How Have You resolved the Creationism vs Evolution Debate?

[BobAliceEve]

For me there is no debate. Since an early age the Holy Spirit has testified to me that Christ is my Redeemer. It took a longer time to understand what He redeemed me from: physical death and separation from God. Both of these occurred when Adam and Eve disobeyed. Prior to that they were in God's company regularly. Prior to that they were to live for ever as man and wife. Christ redeemed me from the fall. Thanks to Him I will have my body restored to me forever and have an opportunity to live in His Father's presence forever.

Of course, every evidence for Evolution must be prefixed by "If God did not create ... then ...". For example, if God did not create the birds so that a portion of all the nests in any given forest or thicket had birds with big beaks to carry the line through drought then it is reasonable to believe that evolution happens as the drought progresses. Another example: if God did not create the earth from existing, ancient material and add an atmosphere about 13,000 years ago then it is possible that what we see in the old rocks and valleys does point to a very old earth.

Evolution and Biblical creation diverge forever at the account of Adam and Eve. No Christian who believes the account given there through the mouth of the prophet Moses can long choose the double path. For the account to fit what is in the Bible an immortal and morally accountable Adam and an immortal and morally accountable Eve had to exist. Because no family of apes could ever give birth to such a couple it is logical to believe that God created them immortal and morally accountable. If they were not immortal then the threat of death would have been hollow. If they did not walk in the presence of God then the Bible would not so state. If they did not lose their place in the presence of God and if they did not later die then there would be no need for Christ. But they both did both and I am their fallen offspring and Christ is my way back. And he is you way back also, if you so choose.

 

[gluadys]

Of course, every evidence for Evolution must be prefixed by "If God did not create ... then ...".

At the risk of initiating a debate that belongs in another thread, this is where you are wrong. It is not necessary to preface anything in evolution with a denial of God's creative action.

 

[mark kennedy]

Of course, every evidence for Evolution must be prefixed by "If God did not create ... then ...".

Exactly! As much as I like the rest of your discussion this statement sums up what I have concluded early and often while exploring the topic. It's called an a priori (without prior) assumption of universal common descent by exclusively naturalistic means.

At the risk of initiating a debate that belongs in another thread, this is where you are wrong. It is not necessary to preface anything in evolution with a denial of God's creative action.

Then why did Darwin preface On the Origin of Species with it? Charles Darwin in the preface to ‘On the Origin of Species’ credits Jean-Baptiste Lamarck with being the first man to propose that ‘the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species.’ This, Darwin argues, ‘being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’

Darwinian evolution rejects God as cause of anything in creation, pretending that it does not is where you are wrong.

It’s clear, for example, that to the extent that Darwinian Evolution governs the development of life forms on this planet that is not an artifact of the Earth. Darwinian Evolution is a logic which is applicable to all life forms and all biosystems that may exist in the universe, even the ones we have not discovered. (Prof. Robert Weinberg, MIT Biology, 2003)​

That's all life forms, that's all biosystems in the universe, even though they have never been discovered. That's called a transcendent apriori assumption that rejects God's creative work in favor of exclusively naturalistic causes.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[shernren]

Mark, does divine action require miracle?

 

[gluadys]

At the risk of initiating a debate that belongs in another thread, this is where you are wrong. It is not necessary to preface anything in evolution with a denial of God's creative action.

Then why did Darwin preface On the Origin of Species with it?

He didn't.

Charles Darwin in the preface to ‘On the Origin of Species’ credits Jean-Baptiste Lamarck with being the first man to propose that ‘the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species.’ This, Darwin argues, ‘being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’

So? Since when has the recognition of lawful processes in nature (such as the alternation of day and night, the cycle of the seasons, the growth of a plant from a seed, etc. etc.) been construed by Christians as a denial of God's creative activity relative to these natural phenomena?

All Darwin is saying is that the origin of species is of a similar nature--a matter of law, not miraculous interposition.


To misconstrue that as a denial of God's creative activity is to put God in a box of only being able to touch nature via miraculous interposition.

Is that your position?

It is not the biblical position.

It is a quasi-Deist position.

The only difference between the idea that God only touches nature via miraculous interposition and the Deist concept is that the Deists did not believe that there ever was any miraculous interposition. So far as the regularities of nature are concerned both your position and the Deist position is the same. You and the Deists seem to agree that God is absent from whatever is ordinary and natural.

Shernren's question is pertinent.

In your opinion, does divine action require miracle?

That is the only basis on which you can distort Darwin's meaning into a denial of God's creative activity.

 

[mark kennedy]

Mark, does divine action require miracle?

No but creation, regeneration and resurrection do.

 

[mark kennedy]

He didn't.

He did, in the preface, clearly state, '‘being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’

That's not species, that's not genus, that's not a million years ago, that's not a billion years ago. That's transcendent, it is assumed through out all living systems, all periods of time, before the evidence is examined. It's metaphysics, not science.

Yes he did

So? Since when has the recognition of lawful processes in nature (such as the alternation of day and night, the cycle of the seasons, the growth of a plant from a seed, etc. etc.) been construed by Christians as a denial of God's creative activity relative to these natural phenomena?

No one is denying the laws of inheritance or God's divine providence, it is the Darwinian who makes an absolute, unqualified, categorical denial of God's activity.

All Darwin is saying is that the origin of species is of a similar nature--a matter of law, not miraculous interposition.

That is not all he is saying, that is where he is starting. Species for Darwin was synonymous variety and by that he meant all variety. This transcends all time and all life. You've made an obviously bogus statement that creationists deny God's activity in creation, then you want to rationalize Darwinian logic.

To misconstrue that as a denial of God's creative activity is to put God in a box of only being able to touch nature via miraculous interposition.

No, it's to recognize God's sovereign will and activity in creation. This is based on the clear testimony of Scripture, not just in Genesis but in every instance creation is mentioned in the New Testament. You are denying God's creative activity or do you need me to show you the real world meaning of the key word you are using?

Is that your position?

You know my position as well as how Darwinian logic works, you just won't admit it. As many times as I have made the argument that Darwinism is an a priori assumption of naturalistic causes you have insisted on mischaracterizing, that is, giving false and misleading character to the substance of my arguments. My actual arguments you have abandoned and instead set up a strawman argument I have neither made nor endorse.

It is not the biblical position.

The clear, concise and consistent testimony of Scripture is that God created life over the period of 6 days. The New Testament further affirms not only this series of events but also the Flood and elaborate exposition of the sin of Adam and Eve.

The book of Romans tells us that God's invisible attributes and eternal nature have been clearly seen but we exchanged the truth of God for a lie (Rom 1:21,22). As a result the Law of Moses and the law of our own conscience bears witness against us, sometimes accusing, sometimes defending (Rom 2:15). We all sinned but now the righteousness of God has been revealed to be by faith through Christ (Rom 3:21). Abraham became the father of many nations by faith and the supernatural work of God (Rom 4:17). Through one man sin entered the world and through one man righteousness was revealed (Rom 5:12) or as others have seen it, Adam’s dragging everyone down into sin. It looks something like this:

1) Exchanging the truth of God for a lie, the creature for the Creator.
2) Both the Law and our conscience make our sin evident and obvious.
3) All sinned, but now the righteousness of God is revealed in Christ.
4) Abraham's lineage produced by a promise and a miracle through faith.
5) Through one man sin entered the world and death through sin.
6) Just as Christ was raised from the dead we walk in newness of life.
7) The law could not save but instead empowered sin to convict.
8) Freed from the law of sin and death (Adamic nature) we're saved.

The Scriptures offer an explanation for man's fallen nature, how we inherited it exactly is not important but when Adam and Eve sinned we did not fast. This is affirmed in the New Testament in no uncertain terms by Luke in his genealogy, in Paul's exposition of the Gospel in Romans and even Jesus called the marriage of Adam and Eve 'the beginning'.

You already know this but it's you who have a position that is beyond and opposed to the clear testimony of Scripture.

It is a quasi-Deist position.

Deism - in the philosophy of religion is the standpoint that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is a creation and has a creator. Furthermore, the term often implies that this supreme being does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the natural laws of the universe. Deists typically reject supernatural events such as prophecy and miracles, tending to assert that a god (or "the Supreme Architect") does not alter the universe by (regularly or ever) intervening in the affairs of human life. This idea is also known as the Clockwork universe theory, in which a god designs and builds the universe, but steps aside to let it run on its own. Deists believe in the existence of a god without any reliance on revealed religion, religious authority or holy books. Two main forms of deism currently exist: classical deism and modern deism. (Deism, Wikipedia)​

That is a classic description of theistic evolution. It is an absurd mischaracterization of creationism to give the false and misleading impression that they are somehow deistic. It is the role of miracles in creation that drives the Darwinian zealots and makes creationism the object of so much academic and scientific ridicule.

You know what's really sad about this, not one theistic evolutionist will call you on this. You will never openly admit that you purposely mischaracterized the Creationist position. You have no qualms about twisting my position into a philosophical naturalism I have debated and argued against my entire time on these boards. That's sad really, not that you will get by with it but the fact that you have no qualms about it.

Creationists who deny the supernatural activity of God in human affairs don't exist, deism describes theistic evolution my dear and you know it.

The only difference between the idea that God only touches nature via miraculous interposition and the Deist concept is that the Deists did not believe that there ever was any miraculous interposition. So far as the regularities of nature are concerned both your position and the Deist position is the same. You and the Deists seem to agree that God is absent from whatever is ordinary and natural.

Nonsense, squeezing creationists in this mold is a waste of time and energy. Creationists in general and me in particular see the original creation as foundational to God's activity and interaction in human affairs. That is something desists resolutely deny. Of course God lets nature run it's natural course and need not micromanage every single molecular mechanism. That's not what creationists believe, teach or defend.

"To omit the creation would be to misunderstand the very history of God with men, to diminish it, to lose sight of its true order of greatness...Faith in God and in the events of salvation history must necessarily begin with a belief in God's role as Creator (Benedict XVI, VATICAN CITY, APRIL 23, 2011, Zenit.org)​

Salvation is inextricably linked to salvation, there can be no question about that. When a believer receives the Gospel and is indwelled by the Holy Spirit it is the same miracle as the creation, resurrection and especially, the regeneration of the believer through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Shernren's question is pertinent.

Nonsense.

Mark, does divine action require miracle?

It is a misleading question meant to distract and conflate the topic at hand.

In your opinion, does divine action require miracle?

Who cares what my opinion is? Try this, 'does evolution allow for divine action that is not subordinate to natural law'?

But ok, I'll answer the question when you define 'divine action' as distinctly different from a 'miracle'. I know you guys, like all Darwinians, don't like to define your terms but you have conflated what it means to be a creationist with reckless abandon. Now I expect you to define what you and your buddy mean by these two.

That is the only basis on which you can distort Darwin's meaning into a denial of God's creative activity.

I can define every term I use in these discussions. Theistic evolutionists never do and all I have to do to argue against Darwin's meaning is to infer God as Creator in accordance with the clear testimony of Scripture.

You cannot reject God as Creator and affirm Christ as Savior. Creation was not the last miracle and I certainly never entertained, much less endorsed a deistic worldview. Salvation, the rebirth, washing, renewal and regeneration of the Holy Spirit is the same miracle.

You actually have the nerve to accuse me of being a deist?

How dare you!

 

[shernren]

Creationists who deny the supernatural activity of God in human affairs don't exist, deism describes theistic evolution my dear and you know it.

A naturalistic, evolutionary explanation (for the origin of life, for instance, or the origin of the first animals) doesn’t need God acting to move things along. God, like the horse, is quite irrelevant. If the tractor is working properly, the horse can wander in the pasture.

Likewise, imagining God ‘working through’ naturalistic evolution is as nonsensical as having a horse pull a tractor in neutral. If naturalistic evolution is a truly sufficient explanation, it will run on its own power—that is, account for what we observe solely in terms of natural forces and entities. We may envisage other roles for God (if we still see a need for Him), but creating living things isn’t among them.
​

The Horse and the Tractor - Answers in Genesis

Hang on to that thought.

Who cares what my opinion is? Try this, 'does evolution allow for divine action that is not subordinate to natural law'?

But ok, I'll answer the question when you define 'divine action' as distinctly different from a 'miracle'. I know you guys, like all Darwinians, don't like to define your terms but you have conflated what it means to be a creationist with reckless abandon. Now I expect you to define what you and your buddy mean by these two.

Divine action is simply the action of God. As it pertains to the created order in general (as opposed to humanity in particular, where the dispute around Calvinism makes things much more complicated), God's divine action issues forth in the creation and upholding of the universe, as well as its eventual redemption from suffering the consequences of man's sin.

Consider Hebrews 1:2-3 and Colossians 1:16-17. In both cases the creation of the world by the word of God (whether a verbal word as in Hebrews, or the Son as the Word in Colossians) is tied intimately with the upholding of the world. It is clear, then, that divine action is to be seen both in the upholding of physical regularity in the world, as well as its temporary suspension when God so requires to communicate or demonstrate certain truths to mankind. This temporary suspension is precisely what a miracle is.

It is clear that both miracle and non-miracle are to be considered as divine action. Consider, for example, Psalm 136, which exhorts the people of God to "Give thanks to the Lord ... to Him who alone does great wonders" (vv1, 4). It is obvious that besides His acts of creation - making the heavens, the waters, and the great lights (vv 5-9) - there are also miraculous acts to thank God for (the Exodus, vv10-16, and the conquest of the land, vv17-24), as well as non-miraculous acts to thank God for ("He gives food to all flesh", v. 25). This establishes that both His general upholding and His particular suspension of natural law are His divine action, for which He is praiseworthy.

Having done what you requested (without so much as a whimper of a personal attack, by the way ), let me sharpen my question a little bit:

Does a sparrow's falling from the sky require a miracle?

You who take such offense at Steven Weinberg applying evolution universally, don't forget that even many creationists believe that gravity applies universally, at all times, in all places, to all masses. (With barely a shred of evidence for it and certainly no understanding of that evidence, at that.)

You who think that evolution facilitated the rise of atheism, don't forget how gravity resulted in one of the first great atheistic declarations: when Napoleon asked Laplace where in his great gravitational calculations of the Solar System he could find God, Laplace replied: "I have no need of this hypothesis."

Yet, for all that, it would still be bizarre to say that, yes, the falling of a sparrow is a miracle, inexplicable by modern science, inscrutable to those heathen gravitationalists.

And yet, if you say no, then what prevents you from taking the following modification of John Woodmorappe's position?

A naturalistic, gravitational explanation (for the falling of a sparrow from the sky, for instance, or the movement of the planets) doesn’t need God acting to move things along. God, like the horse, is quite irrelevant. If the tractor is working properly, the horse can wander in the pasture.

Likewise, imagining God ‘working through’ naturalistic gravity is as nonsensical as having a horse pull a tractor in neutral. If naturalistic gravity is a truly sufficient explanation, it will run on its own power—that is, account for what we observe solely in terms of natural forces and entities. We may envisage other roles for God (if we still see a need for Him), but making masses fall isn’t among them.
​

But not only is this generally deist, it is also in direct contravention to Scripture, both generally (Hebrews 1:2-3 and Colossians 1:16-17) but specifically (Matthew 10:29).

And if natural law is allowed to drop a sparrow without robbing God of His glory, surely natural law is also allowed to evolve a sparrow without robbing God of His glory?

(Unless, as I have always suspected, the typical creationist's obsession with evolution stems not so much from an accurate assessment of which science is atheistic and which isn't, so much as an unthinking absorption of the spirit of our times - or, even more accurately, the spirit of times about a hundred to fifteen years ago. Consider how Stephen Hawking's The Grand Design argued quite stridently for atheism, not on the basis that evolution explains life, but on the basis that M-theory explains the very physical fabric of space-time. Suddenly Laplace's gravitational refutation of God has renewed street cred.

But will we have to wait ten years for the creationists to start claiming all around that quantum theory is deeply anti-theistic - there's no such thing as chance in God's providence after all, is there? - or will their typical cultural retardation keep them waiting a century as they did with evolution?)

 

[shernren]

Having dispatched your thoughts professionally, let me now add a personal note that many TEs here (including gluadys and myself) have both had civil conversations with creationists and corrected other TEs. Lucaspa in particular knows that I will almost always have a problem with what he says - not because I don't like him, but simply because our beliefs are different.

Believe it or not, every once in a while we scoundrels actually care about truth more than beating up on creationists.

As for the opposition you seem to constantly endure, go on and wear the stinging memories as marks of martyrdom for Christ if you will, but remember:

​​​​​​​​Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. (Prov 10:12, ESV)​

 

[metherion]

Mark, I would like to submit that you DO submit to a dichotomy, that God cannot be responsible for natural law.

From your post #256 in the Christianity requires the acceptance of Creationism thread (and I'd still like to you see reply to my response to it over there some day):

There is a reason that any inference of the Creator is ostracized, it's a mutually exclusive transcendent principle. The substantive principle that transcends all reality is either God or natural law. I didn't create that dichotomy, Darwinism did.

You declare that there IS a dichotomy that transcends all reality is God or natural law. God OR natural law. That something cannot be both God AND natural law, they are *in your very own words* mutually exclusive... therefore, that God cannot be controlling natural law. You falsely ascribe it to 'Darwinism' when nothing in science anywhere says any such thing, but you clearly take a side in that dichotomy, and certainly seem to believe in the dichotomy wholeheartedly in all your posts.

You reinforce this with such statements as

it is the Darwinian who makes an absolute, unqualified, categorical denial of God's activity.

when every single one of the TEs here believes God is active every day in sustaining the natural laws that you claim are mutually exclusive with God, in your own words.

Metherion

 

[gluadys]

He did, in the preface, clearly state, '‘being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’

That's not species, that's not genus, that's not a million years ago, that's not a billion years ago. That's transcendent, it is assumed through out all living systems, all periods of time, before the evidence is examined. It's metaphysics, not science.

Actually it is not restricted even to living systems. Note that the full sentence, cited below, includes the phrase "as well as in the inorganic world".

In these works he [Lamarck] upholds the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.​

Note too that the emphasis in on change. It is not the origin of matter (organic or inorganic) nor the creation of the universe or of life, nor the devising of natural processes or rhythms of change by God that is being denied here. It is not even the role of divine action in the changes to organic or inorganic world that is being denied here.

All Lamarck is saying--and all Darwin is saying--is that the rise and fall of species is not due to special miraculous interposition but to the very laws of nature by which God governs ordinary change through history.

No one is denying the laws of inheritance or God's divine providence, it is the Darwinian who makes an absolute, unqualified, categorical denial of God's activity.

But Darwin doesn't make any such absolute, unqualified, categorical denial. And if you include theistic evolutionists among Darwinians, most Darwinians don't either.

My actual arguments you have abandoned and instead set up a strawman argument I have neither made nor endorse.

No point arguing with a statement that is factually incorrect.
The absence of any categorical denial of divine action in Darwin's work is sufficient response.

The Scriptures offer an explanation for man's fallen nature, how we inherited it exactly is not important but when Adam and Eve sinned we did not fast. This is affirmed in the New Testament in no uncertain terms by Luke in his genealogy, in Paul's exposition of the Gospel in Romans and even Jesus called the marriage of Adam and Eve 'the beginning'.

And all of that can be affirmed by a Christian who accepts evolution.

You already know this but it's you who have a position that is beyond and opposed to the clear testimony of Scripture.

Deism - in the philosophy of religion is the standpoint that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is a creation and has a creator. Furthermore, the term often implies that this supreme being does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the natural laws of the universe. Deists typically reject supernatural events such as prophecy and miracles, tending to assert that a god (or "the Supreme Architect") does not alter the universe by (regularly or ever) intervening in the affairs of human life. This idea is also known as the Clockwork universe theory, in which a god designs and builds the universe, but steps aside to let it run on its own. Deists believe in the existence of a god without any reliance on revealed religion, religious authority or holy books. Two main forms of deism currently exist: classical deism and modern deism. (Deism, Wikipedia)​

Bolding added. That is why I termed your position "quasi-Deist". I know you do not agree with the bolded section. You do, however, seem to agree that--with the exception of miraculous interposition--God steps aside to let the universe he has designed and built run on its own.

If that is not what you believe, then I do not understand why you denounce every hint of a natural mode of species change as an attack on creation.

Perhaps you could clarify your position on this point.

Creationists who deny the supernatural activity of God in human affairs don't exist, deism describes theistic evolution my dear and you know it.

No, it doesn't. Deism encourages the idea of the absence of God from the natural order. The god of Deism is the Clockmaker God who stands aside from his creation to let it run on its own. Theistic evolution encourages the idea of the presence of God in the natural order. That is why TEs see God's hand in both ordinary nature and in miraculous interposition, not solely in miraculous interposition.

On this point, you seem closer to Deism than any TE.

Who cares what my opinion is? Try this, 'does evolution allow for divine action that is not subordinate to natural law'?

Certainly. By definition natural law is always subordinate to God's will and accomplishes the purposes God has for it. So, if God chooses to use the means of evolution to produce human biology, evolution will do that.

Further, since evolution describes a regular natural process, it does not describe miraculous interventions in the process, but it doesn't disallow them either. Similarly, a biology text describes the regular natural process of conception, but doesn't disallow a miraculous intervention like a virgin conceiving by the power of the Holy Spirit. So there is clearly space in human origins for God endowing a biologically human species (or even individual i.e. Adam) with the spiritual capacity of being the image of God via a miraculous interposition.

You cannot reject God as Creator and affirm Christ as Savior

And you know by now that you don't even need to raise this issue here since none of us in a Christians-only forum reject God as Creator.

This is just an underhanded way of suggesting that evolution=atheism.

You actually have the nerve to accuse me of being a deist?

How dare you!

quasi-Deist, as explained above.

 

[mark kennedy]

Actually it is not restricted even to living systems. Note that the full sentence, cited below, includes the phrase "as well as in the inorganic world".

Note: The full phrase not only includes in the inorganic but the, 'probability of all change in the organic'.

Does all change mean all change? I suspect it means all change.

In these works he [Lamarck] upholds the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.​

Yep, there it is again...

Note too that the emphasis in on change. It is not the origin of matter (organic or inorganic) nor the creation of the universe or of life, nor the devising of natural processes or rhythms of change by God that is being denied here. It is not even the role of divine action in the changes to organic or inorganic world that is being denied here.

That's exactly what it is, it's a categorical rejection of the divine inference.

All Lamarck is saying--and all Darwin is saying--is that the rise and fall of species is not due to special miraculous interposition but to the very laws of nature by which God governs ordinary change through history.

No they are not, they are saying the probability of 'all change', organic and inorganic. They specifically distinguish between God as a cause and natural law being sufficient as an explanation. This is foundational, ubiquitous and categorical.

But Darwin doesn't make any such absolute, unqualified, categorical denial. And if you include theistic evolutionists among Darwinians, most Darwinians don't either.

Allowing for exception under what conditions?

No point arguing with a statement that is factually incorrect.

Just like there was no point in denying that Creationism is deism except that it's absurd. I will admit that there is no point in arguing a point you cannot defend.

The absence of any categorical denial of divine action in Darwin's work is sufficient response.

Just as theistic evolution deny the clear, concise and consistent testimony of Scripture the position of creationists as well as the direct statements of Charles Darwin are conflated.

And all of that can be affirmed by a Christian who accepts evolution.

Evolution being defined as what?

You already know this but it's you who have a position that is beyond and opposed to the clear testimony of Scripture.

Again, that is simply not true:

Sin came as the result of, 'many died by the trespass of the one man' (Rom. 5:15), 'judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation' (Rom. 5:16), the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man (Rom. 5:17), 'just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men' (Rom. 5:18), 'through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners' (Rom. 5:19).

This exposition has been used repeatedly to demonstrate the obvious and still it is ignored and marginalized. Make no mistake, the Scriptures are clear that Adam and Eve were specially created and the parents of all humanity. Pretending they don't is as the disingenuous your treatment of Darwin's fundamental rejection of the miracle of creation.

Deism - in the philosophy of religion is the standpoint that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is a creation and has a creator. Furthermore, the term often implies that this supreme being does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the natural laws of the universe. Deists typically reject supernatural events such as prophecy and miracles, tending to assert that a god (or "the Supreme Architect") does not alter the universe by (regularly or ever) intervening in the affairs of human life. This idea is also known as the Clockwork universe theory, in which a god designs and builds the universe, but steps aside to let it run on its own. Deists believe in the existence of a god without any reliance on revealed religion, religious authority or holy books. Two main forms of deism currently exist: classical deism and modern deism. (Deism, Wikipedia)​

Bolding added. That is why I termed your position "quasi-Deist". I know you do not agree with the bolded section. You do, however, seem to agree that--with the exception of miraculous interposition--God steps aside to let the universe he has designed and built run on its own.

That is bogus beyond belief. I am basing my position on a strict affirmation of the supernatural events described in Genesis, the prophetic oracles of Moses and the confirmation of the Word going out with signs, miracles and mighty deeds.

You support you false assertions with audacity, nothing more. The bolded section describes the theistic evolutionist perfectly. Your own words describe God's original creation being of the universe and laws of nature and God is credited with nothing beyond that. In fact you continually argue against creationists, who believe in a series of miracles called 'creation', thus creationism.

If that is not what you believe, then I do not understand why you denounce every hint of a natural mode of species change as an attack on creation.

You do understand, deists don't denounce every natural mode of change, they absolutely insist on it. Again you are conflating your terminology, why do you persist?

Perhaps you could clarify your position on this point.

My position is perfectly clear, you are the one who needs to clarify or make the most remote qualification for your blatantly false assertions.

No, it doesn't. Deism encourages the idea of the absence of God from the natural order. The god of Deism is the Clockmaker God who stands aside from his creation to let it run on its own. Theistic evolution encourages the idea of the presence of God in the natural order. That is why TEs see God's hand in both ordinary nature and in miraculous interposition, not solely in miraculous interposition.

Unless you make God synonymous with natural law God's activities are absent in the philosophical naturalism of theistic evolution. It is far closer to deism and truth be known, intelligent design is almost identical with it after the creation. Theistic evolution is actually far more naturalistic in it's reasoning then either intelligent design or creationism.

On this point, you seem closer to Deism than any TE.

That is completely and utterly absurd

Certainly. By definition natural law is always subordinate to God's will and accomplishes the purposes God has for it. So, if God chooses to use the means of evolution to produce human biology, evolution will do that.

Evolution is not a natural law. Human biology evolves, it's a process not a mechanism and certainly was never qualified as a law of nature.

Further, since evolution describes a regular natural process, it does not describe miraculous interventions in the process, but it doesn't disallow them either. Similarly, a biology text describes the regular natural process of conception, but doesn't disallow a miraculous intervention like a virgin conceiving by the power of the Holy Spirit. So there is clearly space in human origins for God endowing a biologically human species (or even individual i.e. Adam) with the spiritual capacity of being the image of God via a miraculous interposition.

It does not allow for miracles period, dancing around those naturalistic assumptions is self-defeating. God as a cause of creation is rejected with extreme prejudice and evolutionists make only the most general references to miracles. You are rationalizing away the substance of your own arguments.

And you know by now that you don't even need to raise this issue here since none of us in a Christians-only forum reject God as Creator.

Except when someone wants to credit God with actually doing something like originally creating life as described in Genesis.

This is just an underhanded way of suggesting that evolution=atheism.

Nothing underhanded about it, I have always believed that theistic evolution was defending a secular philosophy that is essentially atheistic whether they call it theistic or not. Whether or not they believe in God, the Gospel or miracles is beside the point. You are taking preference for a naturalistic philosophy that never allows for God's interaction in creation, period. That is essentially atheistic even if you are a Christian.

quasi-Deist, as explained above.

I am nothing of the sort and you know it.

 

[shernren]

Charles Darwin in the preface to ‘On the Origin of Species’ credits Jean-Baptiste Lamarck with being the first man to propose that ‘the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species.’ This, Darwin argues, ‘being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’

Hey mark, does it matter that Darwin didn't believe in miracles?

Nothing underhanded about it, I have always believed that theistic evolution was defending a secular philosophy that is essentially atheistic whether they call it theistic or not. Whether or not they believe in God, the Gospel or miracles is beside the point. You are taking preference for a naturalistic philosophy that never allows for God's interaction in creation, period. That is essentially atheistic even if you are a Christian.

Nope! (Chuck Testa?)

In any case:

Here's a simple question for you (note the second person this time):

Would you still have grounds for believing that the universe had been created by God if whatever life it contained was neither irreducibly complex nor specifiably complex?
​

If no, then you are going beyond the Bible, for the Bible itself simply states that God created without specifying what or how he did it.

Of course I would, it's a self evident fact, God created the world and everything in it. The question is nonsensical from a Christian perspective.

That's just what we are - people who believe both that the universe and life were created by God, and that whatever life it contains is most likely neither irreducibly complex nor specifiably complex.

 

[Jig]

That's just what we are - people who believe both that the universe and life were created by God, and that whatever life it contains is most likely neither irreducibly complex nor specifiably complex.

Do you believe God guided the process of evolution supernaturally?

 

[artybloke]

What, by going "Shazam!!!" every now and then like a kind of divine magician?

Or what else do you mean by "supernaturally"?

 

[theFijian]

Do you believe God guided the process of evolution supernaturally?

How would that look different to if he guided the process non-supernaturally?

 

[gluadys]

Do you believe God guided the process of evolution supernaturally?

I certainly believe God guided the process, but why would it have to be supernaturally?

Questions like these make me wonder if anti-evolutionists truly believe that God rules nature.

Why do they insist that God can only be a sometimes visitor in nature and then only by forcing his way in via supernatural intervention? It suggests God can only enter his own creation as a burglar instead of being always at home in it.

 

[shernren]

Do you believe God guided the process of evolution supernaturally?

God has guided my life in many entirely natural ways, and God made me through entirely understood biological processes. The Bible says I am of more worth than many sparrows, so if God can make me naturalistically, why can't God make sparrows naturalistically?

My answer to your question is, it depends on what the evidence shows. If the evidence some day shows some scientifically inexplicable transition in the origin of life, I'll say in a heartbeat that God made life, and He made it supernaturally.

But I don't have good evidence for that, which is why I'll say instead that God made life, and for now it looks to me like He made it naturally.

 

[gluadys]

Note: The full phrase not only includes in the inorganic but the, 'probability of all change in the organic'.

Does all change mean all change? I suspect it means all change.

All change except that which is miraculous. Or conversely, all change which can be described scientifically.

IOW, at the time Lamarck wrote it was a scientific given that changes in inorganic nature (physical, chemical, geological changes) did not require specific miraculous interposition. God does not have to call up each thunderstorm or rainbow individually. These things happen through understandable natural processes. Lamarck is extending this principle to the organic world. God does not have to call up each species individually; they emerge via inheritance with modification in an understandable natural process.

There are two things this does NOT say:

1. It does not say that God never intervenes in history--that miracles never occur. But miracles are God's exceptional actions, not those He disposes of for providential action. Providentially, and in ways science can observe, test and describe in empirical terms, God provides for the decay of organic matter after death. Exceptionally, God provides for the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ.

2. Most importantly, it does not say that God is absent or excluded from the sort of changes Darwin describes as change that is "the result of law and not of miraculous interposition."


This is the point you are disputing. You are assuming that when some natural event is the result of law it is ipso facto not the result of divine action. And you are projecting that assumption onto Lamarck and Darwin.


I want you to seriously ask yourself this question.

If we have learned God's methodology in doing anything, have we by that very understanding removed God as the author of the action? Does God cease to be the creator of rainbows because we understand prismatics?

Because that is the essence of what you are proposing.

No they are not, they are saying the probability of 'all change', organic and inorganic. They specifically distinguish between God as a cause and natural law being sufficient as an explanation.

Not them. You. This is the distinction that runs through all your posts. You seem to subscribe to the idea that God can only be a cause when God exerts his will on nature via miraculous intervention. Hence, in your view, natural law excludes God as a cause. It is this assumption that supports your misreading of Lamarck, Darwin and theistic evolutionists.

Allowing for exception under what conditions?

Under whatever conditions God chooses. By definition, when and why God works a miracle (understood here as setting aside natural process) is not predictable.

Evolution being defined as what?

Do you really have to ask? Evolution as defined in standard college-level biology texts including changes in the frequency of alleles in a population as brought about by natural selection, the emergence of new species via cladistic speciation and the historical development of a phylogeny of species related via common ancestry.

Again, that is simply not true:

Sin came as the result of, 'many died by the trespass of the one man' (Rom. 5:15), 'judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation' (Rom. 5:16), the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man (Rom. 5:17), 'just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men' (Rom. 5:18), 'through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners' (Rom. 5:19).

This exposition has been used repeatedly to demonstrate the obvious and still it is ignored and marginalized. Make no mistake, the Scriptures are clear that Adam and Eve were specially created and the parents of all humanity. Pretending they don't is as the disingenuous your treatment of Darwin's fundamental rejection of the miracle of creation.

mea culpa I messed up the quote tags and one of your sentences appeared as if it were mine. I have corrected my original post so you can see it as it ought to be.

Deism - in the philosophy of religion is the standpoint that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is a creation and has a creator. Furthermore, the term often implies that this supreme being does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the natural laws of the universe. Deists typically reject supernatural events such as prophecy and miracles, tending to assert that a god (or "the Supreme Architect") does not alter the universe by (regularly or ever) intervening in the affairs of human life. This idea is also known as the Clockwork universe theory, in which a god designs and builds the universe, but steps aside to let it run on its own. Deists believe in the existence of a god without any reliance on revealed religion, religious authority or holy books. Two main forms of deism currently exist: classical deism and modern deism. (Deism, Wikipedia)​

That is bogus beyond belief. I am basing my position on a strict affirmation of the supernatural events described in Genesis, the prophetic oracles of Moses and the confirmation of the Word going out with signs, miracles and mighty deeds.

I know. But you mistakenly think I am rejecting miracles. That is not the case.

Even you do not believe miracles happen constantly, that God specifically commands each daisy to grow, each virus to attack a specific cell, each leaf on a tree to appear or each aphid on a rose bush.

But do you believe these things happen on their own--without God? Do you believe that where there is no miraculous interposition, God has no contact with nature, no role in its affairs? that he has left nature on its own? Do you believe the Deists are right--that the existence of natural law is an indication that God takes no further action in the universe he has made--except to visit occasionally and work a miracle?


As Aubrey Moore once pointed out: those who affirm God's occasional intervention also affirm God's ordinary absence from creation. (that's a paraphrase from memory. You can check out the original wording in Lux Mundi)


That is what your creationism looks like to me: the affirmation of God's ordinary absence from creation.

That is what I cannot accept.

You do understand, deists don't denounce every natural mode of change, they absolutely insist on it. Again you are conflating your terminology, why do you persist?



My position is perfectly clear, you are the one who needs to clarify or make the most remote qualification for your blatantly false assertions.

Well, how do you see God relating to nature in between miraculous interventions? That is not clear to me at all.

Unless you make God synonymous with natural law God's activities are absent in the philosophical naturalism of theistic evolution. It is far closer to deism and truth be known, intelligent design is almost identical with it after the creation. Theistic evolution is actually far more naturalistic in it's reasoning then either intelligent design or creationism.

I don't see regular natural processes as substitutes for God's activity in nature. I see them as the normal, non-miraculous way God acts in nature. I do not see them as functioning "on their own" any more than a garden grows "on its own" without the gardener's care. Regular natural processes are the way God cares for his creation day-to-day, minute-to-minute. Just as described in Gen. 8:22.

Evolution is not a natural law. Human biology evolves, it's a process not a mechanism and certainly was never qualified as a law of nature.

Well, "law" is an outmoded term in science anyway, which is why it is seldom used any more. But if science still thought in terms of "law", then evolution would qualify. Yes, evolution is a process and there are mechanisms (e.g. natural selection, meiotic cell division, allopatric speciaton) which maintain it.

It does not allow for miracles period, dancing around those naturalistic assumptions is self-defeating. God as a cause of creation is rejected with extreme prejudice and evolutionists make only the most general references to miracles.

Strangely enough, the paragraph you are responding to mentions two specific miracles. And neither of those miracles are disallowed by evolution or natural processes generally.

But of course, miracles exist as an adjunct to natural process, so scientific descriptions of natural processes, as one ought to expect, don't mention miracles.

Extrapolating that silence into a rejection of the miraculous is simply shoddy thinking. (Just as shoddy when expressed by atheists as by anti-evolutionist Christians.)

Except when someone wants to credit God with actually doing something like originally creating life as described in Genesis.

Oops. when did those goal posts get moved? I thought we were talking about evolution, the origin of species, not the creation of life.

Nothing underhanded about it, I have always believed that theistic evolution was defending a secular philosophy that is essentially atheistic whether they call it theistic or not.

OK. So you do know what you are doing and you are making that accusation. That amounts to admitting that you are breaking the rules of this forum.

 

[Greg1234]

IOW, at the time Lamarck wrote it was a scientific given that changes in inorganic nature (physical, chemical, geological changes) did not require specific miraculous interposition. God does not have to call up each thunderstorm or rainbow individually. These things happen through understandable natural processes.

These "things" are dictated by an underlying supernatural law. Yes the ancients saw God in everything but they knew that all laws were not the same and they knew that all flesh is not the same. The theories today about what may be happening come from classifying everything under one based on what is presently known. To start with adaptation based on supernatural law does not breed the theoretical assumption that bacteria can turn into men. That's the difference. That's what is being shown.