Where Did Humans Come From?

[DialecticSkeptic]

Martin Luther wasn't God.

The Assyrian king also wasn't God. (If the point isn't obvious, I can explain it.)

The Bible itself rejects sola scriptura:

Not in Romans 1:20, which you cited. The doctrine of sola scriptura doesn't teach that the Bible is the "only" source of authority about God. If you think it does, then you don't understand the doctrine—which is fine, for that can be remedied.

[Romans 1:20] is contrary to the new doctrine of sola scriptura: "Sola scriptura, meaning by scripture alone, is a Christian theological doctrine held by most Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of Protestantism, that posits the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice."

Romans 1:20 does not contradict that, for the created order tells us nothing about faith and practice. We look to Scripture for that.

From a modern version of the Westminster Confession of Faith (emphasis mine): "Our natural understanding and the works of creation and providence so clearly show God's goodness, wisdom, and power that human beings have no excuse for not believing in him. However, these means alone cannot provide that knowledge of God and of his will which is necessary for salvation. ... All of these books are inspired by God and are the rule of faith and life."

One will search the created order in vain for revelation of that which is necessary for man's salvation, his faith and life. That is "either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture."

 

[JAL]

Once again, the EITHER-OR mentality summarizes your whole post:

Either something is alive (P) or it is not (¬P).If it is "negligibly alive," then it is alive. If it is "barely alive," then it is alive. If it is "less alive," then it is alive.

Correct. Again, I could easily concede that your terminology is more precise than mine. So? Is that all you've got? On the basis of this nitpicking you draw conclusions that threw me into laughter such as: "contradictions and confusions that plague his view."

Fine. You don't like my term "negligibly sentient"? Don't you believe in simplistic and/or primitive life forms? Here's a science article that uses the term proto-sentient for primitive life forms. (Again, things are obviously not as black and white as you're trying to make them out to be, apparently for the sheer sake of disparaging my position). Another alternative term would be "primordially sentient" or perhaps simply "primitively sentient."
- Negligibly sentient
- proto-sentient
- primordially sentient.
- primitively sentient

All the same thing in my book. It's just a matter of degrees. Is Newton's calculation of gravity correct or incorrect? Is Einsteins's calculation of gravity correct or incorrect? Apparently must be EITHER-OR, in your black and white outlook.


You seem so proud of yourself for highlighting my oxymoronic expression "dead as a rock" - after all, you endlessly harp on this idiom. You're not familiar with idiomatic expressions? They don't have to technically make sense. I am addressing an audience pre-convinced that rocks are insensible and unconscious. The idiom DOES have meaning for them, even though it isn't a technically precise use of language in my ontology. The truth is that I have more respect for my target audience than you. You assume they're too stupid to understand my idiomatic use of language. I once saw a science article that mentioned, "The sun rises in the east and sets in the west." Does this imprecise use of language invalidate the whole article? Reduces it to "inconsistencies and contradictions" as you falsely - and laughably - allege of me?


Highly innovative philosophers have frequently coined their own phrases and terms. Constantly requiring me to use YOUR preferred terminology is actually unkind and insensitive, because you well know that many Christians are dedicated witch-hunters. If my language lends them even the slightest INKLING that I've endorsed a biblically incompatible position (such as pantheism, which I reject), they will be ready to conflagrate all my writings - and possibly even me myself - on a bonfire. In fact, I don't consider myself the originator of my beliefs. I highly suspect that Andrew Murray reached most of the same conclusions that I did, but wisely abstained, despite writing 200 books, from explicitly stating them, just to keep all the witch-hunters at bay.

Contrary to his ideas, death is not a state of unconsciousness, it is the complete absence of brain function (electroactivity). If there is some brain activity, you are unconscious but not dead. If there is no activity, you are dead, not unconscious.

You seem to be defining strict medical terminology which, again, often tends to have EITHER-OR significations. See above.

 

[JAL]

Apparently, this fellow thinks that a rock could achieve sentience if God didn't actively prevent it. That's sort of out there, but whatever.

Narrow-minded and tunnel-visioned. Traditional thinking cannot even solve a problem as simple as explaining how God incarnated Himself. So why not be open-minded to my position as an alternative?

You're sure that rocks have no potential for sentience? Don't be quite so sure:

For I say to you that out of these stones God is able to raise up children unto Abraham

Since you're not infallible, you should remain open-minded.

 

[JAL]

I expressed skepticism of your view:

JAL: "You're asking me to believe that these dead particles, if properly assembled, somehow create a "you" ex nihilo?"

You replied:

I don't know where he gets "out of nothing" from. All the particles that comprise my body can be traced back to a single cell (zygote), the fusion of a certain oocyte and sperm, and those can be traced back to my mother and father, and so on. I also don't know why he can't follow that. ("Sorry, I just can't seem to make that leap," he said.) It's fairly basic biology.

Your reply is to narrate a history of these dead particles. The irony is, you write with the air that I'm the odd man out here. The truth is that all theologians, except perhaps a dozen, have probably been in consensus with me that:
....Sentience won't arise from dead particles, no matter how you assemble them.
....ERGO, a person must be an innately sentient reality, usually termed a "soul".

You say I would understand how sentience arises from dead particles if I had only:

studied Lynne R. Baker's constitution view fairly and honestly (which is why I included those kinds of citations). For example, "Why Constitution is Not Identity," (PDF) Journal of Philosophy, vol. 94, no. 12 (1997): 599-621.

You realize the implausibility of what you're suggesting, right? You're saying that if ALL THESE THEOLOGIANS had simply read Lynne Baker's article (and maybe a few others like it), they would suddenly side with you - they would believe that consciousness can "emerge" from dead particles. The problem, then, in your view, is that these theolgians just haven't done their homework.


I don't see why I should have to master 22 pages of Lynne Baker's technical writing to get some inkling of your position. I browsed the article. It discusses the dead particles of a statue for 22 pages. I understand you want to cite her arguments in support of your "emergent" theory of consciousness. (This vein of thinking was incredibly obvious from my initial exchanges with you).

What emerges from varying arrangements of the dead particles of this dead statue?
...(1) Different possible perspectives. For example some assemblies probably should not be called art. But since this is subjective, it's moot here.
...(2) Different physical manifestations. For example an arrangement of particles into "kidneys" is very useful.

At least #2 is objective, but it hardly gets us any closer to self-awareness, self-consciousness, personhood, passibility, moral agency. OBVIOUSLY, if you rearrange matter, this will vary the kind of physical impacts it has upon its environment (and thus allow us to observe it undergoing changes in color, texture, temperature, etc). Nobody disputes that. But to claim that something wholly new - a PSYCHE - "emerges"? That is a HUGE leap of faith that neither I myself as a layman, nor most theologians as professionals, are able to make.

To make matters worse, that article isn't even a discussion of sentience or consciousness. I can't even find those two terms in the article. All it does is discuss the dead particles of a dead statue. In the final paragraph, she makes a plug for sentience when she implies that, if "kidneys" can emerge, than perhaps "persons" could emerge as well. That's seems like a pathetically stupid inference. I mean, even if it were true, her discussion of a dead statue has likely done little or nothing to bolster that conclusion.

I'm glad you see fit to terminate this discussion. Seems like a waste of my time.

 

[JAL]

Romans 1:20 does not contradict that, for the created order tells us nothing about faith and practice. We look to Scripture for that.

General Revelation, as articulated at Romans 1:20, tells us nothing about faith and practice? Then why does Paul insinuate, throughout the chapter, that God is unleashing His wrath upon men precisely for violating the principles gleaned from General Revelation?

Not in Romans 1:20, which you cited. The doctrine of sola scriptura doesn't teach that the Bible is the "only" source of authority about God. If you think it does, then you don't understand the doctrine—which is fine, for that can be remedied.

Yes it does, ultimately. Admittedly it stipulates to "other" authorities that are "lesser than the Bible" - but it's all tongue in cheek because, in actual practice, Sola Scriptura recognizes no INDEPENDENT AUTHORITY other than Scripture. Consider two possible statements of a pew member to his Sola Scriptura pastor.

...(1) "I took a biology class. My theory of origins has radically changed and now runs contrary to your preaching."

...(2) "I saw a vision and heard a voice. I now think you're mistaken on at least one doctrine."

As a Sola Scriptura advocate, this pastor recognizes NEITHER science NOR a vision as even a possible Independent Authority. His ONLY question will be, "Did you check it out with Scripture?" This notion of "lesser authorities" is thus tongue-in-cheek.

While I sympathize with the pastor on #1, I categorically reject his stance on #2. Take Peter for example. Based on his Sola Scriptura understanding, he originally persisted in a Jewish separatism shunning the Gentiles, until he saw/heard a corrective vision/voice (Acts 10). Perhaps the best example is Paul's experience of a vision/voice on the Road to Damascus. Not only did it convert him to Christ, it actually converted him FROM Sola Scriptura TO the primacy of Direct Revelation (visions and voices). Paul never looked back. But instead of following Paul's example, the church of today is still largely in the Dark Ages of Sola Scriptura. Andrew Murray tried to fix all this, but most Christians leaders still aren't listening.

Anyway @The Barbarian is correct. According to Romans 1:20 creation triggers a knowledge of God (with the help of conscience in my opinion). This General Revelation suffices as an Independent Authority outside of Scripture - it is morally binding on us and therefore reprehensible upon us if we violate it.

P.S. At post 546, I explained how a Direct Revelation (such as a vision or voice) can function as an Independent Authority via the "rule of conscience"

 

[The Barbarian]

eleos1954 said: ↑
The Protestant Reformation happened because it was needed and God set it in motion.

Martin Luther wasn't God.

The Assyrian king also wasn't God.

But he thought he was. Martin Luther knew better than that, at least. Luther did assume that he was doing what God would have done, however. And I get your point. God does use humans for His purposes. Humans frequently think so, and occasionally, they are right.

Not in Romans 1:20, which you cited. The doctrine of sola scriptura doesn't teach that the Bible is the "only" source of authority about God. If you think it does, then you don't understand the doctrine—which is fine, for that can be remedied.

So tradition and creation are also authoritative?

Romans 1:20 does not contradict that, for the created order tells us nothing about faith and practice. We look to Scripture for that.

Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these having not the law are a law to themselves: 15 Who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing, or also defending one another,

So Sola Scriptura doesn't apply to practice, at least. Throughout history, many people who have never read or even heard of the Bible have realized the fact of God and understood some of His attributes and even what He wants of us. Which indicates faith is something all normal people can apprehend, even without scripture. After all, man is much older than the Bible, and from the start, men knew of God, according to scripture.

However, these means alone cannot provide that knowledge of God and of his will which is necessary for salvation. ... All of these books are inspired by God and are the rule of faith and life."

I believe this is an error. For that would mean that everyone who did not read or hear scripture was damned to eternal punishment. Given that most people in the history of the world could not have done that, God would be unjust in condemning them.

 

[The Barbarian]

What is life? What is living? Sounds like an easy thing to know. But it's complicated. And what does that have to to do with sentience?

Life isn't an object. It's not the property of an object. It's a process. Something ongoing. And this has long been recognized. When scripture speaks of the "quick and the dead", the Anglo-Saxon terms mean "the moving and the not moving." The etymology of "dead" goes back to "still" as in standing water. So it's something active. And the process is one of energy/matter inputs and outputs.

We figure a human is dead when there is no breath or pulse, and heroic measures can't restore those functions. Medically, brain death is the indicator. But that's not a simple issue, either. And even after brain death, it takes days for the last cells and tissues to die.

When I was starting college, life was considered to require a cell. Viruses were not alive, they said. Now, biologists aren't so sure. Viruses have many of the characteristics we think of as living, but they don't do anything unless they encounter a host cell. Which means they aren't alive in the sense that life is a process.
Are viruses alive? | Ask A Biologist

Or maybe they are. They just have to borrow another cell to make the process go. But so do we. Mitochondria are bacterial endosymbionts, and we can't even think a thought without them. Every cell in our bodies would rapidly shut down without them. There is only one small group of single-celled eukaryotes that don't have them. And they have weird energy processes; likely they lost mitochondria after evolving those alternative systems.

And some viruses are more complicated. Many have enzymes. But they don't become active until encountering a host cell. So no process until.

So is a rock alive? No. No process going on. I think the answer is that God made the universe with matter that has the potentiality to produce life. Calcium carbonate is a mineral that remains as it is, without energy or substances processing though it. And I think sentience must be a result of process.

Matter doesn't have sentience; it may have the property of producing sentience, if it is processing matter and/or energy.

Does a continent live? Does it produce sentience? It processes matter and energy and there are many cycles of such matter and energy through the continent. Or does life and sentience require something more? Is sentience a necessary effect of life? Biologists once said not. But even a bacterial cell shows responses to environment and changes in it.

We intuitively know that other animals have sentience. They clearly enjoy some things, hate and fear other things, suffer and love as we do. At least some of them. We rarely consider plants to have feelings, but they act with remarkable sophistication in some cases, such as acacia trees that respond to browsing animals by producing toxins and chemical signals to nearby acacia trees to also produce toxins.

If a Texas spiny lizard living in my garden has become used to me, and regards me with what appears to be wary curiosity instead of fear, it seems obvious that he is sentient.

 

[AJHnh]

Honestly, the main reason I go to the LCMS church is because of its awesome, vibrant music and (sometimes) good sermons. As for as my beliefs, they line up more with Catholicism. Not that I agree with everything but as far as the Sacraments, Eucharist, their stance on scientific discoveries etc. I agree more with them.

If you attend church (any) for vibrant music you are definitely not attending for the right reason.

 

[AJHnh]

I was curious as to how divided posters are on this topic. As a former Catholic, now Lutheran, (who is still unsure if I’m in the right church) I learned from the writings and some communication via email with Edward Feser, that humans may have started as part of a population of hominids but that God gave Adam and Eve souls, making them human. Then their offspring interbred with these other hominids and so on. I’m probably oversimplifying Feser’s theory and it’s been a long time since I’d read it, but what are your thoughts on this idea?
Or do you believe we came from Adam and Eve, whose children interbred with one another and so on?
Other theories?

Hi Faith, just wanted to say there are many former Catholics in the Lutheran church. Wanted to say welcome and in my case each week reinforces my decision into making the switch.

 

[atpollard]

Where Did Humans Come From?
This one came from Belleville, NJ. However, being born into a nomadic tribe, I wandered through Pennsylvania and Ohio to settle on the shores of Lake Erie, before migrating back to the Jersey Shore. Later, I migrated south, stopping for a season in the Carolina's and continuing the southward migration to the "Sunshine and Palm Trees of Florida". There I found a mate and started my own clan.

 

[FaithT]

Hi Faith, just wanted to say there are many former Catholics in the Lutheran church. Wanted to say welcome and in my case each week reinforces my decision into making the switch.

I don’t agree with a couple of their beliefs. At least a couple.
One of which prompted my OP. I believe in theistic evolution and they don’t.

 

[JAL]

Matter doesn't have sentience;

OR, it is negligibly sentient, i.e., possessed of a fraction of the sensibility (picture a fractional number with dozens or hundreds of zeros to the right of the decimal) normally associated with sentience. You scientists wouldn't be able to tell the difference but conceivably God would know better.

 

[The Barbarian]

OR, it is negligibly sentient, i.e., possessed of a fraction of the sensibility (picture a fractional number with dozens or hundreds of zeros to the right of the decimal) normally associated with sentience.

I see what you're saying. So how do we measure sentience? Is a continent 10% sentient, and a rock 0.00001% sentient? and how do we know? People used to attribute sentience to planets, since they had complicated and regular motions. Turns out, it was just gravity and inertia that could explain all of it.

 

[The Barbarian]

I believe in theistic evolution and they don’t.

Most Catholics accept the fact of common descent. And almost all Lutheran denominations accept that it is consistent with Lutheran beliefs. Who do you think do not accept theistic evolution?

 

[JAL]

I see what you're saying. So how do we measure sentience? Is a continent 10% sentient, and a rock 0.00001% sentient? and how do we know? People used to attribute sentience to planets, since they had complicated and regular motions. Turns out, it was just gravity and inertia that could explain all of it.

In my view all the matter in our universe, aside from that reserved for souls and angels, is negligibly sentient. A continent is therefore no more sentient than a rock.

Seems your extrapolation of my view is that many particles (such as a continent) would automatically be a candidate for personhood (or at least a kind of adolescent version of it). Actually an atheistic perspective might help shed light here. Atheists believe in persons, right? Does this belief automatically extrapolate to continents as persons? No, because even atheists recognize that a significant degree of cognitive cohesion (joint thought-efforts) must begin to germinate among the innumerable parts for them to begin thinking and feeling as one person. My assumption is that God, as needed (indeed, IF needed), thwarts the parts of a rock (and all the parts of a continent) from attaining such cognitive cohesion because He has purposed all the matter in our universe (aside from our physical souls) to serve as (dead) machinery.

Effectively, then, I am an (essentially) dead body plus a living soul.

 

[FaithT]

Most Catholics accept the fact of common descent. And almost all Lutheran denominations accept that it is consistent with Lutheran beliefs. Who do you think do not accept theistic evolution?

The LCMS Lutherans, which I’m leaving.

 

[The Barbarian]

The LCMS Lutherans, which I’m leaving.

Uh, yeah, that's the exception I know of. But if that's running you out, there are other Lutheran groups for which it's not a problem.

 

[FaithT]

Uh, yeah, that's the exception I know of. But if that's running you out, there are other Lutheran groups for which it's not a problem.

Yeah, I know, but none close enough that I’d care to drive to.I have anxiety disorders and don’t want to drive there. This LCMS I’d been going to is by my house. I’m either going to go back to Catholicism or a ND church, but since the Catholic Church is closest, I’ll probably end up there. And I do miss the Sacraments.

Also, the LCMS and I disagree on the age of the earth.

 

[The Barbarian]

Effectively, then, I am an (essentially) dead body plus a living soul.

A story (I think I read it in Hoffstader's The Mind's I) discussed this. It seems a person was tired of living and wanted to die. However, he realized that his death would pain people who loved him, so he lived on. Then he discovered a poison that would kill his consciousness but leave his body to continue as a mindless robot, acting just as if he was still conscious. So one night he took it and went to bed happy in his soon to be nonexistence. In the morning, he got up and said "It didn't work. I'm still here."

What happened? And how does this reflect on the question of dualism?

 

[The Barbarian]

Yeah, I know, but none close enough that I’d care to drive to.I have anxiety disorders and don’t want to drive there. This LCMS I’d been going to is by my house. I’m either going to go back to Catholicism or a ND church, but since the Catholic Church is closest, I’ll probably end up there. And I do miss the Sacraments.

Well, welcome back. I hope it works out well for you.