What is the Church's position on Creation/Evolution

MariaJLM · Nov 11, 2018

It's always peculiar to me how science can bring people to very different conclusions. It's because of science that I simply cannot accept anything except an Earth that is billions of years old. Creationism of the Old Earth variety I'm open to, but Young Earth Creationism? Nope. I've tried to keep an open mind about it, but I'm not convinced whatsoever.

prodromos · Nov 11, 2018

MariaJLM said:
It's always peculiar to me how science can bring people to very different conclusions. It's because of science that I simply cannot accept anything except an Earth that is billions of years old. Creationism of the Old Earth variety I'm open to, but Young Earth Creationism? Nope. I've tried to keep an open mind about it, but I'm not convinced whatsoever.

I ask myself how "old" Adam was when God created him.

gurneyhalleck1 · Nov 11, 2018

No I do not. I'm well aware of those two and their own pathetic use of their wealth to do idiotic things like attack labor unions, etc. I'm NO FAN of either Soros or the Kochy boys.

RobNJ said:
Ummm.. I think you have him confused with the evil Koch Brothers

gurneyhalleck1 · Nov 11, 2018

When the science is full of guesses, varying interpretations and opinions, and the science of dating things isn't even close to accurate and the majority of scientists are atheists with preconceived notions, it's actually quite easy for 'science' to come to different conclusions.

MariaJLM said:
It's always peculiar to me how science can bring people to very different conclusions. It's because of science that I simply cannot accept anything except an Earth that is billions of years old. Creationism of the Old Earth variety I'm open to, but Young Earth Creationism? Nope. I've tried to keep an open mind about it, but I'm not convinced whatsoever.

Platina · Nov 12, 2018

prodromos said:
I ask myself how "old" Adam was when God created him.

He appeared as an adult, since God created a mature creation, though, of course, he was brand spanking new.

Barney2.0 · Nov 12, 2018

The concept of an Old Earth can definitely be proven, evolution not so much.

ArmyMatt · Nov 12, 2018

Al Masihi said:
The concept of an Old Earth can definitely be proven, evolution not so much.

no it can't, anymore than a young earth. neither can be proven.

Barney2.0 · Nov 12, 2018

ArmyMatt said:
no it can't, anymore than a young earth. neither can be proven.

The date of the earth has been scientifically proven to be extremely old.

ArmyMatt · Nov 12, 2018

Al Masihi said:
The date of the earth has been scientifically proven to be extremely old.

only if you accept certain assumptions which are unprovable.

gzt · Nov 12, 2018

ArmyMatt said:
only if you accept certain assumptions which are unprovable.

Yes, nothing is ever "proven" in science, it's not even about truth or falsehood. However, I would note the assumptions can be made rather minimal and the data combined to be overwhelming, to the point that it seems to be a sort of denial of the sensibility of the natural world, almost a gnosticism, to assert otherwise, especially absent a different set of assumptions which makes sense in light of the data. I'd much rather go with a set of assumptions and a way of viewing the world which makes sense of it both in scientific and theological terms (albeit perhaps neither perfectly) that an Orthodox evolutionist would than a way which completely discards the ability cope with an entire set of phenomena (physical) in favor of one (religious), which aren't even all that clear (it seems an abuse of the text, for one).

ArmyMatt · Nov 12, 2018

gzt said:
Yes, nothing is ever "proven" in science, it's not even about truth or falsehood. However, I would note the assumptions can be made rather minimal and the data combined to be overwhelming, to the point that it seems to be a sort of denial of the sensibility of the natural world, almost a gnosticism, to assert otherwise, especially absent a different set of assumptions which makes sense in light of the data. I'd much rather go with a set of assumptions and a way of viewing the world which makes sense of it both in scientific and theological terms (albeit perhaps neither perfectly) that an Orthodox evolutionist would than a way which completely discards the ability cope with an entire set of phenomena (physical) in favor of one (religious), which aren't even all that clear (it seems an abuse of the text, for one).

denying evolution isn't a denial of the sensible world at all, since no one is denying the materiality of the world. none of the early Fathers who look a literal view of Genesis denied the sensibility of the world, and none of the Fathers since Darwin who have written against it have denied the material world either. if you are going to accuse us who believe in a young earth of heresy, at least get the heresy right.

it's only an abuse of the text, when one ignores what the saints say about the text.

rusmeister · Nov 12, 2018

Al Masihi said:
The date of the earth has been scientifically proven to be extremely old.

It can only be proven to people who are already convinced of the idea of evolution and the infallibility of modern science. It cannot be proven to those who challenge the philosophy on which the modern idea is built. The defenders of evolution are always citing the infallible proofs of evolution, but when you nail the philosophical assumptions and the contradictions with established Orthodox theology, those defenders fall silent or fall back on mere denials; the "Vader Defense": "There IS no conflict"...

rusmeister · Nov 12, 2018

gzt said:
Yes, nothing is ever "proven" in science, it's not even about truth or falsehood. However, I would note the assumptions can be made rather minimal and the data combined to be overwhelming, to the point that it seems to be a sort of denial of the sensibility of the natural world, almost a gnosticism, to assert otherwise, especially absent a different set of assumptions which makes sense in light of the data. I'd much rather go with a set of assumptions and a way of viewing the world which makes sense of it both in scientific and theological terms (albeit perhaps neither perfectly) that an Orthodox evolutionist would than a way which completely discards the ability cope with an entire set of phenomena (physical) in favor of one (religious), which aren't even all that clear (it seems an abuse of the text, for one).

This, gz, is founded ENTIRELY in a world view which assumes that modern science is philosophically well-founded and that those foundations require no examination. OF COURSE it all makes sense IF you buy into those assumptions (except for the challenges brought up previously again and again about - among other things - sin and death entering the world in the absence of fully-formed humans to make it possible).

SingularityOne · Nov 12, 2018

I would like to point out that most/many of the early Church Fathers did believe in a literal 6 day creation.

Source: St. Basil’s Hexameron

ArmyMatt · Nov 12, 2018

I would point out that they also insisted upon things like the sun's creation after plants from St John Chrysostom's commentaries on Genesis, which kinda fly in the face of evolution and old earth.

TheLostCoin · Nov 12, 2018

gzt said:
Yes, nothing is ever "proven" in science, it's not even about truth or falsehood. However, I would note the assumptions can be made rather minimal and the data combined to be overwhelming, to the point that it seems to be a sort of denial of the sensibility of the natural world, almost a gnosticism, to assert otherwise, especially absent a different set of assumptions which makes sense in light of the data. I'd much rather go with a set of assumptions and a way of viewing the world which makes sense of it both in scientific and theological terms (albeit perhaps neither perfectly) that an Orthodox evolutionist would than a way which completely discards the ability cope with an entire set of phenomena (physical) in favor of one (religious), which aren't even all that clear (it seems an abuse of the text, for one).

While I think there is a point to be made that a lot of YEC comes from specific Protestant interpretations of Scripture (the 6000 years was something calculated by Bishop Usher of the Anglican Church, which was calculated with a specific set of historical, unprovable assumptions like how one should view Biblical genealogy), and the fact that there's certainly a significant degree of contradiction between specific elements of the Creation account in terms of how the Church Fathers viewed it (from what I can tell),

I think it's a grave mistake to assume that religion can have no dealing with physical phenomena, but only with a religious reality. Did not Christ take on flesh, perform miracles, convert water to wine, raise Lazarus from the Dead, suffered on the Road to Cavalry and then was Crucified (that is, the Person of God Himself), and Resurrected from the Dead, coming back to life before ascending into Heaven?

It's a dreadful mistake to say that Christianity has no dealing with physical phenomena, because to do so undermines the theological system upon which Christianity is built, where any judgments about physical phenomena (including social structures) are made completely subject to Science - a Science mind you which had completely endorsed Eugenics at one point, and a Science which today, at the university level, believes that gender is so arbitrarily constructed that one can be in "the middle" between which gender you identity yourself as.

Platina · Nov 12, 2018

Church Fathers were counting up the age of the earth using the Bible waaaay before Usher. St. Theophilus of Antioch in the 2nd century is the earliest I'm aware of.

TheLostCoin · Nov 12, 2018

Platina said:
Church Fathers were counting up the age of the earth using the Bible waaaay before Usher. St. Theophilus of Antioch in the 2nd century is the earliest I'm aware of.

Yes, but most of those who subscribe to the YEC movement (inside and outside the Church) try to prove Bishop Usher' definitive date - a date which, in my humble opinion, I think is a little bit ridiculous given the fact there's so much archaeological historical sites, calendars, and languages which are older than their date of the flood of the 24th century BC, which wouldn't be existing presumably if the flood destroyed all of civilization. Not to mention the fact that the Yazidis use a calendar that is older than the 6000 year date.

There's also the question of whether or not the ages of the characters of the Old Testament genealogy has been accurately translated to us, because back in the Old Testament days, people counted using different Sexagesimal systems - as there was no concept of abstract numbers back then - confusing systems which scholars today have no precise idea how exactly they all worked for all quantities and different cultures. The archaic Sumerian King list says that their kings ruled for hundreds of thousands of years, because it's hard to figure out how they counted things.

Can you tell me the definitive consensus of the Church Fathers in terms of when exactly the earth came into existence? How long ago that was?
And this doesn't even include the making of the Earth, Moon, and stars of mature age which Saint Bede argues, which changes the dimension of old earth and young earth creationism significantly if this were the case.

Me personally, I don't have a definitive answer to the question, but I tend to reject extremes of both OEC and YEC. I don't believe in the 6000 year old date, but I also reject the idea that human beings are nothing more than more intelligent primates. If mankind didn't have the capacity to choose sin and have fallen nature, then what was the point of Christ's redemption?

ArmyMatt · Nov 12, 2018

TheLostCoin said:
While I think there is a point to be made that a lot of YEC comes from specific Protestant interpretations of Scripture (the 6000 years was something calculated by Bishop Usher of the Anglican Church, which was calculated with a specific set of historical, unprovable assumptions like how one should view Biblical genealogy), and the fact that there's certainly a significant degree of contradiction between specific elements of the Creation account in terms of how the Church Fathers viewed it (from what I can tell),

I think it's a grave mistake to assume that religion can have no dealing with physical phenomena, but only with a religious reality. Did not Christ take on flesh, perform miracles, convert water to wine, raise Lazarus from the Dead, suffered on the Road to Cavalry and then was Crucified (that is, the Person of God Himself), and Resurrected from the Dead, coming back to life before ascending into Heaven?

It's a dreadful mistake to say that Christianity has no dealing with physical phenomena, because to do so undermines the theological system upon which Christianity is built, where any judgments about physical phenomena (including social structures) are made completely subject to Science - a Science mind you which had completely endorsed Eugenics at one point, and a Science which today, at the university level, believes that gender is so arbitrarily constructed that one can be in "the middle" between which gender you identity yourself as.

but even if you want to make an argument about the consistency of how they looked at Genesis, they were very consistent that death only entered when man fell. the Wisdom of Solomon makes this very clear.

TheLostCoin · Nov 12, 2018

ArmyMatt said:
but even if you want to make an argument about the consistency of how they looked at Genesis, they were very consistent that death only entered when man fell. the Wisdom of Solomon makes this very clear.

But what does this death entail? The death of animals, plants, germs, bacteriae, humans physically, or just humans physically? Were all the animals originally vegetarian? Does it refer to Spiritual Death and separation from God alone?

What does death entail in terms of how reality was transformed? Was the earth composed of a fused terrestrial and celestial matter? Did God's Grace transfigure all of reality in a world that was just composed of terrestial matter before the fall? What exactly happened to the whole world when Eve took that bite of the fruit, as did Adam?

What exactly do we even make of Eden? Was it a physical, geographical location of the Earth? Did it even refer to the Earth itself, or WAS it the Earth? And how does Death close off Eden from us if it isn't part of the Earth, and how did it transform reality?

Were the Church Fathers consistent on all of these details?

I'm not saying your view is incorrect or correct, Father - I'm not even Orthodox, nor am I receiving the Holy Sacraments. But I find - obviously - that it can be a mess to figure out the precise, Patristic interpretation of Genesis, because when you have such massive differences between even how the Eastern Fathers like Saint Basil and Saint John Chrysostom viewed it, along with how Saint Augustine viewed it, and what contemporary Sciences (not just some of the contemporary Darwinist biology, but even Archaeology) tells us about the world.

What is the Church's position on Creation/Evolution

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