Can you be Christian and believe in evolution?

[Diamond72]

The Biblical account of the Creation comes from an eye witness account of someone who was actually there. We either believe Him or we don't. It's about as simple as that.

Translation and interpretation is not simple. People do not begin to study the rules of interpretation until they go to bible college. I understand the literal bible is simple but there is a lot more to the Bible than that. Even your statement: "we believe Him". Do we really know God, do we really understand Him?

 

[Diamond72]

So evening and morning in Genesis 1 is definitely an unknown day length. Should we even consider it being a measurement?

A day can be around 24 hours, it can be 1,000 years it can be around 5 or 6 billion years. Depends on what you are looking at. The main thing is that God declares the end from the Beginning so we look back on time but from God's perspective He is looking forward.

Isaiah 46:10​

Dr.Gerald Schroeder B.Sc. Chemical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.)
M.Sc. Earth and planetary sciences, M.I.T.
PhD Earth Sciences and Physics, M.I.T.

Gerald Schroeder - Articles - Age of the Universe

 

[Job 33:6]

What do you make of this?

"Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?
(Job 38:4-7).

So, because God told Job that He laid the earth's foundation, then He was there. Was God mistaken or lying when He said that to Job?

That's God speaking to Job. Job didn't actually eyewitness anything. It's just God telling Job about it, after the fact.

But also, it's still worth noting that the text is written in an ancient near east framework. Who laid it's cornerstone, on what were its bases sunk, who stretched a measuring line across it etc. that's poetic language written in an ancient near east framework paralleling creation to the building of a temple.

So it probably shouldn't be thought of as if Job time traveled and saw the big bang or anything like that.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

So evening and morning in Genesis 1 is definitely an unknown day length. Should we even consider it being a measurement?

You believe what God literally says, or you don't.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Translation and interpretation is not simple. People do not begin to study the rules of interpretation until they go to bible college. I understand the literal bible is simple but there is a lot more to the Bible than that. Even your statement: "we believe Him". Do we really know God, do we really understand Him?

What! What other interpretation is there to what God has literally said? If He said that He laid the foundation of the earth, do we interpret that to say that He actually didn't? Or do we dream up an interpretation that has little to do with He actually said to Job?

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

That's God speaking to Job. Job didn't actually eyewitness anything. It's just God telling Job about it, after the fact.

But also, it's still worth noting that the text is written in an ancient near east framework. Who laid it's cornerstone, on what were its bases sunk, who stretched a measuring line across it etc. that's poetic language written in an ancient near east framework paralleling creation to the building of a temple.

So it probably shouldn't be thought of as if Job time traveled and saw the big bang or anything like that.

If God said, "Where you there?" means that He was there, so He was an eye witness to what happened. He can make something happen and be an eye witness to the results at the same time. Common sense, thou art a gem!!

 

[BeyondET]

You believe what God literally says, or you don't.

God ask Job the same thing, his days or God's days?

Job 38:12

In your days, have you commanded the morning or assigned the dawn its place,

 

[Job 33:6]

If God said, "Where you there?" means that He was there, so He was an eye witness to what happened. He can make something happen and be an eye witness to the results at the same time. Common sense, thou art a gem!!

Huh? Job wasn't there. That's a rhetorical question. He's saying, were you there? No, you weren't there, so stop questioning me.

Sincere question, have you read Job before?

It's God asking Job a rhetorical question to make a statement about His power and authority. But Job never actually witnessed anything.

Unless you're talking about God being an eyewitness.

It's kind of unreasonable to say "the Bible gives an eyewitness account of creation" and then to turn and say that the eyewitness wasn't actually a person but God himself.

Well of course God witnessed creation. He was the creator. But God isn't the author of the text.

Then again, God doesn't secondarily witness anything.

It would be like me baking a cake and saying, "I was an eye witness to me baking the cake!".

Well that doesn't make any sense.

 

[Nmeckert]

Can you be Christian and believe in evolution?

Sure, but you don't have to. You can assume evolution without believing in it. Let's talk about the utility of the theory of Evolution.

I am a Christian and worked evolution. I used the evolution model to implement AI programs. They are called evolutionary algorithms. You don't have to believe in evolution to work with it. If you search US patents in the last ten years, you will find many applications of evolution models. The theory of evolution has practical values. The US economy benefits from it. You cannot deny its utility.

Unlike other branches of hard sciences, there is not as much mathematical justification for Evolution. Nevertheless, it is a useful paradigm.

The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer

If the theory works in daily practical life, there is no need to reject it. There is no need to believe in it either in the sense of spiritual faith.

See also

• Adam, Eve, and evolution
• How old is the earth?.

I agree. You can believe evolution exists, but it's not good to actually worship it or put it above God.

 

[Psalm 27]

why is nobody reading their Bibles?
STOP ARGUING AND READ GENESIS 1!

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Huh? Job wasn't there. That's a rhetorical question. He's saying, were you there? No, you weren't there, so stop questioning me.

Sincere question, have you read Job before?

It's God asking Job a rhetorical question to make a statement about His power and authority. But Job never actually witnessed anything.

Unless you're talking about God being an eyewitness.

It's kind of unreasonable to say "the Bible gives an eyewitness account of creation" and then to turn and say that the eyewitness wasn't actually a person but God himself.

Well of course God witnessed creation. He was the creator. But God isn't the author of the text.

Then again, God doesn't secondarily witness anything.

It would be like me baking a cake and saying, "I was an eye witness to me baking the cake!".

Well that doesn't make any sense.

So you don't believe that God is a real person who can be an eye witness to anything. Ok, I get it.

 

[Job 33:6]

So you don't believe that God is a real person who can be an eye witness to anything. Ok, I get it.

Eye witness accounts are also first hand. That's what it means to make an account as an eyewitness, that is, a first-hand account. So unless you think that God wrote the book of Job, which He did not, this also wouldn't be an eyewitness account.

Also, people do not "eyewitness" things they do themselves.

Hey guys, did you know that I was an eyewitness to me eating dinner this evening?

Typically an eyewitness account is when someone, a human being, witnesses something that they themselves had not conducted, and they wrote a firsthand report of it. Which is not in scripture.

If God wrote the Bible and said "In the Beginning, I saw X, Y, and Z" that would be an eyewitness account.

Job is not an eyewitness to anything, he's just being informed after the fact. The text also isn't actually saying anything scientific. The passages talk about God stretching a measuring line, sinking foundations of the earth into the deep, and laying earths cornerstone. This obviously isn't a scientific account of anything, even if we called God the eyewitness.

It's a collection of passages about temple building.

And I'm not saying that God never saw Himself create things. I'm just pointing out that scripture does not give eyewitness accounts of creation in any sense. Genesis for example, never identifies itself as an eyewitness account by Moses.

 

[Diamond72]

Knowing about animal husbandry isn't the same as knowing about DNA

We did not know about DNA until 1968. I read the book by James Watson and Francis Crick. The double helix.

 

[Diamond72]

This is why there are maybe hundreds of thousands of religions

There are as many religions as there are people because we are all unique individuals.
The Holy Spirit of God is to be our teacher and our guide, not man.

 

[Joseph G]

Excerpt from DNA - God's Information Code

DNA: God’s Information Code

DNA in living creatures shows strong evidence of a Creator. It carries information that cannot have occurred by natural forces but came by intelligent design.

lifehopeandtruth.com

Why evolution is impossible​

Dr. Gitt, a former professor of information systems, explains, “The basic flaw of all evolutionary views is the origin of the information in living beings. It has never been shown that a coding system and semantic information could originate by itself [through matter]. … The information theorems predict that this will never be possible. A purely material origin of life is thus [ruled out]” (In the Beginning Was Information, 2005, p. 123)..

It is literally impossible that DNA, in all its majestic complexity, accuracy and necessity to life, could have evolved. This would be like saying that Darwin’s Origin of the Species came into existence without a writer or a preexisting concept of language!

Several notable scientists who were formerly proponents of evolution have reversed their views based on the discoveries of the information found in DNA.

Dean Kenyon, a biology professor who repudiated his earlier book on Darwinian evolution, stated: “This new realm of molecular genetics [is] where we see the most compelling evidence of design on the Earth” (quoted by Lee Strobel in The Case for a Creator, 2004, p. 221).

One of the world’s most famous atheists, Professor Antony Flew, admitted he couldn’t explain how DNA was created and developed through evolution, and came to accept the need for an intelligent source to have been involved in the making of the DNA code.

“At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England. …

“Biologists’ investigation of DNA ‘has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce [life], that intelligence must have been involved,’ Flew says in the new video, ‘Has Science Discovered God?’” (Richard Ostling, “Leading Atheist Now Believes in God,” Dec. 9, 2004).

What does the design of DNA mean for you?​

The discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 led to the understanding of how information in the form of a code was necessary for life. But such complex information cannot originate from material simply falling into place; it has to come from an intelligent Creator.

The DNA replication process shows how this information is passed on with very little error using a code that is optimally designed to build the proteins necessary for life.

Today, with advances in technology, we can see some of the smallest parts of God’s creation, providing further evidence of God’s intelligent design.

God and DNA​

Reproduction and life itself provide awesome testimony to the creative genius of God. As David expressed it poetically:

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well” (Psalm 139:13-14).

David even hints at God’s knowledge of the information that makes us before we are even formed: “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them” (verse 16).

Our loving Creator knows our physical makeup, down to the level of DNA. But even more important, He has a plan for transforming us to become like Him—the children of God!

The apostle John wrote, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” We are to “be like Him” (verse 2), developing the spiritual DNA displayed in the fruit of the Spirit.

Learn more in our articles “How to Become a Child of God” and “The Fruit of the Spirit.”

Evidence of Creation​

Study DNA and other wonders of God’s creation, and you will find evidence of intelligent design.

“What may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20).

Are you willing to see the evidence of God in His creation? Will you prove to yourself that He exists? And if He does, will you seek to obey Him?

Additional articles on this subject can be found in our section “Is There a God?”

 

[sfs]

It's not that everyone means the wrong thing by the word "why," but that common usage isn't the best starting point for a discussion such as this. While common usage can allow "why" to have a broader sense and does include "how" and "what," there is a clear aspect of "why" that is unique to the word itself that is a better fit with the notion of an explanation than its broader semantic range.

My point here is that I think this is false. Most explanations -- and all explanations deployed by science -- are in terms of proximate causes. Why did the car stop running? Because I ran out of gas. That is an explanation, the kind of explanation that science offers. By ruling out that kind of explanation from the discussion, you've ruled out the entirety of science, and yet you argue as if science were offering your explanations. It doesn't.

Whether they are aware of it or not, answers to theological questions have a great deal of influence over how people think. But the effects are subtle, because they are often adopted theological beliefs that are largely unchallenged in broader cultures and only become obvious if the individual is put into a culture that predominantly holds different theological beliefs. My suggestion was not a suggestion that your understanding should follow, but that if you don't recognize the dependence perhaps you haven't fully considered the implications of believing in an omnipresent, omnisicient God on "ordinary" matter and such.

Yes, I get that this is your claim. That's clear. What isn't clear is why anyone should think your claim is true. It is a fact that one cannot distinguish scientific work done by theists from that done by atheists. You have yet to offer any evidence for these supposed effects on scientific understanding of matter.

Don't they? Do you believe that DNA and electrons exist independently, or that they are created and continually sustained by God alone?

You seem to be missing the point. My answer to your second question may change, but whatever that answer is, it has no bearing on what I think DNA and electrons are.

 

[Job 33:6]

We did not know about DNA until 1968. I read the book by James Watson and Francis Crick. The double helix.

Sure. And that's why DNA isn't mentioned in the Bible. Because the Bible was written at an earlier time.

 

[tonychanyt]

It has never been shown that a coding system and semantic information could originate by itself

Let proposition P1 = Information creates itself.

True?

 

[The Barbarian]

Why evolution is impossible​

Dr. Gitt, a former professor of information systems, explains, “The basic flaw of all evolutionary views is the origin of the information in living beings. It has never been shown that a coding system and semantic information could originate by itself [through matter]. … The information theorems predict that this will never be possible. A purely material origin of life is thus [ruled out]” (In the Beginning Was Information, 2005, p. 123)..

Gitt has it wrong. In fact, information theory shows that every new mutation in a population increases information. And that theory is what tells us how to make the internet work and how to send reliable radio signals over billions of kilometers of space with very low-powered transmitters. All of this is impossible according to Gitt's assumptions. If you'd like to see the numbers for increase in information by random mutations, I can show you a simple example.

A purely material origin of life is thus [ruled out]”

Genesis 1:24 And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done.

Nothing personal Doc, but I'll go with God on this one. Now, notice that there's nothing that says God can't create the rules at the beginning for purely material processes to do His will. For some reason, creationists aren't comfortable with a God that great and powerful.

One of the world’s most famous atheists, Professor Antony Flew, admitted he couldn’t explain how DNA was created and developed through evolution

Flew apparently was completely unaware that evolution is not about the origin of nucleic acids. However, we do observe how existing DNA is formed and developed in evolution. Maybe you should have checked with a biologist instead of a philosopher.

Flew made it clear that he had not become a Christian; he had moved from atheism to a form of deism. This is important: it is a mistake to claim that Flew embraced classical theism in any substantial form; rather, he came to believe merely that an intelligent orderer of the universe existed. He did not believe that this "being" had any further agency in the universe, and he maintained his opposition to the vast majority of doctrinal positions adopted by the global faiths, such as belief in the after-life, or a divine being who actively cares for or loves the universe, or the resurrection of Christ, and argued for the idea of an "Aristotelian God".

BBC - Will & Testament: Antony Flew: the atheist who changed his mind

I was saddened to learn of the death, at the age of 87, of the philosopher Antony Flew, who was one of the 20th century's most significant contributors to the...

www.bbc.co.uk

Were you aware that you were promoting deism?

The discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 led to the understanding of how information in the form of a code was necessary for life. But such complex information cannot originate from material simply falling into place; it has to come from an intelligent Creator.

Sorry to disappoint, but...

All of the bases in DNA and RNA have now been found in meteorites​

The discovery adds to evidence that suggests life’s precursors came from space
All of the bases in DNA and RNA have now been found in meteorites

It's a very reckless move to base one's faith in God on what is not yet known by man.

Study DNA and other wonders of God’s creation, and you will find evidence of intelligent design.

If you suppose that God built into the universe, the rules that would bring forth the needed components of DNA by natural processes. But that's as far as the facts will take you.

 

[Psalm 27]

Genesis 1