This puzzles me, first because most Christians accept the truth of evolution and, second, because ever since Darwin's time there have been scientists who have accepted evolution and the scientific account of the universe and have also been Christians or adherents of other theistic religions. Asa Gray, H.F. Osborn Theodosius Dobzhansky, Francis Collins and Kenneth Miller are well-known examples. Do you ever discuss the theological aspects of the matter with Christians who are also theistic evolutionists?
I wouldn't say many Christians believe in evolution the way you think evolution is. Thats the problem in that when you or another person talk about evolution you dont clarify what you mean. There can be several interpretations of what that is from the traditional Darwinian understanding to theistic evolution. And its the Darwinian evolution that takes God out of the picture that is what I am talking about. Its about acknowledging that there is and needs to be a a God or some sort of agent that is beyond and greater than life and existence to be able create and start life and sustain it.
Many accept that there is a form of evolution with a species and has limits so in that sense many do agree and I would say this is the form that most support. I think theistic evolution is something to consider but it also has some difficult questions to answer. But at least they acknowledge that God had planted the info to create life in the first place and it didn't come from thin air. That is the same for how the universe started. There is some good evidence that indicates that there may be natural laws that have been there from the beginning that govern life. That the genetic info for life was there from the beginning and that living creatures can tap into the genetic info for life that is already there. What is seen with mutations and natural selection is just a limited way for creatures to adapt to their environments.
There are also views that the environment changes just as much and that rather than a creature adapting to an environment through evolution they can change the environment to suit them. There is also evidence from epigentics and other ways such as HGT which all can contribute to why and how living things gain genetic info and live with each other and the environment. So not only are there different views of evolution but there are different views within each version of evolution. Some of these views which have good support go against Darwinian evolution. A better question would be have you ever asked an evolutionists who dosnt believe in God how life came from non life or how existence came from nothing.
To clarify the view of Francis Collins who you mentioned this is a site he started to explain his beliefs.
At BioLogos, we present the
Evolutionary Creationism (EC) viewpoint on origins. Like all Christians, we fully affirm that God is the creator of all life—including human beings in his image.
We fully affirm that the Bible is the inspired and authoritative word of God. We also accept the science of evolution as the best description for how God brought about the diversity of life on earth.
But while we accept the scientific evidence for evolution, BioLogos
emphatically rejects Evolutionism,
the atheistic worldview that so often accompanies the acceptance of biological evolution in public discussion. Evolutionism is a kind of scientism,
which holds that all of reality can in principle be explained by science. In contrast, BioLogos believes that
science is limited to explaining the natural world,
and that supernatural events like miracles are part of reality too.
http://biologos.org/questions/biologos-id-creationism
So as you can see though he believes in evolution he doesn't believe that it is self creating which is an important part of what many evolutionists promote.
What do you mean by this? Perhaps you mean that we have to accept the existence of moral principles and to be obedient to them, but one doesn't have to believe in a God to know the difference between right and wrong or to understand the necessity of trying to do good and avoid evil. Alternatively, perhaps you mean that by allowing God to have a say in our lives we have, for example, to believe that God confused human languages to prevent people from building a tower up to heaven and to reject linguistic theories that give a different explanation of the origin of languages. Or perhaps, to give another example, you think that we must believe that mental illness is due to possession by demons or evil spirits and must reject psychological theories that give a different explanation. Which of these alternatives is correct?
It means that behind peoples views of evolution they have a motivating factor. Thats why many get upset and there seems to be more feeling about it then just debating a topic. Thats why you turn this into something like that with the way you put your questions. It goes back to people saying a belief in God is for fools and has no evidence and therefore you must believe in what we see only. That there is nothing in life that is supernatural at all and science is the answer for all. What happened in the past was not just to do with religion. Everyone thought differently then and even science believed some crazy things like lobotomies ect. We are just more aware and have accumulated knowledge.
The difference is is that many will not even consider that there will be an answer to life and existence in any supernatural realm and science will have all the answers. But there is a point where science cannot answer and we must consider that there is something beyond the science. We are now seeing this with things like quantum physics where that world acts beyond what the science has told us. In the finely tuned universe that seems to be orchestrated beyond a naturalistic cause. In life and how it is so complex and designed through genetics.
I shall find a different example.
