Can a person believe in evolution and still go to Heaven if they accept Jesus as their savior?
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Evolution and Heaven?
- Thread starter philadiddle
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I know you think that lol, but I just start reading through some other threads and some of the comments by the YECs got me wondering where they really stand on this issue.
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But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) (Romans 10:6)
It's a bad question, your either trusting Christ for your salvation and the judge of all the earth to judge righteously or your not. I don't mean to be condescending, it's such a common question and it's always wrong. When you ask about believing in 'evolution' it really depends on what you mean by that word. For a person to be 'saved' they must believe the Gospel, receive the Holy Spirit and bear fruit. That is a creative act, that is a miracle, that is the most important miraculous interposition in human experience and what you believe about natural history is trivial in comparison to what you believe about the risen savior. My biggest concern is that the New Testament can be reduced to poetic prose with the same definition shuffle that the original creation was.
It is if your naturalistic assumptions transcend all of Scripture the way creation does.
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Yo MK,
3 simple questions for you;
3 simple questions for you;
Who is reducing the NT to poetic prose?
What naturalistic assumptions do us TEs use that transcend the creation account? In what way do those assumptions "transcend" the creation account?
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Nice to know that my assumption that God is the creator and sustainer of all creation in every second since it came into being (even if not by the way a literalistic reading of Genesis 1 and/or 2 would suggest) is a naturalistic assumption.
Metherion
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Metherion wrote:
Yeah, I guess Heb 1:3 and John 5:17 are "naturalistic assumptions".
Papias
Yeah, I guess Heb 1:3 and John 5:17 are "naturalistic assumptions".
Papias
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Greg1234
In the beginning was El
"God impels the physical"
"The physical changes"
Different implications.
"My door changes"
"Termites change my door"
Different implications.
"My door changes. Given enough time my door can change into anything. Oh and remember, I believe that termites change my door."
Doesn't work.
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juvenissun
... and God saw that it was good.
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As long as you do not believe that Jesus Christ and monkey have a common ancestor.
I guess, for an evolutionist, that is a quite hard thing to do.
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Go for it.
It's called liberal theology, among other things. Darwinism is predicated on naturalistic assumptions going all the way back to the big bang. In evolutionary biology it goes back to the single common ancestor or the primordial seas. Since it transcends all time and space I have concerns that it is getting into Christian theology.
The single common ancestor model is based on assumptions regarding cause and effect relationships that transcend all time and space. Now, unless or until evolution is specifically defined as well as creation in the biblical sense these questions will invariably go around the answers.
This one:
all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition. (Darwin, On the Origin of Species)
Now if there are exceptions to this the criteria should be evident and obvious. It's also only logical that there be an inverse proposition that allows for miracles even though naturalistic cause and effect relationships do not apply.
Now I've answered you questions so I have one for you:
Does 'heaven' exist in time and space?
Since this is largely philosophical I recommend you come up with core definitions you are comfortable with and go from there. Obviously you can respond as you see fit but if you want to discuss Soteriology and how it relates to Origins theology it would be the most direct approach.
By what criteria do I determine an historical narrative warrants a figurative interpretation in Genesis as compared to the New Testament witness regarding the works of Christ and the Apostles?
The creation of Genesis 1 and being born again are the same miracle, just different manifestations. It becomes vital to determine , if, when and how you can dismiss what the text literally says as anything other then literal when the literal interpretation is always preferred. That's not my opinion, that is how sound exegesis is always done and your going to have to shake the ambiguity if you want me to take this seriously.
juvenissun said:
Did you seriously ask why Jesus could not have had monkey ancestors? That is the clearest indication I have seen that the incarnation is implicated in the naturalistic assumptions of Darwinism. It is specifically because Jesus was incarnated rather then evolved or even created that this is such a serious issue.
Grace and peace,
Mark
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juvenissun
... and God saw that it was good.
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Please define ‘Darwinism’ and how it goes back all the way to the Big Bang. The closest thing to ‘Darwinism’ I know of is the Neo-Darwinian modern synthesis, aka the theory of evolution in biology (and by the way, there’s THAT definition for you, evolution = the neo-darwinian modern synthesis in current biology), and that stops WAY short of the Big Bang. Perhaps you mean physics? That goes back to the Big Bang. And what ‘naturalistic assumptions’ are being made? Kindly define them.
What assumptions are made? Kindly list them.
And the first part of that quote is:
“He [Lamarck] first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all...”
And, of course, the very next sentence lays absolute WASTE to your claim of it being naturalistic ASSUMPTIONS:
Hrm. CONCLUSION. Something rather like the opposite of an assumption. Of course, I’ve said this before, but you keep throwing that same quote out there over and over again, but...
So, it is your view that natural laws themselves are not miraculous interposition? It is your view that God is ABSENT in the running of natural laws? It is your view that God is ONLY ACTIVE in miracles that run counter to the natural laws of the universe?
Really? How is that logical? And how is that measurable? And how do you conclude that a miracle has happened in the past measurably? And how do you measure whose god did that miracle? How do you tell if it was Thor, Zeus, Shiva, Honored Grandfather’s Spirit, Ra, Jesus, Mother Earth, or whomever? How can you throw out all the miracles done in one holy book, say, the Bhagavad Ghita, but keep all the others in a different holy book, say, the Bible, based only on someone’s personal belief? Obviously, the holder of the other belief will believe oppositely. And to an unbiased observer, how can one tell which one is right?
And why are various countries that are NOT the USA not proclaiming all these things found by science? I mean, England has an official Christian religion. So does Vatican City. Turkey or any of the Muslim states would happily proclaim intersubjective scientific evidence for past miracles, even if they credited them to following the Koran instead of the Bible, and then THAT huge debate would follow.
I’m answering your next two questions backwards.
I’ve seen you say this before. Please elaborate on what you mean by it.
Edited at 12:22 am Monday CST:
Kindly show that the preferred and default way all the time is always to read it the exact same way you would read a science or history textbook, because that's exactly what has been done in Genesis.
Then, let’s go like this:
First, there are two creation accounts with different orderings of events, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. I expect you to wave this off, but it is still there.
Second, there are all those verses about how the heavens declare the glory of God, and how creation is so wonderful that it leaves no man without excuse to know God. Also, the universe is the direct creation of God and all the laws He made. That brings the universe itself under consideration. And the universe itself is showing all these signs of NOT being made according to either Genesis 1 OR Genesis 2.
Then, let’s use some logic. Let’s list some more modern things that were around in the mid 1500s and on that aren’t in the Bible:
Meteorology
Evolution
Germ Theory of Disease (even though disease are several times seen as punishments from God, does germ theory contradict that? Or was God working through natural mechanisms?)
Heliocentrism and the whole Galileo spat
Atomic theory
None of these things are explicitly listed in the Bible. And then there’s the whole Galileo spat. And let’s not forget about germ theory taking away from God’s power to inflict disease. So, how many of these things should we reject as being not included or spoken against in the Bible?
Well, let’s start with how there are two creation stories (again, I expect you to hand wave away that). Then let’s talk about how the timeframe and the intended audience. The Gospels were made to be biography-type narratives, written down to spread the news of Jesus to Jews and Gentiles alike (depending on which Gospel you are talking about, but that is a different story), whereas the two Genesis tales started out as oral stories among the ancient Jews before they were written down as creation myths (in the literary sense) in a culture far less concerned with all accounts being exactly historically correct than the later greek-thought-influenced Roman Empire of the first century AD. Then we can talk about how both of them include large amounts of ANE cosmology (such as the shape of the earth), and how both of them are specifically designed to tear down certain OTHER creation myths and build up just how Yahweh is superior to, say, Apsu and Tiamat.
Or we could, you know, just not make the whole slippery slope WELL IF PARTS OF GENESIS AREN”T LITERAL THEN HOW DO WE KNOW THE GOSPELS AREN”T JUST A FAIRYTALE argument in the first place. Just saying.
What assumptions, and how is the incarnation implicated in them somehow?
According to the incarnation, Jesus is FULLY HUMAN and FULLY GOD. So Jesus shares, among other things, HUMAN ANCESTRY. He is still the Son of Man just as much the Son of God, and He is the Son of Man through Mary. Would you have anywhere near as much rage if the sentence had been “Did you seriously ask why the Virgin Mary could not have had monkey ancestors?” Yet, every ancestor of the Virgin Mary is also JESUS’ ancestor. Isn’t that what various folks (including you at times, I believe) have discussed when talking about the genealogies in the past? And besides, remember, if you go by the literal Genesis, Jesus’ ancestor was quite literally clay, found in the dirt of the earth.
I would have thought that the implications of either side would be more profound. Whether you go by science or Genesis, either way, the matter that made up Jesus’ body and all of his ancestors is divinely created, so the Father caused the body and every ancestor to the body that His Son walked the earth to cause our redemption and salvation in to come from matter that the Father divinely created at some point, showing just another way that God is responsible for our deliverance from sin. But, apparently it’s more important that Jesus came from dirt God created than from some sort of monkey-like ancestor that’s a direct result of how God created the universe is more important.
Metherion
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Assyrian
Basically pulling an Obama (Thanks Calminian!)
You would place limits on the incarnation? Christ could only be fully God and fully man and save us from our sin if God made us from clay, but if God had created us through evolution Christ could not empty himself take on our form and humble himself to die on a cross.
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But God created evolution, it's not the evil conspiracy that you think it is.
Do you think Jesus ultimately came from dirt? After all, Adam was made from dirt right?
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