Is human the end of evolution?

[gluadys]

I do not know. That's why I think TE does not make sense.

Wouldn't a more appropriate response be that your understanding is limited? TE may well make sense when you understand evolution better and when you understand theology better.

 

[gluadys]

I really do not believe my question is so hard to understand. Let me try again:

I think your question is very hard to understand. You appear to be making assumptions that do not fit with either biology or theology and then you wonder why we can't make sense of your question.

The history of evolution is 10^10 years long. And human appeared at the very tip on this line of evolution.

All of a sudden, the salvation arrived now.

Why now? Why not a little bit earlier or later?

Why earlier? Why would salvation be needed earlier? What would it be for? What did the world need saving from before humanity sinned?

Why later? Well, actually it was later. Atonement for sin was made at the cross only 2,000 years ago. So it was later.

Imagine the salvation were a knife dropped from the air onto a long long line, what is the chance for it to hit the very end of the line?

Why resort to a misleading image of salvation? If salvation is a "knife", God did not drop it; he aimed it and aimed it truly.

If you try to say: God decides. Then you are not answering the question. You have to give a good reason to this statistical oddity if you emphasize evolution. Or, you like to raise the argument of sin (no sin, no salvation needed). In fact, that is a bad one, because it would be even harder to explain "the evolution of sin".

I think much of your problem is that you are trying to understand evolution as something spiritual as well as biological. It's not spiritual. It is a physical, biological process. Giving it spiritual status and thinking in terms of evolving a spiritual relation with God is rather like imagining a spiritual aspect to the erosion of a riverbank by the movement of the water in the river.

Keep in mind that biology is one thing; spiritual relationships are a different thing. Evolution is about biology, not spirituality.

Now as to your question--it is about a spiritual matter: salvation. Salvation only makes sense in the context of needing to be saved from something. Until there is a spiritual danger, a spiritual trap from which we need to be rescued, there is no point in speaking of salvation.

There is no evolution-related statistical oddity in God's choice of the timing of salvation. Paul tells us plainly in his letter to the Galatians, that God sent his Son "when the fullness of time had come". (Gal. 4:4) What does this fullness of time have to do with evolution? Were the humans of 2,000 years ago a different species than Adam and Eve? than Moses or David or Isaiah? Of course not. Evolution has nothing to do with how God determines the fullness of time for salvation. Because evolution is about biology, not about our relationship to God.

Nor is it hard to explain the evolution of sin, because sin is also a spiritual state, not a biological condition. So sin is not a consequence of evolution at all. Therefore there is no need to explain sin in terms of evolution.

This question would be answered, IF, we have existed at least 10^8 years, or even 10^7 years long. The longer, the more reasonable.

A better alternative is: Human being is NOT evolved, and is a special creation. This would give the very very odd statistics a lot more sense.

Rather you are trying to use statistics when it is inappropriate to even consider the matter statistically. We have no basis for measuring sin or salvation statistically.

So your conclusion does not apply, for the specialness of humanity is not biological. As a biological species, humanity is unique, but only in the sense that every species is unique. A bacterium, an ant, an owl, a pine tree, a paramecium, or a pumpkin can each also be called unique, since there is no other species exactly like them. The biological uniqueness of humanity is not what makes humanity special.

For the same reason, the biological-evolutionary origin of humanity does not stand in contradiction to our unique spiritual relation with our Creator. Since our evolution deals with our biological being, it has no relationship, either positive or negative, on our spiritual connections with God and with the creation in which we find ourselves.

Notice that this question is particularly aimed at TE. If there is only E without the T, then this question would be invalid and not belong to this forum.

When you disentangle biology and spirituality and deal with each appropriately, you will come to the correct relationship between the T and the E. There is not only evolution. There is also a unique relationship, a unique calling for humanity. But evolution is a biological process apart from the spiritual endowment we have been given by the grace of God. One cannot insert that spiritual reality into the science of biology, nor treat it as if it were an aspect of biology.

One must respect both the scientific reality and the spiritual reality, but not try to treat them as if they were identical and can be analysed in the same categories.

 

[Assyrian]

Your question is of the same nature as that in the lottery example. Even the chance of winning a lottery is very small, the fact of having a winner is not special at all.

There you have it. And given that you chose to address this question to lottery winners as opposed to trilobites or Jellyfish, the probability of you addressing a lottery winner is practically 1, especially given the fact that this is the sort of question lottery winners ask themselves, that only the lottery winners can ask themselves.

(The random process of fertilization to bring up a descendant is NOT special). This example may also be used to describe the "normal" evolution process which TE suggested. The appearance of a new evolved species is not special. But the appearance of homosapiens from ape (name of species?) IS very special, in both the result and the involved time scale. It is so special, that it is in fact, nearly impossible.

The timescale involved? You mean you think that 13.7 billion years is no long enough? Or do you mean that it is highly unlikely that you would be asking it at the right time in the 13.7 billion years? In other words that a lottery winner would chose to ask another lottery winner and it just happened to be at a time when the lottery winners existed? Pretty high I would think.

So, your question is not good enough as a proper response to my question.

Sounded like a pretty good response to me. You are equating being special with God not using natural processes, but we are all made the natural way.

 

[Assyrian]

I really do not believe my question is so hard to understand. Let me try again:

Actually all you questions have been answered.

The history of evolution is 10^10 years long. And human appeared at the very tip on this line of evolution.

All of a sudden, the salvation arrived now.

Why now? Why not a little bit earlier or later? Imagine the salvation were a knife dropped from the air onto a long long line, what is the chance for it to hit the very end of the line?

Because as you have been told God chose to save people when they need salvation not billions of years before.

-------

If you try to say: God decides. Then you are not answering the question. You have to give a good reason to this statistical oddity if you emphasize evolution.

I have shown you that it is as relevant to ask why now in 10^10 years as it is to as why here in 10^30 cubic light years, yet you do not doubt the size of the universe.

Or, you like to raise the argument of sin (no sin, no salvation needed). In fact, that is a bad one, because it would be even harder to explain "the evolution of sin".

In fact this argument completely answered your 'why now' question and should have had you drop your statistical argument after the third post.

Instead of a statistical argument we are sent back to a series of questions that Christianity has never answered, what is the nature of the soul, does the soul develop naturally from the parents' seed or does God infuse a soul into each new foetus, if so at what stage in the development does this take place.

What we can say from scripture is that the ability to make moral choices depends on growth and biological development as well as whatever is the nature of the conscience, soul, spirit. Isaiah 7:16 For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.
If children need to develop before they can make moral choices, so did the apes who evolved into the human race. There was a time when their brains were biologically incapable of understanding the difference between right and wrong. What ever else was added in terms of soul or spirit is not a question of biology and is not a question the church ever came up with a satisfactory answer about even before the CrEvo debate.

This question would be answered, IF, we have existed at least 10^8 years, or even 10^7 years long. The longer, the more reasonable.

We have existed 10^7 years

A better alternative is: Human being is NOT evolved, and is a special creation. This would give the very very odd statistics a lot more sense.

There are no odd statistics that need special creation to answer, but the statistical anomaly special creation needs to address why if God made us by special creation rather than through evolution why all the evidence points to evolution.

----

Notice that this question is particularly aimed at TE. If there is only E without the T, then this question would be invalid and not belong to this forum.

In other words the evidence for E stands on its own but you don't believe God capable of using evolution.

 

[theFijian]

(The random process of fertilization to bring up a descendant is NOT special).

Obviously not a parent then.

 

[Assyrian]

 

[shernren]

I think there have been plenty enough responses, but I can't help but be trenchant for a moment:

Why now? Why not a little bit earlier or later? Imagine the salvation were a knife dropped from the air onto a long long line, what is the chance for it to hit the very end of the line?

What, you think God's salvation plan is just like one long blindfolded knife throw?

 

[juvenissun]

Why should human be special in the process of evolution?

Thanks for everyone's input. I think I got something:

So, sin (salvation, and God) is separated from the physical evolution on human. Human body is an evolution product from ape, but sin gets into human (through an unknown process). That makes this normal evolutional product (human) special, and so the salvation is needed (immediately!?).

However, this does not answer my OP at all. If sin could be separated from the evolution train, then the question in my OP is still there. Why did not God put the sense of sin (and God) into the last species of dino, so all dinos felt sinful and repent (to avoid of being terminated)? Since sin is completely independent of physical evolution, then it could be introduced at any time. But, it was not introduced earlier, neither later, but just NOW.(Nobody attacked the idea of future salvation. Why not just let human evolve another 20 million years (without the guilty of sin), then give the being at that time the sense of sin. It will work the same since 20*10^6 years is nothing in the timeline of evolution). Why should human be special in the line of (physical) evolution?

I still believe if you separate E from T (that is what everyone was saying so far), then TE does not make sense at all. A better label would then be EC: Evolutional Creationism. Because that is exactly what TE is promoting. The creative part is the introduction of sin.

--------

By the way, Shernren: human does not have 10^7 years history yet.

 

[shernren]

This reminds me of the the Doomsday argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument

And hey:

By the way, Shernren: human does not have 10^7 years history yet.

Wasn't me!

Thanks for everyone's input. I think I got something:

So, sin (salvation, and God) is separated from the physical evolution on human. Human body is an evolution product from ape, but sin gets into human (through an unknown process). That makes this normal evolutional product (human) special, and so the salvation is needed (immediately!?).

However, this does not answer my OP at all. If sin could be separated from the evolution train, then the question in my OP is still there. Why did not God put the sense of sin (and God) into the last species of dino, so all dinos felt sinful and repent (to avoid of being terminated)? Since sin is completely independent of physical evolution, then it could be introduced at any time. But, it was not introduced earlier, neither later, but just NOW.(Nobody attacked the idea of future salvation. Why not just let human evolve another 20 million years (without the guilty of sin), then give the being at that time the sense of sin. It will work the same since 20*10^6 years is nothing in the timeline of evolution). Why should human be special in the line of (physical) evolution?

Your argument is again going back to the lottery fallacy. One line seems especially indicative of what's happening: "Why should humans be special in the line of (physical) evolution?"

So let's go back to the lottery. I win a lottery; you know that there were a thousand people in the pool. So you say to me:

"There's a thousand people who were in the lottery. Why should you win? Therefore you didn't win."

If I could show you the actual winning ticket, then wouldn't you be absurd in protesting the way you were?

Jack it up. What if there were a million people in the pool. If you told me that there was nothing special about me, therefore I shouldn't win, wouldn't you still be talking nonsense as long as I could show you the ticket?

What if there were a billion tickets in the pool?
A trillion?
A quadrillion?
... 10^30?

No matter how large the pool was, if I could show you the winning ticket, wouldn't your protest "But there's nothing special about you so that you should win; therefore you didn't win" still be absurd?

Come on; start thinking! A big hint: the italic words in the previous paragraph are very important and they are where the fallacy lies; if you can replace them with what you're really trying to say, you will have a much stronger argument.

I still believe if you separate E from T (that is what everyone was saying so far), then TE does not make sense at all. A better label would then be EC: Evolutional Creationism. Because that is exactly what TE is promoting. The creative part is the introduction of sin.

Wow. You've got the right idea, even though you've come to it from completely the wrong end. We think TE is a silly name too - but only because it's equally silly to talk of theistic gravity, or theistic germ theory, or theistic radioactivity.

 

[gluadys]

Thanks for everyone's input. I think I got something:

So, sin (salvation, and God) is separated from the physical evolution on human. Human body is an evolution product from ape, but sin gets into human (through an unknown process).

Well, it is not really an unknown process. James describes it. "But one is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. James 1:14-15

That makes this normal evolutional product (human) special, and so the salvation is needed (immediately!?)

No, you are mingling the biology and the spirituality again. As a product of normal evolution, humanity is not special. It is as a spiritual being bearing the image of God (and this not through evolution) that humanity is special.

However, this does not answer my OP at all. If sin could be separated from the evolution train, then the question in my OP is still there. Why did not God put the sense of sin (and God) into the last species of dino, so all dinos felt sinful and repent (to avoid of being terminated)? Since sin is completely independent of physical evolution, then it could be introduced at any time.

Are you suggesting that it is God who introduces sin? God did not create us with a sense of sin and a desire to repent. This came about through our own action.

I think what you are asking is why did God not arrange for the evolution of conscious self-awareness and free will in an earlier species. And I think the only answer is that this is God's sovereign decision.

One can pose the question of timing about many facets of salvation history. We have already noted that Christ came 2,000 years ago. Why not sooner--in the days of Moses or David or Jeremiah? Or why not later? Why did God call Abraham instead of someone else, and why did he call Abraham at the time he did? Why did he let the Israelites suffer under Egyptian oppression for 400 years before raising up Moses to liberate them? Why not just 200 years, or why not 600 years? Why has Christ not returned yet? Why did the second coming not take place in 1350 or (as widely predicted) in 1844?

So the question of God's timing really has nothing to do with evolution. These things happen when God chooses to make them happen: in Paul's words "when the fullness of time had come".

Why should human be special in the line of (physical) evolution?

The point here is that in the line of physical evolution, humanity is not special.

I still believe if you separate E from T (that is what everyone was saying so far), then TE does not make sense at all. A better label would then be EC: Evolutional Creationism.

In fact, many TEs prefer the label "Evolutionary Creationist" as better expressing our position. "Theistic Evolutionist" gives the impression that our belief commitment is to evolution, but we add a dose of theism. But in fact, we are first and foremost believers in God our Creator and in the fact of creation. We also accept that the evidence indicates evolution is the means God chose to generate diverse life forms, including our own species.

Because that is exactly what TE is promoting. The creative part is the introduction of sin.

I don't see what is creative about introducing sin. If anything, sin is anti-creative. It is destructive not creative.

 

[Mallon]

So, sin (salvation, and God) is separated from the physical evolution on human.

No. We are Christians, after all. God is not, indeed, cannot, be separated from His creation. For without Him, we would not exist. God is forever caring for His creation providentially, regardless of the fact that science cannot tell us as much. In that, we have faith.
Again, you're putting God into a box and limiting His actions to the miraculous. Just because something occurs naturally does not mean God is not involved.

Human body is an evolution product from ape, but sin gets into human (through an unknown process). That makes this normal evolutional product (human) special, and so the salvation is needed (immediately!?).

Sometimes I think you're just trying not to understand so you feel more secure in your current theology.
We know how sin entered the world: it entered with the fall of man, when God finally revealed Himself to His creation, and we rejected Him.
Can palaeontology tell us when this happened? No. Can the Bible tell us when this happened? No (since even YECs disagree how old the earth is). Does it matter? NO.

However, this does not answer my OP at all.

I think you will find most of us are done trying to answer your OP. At least I am, anyway. Now you're asking why God didn't endow dinosaurs with His image, which is just crazy talk. You might as well ask why God didn't bless the birds and sea creatures with His image when He made them on the fifth day.
But I'll leave you with this: humans are not special because of our phylogenetic history. We are special because God chose to reveal Himself only to us, and blessed us with His image.

 

[shernren]

You might as well ask why God didn't bless the birds and sea creatures with His image when He made them on the fifth day.

That's easy: our meat tastes the nicest! Uhh, don't ask how I know.

 

[Assyrian]

By the way, Shernren: human does not have 10^7 years history yet.

My bad 10^5

 

[juvenissun]

Why should human be special in the process of evolution?

All right. Thanks again. I think I would like to quote words from Mallon:

humans are not special because of our phylogenetic history. We are special because God chose to reveal Himself only to us, and blessed us with His image.

In general, I think this is the first time I see an idea of evoution from TE which is acceptable by YEC. Nice work, everyone.

Regardless the origin of our body, I think TE would agree that the spiritual part of us came from the creation of God. Created specifically for us.

-------

Even so, many questions still exist. For example, if we compare the brain function (physical) between ape and human, I expect to see a big difference, may be too big to be accommodated by merely 10^6 years of evolution time. The meaning of this question here is that I am trying to tie the spiritual difference between human and ape to their physical difference. And the implication is that may be our physical body was also created, but not evolved. Anyhow, that should be a question for another thread.

Thanks again.

 

[Mallon]

In general, I think this is the first time I see an idea of evoution from TE which is acceptable by YEC. Nice work, everyone.

Regardless the origin of our body, I think TE would agree that the spiritual part of us came from the creation of God. Created specifically for us.

We've been saying stuff like this all along, if only you had been listening!