Evolution: where does it fit in with Christianity?

[chilehed]

I have come from a strong Christian background, but have been having some doubts recently about my faith, which is quite worrying. I would like to try and make up my mind, so I just want to put forward a few of my ideas to try and shed some light on a few problems I have come across recently

I know quite a lot about evolution and of God and the more I look into it the less compatible the two seem. Evolution is suggested to be a consequence of the natural fight for survival seen nature. When an animal reproduces the offspring may have mutated genes which may create a new characteristic. If this characteristic aids the species in its survival the new gene is passed on. If the new gene inhibits the species in its survival, the gene is lost, so the imperfections are lost. Or so the theory of evolution says....

Imperfections? Where do you get that? There's a change in some trait due to a change in the genome, but neither organism is more or less perfect than the other. They're just different.

If you take the stance that God was the one who set in place these laws of nature so evolution could carry out. If he is all powerful and all knowing, why didn't he make all animals perfect in the first place? so there was no need for some sort of "natural correction".

I don't understand why this is a problem. God could have done it differently, so it can't be that he did it this way? That makes no sense to me, you could make the same argument about anything.

 

[chilehed]

...I just wonder where this will stop, for example if someone in the scientific field proved tomorrow, one theory which exists, (known as the big crunch) that the universe has been expanding and shrinking continuously and has always been doing that, and will continue doing so. This suggests there is no need for a creator...

Not at all. Remember how Hawking recently announced much the same thing, that the universe creates itself out of nothing so there's no God. But his nothing isn't nothing at all, it's a field, so all he's done is move the problem back a step.

It's like the lady who thought that the earth sits on top of a turtle. When asked what the turtle stood on, she said that it was turtles all the way down.

The problem here is that people are confounding the disciplines of physical sciences and philosophy.

 

[rs9896]

Imperfections? Where do you get that? There's a change in some trait due to a change in the genome, but neither organism is more or less perfect than the other. They're just different.

I don't understand why this is a problem. God could have done it differently, so it can't be that he did it this way? That makes no sense to me, you could make the same argument about anything.

Earlier in the thread, Themaneki made a similar point so I rephrased the question to: why didn't God create animals so they were able to adapt to the changing environment without some sort of cruel natural selection, so each animal had an equal opportunity for survival. After all he an all loving force so he would use his infinite power to prevent struggle for animals.

 

[JESUS<3sYOU]

But even an eternal universe does not exclude God - remember the ancient Greeks like Plato and Aristotle thought the world had always existed, and they still saw a need for a logical First Cause, even if not a temporal one.

No, an eternal universe does not exclude God; however it would lend to God's creation an attribute that according to the Christian teaching belongs solely with God, namely Eternity in the most absolute sense. So while it does not exclude God it does do away with the difference between God and his creation, resulting in a pagan point of view.

As it is written,

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

There was a beginning, there was God's creation, and with that beginning there was also time, but in Eternity there is no time.

The Saint Dionysios Areopagita had some interesting things to say about God as the "cause of every thing", by the way. Saint Dionysios heard Saint Paul in the Areopag in Athens:

Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

I asked a priest about the controversy surrounding authenticity and so on, and he said that even while it is likely that Saint Dionysios's disciples wrote some of the things that were attributed to him, the teaching is good and Christian.

Here is a piece written by another priest who said that he accepts the "fact of evolution" without accepting the interpretations of it as provided in various different theories of evolution (such as that of Darwin, different from that of Lamark, different from that of de Vries, and so on):

http://www.zephyr.gr/stjohn/sixdawn1.htm
(There's a link to part two, and another link to the main page, at the bottom of the page.)

 

[Assyrian]

How do then know parts of the bible have been interpreted correctly? Will we ever have a fully correct interpretation of the bible?

When we meet the Lord.
1Cor 13:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away...
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

How do we know all of our interpretations aren't false

John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things. It isn't a choice of either understanding everything, or we understand nothing. We are called to be disciples, that means we are still learning, in fact it is easier to learn from God is we don't think we know everything. We walk by faith too, that means trusting God to lead us and teach us, and that he will teach us what is really important, even if the interpretations we thought were important turn out to be wrong.

and that the Bible doesn't just give symbolic interpretations of human nature and life.

What is wrong with symbols? Jesus loved to teach in metaphors and parables.

What I was trying to point out with this argument is that if you did have a universe which has existed for an infinite amount of time, there is no one point of creation, so no need for a creator.

That is how we see God in the context of a limited finite universe, he was there at the stating point, that does not mean this is the only way God can create, or could have created the universe. God is not limited by our understanding of how he creates.

Also, outside the realms of time the cause and effect argument is not valid. As there is no one thing that occurs before another, outside of time, something that exists in these realms can't have been caused by something else before it, because there was no before.
I know this is getting very deep and confusing, but its food for thought. Ask me if you need any more clarification on my point.

We do not know how cause and effect work outside our universe, or if in the absence of our time, eternity is static or vastly more dynamic than the existence we experience. Knowing the little I know of God, my money is on the latter. Don't confuse cause and effect within the universe, with the reason to the universe even exists. I don't see why God Almighty outside of time could not create the whole existence of an infinitely old universe. He is operating from outside the infinite age of the universe he creates, he does not have to get there before it to start it off, but create it from outside the whole continuum. Cause and effect can work its way along within the universe, it is the existence of the universe itself God created.

 

[MKJ]

No, an eternal universe does not exclude God; however it would lend to God's creation an attribute that according to the Christian teaching belongs solely with God, namely Eternity in the most absolute sense. So while it does not exclude God it does do away with the difference between God and his creation, resulting in a pagan point of view.

As it is written,

There was a beginning, there was God's creation, and with that beginning there was also time, but in Eternity there is no time.

The Saint Dionysios Areopagita had some interesting things to say about God as the "cause of every thing", by the way. Saint Dionysios heard Saint Paul in the Areopag in Athens:

I asked a priest about the controversy surrounding authenticity and so on, and he said that even while it is likely that Saint Dionysios's disciples wrote some of the things that were attributed to him, the teaching is good and Christian.

Here is a piece written by another priest who said that he accepts the "fact of evolution" without accepting the interpretations of it as provided in various different theories of evolution (such as that of Darwin, different from that of Lamark, different from that of de Vries, and so on):

THE SIX DAWNS PART I
(There's a link to part two, and another link to the main page, at the bottom of the page.)

I wasn't trying to argue that Christians can believe that the universe does not have a beginning in time. I was simply trying to put a comment that an eternal universe was inconsistent with God into a bit more context. People tend to look at this question only in terms of the last 100 years, as if those were the only options from a philosophical/theological POV.

I would also argue with the idea that any eternal creation is impossible. The angels are created and eternal.

 

[JESUS<3sYOU]

I wasn't trying to argue that Christians can believe that the universe does not have a beginning in time. I was simply trying to put a comment that an eternal universe was inconsistent with God into a bit more context. People tend to look at this question only in terms of the last 100 years, as if those were the only options from a philosophical/theological POV.

I would also argue with the idea that any eternal creation is impossible. The angels are created and eternal.

I didn't say that you were saying anything you didn't say. Concerning the angels, there is mention of them in that text The Six Dawns by Alexandre Kalomiros. From what Saints John Chrysostom and Basil the Great say there it appears that the angels existed "before this world", but without being co-Eternal with God. You know, this is one of the questions included in the Arian controversy. The Arians thought that Christ was created as the first part of creation. The Church rejected that because it was at odds with the Deity of Christ. Anyway:

"In the beginning" God made all of creation. The heaven and the earth are all things, every material element. And all things, heaven and earth, have a beginning. Creation has a beginning. It is not beginningless like God. It came into existence from non-existence, and its existence is entirely dependent on God. Ii is not self-existent. It exists only because God wants it to exist. Only God is self-existent. Only He is self existence. He told Moses, "I am that I am", or "I am the Existing One (&#927; &#937;&#957", that is, He is Self Existence, the Fountain of Existence, Existence itself. He freely sustains all things in existence, not out of any necessity, but out of His boundless love.

"In the beginning God made the heaven". What does "heaven" mean? In no way does it mean the angels and what we call heavenly noetic beings and heavenly intelligences. When Genesis speaks of heaven it means the material universe: stars, galaxies, nebulae, every kind of matter in space. In his 2nd Homily on Genesis, St. John Chrysostom says, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth...The Scripture says nothing about the invisible powers. It does not say, 'In the beginning God made the angels or the archangels.' And there was a reason. It was speaking to the Hebrews, who were very preoccupied with temporal matters and were unable to imagine any kind of noetic thing. It guides them from things perceptible to the senses, to the Creator of all things. And, therefore, learning about the Builder of the universe from created things, they could worship the Creator, instead of worshiping things that were made".

Confirming the same thing, St. Basil says, "As it appears, there did exist something even before this world, something that our mind can contemplate, but it was left undescribed because it is inappropriate knowledge for those who are now just beginning to learn and, in knowledge, are as yet infants". (Hex., Hom. I, 5) Thus, the creation of noetic beings, the creation of the angels, was left unmentioned.

 

[chilehed]

Earlier in the thread, Themaneki made a similar point so I rephrased the question to: why didn't God create animals so they were able to adapt to the changing environment without some sort of cruel natural selection, so each animal had an equal opportunity for survival.

Are you a vegan?

After all he an all loving force so he would use his infinite power to prevent struggle for animals.

You're making an awful lot of assumptions.

 

[heymikey80]

There are transitional fossils, for example showing how the reptile jaw, slowly changed into the mammal jaw. Also how the chimpanzee skull slowly enlarged to give rise to the human skull.

I wasn't discounting the early attestations for Christ I was just using it as an example to discount the argument that evolution does not exist because we haven't seen it happen.

What you're talking about is named "evolution" by science. But have you considered what that philosophical viewpoint says that isn't demonstrated at all by science?

We don't really see things slowly change in archaeological history. Each is admittedly its own body. The individual body doesn't change. What we do see are small changes which could have emerged over millions of years of incremental changes to result in speciation. Were you to check, that would be an odd shoehorning of the philosophy of evolution into a phenomenon that at its heart is not evolutionary, but known to be incremental change at this point.

If we're to address one thing in particular instead of moving from subject to subject it's possible to answer. But it appears the subject is moving around dramatically from evolution to universe generation.

The existence of time is a condition of our reality, and those conditions can be traced to a particular zero-point of time. There isn't "infinite past". Interestingly the Bible expected this situation, assigning creation to some particular time, "in the beginning".

 

[Nathaniel Ellis]

There is no Biblical or Scientific support for evolution. it simply did not happen. Go to a creationist website to check out the scientific evidence. and check out a book called (Adams Syn Chronological Chart or Map of History) to understand human history. In 1st Chronicals, 2nd Chronicals, and Ezra. The Bible lists the geniology and life span of individuals from Adam 4004 B.C. to Zerubbebel. 538 B.C.

If you Believe the Bible is the Living Word of God and obviously true you allready know how old the earth is. If you don't believe the bible is truth you don't know anything and should not call yourself a believer.

It is ok to weigh the evidence. but keep in mind that everyone chooses what they believe. Belief is a Choice and no one can change your mind. With God every step is a choosing God with your heart before you understand with your mind.

 

[GhostWriter323]

There is plenty of room for belief in God and science! As a friend once explained it to me- When God created us He knew we would be curious and intelligent beings. He knew that eventually we would have the ability/need to discover where we came from, so He made us complex. Though it was easy for Him to create us, we are not simply made. Science helps us gain a better understanding of God's amazing work. Scientists don't understand everything about how we ended up here and neither do theologians. That's why we have scientific theories and we have faith in God.

 

[Harry3142]

Rob-

One of the arguments that creationists have with evolution is their interpretation of Genesis 1:1 to 2:25. They state that the Scripture is evidence that the world was created in increments of 24-hour days because of how they are reading The Creation Story. But in order to understand what its author was teaching, we have to recognize who he was teaching. And that was the Hebrew people, not us.

And at what point in their existence were they when this was written? I personally accept that they had just left Egypt. a nation where they had been worked as slaves for generations. And while they had worked there, they had been indoctrinated with the polytheistic religion of that land. Over 40 different gods and goddesses were worshipped, and every one of them had either an object (such as the sun, moon, and stars) or an animal (such as a bull, a hawk or a dog) that represented them.

By the time the author of the first Creation Story was through, the animals around them were seen as nothing more than animals, and the sun, moon, and stars were seen as nothing more than objects which gave us light. The only divine being that they were to recognize as truly divine was also invisible, so no representation of him could ever be made with human hands. So to worship an idol was not to give God a representative form; it was to replace God with a false divinity.

When we look at the second Creation Story, found in Genesis 2:4 to 2:25, we are still looking at a disagreement with egyptian creation stories. According to their creation epic, the first 5 days were devoted totally to gods and goddesses making other gods and goddesses. It was only on the sixth day that all the animals were created, including mankind, and then 'dumped' on earth as almost an afterthought. You can read their creation epic on this website:

www.theologywebsite.com/etext/egypt/creation.shtml

The second Creation Story emphasized the unique relationship mankind had with God. God had breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. He had told him to name all the other animals (a symbol of power in that era). He had created The Garden of Eden where Adam was to live. God and Adam conversed with each other directly. Eve was created in a special manner, being an actual part of Adam.

And he also gave them the ability to disobey him, something no other being could do.

As for my personal belief, I accept Intelligent Design. I believe that God has been molding and refirning the universe, and this planet, from the beginning to the present day. Along the way, he has created certain species of animals in order to 'get the work done', and then permitted those animals to continue to exist that served his purpose, while wiping out other species that were either no longer needed, or posed a hindrance to his continued work.