Explain please

[Zunalter]

Could someone explain theistic evolution...as it pertains to origin of life and creation of the universe and whatnot. Is it basically darwinism with an acknowledgement to God or is it something different?

 

[Didaskomenos]

Different things for different people. God was the ultimate cause because He purposed life in its present form to come into being, however that happened (and I'll trust the biologists who make a living studying those things as to that).

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Could someone explain theistic evolution...as it pertains to origin of life and creation of the universe and whatnot. Is it basically darwinism with an acknowledgement to God or is it something different?

Generally, it asserts that God created the diversity of life through evolution. Theistic evolutionists disagree about whether God set up the system and let the process create or whether God intervenes at various points in evolutionary history, but both sides would agree that we can't demonstrate scientifically whether God intervened (it is within God's power to intervene without us being able to notice).

I tend to see God allowing Creation to participate in the creative process. An analogy that I like is that of a conductor and an orchestra. God conducts Creation and through Creation creates beautiful music. At times, God lets Creation improvise, and he incorporates this into the melodies and harmonies of the song. Even when part of Creation makes a mistake or even intentionally plays off tune, God is able to shift the rest of Creation to turn these mistakes into part of the song.

 

[shernren]

Hi Zunalter! Well, there are two parts of the phrase "theistic evolutionism" and I'll go through the "evolutionism" part first. Evolutionism is basically the belief that presently existing and observed biodiversity resulted as a combination of natural selection and mutation. It is well proven but that wouldn't form part of my explanation (you are perfectly welcome to ask, but I'm a lot better with the physics of the age of the earth aspect of origins than the biology of evolution). Evolution is accepted as a demonstrated tool of creation.

But there is a further question to ask: who, or what, was responsible for evolution? Atheistic evolution says that nobody was responsible other than random chance. Theistic evolution (hence the word "theistic") says that God was responsible. So in brief, theistic evolutionism is the idea that evolution was capable of producing presently observed biodiversity, and that God used evolution to achieve it.

Any specific issues?

 

[TurtleTape]

Not sure how this fits in with what you all are saying, but I want to put in my $0.02. Evolution is not what I understood it to be when I was younger, now I know that it's not a weird change and poof, the thing is different, it's that some things were helpful and others weren't, the things that were helpful were given on to later generations. The theistic part, I think of God as a potter. Like when a potter is making a cup, he knows what he wants it to look like, but he doesn't put out the clay and it automatically be a cup, it goes through stages.

I think that this is what God did, I mean, everything that scientists come up with, everything has to have motivation to start it, so someone had to be there to start it, and that's what He did. He knew what he wanted, so he took the materials and molded and shaped them into what He wanted. The stages are what we see as remnants and proof of evolution.

Ok, sorry if that's not what you guys mean, but I just wanted to share my thoughts.

 

[sanct1fym3]

God is pretty worthless then, no offense but why would you worship him. If he doesn't even have the power to write a literal creation story and can't create a universe better than we can, then he isn't worth my praise. Maybe i'll just save it for another religion where their God has got balls. I thought Yaweh was incredible, and really cared for earth, but it was actually all just random crap thrown together and left alone, and then a false story written on it and then we are forced to try and figure out what he REALLY meant, yeah i'm sick of Christianity.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

God is pretty worthless then, no offense but why would you worship him. If he doesn't even have the power to write a literal creation story and can't create a universe better than we can, then he isn't worth my praise. Maybe i'll just save it for another religion where their God has got balls. I thought Yaweh was incredible, and really cared for earth, but it was actually all just random crap thrown together and left alone, and then a false story written on it and then we are forced to try and figure out what he REALLY meant, yeah i'm sick of Christianity.

It's not that He can't. It's that He didn't.

 

[gluadys]

God is pretty worthless then, no offense but why would you worship him. If he doesn't even have the power to write a literal creation story and can't create a universe better than we can, then he isn't worth my praise. Maybe i'll just save it for another religion where their God has got balls. I thought Yaweh was incredible, and really cared for earth, but it was actually all just random crap thrown together and left alone, and then a false story written on it and then we are forced to try and figure out what he REALLY meant, yeah i'm sick of Christianity.

Hmmm. God creates you with a more powerful intellect than any other creature. God expects you to use the intellect he gave you.

Your response: If I have to think about things to understand them, God is not worth worshipping.

My response: Praise God for giving me the capacity to study and learn from his creation and from the scriptures. Truly I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

 

[Deamiter]

I cleaned up an exchange where a member was strongly debating against evolution in this thread. Please note that debate is only allowed in the central Origins Theology forum and NOT in either Theistic Evolution or Creationism forums!

sanct1fym3's post is less direct, but probably still unacceptable under the "no debating" rule. I've left it as an example of what should be avoided. These are all valid questions and valid points to bring up, but they MUST be limited to the open forum as the subforums are debate-free.