Evolution conflict and division

2PhiloVoid said:

Some of us have, and do, think about "it" deeply.................. but I'm not bothered by the fact that so many other fellow Christians are bothered by the theory of evolution.

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I'm not bothered by anything on a computer forum.

2PhiloVoid said:

Not really. Philosophical Naturalists (i.e. atheists) are using a similar pattern of epistemic criteria as do those in the Intelligent Design camp---the difference is that one camp thinks they see significations of 'irreducible complexity" in nature, and the other firmly asserts that not only do they not see those same positive significations, but that they see structures in the universe which militate against the presence of a Divine Creator.

I happen to be in neither of the two camps just mentioned above...........

I'm glad to hear you're on board with the 'no judging' side of things for those of us who are Christian and compartmentalize our Bibles from Hard Science. (For those out there in Web Land who don't understand this category separation, the analogy would be that it should be reasonable to separate a literary identification and reading of Shakespeare or Henry David Thoreau or American History from the field of Biology and its applications in our society. )


Some do. Some don't.

That's good to know.


The same one who just explained to you what he thinks reality "is" in an earlier post.

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Job 33:6 said:

There are several additional difficulties with this theological approach as well. Romans 5:12 is explicitly human-centric: death is said to come to all men. The passage says nothing about the animal kingdom, and its argument does not require animal mortality to be in view at all. This is one of the more common and well-grounded exegetical objections.

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Paul includes all creation at the close of his argument.

Job 33:6 said:

Additionally, the fact that major Christian thinkers either explicitly affirmed animal mortality before the Fall or did not regard animal immortality as theologically necessary, figures such as Augustine, Origen, Thomas Aquinas, Gregory of Nyssa, and even Basil the Great, demonstrates that these texts were not historically read as settling the question. At minimum, they leave the issue ambiguous and open to interpretation.

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Citing historical theologians doesn’t settle anything. The question is not what later thinkers thought, but what Paul actually argues. Augustine, Aquinas, and others were not reading Romans 5 or 8 in a vacuum; they were reasoning with philosophical assumptions about nature that Paul never states.


Paul’s claims are textual and causal: death entered through one man (Rom 5:12), decay is a result of subjection (Rom 8:20–21), and creation awaits liberation from that condition. That logic only works if decay and death are intrusions, not original features.


At most, later disagreement shows theological diversity, not textual ambiguity. Scripture must interpret tradition, not the other way around.

Job 33:6 said:

The collective ambiguity alone is sufficient to caution against treating later theological constructions as determinative. It strengthens the case for returning to Old Testament exegesis in its own literary and historical context rather than resolving the question by appeal to Pauline typology.

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This does not create “collective ambiguity” in the text. It only shows that interpreters disagreed. That is not a reason to set Paul aside.

Paul is not an overlay on the Old Testament; he is an inspired interpreter of it. The Adam to Christ argument in Romans 5 and his creation logic in Romans 8 are exegetical, not speculative typology. He is explaining what Genesis means, not replacing it.

Appealing to Old Testament exegesis “instead of” Pauline typology is a false choice. The New Testament interprets the Old. If Paul grounds death and decay in Adam, that interpretation must carry weight, regardless of what comes later.

Job 33:6 said:

Typology, after all, does not function as biological history. Paul’s appeal to Adam serves a soteriological purpose, not a zoological one, and therefore does not provide the conceptual resources needed to draw firm conclusions about animal immortality before the Fall. @Mercy Shown

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Paul’s argument is explanatory, and also grounded in history. It is not abstract. Salvation works because things happened: through one man death entered the world (Rom 5:12). If Adam is reduced to a non-historical or non-physical reference point, Paul’s logic collapses.


Paul does not separate spiritual outcomes from physical causes. Sin brings death; Christ brings resurrection. In Romans 8, the same death that entered through Adam now holds creation itself in bondage to decay and will be physically undone. That includes the animal world.


Calling this “not zoological” avoids the argument rather than answering it. Paul’s typology assumes a real created order that fell and will be restored. Without that, the typology has no footing at all.

Mercy Shown said:

Paul includes all creation at the close of his argument.

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? Um no, Paul never says anything about animals being immortal prior to the fall. If you would like to cite this passage, feel free to.

The appeal to major church fathers and saints is not an argument from authority, but a point about interpretive clarity. If Paul’s language in Romans 5 and 8 necessarily entailed the conclusion you are drawing, then it is difficult to explain why theologians such as Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Origen, St. Basil the Great, and others, who were deeply invested in these texts and in bodily resurrection, did not read them that way. Their divergence suggests that the conclusion (animal immortality before the fall) is not exegetically compelled, but inferred, and that the passages themselves leave room for more than one interpretation.

Mercy Shown said:

Paul’s claims are textual and causal: death entered through one man (Rom 5:12), decay is a result of subjection (Rom 8:20–21), and creation awaits liberation from that condition. That logic only works if decay and death are intrusions, not original features.

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As we've already observed, Romans 5:12 doesn't mention anything about animals.

Mercy Shown said:

Paul does not separate spiritual outcomes from physical causes. Sin brings death; Christ brings resurrection. In Romans 8, the same death that entered through Adam now holds creation itself in bondage to decay and will be physically undone. That includes the animal world.

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Regarding Romans 8, to say that decay will be undone does not entail that decay was absent originally; it entails that creation will be transformed beyond its present condition.

Mercy Shown said:

Calling this “not zoological” avoids the argument rather than answering it. Paul’s typology assumes a real created order that fell and will be restored. Without that, the typology has no footing at all.

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There is nothing to answer to because the passages that you're citing don't direct us to the conclusions that you're trying to make (immortality of animals before the fall).

You can appeal to Romans 5 and 8 repeatedly, but neither passage states that animals were immortal before the Fall. Romans 5 explicitly limits its scope to human death and does not mention animals at all, let alone the origin of death in the animal kingdom. Romans 8 speaks of creation’s present frustration and future hope, but it does not describe when biological death began or claim that animal mortality was absent originally. Any conclusion about pre-Fall animal immortality is therefore inferred rather than stated.

Job 33:6 said:

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.

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Genesis one is all about time. In this case the first day. Formless and void means before light is separated from darkness, waters from waters, and land from sea, it marks the moment when God has not yet begun giving creation its boundaries and distinctions.

Psalm 104:9 “You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.”

I believe Genesis, the historical record narrative is all about the "Personal" Creator and His intimacy in not only creation but among the lives of people.
If that is the premise, I cannot see how Macro-Evolution can be accepted for an impersonal process whether w/ or w/out the Creator.

Job 33:6 said:

Romans 5:12 is explicitly human-centric: death is said to come to all men. The passage says nothing about the animal kingdom,

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Paul says death through sin. The passage in Isaiah 65:25 "The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the LORD." There will be no more death and there will be no more predators.

Animals begin losing predatory behavior in the Kingdom Age, but they don’t reach the full Isaiah 65:25 state until the New Heaven and New Earth. It’s a gradual restoration over the 1,000 years—just like how restored parks slowly change animal behavior. We see a small picture of this even now: animals wandering into cities, living peacefully near people, and sometimes even standing their ground without fear. It’s not the Kingdom, but it shows how creatures adapt when their environment becomes safer.

Boomboomchucka said:

I believe Genesis, the historical record narrative is all about the "Personal" Creator and His intimacy in not only creation but among the lives of people.

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From the beginning God's desire was to become a part of His creation.

Firstlightdawn said:

Genesis one is all about time. In this case the first day. Formless and void means before light is separated from darkness, waters from waters, and land from sea, it marks the moment when God has not yet begun giving creation its boundaries and distinctions.

Psalm 104:9 “You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.”

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That's right. But the point of our discussions earlier reached the agreed upon conclusion that the creation events are ambiguous as to whether they're ex nihilo or not. In which case, we default to the ANE context in which creation involved materials that were already present.

Firstlightdawn said:

Paul says death through sin. The passage in Isaiah 65:25 "The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the LORD." There will be no more death and there will be no more predators.

Animals begin losing predatory behavior in the Kingdom Age, but they don’t reach the full Isaiah 65:25 state until the New Heaven and New Earth. It’s a gradual restoration over the 1,000 years—just like how restored parks slowly change animal behavior. We see a small picture of this even now: animals wandering into cities, living peacefully near people, and sometimes even standing their ground without fear. It’s not the Kingdom, but it shows how creatures adapt when their environment becomes safer.

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We've already covered Isaiah. In Isaiah 65, people still die:

Isaiah 65:17, 20 ESV
[17] “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
[20] No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.

The text also doesn't say that there will be no more predation. Safety only applies to the human domain (calf, goat, lamb, etc.)

But the most crucial issue that I have to keep repeating is this: Isaiah 65 is forward-looking eschatology, not backward-looking creation history. It tells us what God will bring about in the future, not what existed before the Fall.

Job 33:6 said:

We've already covered Isaiah. In Isaiah 65, people still die:

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Chapter 25*
8He will swallow up death forever.

and Rev 21:4 says no more death.

The Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from every face

I eat a little meat every now and then because that is the world we live in. But I would rather not eat animals. I like them and have taken a lot of photos of the animals in my back yard. They know me. Even I have birds that come back year after year to build a nest and have their babies here.

Firstlightdawn said:

Chapter 25*
8He will swallow up death forever.

and Rev 21:4 says no more death.

The Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from every face

I eat a little meat every now and then because that is the world we live in. But I would rather not eat animals. I like them and have taken a lot of photos of the animals in my back yard. They know me. Even I have birds that come back year after year to build a nest and have their babies here. View attachment 375630

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"But the most crucial issue that I have to keep repeating is this: Isaiah 65 is forward-looking eschatology, not backward-looking creation history. It tells us what God will bring about in the future, not what existed before the Fall."

The Barbarian said:

Cardinal Ratzinger chaired the commission that says human evolution from a distant common ancestor of all living things on Earth is virtually certain. You agree with him, now?

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? Still choosing to mislead readers by editing out the predicate to that statement. Reporting is not identical to affirming. I suspected intellectual dishonesty. Please stop.

The Barbarian said:

Your denial of documented evidence.

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What evidence?

The Barbarian said:

There have always been people who thought that evidence wasn't required if the reasoning worked.

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Yes, that describes the macro-evolutionists perfectly. However, unfortunately the evos removed all the disciplines philosophy assigned to rational thought making "rational" thought indistinguishable from wild speculations.

The Barbarian said:

God disagrees with you.
Ecclesiastes 9:ll I turned me to another thing, and I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favour to the skilful: but time and chance in all.

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Bible Bingo time?

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:8-9

“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.” – Ecclesiastes 11:5

“Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.” – Job 38:2-4

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” – 1 Corinthians 13:12

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” – Deuteronomy 29:29

The Barbarian said:

The laws accurately described how planets move around the Sun. The theory explains why it works that way.

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True science does marvelous work in providing explanations for the material and efficient causes. But science does not even attempt to address the formal or final (the "WHY") causes.

The Barbarian said:

The decision in the Dover trial showed that ID is merely an attempt to sneak YE creationism into public schools. One of the most embarrassing moments was when a supposed "ID textbook" was shown to include a typo that exposed it as a YE creationist work, edited to make it appear to have been written by an IDer.

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Strange that a theist, even a professed Catholic theist, would so vehemently oppose ID. Do you know what the atheists meant by the phrase, "Useful Idiots"?

o_mlly said:

? Still choosing to mislead readers by editing out the predicate to that statement. Reporting is not identical to affirming. I suspected intellectual dishonesty. Please stop.

What evidence?

Yes, that describes the macro-evolutionists perfectly. However, unfortunately the evos removed all the disciplines philosophy assigned to rational thought making "rational" thought indistinguishable from wild speculations.

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So, I'm just wondering, o_mlly. Are you a 7-day Creationist?

o_mlly said:

? Still choosing to mislead readers by editing out the predicate to that statement.

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Everyone saw the statement. No point in you denying it. Let's take another look...

According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 15 billion years ago in an explosion called the “Big Bang” and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets. In our own solar system and on earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5-4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution.

Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God

Like most creationists, you've confused the origin of life with evolution. The "widely accepted scientific account" is about how life began. This-
Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism.

-is about something else, the evolution of humans from other organisms. That, the Vatican says, is "virtually certain." No point in denying it.

o_mlly said:

What evidence?

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The fact that science can produce irreducibly random numbers. Your denial changes nothing.

There have always been people who thought that evidence wasn't required if the reasoning worked. This is how ID got started. But then it crashed and burned because it doesn't actually work.

o_mlly said:

Yes, that describes the macro-evolutionists perfectly.

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You've already learned otherwise. Even honest and knowledgeable YE creationits admit that there is abundant evidence for evolution:

Do I have to show you that, again?

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.

I say these things not because I'm crazy or because I've "converted" to evolution. I say these things because they are true. I'm motivated this morning by reading yet another clueless, well-meaning person pompously declaring that evolution is a failure. People who say that are either unacquainted with the inner workings of science or unacquainted with the evidence for evolution. (Technically, they could also be deluded or lying, but that seems rather uncharitable to say. Oops.)
YE creationist Dr. Todd Wood The Truth About Evolution

But let's test your assumption. Name me any two major groups, said to be evolutionarily connected, for which there are no transitional forms. Here's your chance. Show us.

YE creationist Dr. Kurt Wise says that the numerous transitional forms between major groups is "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory.:

o_mlly said:

However, unfortunately the evos removed all the disciplines philosophy assigned to rational thought making rational thought indistinguishable from wild speculations.

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Horsefeathers.

The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory: Concepts, Inferences, and Probabilities

For over 4 decades, Elliott Sober has been examining and illuminating philosophical aspects of evolutionary theory. His recent book, The Philosophy...

ndpr.nd.edu

(Claim that there are no truly random events)

God disagrees with you.
Ecclesiastes 9:ll I turned me to another thing, and I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favour to the skilful: but time and chance in all.

o_mlly said:

Bible Bingo time?

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If you're allowed to toss out any Bible verses that say things you don't like you end up with the Jefferson Bible. And a huge pile of rejected scripture. Or you can accept everything. Your choice. And tossing out random verses that don't address the issue harms your message. Feel free to continue.

o_mlly said:

True science does marvelous work in providing explanations for the material and efficient causes.

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Which includes an explanation as to how humans evolved from other organisms. But not how. That is what religion does for us.

o_mlly said:

Strange that a theist, even a professed Catholic theist, would so vehemently oppose ID.

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Because it demotes the Creator to a mere "maybe a space alien" designer. Design is what limited creatures do. God creates. ID is merely disrespectful to God. And interestingly, engineers have discovered that evolution is more efficient than design for solving very complex problems. Would you like to learn about that? It turns out, God knew best, after all.

o_mlly said:

Bible Bingo time?

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:8-9

“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.” – Ecclesiastes 11:5

“Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.” – Job 38:2-4

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” – 1 Corinthians 13:12

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” – Deuteronomy 29:29


True science does marvelous work in providing explanations for the material and efficient causes. But science does not even attempt to address the formal or final (the "WHY") causes.

Strange that a theist, even a professed Catholic theist, would so vehemently oppose ID. Do you know what the atheists meant by the phrase, "Useful Idiots"?

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Intelligent design is actually quite dangerous theologically for the church. And I think that many Christians see it as a counter-balance to atheism or naturalism and assume that it is therefore "on our side". But the implications of it run directly contrary to Christian traditions and they introduce really problematic assumptions for the church in its interactions with the sciences. Such as that noted in my last post on Thomistic thought.

One of the core issues at play is IDs efforts to separate natural events from Gods sustaining work. As though, if something has a natural explanation, it must not be the work of the Lord.

And the reason they do this is that, if we reverse course and examine the implications of God using natural mechanisms, the whole ID position breaks down because it doesn't offer a competitive mechanism of creation to counter something like the theory of evolution.

It essentially boils down to creationism masquerading as science.

Job 33:6 said:

"If God is outside His creation, His orders are not natural but supernatural."

I think that has been our key point of dispute or contention for awhile now. God causes things to act according to their natures. He is the cause. Natural, established and sustained by God.

Aquinas explicitly rejects the idea that God’s governance displaces natural causality. God acts in all causes as First Cause, while creatures act as true secondary causes according to their natures. To treat God’s ordering of nature as non-natural is to deny Aquinas’s distinction between primary and secondary causation.

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@o_mlly feel free to defer to my post here^.

Job 33:6 said:

Intelligent design is actually quite dangerous theologically for the church. And I think that many Christians see it as a counter-balance to atheism or naturalism and assume that it is therefore "on our side". But the implications of it run directly contrary to Christian traditions and they introduce really problematic assumptions for the church in its interactions with the sciences. Such as that noted in my last post on Thomistic thought.

One of the core issues at play is IDs efforts to separate natural events from Gods sustaining work. As though, if something has a natural explanation, it must not be the work of the Lord.

And the reason they do this is that, if we reverse course and examine the implications of God using natural mechanisms, the whole ID position breaks down because it doesn't offer a competitive mechanism of creation to counter something like the theory of evolution.

It essentially boils down to creationism masquerading as science.

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I'm going to slightly differ on this point: I don't see I.D. as a threat or danger. I simply see its epistemological conclusions as either unclear, incomplete and/or underdetermined. I don't know that where criteria of signification are concerned that it's outright wrong on all counts. If anything, it feels like a philosophical attempt to inject more scienc-y thinking into the old Cosmological arguments.

As I wrote in a university paper years ago, I'll listen to I.D. arguments on the level of philosophical propositions, but not as science proper (yet).

On the other hand, I do see Philosophical Naturalism as a danger to one's having hope in life that means anything.

2PhiloVoid said:

On the other hand, I do see Philosophical Naturalism as a danger to one's having hope in life that means anything.

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Have you read Nature's Destiny by Michael Denton? The intro sounds like philosophical naturalism with a designer somewhere off in the unknowable.