Evolution conflict and division

Job 33:6 · 2026-01-19T16:43:30-0600

Mercy Shown said:
But let me clarify first. Using science it is hard to refute evolution. Using theology it is all but impossible to support it without going off road and making up your own meaning to the text. Most theistic evolutionists simply reinterpret the biblical text to fit their agenda and bias. They so badly want to have their cake and eat it too. It seems that you are saying that if we can debunk the old testament, then we can debunk Paul's teachings and expose Christ for the rube he was, believing such fables as a 7 day creation.

The bible says death entered through Adam's fall but theistic evolution says "no, no, that is speaking of spiritual death." Darn that Paul for forgetting to add that modifier.

The theistic evolution says, "Well they didn't die that very day." But did a plucked flower die the moment it was snapped form its stem. Yes, it did. It's decay began at that moment and so did Adam's. Adam mortality was then passed on to his offspring so that the whole race died.

Theistic evolution declares that God designed the world for death killing and destruction in order to create mankind. What an inefficient model that is. Theistic Evolutionists cry, "Science, science" until the are taking the wafer from the priest, or celebrating the resurrections at eastern or seeing Mary appear in a cloud or toasted cheese sandwich. Science gets trampled at the door of the church all the time but somehow the Ten Commandments are old wives tales. The entire Jewish history was based on a metaphor often known as a fable.

Some poor sap gets stoned to death for breaking a law based on a false premise. If only there had been some theistic evolutionist around to set everyone straight before the stones started flying. Theologically one has to force modern thought and science onto the bible changing its original intent. It would just be easier for them to do a Thomas Jefferson on their bibles with a sharp pair of scissors and some rubber cement.

Honestly, and this is another argument that is very easy to rebut that I haven't bothered with. But the whole "literal creation in 7 days" position is also just silly.

Consider an analogy. Imagine if I said, "In the beginning when I made a pizza, the pizza was formless and empty of toppings. And then I said, "let there be some pepperoni".

How long was my pizza formless before I began to make it?

Now let's look at the Bible:
Genesis 1:1-3 NRSV
[1] In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, [2] the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. [3] Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

Did you catch that? The beginning is when God began creating. It has nothing to do with the material beginning of the cosmos.

Hence why some translations plainly say:
Genesis 1:1-2 CEB
[1] When God began to create the heavens and the earth— [2] the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters—

And if the text doesn't say how long the earth was formless before God began to create it, then it ultimately says nothing about the age of the earth or the universe.

But non-concordists are well aware of this. Just sharing in case you're not aware.

The Barbarian · 2026-01-19T16:57:57-0600

Mercy Shown said:
The bible says death entered through Adam's fall but theistic evolution says "no, no, that is speaking of spiritual death." Darn that Paul for forgetting to add that modifier.

It's clear enough. God told Adam that he would die the day he ate from the tree. Adam eats and lives on physically for many years thereafter. If God tells the truth, the death He mentioned is not physical.

Since God is Truth, you are wrong.

Mercy Shown · 2026-01-19T18:34:27-0600

The Barbarian said:
It's clear enough. God told Adam that he would die the day he ate from the tree. Adam eats and lives on physically for many years thereafter. If God tells the truth, the death He mentioned is not physical.

Since God is Truth, you are wrong.

Your interpretation is driven by the desire to justify evolution, but let the bible speak for itself. While Adam did die relationally to God, he also died physically.

The Bible itself gives the tools to explain it without weakening the text.

“In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” The phrase “you shall surely die” is a legal sentence, not a stopwatch. The hebrew phrase is מוֹת תָּמוּת (môt tamût) literally meaning “dying you shall die.”

This emphasizes certainty, not immediacy. It is used in other places for judicial sentencing

1 Kings 2:37 — “On the day you go out… you shall surely die,” yet the execution happens later.

Ezekiel 18:4 — “The soul who sins shall die” (certainty, not timing)

So “in the day” means the day the sentence is enacted, not completed. Adam begins dying that very day (physical death inaugurated). After the fall, mortality enters; access to the tree of life is removed

Genesis 3:22–24 “Lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life… and live forever.”

Adam was not inherently immortal. His continued life depended on divine provision, and once cut off, death became inevitable. Adam begins dying that day, even if the process takes centuries.

Adam did die on the day he ate in three real ways: Judicially — the death sentence was enacted, Relationally — fellowship with God was broken, and Physically (inaugurated) — mortality began and life-access was lost. God’s word stands fully literal, not evasively symbolic.

Mercy Shown · 2026-01-19T18:47:49-0600

Job 33:6 said:
Honestly, and this is another argument that is very easy to rebut that I haven't bothered with. But the whole "literal creation in 7 days" position is also just silly.

Don't waste your time rebutting because that was not the point. The point is, evolution views the bible narrative as silly, and those that try to hold onto one with one hand and hold onto evolution with the other have to do a lot of mental gymnastics.

Job 33:6 said:
Consider an analogy. Imagine if I said, "In the beginning when I made a pizza, the pizza was formless and empty of toppings. And then I said, "let there be some pepperoni".

How long was my pizza formless before I began to make it?

Now let's look at the Bible:
Genesis 1:1-3 NRSV
[1] In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, [2] the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. [3] Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

Did you catch that? The beginning is when God began creating. It has nothing to do with the material beginning of the cosmos.

Hence why some translations plainly say:
Genesis 1:1-2 CEB
[1] When God began to create the heavens and the earth— [2] the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters—

And if the text doesn't say how long the earth was formless before God began to create it, then it ultimately says nothing about the age of the earth or the universe.

But non-concordists are well aware of this. Just sharing in case you're not aware.

This is just a simplistic overgeneralization of the history that the bible narrative unfolds. For instance: Evolutionary creation and the Fourth Commandment are strictly at odds because the commandment places human work and rest directly in God’s own historical action: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth… and rested the seventh day” (Exod 20:11; 31:17). The command is imitative, not illustrative—Israel is to work six ordinary days and rest one ordinary day precisely because God did so. If God’s “days” were long ages or metaphorical epochs involving ongoing creative activity and death as a mechanism, then the command requires humans to imitate something God did not actually do. On top of that, was there a 7th epoch in which evolution ceased as God rested? Coherence collapses when you try to mix the two.

A covenant sign depends on shared reality, not equivocation, and the Sabbath loses its grounding if God’s workweek is not temporally real. Moreover, evolutionary creation requires God’s creative work to continue beyond the seventh day, directly contradicting the claim that God “finished” his work and rested, which the commandment explicitly commemorates. In short, either God created in six real days and rested, providing the historical basis for the Sabbath, or creation unfolded through long ages of death-driven processes, in which case the Fourth Commandment no longer rests on God’s own pattern; both cannot be true at the same time.

Theistic evolution does not stay in a lane. It rides the yellow line.

Mercy Shown · 2026-01-19T18:51:49-0600

The Barbarian said:
Direct observation is tough to deny, yes. I'm thinking you might be confusing biological evolution (which is a fact), with common descent, which is a consequence of biological evolution.

Christ never said the seven days were literal 24-hour days. Paul never wrote that. And the OT doesn't say that they were. There's a difference between arguing with you, and arguing with God. It's important to keep that in mind.

What version of the bible are you reading?

Direct observation supports limited biological change, not universal common descent, which is an inference about the unobserved past. Neither Christ nor Paul explicitly restates the length of the creation days because Genesis already defines them with numbered days, evening and morning, and grounds them in God’s own Sabbath pattern (Exod 20:11; 31:17). The claim that the Old Testament does not teach real days ignores this internal definition. Finally, appealing to “arguing with God” does not settle the question, since the issue is precisely what God has said in Scripture; disagreement over interpretation is not rebellion but hermeneutics.

The Barbarian said:
Maybe you should take a few deep breaths, calm yourself, and try again.

Today's winner.

So you do inhale?

Mercy Shown · 2026-01-19T19:04:19-0600

River Jordan said:
No, some of us read Genesis the same way many Jews have read it for millennia (such as Rabbi Moses Maimonides edit, here's a better link: Moses Maimonides on the Literal Meaning of Genesis - Spectrum Magazine). I'll never forget when a Jewish friend of mine read the following passage to me in Hebrew.

So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

He semi-sung it and explained how it's clearly meant to be read lyrically. Then we walked through how repetition of "the evening and the morning" phrase for each day is similar.

So I'm not reinterpreting anything. I would argue I'm reading it the way it's written.

By singing it. The lovely thing about doing it your way is that you can have it mean whatever you want. The Burger King of Books.

River Jordan said:
I'm often struck by how some people can't seem to escape this sort of thinking, where reading Genesis differently than fundamentalists is the same as debunking it, and if one part of the Bible isn't 100% literally true then all of it must be false.

If it were God's word, yes. If it is not, then get the shears and let's cut out the parts we think are nonsense. Atheists believe there is no God, and then religionists who are sure there is because they are him.

River Jordan said:
It seems to be pervasive and deep-seated among fundamentalists.

Flip the coin, and on one side you have fundamentilists and on the other you have progressive liberals. They are so much alike in spirit.

River Jordan said:
I think if nothing ever died then the earth would very quickly be overrun with organisms. Talk about inefficient!

You are assuming too much. No one knows whether reproduction was a phase in God's plan. After all, you'll have the same problem in the next life if there is reproduction there.

River Jordan said:
There's that thinking again.

Or, people like you could try and expand your range of thinking and drop the ideas that reading parts of the Bible differently than you is not the same as rejecting or debunking it, and reading some parts of scripture non-literally doesn't necessitate reading the entire book non-literally.

Of course not, once you untether yourself, you can have the bible say whatever it is that pleases you. You can read it in total agreement with yourself. But it is a strange sort of God who only tells you what you want to hear.

Mercy Shown · 2026-01-19T19:07:22-0600

Mercy Shown said:
Job 33:6 said:

Not really. Because theology is its own separate category from something like the natural sciences. You have to have a specific assumption about who God is, in order for that assumption to be used against the theory.

For example, it sounds like you assume that God would never create a world with death in it. I disagree. If I held to your assumed view, I could see why evolution would concern you. But I don't, which you know.

You said "The bible says death entered through Adam's fall but theistic evolution says "no, no, that is speaking of spiritual death." Darn that Paul for forgetting to add that modifier."

The onus is still on you to demonstrate where the Biblical text parts from its historical context. Otherwise, death before the fall is the historical default. And again, theology doesn't replace original context. That requires an assumption that Paul was attempting to exegete Genesis.

Also, consider some other passages by Paul on the matter of sin and death:
Romans 6:4-5, 7-8 ESV
[4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. [5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
[7] For one who has died has been set free from sin. [8] Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

Paul obviously isn't talking about physical death here, as if he were a zombie that came out of the grave.

Or this one:
Romans 7:4, 9 ESV
[4] Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
[9] I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

Sin came alive and then I died? I mean, Paul, you're writing this letter, what do you mean "I died"?

Or even in Romans 5:
Romans 5:14 ESV
[14] Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Death reigned from Adam to Moses. What, so people stopped dying after Moses?

It's pretty obvious that Paul isn't speaking in a concordant way. Paul is addressing spiritual realities, not biological events.

So we have a lot of issues with extrapolating his theology back to Genesis as though he were exegeting on the question of death before the fall.

The rest of the post just comes off as a strawman.

Click to expand...

Only because you have no real answer other than reinventing the text.
.

Job 33:6 · 2026-01-19T19:17:38-0600

Mercy Shown said:
Don't waste your time rebutting because that was not the point. The point is, evolution views the bible narrative as silly, and those that try to hold onto one with one hand and hold onto evolution with the other have to do a lot of mental gymnastics.

This is just a simplistic overgeneralization of the history that the bible narrative unfolds. For instance: Evolutionary creation and the Fourth Commandment are strictly at odds because the commandment places human work and rest directly in God’s own historical action: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth… and rested the seventh day” (Exod 20:11; 31:17). The command is imitative, not illustrative—Israel is to work six ordinary days and rest one ordinary day precisely because God did so. If God’s “days” were long ages or metaphorical epochs involving ongoing creative activity and death as a mechanism, then the command requires humans to imitate something God did not actually do. On top of that, was there a 7th epoch in which evolution ceased as God rested? Coherence collapses when you try to mix the two.

A covenant sign depends on shared reality, not equivocation, and the Sabbath loses its grounding if God’s workweek is not temporally real. Moreover, evolutionary creation requires God’s creative work to continue beyond the seventh day, directly contradicting the claim that God “finished” his work and rested, which the commandment explicitly commemorates. In short, either God created in six real days and rested, providing the historical basis for the Sabbath, or creation unfolded through long ages of death-driven processes, in which case the Fourth Commandment no longer rests on God’s own pattern; both cannot be true at the same time.

Theistic evolution does not stay in a lane. It rides the yellow line.

Even granting literal days, Genesis 1 does not specify ex nihilo material origins. As such, the length of the days is irrelevant to questions of cosmic age or evolutionary history.

I can make a pizza in 6 literal hours, but that doesn't say anything about how long the pizza was formeless beforehand or before I began to make it. Once again, you have no response.

Also, my responses are not "re-inventions" of the text. I could easily cite Jews of antiquity from 1,000 years ago who say exactly what I am telling you today. In-fact, it is the YEC position that is actually a reinvention of the text, that is, scientific concordism. And everyone who studies history knows this.

River Jordan · 2026-01-19T19:18:58-0600

Mercy Shown said:
By singing it. The lovely thing about doing it your way is that you can have it mean whatever you want. The Burger King of Books.

If it were God's word, yes. If it is not, then get the shears and let's cut out the parts we think are nonsense. Atheists believe there is no God, and then religionists who are sure there is because they are him.

Flip the coin, and on one side you have fundamentilists and on the other you have progressive liberals. They are so much alike in spirit.

You and I obviously think in very different ways. I can see how lyrical passages can contain meaning and truth, whereas you seem to see lyrical passages as nonsense and worthy of being removed.

I can't relate to that.

You are assuming too much. No one knows whether reproduction was a phase in God's plan.

"God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number'"

Mercy Shown said:
Of course not, once you untether yourself, you can have the bible say whatever it is that pleases you. You can read it in total agreement with yourself. But it is a strange sort of God who only tells you what you want to hear.

All I can do is repeat that I simply cannot relate to such binary thinking, so I'm not sure you and I will ever see eye to eye on this.

stevevw · 2026-01-19T20:11:48-0600

The Barbarian said:
That's the idea behind genetic algorithms, used by engineers to solve extremely complex problems. Toss up random changes, and keep whatever works better. The key is that there's more than one mutation in human populations for high-altitude adaptation. Some work better than others.

This assumes that the development system or the laws of nature are not already designed to adapt. There are mechanisms that are biased towards certain outcomes. There is flexibility within the genome and there is the agency of the creature to be able to direct its own evolution through its own selection.

Thus directing what natural selection will take on. In other words nature is designed to select itself. Its designed to adapt and up with solutions.

The Barbarian said:
One of the things people miss (and I think this is what you're talking about) is that populations aren't just passive recepients of the changes of natural seletion. Populations also "push back" and modify environments in ways that affect natural selection.

Yes very much so and especially higher conscious beings like humans. Our agency is so strong that we can practically negate NS.

The Barbarian said:
Right. For example, it would be great to have a second pair of arms. But the basic tetrapod configuration just won't allow the necessary useful transitional forms that would be required to evolve them.

Yes but I think within the living cell there is pre loaded mechanisms that are designed to generate adaptations.

The Barbarian said:
Yes. It's a complex interaction.

The one thing I have noticed with the hard sciences like evolutionary biology and physics. Is that the subject is missing. There is no agency or teleology. When the reality is living creatures are very much entangled in the evolution of life.

The Barbarian · 2026-01-19T20:34:41-0600

stevevw said:
This assumes that the development system or the laws of nature are not already designed to adapt.

Created. God is not limited in any way. He doesn't design. He creates.

stevevw said:
There are mechanisms that are biased towards certain outcomes.

The universe is biased toward certain outcomes. But chance works just as well for God as necessity.

stevevw said:
Yes very much so and especially higher conscious beings like humans. Our agency is so strong that we can practically negate NS.

We aren't that smart. It still works. Maybe someday.

stevevw said:
Yes but I think within the living cell there is pre loaded mechanisms that are designed to generate adaptations.

It's called "DNA." It is remarkably constant in replication, but from time to time, there are mutations. Most don't do much. Some are harmful. Some are useful. Darwin's great discovery was how that sorts out.

stevevw said:
The one thing I have noticed with the hard sciences like evolutionary biology and physics. Is that the subject is missing.

It's the limitation of science. Still, what it does, is more effective than anything else man can do.

stevevw said:
There is no agency or teleology.

There is agency. Natural selection, for example. But no teleology. Science is about "how", not "why." It's open to teleology. Which is why people like Michael Denton can do biochemistry, even if he is an IDer.

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Evolution conflict and division

Job 33:6

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The Barbarian

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Mercy Shown

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Mercy Shown

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Mercy Shown

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Mercy Shown

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Mercy Shown

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Job 33:6

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River Jordan

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stevevw

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The Barbarian

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