Theistic Evolution ~ is it compatible with orthodox teaching & doctrine? .

[Photini]

I still believe that it is a perfectly Orthodox position to take divine teaching from Genesis without expecting it to provide a scientific account of the creation of life and its problematic development.

You know, Icons are not painted realistically (correct proportions, etc.) but they still communicate truth. To me, Genesis is the same way.

 

[jckstraw72]

What does "not compatible" with Orthodoxy mean?

Does it mean that believing in TE would be comparible to believing in a religous doctrine that is incompatible with Orthodoxy? Is believing in Theistic Evolution like believing in Sola Scriptura or Sola Fide?

No matter which way you twist it the fact is that all evidence points towards some species (such as dinosaurs) living before humanity. If this is incompatible with Orthodoxy does that mean we must choose between the clear facts and God? I don't see how that makes sense theologically.

I have no problems with orthodox creationists (IMO evolution isn't a church matter anyway) I just get concerned when it is implied to be the only option "compatible" with Orthodoxy.

likewise, i get concerned when Orthodox ppl trust secular science (accepting that animals lived long before humans) over our divinely-illumined Fathers who commented on the first-hand account of creation that God gave us in the book of Genesis!

 

[jckstraw72]

I still believe that it is a perfectly Orthodox position to take divine teaching from Genesis without expecting it to provide a scientific account of the creation of life and its problematic development.

You know, Icons are not painted realistically (correct proportions, etc.) but they still communicate truth. To me, Genesis is the same way.

the difference though is that its clear and well-known in the Church that icons are not meant to be exact historical representations of the person or event, whereas no such thing is taught about Genesis from within the Church!

 

[Andrew21091]

likewise, i get concerned when Orthodox ppl trust secular science (accepting that animals lived long before humans) over our divinely-illumined Fathers who commented on the first-hand account of creation that God gave us in the book of Genesis!

Well, in the creation account of Genesis, animals are created before man (Gen 1:21-25). The creation of Adam comes after God created the animals (1:26).

 

[jckstraw72]

Well, in the creation account of Genesis, animals are created before man (Gen 1:21-25). The creation of Adam comes after God created the animals (1:26).

yes, but the Fathers comment on the creation account, telling us that the days were literal days and thus animals were not existent long before man, and they are also clear that there was no death of any kind before man sinned, so nothing lived long before man and went extinct before man according to the Church. scientists will claim otherwise, but when Orthodoxy and science conflict, its certainly not my first thought to question the Church!

 

[Nick T]

likewise, i get concerned when Orthodox ppl trust secular science (accepting that animals lived long before humans) over our divinely-illumined Fathers who commented on the first-hand account of creation that God gave us in the book of Genesis!

I am not "trusting is secular science" I am stating what can easily been seen. There is no "interpretation" or "theory" needed to discern that animals lived before humans. Either physical evidence is incompatible with God or it is not.
I can understand that some might not wish to get into the whole debate and just trust in a literal interpretation but I dislike that they would wish to imply that those who do wish to use their senses and take an intrest in science cannot do so without comprimising their faith.

 

[Andrew21091]

yes, but the Fathers comment on the creation account, telling us that the days were literal days and thus animals were not existent long before man, and they are also clear that there was no death of any kind before man sinned, so nothing lived long before man and went extinct before man according to the Church. scientists will claim otherwise, but when Orthodoxy and science conflict, its certainly not my first thought to question the Church!

Well, Science does have a lot of physical evidence to back it up. I don't think it contradicts our faith that the world is actually quite older than 7000 or so years.

 

[jckstraw72]

I am not "trusting is secular science" I am stating what can easily been seen. There is no "interpretation" or "theory" needed to discern that animals lived before humans. Either physical evidence is incompatible with God or it is not.
I can understand that some might not wish to get into the whole debate and just trust in a literal interpretation but I dislike that they would wish to imply that those who do wish to use their senses and take an intrest in science cannot do so without comprimising their faith.

no one observed the things evolutionists tell us about! they are interpreting the remains from the past, based on the assumption that the present is the key to the past. the remains in and of themselves simply tell us that something died, the rest is interpretation.

 

[Andrew21091]

To add a few more things. There is no evidence that shows that dinosaurs were living side by side with humans. I don't think the Sumerians would have had any pet Raptors. If there is physical evidence, then I don't think we can deny it. Unless of course the physical can't be trusted but then that would make us Gnostic.

 

[jckstraw72]

Well, Science does have a lot of physical evidence to back it up. I don't think it contradicts our faith that the world is actually quite older than 7000 or so years.

yes, there is a lot of evidence, but its a matter of interpretation as to what that evidence tells us.

the age of the earth is really one of the less important issues here, but the main problem with it would be that accepting a much older date for the earth simply calls into question a uniform teaching of the Fathers. Were they speaking out of ignorance rather than illumination?

the much bigger problem is the issue of death - is death the fault of man, or is it the fault of God? the Church says man, evolution says God.

 

[jckstraw72]

To add a few more things. There is no evidence that shows that dinosaurs were living side by side with humans. I don't think the Sumerians would have had any pet Raptors. If there is physical evidence, then I don't think we can deny it. Unless of course the physical can't be trusted but then that would make us Gnostic.

[FONT=&quot]-St. Theophan the Recluse
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"The positive teaching of the Church serves to know whether a concept is from the Truth. This is a litmus test for all teachings. Whatever agrees with it, you should accept it, whatever does not- - reject. One can do it without further deliberations" [1]. "Science goes forward fast, let it do so. But if they infer something inconsistent with the Divine Revelation, they are definitely off the right path in life, do not follow them" [2]. "Believers have the right to measure the material things with spiritual ones, when materialists get into the realm of the spiritual without a slightest scruple... We have wisdom as our partner, while theirs is foolishness. Material things can be neither the power nor the purpose. They are just the means and the field of activity of spiritual powers by the action of the spiritual beginning of all things (Creator)" [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]-- from St Feofan Zatvornik, Nastavleniya v duhovnoi zhisni. - Pskov-Pechery Monastery of Holy Dormition: Mosc. Patriarchate Publ., 1994. And [/FONT]2. St Feofan Zatvornik, Sozertsanie I razmyshlenie. - Moscow, Pravilo very, 1998.
[FONT=&quot]http://creatio.orthodoxy.ru/sbornik/sbufeev_whynot_english.html[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]St. Augustine[/FONT][FONT=&quot], City of God, Book XII.XXIV
For we are not to conceive of this work in a carnal fashion, as if God wrought as we commonly see artisans, who use their hands, and material furnished to them, that by their artistic skill they may fashion some material object. God's hand is God's power; and He, working invisibly, effects visible results. But this seems fabulous rather than true to men, who measure by customary and everyday works the power and wisdom of God, whereby He understands and produces without seeds even seeds themselves; and because they cannot understand the things which at the beginning were created, they are sceptical regarding them—as if the very things which they do know about human propagation, conceptions and births, would seem less incredible if told to those who had no experience of them; though these very things, too, are attributed by many rather to physical and natural causes than to the work of the divine mind.[/FONT]

 

[Etsi]

To add a few more things. There is no evidence that shows that dinosaurs were living side by side with humans. I don't think the Sumerians would have had any pet Raptors. If there is physical evidence, then I don't think we can deny it. Unless of course the physical can't be trusted but then that would make us Gnostic.

There is plenty of history stating that such creatures did exist along with man. A couple are mentioned in Scripture. AND we still have "dinosaurs" living today.

 

[Photini]

no one observed the things evolutionists tell us about! they are interpreting the remains from the past, based on the assumption that the present is the key to the past. the remains in and of themselves simply tell us that something died, the rest is interpretation.

But then one sees things like this.

 

[jckstraw72]

But then one sees things like this.

well the scientists examining that thing have evolutionary presuppositions, so of course they see in it evidence for evolution. i wonder what non-evolutionary scientists would have to say about that same creature?

the article states: "The analysis of the fossil clearly positions it as an intermediate: it has a more mobile skull/neck than a fish, and although its limbs are clearly fin-like, they also have features that presage the digits of tetrapods."

-- why is it so clearly an intermediate rather than a separate species that is similar? similarity does not necessarily mean one came from the other -- i think they can be similar because they were created by the same God

 

[Ortho_Cat]

I still believe that it is a perfectly Orthodox position to take divine teaching from Genesis without expecting it to provide a scientific account of the creation of life and its problematic development.

You know, Icons are not painted realistically (correct proportions, etc.) but they still communicate truth. To me, Genesis is the same way.

The controversy between science and the bible is a relatively new phenomena. The "hyper-literal" approach to reading scripture is foreign to traditional Orthodoxy (and Judaism, for that matter), and is much a result of the western enlightenment, which equates truth with factual accuracy.

 

[Ortho_Cat]

likewise, i get concerned when Orthodox ppl trust secular science (accepting that animals lived long before humans) over our divinely-illumined Fathers who commented on the first-hand account of creation that God gave us in the book of Genesis!

The Fathers weren't innerant. They did the best with what knowledge they had during their time.

Besides, I don't look to them for scientific truths, I look to them for spiritual truths.

 

[jckstraw72]

The Fathers weren't innerant. They did the best with what knowledge they had during their time.

Besides, I don't look to them for scientific truths, I look to them for spiritual truths.

youre basically saying that their commentaries on Genesis came from just the secular education of their time rather than their illumination from God -- otherwise i dont know how we could ignore it. i believe that the Fathers spoke that which they heard from God.

 

[jckstraw72]

The controversy between science and the bible is a relatively new phenomena. The "hyper-literal" approach to reading scripture is foreign to traditional Orthodoxy (and Judaism, for that matter), and is much a result of the western enlightenment, which equates truth with factual accuracy.

no one is positing a controversy between the Bible and science. evolution is not the entirety of science! evolution is more a philosophy than a science.

and i think youre just wrong here - the Church has always interpreted Genesis as having several layers including the literal.

 

[Photini]

The Fathers weren't innerant. They did the best with what knowledge they had during their time.

Besides, I don't look to them for scientific truths, I look to them for spiritual truths.

Absolutely.

 

[jckstraw72]

Absolutely.

i think positing such a dichotomy between spiritual and scientific truths is too Gnostic-tinged. spiritual truths almost inevitably tell us something about creation.