Theistic Evolution ~ is it compatible with orthodox teaching & doctrine? .

inconsequential

goat who dreamed he was a sheep
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Could God have created other people for that first-born generation to marry or did He allow them to marry some early hominids that maybe weren't "soulfully" human but were genetically close enough to permit interbreeding? If He made others not related to Adam and Eve did he create them as fallen or did they become fallen when Adam fell? To me, THIS seems more like mental gymnastics than explaining how siblings from a near-perfect gene pool could produce children with very few genetic defects. This has been a very educational thread for me. Thanks to all who are participating, it is a testament to Christian love that a thread on such a controversial issue could make it to 30 pages without getting locked or at the very least require some mod cleaning action. I love all you guys and feel both humbled and blessed to be in your virtual presence. Please forgive me for any lack of charity I may have shown in any of my posts.
 
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jckstraw72

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Get real. You actually pretend to know that the rules of genetics did not apply in the newly created world, however old the world is. This thread is simply getting ridiculous. You are not the first from St. Tikhon's that has espoused such views. It really makes me wonder what they teach there.

nothing i have said has come from the curriculum at St. Tikhon's
 
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jckstraw72

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Get real. You actually pretend to know that the rules of genetics did not apply in the newly created world, however old the world is. This thread is simply getting ridiculous. You are not the first from St. Tikhon's that has espoused such views. It really makes me wonder what they teach there.

im not pretending to know anything about genetics. but im not sure why pretending to know that they were exactly the same 7500 yrs ago is any better ....

and although ive only come across a few Fathers that directly answer the question of where Cain got his wife, many Fathers do teach that Adam and Eve were literally the only people which necessitates that their children procreated through incest.
 
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jckstraw72

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I'm writing a paper this week on whether evolutionary theory is incompatible with a christian doctrine of creation. I'll share my thoughts when I've finished, if anyone's interested in hearing them.

please do
 
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MKJ

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I'll make some paragraphs - let me know if they are wonky!

Could God have created other people for that first-born generation to marry or did He allow them to marry some early hominids that maybe weren't "soulfully" human but were genetically close enough to permit interbreeding?

If He made others not related to Adam and Eve did he create them as fallen or did they become fallen when Adam fell? To me, THIS seems more like mental gymnastics than explaining how siblings from a near-perfect gene pool could produce children with very few genetic defects.

This has been a very educational thread for me. Thanks to all who are participating, it is a testament to Christian love that a thread on such a controversial issue could make it to 30 pages without getting locked or at the very least require some mod cleaning action. I love all you guys and feel both humbled and blessed to be in your virtual presence. Please forgive me for any lack of charity I may have shown in any of my posts.

I think this suggestion - marrying other "un-souled" hominids - is possible. I have heard it suggested before. If God indeed picked two to have human souls, than there would probably be others around. Adam and Eve would have had to come from somewhere, and it doesn't seem likely that there would have been enough distance in a generation to create infertility. If they were very successful as a result, it would not be long before the "ensouled" genetic material would exist throughout much of the population.

It is, I agree, a bit odd - it has an ick factor - but I tend to think it is less than the marrying close siblings ick factor. If I try to imagine myself in that position, I suppose neither one would have seemed icky to the people involved.

In this way of thinking, you wouldn't think of the other hominids as being people at all, in the way we mean of ourselves. They could not be thought of as fallen or un-fallen, except in the way creation as a whole is fallen. I can't imagine that they would be moral beings at all - smart maybe, but without awareness of God. The offspring which came from the unions would, however, be people with souls.
 
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inconsequential

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Thank you, MKJ, for the paragraphs and the response. That would certainly cover the issue of genetic diversity though I think it would be a lot of fun to discuss this issue with a very open-minded geneticist who doesn't mind playing the "What if..." game.
 
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ArmyMatt

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I'm writing a paper this week on whether evolutionary theory is incompatible with a christian doctrine of creation. I'll share my thoughts when I've finished, if anyone's interested in hearing them.

sounds like it would be interesting. I'll gladly read it
 
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ArmyMatt

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In this way of thinking, you wouldn't think of the other hominids as being people at all, in the way we mean of ourselves. They could not be thought of as fallen or un-fallen, except in the way creation as a whole is fallen. I can't imagine that they would be moral beings at all - smart maybe, but without awareness of God. The offspring which came from the unions would, however, be people with souls.

but if God was just gonna take those unsouled hominids and completely replace them with souled humans, why did He create them in the first place, just to breed them out? and why is there no ancient theological record of such creatures? and I have a bit of a problem with saying that Christ has heritage in anything other than full humanity or His Father.
 
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Michael G

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I've always thought he seemed like such a nice guy. There is something friendly about pudgy fellows.

Thomas Aquinas is the very being who drove me straight out of the Roman Catholic Church.
 
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MKJ

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Thomas Aquinas is the very being who drove me straight out of the Roman Catholic Church.

OTOH, I have my first and probably most significant spiritual revelation reading him. And Stephen Hawkins. God works mysteriously, that is for sure.
 
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MKJ

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but if God was just gonna take those unsouled hominids and completely replace them with souled humans, why did He create them in the first place, just to breed them out? and why is there no ancient theological record of such creatures? and I have a bit of a problem with saying that Christ has heritage in anything other than full humanity or His Father.

I suppose the lack of theological record would be because they didn't exist within living memory. I wonder too if they would have thought of themselves as being a different kind of thing? We are probably not thinking of a time with a well developed theological tradition in place. It would be interesting to speculate, from a TE standpoint, where in the human line this change took place. We know Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers - which seems to suggest some kind of religious sensibility.

I think the answer to your other question would be the same as any creature that existed once but later became extinct. Or really, why create at all? My feeling is that God creates everything that could possibly be more than nothing, but that is perhaps not a conventional theological position.

I'm not sure about the humanity thing. People are animals, as well as being creatures with immortal souls. (I always think of Screwtape's disgusted characterization of us as a kind of amphibian in this context.) If Christ was fully human, then that means he was an animal too, and that is part of what is really shocking about Christianity.
 
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Michael G

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OTOH, I have my first and probably most significant spiritual revelation reading him. And Stephen Hawkins. God works mysteriously, that is for sure.

How? Aquinas is so legal, so precise and he leaves no room for any faith because he has explained everything!
 
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MKJ

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How? Aquinas is so legal, so precise and he leaves no room for any faith because he has explained everything!


I was trying to understand the proofs for the existence of God, for an essay I had to write for school. Eventually I gave up and decided to read something different (Hawkings) and I suddenly realized that God must exist outside of time. Poof. Religion suddenly became a possibility.

Thomas I think of as a very thorough thinker. But I always think of him also in his personal life, where he seems to have been a really good monk, a kind man, and determined.I think in a modern age he might have been a computer geek.

I suppose I still feel a lot of room for faith even with the kind of precision Thomas writes with. The most basic things; is the world rational and understandable; did God really do this thing for us; does God love me? are still matters of faith.

I wouldn't say he is the theologian who really influenced me the most, or even that I most enjoy reading, but I like him, as much as I can like someone dead almost a thousand years.
 
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Michael G

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I was trying to understand the proofs for the existence of God, for an essay I had to write for school. Eventually I gave up and decided to read something different (Hawkings) and I suddenly realized that God must exist outside of time. Poof. Religion suddenly became a possibility.

Thomas I think of as a very thorough thinker. But I always think of him also in his personal life, where he seems to have been a really good monk, a kind man, and determined.I think in a modern age he might have been a computer geek.

I suppose I still feel a lot of room for faith even with the kind of precision Thomas writes with. The most basic things; is the world rational and understandable; did God really do this thing for us; does God love me? are still matters of faith.

I wouldn't say he is the theologian who really influenced me the most, or even that I most enjoy reading, but I like him, as much as I can like someone dead almost a thousand years.

I became so disgusted with Aquinas during the semester I studied him that I literally stopped going to class. I had one of the most brilliant Thomistic philosophers alive teaching the class and while I hated to insult Fr. Sebastian by not going to class I just could not take any more Aquinas. He is so thorough and precise in his defining everything that he leaves no room for faith. That class on Aquinas was the element which pushed me the hardest away from Rome and onto the path to Orthodoxy.
 
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Sphinx777

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inconsequential

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He is so thorough and precise in his defining everything that he leaves no room for faith.

I've never studied RC doctrines and know very little apart from what has come up in threads here. I know there has been a lot of effort to define things about the Eucharist with transubstantiation but do they try to apply this method of understanding to things like the Incarnation and Christ's natures or even God's essence?

The way Orthodoxy embraces mystery and accepts that some things are beyond our capacity to understand was one of the things I found most appealing about it.
 
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