Evolution and Evil

[ViaCrucis]

Sorry, but this is NOT irrelevant to biological evolution. If one wants to argue in favor for biological evolution, then they need to be prepared to address why man is different from every other creature on this planet. It would HAVE to be biological.

Why?

Or let me put it this way.

Yes, human beings evolved, we share a common ancestor with the other great apes, our closest living relatives are the chimpanzees and bonobos with whom we share between 95 and 98% of our DNA. Observation, study, and employing the scientific method has allowed us to look back and see that, sometime, approximately five to eight million years ago the last common ancestor of humans and chimps lived, and subsequently diverged. Numerous hominid and proto-hominid fossils have been found, such as those from the genus anthropithicus, the case specimen being the famous "Lucy", our genus, named homo shows up in the fossil record about 2.5 million years ago, but these fossils are not homo sapiens, they are very similar to us, but they aren't us. Many of these other hominid lines lived alongside our own, when the earliest homo sapiens show up about a million years ago, there were also our very close relatives, such as homo erectus. Our subspecies, homo sapiens sapiens, shows up in in the geological record between 100k and 200k years ago, in Africa and subsequently migrated out of Africa and across the globe. Homo sapiens neanderthalis already lived in parts of Eurasia at the time, and many of us living today have genetic markers showing that homo sapiens sapiens and homo sapiens neanderthalis (this nomenclature is assuming neanderthals are a subspecies, rather than a distinct species) produced offspring together--if you have European or Asian DNA you most likely have neanderthal ancestors. But we also came into contact with other hominids, or most likely did, as some still were alive, such as homo floresiensis who lived on Java. Though today, and for a long time now, we've been the only extent hominids. Again, our present day closest living relative are members of the genus pan--chimpanzees and bonobos.

I'm a Christian, that means I believe that human beings--homo sapiens sapiens--are created in the image and likeness of God, as the Scriptures teach (Genesis 1:27, James 2:9). Part of what being made in the Divine Image means is that human beings are moral creatures. It is not our biology that sets us apart in this regard, it is the fact that we--in distinction to all other animals--bear a unique relationship both toward God, toward each other, and toward the rest of God's creation. And also unique is our spiritual brokenness, we are sinful; our relationships toward God, toward each other, and toward the rest of God's creation is damaged, disturbed, broken, wounded--even dead (Ephesians 2:1). That death, physical death, and decay, and all natural sufferings which all of creation now suffers is attributed to our brokenness. St. Paul says in Romans 8 that all of creation is subjugated to futility, and groans in the pains of childbirth looking, eagerly longing, toward the day of the resurrection of the dead and when God makes all things new and right.

That I am a moral animal has nothing to do with the fact that I share a common ancestor with the other great apes. It has to do with the fact that I bear the Divine Image. That Image is injured, broken, distorted, wounded because of sin; and so I need the intervention of mercy to save me--which God has done through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus, the very Son and Word of the Father, who has taken upon Himself our humanity, who suffered and tasted our death--taking our death upon Himself--dying on the cross for the sins of the whole world, was raised up on the third day, as Victor over sin, death, hell, and the devil. And in Him, and in Him alone, are we sinners redeemed, rescued, justified, forgiven, and healed.

Does that answer your question?

-CryptoLutheran

 

[HarleyER]

Right. Lots of people not only "here," but in the world at large, are convinced of a wide number of different perspectives on a wide number of different topics. This has always been the case throughout human history. It's no different today. This shouldn't be surprising.

But regardless of Biology, the failure to provide an explanation for how morals evolved through the biological evolutionary process is present because no one knows everything and not all questions that human beings are able to articulate can be answered.

Sometimes, the evidences and data just aren't there to be had on an utterly comprehensive level, so human beings begin to speculate, however rationally or irrationally they do, pondering and attempting to deduce the "answers." And this goes for how and when they attempt to handle both the Bible and Biology [or any science]. It also goes for our attempts to "explain" the nature of evil, which is a philosophical [axiological] topic, not a scientific one.

As for my being "convinced" of evolution, you would have to understand the reasons why I do lean toward Evolution---which to me isn't much different from understanding why I think the earth is round and revolves around the sun rather than the sun revolving around the earth, but you don't seem interested in understanding any of that. You're only interested in honing in on the FACT that we humans don't know everything and you insist that others here MUST perceive the Bible in the same, identical way that you do. For my part, I don't care if you feel that the Bible must be read in an isolated, woodenly straightforward way. I won't agree with that, but you're free to do so ... it's not like I'm here to insist that all other Christians MUST also begin to subscribe to seeing the world in an evolutionary way. I don't, and I won't.

What I do insist upon is that fellow Christians who are Literal Creationists stop badgering those of us who approach the Bible in a less than woodenly literal way. I don't badger evangelicals; and they need to stop badgering folks like me. We both have Jesus Christ in common, and THAT should be enough. More than enough. Like you, I believe in human sin, that it separates us from God, and that we need to repent, turn to Jesus Christ, and enter into the Grace and Mercy that God the Father wants to bestow upon each and every one of us. One doesn't have to be a Creationist to appreciate what we need to do in our own lives in turning to the Lord.

Also, like you, I don't think science can answer as many things as some purport that it can ... and what's more, there are some things I don't think science should be attempting to answer for everyone, but today we see folks like atheist Sam Harris sometimes attempting to do so anyway. I think the topic of the nature of Good and Evil is one of those things science shouldn't be intruding into, and thereby, I don't expect the Theory of Evolution to be able to address that topic. Scientists need to stay in their own epistemic lanes and not intrude into Axiology.

[..............what this means, ultimately for me, is that I don't accept all of the current tenets of thought among Evolutionary Psychologists. Even though I personally subscribe to the Theory of Evolution, this doesn't mean that I have to imbibe all that Evolutionary Psychologists pass off as "science"].

Criticism of evolutionary psychology - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"But regardless of Biology, the failure to provide an explanation for how morals evolved through the biological evolutionary process is present because no one knows everything and not all questions that human beings are able to articulate can be answered."

And that is the heart of the matter isn't it? What evolutionary biology cannot explain, they simply ignore and pass it off to other sciences.

I'm not here to badger anyone. I'm simply here to say there are logical alternatives to evolution. Evolution isn't written in stone but it is certainly is argued as if it is. My question is simply to show that there is no discernable evolutionary path to man, and the evil of man is evidence. If we evolved from lower forms of lifes, one would expect that moral values and judgements would also show progressive traits in lower primates. Man, on the other hand, is unique.

 

[HarleyER]

Why?

Or let me put it this way.

Yes, human beings evolved, we share a common ancestor with the other great apes, our closest living relatives are the chimpanzees and bonobos with whom we share between 95 and 98% of our DNA. Observation, study, and employing the scientific method has allowed us to look back and see that, sometime, approximately five to eight million years ago the last common ancestor of humans and chimps lived, and subsequently diverged. Numerous hominid and proto-hominid fossils have been found, such as those from the genus anthropithicus, the case specimen being the famous "Lucy", our genus, named homo shows up in the fossil record about 2.5 million years ago, but these fossils are not homo sapiens, they are very similar to us, but they aren't us. Many of these other hominid lines lived alongside our own, when the earliest homo sapiens show up about a million years ago, there were also our very close relatives, such as homo erectus. Our subspecies, homo sapiens sapiens, shows up in in the geological record between 100k and 200k years ago, in Africa and subsequently migrated out of Africa and across the globe. Homo sapiens neanderthalis already lived in parts of Eurasia at the time, and many of us living today have genetic markers showing that homo sapiens sapiens and homo sapiens neanderthalis (this nomenclature is assuming neanderthals are a subspecies, rather than a distinct species) produced offspring together--if you have European or Asian DNA you most likely have neanderthal ancestors. But we also came into contact with other hominids, or most likely did, as some still were alive, such as homo floresiensis who lived on Java. Though today, and for a long time now, we've been the only extent hominids. Again, our present day closest living relative are members of the genus pan--chimpanzees and bonobos.

I'm a Christian, that means I believe that human beings--homo sapiens sapiens--are created in the image and likeness of God, as the Scriptures teach (Genesis 1:27, James 2:9). Part of what being made in the Divine Image means is that human beings are moral creatures. It is not our biology that sets us apart in this regard, it is the fact that we--in distinction to all other animals--bear a unique relationship both toward God, toward each other, and toward the rest of God's creation. And also unique is our spiritual brokenness, we are sinful; our relationships toward God, toward each other, and toward the rest of God's creation is damaged, disturbed, broken, wounded--even dead (Ephesians 2:1). That death, physical death, and decay, and all natural sufferings which all of creation now suffers is attributed to our brokenness. St. Paul says in Romans 8 that all of creation is subjugated to futility, and groans in the pains of childbirth looking, eagerly longing, toward the day of the resurrection of the dead and when God makes all things new and right.

That I am a moral animal has nothing to do with the fact that I share a common ancestor with the other great apes. It has to do with the fact that I bear the Divine Image. That Image is injured, broken, distorted, wounded because of sin; and so I need the intervention of mercy to save me--which God has done through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus, the very Son and Word of the Father, who has taken upon Himself our humanity, who suffered and tasted our death--taking our death upon Himself--dying on the cross for the sins of the whole world, was raised up on the third day, as Victor over sin, death, hell, and the devil. And in Him, and in Him alone, are we sinners redeemed, rescued, justified, forgiven, and healed.

Does that answer your question?

-CryptoLutheran

"That I am a moral animal has nothing to do with the fact that I share a common ancestor with the other great apes....Our subspecies, homo sapiens, shows up in in the geological record between 100k and 200k years ago, in Africa and subsequently migrated out of Africa and across the globe."

No, this raises more questions. Are you saying there were a bunch of Adams and Eves running all over the place? If, on the other hand, you are saying there was only one Adam and one Eve, how did this happen in the gene pool?

Biologically speaking, if our closes relatives happened to be apes, then one would expect at least a small bit of morality similar to us in the evolutionary chain. Did Lucy sin? Did she steal and was she remorseful? Did she lie?

As a Christian I hope that you believe that sin introduced itself into the world through Satan in the garden to Adam and Eve. But under your view, what happened to the other homo sapiens.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

"But regardless of Biology, the failure to provide an explanation for how morals evolved through the biological evolutionary process is present because no one knows everything and not all questions that human beings are able to articulate can be answered."

And that is the heart of the matter isn't it? What evolutionary biology cannot explain, they simply ignore and pass it off to other sciences.

It's not as if over the last century evolutionists haven't tried to explain ethics in evolutionary terms. But there is the philosophical barrier of the Naturalistic Fallacy for evolutionists to hurdle over, and so far, they haven't been able to fully do so via science. To my mind, I don't expect science to be able to address moral issues in a robust and comprehensive way.

Evolutionary Ethics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

iep.utm.edu

I'm not here to badger anyone. I'm simply here to say there are logical alternatives to evolution. Evolution isn't written in stone but it is certainly is argued as if it is. My question is simply to show that there is no discernable evolutionary path to man, and the evil of man is evidence. If we evolved from lower forms of lifes, one would expect that moral values and judgements would also show progressive traits in lower primates. Man, on the other hand, is unique.

Where biological explanations of life on our planet are concerned, I've already checked the "alternatives" and I don't find any of them convincing. So, now what?

On the other hand, even though I thing evolution is true, this doesn't mean I have to interpret its evidence in a Darwinistic way, nor does its possible truth value preclude my belief in the prophetic value of the Bible, or from having faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

I'm not here to badger anyone. I'm simply here to say there are logical alternatives to evolution. Evolution isn't written in stone but it is certainly is argued as if it is. My question is simply to show that there is no discernable evolutionary path to man, and the evil of man is evidence. If we evolved from lower forms of lifes, one would expect that moral values and judgements would also show progressive traits in lower primates. Man, on the other hand, is unique.

 

[Job 33:6]

Evolutionists ignore the fact that along with man evolving, we are the only species on the planet that has also evolved evil. Pain, suffering and death occurs with all creatures. But for mankind, we discriminate, enslave, lie, steal, cheat, murder, have wars, and on and on. Not only do we do things to others, but we do evil things to ourselves. And both internal and external traits of evil grow with each generation. Some psychologists believe evil evolved with evolution. But if this were true, then mankind would be devolving, not evolving-which is a Christian position. Despite the insistence of some that mankind has evolved from the same source and are just like all the other animals, there is no explaining how evil evolved. Evolutionist tend to ignore the issue.

Mankind is unique to this world and generates evil apart from any other animal on the world. And if evolution was correct, and mankind came from the same source as all other living creatures, then evil wouldn't/shouldn't exist.

So how did evil evolved?

Chimpanzees lie, steal, cheat and murder. They even fight in tribal wars against other tribes.

'Hostilities began in an extremely violent way': How chimp wars taught us murder and cruelty aren't just human traits

"These primates' fierce battles were instigated by coalitions of adult males, with the sole aim of extending their territory. The areas where the fighting took place corresponded to the land conquered by force."

www.livescience.com

Gombe Chimpanzee War - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

https://www.reuters.com/science/scientists-observe-chimpanzees-using-human-like-warfare-tactic-2023-11-02/

Chimps will even line up shoulder to shoulder with sharpened sticks used as spears on combat.

Also, non human species like neanderthals, denisovans, and other archaic hominids of history, did also wage war. But of course we've rendered them extinct, just as we have with nearly every other non-human that has challenged mankind.

 

[ViaCrucis]

"That I am a moral animal has nothing to do with the fact that I share a common ancestor with the other great apes....Our subspecies, homo sapiens, shows up in in the geological record between 100k and 200k years ago, in Africa and subsequently migrated out of Africa and across the globe."

No, this raises more questions. Are you saying there were a bunch of Adams and Eves running all over the place? If, on the other hand, you are saying there was only one Adam and one Eve, how did this happen in the gene pool?

I don't locate the biblical Adam and Eve, and the biblical story, at a specific point in human biological history because I don't think one can. I make a conscious choice not to engage in pointless speculation about such things because I don't believe it is helpful. What I do take from the biblical story is that all human beings share a common fore-parents.

The biblical story of Adam and Eve, and the Fall, is a story that stands apart from anything that we can try and identify in our study of science and biological evolution. But I also don't take the story as necessarily literal, or at least entirely literal. I do believe there was an Adam, I do believe that through Adam's sin and disobedience we have all become sinful. We all have inherited Adam's original sin and original guilt, what theologians in the West have traditionally called concupiscence--the fallen passions of the flesh.

In the Lutheran tradition this concupiscence constitutes not merely the potential for sin, but constitutes actual sin; and is why we are wholly unable to come to God in righteous obedience through any effort or strength of our own--including our will. The human will being fallen, sinful, and in bondage to the passions of our flesh. This concupiscence is very real, and it's something we all have, we all have because we enter into this world with a damaged human nature that is out of alignment with God and His Law. "There is no one righteous, no, not even one" as St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans.

That is much more significant and important to me than trying to figure out how the biblical story of Adam and Eve fits within the biological history of hominids. The question of when, in the history of human/hominid evolution we became moral animals, were given a rational soul, etc isn't an answerable question.

It's also not clear how one can reconcile the obvious evidence of death in the created order prior to the rise of human beings (or hominids of any sort) with the biblical story of the fall.

I believe both things are true:

1) Human beings evolved in a world where living things were born and died, and this is evident from the geological and fossil record.
2) It is through the disobedience of our first parents that death entered the world, and all creation suffers under and is subjugated to this futility, as the Apostle says in Romans 8.

I do not claim a way to reconcile it, neither do I feel a particular obligation or need to. But, then, as I mentioned just earlier I'm a Lutheran. Lutheranism has a long history of embracing the paradoxical, one only need to look at what Lutheran theologians call the Crux Theologorum to see that even when Lutherans look at what the Bible says, we intentionally choose to believe what Scripture teaches even if it appears to us and our reason that Scripture says two different and even contradictory looking things. It is not a huge stretch for me, then, to recognize that what is observed in the natural world might say one thing, and the Scriptures say another; and that both are true. God is the Author of both His Word and His Creation; just because I don't know how to make it all "fit" only speaks of my smallness as a finite, sinful, mortal man. I have faith that, in the grand scheme of everything, there's an answer, even if it is known only to God. This might be offensive to human reason, but then human reason is also fallen and finite.

Biologically speaking, if our closes relatives happened to be apes, then one would expect at least a small bit of morality similar to us in the evolutionary chain. Did Lucy sin? Did she steal and was she remorseful? Did she lie?

We see, if nothing else, analogues to human morality. Chimpanzees engage in behaviors that certainly appear sinful and wicked, but can we ascribe this to chimpanzees having a rational soul and being in a state of sinfulness? Scripture doesn't offer us an answer to a question like that; instead Scripture tells us that all of creation suffers and places the responsibility of that upon us. I cannot say that the chimpanzee sins, but I can say that the chimpanzee is part of God's good creation and sin and death have robbed God's good creation of the fullness of life and goodness which God intends and desires for it. And that, in Christ, all creation shall be healed and put to rights. In the end, St. Paul says, God will be all in all; and in the Apocalypse St. John beholds in a vision the Day when God makes all things new, and there is perfect accord between God, man, and the whole of creation; and St. Paul finds this perfect accord in Jesus Christ "by whom and for whom were all things made" as he says in Colossians, and that all things are summed up in Him (Ephesians 1:10). So that in Christ, the Incarnate God-Man, who has put to death to death in His body by His dying and rising, all things shall be restored (Acts 3:21) and all shall, in the end, be as God intends.

As a Christian I hope that you believe that sin introduced itself into the world through Satan in the garden to Adam and Eve. But under your view, what happened to the other homo sapiens.

Scripture says that Adam sinned, and through Adam's sin came sin to all men. The devil was certainly the instigator, but the problem of sin and the responsibility and guilt of sin rests upon human beings.

As I've been saying throughout this post, I don't have an answer to your question, or these sorts of questions more generally. It would be irresponsible of me to offer wild speculations about what I cannot know, about which God has not said, and about which there is neither evidence nor observation.

God alone knows the answer to such questions. I am satisfied with that.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[FireDragon76]

Evolutionists ignore the fact that along with man evolving, we are the only species on the planet that has also evolved evil. Pain, suffering and death occurs with all creatures. But for mankind, we discriminate, enslave, lie, steal, cheat, murder, have wars, and on and on. Not only do we do things to others, but we do evil things to ourselves. And both internal and external traits of evil grow with each generation. Some psychologists believe evil evolved with evolution. But if this were true, then mankind would be devolving, not evolving-which is a Christian position. Despite the insistence of some that mankind has evolved from the same source and are just like all the other animals, there is no explaining how evil evolved. Evolutionist tend to ignore the issue.

Mankind is unique to this world and generates evil apart from any other animal on the world. And if evolution was correct, and mankind came from the same source as all other living creatures, then evil wouldn't/shouldn't exist.

So how did evil evolved?

Being a Christian doesn't require us to believe in the existence of evil as a substantial reality in the world, as a dualism between good and evil. Augustine's theodicy has evil as a privation, or lack, of good.

 

[FireDragon76]

There are probably a good number of atheist that believe evil is simply a matter of perception. As @2PhiloVoid pointed out, it might have more to do with their overall philosophy than evolution in particular.

For example, Spinoza believed that all events are necessitated, according to God/Nature, and our reckoning of evil is a matter of our own perception, but in the grand scheme of things, everything is going along swimmingly.

ETA: Whether Spinoza was atheist is debated, but I would bet a good many atheists are also determinists, which can lend itself to the position that there is no evil, per se.

Spinoza seems to have been a dual-aspect monist, of a highly rationalistic sort. Not an atheist. He fellowshipped alot with Dutch Quakers at one time, even translating a Quaker tract into Hebrew.

 

[HarleyER]

Chimpanzees lie, steal, cheat and murder. They even fight in tribal wars against other tribes.

'Hostilities began in an extremely violent way': How chimp wars taught us murder and cruelty aren't just human traits

"These primates' fierce battles were instigated by coalitions of adult males, with the sole aim of extending their territory. The areas where the fighting took place corresponded to the land conquered by force."

www.livescience.com

Gombe Chimpanzee War - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

https://www.reuters.com/science/scientists-observe-chimpanzees-using-human-like-warfare-tactic-2023-11-02/

Chimps will even line up shoulder to shoulder with sharpened sticks used as spears on combat.

Also, non human species like neanderthals, denisovans, and other archaic hominids of history, did also wage war. But of course we've rendered them extinct, just as we have with nearly every other non-human that has challenged mankind.

The Planets of the Apes...er? Let me know when they appoint a judge and are tried by a jury of their peers. Many animals are territorial and will protect their turf, but this isn't the same as plotting to destory a group of people simply because they don't like the way they look.

People tend to equate animal instincts to human values. They talk about feelings their dogs and cats have. I don't buy into that nonsense.

BTW-It isn't much different then Christians equating human values to God.

 

[HarleyER]

I don't locate the biblical Adam and Eve, and the biblical story, at a specific point in human biological history because I don't think one can. I make a conscious choice not to engage in pointless speculation about such things because I don't believe it is helpful. What I do take from the biblical story is that all human beings share a common fore-parents.

The biblical story of Adam and Eve, and the Fall, is a story that stands apart from anything that we can try and identify in our study of science and biological evolution. But I also don't take the story as necessarily literal, or at least entirely literal. I do believe there was an Adam, I do believe that through Adam's sin and disobedience we have all become sinful. We all have inherited Adam's original sin and original guilt, what theologians in the West have traditionally called concupiscence--the fallen passions of the flesh.

In the Lutheran tradition this concupiscence constitutes not merely the potential for sin, but constitutes actual sin; and is why we are wholly unable to come to God in righteous obedience through any effort or strength of our own--including our will. The human will being fallen, sinful, and in bondage to the passions of our flesh. This concupiscence is very real, and it's something we all have, we all have because we enter into this world with a damaged human nature that is out of alignment with God and His Law. "There is no one righteous, no, not even one" as St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans.

That is much more significant and important to me than trying to figure out how the biblical story of Adam and Eve fits within the biological history of hominids. The question of when, in the history of human/hominid evolution we became moral animals, were given a rational soul, etc isn't an answerable question.

It's also not clear how one can reconcile the obvious evidence of death in the created order prior to the rise of human beings (or hominids of any sort) with the biblical story of the fall.

I believe both things are true:

1) Human beings evolved in a world where living things were born and died, and this is evident from the geological and fossil record.
2) It is through the disobedience of our first parents that death entered the world, and all creation suffers under and is subjugated to this futility, as the Apostle says in Romans 8.

I do not claim a way to reconcile it, neither do I feel a particular obligation or need to. But, then, as I mentioned just earlier I'm a Lutheran. Lutheranism has a long history of embracing the paradoxical, one only need to look at what Lutheran theologians call the Crux Theologorum to see that even when Lutherans look at what the Bible says, we intentionally choose to believe what Scripture teaches even if it appears to us and our reason that Scripture says two different and even contradictory looking things. It is not a huge stretch for me, then, to recognize that what is observed in the natural world might say one thing, and the Scriptures say another; and that both are true. God is the Author of both His Word and His Creation; just because I don't know how to make it all "fit" only speaks of my smallness as a finite, sinful, mortal man. I have faith that, in the grand scheme of everything, there's an answer, even if it is known only to God. This might be offensive to human reason, but then human reason is also fallen and finite.



We see, if nothing else, analogues to human morality. Chimpanzees engage in behaviors that certainly appear sinful and wicked, but can we ascribe this to chimpanzees having a rational soul and being in a state of sinfulness? Scripture doesn't offer us an answer to a question like that; instead Scripture tells us that all of creation suffers and places the responsibility of that upon us. I cannot say that the chimpanzee sins, but I can say that the chimpanzee is part of God's good creation and sin and death have robbed God's good creation of the fullness of life and goodness which God intends and desires for it. And that, in Christ, all creation shall be healed and put to rights. In the end, St. Paul says, God will be all in all; and in the Apocalypse St. John beholds in a vision the Day when God makes all things new, and there is perfect accord between God, man, and the whole of creation; and St. Paul finds this perfect accord in Jesus Christ "by whom and for whom were all things made" as he says in Colossians, and that all things are summed up in Him (Ephesians 1:10). So that in Christ, the Incarnate God-Man, who has put to death to death in His body by His dying and rising, all things shall be restored (Acts 3:21) and all shall, in the end, be as God intends.



Scripture says that Adam sinned, and through Adam's sin came sin to all men. The devil was certainly the instigator, but the problem of sin and the responsibility and guilt of sin rests upon human beings.

As I've been saying throughout this post, I don't have an answer to your question, or these sorts of questions more generally. It would be irresponsible of me to offer wild speculations about what I cannot know, about which God has not said, and about which there is neither evidence nor observation.

God alone knows the answer to such questions. I am satisfied with that.

-CryptoLutheran

I appreciate your thoughtful insights. Some of this might be speculation. Then again, perhaps, just perhaps, the Genesis account is correct.

“…. Since the Fall every man has been a philosopher, for he has taken his experience of the world and his knowledge of reality — which he has succeeded in describing scientifically — as a standard by which to measure God. But the intellect does not suffice to grasp the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; He must be apprehended through the Scriptures. The “God” created by man is a false god of his own making. (Heiko Oberman, “Luther: Man Between God and the Devil,” 170)

 

[HarleyER]

Being a Christian doesn't require us to believe in the existence of evil as a substantial reality in the world, as a dualism between good and evil. Augustine's theodicy has evil as a privation, or lack, of good.

I'm not sure what you're saying.

I don't see evil in a dualistic model (good vs evil). Man is evil. God is good. God wants to impart His goodness to man so that He might have fellowship with man. Man doesn't want it until God makes man want it. It's that simple.

But the Bible is clear that evil exists:

Matthew 7:11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!

 

[FireDragon76]

I appreciate your thoughtful insights. Some of this might be speculation. Then again, perhaps, just perhaps, the Genesis account is correct.

“…. Since the Fall every man has been a philosopher, for he has taken his experience of the world and his knowledge of reality — which he has succeeded in describing scientifically — as a standard by which to measure God. But the intellect does not suffice to grasp the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; He must be apprehended through the Scriptures. The “God” created by man is a false god of his own making. (Heiko Oberman, “Luther: Man Between God and the Devil,” 170)

I think you are misusing that quote by Oberman. Oberman was a Dutch Reformed theologian and a religious liberal, and didn't deny the facts about biological evolution. He didn't interpret Genesis literally.

 

[FireDragon76]

Chimpanzees lie, steal, cheat and murder. They even fight in tribal wars against other tribes.

'Hostilities began in an extremely violent way': How chimp wars taught us murder and cruelty aren't just human traits

"These primates' fierce battles were instigated by coalitions of adult males, with the sole aim of extending their territory. The areas where the fighting took place corresponded to the land conquered by force."

www.livescience.com

Gombe Chimpanzee War - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

https://www.reuters.com/science/scientists-observe-chimpanzees-using-human-like-warfare-tactic-2023-11-02/

Chimps will even line up shoulder to shoulder with sharpened sticks used as spears on combat.

Also, non human species like neanderthals, denisovans, and other archaic hominids of history, did also wage war. But of course we've rendered them extinct, just as we have with nearly every other non-human that has challenged mankind.

Neanderthals existed in smaller numbers. In fact the latest idea about them is that they were simply wiped out by some natural catastrophe.

Many modern humans have Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA, of course (I do, about 4%), so they didn't completely die out. And they were closer to modern humans than otherwise.

 

[Job 33:6]

Neanderthals existed in smaller numbers. In fact the latest idea about them is that they were simply wiped out by some natural catastrophe.

Many modern humans have Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA, of course (I do, about 4%), so they didn't completely die out. And they were closer to modern humans than otherwise.

They weren't human.

 

[Job 33:6]

The Planets of the Apes...er? Let me know when they appoint a judge and are tried by a jury of their peers. Many animals are territorial and will protect their turf, but this isn't the same as plotting to destory a group of people simply because they don't like the way they look.

People tend to equate animal instincts to human values. They talk about feelings their dogs and cats have. I don't buy into that nonsense.

BTW-It isn't much different then Christians equating human values to God.

They aren't human, and they can lie, cheat, steal, and murder. Sounds like you have a problem accepting reality.

 

[FireDragon76]

They weren't human.

How do you reckon that? Most scientists consider neanderthals human, albeit of a more archaic form.

 

[HarleyER]

I think you are misusing that quote by Oberman. Oberman was a Dutch Reformed theologian and a religious liberal, and didn't deny the facts about biological evolution. He didn't interpret Genesis literally.

The quote wasn't by Oberman. The quote was Luther's as cited by Oberman.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I appreciate your thoughtful insights. Some of this might be speculation. Then again, perhaps, just perhaps, the Genesis account is correct.

“…. Since the Fall every man has been a philosopher, for he has taken his experience of the world and his knowledge of reality — which he has succeeded in describing scientifically — as a standard by which to measure God. But the intellect does not suffice to grasp the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; He must be apprehended through the Scriptures. The “God” created by man is a false god of his own making. (Heiko Oberman, “Luther: Man Between God and the Devil,” 170)

The Genesis account is correct. It's not only correct, it's the divinely inspired, unfailing and unerring word of God.

Nothing I've said suggested otherwise.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Job 33:6]

How do you reckon that? Most scientists consider neanderthals human, albeit of a more archaic form.

Historically there are some interpretations that Neanderthal would be subspecies of a sort. But as more refined data has come out, these days the majority of scholars would note that they're an independent species. Genetically, morphologically.

So it is understood that there was some inbreeding historically.

 

[HarleyER]

They aren't human, and they can lie, cheat, steal, and murder. Sounds like you have a problem accepting reality.

I actually think

The Genesis account is correct. It's not only correct, it's the divinely inspired, unfailing and unerring word of God.

Nothing I've said suggested otherwise.

-CryptoLutheran

You're one of the few here that seems to be willing to confess that fact.