Theistic Evolution makes Judgment and Sin feel distant and less real

[Jacob Black]

Yup. Gen 2 is wrong.

Okay, so God is a liar and the Bible is not to be trusted. This would mean that Jesus is also a liar because he quoted the creation of man in Matthew 19:4.

 

[-57]

The question for us is whether we are responsible for our sin. That Adam was responsible is not the issue for us, but whether we are. Paul says that sin entered through Adam, but that all are like him because we sin. He was wrong about Adam, but it’s still true that we’re part of sinful humanity because we sin, even if he’s wrong about how it started.

Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned

There's more to it than that...But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many!

We can even go to 1 Cor 15...21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.…

.....We are all tied to Adam...one man...not a population.

 

[hedrick]

. You have an extremely poor understanding of evolution. Why don’t you learn what evolution is before making these silly statements. You remind me of a 5 year old explaining to a pilot how planes fly . It’s not a good look

I see his point. He’s trying to fit a literal Adam and Eve into evolution. Catholic theology officially does that, and Crptolutheran seemed to imply it, whether thats actually what he neant or not. I agree that it doesn’t fit. Gen 3 is a legend. It’s been used in theology enough that we continue using it as something like an allegory. But really, as history it’s simply wrong. No Adam and Eve.

We can argue whether the final editor of Genesis intended us to take it as history. I think likely he didn’t. But Paul seems to have, and in that he was simply wrong.

Yes he met Jesus, and had important things to say about following Jesus. But that doesn’t make him an expert on human origins.

 

[hedrick]

There's more to it than that...But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many!

We can even go to 1 Cor 15...21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.…

.....We are all tied to Adam...one man...not a population.

I agree that Paul thought that. You don’t need to pile up quotes. He was wrong.

 

[Jacob Black]

I agree that Paul thought that. You don’t need to pile up quotes. He was wrong.

You know that the entire Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16-17), right? People didn't just thought this up. The Bible is entirely inspired by God, men only wrote it down. This includes the entirety of the OT. Again, if Genesis is wrong then God is flawed and a liar.

 

[Scott Husted]

Something I've been pondering lately. I'm now fairly confident that most Christians who believe in Evolution, do so because they have a problem with the idea of the supernatural in general. They tend to reject accounts of miracles in the NT (unrelated to Evolution) just as readily as they reject a Genesis worldview of earth history.

But why? I think perhaps we have a hidden motivation to "de-realize" (make the Bible more unreal) because this in turn makes ideas of accountability and God's judgment more unreal. It makes SIN feel less real... Our personal lives, our desires and agendas, get a lot more flexible the more we push the Bible into the realm of symbolic unreal-ness...

"All those stories about God wiping out people who turned away from his commandment? Ehh... that didn't really happen. It's just a moral lesson to help us live better lives..."

If our Creator God really takes judgment and accountability as seriously as he says he does.. then the party down here in the world is over, and we better get a whole lot more serious about taking up our cross and following him. I think a lot of us have one foot planted comfortably in this world, and going along with the secular world's creation story (Evolution) makes it a lot easier to maintain that lifestyle and reap the social benefits of being a "reasonable Christian" ... and not one of those kooks who actually believe all that problematic stuff in scripture about miracles and judgments and stuff.

We assure ourselves that we are just following the "evidence" of Evolution that God left for us, when in reality we are just putting on the goggles of philosophical naturalism, where everything we look at *must* be attributed to a natural process. The result is a weird contradictory blend of professing to believe in the Resurrection, while systematically cleansing all other supernatural accounts out of the Bible.


For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me.
But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

- John 5:46-47

I think both sides of this are a distraction and takes away from the point of everything, which is to have a relationship with our Father in the now, or real time (what is to the left or right of a cross). Relationship is based on thought as an inward truth that in one way is described as God walking in us; as a voice Adam heard walking in the garden.

 

[hedrick]

You know that the entire Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16-17), right? People didn't just thought this up. The Bible is entirely inspired by God, men only wrote it down. This includes the entirety of the OT. Again, if Genesis is wrong then God is flawed and a liar.

No people didn't just think it up. They experienced God in various ways, different in OT and in the NT. In that sense it's inspired. They told us about it as best they could. But they wrote as 1st Cent people. 2 Tim 3:16-17 says the bible is inspired, but seems to see that as meaning that it's useful for the purposes listed. Not that it's inerrant. (Even if the author of 2 Tim thought it was inerrant, that wouldn't make it so.)

 

[hedrick]

I think both sides of this are a distraction and takes away from the point of everything, which is to have a relationship with our Father in the now, or real time (what is to the left or right of a cross). Relationship is based on thought as an inward truth that in one way is described as God walking in us; as a voice Adam heard walking in the garden.

Sure. But for some Christians, it's not enough to have faith in God. We have to have faith in the Bible. Rather than seeing the Bible as a witness that tells us about God, the Bible itself is a matter of faith. It's worth disputing that, because (1) it's close to idolatry, and (2) it creates stumbling blocks for many people.

I don't doubt that -57 has faith in Christ. I'm not so sure about the reverse. I'd be perfectly happy to leave Biblical inerrancy as one of those speculations we can accept or not, much like the question of whether people in the NT baptized infants.

 

[Jacob Black]

...

 

[Jacob Black]

Sure. But for some Christians, it's not enough to have faith in God. We have to have faith in the Bible. Rather than seeing the Bible as a witness that tells us about God, the Bible itself is a matter of faith. It's worth disputing that, because (1) it's close to idolatry, and (2) it creates stumbling blocks for many people.

I don't doubt that -57 has faith in Christ. I'm not so sure about the reverse. I'd be perfectly happy to leave Biblical inerrancy as one of those speculations we can accept or not, much like the question of whether people in the NT baptized infants.

Why do you believe that God (Jesus) gave us a false book full of flaws? The first promise of the redemption on the cross was made by God in Genesis 3:15. If Genesis is false then how is someone to believe that the cross was necessary for something that didn't even happen.

 

[hedrick]

Why do you believe that God (Jesus) gave us a false book full of flaws? The first promise of the redemption on the cross was made by God in Genesis 3:15. If Genesis is false then how is someone to believe that the cross was necessary for something that didn't even happen.

Our sin happens. That’s what Christ is about.

 

[Jacob Black]

Our sin happens. That’s what Christ is about.

Why did sin happen? If Genesis 3 is wrong and sin came in by evolutionary causes then the fall of Man is entirely God's fault since he caused something to happen we couldn't even prevent (Because God guides evolution according to you).

 

[-57]

Our sin happens. That’s what Christ is about.

Why can't you using your Theo-Evoism theology explay why out sins happen?

The reason none of the Thoe-Evos here explain sin is because THEY HAVE NO THEOLOGY FOR ITS EXISTENCE....despite the fact the bible explains it.

 

[-57]

Why did sin happen? If Genesis 3 is wrong and sin came in by evolutionary causes then the fall of Man is entirely God's fault since he caused something to happen we couldn't even prevent (Because God guides evolution according to you).

The Theo-Evos can't seem to explain sin...where it began, why it began, to whom it began and how it began....they bible can but they can't.

 

[-57]

Sure. But for some Christians, it's not enough to have faith in God. We have to have faith in the Bible. Rather than seeing the Bible as a witness that tells us about God, the Bible itself is a matter of faith. It's worth disputing that, because (1) it's close to idolatry, and (2) it creates stumbling blocks for many people.

I don't doubt that -57 has faith in Christ. I'm not so sure about the reverse. I'd be perfectly happy to leave Biblical inerrancy as one of those speculations we can accept or not, much like the question of whether people in the NT baptized infants.

If the bible contains the errors you seem to be claiming it has...it's just as bad as CNN....It can't be trusted.

....Did God really say....

 

[Scott Husted]

Sure. But for some Christians, it's not enough to have faith in God. We have to have faith in the Bible. Rather than seeing the Bible as a witness that tells us about God, the Bible itself is a matter of faith. It's worth disputing that, because (1) it's close to idolatry, and (2) it creates stumbling blocks for many people.

I don't doubt that -57 has faith in Christ. I'm not so sure about the reverse. I'd be perfectly happy to leave Biblical inerrancy as one of those speculations we can accept or not, much like the question of whether people in the NT baptized infants.

God is a word and as a word absolute ... and the Bible a complation of words that begins with one and ends with one, but in the end meaningless without relationship.

 

[hedrick]

Why did sin happen? If Genesis 3 is wrong and sin came in by evolutionary causes then the fall of Man is entirely God's fault since he caused something to happen we couldn't even prevent (Because God guides evolution according to you).

Did God not create Adam? Was he not responsible for giving Adam a character that was unable to avoid giving into the first temptation he experienced? I don't see any way to avoid God's responsibility in either case, given the usual understanding of God's omnipotence and omniscience.

Neither model has God as the actual source of sin, but it has sin develop out of a situation that God either created (Gen 3) or indirectly was responsible for (evolution). There's no real difference.

 

[hedrick]

Scott reasonably asks why this matters. Remember that I'm basically defending myself against a claim that theology without Gen 3 is incoherent. I'm making no attacks on anyone else's theology.

But perhaps I should. In terms of theology, a traditional treatment of Gen 3 may be OK, but I think in a broader sense it may be dangerous. In order to maintain it, it has to reject mainstream science, history, and scholarship. Read postings by people who deny evolution and critical scholarship. They end up creating a kind of conspiracy theory, where scientists and mainstream scholars are predjudiced against faith. If this were limited to Genesis, it might not be a big problem. But in the last couple of decades this kind of conspiracy theory has started spreading. It now includes a rejection of global warming, current social science understanding of sexuality, and the value of vaccines, and even the usefulness of masks in controlling Covid. We've starting seeing a resurgence of the flat earth. Not every conservative rejects every one of these things, but I think once conspiracy theory starts in dealing with Genesis, it's hard to avoid having it spread.

 

[lifepsyop]

Not at all. Excellent evidence shows that the six day creation didn't happen. That's part of a set of legends that were old when they were written down. The NT was written when witnesses of the resurrection were still alive. N T Wright has looked at it against the 1st Cent cultural background, and has a pretty good argument that such a claim couldn't have arisen if it hadn't happened.

Just because some miracle happened doesn't mean every miracle that people in the 1st Cent believed actually happened.

So I'm assuming you believe Jesus actually said this:

For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me.
But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

- John 5:46-47

The modern ""scientific"" consensus is that Moses probably didn't even exist, much less authored the Pentateuch.

 

[Jacob Black]

Scott reasonably asks why this matters. Remember that I'm basically defending myself against a claim that theology without Gen 3 is incoherent. I'm making no attacks on anyone else's theology.

But perhaps I should. In terms of theology, a traditional treatment of Gen 3 may be OK, but I think in a broader sense it may be dangerous. In order to maintain it, it has to reject mainstream science, history, and scholarship. Read postings by people who deny evolution and critical scholarship. They end up creating a kind of conspiracy theory, where scientists and mainstream scholars are predjudiced against faith. If this were limited to Genesis, it might not be a big problem. But in the last couple of decades this kind of conspiracy theory has started spreading. It now includes a rejection of global warming, current social science understanding of sexuality, and the value of vaccines, and even the usefulness of masks in controlling Covid. We've starting seeing a resurgence of the flat earth. Not every conservative rejects every one of these things, but I think once conspiracy theory starts in dealing with Genesis, it's hard to avoid having it spread.

You're stating things that having nothing to do with God's inerrant word. Did you know that Satan is the god (little g) of this world according to 2 Corinthians 4:4? Satan is the major influence on the ideals, opinions, goals, hopes and views of the majority of people. His influence also encompasses the world’s philosophies, education, and commerce. The thoughts, ideas, speculations and false religions of the world are under his control and have sprung from his lies and deceptions.