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It is extremely unlikely at this point that I would come to accept a young Earth. Any view that requires me to do mental gymnastics due to the amount of evidence stacked against it, is not likely one that I will accept.
Consequently, it is those same "mental gymnastics" that is likely to keep me from embracing evolution in its entirety, because while I should not have to bend and twist to explain away the physical facts in light of theology, I should also not have to bend and twist theology in light of physical facts.
Fundamental to his entire case is the premise that evolution, and any other
scientific theory antithetical to young earth creationism, constitutes philosophy rather than
science: we will return to this later. Closely allied to this premise is the assertion that evolution is
“Clearly” of the same order as views about the cosmos current in St Basil’s time that were
rejected by that Father (285).
The latter premise does much to explain why Fr Seraphim, for all his emphasis on taking the
Fathers in context and on their own terms, does not always avoid enlisting them in modern battles-in effect, interpreting them in terms of our own context.
Sort of yeah, although not quite. He leaned heavily towards it but I don't know of any place where he literally supported it. He gloried in the lack of evidence in favour of a special type of evolutionistic philosophy that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with science (or faith for that matter) in the first place.
If you are as obsessed with lack of evidence as GCAEM is then your view of things will certainly be influenced and likely swayed.
It is extremely unlikely at this point that I would come to accept a young Earth. Any view that requires me to do mental gymnastics due to the amount of evidence stacked against it, is not likely one that I will accept.
Consequently, it is those same "mental gymnastics" that is likely to keep me from embracing evolution in its entirety, because while I should not have to bend and twist to explain away the physical facts in light of theology, I should also not have to bend and twist theology in light of physical facts.
I am mostly, still, concerned with the basic and underlying truth of Genesis 1. God created intentionally. God created good. There is one God, in whose image we are made and to whose likeness we are called. We screwed it up.
To me, those are the non-negotiables of the early chapters of Genesis.
Were Adam and Eve literal people or merely allegorical representations of mankind?
Were Noah and his family literal people?
Was there a literal world-wide flood that destroyed all (air-breathing) life or was it just local?
I ask because when I used to frequent the origins forum here I've read posts by Christians who claimed that all major Bible figures prior to Moses were allegorical and didn't literally exist.
You know, Photini, this may very well be the most balanced and healthy view one could have on the issue.Thanks for the links; especially the ones for the Church Fathers...(St Basil in particular I was interested in finding a link to)! At the advice of two well-respected monks, I have avoided Fr Seraphim (Rose)'s works....save for the one: "Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future". By reading some critiques of his book, it would seem that he supports fundamentalist Creationism, which I would automatically distance myself from, since I tend to agree with modern scientists that "Creationist science" is pseudoscience. I certainly hope that I am wrong in my assumption that he supports it though.
It is extremely unlikely at this point that I would come to accept a young Earth. Any view that requires me to do mental gymnastics due to the amount of evidence stacked against it, is not likely one that I will accept.
Consequently, it is those same "mental gymnastics" that is likely to keep me from embracing evolution in its entirety, because while I should not have to bend and twist to explain away the physical facts in light of theology, I should also not have to bend and twist theology in light of physical facts.
That's roughly what I think too, and I don't mean that as a statement of doctrine; I don't subscribe to what you said literally, but I sense that it corresponds to my attitude. The view that there's room for different ways of approaching the question is however rejected entirely by Seraphim Rose and Hieromonk Damascene in Genesis, Creation and Early Man. They seem to say that a few views held by a majority of Church Fathers comprise the truth and that apart from that we should abstain from approaching the question at all.I must second and agree with you in this. When I say that TE is compatible with Orthodoxy, I in no way wish to exclude young earth or old earth creationism from Orthodoxy. To me, creation is a profound mystery and there is room in Orthodoxy for a multiplicity of views.
That's roughly what I think too, and I don't mean that as a statement of doctrine; I don't subscribe to what you said literally, but I sense that it corresponds to my attitude. The view that there's room for different ways of approaching the question is however rejected entirely by Seraphim Rose and Hieromonk Damascene in Genesis, Creation and Early Man. They seem to say that a few views held by a majority of Church Fathers comprise the truth and that apart from that we should abstain from approaching the question at all.
Furthermore, as I already said, Rose/Damascene also have it that it's necessarily a question of salvation to reject the creation of man as in some stage or part a result of an evolutionary process. (Their claims involve also non-human life, but let's take that some other time if at all.) I couldn't tell you why exactly, because it's not clear to me exactly why they thought that.
I'm not saying anything about the actual creation of man. I don't feel commited to think that the actual act of creation, before the fall, occured as a process of evolution at all. Some people find this strange, but I seriously don't. Why? I don't believe in evolution, but neither do I reject science. Empirical science to me is -not- a set of statements about how things are in themselves. Science is defined by arguments and reasons and do not have a doctrine at its core, so I see no reason either to reject or to believe in say evolution or string theory or any other such theory.
Consequently, it is those same "mental gymnastics" that is likely to keep me from embracing evolution in its entirety, because while I should not have to bend and twist to explain away the physical facts in light of theology, I should also not have to bend and twist theology in light of physical facts.
Because we don't make things up "just because we can"?Now, this is obviously the post-fall situation. What I am wondering is, if animals are not meant to die, why would we not say that they and their souls are also immortal by nature?
What do Orthodox TEs believe regarding Adam and Eve? Were they literal people or allegorical?
If literal, how did they come to be people? Did God "sculpt" them from literal dirt and make them come to life or did he take a pre-existing "hominid" and imbue it with a soul or did He use some other method?
if they were not literal people, then why are there icons of them with halos, separate from the Harrowing of Hades icon?
Because we don't make things up "just because we can"?
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