How do you reconcile Evolution and Genesis?

[Speedwell]

You learned what a frame narrative is at church!?

Good for your church!

I take it though your church doesn't believe Genesis 1 and 2 make up one?

They teach that it doesn't need to be.

 

[AV1611VET]

They teach that it doesn't need to be.

I disagree.

Academians are calling it a "contradiction," and the only way I see to reconcile it is to consider it a frame narrative.

So, yes.

In my opinion, it needs to be.

 

[Silmarien]

If that is the case, doesn't it seem bizarre to you that a benevolent being would create a law against sin, specify its punishment as eternal damnation, then create humans with a sinful nature such they would be 100% likely to break this law, and then punish them for sinning (unless they take the "medicine" which he prescribes).

Well, as I said, I approach the concept of sin (and salvation) from more of an Orthodox than Western Christian perspective, so I don't conceive of things in terms of punishment and reward at all. I'm adamant almost to the point of theological rebellion on that point. For a taste of a more Orthodox understanding of these issues (though rooted in a traditional biblical understanding of the Fall), see here: Healing the Infirmity of Sin: A Spiritual Nutshell | Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese

I think theists in general need to grapple with the Problem of Evil, and that includes the question of why evolution doesn't always favor what we would consider moral behavior. But I do think a Free Processes and Free Will defense are of some real value here.

I agree, but what do you mean "only gets you so far"? What doesn't evolutionary psychology explain?

When you try to explain both positive and negative elements of human nature as evolutionary adaptations, you're going to have trouble explaining what makes one positive and the other negative by relying upon evolution alone.

I edited my previous post to make my point clearer. Catholic scientists have had no problem because they were working on the assumption that what they saw in nature was the consequence of natural laws and that God never interfered in their observations. When they found something that contradicted their model, they never said "our model is right, what we saw was a miracle". Instead they changed their model until it explained the apparent anomaly. In other words, they wore their atheist hat while in the lab, but put their christian hat back on when they went to church.

No, they didn't wear their atheistic hats while in the lab. What is worth keeping in mind is that the very notion of laws of nature has a theological origin. Classical theists believe that these laws are being maintained in existence by God from moment to moment, and that they would otherwise cease to exist. Medieval Christians in particular stressed divine providence and divine intellect, so tended to believe that the intelligibility of nature was a reflection of the rationality of God. This is why they believed strongly enough in a rationally ordered universe to embark upon scientific exploration. The rise of deism in early modernity made this approach less common, but be careful imposing modern views on earlier time periods.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason is a problem for theists as well. They may say that the ultimate origin of everything is God, but the question then is where did God come from? If they respond by saying that God always existed then why can't the athiest claim that the Universe always existed (which is possible despite the Big Bang) or even that there is an eternal meta-verse which gave rise to our Universe.

The "What caused God?" rejoinder is not a problem for theists; it's just a basic misunderstanding of what traditional theology is all about. There are reasons that God is conceived of as uncreated, eternal, and necessarily existing--the idea is that for contingent things to exist at all, something must have always existed. God isn't invoked specifically to explain the universe, but is identified with this necessarily existing something.

Now, the atheist can certainly say that the universe or multiverse always existed, but those who take this approach generally accept the Principle of Sufficient Reason and then try to resist the specifically theistic conclusions of the argument. In this context, however, I'm less concerned with the existence of the universe itself and more concerned with the laws that appear to govern it--unless you hold them to be metaphysically necessary, it is hard to see why things couldn't just happen for no apparent reason even without invoking divine miracles. And metaphysical necessity is an idea most atheists would rather stay away from. Understandably, since it involves tossing empiricism to the wind.

Have you read any of Frans de Waals books on the evolution of morality? His view is that human morality can be explained by evolution while at the same time he rejects what he calls "veneer theory" i.e. the view that human morality is "a cultural overlay, a thin veneer hiding an otherwise selfish and brutish nature

No, I haven't. I have read a bit by George Vaillant on the evolution of spirituality and positive emotions, though. This one, in particular. (The title is a bit misleading, because it's not specifically about religion.)

 

[Norbert L]

How is that different from superstition?

What makes the supernatural and unexplained phenomena the same is they both have been observed by enough people to make them credible.

 

[Brother Billy]

Well, as I said, I approach the concept of sin (and salvation) from more of an Orthodox than Western Christian perspective, so I don't conceive of things in terms of punishment and reward at all. I'm adamant almost to the point of theological rebellion on that point. For a taste of a more Orthodox understanding of these issues (though rooted in a traditional biblical understanding of the Fall), see here: Healing the Infirmity of Sin: A Spiritual Nutshell | Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese

Sorry I should have read your post more carefully. Thanks for the link - I will have a look. However my general point still remains. It seems bizarre that God would create humans with a spiritual illness, but still describe his creation as good. Then he set things up that this illness requires the healing which only he can provide? This is one of the main reasons why I am not a Christian anymore - it just seems so unbelievable.

I think theists in general need to grapple with the Problem of Evil, and that includes the question of why evolution doesn't always favor what we would consider moral behavior. But I do think a Free Processes and Free Will defense are of some real value here.

When you try to explain both positive and negative elements of human nature as evolutionary adaptations, you're going to have trouble explaining what makes one positive and the other negative by relying upon evolution alone.

In the following video, Richard Dawkins answers this very question:

As you are no doubt aware, Evolution is just a descriptive process of why we are the way we are. As humans, we are free to decide our own morals. And there is no reason why these have to match that which evolution has given us. What was appropriate for prehistoric hunter-gathers may not be appropriate for us anymore. As intelligent sentient beings who can empathize with others, we recognize that we have a tendency towards certain behaviors, that today, are negative on the individual and societal level (e.g. favoring people who look like us over those that do not) and that we need to change this.

No, they didn't wear their atheistic hats while in the lab. What is worth keeping in mind is that the very notion of laws of nature has a theological origin. Classical theists believe that these laws are being maintained in existence by God from moment to moment, and that they would otherwise cease to exist. Medieval Christians in particular stressed divine providence and divine intellect, so tended to believe that the intelligibility of nature was a reflection of the rationality of God. This is why they believed strongly enough in a rationally ordered universe to embark upon scientific exploration. The rise of deism in early modernity made this approach less common, but be careful imposing modern views on earlier time periods.

How do you tell the difference between:
- a miracle and
- an extraordinary event that cannot be explained by currently understood science but which has a natural cause?

Doesn't the potential existence of miracles reduce the rational intelligibility of nature? If so, why wouldn't this invalidate the scientific method?

The "What caused God?" rejoinder is not a problem for theists; it's just a basic misunderstanding of what traditional theology is all about. There are reasons that God is conceived of as uncreated, eternal, and necessarily existing--the idea is that for contingent things to exist at all, something must have always existed. God isn't invoked specifically to explain the universe, but is identified with this necessarily existing something.

Now, the atheist can certainly say that the universe or multiverse always existed, but those who take this approach generally accept the Principle of Sufficient Reason and then try to resist the specifically theistic conclusions of the argument.

Even if you could convincingly argue that there existed something that was uncreated, eternal, and necessarily existing, how can you draw any theistic conclusions from this argument? Yes this something has certain characteristics that might be associated with God, but this doesn't prove that this something is God. (Sorry if I misunderstood your argument)

In this context, however, I'm less concerned with the existence of the universe itself and more concerned with the laws that appear to govern it--unless you hold them to be metaphysically necessary, it is hard to see why things couldn't just happen for no apparent reason even without invoking divine miracles. And metaphysical necessity is an idea most atheists would rather stay away from. Understandably, since it involves tossing empiricism to the wind.

I'm afraid you lost me here... I'm not a philosopher.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Incorrect. Evolution is shown to be based on conjecture based on the fossil record.

When evolution theory was formulated, we barely had any fossils at all.
So that by definition is a false statement.

And only someone fully ignorant on evolution would state that fossils are the only, or even just the most important, evidence for the idea. That's just utterly wrong. The genetic record is a lot more solid. But the real strength of the evidence comes from the sum of all the different independent lines of evidence, that all converge on the exact same answer.

Again, the fossil record does not show one Kind of Creature evolving into another creature over time. All we see are fossils and gaps between them.

I still have tge pictures of your erroneous claim flippers from feet. Do we need to show the error therein again, when the appendages are placed bak on the Creatures they are from? More than appendages had to morphologically change by such prossess stated as evolution. And there are no fossils between such macro-assemblages to connect the dots by.

Your post claims "evidence for evolution" but such is conjecture based. Evolution requires belief to accept. And you believe in evolution. One who has set a Creator to the side as a possibility to explain what we wee see around us.

This nonsense has been addressed so many times already that I'm not even going to bother anymore.

 

[DogmaHunter]

What makes the supernatural and unexplained phenomena the same is they both have been observed by enough people to make them credible.

That doesn't seem to make any sense.

 

[Norbert L]

That doesn't seem to make any sense.

That's the point, there are things that have been investigated and reported by large groups of credible people that can't be fully explained. There's no sense to them other than they exist, the rest is conjecture.

 

[Gene2memE]

That's the point, there are things that have been investigated and reported by large groups of credible people that can't be fully explained. There's no sense to them other than they exist, the rest is conjecture.

So, if something is unexplained or partially explained, does that justify invoking the supernatural?

 

[DogmaHunter]

That's the point, there are things that have been investigated and reported by large groups of credible people that can't be fully explained. There's no sense to them other than they exist, the rest is conjecture.

If things can't be explained, then they are unexplained.
Slapping the label "supernatural" on them, doesn't mean anything. They are still unexplained.

 

[Speedwell]

I disagree.

Academians are calling it a "contradiction," and the only way I see to reconcile it is to consider it a frame narrative.

So, yes.

In my opinion, it needs to be.

The contradiction only presents itself if you insist that it's a frame narrative. If you take it as two different stories then the problem of contradiction doesn't arise.

 

[AV1611VET]

The contradiction only presents itself if you insist that it's a frame narrative. If you take it as two different stories then the problem of contradiction doesn't arise.

So you disagree with everyone here who calls it a contradiction?

 

[Speedwell]

So you disagree with everyone here who calls it a contradiction?

Not quite.

If one assumes that Genesis 1 @ 2 form an historically accurate seamless narrative then there are contradictions which pose serious problems for that assumption.

If, on the other hand, one assumes that Gen 1 & 2 are two different stories of different literary provenance there are still contradictions but they are of no moment.

That is why only biblical literalists are called upon to justify the contradictions.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Either that, or it's a frame narrative.

What? Did you say someone is being framed?

 

[Heissonear]

If things can't be explained, then they are unexplained.
Slapping the label "supernatural" on them, doesn't mean anything. They are still unexplained.

You keep pushing the Creator aside. As a non-issue.

Many try to explain things around them by natural processes only.

I was once one.

But the Creator is real and dynamic in His Creation. That is why Jesus preached you must be born again, of Spirit.

Why do you push such aside when those once like you found what Jesus said is factual. There is Power from on High we encounter through being born again.

This shows your position of materialistic and naturalistic realm is limited. You have yet to received and taste the Power of the Creator.

And the Purpose of this Creation is not "it just happened" but God is bringing about eternal Children.

Do know in this, evolution is a belief, having a foundation of conjecture. The fossil record speaks of such. No creature found to evolve into another. You are not looking at the fossils found.

Why, since evolution did not historically happen, there is a godless bend in viewing modern sciences as a means to try and rescue evolution.

Modern science should be read as the Creator made things, not natural processes that in history have never been shown to occur.

You must be born again. Until then you are trapped in what you can ascertain.

 

[Heissonear]

If things can't be explained, then they are unexplained.
Slapping the label "supernatural" on them, doesn't mean anything. They are still unexplained.

So says one who has yet to be touched from on High, and have rivers of Living water running in him.

Until the Living Waters from on High comes to you, many things will not be explained and be beyond you to ascertain.

In truth. One must be born again.

 

[Speedwell]

You keep pushing the Creator aside. As a non-issue.

Many try to explain things around them by natural processes only.

I was once one.

But the Creator is real and dynamic in His Creation. That is why Jesus preached you must be born again, of Spirit.

Why do you push such aside when those once like you found what Jesus said is factual. There is Power from on High we encounter through being born again.

This shows your position of materialistic and naturalistic realm is limited. You have yet to received and taste the Power of the Creator.

And the Purpose of this Creation is not "it just happened" but God is bringing about eternal Children.

Do know in this, evolution is a belief, having a foundation of conjecture. The fossil record speaks of such. No creature found to evolve into another. You are not looking at the fossils found.

Why, since evolution did not historically happen, there is a godless bend in viewing modern sciences as a means to try and rescue evolution.

Modern science should be read as the Creator made things, not natural processes that in history have never been shown to occur.

You must be born again. Until then you are trapped in what you can ascertain.

The Creator is real and dynamic in His Creation,

and

natural phenomenon can be explained in terms of natural forces.

It's and, not either/or, something that theologians have known for centuries--which is why Roman Catholic and other Traditional Christians never had all that much of a problem with evolution .

 

[2PhiloVoid]

That's an interesting perspective. However the evolution of "tribalism" stretches back millions of years. Such behavior can be seen in Chimpanzees. See:

If you identify Tribalism as original sin, then you would also have to apply it to Chimpanzees as well. The other implication of the above is that humanity is not responsible for their sinful nature since God created us with such a nature already within us.

Some of us in the human race definitely DO apply it to chimpanzees and other apes, even if in very quaint fashion in some places in the world :

 

[Heissonear]

The Creator is real and dynamic in His Creation,

and

natural phenomenon can be explained in terms of natural forces.

It's and, not either/or, something that theologians have known for centuries--which is why Roman Catholic and other Traditional Christians never had all that much of a problem with evolution .

You are correct. The natural forces and processes put in place produce what they are suppose to.


My mistake. It was meant against an non-proven natural process. But was worded wrong.

 

[Silmarien]

Sorry I should have read your post more carefully. Thanks for the link - I will have a look. However my general point still remains. It seems bizarre that God would create humans with a spiritual illness, but still describe his creation as good. Then he set things up that this illness requires the healing which only he can provide? This is one of the main reasons why I am not a Christian anymore - it just seems so unbelievable.

I agree with your general point. If Christians can no longer coherently point to the Garden of Eden as the specific point where sin and evil entered Creation, then they need to provide an alternative account for why God would intentionally create a world that would lead to suffering as a natural consequence.

As far as I can tell, there are several answers here:

1. The ever popular hand waving.
2. Denying evolution and pretending that the Problem of Evil goes away with it.
3. Denying the reality of good and evil and declaring suffering illusory. This works, I think, but it shoves us outside of Christian theism and towards Hinduism instead.
4. ???

The response I find intriguing is that the universe is in a process of self-creation, and that if it had been brought into existence already complete and perfect, it would be identical with God. Independence requires imperfection, dynamism, and separation from God. And all of this comes with a price.

Of course, Christianity also says that God is willing to pay that price in the end. Viewed in this light, the religion actually makes a lot of sense to me, though you would need to really dig deep into Atonement theology to see the wide variety of ways that it has been conceived of over the centuries. This particular take is pretty subversive, especially if you're not used to the cosmic undertones that show up in Patristics. (And Paul, for that matter.)

As you are no doubt aware, Evolution is just a descriptive process of why we are the way we are. As humans, we are free to decide our own morals. And there is no reason why these have to match that which evolution has given us.

But then you can't attribute morality to evolutionary psychology. Either it is given to us as part of our heritage as a social species, or it is something that we choose to accept for reasons other than that it happened to be a useful adaptation in the distant past.

Richard Dawkins is not a great authority on metaethics. He's a brilliant scientist but a terrible philosopher--you can see this in the way he'll hold to hard determinism and then turn around and wax poetic about our ability to choose better moral frameworks. This is incoherent. Either we're slaves to our evolutionary heritage or our behavior cannot be reduced to evolutionary psychology. Not both.

How do you tell the difference between:
- a miracle and
- an extraordinary event that cannot be explained by currently understood science but which has a natural cause?

Doesn't the potential existence of miracles reduce the rational intelligibility of nature? If so, why wouldn't this invalidate the scientific method?

How would anyone tell the difference between a miracle and an extraordinary event with no current scientific explanation? Atheists have no guarantees that reality is ultimately intelligible--the scientific project could theoretically crash into a wall and fall apart at any moment. This is the infamous Humean Problem of Induction.

I really have no problem reconciling empirical science and the possibility of miracles. I have never experienced one (unless you count existence itself as a miracle, which I actually would), but I see no grounds to rule out the possibility aside from doctrinal commitments. Conflict only arises when people insist that only miraculous explanations are possible (see Creationists), not when they admit the possibility of miracles. If you wish to rule that possibility out, though, good luck finding genuine grounds for doing so.

Even if you could convincingly argue that there existed something that was uncreated, eternal, and necessarily existing, how can you draw any theistic conclusions from this argument? Yes this something has certain characteristics that might be associated with God, but this doesn't prove that this something is God. (Sorry if I misunderstood your argument)

Well, for starters, I'm a Platonist and not strictly speaking a Christian (or possibly a really confused Anglo-Catholic). I do not distinguish between something that has characteristics that we associate with God and God himself--it is the same thing to me. If you want to call it Brahman, call it Brahman. Or Allah. Or Yahweh. My preference would probably be the One, the Good, the Unmoved Mover, Uncaused Cause, or something along those lines, but the word we use in this culture is God. So be it.

There is a lot of natural theology out there--people have been arguing for the various divine properties since at least Plotinus. They don't go from the Kalam straight to the Trinity with their personal soteriology getting a free ride, and if they do, run, because that's intellectual dishonesty. If you think the arguments work, or are at least more reasonable at making sense of reality as the alternatives, then you start to get a picture that looks more and more like the classical image of God.