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Theistic evolution
- Thread starter ThomasDa
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I disagree.
When the Origin of Species was first published, some referred to Natural Selection as "the Calvinist view of nature".
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Or maybe he was listening to Barbara Streisand, got feeling all verklempt, and you're supposed to "discuss amongst yourselves".
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Just visiting but this question attracted my attention.
Because I am not a TE I am in the best position to explain it. Theistic means that God is directing the process of change. Evolution is not the process but the end product.
The change takes place through a series of creative mutations or adaptations. Each step is a creative effort yielding a new creation.
I'll give you an example.
I designed a tree stand for bow hunting many years ago. I have improved it over time, but not by adding improvements to the original stand, but building a different stand with the improvement included. You can say that my stand design 'evolved' and so it did, but by a series of new, completely unique improvements added to a newly created stand. Now all my old stands still exist, and when set side by side track the 'evolution' of the design, but each design, though almost identical to the others, is a newly created, unique, piece of work. Of course these changes were made directly by me, as I deemed necessary, not some innate ability of the stand itself.
And so there you have it.
owg
Because I am not a TE I am in the best position to explain it.
Theistic means that God is directing the process of change. Evolution is not the process but the end product. The change takes place through a series of creative mutations or adaptations. Each step is a creative effort yielding a new creation.
I'll give you an example.
I designed a tree stand for bow hunting many years ago. I have improved it over time, but not by adding improvements to the original stand, but building a different stand with the improvement included. You can say that my stand design 'evolved' and so it did, but by a series of new, completely unique improvements added to a newly created stand. Now all my old stands still exist, and when set side by side track the 'evolution' of the design, but each design, though almost identical to the others, is a newly created, unique, piece of work. Of course these changes were made directly by me, as I deemed necessary, not some innate ability of the stand itself.
And so there you have it.
owg
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Don't you mean why isn't theistic evolution, as distinct from the godless kind, a process? TE implies that it is guided by God. That really makes it purposeful creation albeit in really small increments.
owg
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Just visiting but this question attracted my attention.
Because I am not a TE I am in the best position to explain it.
I would disagree with you here. The end product is the diversity of life forms. Evolution is the process that takes us from one or a few forms to many amazing and beautiful forms.
The change takes place through a series of creative mutations or adaptations. Each step is a creative effort yielding a new creation.
I'll give you an example.
I designed a tree stand for bow hunting many years ago. I have improved it over time, but not by adding improvements to the original stand, but building a different stand with the improvement included. You can say that my stand design 'evolved' and so it did, but by a series of new, completely unique improvements added to a newly created stand. Now all my old stands still exist, and when set side by side track the 'evolution' of the design, but each design, though almost identical to the others, is a newly created, unique, piece of work. Of course these changes were made directly by me, as I deemed necessary, not some innate ability of the stand itself.
And so there you have it.
owg
And the difference between your tree stand and a tree is that the tree does have the innate ability to bequeath changed DNA to its offspring and doesn't need you to do it directly.
I don't get it. Are you saying that God cannot create, sustain and guide processes according to his purposes?
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Whether or not one believes God sustains evolution, it is still a process.
Why do you speak as though natural processes happen apart from God? Why can't something be both purposefully created and a process?
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My point is that so called natural processes aren't natural at all but supernatural and are purposefully guided by God. Recall that I improved my tree stand, one small step at a time. It did not improve itself. My argument isn't against God-directed change but against the mindless, purposeless (read Godless) change of evolution (as it is presented by science, and understood by most).
Science has appropriated the purposefulness (the ID?) of supposed change and credited a mindless process for it. Thus the difference between evolution (mindless change) and incremental creation (purposeful change).
Science has stolen the reason for change i.e. purposefulness , which if it did happen at all had to be God-directed.
TE's that use scientific (Darwinian) evolution as their "E" are sleeping with the enemy.
owg
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I think you're beating on a strawman of your own making. Evolutionary creationists, by definition, view evolution teleologically. We view all proximate causes teleologically.
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This is exactly what happens. Godidit. Evolution holds that the creature can change itself using it own resources. My whole arguement is for changes (if any) at the hand of God. Apart from God there isn't any. What TE's have done is borrow the scientific model of change, Evolution, and applied it to God's creation.
owg
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