Christian Faith Requires the Acceptance of Evolution

[gluadys]

It is interesting, is it not, how worldly thinking infiltrates the minds of believers?

I have faith in that God loves us to bits regardless of your academic brilliance.

Whether creation happen 15 billions years ago or in the last 15 minutes has no bearing on God's love. Making out that one must believe something or other is nothing less than a 'works' based salvation plan put up by your local church insurance company.

I don't buy my salvation from the church.

I think you are missing an important point here, Wayseer, that has nothing to do with 'works-based' salvation.

First, we believe that God has power to create, to save, to justify, to overcome evil. But over and above God's power, we also believe that God has a nature, a character e.g. God is holy, righteous, loving, merciful, just, forgiving, etc. And God is true and faithful. A God who is merely powerful, without any further qualification, is not the God we believe in.

Second, if we were speaking in the abstract, about possible worlds that have not been made yet, and posed the question "Could God make such a world in 15 billion years or 15 minutes?" the answer would be: "either one". This question relates to God's power only, and God's power permits both possibilities.

But if we are speaking of THIS world, the one we live in and experience, and we ask "Could God have created this world 15 billion years ago or 15 minutes ago?" then we must answer that he could not have created it 15 minutes ago.

Why not? Not because he lacks the power to do so, but because he is not that kind of God in character.

Think about it. If God created the world 15 minutes ago, then for the last 15 minutes, God has been lying to me every minute. God has been lying to everyone in the world for the last 15 minutes, with the sole exception of those born less than 15 minutes ago. But God will lie to them as well, if he allows them to believe that the memories of their parents and the histories taught them by their teachers are of real events.

Most importantly, everything written in scripture is a pack of lies, because none of it was written in the last 15 minutes. None of the supposed authors really lived or really witnessed the work of God to which they testify. So the salvation you claim is not in jeopardy really is in jeopardy, because it was gained through a non-existent event which happened a non-existent 2000 years ago.

So, it does have a bearing on God's love. The sort of God who would engage in this kind of grand deception of humanity is not a God of love nor a God of truth and definitely not a God one can rely on for salvation.

 

[createdtoworship]

I think you are missing an important point here, Wayseer, that has nothing to do with 'works-based' salvation.

First, we believe that God has power to create, to save, to justify, to overcome evil. But over and above God's power, we also believe that God has a nature, a character e.g. God is holy, righteous, loving, merciful, just, forgiving, etc. And God is true and faithful. A God who is merely powerful, without any further qualification, is not the God we believe in.

Second, if we were speaking in the abstract, about possible worlds that have not been made yet, and posed the question "Could God make such a world in 15 billion years or 15 minutes?" the answer would be: "either one". This question relates to God's power only, and God's power permits both possibilities.

But if we are speaking of THIS world, the one we live in and experience, and we ask "Could God have created this world 15 billion years ago or 15 minutes ago?" then we must answer that he could not have created it 15 minutes ago.

Why not? Not because he lacks the power to do so, but because he is not that kind of God in character.

Think about it. If God created the world 15 minutes ago, then for the last 15 minutes, God has been lying to me every minute. God has been lying to everyone in the world for the last 15 minutes, with the sole exception of those born less than 15 minutes ago. But God will lie to them as well, if he allows them to believe that the memories of their parents and the histories taught them by their teachers are of real events.

Most importantly, everything written in scripture is a pack of lies, because none of it was written in the last 15 minutes. None of the supposed authors really lived or really witnessed the work of God to which they testify. So the salvation you claim is not in jeopardy really is in jeopardy, because it was gained through a non-existent event which happened a non-existent 2000 years ago.

So, it does have a bearing on God's love. The sort of God who would engage in this kind of grand deception of humanity is not a God of love nor a God of truth and definitely not a God one can rely on for salvation.

God could have created us with memory in tact and age dating factors involved including tree rings and carbon properties intact and all of this only 15 minutes ago. He is a bigger God than you make Him out to be.

 

[Keachian]

God could have created us with memory in tact and age dating factors involved including tree rings and carbon properties intact and all of this only 15 minutes ago. He is a bigger God than you make Him out to be.

It's not about whether he could or couldn't, we agree that he could. However the theological ramifications of him having created 15 minutes ago make Christianity and salvation through Christ void. It also makes God not a God worth worshiping due to this deception.

 

[wayseer]

I think you are missing an important point here, Wayseer, that has nothing to do with 'works-based' salvation.

The point that you miss is that whenever God created the universe has no bearing on God's love and grace.

 

[artybloke]

The point that you miss is that whenever God created the universe has no bearing on God's love and grace.

No one is missing anything, because the kind of God who creates the world 15 minutes ago and pretends it was 4.6 billion years ago, is a liar, not worth believing in.

 

[gluadys]

God could have created us with memory in tact and age dating factors involved including tree rings and carbon properties intact and all of this only 15 minutes ago. He is a bigger God than you make Him out to be.

And that is how he would be lying to us---giving us memories of things that never happened. Even giving trees characteristics that are generated by a history that never existed.

That is making God smaller, not bigger. That is taking away from God something vastly more important than his power: it is taking away his faithfulness, his truth, his love and righteousness.

 

[lucaspa]

It is interesting, is it not, how worldly thinking infiltrates the minds of believers?

Where in my statement is there "worldly thinkiing"? It's purely theological and faith thinking that God created.

Whether creation happen 15 billions years ago or in the last 15 minutes has no bearing on God's love.

If creation happened in the last 15 minutes has great bearing on God's love. Wayseer, stop and think about what you are saying here when you say "last 15 minutes". Don't you have memories of your life past 15 minutes ago? Shoot, we have posts on this forum supposedly more than 15 minutes ago!

So, if the world was created 15 minutes ago all those memories and indications of previous times are false! JESUS NEVER LIVED. Jesus supposedly lived nearly 2,000 years ago. But you are saying the earth and everything was created 15 minutes ago. So everything we know about Jesus is a lie.

Now, what kind of loving god constructs such a monstrous lie?

What I am saying has nothing to do with the "world" and everything to do with God.

 

[lucaspa]

God could have created us with memory in tact and age dating factors involved including tree rings and carbon properties intact and all of this only 15 minutes ago. He is a bigger God than you make Him out to be.

Welcome to Oomphalos. This idea was put forward in a book Oomphalos written by Rev. Gosse in 1857.

Now, you say "all our memories intact". But those memories are false, aren't they? After all, if God created 15 minutes ago the events those memories refer to never happened. Guess what? Some of those memories we have are of people who say they lived when Jesus lived and saw the Resurrected Jesus. But that never happened. God didn't send His only Son to die for us. Jesus never died for our sins. Because the world was only created 15 minutes ago.

Do you see the enormity of what you are proposing? It's nothing less than the destruction of Christianity. We now no longer have a loving god we can trust, but a god who perpetrates lies even beyond the Prince of Lies!

This is what got Rev. Gosse in trouble for proposing that the world only looks old. That God created 6,000 years ago but put those tree rings, carbon dates, sedimentary rock layers, metamorphic rocks, etc. to have the earth look old:

n 1844 a pamphlet entitled Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, espousing an evolutionary viewpoint, was published. In response Philip Gosse, a minister in the Fundamentalist group called the Plymouth Brethren, wrote Oomphalos, published in 1857. In it Gosse made the first written argument that creation only LOOKS old. In it, Gosse even argued that Adam and Eve had navels because that is what one would expect in God-created creatures. Gosse asked his friend Rev. Charles Kingsley, a minister and author of Westward Ho! to write a forward for the book. Rev. Kingsley refused and wrote the following letter to Gosse.

"You have given the 'vestiges of creation theory' [the pamphlet discussed above] the best shove forward which it has ever had. I have a special dislike for that book; but, honestly, I felt my heart melting towards it as I read Oomphalos. Shall I tell you the truth? It is best. Your book is the first that ever made me doubt the doctrine of absolute creation, and I fear it will make hundreds do so. Your book tends to prove this - that if we accept the fact of absolute creation, God becomes God-the-Sometime-Deceiver. I do not mean merely in the case of fossils which pretend to be the bones of dead animals; but in ...your newly created Adam's navel, you make God tell a lie. It is not my reason, but my conscience which revolts here ... I cannot ...believe that God has written on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie for all mankind. To this painful dilemma you have brought me, and will, I fear, bring hundreds. It will not make me throw away my Bible. I trust and hope. I know in whom I have believed, and can trust Him to bring my faith safe through this puzzle, as He has through others; but for the young I do fear. I would not for a thousand pounds put your book into my children's hands."

 

[lucaspa]

so you can take bases, sugar, and phosphate and make DNA? I dont' think so. I think it takes a lot more than that.

No, it doesn't. DNA is made of nucleotides. DNA is a long chain polymer of nucleotides. Nucleotides are phosphate, deoxyribose, and a base. Those compounds react easily to make a nucleotide. In fact, a nucleotide is how they react. Getting one nucleotide to react with another to have a 2 nucleotide DNA is also easy. From there to add nucleotides to get 3, then 4, then 5, then 6, then 7 etc. is also easy. All you really have to do is mix the nucleotides, warm the solution a bit, and they will react to give you a nucleic acid. If the nucleotides are those of deoxyribose, then the nucleic acid is DNA. Read a bit about the chemical reactions here: http://www.rsc.org/Education/Teachers/Resources/cfb/nucleicacids.htm

Now, the DNA you get will not have any particular sequence of bases. The apparatus in a modern cell is as complex as it is to ensure that, when DNA is copied, the newly synthesized DNA chain will have the same sequence of bases as the original. All the "complexity" is to guarantee a particular base sequence. But just any old base sequence? Easier than making a pie.

 

[Tzaousios]

First, Augustine was not the founder of evangelicalism, and he has some pretty bad doctrines he held to, including mixing fatalism into christianity.

I see that you are still perpetuating this falsehood for rhetorical effect. Hvae you got around to reading those sections in The City of God that you said you were interested in and I referenced?

 

[shernren]

Firstly, I think there is a qualitative difference between claiming that the world was created fifteen minutes ago and 6,000 years ago. I have memories that are older than fifteen minutes, so the former claim impinges directly on my integrity; but my memories are not jeopardized if the world is in fact 6,000 years old.

Secondly, if we push the idea a bit further, wouldn't it mean that God would be lying the moment He created anything ex nihilo? After all, tree rings are not the only evidence of history.

Suppose that the YECs were correct that creation occurred a few thousand years ago, and that God had created Adam with a knowledge of chemistry and stellar physics. Adam, examining his own body, would have concluded that the universe is in fact many billions of years old. Why? Because he would have known that carbon-12 can only be produced by stars of a certain mass, and then spewed out into the interstellar medium by a supernova, to be picked up only when a new planetary nebula has formed.

A planet with a preponderance of carbon-12 has a definite history, no less than a tree with a certain number of rings also has a definite history. And if the very atoms of our bodies betray an age for the universe, it is hard to see how God could create anything at all ex nihilo without instantly being accused of lying.

Now, it doesn't change the fact that the best scientific interpretation of the age of the Earth and the universe puts them both at billions of years old, and that creationists are being rather silly when they think that they have better science that says otherwise. But I don't see anything theologically questionable about God having created the universe with a "false age", for aren't we TEs the first to say that God never tells us its "true age" anywhere in the Scriptures? And as long as that false age doesn't impinge on my own existence, or on the existence of individuals whom I have known to exist and who had a real relationship with God, then I can't find any theological fault with that.

 

[createdtoworship]

No, it doesn't. DNA is made of nucleotides. DNA is a long chain polymer of nucleotides. Nucleotides are phosphate, deoxyribose, and a base. Those compounds react easily to make a nucleotide. In fact, a nucleotide is how they react. Getting one nucleotide to react with another to have a 2 nucleotide DNA is also easy. From there to add nucleotides to get 3, then 4, then 5, then 6, then 7 etc. is also easy. All you really have to do is mix the nucleotides, warm the solution a bit, and they will react to give you a nucleic acid. If the nucleotides are those of deoxyribose, then the nucleic acid is DNA. Read a bit about the chemical reactions here: Chemistry for Biologists: Nucleic acids

Now, the DNA you get will not have any particular sequence of bases. The apparatus in a modern cell is as complex as it is to ensure that, when DNA is copied, the newly synthesized DNA chain will have the same sequence of bases as the original. All the "complexity" is to guarantee a particular base sequence. But just any old base sequence? Easier than making a pie.

so how does all this mumbo jumbo make your case that DNA evolved?

 

[Incariol]

so how does all this mumbo jumbo make your case that DNA evolved?

It's basic chemistry. The fact that you don't comprehend it doesn't invalidate his point.

 

[createdtoworship]

It's basic chemistry. The fact that you don't comprehend it doesn't invalidate his point.

he said that nucleotides are the reason DNA evolved. I was questioning him is all. He can't really accept that belief.

 

[lucaspa]

so how does all this mumbo jumbo make your case that DNA evolved?

First, not mumbo jumbo, but simple chemistry using common chemical reactions.

Now, remember back in post #276 -- http://www.christianforums.com/t7570424-28/#post58360449 -- I talked about the formation of DNA and the evolution of directed protein synthesis. DNA forms by chemistry. Directed protein synthesis evolved.

I gave references how directed protein synthesis involving DNA as the hereditary molecule evolved, including a paper that walks you thru it step by step. The paper is online. Read it.

 

[lucaspa]

he said that nucleotides are the reason DNA evolved. I was questioning him is all. He can't really accept that belief.

I did not say that. I said DNA is a polymer of nucleotides. Do you know what a polymer is? It is a molecule that is a chain of simpler molecules joined together. Kind of like a train composed of individual cars. Nylon is a man-made polymer. Proteins are a polymer of amino acids. Each protein is composed of several amino acids linked together chemically.

DNA is a polymer of nucleotides. The nucleotides are analogous to the cars; the train is the DNA.

DNA exists because the chemical reactions to form DNA from nucleotides are common and easy.

 

[lucaspa]

Firstly, I think there is a qualitative difference between claiming that the world was created fifteen minutes ago and 6,000 years ago. I have memories that are older than fifteen minutes, so the former claim impinges directly on my integrity; but my memories are not jeopardized if the world is in fact 6,000 years old.

Secondly, if we push the idea a bit further, wouldn't it mean that God would be lying the moment He created anything ex nihilo? After all, tree rings are not the only evidence of history.

Suppose that the YECs were correct that creation occurred a few thousand years ago, and that God had created Adam with a knowledge of chemistry and stellar physics. Adam, examining his own body, would have concluded that the universe is in fact many billions of years old. Why? Because he would have known that carbon-12 can only be produced by stars of a certain mass, and then spewed out into the interstellar medium by a supernova, to be picked up only when a new planetary nebula has formed.

A planet with a preponderance of carbon-12 has a definite history, no less than a tree with a certain number of rings also has a definite history.

Hmmm. Interesting. You are saying that tree rings are the product of a biological history and C12 is the product of a stellar history. And the stellar history forbids a young universe just as much as the biological history does.

And if the very atoms of our bodies betray an age for the universe, it is hard to see how God could create anything at all ex nihilo without instantly being accused of lying.

How about the universe with nothing but energy and spacetime? How is that lying?

The original hydrogen, helium, and lithium results from the phase transition from energy to matter when the universe cools. Then, of course, the rest is a continuation of that history.

But I don't see anything theologically questionable about God having created the universe with a "false age", for aren't we TEs the first to say that God never tells us its "true age" anywhere in the Scriptures?

But He does tell us the universe's true age in His Creation. Shernren, here you are separating science from God. According to TE, that separation doesn't exist. Science is simply reading God's other book like we read scripture. Both books are from God.

The problem with creating the universe with a "false age" is that God is lying to us in His Creation. His Creation says 13.4 billion years but "appearance of age" says that is a lie.

 

[createdtoworship]

I did not say that. I said DNA is a polymer of nucleotides. Do you know what a polymer is? It is a molecule that is a chain of simpler molecules joined together. Kind of like a train composed of individual cars. Nylon is a man-made polymer. Proteins are a polymer of amino acids. Each protein is composed of several amino acids linked together chemically.

DNA is a polymer of nucleotides. The nucleotides are analogous to the cars; the train is the DNA.

DNA exists because the chemical reactions to form DNA from nucleotides are common and easy.

well how did the polymer know which nucleotides to include and when, thats the trick with DNA.

 

[Incariol]

well how did the polymer know which nucleotides to include and when, thats the trick with DNA.

From RNA to Protein Synthesis - YouTube

 

[createdtoworship]

From RNA to Protein Synthesis - YouTube

in a protein it's the same problem, but I wasn't talking about proteins anyway.

How did all those molecules learn to zip themselves up that way?