Why the theistic evolution position is both unbiblical and impossible

[mathetes123]

Since you have been repeatedly not bothering to define "kind" in taxonomy, I'm going to say that "dog" Canis lupus familiaris is a kind. "Kind" is therefore synonymous with subspecies. We have already shown numerous examples of development at that level, so we have observed evolution at the level of "kind".

Was there anything else?

Moving the goal posts again with your artificial man made classification system? You don't get to define for God what constitutes a created kind.

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

Incariol: "Kinds" probably means species if we base it on this passage:

Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

(Leviticus 19:19)​

This suggests two "kinds" of animals an capable of interbreeding but probably shouldn't. Different species, horses and donkeys for example, can interbreed but their offspring are rare and sterile. Not very useful from a genetic point of view.

Sorry about butting in. ​

 

[Incariol]

Moving the goal posts again with your artificial man made classification system?

No, I've been using the 6-kingdom system this whole time.

You don't get to define for God what constitutes a created kind.

No, you've made it clear that you think only you should be allowed to do that. Unfortunately for you, I don't really care that much. If you want to use your personal taxonomic system in this discussion, hurry up and explain it already or stop wasting my time.

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

Plants are not moral creatures with souls.

God allowed the eating of meat after the flood:

Gen 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Gen 9:2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Gen 9:3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

Plants may not have souls, but they are living things and therefore capable of dying. Ergo, there must have been death before the Fall.

More importantly, we know the "death" of the Fall was metaphorical and not literal. As Hedrick and I pointed out earlier, God said Adam would die if he ate from the Tree of Knowledge (Genesis 3:3). If this was literal, Adam and Eve would have dropped down dead, the human race would not have existed, and you and I would not be having this conversation.

 

[Incariol]

Incariol: "Kinds" probably means species if we base it on this passage:

Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

(Leviticus 19:19)​

This suggests two "kinds" of animals an capable of interbreeding but probably shouldn't. Different species, horses and donkeys for example, can interbreed but their offspring are rare and sterile. Not very useful from a genetic point of view.

Sorry about butting in. ​

No problem.
It would have been nice if they had defined their terms themselves, but since they didn't but kept throwing around "dog" and "cat" in there, I assumed they meant "kind" was a subspecies and went with that.

 

[ViaCrucis]

The idea that God used the millions (or billions) of years in a process of the development of earth and life in this world is both unbiblical and impossible. Here are many of the reasons why:

(1) God inspired Moses to write of an instantaneous creation of both heaven AND earth. The earth was created at the same time as the rest of the universe.

"in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." vs 1 as compared to Psalm 33:6-9.

You're assumption that Moses wrote Genesis and that God intended Genesis 1 to be taken as historical-literal-scientific is just that: An assumption made by you.

For one thing, we can see by looking at the text itself that in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth there was already a formless earth where the primeval ocean existed.

For example the Hebrew verb bara' translated as "created" means something more like "filled" and is related to the Hebrew verb for "fattened". Genesis 1:1 is an introductory statement for the proceeding statements, it proclaims that God is going to form, shape, fill up the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:2, speaking of the already-existing earth that it was a formless wasteland. Why? Because God had not yet acted to fill it with the abundance that would come. Also present is a primeval ocean, the tehowm, the deep abyssal waters (this corresponds with the primeval ocean Tiamut from other ANE mythologies, only here it is de-personified to describe God's Absolute Sovereignty). For the Breath or Wind of God blew across the surface, God alone is Present here, there are no other beings.

It isn't until Genesis 1:3 that God begins His act of creating or filling/fattening up the heavens and the earth. Here the author posits several parallels Day 1/Day 4, Day 2/Day 5, Day 3/Day 6.

Light | Sun, Moon and Stars
Separation of Waters | Living things above and below
Dry Land | Beasts, creeping things and mankind

The parallels present the "spaces" fashioned in the heavens and the earth into which God may fill them with things to inhabit and rule them.

(2) Each day of creation was assigned both a 'morning' & an 'evening'. This is done six times. The TE objection that this is not literal because the sun was not created until the fourth day is illegitimate. Why? Because God provided light on earth by what was indicated in vs 3. Whatever that light was provided the natural time divisions that was eventually assigned to the sun on the 4th day.

You're ignoring the intentional poetic parallelism of the text. A simple and legitimate examination of the text--regardless of if one is a YEC, OEC or TE--provides ample evidence of what the text is actually trying to say. Trying to force the text into a strict historical-scientific account is a betrayal of the text and is missing the entire point of what's being said here.

If the above point is somehow incorrect then what meaning does the 'morning and the evening were the first day...second day...third day', etc. have as it relates to millions or billions of yrs? Answer: none. There can be no relation, even poetically. Therefore the 'evening and the morning were the....day" is to be taken literally.

Theistic Evolutionists don't try and force the text into a paradigm of millions or billions of years. Rather most of us read the text honestly as it is a theological text and as such the usage of days provides a structured literary framework to provide the purposeful and structured account of God's ordering of the cosmos.

(3) the natural divisions of time are given by God in the first chapter: vs 14.

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years."

signs = constellations that can provide the exact date and time depending on ones location in viewing the position of the stars.

seasons = spring, summer, fall, winter which God said would continue indefinitely in Gen. 8:22. Those are natural time divisions marked by the change in weather since then until now. It's still a legitimate operation of nature.

days: the circuit of the sun on ancient sundials in approx. 24 hrs still stands as a 'day' until this period of history. The fact that the word 'day' (Hebrew 'yom') sometimes refers to longer period of times does not affect the necessity of a one 24 hr day in Genesis, as we shall continue to see.

years: The Hebrew year of 360 days per year and one 'leap month' was observed and later the now recognized 365 1/4 days occur in one orbit of the earth around the sun...again observed from ancient times until now.

God's Word is final on this point and not human opinion to the contrary. The fact is that history bears up the fact that ancient man used those natural divisions to establish the measurement of the passing of time...unto this very day.

See my above statements.

(4) the literal six days of creation are referred to in three places, one we have already covered: Genesis one. The others are in Exodus 20:11 & 31:17. That makes three direct references to the six day creation of the world by Almighty God. Did anyone in Moses time believe the world evolved? Let the compromising theistic evolutionists name him/her.

No one in Moses' time believed the world encircled the sun or that germs were cause of disease and sickness. So that's a moot point. Also, the mentioning of six days in Exodus 20 and 31 does not determine that the text is to be read as a scientific accounting of the creation; it is rather a reference point. In Exodus 20 it forms part of a contextual reading addressing God's sovereignty and as forming a theological underpinning for the Sabbath and precedes the Decalogue; the same goes for Exodus 31. The use of the reference point is theological.

(5) The chronologies of Genesis 5, I Chronicles 1, and Luke 3 give exactly the same names of the antediluvian forefathers which gives us excellent reason to respect the ages mentioned in Gen. 5

The Chronologies compared

Genesis: I Chronicles: Luke:
Adam Adam Adam
Seth Sheth Seth
Enos Enosh Enos
Cainan Kenan Cainan
Mahalaleel Mahalaleel Maleleel
Jared Jared Jared
Enoch Henoch Enoch
Methuselah Methuselah Mathusala
Lamech Lamech Lamech
Noah Noah Noe
Shem Shem Sem

Why would the Holy Spirit inspire the writers of three different books of the Bible about the people who were the earliest inhabitants of our world if they were not real, literal, historical people who did exactly what scripture tells us they did?

Because they formed an important narrative purpose in linking the Gospel Story to Israel's most ancient past. Whether there was an historical Enoch or Lamech or Noah or Methusalah and whether or not they lived for many centuries is entirely moot to the Evangelist's purposes.

(6) There isn't a single passage of the New Testament that mentions the creation week, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, or his family members, or even Abraham, Lot, and his wife that places in question the literal historical events and occurrences of their lives and acts. Yet the TE's do so with most of them.

We prefer to take the Bible as a living text that is worthy of respect and therefore shouldn't make modernist notions of wooden literalism as a given. The Bible is deserving of being taken seriously enough to understand what it's saying rather than forcing it to say things it's not really interested in saying.

(7) The entrance of sin and the subsequent ruin of our world and the human race in particular is mentioned in Genesis 3 and it is treated as a literal, historical matter in Romans 5:12

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

Not only so but it is clear that this ruin of death in the world began with Adam and continued throughout history:

"Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,..." vs. 14.

I don't know of any Christian Theistic Evolutionist who denies the reality of the Fall, of Sin, and of our redemption from it all by the Lord Jesus Christ.

The theistic evolution position must deny that sin began literally with the fall of man in rebellion to God in the garden of Eden in order to maintain the concept of death for millions of years of evolution. But even if that were true, none of those who defend such an idea have any clue as to when sin acutally began...or when death actually orginated. Some are so far removed from the truth they don't even connect death with man's sin in the first place, nor do they think such a connection is necessary. But that being so they have no idea where physical death originated...or why.

Your argument here seems particularly flimsy. Is absolute knowledge concerning every little thing about such things as sin and death and when they exactly began and the like really necessary in order to confess the Gospel and the reality of Christ's redemptive work?

Of course not.

Finally, the theistic evolution position (which is neither biblical nor scientific) is therefore refuted and there are even more reasons I have not posted here. The theistic evolution position is a shame and disgrace to the Christian world and a tool of Satan to lead weak-minded believers into unbelief about God's creation.

Thank you, and the Peace of God be with you.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[mmksparbud]

I doubt that anybody is really interested in what I think---but I really, really do believe in the big bang theory. It must have been a big bang when God said something that brought forth life. The power of sound is something that physists are just now studying. They've done some great work on it and I'm too feeble minded to rephrase what I read. But the power of light has also been scrutinized--light--not sunlight--light. I can't rephrase what they said either, I'm 61, my brain in fogged with fibro and I just can't get the words out and do not remember where I read it--(I know, why the blazes am I bothering to be on here?)--Well--I did read it. The power of sound as they are finding out is just beyond anything that science had known till now, as with light. Though highly scientificly written, I got enough to see and more fully appreciate the bible as it is written. How there can be a light and dark before the sun and moon were made. How God speaks and it is done--Instead of driving me to evolution or atheism, it made the bible even more real and far more believable. The more knowledge we acquire, the more we realize how little we actually do know.

 

[Assyrian]

1. You provide Biblical scripture but not actual evidence.

Pure gold

Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Take it and frame it, brother.

They will never get it until judgment day.

What Notedstrangeperson actually said:

1. You provide Biblical scripture but not actual evidence. If we disproved evolution everything else we know - such germ theory, geographic evidence and genetic evidence - would fall apart too.
2. The Bible frequently uses allegories, poems and metaphores...

 

[Assyrian]

God created all the animals according to their kind. I did not invent the word. Species, on the other hand, is an artificial man made classification system which does not necessarily correspond with God's created kinds.

OK, you reject the man made phylogenetic classification system of species, genus, family, and think God's classification is better than any man made one, which is fair enough, the problem here is you are assuming God's classification is simply a better phylogenetic classification, in fact the best phylogentic classification, but if you reject man made classification why think God's classification is a phylogenetic classification at all?

The word kind simply means 'sort' and tells us there are (1) different sorts of animals and (2) God created all the different sorts of animals. It doesn't say there is a 'created kind' located somewhere along the scientific classification of species, genus, family, order... and that every variety that has arisen since then are all member of the original 'created kind'. That is Arostotle's fixity of species only replacing the word species with 'kind'. The bible doesn't say kinds are fixed, or that kind only refers to the the original created kind instead of every sort of animal variety.

 

[Assyrian]

Of the family canadae. Find a dog that will produce a non-dog of any type over any time frame you choose and under any natural circumstances.'

1. You are moving the goalposts again. First it was "an example of macroevolution", then "change in kind", now it is specifically canids? You really are desperate.

2. It is spelled "Canidae".

3. Canids /= dogs.

4. And this isn't particularly difficult. The evolution of primeval canids into subsequent clades. Do you understand nested cladistics?

I wonder why Creationist opt for canidae and include foxes and jackals, and not the next classification up caniforma when you can throw in badgers, bears and extinct bear dogs.

 

[Assyrian]

I didn't personally make it up. Read Genesis one. God defines the created kinds:

Gen 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Gen 1:2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Gen 1:6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
Gen 1:7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.
Gen 1:8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
Gen 1:9 And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.
Gen 1:10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:11 And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so.
Gen 1:12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
Gen 1:14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,
Gen 1:15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so.
Gen 1:16 And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars.
Gen 1:17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,
Gen 1:18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
Gen 1:20 And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens."
Gen 1:21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
Gen 1:23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
Gen 1:24 And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds--livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so.
Gen 1:25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Gen 1:29 And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.
Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.
Gen 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Where is the definition of created kinds?

 

[Assyrian]

1)
2) The Bible says he was the first man.

2) Surprisingly it doesn't. It merely says that He created man and later placed him in the Garden of Eden.

2) 1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

You are quite right mathetes, Notedstrangeperson missed it because he was just thinking of Genesis. The problem is Paul goes on to describe Jesus as the second man 1Cor 15:47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. Kind of suggests Paul might not have been speaking very literally here, it certainly means you cannot claim Adam had to be the first man ever from this passage unless you also say Jesus was the second man ever.

 

[Kirkwhisper]

Since you have been repeatedly not bothering to define "kind" in taxonomy, I'm going to say that "dog" Canis lupus familiaris is a kind. "Kind" is therefore synonymous with subspecies. We have already shown numerous examples of development at that level, so we have observed evolution at the level of "kind".

Was there anything else?

I've defined it more than once. Try looking...just like I did.

The fact is that canis Lupis will never be anything other than Canidae.

Here is just one genetic reason why:

But if you wish to prove this wrong then just go find a scientist that has caused ANY type of dog to become a non-dog. Just one will do.

But I will tell you now that you won't be any more successful doing that then you would in doing what these folks attempted to do...over 50,000 generations:

Can you find anything that was reproduced genetically that is not classifiably, or is not identifiably a fly?

This is Mendelian genetics. More importantly, "After his kind' according to scripture still stands.

Toss Darwinian evolution. It is worthless theory.

 

[Assyrian]

I've defined it more than once. Try looking...just like I did.

The fact is that canis Lupis will never be anything other than Canidae.

Here is just one genetic reason why:

But if you wish to prove this wrong then just go find a scientist that has caused ANY type of dog to become a non-dog. Just one will do.

But I will tell you now that you won't be any more successful doing that then you would in doing what these folks attempted to do...over 50,000 generations:

Can you find anything that was reproduced genetically that is not classifiably, or is not identifiably a fly?

This is Mendelian genetics. More importantly, "After his kind' according to scripture still stands.

Toss Darwinian evolution. It is worthless theory.

If you taught biology why do you keep trying to argue against evolution by attacking ideas evolution doesn't teach? It isn't that dogs will ever be anything other than dogs, it is that they are also canis and their ancestors were wolves, but dogs will still always be canis as well as dogs. But they have ancestors further back too whom they share with foxes and jackals. Dogs and foxes and jackals will always be canidea too. Canideae will never be anything other than canidae. But dogs foxes and jackals are caniforma too and will always be caniforma as will seals and bears and badgers. The caniforma are carnivora too and will always be carnivora, but the cats are carnivora too.

Why do you try to argue dogs will never turn into a non-dog when evolution never claims it will? What evolution says is that dogs share a common ancestry with wolves, and further back with foxes and then jackals, further back with bears and badgers and further back still with cats. Dogs don't change into cats but they have an ancestors whose descendants evolved into cats and dogs, bears, badgers, foxes and seals, while always remaining carnivora.

If creationism were true there should be no difficulty deciding where on the phylogenetic tree to put 'created kinds', it should be perfectly clear which species trace back to each common kind, and where the cut off of created kind is, you shouldn't be able to keep tracing them back and back and back, each time lineages joining together like branches in a vast tree.

 

[Kirkwhisper]

Anyone else? I won't give him 2 seconds.

 

[Assyrian]

Anyone else? I won't give him 2 seconds.

You couldn't answer shernren either when he took you claims about entropy apart. I am sensing a pattern here.

 

[Kirkwhisper]

Any non-equivocators out there?

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

You are quite right mathetes, Notedstrangeperson missed it because he was just thinking of Genesis.

My mistake.

The problem is Paul goes on to describe Jesus as the second man 1Cor 15:47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. Kind of suggests Paul might not have been speaking very literally here, it certainly means you cannot claim Adam had to be the first man ever from this passage unless you also say Jesus was the second man ever.

Yes, this would fit in with the interpretation that Adam was first human to receive a soul ... and possibly the human to commit sin?

Anyone else? I won't give him 2 seconds.

You mean anyone willing to blindly accept what you say and never challenge you? I doubt it. We're not your "students".

 

[Assyrian]

Yes, this would fit in with the interpretation that Adam was first human to receive a soul ... and possibly the human to commit sin?

Possibly, I lean more toward Adam being an apocalyptic figure symbolising the whole human race. Christ is not only the beginning of the new humanity, the new humanity is summed up 'in Christ' we the church are the body of Christ.

Adam as an apocalyptic figure of the whole human race also explains Paul's use of the present tense in 1Cor 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Notice the 'in Christ' in the second part of the verse too.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I'm not normally one to bump one of my own posts. But I would be interested in seeing some sort of response to some of my points in post 86.

-CryptoLutheran