Talking with my Pastor/Guy

[EveryTongueConfess]

He's not really a Pastor but more of a youth leader who is awesome

but we are just talking about Theistic Evolution and he states this
------------------------------------------------------------------
Thesitic Evolution states God initiated life on earth and allowed evolutionary principles to bring man to where he is; maybe with help from God here and there.

The fault with this belief is that it contridicts the Bible:

Mark 10:6 ""But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female."

Gen 2:7 "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being"

How could Gen 2:22 be a proverb? God created Eve from Adam's rib.

If monkey turns to man then man is just another animal. The bible states:

Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (The Hebrew word for "make" in this verse, and in verse 25 where God makes the beasts, is "asah." It means to do, work, make, produce.)

---------------------------
please tell me what is a good thing to say, I understand basically what to say for some of it, but please just tell me what you would say
Thanks guys, I don't know much Hebrew so yea..

 

[shernren]

Why do you accept theistic evolution, anyway?

I do accept it myself, but I want to know why you accept it, and what difficulties you may be having with it.

 

[Dark_Lite]

All of this goes away when you realize the creation account is not literal (but still true), but rather the writings of the Jewish people trying to understand their world. The references in the New Testament are a hearkening back to these cultural legends and phenomena.

Of course, if you tell him that he'll probably think you're violating the Bible even more. But, if it must happen then it must happen.

You could also recognize that our image of God is spiritual, and not physical. If it was physical, God would have a human-shaped physical body. He does not.

 

[Papias]

Well, it sounds like it is a good thing he isn't a pastor.

He should probably look into this more, especially if he's going to continue working with youth, who need a realistic form of Christianity if he'd like them to stay Christian in the real world.

Papias

 

[crawfish]

Mark 10:6 ""But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female."

Technically, they were made at the end of creation (6th of 6 creative days). This in itself should clue one in that Jesus isn't trying to establish a time frame here.

Gen 2:7 "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being"

Just like TE states, God is creating man from the raw materials of the earth. What does the "breath of life" mean? Did God literally blow using a physical mouth into the nostrils of the man he'd created?

How could Gen 2:22 be a proverb? God created Eve from Adam's rib.

Can nothing symbolic be defined from the use of a rib?

If monkey turns to man then man is just another animal. The bible states:

Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (The Hebrew word for "make" in this verse, and in verse 25 where God makes the beasts, is "asah." It means to do, work, make, produce.)

My preacher likes to say that evolutionists believe that man is "glorified pond scum". I mentioned once that a literal reading makes man "glorified dust", and got some people mad at me. I went on to explain that a delicious cake is more than glorified flour; it is a purposeful creation of the baker, and something unique and special regardless of its origins. Man is special because God chose him to be made in His image, not because of the raw materials he is made of.

I should also note that the best idea of "image" is that it is about function. By creating Adam in His image, it means that Adam is being given the function of authority over creation that God possessed. This is the same as in Genesis 5:3, where Seth was born "in Adam's image". It simply meant that Seth inherited the authority passed down from Adam. In other words, image has nothing to do with physical likeness.

 

[Papias]

OK, here is a more detailed reply:

Thesitic Evolution states God initiated life on earth and allowed evolutionary principles to bring man to where he is; maybe with help from God here and there.

Not quite. Many theistic evolution supporters see evolution as the METHOD God used to create. It was still God doing all the creating, all the time (see John 1:3). Any view has God creating using some method.

Creationists see the methods as physically molding things out of clay, then bringing them to life like Pinocchio, or poofing things into existence like a magician, or such. God is not Geppetto, and God is not a two-bit conjurer. These creationist methods are very human views that denigrate and diminish God. The view of God using a grand, universal and real process like evolution is more fitting to a grand, universal and real God.

The fault with this belief is that it contridicts the Bible:

It only contradicts a misreading of the Bible. See the examples below.

Mark 10:6 ""But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female."

From the beginning of the time when there were humans (the “them” in the verse is talking about humans in the context of marriage, if you read the whole section), they (humans) were male and female (science shows us that exclusive mammalian sexual reproduction predates humans by tens of millions of years).

This verse is very much in agreement with evolution, and in fact directly contradicts a literal reading of Genesis. In Genesis 1, as you may recall (reread it if you like), at the beginning of humanity, the first human God makes is simply male (Adam), with apparently no thought to making a female until afterwards.

The creationist interpretation would be supported if Mark 10:6 said “But at the beginning of creation God made a male, and later made a female for him”. But that’s not what it says – actually reading the verse shows that it supports theistic evolution and contradicts the creationist misinterpretation of Genesis 1.

Gen 2:7 "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being"

Does this guy really think God needed to perform mouth to nose resuscitation on a pile of dirt to make humans? Visualize that – it’s really a funny image. I can see it now: Huff Huff Huff!! Come on Adam!! Really??

That view really makes Christianity look silly, just as if a Christian were saying that based on the Song of Solomon 1:15, pretty women have birds stuck in their faces. Both Genesis 1 and Song 1:15 are clearly metaphors, not literal. With youth leaders saying that, it’s no surprise that youth are leaving Christianity in droves. I'd leave too.

How could Gen 2:22 be a proverb? God created Eve from Adam's rib.

How could Job 38:22 be a proverb? God obviously has a warehouse up in the sky to bring snow out of. We obviously live on a flat earth, since verses like Mt 4:8, Ish 40:22, Jb 38:13, and others aren’t metaphorical or proverbs, so we live on a flat earth.

If monkey turns to man then man is just another animal. The bible states:

Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

As Darklite pointed out, “in our image” is talking about spiritual consciousness. The idea that “in our image” is physical is silly on a moment’s reflection. Then what race is God – white, African, Asian? Does God have an epicanthic eye fold? Does God have zits, since God is “in our image”? For that matter, does God have a penis, breasts, both, neither? A literal reading hurts Christianity in so many ways it’s hard to decide where to start.

(The Hebrew word for "make" in this verse, and in verse 25 where God makes the beasts, is "asah." It means to do, work, make, produce.)

Fine, and the Hebrew word for “firmament” in Gen 1:7 is “raqiya”, which means “hard bowl”. Do we live on a flat earth, underneath a hard dome with water above the dome, the stars as little hanging lamps on the dome, and warehouses of snow and hail up there, that God opens the doors to when it snows? Taking these metaphorical descriptions literally makes Christianity look really silly, whether one is misinterpreting the English as literal or one is misinterpreting the Hebrew as literal. You don’t have to know Hebrew, you just have to respect Christianity and have some common sense.


I hope those details help more than my short, initial response.

Blessings-

Papias

 

[gluadys]

He's not really a Pastor but more of a youth leader who is awesome

but we are just talking about Theistic Evolution and he states this
------------------------------------------------------------------
Thesitic Evolution states God initiated life on earth and allowed evolutionary principles to bring man to where he is; maybe with help from God here and there.

The fault with this belief is that it contridicts the Bible:

Mark 10:6 ""But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female."

Gen 2:7 "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being"

How could Gen 2:22 be a proverb? God created Eve from Adam's rib.

If monkey turns to man then man is just another animal. The bible states:

Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (The Hebrew word for "make" in this verse, and in verse 25 where God makes the beasts, is "asah." It means to do, work, make, produce.)

---------------------------
please tell me what is a good thing to say, I understand basically what to say for some of it, but please just tell me what you would say
Thanks guys, I don't know much Hebrew so yea..

One of the first things I would do is recommend that he read the following essay: (2 parts)

Science and the Evangelical Mission in America, Part 1 | The BioLogos Forum
Science and the Evangelical Mission in America, Part 2 | The BioLogos Forum

(There is a 3rd part yet to be posted.)

As a youth leader he needs to be thinking deeply about his mission and where his mission field is.

This little video is also significant:

A Pastor’s Perspective on the Dangers of an Ultra-Literal Perspective | The BioLogos Forum

What struck me most forcefully is a segment at about 1:29 where Greg Boyd, now a pastor, says that it took only one semester of college to destroy the literalist/fundamentalist mindset that formed his Christian education as a teenager and 3 miserable years to come back to the faith.

It seems to me a youth leader must really think through whether they want to be responsible for developing the "house-of-cards" theology Boyd talks about. Many young people going into college with the sort of theology your youth leader is promoting never do come back to the faith.

So, if he aspires to providing good Christian youth leadership--whether as a volunteer or eventual pastor, he really needs to think through what sort of counselling about scripture will 1) not fall down like a house of cards when exposed to science and 2) not act as an unnecessary stumbling-block to young people who already have a scientific turn of mind. (Ken Wilson's "blue" sensibility group).

I think most of the specifics have been dealt with well by other posters. But I would like to comment on this one:

"If monkey turns to man then man is just another animal."

Your friend, I think, has succumbed to the disease of "nothing buttery". That is, he is taking a non-controversial and factual statement "Humans are animals" and making it anti-biblical by mentally adding in the words "nothing but" so that it becomes "Humans are nothing but animals." (Or some equivalent like "...just another" )

Deborah and Loren Haarsma, in their excellent book "Origins" have a remedy for "nothing buttery". It is to replace the "nothing but" (or equivalent) with "not only". Now the statement reads "Humans are not only animals."

This expresses much better the TE perspective. Sure we agree with science AND the bible that humans are animals. But we also agree with the bible that humans are not only animals. And we reject the proposition that our common ancestry with other animals has any bearing on whether we are not only animals.

We are animals, but not only animals; we are animals made in the image of God, and our evolutionary ancestry and relationships don't change that one iota.


As an aside, let's note that materialists, some of them prominent scientists, DO promote the "nothing but" view of humanity. So it is important to have a good Christian response to this that does not require jettisoning good science because some anti-Christians have tried to turn science against faith. The "nothing but" view is not part of the science of evolution. It is materialist philosophy misleadingly appended to the science. Christian youth leaders should not be passing it on, but showing Christian youth how to deal with it when someone non-Christian confronts them with this sort of nonsense.

 

[Mallon]

Technically, they were made at the end of creation (6th of 6 creative days).

I guess that depends on which chapter you're referring to.

 

[crawfish]

I guess that depends on which chapter you're referring to.

Yeah, I thought of that, but he should probably only get in a little bit of trouble at a time.

 

[crawfish]

Here is another point that seems to be lost on some people:

The idea of God's providence, that creation and management of all things is done through God's directly will, requires that God work through both the natural AND the supernatural. We can track the development of a child from conception to birth through natural causes; but that hardly means that God is not responsible for the child, or that the child was not intended by him. When you accuse people of leaving God out of creation (or limiting His involvement) because they believe in natural processes, you are making the claim that God cannot exist in those natural processes.

 

[EveryTongueConfess]

Thank you guys so much
Earlier I stated

"(1) Having the word day used in three or four different ways in the first two chapter of Genesis

(3) Being given a completely different order of creation in Genesis 2
(4) Moses speaking about the creation in Psalm 90 and telling us God's days are not like ours.
(5) Moses giving an allegorical interpretation of the imagery in Genesis, Adam being turned back to dust, the flood, even evening and morning are used metaphorically.
(6) The writer of Hebrew interpreting God's rest on the seventh day as as an ongoing rest we are commanded to enter into Today."

Just to let you guys know
I already responded to his post but I'm just going to share because they were good points

I said
"(2) Creation being described as taking place in a day in Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. "

and he said
"Account of creation, they referes to heaven+earth not generations of people."

which was a good answer imo (just sharing, because he brought up good things)


But anyways thanks alot guys
those answers really helped