What is the impact of Evolution on the doctrine of Salvation?

[DogmaHunter]

The story/ theory of evolution was never truth.

The communists before/ during/ after wwII stated their purpose and used it on purpose to destroy families and to destroy faith in Jesus and in God.

Drawing a connection between the scientific field of biology on the one hand and communism on the other.

Priceless.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Can we keep to the thread topic please.

If we evolved, we did not fall and Christ's death is not an atonement for sin.

If we fell, and Christ's death is an atonement for sin, we cannot be evolved.

And the evidence universally points to life being evolved from common ancestry.
No evidence points to the contrary.

That doesn't seem like a minor detail.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Not if it made plant-eaters into meat-eaters....which is the claim in Creationism.

Eventhough I'm an atheist, it is my opinion that creationism tends to invent stuff that isn't found anywhere in the bible.

 

[Shemjaza]

.
I don't think it's possible to fall from an allegory, ...is it?

In this idea, you have the causality backwards. Humans are fallen from a state of perfection and a symbolic man and woman for all our failings could exist.

I'm not a Christian, but I believe that no human is perfect and we all have parts of ourselves motivated by selfishness, cruelty and other weak or dark urges. Acknowledging these flaws is possible with and without a creator. (Personally I don't believe in a fall because I don't think anything ever was perfect.)

Not if it made plant-eaters into meat-eaters....which is the claim in Creationism.

Lions eating straw seems like such a symbolic, literary description of a time of caring and peace, not a literal plan for animals to all be herbivores.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Which is repeated three times in Genesis 1:27.

Then Genesis is demonstrably wrong all 3 times.

 

[mark kennedy]

A supposed quote by Galilleo comes to mind...

"The bible tells you how to get to heaven. It doesn't tell you how the heavens go".

Not that I agree, but it seems a lot more sensible then how certain theists read the bible. At least such an understanding doesn't require you to deny the evidence of reality.

Galileo made a statemet that is absolutely true, the Catholic church sould have accepted, and completely irrelavent to the doctrine of creation. In all these yeats I have never understood how Christians cant make the connection between the original creation of life to the promise of eternal life. Does the resurrection or incarnation have a naturalistic explanation because that make no sense to me. Are we going to talk about God being author and finisher of life without accepting that as miraculous? Why must I accept that I'm a sinner if the Genesis account of original sin is somehow flawed? It makes no sense, naturalistic explanations break down and I really do mean especially along evidential lines.

 

[Inkfingers]

Lions eating straw seems like such a symbolic, literary description of a time of caring and peace, not a literal plan for animals to all be herbivores.

I agree, but Creationism takes this literally, and this thread is about how only Creationism is in line with Fall/Atonement whilst Evolution is categorically not.

 

[mark kennedy]

Then Genesis is demonstrably wrong all 3 times.

Ah baloney

 

[Job3315]

You haven't said yet in your posts (as far as I know or saw) that you were corrected by anyone ever correctly, and appear to still believe the dangerous (types of?) beliefs of what you said your father told you.
Remember Yahweh's Word is even stronger
against false teachings - and for false gospels says anyone who brings one "let them be anathema! (accursed!) "

Hopefully no false gospel is involved, just false teachings, which are still sinful and prevent /stop /corrupt fellowship with the Father and with the Ekklesia in Christ.

No where in the NT does Yahshua (Jesus) and no where in Scripture or ever does Yahweh (God) ever tell us to meekly or gently accept false teachings nor any false gospel, but rather to expose them.

Lets just say I love Jesus’ correction more than yours. That says a lot. Even when He had corrected me the hardest, He always does with an amazing grace that yours seems to lack of.

So far The Lord haven't said anything of my confusion about evolution since I truly believe He created us, but I always wondered how He came up with the idea of earth and I look forward to learn how our beautiful bodies and earth came to His mind. I love the process and development of things created.

I really think we were created out of lots of thinking to obtain something as perfect as it is creation.

 

[Shemjaza]

I agree, but Creationism takes this literally, and this thread is about how only Creationism is in line with Fall/Atonement whilst Evolution is categorically not.

Correct me if I'm being unfair, but it seems like you are uncritically accepting all YEC interpretations. This seems to lead to: "If we assume that YEC are correct, then TE is wrong." Which seems trivially true, and uninteresting as a point of discussion.

 

[Saint Steven]

I think it is the relationship, not the environment that is restored.
Salvation returns us to a pre-Fall relationship.

The key issue I read in these posts is the idea that we were created in God's image.
Rather than a step in an unending evolutionary process, we were part of an original and largely unchanging creation.

I wrote and recorded a song about this titled: Hey, Mr. Monkey
https://soundcloud.com/user-426611522/hey-mr-monkey

The song begins by asking the question:
If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
But ends with the idea that in order to do away with God,
humankind created a history of their own that was contrary
to creation and being made in God's image. Thus trading
being the children of God for a monkey bone.

 

[SkyWriting]

Jesus' sacrifice is based on the idea of restoring us to a previous condition, correcting the good-which-became-bad, but if we evolved out of the apes there is (by definition) no previous condition to be restored to. Rather, there is instead a future condition to be evolved into - “image of God” is not something we were, but something we may possibly become. If true, doesn't evolution thus make a nonsense of the idea of Jesus being a substitutionary atonement (to bring us back to a 'golden age condition of pre-fall Eden); presenting us instead with a salvation that has to be evolved into rather than returned to?
I cannot see a way around this.
Either we were created and fell or we are evolved and arose.

"Either this or that" are leading statements. They give you two propositions and assume all the logic for you by screening out other options.
But here's one anyway:
If there is "Special Creation"
then that language is in found in the original Hebrew.

Either it's there, or it's not.

25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image,after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every of creature that crawls upon it.”

27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Can we agree that these are 3 "Special Creation" passages?
What words are used?

25.
asah: accomplish
Phonetic Spelling: (aw-saw')
accomplish (8), acquired (6), act (22), acted (12), acts (7), carry (8), carved (5), celebrate (19), celebrated (12), commit (8), commits (7), committed (35), committing (6), deal (30), dealt (22),did (310), does (48), doing (63), done (327),execute (24), executed (10), executes (5), made (369), maintain (6), make (200),Maker (13), makes (19), making (5), observe (33),observed (12), observes (5), offer (35), practice (9),practices (6),prepare (26), prepared (19), present (5), produced (5), provide (13), show (16), showed (6), take action (6), work (12), worked (7), workmen* (5), works (6), yield (5)

(In this list I liked "carved (5)" as a "quick" process,
so I eliminated any instances less than 5. Full List here )

26.
asah: accomplish
Original Word: עָשָׂה
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: asah
Phonetic Spelling: (aw-saw')
Short Definition: accomplish

27.
In all three places:
bara': choose,
bara': choose,
bara': choose,
Original Word: בָּרָא
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: bara'
Phonetic Spelling: (baw-raw')
Short Definition: choose

choose, create creator, cut down, dispatch, do, make fat

A primitive root; (absolutely) to create;
(qualified) to cut down (a wood), select, feed
(as formative processes) -- choose, create
(creator), cut down, dispatch, do, make (fat).


brings about (1), clear (2), create (6), created (32), creates (1), creating (3), Creator (4), cut them down (1), make (2), produced (1)
Full analysis of bara' here


So there you go. Three clear passages on "Special Creation" the idea
of an instant event of spontaneous creation, vs the idea of a drawn
out process or change in something that already exists.
Your analysis of God's Words?

 

[Inkfingers]

Correct me if I'm being unfair, but it seems like you are uncritically accepting all YEC interpretations. This seems to lead to: "If we assume that YEC are correct, then TE is wrong." Which seems trivially true, and uninteresting as a point of discussion.

I'm accepting the definition of YEC, not accepting the factuality of it. Which is different to assuming YEC is true.

I personally am a TE who has just realised that Evolution and Fall/Atonement are fundamentally incompatible and opposed...which leaves me with very serious questions to answer for myself. So I'm putting the discussion out there for others too.

 

[Shemjaza]

I'm accepting the definition of YEC, not accepting the factuality of it. Which is different to assuming YEC is true.

I personally am a TE who has just realised that Evolution and Fall/Atonement are fundamentally incompatible and opposed...which leaves me with very serious questions to answer for myself. So I'm putting the discussion out there for others too.

Only if you assume the fall is from a literal individual sin of disobedience and fruit misuse. If you assume that fully sentient humans become capable of perceiving good and evil, and then fail to live up the former due to their imperfections (and are thus fallen).

 

[SkyWriting]

Can we keep to the thread topic please.

If we evolved, we did not fall and Christ's death is not an atonement for sin.

If we fell, and Christ's death is an atonement for sin, we cannot be evolved.

Physical development is not the same as spiritual development.
God is Spirit, not biological.
You're saying becasue animals produce offspring that are not clones, then there is no God.
I don't agree with that dichotomy.

 

[Inkfingers]

If you assume that fully sentient humans become capable of perceiving good and evil, and then fail to live up the former due to their imperfections (and are thus fallen).

That is not what Eden/the-Fall/Atonement is about though. In Eden it is the lack of knowledge of good and evil which is the ideal, the loss of which is the fall, and for which Christ's death is the restoring atonement. It is based on the idea that we were made 'perfect' but lost it and need to regain it, whilst evolution says we evolved from animals rather than fell from a perfect state (and so perfection is something to be achieved not regained...and so does not need an atoning sacrifice of Christ).

 

[Inkfingers]

You're saying becasue animals produce offspring that are not clones, then there is no God.

I'm saying none of that, so please don't make vague and unsupported accusations.

I'm saying that we have to choose between believing in Creation (if we want the fall and atonement to be meaningful concepts) or Evolution (if we are willing to accept that the fall and atonement are not meaningful concepts).

We cannot fudge our way out of this dilemma. There is NO space in Evolution for "made perfect, fell, needs atoning sacrifice of Christ to restore". None. Nada.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Lets just say I love Jesus’ correction more than yours. That says a lot. Even when He had corrected me the hardest, He always does with an amazing grace that yours seems to lack of.

So far The Lord haven't said anything of my confusion about evolution since I truly believe He created us, but I always wondered how He came up with the idea of earth and I look forward to learn how our beautiful bodies and earth came to His mind. I love the process and development of things created.

I really think we were created out of lots of thinking to obtain something as perfect as it is creation.

Have you heard of sozo prayer ? ( related to confusion mentioned )

 

[SkyWriting]

I'm saying none of that, so please don't make vague and unsupported accusations.

I'm saying that we have to choose between believing in Creation (if we want the fall and atonement to be meaningful concepts) or Evolution (if we are willing to accept that the fall and atonement are not meaningful concepts).

We cannot fudge our way out of this dilemma. There is NO space in Evolution for "made perfect, fell, needs atoning sacrifice of Christ to restore". None. Nada.

Lets' just say that biological development has nothing to do with Spirit.
Made perfect is God's view of our Spirit, not our bodies.
If it was a biological thing, then Jesus would have hung around and healed everyone on the planet. But He didn't even physically heal all that he met.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Does the resurrection or incarnation have a naturalistic explanation because that make no sense to me

You would first need to establish that these things actually occured, before trying to explain them. So far, all you have are claims in ancient religious texts. Such claims are a dime a dozen.

Are we going to talk about God being author and finisher of life without accepting that as miraculous?

And once again, you skipped a couple rather important steps.
What god? What "miracle"? What "authoring of life"?

Why must I accept that I'm a sinner if the Genesis account of original sin is somehow flawed?

Don't ask me, I'm not a follower of your religion. For me, this is a total non-issue.
I don't have any need, emotional or otherwise, for marrying these ancient religious claims with observable reality.

I don't have an urge or invested interest in sticking to beliefs that aren't even in evidence....
Especially not those beliefs that are actually contradicted by the evidence.

It makes no sense, naturalistic explanations break down and I really do mean especially along evidential lines.

How so?
Care to give an example?