell you they believe God upholds the natural laws of the universe (except when he chooses to intervene in some way to produce a non-natural miracle).

But answer me this:

If God upholds the natural laws of the universe, why do creationists object so vehemently to finding natural explanations for things like the origin of species, the origin of life, the origin of the universe, etc. Why do they object to "naturalistic" explanations of natural phenomena? Why do they claim this is "writing God out of the equation"?

Why is the bedrock of creationism, when it comes to natural phenomena, that God works miracles? What is wrong with saying God, through his upholding of natural laws ordained evolution, including the evolution of humanity? or the big bang or whatever?

Speculating about miracles is really the achilles heel for theistic naturalists. None of you seem to be able to come to grips with the concept.

I really don't see miracles being a problem. I just think there is no need to invent miracles as ad hoc "scientific" explanations when there are better scientific explanations based on natural processes.

Yes you do. Your views are not based on hermeneutics. They are based on naturalistic theories.

No I don't. Perhaps you could develop the hermeneutics that supports that view so I could see it.

Perhaps you are defining "miracle" differently than I am.

And what, btw, is your definition of "naturalistic" and why is "naturalistic" objectionable to you?

 

[Calminian]

Why do you say it is for no reason? If God decided to make a universe, is that not a reason?

IOW's the only way you can make it work is to put a miracle of God in front of it. To that I say again, if a miracle is necessary 14 billions years ago, why one more recent like described in the Bible?

What we don't know, scientifically, is why this mechanism got kick-started in the first place.

Which is a watered down way of saying, the BB is a naturalistic dead end. "So what do we do? Hey, let's add God?"

Typical God of the gaps reasoning.

Well, as I explained in my other post, it is not that creationists don't know what they are supposed to say when asked directly.....

Epic fail. Why not just admit, you have no evidence to back up your explanation?

 

[Fascinated With God]

The BB was not the beginning of life. There have been many destroyed universes before this one. "Dark energy" is exploding this universe apart, a divine failsafe to prevent evil universes from proliferating. We are in fact in the middle of the greatest void in the visible universe, 10 times bigger than any other void we can find. If love can conquer hate this explosion will subside.

Can love conquer hate? It does not appear so here, but I think that at the 2nd Coming people with conservative political views will be in a state of shock.

 

[gluadys]

IOW's the only way you can make it work is to put a miracle of God in front of it.

No, I didn't say anything about a miracle. You jumped to that conclusion. Why? Because I named God? Why do you immediately equate God's decision to make a universe with a miracle of God?

Why can't God use natural means to make a universe?

Do you ever think of God acting in a non-miraculous way?

Which is a watered down way of saying, the BB is a naturalistic dead end. "So what do we do? Hey, let's add God?"

If there is more to reality than natural phenomena, yes, of course, any scientific explanation will eventually be a dead end. That doesn't mean we add God to the scientific explanation. Because science still can't come to any conclusions about God.

Adding (or choosing not to add) God is always a theological proposition, never a scientific one.

Also, because our knowledge at any time is limited, science can never confirm that we have come to an actual dead end. It can only say that on the basis of current information, we cannot explain this phenomenon.

Typical God of the gaps reasoning.

Yes, if one adds God as a scientific explanation, that is God-of-the-gaps reasoning. And if one depends on such reasoning to bolster one's faith, it follows that one will fear knowledge that fills in such gaps with natural explanations.

That is why it is important for Christians to come to a place where we can see God in the face of nature we can explain, not look for God in those aspects of nature we can't explain.

But I see that you prefer to locate God in what we cannot explain (miracles) rather than in what we can explain. Just as I said creationists typically do.

You may say you believe God upholds the laws of nature, but you don't think about it, you don't use that aspect of Christian doctrine practically. It is like a useless appendage of belief.

Epic fail. Why not just admit, you have no evidence to back up your explanation?

Did you even read the other post? I gave you an extended example.

But now I don't even need it, as you are providing the example yourself.

Look at how you automatically equated God's work with "miracle".
Look at how you are ignoring and refusing to answer anything about God and nature as we understand it.

You don't have a real theology of God and nature. All your god does is miracles. And where you can't see miracles, you can't see God. So you end up inventing miracles even to replace perfectly good natural explanations of natural phenomena.

How is the God who created nature served by such nonsense?

 

[Fascinated With God]

You don't have a real theology of God and nature. All your god does is miracles. And where you can't see miracles, you can't see God.

He is running from his own shadow, because deep down inside he does not really believe that God exists and is afraid of anything that contradicts his limited and myopic system of thought, for fear that it would shatter his shallow faith.

 

[Calminian]

....Did you even read the other post? I gave you an extended example.

But now I don't even need it, as you are providing the example yourself.

Glu, you completely made up the charge. There are no creationists that deny God as the upholder of natural law. It's just a myth you put forth in desperation.

Miracles are special acts of God, natural laws are the normal way God upholds things. Every creationists believes this. Every creationists knows and affirms the difference.

You've been called out and have not been able to offer a single example of anyone that disagrees. The charge is silly.

 

[gluadys]

Glu, you completely made up the charge. There are no creationists that deny God as the upholder of natural law. It's just a myth you put forth in desperation.

Miracles are special acts of God, natural laws are the normal way God upholds things. Every creationists believes this. Every creationists knows and affirms the difference.

So you and all of them claim.

But if that is really the case, why do you object to "naturalistic" explanations of natural phenomena. Why do you insist on replacing scientific explanations of cosmological, geological and biological history with miraculous explanations?

If you really believe natural laws are the normal way God upholds things, why do creationists vilify the discovery of what those laws are and how they work?

Basically, if you really believe what you say you believe, what is unacceptable about "naturalistic" explanations of the created order?


That is the essence of the question I have been posing to you and to many creationists, and I have never had a satisfactory answer from any one of them including you.

Instead of being amazed and appreciative of the knowledge of God's natural laws and how they were used by God to give us the world we have, you and every creationist I have conversed with treat natural explanations as if they were threats. As if, deprived of a miraculous explanation, you would be deprived of God.

How does learning that what we once thought of as a miracle (due to our ignorance) is actually an intelligible natural phenomenon deprive us of God if, as you claim, God is the one who created and upholds natural laws? Is a rainbow deprived of God when we know how light is refracted to make it?

 

[Gxg (G²)]

How does learning that what we once thought of as a miracle (due to our ignorance) is actually an intelligible natural phenomenon deprive us of God if, as you claim, God is the one who created and upholds natural laws? Is a rainbow deprived of God when we know how light is refracted to make it?

Excellent analogy - for what occurred when the Lord by His hand made the rainbow in Genesis 9 does not lose its significance when seeing how it occurs naturally after rainfall - for it has its source in the Lord and that will always make it glorious to behold, just as with all processes the Lord sustains/allows to develop.

As it concerns Evolution and the way that it can parallel the Lord, I've been of the mindset that it connects well when you have a theological framework to go with like Panentheism - one that sees all things connected together in the Lord. More on this was shared elsewhere:

Perhaps this is different for me when having a background that does involve an American Indian/"First Nations" perspective. I appreciate Native Spirituality in Christ......as I do love the views of other Indigineous peoples/those in them following the Lord (such as Richard Twiss of the Siox Lakota). They always had high respect for creation..and and with that, I've noticed that for them, whenever the issue is brought up, their focus is very simple on how all creation is connected with the Lord.....and nothing escapes Him.​

He is intimately involved in it---and feels it as well. I've often pondered this whenever it comes to opportunities I have to go out into nature.....with hiking, walking, and admiring Gods Creation....and seeing how much design is involved in all aspects of it. Be it the Eco-System design where survival of the fittest occurs...or in the symbotic relationships many creatures have with each other...or in certain plants/trees developed to fight against certain predators and yet being so fragile all at once....none of it is by chance. And when questions of Evolution being right or wrong come up, it seems to be inconsequential.​

All of that is in line with the concept known as Panentheism ...the concept of God being outside of the world and yet connected deeply to it/all within it.​

Many North American Native Peoples (such as the Cree, Iroquois, Huron, Navajo, and others) were and still are largely panentheistic, conceiving of God as both immanent in Creation and transcendent from it. North American Native writers have also translated the word for God as the Great Mystery or as the Sacred Other. This concept is referred to by many as the Great Spirit. ​

For more info, one can go online/consider researching the Following UNDER their respective titles:​

• "Panentheism & Interspirituality – What’s Jesus Got to do With It? <<<zoecarnate"

• "Biblical Panentheism: The 'Everywhere-ness' of God—God in all things"

• Panentheism: the Other God of the Philosophers (John W. Cooper) ​

• • Panentheism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

For scholars that you can consider, one person that may bless you is by the name of Arthur Peacocke----as he's one of the main theologians/philosophers and scholars who has advocated the concept of Biblical Panentheism.

.........One can also go online/investigate a book he helped make on the issue...alongside many other scholars, as seen in the work entitled In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God's Presence in a Scientific World :

http://books.google.com/books?id=N1...nepage&q=Arthur Peacocke: Panentheism&f=false​

Panentheism, as I'm discussing, deals with how all there is not only emanates from God..but is experienced by Him as well. Its the idea that one's not to worship an animal or a tree since it's not the creator--but on the same token, as Chasidism ascribes to, the animal being abused is felt deeply by the Lord...and on the same token, an animal being killed naturally in the wild is something that's seen as beautiful rather than abhorent since nature was designed that way with all things aiding one another in a grand circle of life where all things are connected.​

Again, panentheism is the idea that the entire universe is part of God, But God is greater that the universe. God is omnipresent and transcendent - that is, God contains the entire cosmos but the entire cosmos does not and cannot contain God. He is omnipresent because his uncreated energies permeate all Creation, generating and sustaining it. And He is transcendent because his uncreated essence is inaccessible to us - it is wholly beyond Creation. Much of it is very much seen best in the concept of the INCARNATION--where the Lord stepped into HISTORY itself even though He was outside of TIME.....and experienced life as all of us do, grieving and growing ( Luke 2:39-40, Luke 2:51-52, Hebrews 2:17, Hebrews 4:14-16, Hebrews 5:7-10, etc ). ​

Too often it does seem that people have this view of God that He's off somewhere in the great beyond, disconnected with what occurs here on the planet. It seems to be due to what has often been promoted with Classical Theism and how others seem to think that it makes God seem more glorious if He is not connected with His creation. But I think it diminishes it....​

I do think it is possible and Panentheism is the skeleton within which science and religion are complimentary rather than in opposition. As it stands, its odd to see it claimed that one claiming God cannot truly do science, as many great scientists of the past were believers clearly in the Lord....

As mentioned in the earlier post, one to consider looking up is Arthur Peacock. For he contributes to this cause by inviting us to think out of the box in relation to evolution both in respect to the origin of life, the infinitely small, and with Man's conscious potential beyond our conception.​

One of the best places to research is an article made by Arthur Peacoke entitled "Many Worlds: Evolution to Theology" http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/2659/Default.aspx​

​

The advance of science and its discoveries relating to evolution have made the source of creation by a personal controlling God difficult to defend. But if supposing that Creation is to God as our bodies are to us, we can see how evolution is similar to the process of our bodies coming into existence.​

...............

It is claer that we already know the physical man both as ourselves and in others. Moreover, we have ideas on how it evolved this far from being "born of woman" . However suppose man's evolution continues from being born from above...with us growing in the Lord

Another quote from the article by Peacock:

It was not long after Darwin published the Origin that some theologians began to discern the significance of the central distinctive Christian affirmation of the Incarnation of God in the human person of Jesus the Christ as especially congruent with an evolutionary perspective. Thus, again in Lux Mundi in 1891, we find J.R. Illingworth boldly affirming: ". . . n scientific language, the Incarnation may be said to have introduced a new species into the world-the Divine man transcending past humanity, as humanity transcended the rest of the animal creation, and communicating His vital energy by a spiritual process to subsequent generations. . . ."(36) Jesus' resurrection convinced the disciples, including Paul, that it is the union with God of his kind of life that is not broken by death and capable of being taken into God. For Jesus manifested the kind of human life which, it was believed, can become fully life with God, not only here and now, but eternally beyond the threshold of death. Hence his imperative "Follow me" constitutes a call for the transformation of humanity into a new kind of human being and becoming. What happened to Jesus, it was thought, could happen to all......In this perspective, Jesus the Christ (the whole Christ event) has, I would suggest, shown us what is possible for humanity. The actualization of this potentiality can properly be regarded as the consummation of the purposes of God already manifested incompletely in evolving humanity. In Jesus there was a divine act of new creation because Christians may now say the initiative was from God, within human history, within the responsive human will of Jesus inspired by that outreach of God into humanity designated as God the Holy Spirit. Jesus the Christ is thereby seen, in the context of the whole complex of events in which he participated as the paradigm of what God intends for all human beings, now revealed as having the potentiality of responding to, of being open to, of becoming united with God. In this perspective, he represents the consummation of the evolutionary creative process that God has been effecting in and through the world.

lll

Others may disagree, but I think it's more than worth considering.... ​

 

[Calminian]

Excellent analogy - for what occurred when the Lord by His hand made the rainbow in Genesis 9 does not lose its significance when seeing how it occurs naturally after rainfall - for it has its source in the Lord and that will always make it glorious to behold, just as with all processes the Lord sustains/allows to develop.

Sounds to me like John Shelby Spong's methodology. He says the same about the Resurrection. But this of course is the anti-miracle age we live in. It's just sad to see professing christians falling for it.

Just out of curiosity do you also deny the miracle of the Resurrection? I would imagine it's crossed your mind, as the hermeneutical approach is virtually identical. But just asking. The early fathers would have been aghast over such a hermeneutic, but that's a different thread.

 

[Calminian]

So you and all of them claim.

But if that is really the case, why do you object to "naturalistic" explanations of natural phenomena. ....

Just scratching my head as to where you got this notion.

 

[gluadys]

Just scratching my head as to where you got this notion.

I got it from you and other creationists objecting to "naturalistic presuppositions" and "naturalistic explanations". See some of mark kennedy's posts for example.

So, why do creationists, who, according to themselves, believe God authors and upholds and sustains natural processes object when scientists discover natural explanations for natural phenomena?

What is objectionable to natural explanations from a creationist POV? If scientists discover a natural explanation for the transformation of non-living matter into living cells--on what basis would you object to that?