Esther and Evolution

[Hairy Tic]

To make the argument simple:

When reason about evolutional force, I have not heard about ANYTHING related to God. If God is supporting the whole process, this VITAL support is apparently having less than a minimum role in any scientific argument. The argument of evolution process given by TE and by atheist are essential "identical" (challenge anyone to give even ONE example, which shows the difference). TE will NEVER call any supernatural process to account for ANYTHING in evolution.

In this situation, how could the TE be a viable concept regard to evolution?

## Easily. Historical method does not require God, and rightly - yet God is Lord of history. So with evolution. To bring God into the study of evolution would be totally wrong - how can He be brought into a reality and the study of it, when He already fills all reality ? Those who want evolution turned into a branch of theology are implying that God is so small that He needs human help

To drag the supernatural into such things is asking for trouble - the supernatural can't be reduplicated or tested: the sciences can work that way; it is how they work. But the supernatural allows anything - which makes science impossible. This has nothing to do with being Godless.

 

[Assyrian]

## And a nice example of election: "Homo sapiens sapiens have I loved, & Uintatherium have I hated".

...though they were not yet evolved and had done nothing either good or bad

 

[juvenissun]

## Easily. Historical method does not require God, and rightly - yet God is Lord of history. So with evolution. To bring God into the study of evolution would be totally wrong - how can He be brought into a reality and the study of it, when He already fills all reality ? Those who want evolution turned into a branch of theology are implying that God is so small that He needs human help

To drag the supernatural into such things is asking for trouble - the supernatural can't be reduplicated or tested: the sciences can work that way; it is how they work. But the supernatural allows anything - which makes science impossible. This has nothing to do with being Godless.

God's control on human history and God's intervention on evolution process (if evolution were true) are two different processes. Do not mix them together.

God can make some fishes happy and some fishes sad. But in order to make some of them into crocs, God needs to do something else than just "support" it in the background. Otherwise, it becomes deism. (right? Mallon?)

 

[shernren]

God's control on human history and God's intervention on evolution process (if evolution were true) are two different processes.

Why?

 

[lucaspa]

If God is supporting the whole process, this VITAL support is apparently having less than a minimum role in any scientific argument. The argument of evolution process given by TE and by atheist are essential "identical" (challenge anyone to give even ONE example, which shows the difference). TE will NEVER call any supernatural process to account for ANYTHING in evolution.

In this situation, how could the TE be a viable concept regard to evolution?

It can't have any role in a scientific argument. The idea that God provides the vital sustaining of all physical processes adds a component to causes: a supernatural component. Science deals only with material components of causes. Science, as science, is unable to even comment on whether there isa supernatural component of causes.

So, yes, atheists and TEs are going to agree on the material component of causes in science, including evolution. The difference is that atheists maintain that those material components are the only causes while TE maintains that there is an additional component: a supernatural one that sustains the material component.

Is that clearer?

Science is neutral about the existence of God. You and fellow creationists try to push science off neutral by demanding an additional material cause: direct manufacture by God. When you don't get that additional material cause, then you scream that God "has a less than minimal role". But that is only because God doesn't fill the role you want Him to have.

And, in doing this, you play right into the hands of the atheists. You assume exactly what atheists do: if something is "natural", then God has no part in it. Creationists are atheists in disguise.

 

[Hairy Tic]

...though they were not yet evolved and had done nothing either good or bad

## Exactly. And perhaps this can be applied on a larger scale, to mammals, planets and galaxies; perhaps the N.T. sort of election - the salvific sort - is a special application of a much larger, even cosmic, pattern. Which would suggest/emphasise that to create at all, is an act of free grace.

 

[Hairy Tic]

It can't have any role in a scientific argument. The idea that God provides the vital sustaining of all physical processes adds a component to causes: a supernatural component. Science deals only with material components of causes. Science, as science, is unable to even comment on whether there isa supernatural component of causes.

So, yes, atheists and TEs are going to agree on the material component of causes in science, including evolution. The difference is that atheists maintain that those material components are the only causes while TE maintains that there is an additional component: a supernatural one that sustains the material component.

Is that clearer?

Science is neutral about the existence of God. You and fellow creationists try to push science off neutral by demanding an additional material cause: direct manufacture by God. When you don't get that additional material cause, then you scream that God "has a less than minimal role". But that is only because God doesn't fill the role you want Him to have.

And, in doing this, you play right into the hands of the atheists. You assume exactly what atheists do: if something is "natural", then God has no part in it. Creationists are atheists in disguise.

## Clear, simple and short

God cannot be found a place in science, because He "already" has it. By trying to give him one, creationists are giving Him one that is limited, small. We cannot give to God what does not exceed our nature - if we are to give to God at all, He must give to us, to receive from us what He has first given. This is true in worship, in soteriology - & in science.

God is so totally responsible for everything in science (& in all creation), that He cannot be added to it as an explanatory device - how can the Infinite & Transcendent God have anything added to Him, or be added to His own creation ? God is "already" totally necessary to all creatures, so he cannot become more necessary. So he cannot become more necessary to science. So in that sense, the universe is atheistic, and science is atheistic.

So He is "more than" an explanatory device or method - He is as it were the atmosphere & environment & spirit within which the existence of science is possible, and of science, & of its methods. He is too great to be brought to what He contains. "All things are in Christ", & consist in Him - science included; so how can He be brought into it ? "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" - that is very relevant to science, in its own way.

There is a less theological reason that science cannot have God as a principle in its methods - which God is being talked about ? Academic studies are not confessionally based; religious tests are not necessary for judging the competence of scholars and scientists. If God were introduced, a lot of scientists would be disqualified, not because they are bad as scientists, but because their theology is the wrong one. To turf out those who are skilled in their work, not because they lack skill, but because their religion or lack of it counts against them, is to judge them by completely irrelevant standards; it introduces tests of belief where they have no place. If a Baptist, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, Communist or feminist is good as as a scientist, that is all that matters where science is concerned. People can't be admitted for non-scientific reasons - what has the life of the iguana or the counting of tree-rings or the discovery of comets or the evolution of cats to do with one's religion or politics ?

Science is in its own way theological w/out being "made theological" - for it is the study of God's works. Some will see this, others will not. That does not make the reality of God-as-immanent-in-His-works any less. Scientists are good theologians by being good scientists, not by taking up theology when their vocation is instead to the natural sciences. Knowingly or not, they preach, even evangelise, by the work they do; not by climbing into a pulpit. What could be more God-centred & Christ-centred than that ?

Or don't creationists believe that "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork" ?

 

[Greg1234]

## Easily. Historical method does not require God, and rightly - yet God is Lord of history. So with evolution. To bring God into the study of evolution would be totally wrong - how can He be brought into a reality and the study of it, when He already fills all reality ? Those who want evolution turned into a branch of theology are implying that God is so small that He needs human help

You have that backwards. Darwinism is being brought into a metaphysical subject. The scientific evidence refuting Darwinism is met by the "TE" asking Creationists to re interpret the bible to fit Darwinian origins.

To drag the supernatural into such things is asking for trouble - the supernatural can't be reduplicated or tested: the sciences can work that way; it is how they work. But the supernatural allows anything - which makes science impossible. This has nothing to do with being Godless.

The super natural is already there. The evidence is laid out and by default is in compliance with Creationism. There's no reason to drag materialistic beliefs into it. The first task of course is trying to get you people to calm down and see what is in front of you as you are still high on the momentum of material phenomena.

 

[juvenissun]

Why?

One involves creation and the other does not.
(please don't go back to the definition of creation again.)

 

[juvenissun]

So, yes, atheists and TEs are going to agree on the material component of causes in science, including evolution. The difference is that atheists maintain that those material components are the only causes while TE maintains that there is an additional component: a supernatural one that sustains the material component.

Is that clearer?

That is what I said. And I don't think your fellow TE friends will agree with you on that.

By the way, what does the word "sustain" mean? Does that means "maintain"? Anything new happens during the "sustaining"?

 

[Assyrian]

One involves creation...

That would be history then?

Psalm 102:18 Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD:

Psalm 104:29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. 30 When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

Isaiah 41:19 I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together, 20 that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Isaiah 43:1 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

Isaiah 45:7 I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.

Isaiah 48:7 They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, 'Behold, I knew them.' ... 14 "Assemble, all of you, and listen! who among them has declared these things? The LORD loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.

Isaiah 54:16 Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy;

Ezek 21:28 Thus says the Lord GOD concerning the Ammonites ... 30 In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.

...and the other does not.

(please don't go back to the definition of creation again.)

 

[juvenissun]

That would be history then?

Psalm 102:18 Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD:

Psalm 104:29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. 30 When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

Isaiah 41:19 I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together, 20 that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Isaiah 43:1 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

Isaiah 45:7 I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.

Isaiah 48:7 They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, 'Behold, I knew them.' ... 14 "Assemble, all of you, and listen! who among them has declared these things? The LORD loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.

Isaiah 54:16 Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy;

Ezek 21:28 Thus says the Lord GOD concerning the Ammonites ... 30 In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.

Human history is NOT God's creation. Human is.

 

[theFijian]

One involves creation and the other does not.
(please don't go back to the definition of creation again.)

Only a deist would say that!

 

[theFijian]

Human history is NOT God's creation. Human is.

So you say God has never played an active part in human history? What do you call the Incarnation then? I wonder what Mark Kennedy would say to all of this...

 

[Assyrian]

Human history is NOT God's creation. Human is.

Should I just tippex out those verses, or tear out the whole page?

 

[theFijian]

Should I just tippex out those verses, or tear out the whole page?

Maybe they aren't to be taken literally?

 

[Assyrian]

Heaven forfend!

 

[gluadys]

That is what I said. And I don't think your fellow TE friends will agree with you on that.

By the way, what does the word "sustain" mean? Does that means "maintain"? Anything new happens during the "sustaining"?

"maintain" means 1) to take regular preventive measures to prevent loss of function--such as changing the oil in your car's engine on a regular basis--and 2) making regular checks to be sure everything is functioning well and take corrective measures when it isn't. Between such checks maintenance does not assist the function of the process. (In this, it is like the god of deism or the god of the gaps who only drops in on occasion to see that all is ok, but is not active in nature as long as all is ok.)

"sustain" means to uphold the very functioning of the process at all times. Without the sustaining action the process could not take place at all. One who "maintains" need not be always present and need not be active unless it is necessary to restore a function. One who sustains must be always present and active as no process can function without sustenance. God's sustaining action must be at least as constant as breathing, possibly more so.

 

[juvenissun]

"maintain" means 1) to take regular preventive measures to prevent loss of function--such as changing the oil in your car's engine on a regular basis--and 2) making regular checks to be sure everything is functioning well and take corrective measures when it isn't. Between such checks maintenance does not assist the function of the process. (In this, it is like the god of deism or the god of the gaps who only drops in on occasion to see that all is ok, but is not active in nature as long as all is ok.)

"sustain" means to uphold the very functioning of the process at all times. Without the sustaining action the process could not take place at all. One who "maintains" need not be always present and need not be active unless it is necessary to restore a function. One who sustains must be always present and active as no process can function without sustenance. God's sustaining action must be at least as constant as breathing, possibly more so.

1. So, does our Lord sustains this universe mean that He has to work 24/7? What a poor lord if it were true.

2. Does the sustaining of every functions continuously include the appearance of new functions? If there were no new function, how did a chimp become a human? If new function appears, what does "sustain" mean anyway?

 

[juvenissun]

Should I just tippex out those verses, or tear out the whole page?

My response is short and sweet comment to all verses your listed.
If you have problems on any particular one, we can talk about it.