What is the Church's position on Creation/Evolution

[gurneyhalleck1]

At some point evolutionists have to realize that evolution is a mindset with an agenda that has a conscience formed by atheism. It is not an observed phenomenon that is objectively analyzed. It has social, political, religious implications that are all part of an agenda. It boggles my mind how one can be Orthodox and NOT see these factors? And the idea of the faith being subordinate to atheist agendas should be spooky....

In addition to what Fr Matt has said, your comment here indicates that you really have not grasped the point that any number of people living today could have an opinion that contradicts that “slam-dunk”, but that the determining voice of truth is not the number of people living in one particular era, above all, the present one, who think a certain way, but the very large number of dead and declared saints.
You have to decide whether you are so fully committed to the idea of evolution that you would abandon everything else for it. It matters not that you think you can synthesize them and don’t have to abandon anything. What matters is that IF what we are saying really IS the case, would you deny the historic consensus for the sake of your faith in modern science and modern education? Which would you choose in such an event?
My own choice is not difficult. Having seen the disastrous failures of said education, I have no trouble accepting a consensus that contradicts that education, not being bound to it as an article of faith.

 

[SingularityOne]

I'll certainly acknowledge that that isn't a positive case for it. It's easy, of course, retrospective to a Synodal pronouncement, to say what the right answer is and not as easy in advance. However I'd let the people with more time and expertise make the positive case, you may easily find many such resources (such as Fr Farley's book) if you care to.

If Fr. Farley is advocating for evolution, then, unfortunately, he is outside the consensus.

 

[prodromos]

Sorry, that got lost in the shuffle, there are so many posts. I agree with almost all of what they say about theology - the sticking point is whether this theological vision must then be interpreted as implying that the earth is then not billions of years old.

See, the way I understand creation, God created everything mature in an instant, so if the universe appears to be billions of years old it is because God created it that way.

 

[gzt]

See, the way I understand creation, God created everything mature in an instant, so if the universe appears to be billions of years old it is because God created it that way.

Don't you think that'd be weird and deceptive?

 

[prodromos]

Don't you think that'd be weird and deceptive?

Not in the least. God created everything as mature and fully functioning. Do you think Adam felt deceived when he awoke to find an adult woman at his side? Would it have been better for God to take his rib and fashion an infant girl, who Adam could watch grow to maturity over the next couple of decades?

 

[gzt]

Not in the least. God created everything as mature and fully functioning. Do you think Adam felt deceived when he awoke to find an adult woman at his side? Would it have been better for God to take his rib and fashion an infant girl, who Adam could watch grow to maturity over the next couple of decades?

Don't you think it's kind of weird that "mature and fully functioning" for the universe means looking, for all intents and purposes, as best as anybody can make out, billions of years old with plant and animal life dying for many millions of years?

 

[prodromos]

Don't you think it's kind of weird that "mature and fully functioning" for the universe means looking, for all intents and purposes, as best as anybody can make out, billions of years old with plant and animal life dying for many millions of years?

I don't believe that is the case. There are many examples which demonstrate that the assumptions made by scientists in dating materials have been completely wrong. I have no trust in a methodology which has been for the most part hijacked by the atheist agenda.

 

[ArmyMatt]

if there is a star which is 80 million light years away, modern science would say you are seeing the star as it was 80 million years ago. however, it is entirely possible that God, being almighty, could have created that star visible from earth from the moment He created it. so the star could be much younger than 80 million years.

it's not a matter of deception, but rather man making a wrong assumption.

 

[gzt]

Yes, but there's a lot more going on than that.

 

[prodromos]

Yes, but there's a lot more going on than that.

None of which take the fall into account.

 

[gzt]

People wave their hands about this but never give any substantive argument - I'm willing to read an article if provided.

 

[ArmyMatt]

what kind of argument of substance when the saints of the Church are not enough?

 

[prodromos]

People wave their hands about this but never give any substantive argument - I'm willing to read an article if provided.

There's a great article written by Moses.

 

[rusmeister]

Don't you think it's kind of weird that "mature and fully functioning" for the universe means looking, for all intents and purposes, as best as anybody can make out, billions of years old with plant and animal life dying for many millions of years?

This reveals a central misunderstanding of what we have been trying to say to you, gz. In the view of “sudden Creation”, which six literal days can really compass, there was no death at all prior to the Fall. If you think we’ve been smuggling in death anywhere in a Creation that God made and saw was good, then you really haven’t understood the view you’re arguing against.

And as far as what things “look like”, you might readily admit that 5,000 years ago, the Earth did not look like a globe, that people of the past did not see facts we take for granted today; that their view was incomplete. Why then do you think the view of science in our time is sufficiently complete to correctly draw nterpretations? Can you not see by projection that a hypothetical science of 5,000 years into the future, if there were any progress at all, might see the science of our time as primitive as we see the science of 5,000 years ago? It’s like you want to have it both ways, to claim a special perfection of knowledge in our time to which people of both the past and the future must bow to. That’s how worldly knowledge works. It is fundamentally and permanently imperfect, yet you declare a dogmatic age of the Earth as certain truth not subject to any future correction, as dogmatic as our declaration that Christ is the Son of God, not subject to future correction, something we CAN hold as perfect knowledge because it has been revealed to us. That’s how knowledge of the divine works. We do have a claim of divine revelation regarding the origin of man in our Holy Tradition, affirmed many times by countless saints. If contradiction arises, as it does in the assertion of the evolutionists that death has always existed from the beginning of Creation, then why do you give priority credence to worldly knowledge that passes away as heaven and earth will pass away? Even setting aside all just criticism of our modern educations, the faith of a little child cannot hurt you, and could really help, to accept what you otherwise would not accept, that our modern ideas that we get from the schools of this world are all full of deception, a mixture of falsehood and truth.

 

[rusmeister]

what kind of argument of substance when the saints of the Church are not enough?

“And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”
Luke 16:31

 

[mark kennedy]

See, the way I understand creation, God created everything mature in an instant, so if the universe appears to be billions of years old it is because God created it that way.

maybe the universe is and Gid created life 6000 years ago.

 

[Platina]

It's not deceptive because God has told us through His Church that He created a mature creation.

People deceive themselves by ignoring what God has said, and then they say God has deceived them ...

 

[TheLostCoin]

At some point evolutionists have to realize that evolution is a mindset with an agenda that has a conscience formed by atheism. It is not an observed phenomenon that is objectively analyzed. It has social, political, religious implications that are all part of an agenda. It boggles my mind how one can be Orthodox and NOT see these factors? And the idea of the faith being subordinate to atheist agendas should be spooky....

It doesn't matter whether or not it clearly has origins from an Anglo-supremacist and naturalistic worldview, or whether such a worldview has such a malicious agenda what you described, or even if such a worldview has created international peer pressure to hold fast on to this view otherwise be socially ridiculed by the scientific community - when it doesn't help to explain the data of the multiple radiocarbon dating systems which are consistent with each other, geological strata, the fossils of primates that slowly look more and more like men over time

and if we are going by the 6000 year old worldview, and the massive lack of evidence that something like Noah's flood occurred on a global scale (i.e., the lack of a gap or cultural divide in cultures, languages, art, calendars, etc., in cultures that are older than this).

A lot of the attempts to do so are by uneducated individuals who spend their time misrepresenting the other person's position rather than actually interpreting the data that's found in a logical, classical philosophical manner - like Dr. Dino for example.

 

[TheLostCoin]

Don't you think that'd be weird and deceptive?

Exactly - if you believe God created the universe to look like that, you would have to come to the conclusion that God is being purposely malicious and deceptive, something that can't be True if God is omnibenevolent.

 

[TheLostCoin]

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