Evolution conflict and division

[The Barbarian]

The bible says death entered through Adam's fall but theistic evolution says "no, no, that is speaking of spiritual death." Darn that Paul for forgetting to add that modifier.

It's clear enough. God told Adam that he would die the day he ate from the tree. Adam eats and lives on physically for many years thereafter. If God tells the truth, the death He mentioned is not physical.

Since God is Truth, you are wrong.

 

[Mercy Shown]

It's clear enough. God told Adam that he would die the day he ate from the tree. Adam eats and lives on physically for many years thereafter. If God tells the truth, the death He mentioned is not physical.

Since God is Truth, you are wrong.

Your interpretation is driven by the desire to justify evolution, but let the bible speak for itself. While Adam did die relationally to God, he also died physically.

The Bible itself gives the tools to explain it without weakening the text.

“In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” The phrase “you shall surely die” is a legal sentence, not a stopwatch. The hebrew phrase is מוֹת תָּמוּת (môt tamût) literally meaning “dying you shall die.”

This emphasizes certainty, not immediacy. It is used in other places for judicial sentencing

1 Kings 2:37 — “On the day you go out… you shall surely die,” yet the execution happens later.

Ezekiel 18:4 — “The soul who sins shall die” (certainty, not timing)

So “in the day” means the day the sentence is enacted, not completed. Adam begins dying that very day (physical death inaugurated). After the fall, mortality enters; access to the tree of life is removed

Genesis 3:22–24 “Lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life… and live forever.”

Adam was not inherently immortal. His continued life depended on divine provision, and once cut off, death became inevitable. Adam begins dying that day, even if the process takes centuries.


Adam did die on the day he ate in three real ways: Judicially — the death sentence was enacted, Relationally — fellowship with God was broken, and Physically (inaugurated) — mortality began and life-access was lost. God’s word stands fully literal, not evasively symbolic.

 

[Mercy Shown]

Honestly, and this is another argument that is very easy to rebut that I haven't bothered with. But the whole "literal creation in 7 days" position is also just silly.

Don't waste your time rebutting because that was not the point. The point is, evolution views the bible narrative as silly, and those that try to hold onto one with one hand and hold onto evolution with the other have to do a lot of mental gymnastics.

Consider an analogy. Imagine if I said, "In the beginning when I made a pizza, the pizza was formless and empty of toppings. And then I said, "let there be some pepperoni".

How long was my pizza formless before I began to make it?

Now let's look at the Bible:
Genesis 1:1-3 NRSV
[1] In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, [2] the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. [3] Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

Did you catch that? The beginning is when God began creating. It has nothing to do with the material beginning of the cosmos.

Hence why some translations plainly say:
Genesis 1:1-2 CEB
[1] When God began to create the heavens and the earth— [2] the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters—

And if the text doesn't say how long the earth was formless before God began to create it, then it ultimately says nothing about the age of the earth or the universe.

But non-concordists are well aware of this. Just sharing in case you're not aware.

This is just a simplistic overgeneralization of the history that the bible narrative unfolds. For instance: Evolutionary creation and the Fourth Commandment are strictly at odds because the commandment places human work and rest directly in God’s own historical action: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth… and rested the seventh day” (Exod 20:11; 31:17). The command is imitative, not illustrative—Israel is to work six ordinary days and rest one ordinary day precisely because God did so. If God’s “days” were long ages or metaphorical epochs involving ongoing creative activity and death as a mechanism, then the command requires humans to imitate something God did not actually do. On top of that, was there a 7th epoch in which evolution ceased as God rested? Coherence collapses when you try to mix the two.

A covenant sign depends on shared reality, not equivocation, and the Sabbath loses its grounding if God’s workweek is not temporally real. Moreover, evolutionary creation requires God’s creative work to continue beyond the seventh day, directly contradicting the claim that God “finished” his work and rested, which the commandment explicitly commemorates. In short, either God created in six real days and rested, providing the historical basis for the Sabbath, or creation unfolded through long ages of death-driven processes, in which case the Fourth Commandment no longer rests on God’s own pattern; both cannot be true at the same time.

Theistic evolution does not stay in a lane. It rides the yellow line.

 

[Mercy Shown]

Direct observation is tough to deny, yes. I'm thinking you might be confusing biological evolution (which is a fact), with common descent, which is a consequence of biological evolution.

Christ never said the seven days were literal 24-hour days. Paul never wrote that. And the OT doesn't say that they were. There's a difference between arguing with you, and arguing with God. It's important to keep that in mind.

What version of the bible are you reading?

Direct observation supports limited biological change, not universal common descent, which is an inference about the unobserved past. Neither Christ nor Paul explicitly restates the length of the creation days because Genesis already defines them with numbered days, evening and morning, and grounds them in God’s own Sabbath pattern (Exod 20:11; 31:17). The claim that the Old Testament does not teach real days ignores this internal definition. Finally, appealing to “arguing with God” does not settle the question, since the issue is precisely what God has said in Scripture; disagreement over interpretation is not rebellion but hermeneutics.

Maybe you should take a few deep breaths, calm yourself, and try again.


Today's winner.

So you do inhale?

 

[Mercy Shown]

No, some of us read Genesis the same way many Jews have read it for millennia (such as Rabbi Moses Maimonides edit, here's a better link: Moses Maimonides on the Literal Meaning of Genesis - Spectrum Magazine). I'll never forget when a Jewish friend of mine read the following passage to me in Hebrew.

So God created mankind in his own image,​

in the image of God he created them;​

male and female he created them.​

He semi-sung it and explained how it's clearly meant to be read lyrically. Then we walked through how repetition of "the evening and the morning" phrase for each day is similar.

So I'm not reinterpreting anything. I would argue I'm reading it the way it's written.

By singing it. The lovely thing about doing it your way is that you can have it mean whatever you want. The Burger King of Books.

I'm often struck by how some people can't seem to escape this sort of thinking, where reading Genesis differently than fundamentalists is the same as debunking it, and if one part of the Bible isn't 100% literally true then all of it must be false.

If it were God's word, yes. If it is not, then get the shears and let's cut out the parts we think are nonsense. Atheists believe there is no God, and then religionists who are sure there is because they are him.

It seems to be pervasive and deep-seated among fundamentalists.

Flip the coin, and on one side you have fundamentilists and on the other you have progressive liberals. They are so much alike in spirit.

I think if nothing ever died then the earth would very quickly be overrun with organisms. Talk about inefficient!

You are assuming too much. No one knows whether reproduction was a phase in God's plan. After all, you'll have the same problem in the next life if there is reproduction there.

There's that thinking again.


Or, people like you could try and expand your range of thinking and drop the ideas that reading parts of the Bible differently than you is not the same as rejecting or debunking it, and reading some parts of scripture non-literally doesn't necessitate reading the entire book non-literally.

Of course not, once you untether yourself, you can have the bible say whatever it is that pleases you. You can read it in total agreement with yourself. But it is a strange sort of God who only tells you what you want to hear.

 

[Mercy Shown]

Not really. Because theology is its own separate category from something like the natural sciences. You have to have a specific assumption about who God is, in order for that assumption to be used against the theory.

For example, it sounds like you assume that God would never create a world with death in it. I disagree. If I held to your assumed view, I could see why evolution would concern you. But I don't, which you know.



You said "The bible says death entered through Adam's fall but theistic evolution says "no, no, that is speaking of spiritual death." Darn that Paul for forgetting to add that modifier."

The onus is still on you to demonstrate where the Biblical text parts from its historical context. Otherwise, death before the fall is the historical default. And again, theology doesn't replace original context. That requires an assumption that Paul was attempting to exegete Genesis.

Also, consider some other passages by Paul on the matter of sin and death:
Romans 6:4-5, 7-8 ESV
[4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. [5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
[7] For one who has died has been set free from sin. [8] Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

Paul obviously isn't talking about physical death here, as if he were a zombie that came out of the grave.

Or this one:
Romans 7:4, 9 ESV
[4] Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
[9] I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

Sin came alive and then I died? I mean, Paul, you're writing this letter, what do you mean "I died"?

Or even in Romans 5:
Romans 5:14 ESV
[14] Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Death reigned from Adam to Moses. What, so people stopped dying after Moses?

It's pretty obvious that Paul isn't speaking in a concordant way. Paul is addressing spiritual realities, not biological events.

So we have a lot of issues with extrapolating his theology back to Genesis as though he were exegeting on the question of death before the fall.

The rest of the post just comes off as a strawman.

Only because you have no real answer other than reinventing the text.
.

 

[Job 33:6]

Don't waste your time rebutting because that was not the point. The point is, evolution views the bible narrative as silly, and those that try to hold onto one with one hand and hold onto evolution with the other have to do a lot of mental gymnastics.

This is just a simplistic overgeneralization of the history that the bible narrative unfolds. For instance: Evolutionary creation and the Fourth Commandment are strictly at odds because the commandment places human work and rest directly in God’s own historical action: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth… and rested the seventh day” (Exod 20:11; 31:17). The command is imitative, not illustrative—Israel is to work six ordinary days and rest one ordinary day precisely because God did so. If God’s “days” were long ages or metaphorical epochs involving ongoing creative activity and death as a mechanism, then the command requires humans to imitate something God did not actually do. On top of that, was there a 7th epoch in which evolution ceased as God rested? Coherence collapses when you try to mix the two.

A covenant sign depends on shared reality, not equivocation, and the Sabbath loses its grounding if God’s workweek is not temporally real. Moreover, evolutionary creation requires God’s creative work to continue beyond the seventh day, directly contradicting the claim that God “finished” his work and rested, which the commandment explicitly commemorates. In short, either God created in six real days and rested, providing the historical basis for the Sabbath, or creation unfolded through long ages of death-driven processes, in which case the Fourth Commandment no longer rests on God’s own pattern; both cannot be true at the same time.

Theistic evolution does not stay in a lane. It rides the yellow line.

Even granting literal days, Genesis 1 does not specify ex nihilo material origins. As such, the length of the days is irrelevant to questions of cosmic age or evolutionary history.

I can make a pizza in 6 literal hours, but that doesn't say anything about how long the pizza was formeless beforehand or before I began to make it. Once again, you have no response.

Also, my responses are not "re-inventions" of the text. I could easily cite Jews of antiquity from 1,000 years ago who say exactly what I am telling you today. In-fact, it is the YEC position that is actually a reinvention of the text, that is, scientific concordism. And everyone who studies history knows this.

 

[River Jordan]

By singing it. The lovely thing about doing it your way is that you can have it mean whatever you want. The Burger King of Books.

If it were God's word, yes. If it is not, then get the shears and let's cut out the parts we think are nonsense. Atheists believe there is no God, and then religionists who are sure there is because they are him.

Flip the coin, and on one side you have fundamentilists and on the other you have progressive liberals. They are so much alike in spirit.

You and I obviously think in very different ways. I can see how lyrical passages can contain meaning and truth, whereas you seem to see lyrical passages as nonsense and worthy of being removed.

I can't relate to that.

You are assuming too much. No one knows whether reproduction was a phase in God's plan.

"God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number'"

Of course not, once you untether yourself, you can have the bible say whatever it is that pleases you. You can read it in total agreement with yourself. But it is a strange sort of God who only tells you what you want to hear.

All I can do is repeat that I simply cannot relate to such binary thinking, so I'm not sure you and I will ever see eye to eye on this.

 

[stevevw]

That's the idea behind genetic algorithms, used by engineers to solve extremely complex problems. Toss up random changes, and keep whatever works better. The key is that there's more than one mutation in human populations for high-altitude adaptation. Some work better than others.

This assumes that the development system or the laws of nature are not already designed to adapt. There are mechanisms that are biased towards certain outcomes. There is flexibility within the genome and there is the agency of the creature to be able to direct its own evolution through its own selection.

Thus directing what natural selection will take on. In other words nature is designed to select itself. Its designed to adapt and up with solutions.

One of the things people miss (and I think this is what you're talking about) is that populations aren't just passive recepients of the changes of natural seletion. Populations also "push back" and modify environments in ways that affect natural selection.

Yes very much so and especially higher conscious beings like humans. Our agency is so strong that we can practically negate NS.

Right. For example, it would be great to have a second pair of arms. But the basic tetrapod configuration just won't allow the necessary useful transitional forms that would be required to evolve them.

Yes but I think within the living cell there is pre loaded mechanisms that are designed to generate adaptations.

Yes. It's a complex interaction.

The one thing I have noticed with the hard sciences like evolutionary biology and physics. Is that the subject is missing. There is no agency or teleology. When the reality is living creatures are very much entangled in the evolution of life.

 

[The Barbarian]

This assumes that the development system or the laws of nature are not already designed to adapt.

Created. God is not limited in any way. He doesn't design. He creates.

There are mechanisms that are biased towards certain outcomes.

The universe is biased toward certain outcomes. But chance works just as well for God as necessity.

Yes very much so and especially higher conscious beings like humans. Our agency is so strong that we can practically negate NS.

We aren't that smart. It still works. Maybe someday.

Yes but I think within the living cell there is pre loaded mechanisms that are designed to generate adaptations.

It's called "DNA." It is remarkably constant in replication, but from time to time, there are mutations. Most don't do much. Some are harmful. Some are useful. Darwin's great discovery was how that sorts out.

The one thing I have noticed with the hard sciences like evolutionary biology and physics. Is that the subject is missing.

It's the limitation of science. Still, what it does, is more effective than anything else man can do.

There is no agency or teleology.

There is agency. Natural selection, for example. But no teleology. Science is about "how", not "why." It's open to teleology. Which is why people like Michael Denton can do biochemistry, even if he is an IDer.

 

[o_mlly]

It's in your own post. What are you talking about? Maybe you aren't aware that you cited the very page I referenced? See here:

Evolution conflict and division

You do realize that the passage you quote, is used by Christians to support God's continuing role in evolution (indeed in all of nature), do you not? It's pretty much the point of theistic evolution. Theistic Evolution: a Contemporary Aristotelian-Thomistic Perspective Cambridge University...

www.christianforums.com

No. You mistake the inter-text definitional link as if it were my reference. My reference is in post #146, Summa Theologicae I, q. 45, a. 5 "Whether it belongs to God alone to create?".

Back to my response, Macroevolution (new species) could also occur through God’s governance of secondary causes, so evolution doesn’t conflict with the idea that God is the first cause. In accordance with your shared article, and in accordance with summa theologicae.

While creatures act according to their own natures, Aquinas teaches that God can work through secondary causes. Therefore, the natural processes driving evolution, including the development of new species (macroevolution), can be fully compatible with God as the first cause, in accordance with both the principle of secondary causality discussed in the Summa Theologica and explanatory articles such as those on New Advent.

No. The Summa, as I have noted but you choose to ignore (?), restricts the creature's secondary creative acts to be within its own potency.

Only God, Who is pure act (there is no potency in Him) is able, both on the side of the cause (Himself) as well as on the side of the effect, to produce something which is not restricted in its potency. In other words, God can arrange on the side of the thing caused its potency to be able to receive a particular actualization which He causes. This is why macro-evolution is not possible.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No. You mistake the inter-text definitional link as if it were my reference. My reference is in post #146, Summa Theologicae I, q. 45, a. 5 "Whether it belongs to God alone to create?".

No. The Summa, as I have noted but you choose to ignore (?), restricts the creature's secondary creative acts to be within its own potency.

Only God, Who is pure act (there is no potency in Him) is able, both on the side of the cause (Himself) as well as on the side of the effect, to produce something which is not restricted in its potency. In other words, God can arrange on the side of the thing caused its potency to be able to receive a particular actualization which He causes. This is why macro-evolution is not possible.

I'm not sure the Catholic brethren at the Thomistic Institute precisely agree with you.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

By singing it. The lovely thing about doing it your way is that you can have it mean whatever you want. The Burger King of Books.

That's patently false.

Some of us approach the entire book of Genesis as a prophetic work, with the first 11 chapters representing a genealogical-theological form of writing which Moses (or whomever compiled the final ancient edition of notes from Moses) thought his prophetic messages should be expressed through. Whether chapters 1-11 are literal, or representational, or a form of poetic prophecy, I don't try to specifically discern, even though I'm familiar with the dozen ways in which Christian Theologians and/or Scientists have attempted to delineate their meaning. I just take the narratives as having a theological import and let everyone else haggle over whether or not they are literal history; at worst, I assume they have at least some minimal reflection of the history they depict and are not utterly fictional fabrications. In other words, they reflect some underlying patterns of thought--even spiritual ones-- endemic to the theological life of Hebrew people prior to the 1st century BC.

My approach of analysis begins by simply taking a book like the following, and others like it, and doing my best to consider the various historical possibilities:

​

Hoffmeier, James K., Gordon John Wenham, and Kenton Sparks. Genesis: History, fiction, or neither?: Three views on the Bible’s earliest chapters. Zondervan Academic, 2015.​

​

At the end of the day, I consider the overall message to be: .......... I'm a sinner too in need of the grace and salvation of Jesus Christ.

​

As for my understanding and acceptance of the theory of evolution, that's an intellectual endeavor that I keep separate from the above.

If it were God's word, yes. If it is not, then get the shears and let's cut out the parts we think are nonsense. Atheists believe there is no God, and then religionists who are sure there is because they are him.

Who cares what atheists think? Whether I think Genesis 1-11 is literal or not doesn't change the fact that, either way, I still believe these chapters are prophetic in nature. So why would I get my Jeffersonian Shears out and start cutting? I have little reason to do so as a critical philosopher.

Flip the coin, and on one side you have fundamentilists and on the other you have progressive liberals. They are so much alike in spirit.

These are not the only two positions on the Bible and faith that a person can inhabit. We should be very, very clear on this.

You are assuming too much. No one knows whether reproduction was a phase in God's plan. After all, you'll have the same problem in the next life if there is reproduction there.

Of course not, once you untether yourself, you can have the bible say whatever it is that pleases you. You can read it in total agreement with yourself. But it is a strange sort of God who only tells you what you want to hear.

I can't speak for others, or for the person you were originally responding to with the above, but I definitely don't think God (or specifically Jesus and/or His Apostles) always tells me what I "want to hear."

 

[o_mlly]

I'm not sure the Catholic brethren at the Thomistic Institute precisely agree with you.

In my tradition, Catholic scholars are free to debate theistic evolution.

Theistic Evolution: An Exchange between Mariusz Tabaczek and Michael Chaberek

The Winter 2024 (Vol. 22, No. 1) issue of Nova et Vetera brings to the English-speaking reader an important debate that took place after the publication of the Polish translation of "Thomistic Evolution: A Catholic Approach to Understanding

www.academia.edu

One of the beauties of Catholicism is that our basic kerygma developed over two millennia has a limited number of binding truths to which the faithful must accept. We are free to discuss and debate any and all other claims. It's also helpful to have a referee (Magisterium) if and when such debates threaten to divide the flock.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

In my tradition, Catholic scholars are free to debate theistic evolution.

Theistic Evolution: An Exchange between Mariusz Tabaczek and Michael Chaberek

The Winter 2024 (Vol. 22, No. 1) issue of Nova et Vetera brings to the English-speaking reader an important debate that took place after the publication of the Polish translation of "Thomistic Evolution: A Catholic Approach to Understanding

www.academia.edu

That's perfectly fine by me, as long as both you and I know that there is disagreement upon the extent to which Thomism may be or may not be appropriated in connection with explaining the Theory of Evolution. If you're in the camp that says "no," that's fine. I have no problem with that as long as you're aware of divisions within your own branch of the faith.

One of the beauties of Catholicism is that our basic kerygma developed over two millennia has a limited number of binding truths to which the faithful must accept. We are free to discuss and debate any and all other claims. It's also helpful to have a referee (Magisterium) if and when such debates threaten to divide the flock.

Yes, I'm fully aware of that.

 

[Job 33:6]

No. The Summa, as I have noted but you choose to ignore (?), restricts the creature's secondary creative acts to be within its own potency.

Only God, Who is pure act (there is no potency in Him) is able, both on the side of the cause (Himself) as well as on the side of the effect, to produce something which is not restricted in its potency. In other words, God can arrange on the side of the thing caused its potency to be able to receive a particular actualization which He causes. This is why macro-evolution is not possible.

Aquinas restricts secondary causes to act within their potencies, but he does not restrict potency to individual agents. Potency resides in matter and in the ordered system of causes under divine providence. God, as first cause, can arrange matter such that new forms are gradually actualized through secondary causes. Therefore macro-evolution is not excluded by Thomism unless one assumes the absence of divine governance, which Aquinas explicitly denies.

To say that God can “arrange on the side of the thing caused its potency to receive a particular actualization” means that God can endow matter with latent capacities which secondary causes may gradually actualize, without themselves being first causes or possessing the resulting form in act. Which is essentially theistic evolution in a nutshell (though I would agree would be contradictory toward atheistic evolution).

 

[Mercy Shown]

That's patently false.

Some of us approach the entire book of Genesis as a prophetic work, with the first 11 chapters representing a genealogical-theological form of writing which Moses (or whomever compiled the final ancient edition of notes from Moses) thought his prophetic messages should be expressed through. Whether chapters 1-11 are literal, or representational, or a form of poetic prophecy, I don't try to specifically discern, even though I'm familiar with the dozen ways in which Christian Theologians and/or Scientists have attempted to delineate their meaning. I just take the narratives as having a theological import and let everyone else haggle over whether or not they are literal history; at worst, I assume they have at least some minimal reflection of the history they depict and are not utterly fictional fabrications. In other words, they reflect some underlying patterns of thought--even spiritual ones-- endemic to the theological life of Hebrew people prior to the 1st century BC.

Yes, they have it their way. It means what they decide.

My approach of analysis begins by simply taking a book like the following, and others like it, and doing my best to consider the various historical possibilities:

​

Hoffmeier, James K., Gordon John Wenham, and Kenton Sparks. Genesis: History, fiction, or neither?: Three views on the Bible’s earliest chapters. Zondervan Academic, 2015.​

​

At the end of the day, I consider the overall message to be: .......... I'm a sinner too in need of the grace and salvation of Jesus Christ.

That is what it says but it does not impact the current discussion.

​

As for my understanding and acceptance of the theory of evolution, that's an intellectual endeavor that I keep separate from the above.

As does this thread.

Who cares what atheists think? Whether I think Genesis 1-11 is literal or not doesn't change the fact that, either way, I still believe these chapters are prophetic in nature. So why would I get my Jeffersonian Shears out and start cutting? I have little reason to do so as a critical philosopher.

a compartmentalized philosopher keeping each thing in its own box. Theologically the earth was made by God in 7 days but scientifically it took billions of years. Just leave them in their own compartments.

These are not the only two positions on the Bible and faith that a person can inhabit. We should be very, very clear on this.

Everyone gets it their way. Interprets the bible to fit.

I can't speak for others, or for the person you were originally responding to with the above, but I definitely don't think God (or specifically Jesus and/or His Apostles) always tells me what I "want to hear."

Different discussion.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yes, they have it their way. It means what they decide.

And you know "how" each person thinks, "how"?

a compartmentalized philosopher keeping each thing in its own box. Theologically the earth was made by God in 7 days but scientifically it took billions of years. Just leave them in their own compartments.

Yes, they are compartmentalized for solid analytic reasons; the parsimony of the categories involved demand as such.

But if someone wants to gripe that all I'm doing is Jerry-rigging my own God-of-the-Gaps approach to reading the Bible, so be it. I don't care.

I know that's not what I'm doing, but it's not my responsibility to spell out all I know for every other person on the planet.

Everyone gets it their way. Interprets the bible to fit.

Not really. The so-called postmodern 'reader response' approach isn't very intellectual or academic, actually. No one should be methodologically attempting to handle, read, and evaluate disparate, ancient, foreign, mainly Hebrew and Jewish literature (or any literature, really) by way of a personal heuristic. But since we live in the all encompassing domain of the free, then free people tend all too often "to do what is right in their own eyes." It's kind of sad, I know, but for myself, I prefer digging with an academic spade until I hit some reality, even if I don't like what I might find.

Different discussion.

ok

 

[The Barbarian]

No. The Summa, as I have noted but you choose to ignore (?), restricts the creature's secondary creative acts to be within its own potency.

This, in no way prohibits God from creating a world in which he creates new things by using nature (such as living things or soil) to do so. In fact, God says that He does this, in Genesis 1. I believe Him.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yes, they have it their way. It means what they decide.

That is what it says but it does not impact the current discussion.

As does this thread.

a compartmentalized philosopher keeping each thing in its own box. Theologically the earth was made by God in 7 days but scientifically it took billions of years. Just leave them in their own compartments.

Everyone gets it their way. Interprets the bible to fit.

Different discussion.

.... as I was pondering over some of the differences of thought we each have in this thread, I thought I'd take a moment and ask you if you've ever read or heard discussed on a podcast Rhyne R. Putman's book, When Doctrine Divides the People of God: An Evangelical Approach to Theological Diversity. Crossway, 2020?

I'm just asking because I'm currently reading it.