Evolution and God's Creation: where's the necessary conflict?

[AV1611VET]

I have pointed out to him a dozen times at least that just because Adam prefigures Christ it does not mean Adam is figurative.

Indeed, and note also what Jude says here:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

That's hardly the language of allegory.

 

[mark kennedy]

Indeed, and note also what Jude says here:That's hardly the language of allegory.

Of course it's not, it's part of a genealogy from Genesis. I don't know that much about the book of Enoch but it was obviously based on Genesis.

 

[Assyrian]

I have pointed out to him a dozen times at least that just because Adam prefigures Christ it does not mean Adam is figurative.

It is odd you should point that out so often when I never made any such a claim. I suppose it is always easier to refute a claim I don't make, than deal with the one I do. Which is, if Paul is interpreting Genesis figuratively in a passage, you can't claim the passage says Genesis is to be interpreted literally.

Paul was clearly a Creationist

Aren't we all.

and regarded Adam and Eve as our first parents.

No Paul never mentioned that.

I did this exposition of Romans for shernen in our formal debate,

Sorry I missed that bit.

The book of Romans tells us that God's invisible attributes and eternal nature have been clearly seen but we exchanged the truth of God for a lie (Rom 1:21,22). As a result the Law of Moses and the law of our own conscience bears witness against us, sometimes accusing, sometimes defending (Rom 2:15). We all sinned but now the righteousness of God has been revealed to be by faith through Christ (Rom 3:21). Abraham became the father of many nations by faith and the supernatural work of God (Rom 4:17). Through one man sin entered the world and through one man righteousness was revealed (Rom 5:12) or as shernen said it, Adam’s dragging everyone down into sin. It looks something like this:

1) Exchanging the truth of God for a lie, the creature for the Creator.
2) Both the Law and our conscience make our sin evident and obvious.
3) All sinned, but now the righteousness of God is revealed in Christ.
4) Abraham's lineage produced by a promise and a miracle through faith.
5) Through one man sin entered the world and death through sin.
6) Just as Christ was raised from the dead we walk in newness of life.
7) The law could not save but instead empowered sin to convict.
8) Freed from the law of sin and death (Adamic nature) we're saved.

It is interesting when you lay it out. Do you see how completely out of place the literal interpretation of Adam in chapter 5 is? Paul has already talked about the universality of the Law for Jew and Gentile, already talked about the universality of sin. He is talking about faith and the promise to Abraham and is leading up to dying to sin and newness of life, when suddenly he nose dives back into Genesis to tell us why we are all sinners.

However reading the passage as Paul says, with Adam as a figurative picture of Christ, that fits in beautifully.

1) Exchanging the truth of God for a lie, the creature for the Creator.
2) Both the Law and our conscience make our sin evident and obvious.
3) All sinned, but now the righteousness of God is revealed in Christ.
4) Abraham's lineage produced by a promise and a miracle through faith.
5) Adam illustrates the completeness of Christ's redemption
6) Just as Christ was raised from the dead we walk in newness of life.
7) The law could not save but instead empowered sin to convict.
8) Freed from the law of sin and death (Adamic nature) we're saved.

The Scriptures offer an explanation for man's fallen nature, how we inherited it exactly is not important but when Adam and Eve sinned we did not fast.

That is Augustine misquoting Basil, not scripture. Personally I did not have a bite to eat before 1960.

This is affirmed in the New Testament in no uncertain terms by Luke in his genealogy,

Where does Luke say Adam is responsible of our fallen nature or that we ate the fruit when Adam did? You ignored my point in post 9 that only Mormons interpret Adam son of God literally. Besides Luke's 'as was supposed' (3:23) does not count as 'no uncertain terms'.

in Paul's exposition of the Gospel in Romans

Paul says Rom 5:12 death spread to all men because all sinned. We don't sin because the curse of Genesis applies to us, Genesis applies to us because we sin.

and even Jesus called the marriage of Adam and Eve 'the beginning'.

And he said the disciples were with him from the beginning too John 15:27. Context is important.

I think I prefer the clear meaning of Paul's letters to some convoluted Darwinian revision of the text. Peter, who by the way believed in a global flood, had this to say about how some people treat Paul's wittings:

Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:15-16)​

It is amazing how often creationists quote this verse, yet there is never a hint they consider that they may be the ones who misunderstand Paul. You have just quoted Peter saying there are some things in Paul's letters that are hard to understand, yet you think your interpretation must be right because it is 'the clear meaning'.

I don't know where you get your 'convoluted Darwinian revision' from. What is a Darwinian revision anyway? Survival of the best interpretation? Claiming Romans really teaches evolution by natural selection? Or just a bit of mud slinging for want of a better argument?

 

[mark kennedy]

It's odd that the Theistic Evolution perspective is absent in Christian theism and that Christian theism is absent in theistic evolution.

Justification by the righteousness and obedience of Christ, is a doctrine that the Scripture teaches in very full terms, Rom. 5:18, 19, “By the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so, by the obedience of one, shall all be made righteous.” Here in one verse we are told that we have justification by Christ’s righteousness, and that there might be no room to understand the righteousness spoken of, merely of Christ’s atonement by his suffering the penalty. In the next verse it is put in other terms, and asserted that it is by Christ’s obedience we are made righteous. (Justification by Faith Alone by Jonathan Edwards. 1703-1758)​

Notice it's by one man's disobedience?

For all have sinned - In Adam, and in their own persons; by a sinful nature, sinful tempers, and sinful actions. And are fallen short of the glory of God - The supreme end of man; short of his image on earth, and the enjoyment of him in heaven. (John Wesley's Notes)​

Notice it's in Adam and their own persons.

Sin originated with Satan Isaiah 14:12-14, entered the world through Adam Romans 5:12, was, and is, universal, Christ alone excepted ; Romans 3:23; 1 Peter 2:22, incurs the penalties of spiritual and physical death ; Genesis 2:17; 3:19; Ezekiel 18:4,20; Romans 6:23 and has no remedy but in the sacrificial death of Christ ; Hebrews 9:26; Acts 4:12 availed of by faith Acts 13:38,39. Sin may be summarized as threefold: An act, the violation of, or want of obedience to the revealed will of God; a state, absence of righteousness; a nature, enmity toward God. (Scofield Commentary)[/indent]

Pretty good Bible scholar here saying that sin entered humanity through Adam

1. If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema. (The Council of Trent. The Fifth Session)​

Rome would seem to think you are cursed if you don't believe in original sin.

Genesis is about genealogy and lineage.

Genealogy: In Hebrew the term for genealogy or pedigree is "the book of the generations;" and because the oldest histories were usually drawn up on a genealogical basis, the expression often extended to the whole history, as is the case with the Gospel of St. Matthew, where "the book of the generation of Jesus Christ" includes the whole history contained in that Gospel. (Smith's Bible Dictionary)

So Genesis 5:1, "the book of the generations of Adam," wherein his descendants are traced down to Noah; Genesis 6:9, "the generations of Noah," the history of Noah and his sons; Genesis 10:1, "the generations of the sons of Noah," Shem, Ham, and Japhet, the oldest and most precious existing ethnological record; Genesis 11:10-26 "the generations of Shem," Genesis 11:27 "the generations of Terah," Abram's father; Genesis 25:12 "the generations of Ishmael," Genesis 25:19 "the generations of Isaac"; Genesis 36:1, "the generations of Esau"; Genesis 37:2, "the generations of Jacob"; Genesis 35:22-26, "the sons of Jacob," etc., repeated Exodus 1:1-5; also Exodus 46:8, a genealogical census of Israel when Jacob came down to Egypt; repeated in Exodus 6:16, etc., probably transcribed from a document, for the first part concerning Reuben and Simeon is quoted though Levi is the only tribe in question. (Fausset's Bible Dictionary)​

I'm not making this stuff up, I'm not inventing a new idea about how Romans 5 and Genesis is to be interrupted. Paul was anything but ambiguise, he was explicit as was Moses. They never answer this, did you ever notice that?​

 

[gluadys]

It's odd that the Theistic Evolution perspective is absent in Christian theism and that Christian theism is absent in theistic evolution.

Not odd at all. Science is not theology and theology is not science. Why should we import theism into a scientific discussion or science into a discussion of theology?

A mechanic may write poetry, but that is no reason publish a mechanic's repair manual in iambic pentameter.

 

[shernren]

Nice to see you still talk to TEs.

I'm not making this stuff up, I'm not inventing a new idea about how Romans 5 and Genesis is to be interrupted. Paul was anything but ambiguise, he was explicit as was Moses. They never answer this, did you ever notice that?

It would've been new to Paul. Remember, this is the guy who:

- stoned Stephen for giving a long historical exposition of Jewish behavior in Acts (although, admittedly, he wasn't a Christian when he did this) [Acts 7]

- told two of his proteges on separate occasions that "genealogies" led to useless dissension and placed them in the same category as myths [Titus 3:9, 1 Tim 3:4]

- regarded his own humanly impeccable pedigree as "worthless" in light of Christ's salvation [Php 3:4-8]

- argued in the very epistle of Romans itself that twins who had the same father and mother had extremely different destinies in the plan of God, and therefore descent from Israel wasn't enough to be in Israel [Romans 9]

Can you see this very same Paul making a genealogical argument in Romans 5? What more when he doesn't so much as mention "descent"!

It's interesting how in your exegesis of Romans 4 you said:

4) Abraham's lineage produced by a promise and a miracle through faith.

But what kind of lineage is this? Paul says explicitly in verse 11:

So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.

Whoa! Mark, he's your father. (Luke Skywalker: "Noooo!") And yet, you can't possibly claim to be biologically descended from him.

Adam was my father in sin, but that doesn't necessarily mean I was biologically descended from him, either. And that doesn't mean I'm in him now either. I'm in Christ. Otherwise what hope could I possibly have?

 

[Assyrian]

All I got from this entire post, Assyrian, is that determining whether Genesis is literal or figurative is simply a matter of choice.

You brought up typology AV and I answered you. I actually spent some time looking up the use of tupos in the first and second century. Now you could either address my points, or make something up I didn't say. I'll take it from your not replying to my actual post that you don't have an answer.

Your reference to Philo [of Alexandria] and the Apocrypha are also noted.

Hold that thought.

From Things to Come, by J. Dwight Pentecost:
[FONT=&quot]The prevailing method of interpretation among the Jews at the time of Christ was certainly the literal method of interpretation. Horne presents it thus:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The allegorical interpretation of the sacred Scriptures cannot be historically proved to have prevailed among the Jews from the time of the captivity, or to have been common with the Jews of Palestine at the time of Christ and his apostles.
Although the Sanhedrin and the hearers of Jesus often appealed to the Old Testament, yet they give no indication of the allegorical interpretation; even Josephus has nothing of it. The Platonic Jews of Egypt began in the first century, in imitation of the heathen Greeks, to interpret the Old Testament allegorically. Philo of Alexandria was distinguished among those Jews who practised this method; and he defends it as something new and before unheard of, and for that reason opposed by the other Jews. Jesus was not, therefore, in a situation in which he was compelled to comply with a prevailing custom of allegorical interpretation; for this method did not prevail at the time among the Jews, certainly not in Palestine, where Jesus taught.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Although the Sanhedrin and the hearers of Jesus often appealed to the Old Testament, yet they give no indication of the allegorical interpretation; [/FONT]
​

He may have had a point about the Sanhedrin, the Sadducees were literalists and when Jesus talked to Nicodemus a member of the Sanhedrin, he rebuked him for his inability to understand either Jesus' own metaphors or the figurative pictures of new birth in the OT John 3:10 Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

[FONT=&quot]even Josephus has nothing of it.[/FONT]
​

This would be the same Josephus who tells us Moses wrote in riddles allegories and when he needed to literally? 'some things wisely, but enigmatically, and others under a decent allegory, but still explains such things as required a direct explication plainly and expressly.'

[FONT=&quot]The Platonic Jews of Egypt began in the first century, in imitation of the heathen Greeks, to interpret the Old Testament allegorically. Philo of Alexandria was distinguished among those Jews who practised this method[/FONT]
​

So when Paul used allegory, Gal 4:24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar, was this something Paul learned from the Platonist Jews of Alexandria? From what they say, either Paul has a great respect of Philo and his Platonist allegorical interpretation, or allegory has much deeper roots in Jewish interpretation than Philo and Alexandria, and was a method of interpretation shared by Paul, Philo and Josephus.

Pentecost's book is over 50 years old, and he was quoting a book written by Thomas Horne in 1836. Surely someone could have checked these claims before now?

But knowing the difference is what constitutes maturity.

I agree there. Mark brought up a passage recently in Proverbs which describes an important part of wisdom as learning to understand the proverbs and riddles. Prov 1:5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, 6 to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.

And again:

Your reference to Philo [of Alexandria] and the Apocrypha are also noted.

[FONT=&quot]Indeed, and note also what Jude says here:

Originally Posted by Jude 14[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]And Enoch also, [/FONT][FONT=&quot]the seventh from Adam[/FONT][FONT=&quot], prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]That's hardly the language of allegory.[/FONT]

It is however the language of Jewish Apocrypha, our old friend the Book of Enoch.

As Mark says, Enoch is seventh from Adam in the genealogies in Genesis Chronicles and Luke. I don't see any problem with that. Jude isn't talking about Adam or telling us how to interpret the genealogy. He is talking about Enoch. Saying Enoch's place in the genealogy seventh from Adam is to tell us about the status of Enoch and the importance Jude sees in Enoch's prophecy, he is not saying anything about who Adam was. What I find much more difficult with Jude is that fact that he quotes from Jewish Apocrypha written only a couple of centuries before and claims the prophecy really was from Enoch in Genesis.

 

[AV1611VET]

What I find much more difficult with Jude is that fact that he quotes from Jewish Apocrypha written only a couple of centuries before and claims the prophecy really was from Enoch in Genesis.

I don't believe that for one minute --- QV please.

 

[Assyrian]

What I find much more difficult with Jude is that fact that he quotes from Jewish Apocrypha written only a couple of centuries before and claims the prophecy really was from Enoch in Genesis.

I don't believe that for one minute --- QV please.

What don't you believe for one minute?

That Jude thought he was quoting from Enoch in the Book of Genesis?
Jude tells us so himself. Jude 1:14 It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying...

That Jude is quoting from Jewish Apocrypha?
Your QV link says he is.

The Book of Enoch is any of several pseudepigraphal (falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded) works that attribute themselves to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah; that is, Enoch son of Jared (Genesis 5:18). Enoch is also one of the three people in the Bible taken up to heaven while still alive (the only others being Elijah and Jesus), as the Bible says "And Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him." (Genesis 5:24; see also Hebrews 11:5). Most commonly, the phrase "Book of Enoch" refers to 1 Enoch, which is wholly extant only in the Ethiopic language.
​

The biblical book of Jude quotes from the Book of Enoch in verses 14-15, “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: ‘See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’” But this does not mean the Book of Enoch is inspired by God and should be in the Bible.

Jude’s quote is not the only quote in the Bible from a non-biblical source. The Apostle Paul quotes Epimenides in Titus 1:12 but that does not mean we should give any additional authority to Epimenides’ writings. The same is true with Jude, verse 14. Jude quoting from Enoch 1:9 does not indicate the entire book is inspired, or even true. All it means is that particular verse is true.
​

That is fine too, as far as it goes. As Paul said Phil 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Paul found what was true and honourable in pagan poets and quoted them, how much more so should we lay hold of what is true, honourable, just and pure in Jewish religious texts. Or even Star Trek. However the problem is not Jude quoting what is true in the Apocryphal book of Enoch, it is Jude thinking and claiming in his letter that this quote from the book of Enoch was really from the Enoch in Genesis

It is interesting to note that no scholars believe the Book of Enoch to have truly been written by the Enoch in the Bible. Enoch was seven generations from Adam, prior to the Flood (Genesis 5:1-24). Evidently, though, this was genuinely something that Enoch prophesied – or the Bible would not attribute it to him, “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men…” (Jude 14). This saying of Enoch was evidently handed down by tradition, and eventually recorded in the Book of Enoch.
​

That's the problem there. There is no 'evidently' about it. There is no evidence of a genuine prophecy of Enoch preserved through the flood and handed down by Jewish tradition, which the author of the apocryphal Book of Enoch took and inserted in his work of fiction. It is wishful thinking. Jude quoted an apocryphal book and thought it was genuine.

We should treat the Book of Enoch (and the other books like it) in the same manner we do the other Apocryphal writings. Some of what the Apocrypha says is true and correct, but at the same time, much of it is false and historically inaccurate. If you read these books, you have to treat them as interesting but fallible historical documents, not as the inspired, authoritative Word of God.
​

 

[AV1611VET]

That's the problem there.

No, that's not a problem here --- Paul wasn't quoting the book of Enoch --- period.

Why would Paul quote a book, written thousands of years after Enoch, when he [probably] met Enoch himself face-to-face (2 Corinthians 12:-14)?

What was Paul quoting when he mentioned Jannes and Jambres?

 

[Assyrian]

It's odd that the Theistic Evolution perspective is absent in Christian theism and that Christian theism is absent in theistic evolution.

Not sure how you can claim that
. . . and
complain about 'convoluted Darwinian revision'.

Justification by the righteousness and obedience of Christ, is a doctrine that the Scripture teaches in very full terms, Rom. 5:18, 19, “By the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so, by the obedience of one, shall all be made righteous.” Here in one verse we are told that we have justification by Christ’s righteousness, and that there might be no room to understand the righteousness spoken of, merely of Christ’s atonement by his suffering the penalty. In the next verse it is put in other terms, and asserted that it is by Christ’s obedience we are made righteous. (Justification by Faith Alone by Jonathan Edwards. 1703-1758)​

Notice it's by one man's disobedience?

What I don't understand is why you quote it in a book by Jonathan Edwards. Edwards is quoting Romans 5:19 and makes no comment about one man's disobedience himself, so why not quote Paul straight instead of dragging Jonathan Edwards into it?

Given Paul's comment in verse 14 about Adam being a figure of Christ, you are missing Paul's whole point here if you try to read Romans 5:19 as an exposition of Adam. Paul it telling us about Christ. Edwards did think there was a literal Adam and he did believe in Original Sin, but in the passage you quote, Edwards gets his exposition of Romans 5:19 spot on. It is about Christ.

For all have sinned - In Adam, and in their own persons; by a sinful nature, sinful tempers, and sinful actions. And are fallen short of the glory of God - The supreme end of man; short of his image on earth, and the enjoyment of him in heaven. (John Wesley's Notes)​

Notice it's in Adam and their own persons.

I find this very interesting. I like Wesley, and his NT Notes was the first commentary I ever bought. This really shows how deeply Augustine's doctrine of Original Sin has worked its way into Christian tradition. Wesley is commenting on Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The verse makes no reference to Adam. The whole chapter makes no reference to Adam or the creation. Instead Paul goes to great pains to show how we are all unrighteous, how we have all sinned.

Rom 3:5 But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say?
...
10 as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one..
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
...
20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Yet even though Paul goes into such detail saying we have all sinned, when he reaches that great crescendo in verses 23 & 24 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Suddenly Wesley thinks this means "all have sinned in Adam". It's crazy. He is right about the second part, all have sinned in "their own persons" but there isn't a single hint of an reference to Adam in the whole passage.

Rome would seem to think you are cursed if you don't believe in original sin.

Let us be clear here. Rome was cursing anyone who didn't believe in Original Sin.

They also pronounced anathemas on anyone disagreeing with masses in honour of saints to obtain their intercession, if you don't believe the bread and wine is really the body and blood of Christ, if you say the mass is just a commemoration of the cross, if you deny the priest offering up the body and blood of Christ is a propitiatory sacrifice, if you deny the deuterocanonical apocrypha are scripture, if you said Christians should receive both the bread and the wine at communion.

Genesis is about genealogy and lineage.

Genealogy: In Hebrew the term for genealogy or pedigree is "the book of the generations;" and because the oldest histories were usually drawn up on a genealogical basis, the expression often extended to the whole history, as is the case with the Gospel of St. Matthew, where "the book of the generation of Jesus Christ" includes the whole history contained in that Gospel. (Smith's Bible Dictionary)

So Genesis 5:1, "the book of the generations of Adam," wherein his descendants are traced down to Noah; Genesis 6:9, "the generations of Noah," the history of Noah and his sons; Genesis 10:1, "the generations of the sons of Noah," Shem, Ham, and Japhet, the oldest and most precious existing ethnological record; Genesis 11:10-26 "the generations of Shem," Genesis 11:27 "the generations of Terah," Abram's father; Genesis 25:12 "the generations of Ishmael," Genesis 25:19 "the generations of Isaac"; Genesis 36:1, "the generations of Esau"; Genesis 37:2, "the generations of Jacob"; Genesis 35:22-26, "the sons of Jacob," etc., repeated Exodus 1:1-5; also Exodus 46:8, a genealogical census of Israel when Jacob came down to Egypt; repeated in Exodus 6:16, etc., probably transcribed from a document, for the first part concerning Reuben and Simeon is quoted though Levi is the only tribe in question. (Fausset's Bible Dictionary)​

I'm not making this stuff up, I'm not inventing a new idea about how Romans 5 and Genesis is to be interrupted. Paul was anything but ambiguise, he was explicit as was Moses. They never answer this, did you ever notice that?

You missed out the first genealogy in the bible. Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. Does that mean Genesis 1 is a genealogy, the different creations listed descended from one another, the earth from material created when God made the heavens, sea creatures descended for inanimate material God used to form the earth, that beasts of the field are descended from fish and that mankind is descended form beasts of the field? Perhaps that is Darwinian revision not that I go in for that interpretation myself, but it is taking 'the generations of the heavens and the earth' at face value, and you seem to think these genealogies are important.