mightychurch.com

Well, I’m sure I fit into your heretic status too. Not that it matters. I certainly don’t take a readily literal mind to the Scriptures.

As I recall, you are a Creationist, albeit tending to Old Earth.
Me, I accept that we evolved along with all the other animals and are a species of ape.

I like the idea that we are somehow a meeting place of rising ape meeting the descending angel.

I certainly frequently talk to clients (I now work in the Mental Health field) about how our brain is an ape on a rat on a snake.
Which structurally is pretty accurate.

I like the idea that humanity was created in the image of God as rulers over this world, and as Christians, people who one day rule over the angels too.

Dannii,  I think that if Genesis was written today, “image ” would be replaced by “design” and therefore save a lot of confusion in simple minds.  I really think this discussion would be redundant if Anglicans accepted Science, especially evolution, as part of the many gifts from God. Then incorporate Science as best as man can into the Scriptures.
  The barney between religion and Science has been going on for 100’s of years and Science always wins out in the long run. No wonder the Bible fundamentalists are so frightened of Science.
  The atheist fundamentalists are just as bad. Dawkins has written a whole book saying evolution disproves Christianity, whereas the reverse is true IMO.

The atheist fundamentalists are just as bad. Dawkins has written a whole book saying evolution disproves Christianity, whereas the reverse is true IMO.

Truth. Dawkins and Hitchens can be tiresome in the extreme. I like Hugh Ross’ and Francis Collins’ responses to them though.

Dawkins at least is readily dismissable on scientific grounds alone! His science is ‘bad science’ because it takes no account of metamathematics (or the pure-mathematic core of all science) - in particular, Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. (There’s no need to even mention God or theology…)

Did anyone catch Q&A on the ABC last night? Dawkins was on and there was a lot of God/evolution discussion. You can watch the program and read the transcript here if you feel so inclined. Turns out Steve Fielding is a YEC (who’d have thunk it? :P), and Tony Burke did the best job defending Christianity

Steve from Communicate Jesus posted some reflections here, and I my comments were:

——

My random thoughts:
* Dawkins has a large personal following, hence the interest from the audience. I don’t think it’s representative of much more than that - put Dawkins and a bunch of politicians together and it’s not really going to inspire Christians to show up. I think it was a bit much to have the politicans being the Christian voices on the panel, but that said I think they did a reasonable job, Steve Fielding notwithstanding. Tony Burke was really good. 

* The disappointing thing about Dawkins that aggravates a lot of people (going by the twitter/facebook comments :) is his inconsistency - the ‘life is wonderful!’ line is a trite crowd pleaser (& obviously nonsense) but he’d be much more intellectually honest to say something more along the lines of his famous quote “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” I expect that wouldn’t get such warm applause though!

* There’s two sides to Dawkins, the careful, thoughtful, well reasoned one; and the angry, irrational, passionate one. It’s a shame the latter turns Christians off the former, as he actually does have interesting things to say (<—and even saying that as a Christian seems like some kind of heresy!). The major issue with evolution (for example) is that we have almost nothing to say about it—we waffle over it and say “Oh it doesn’t matter” but we only say that because we haven’t thought much about it. Therefore there’s a vacuum that’s filled by the Young Earth Creationists like Steve Fielding who believe not just that immortal, vegetarian dinosaurs and man were hanging in 4000BC (really!), but that Christianity cannot be true if that *isn’t* true (or if evolution is true - see Albert Mohler for eg), because there was death before the fall (& with no adam and eve there was no specific fall) so what could Jesus be saving us from? The atheists feed off that, and the cycle continues, and is furthered by more nonsense like the ID movement.

* The vacuum there is really severe in terms of written work from Christians too, I’ve looked and there’s really very, very little of substance which is, frankly, a little alarming.

* Not only do we have not much to say on evolution (I heard the CBTB mp3 sermon saying it couldn’t be true too, btw), arguments like absolute morality are actually much weaker than we like to think. Working relative morality can be found in nature; what we think is moral has progressed quite a bit (eg slavery, women’s rights, child marriage etc) in way which aren’t stated as absolutes in the bible, and finally some things everyone would agree is immoral without need to appeal to God. The question is still, of course, about what happens ultimately, but the arguments are more sophisticated than absolute morality as a trump card. Again, we really need to do a lot more work on these issues.

* Wow, this is long, but just to finish, I thought the interest in the afterlife was interesting!

——

Michael Jensen posted a month ago saying it’s time to dismiss YECS and stop tolerating it out of misguided good intentions. You can read it here: It’s the truth.

My thoughts (I like the idea of the coming scientific reformation):

I wish YECSers would own up to what they believe—that the world came into being in 4000BC where vegetarian, immortal dinosaurs and humans frolicked happily together, and that Christianity and the gospel utterly depend on it.

That said, I also wish those of us on the other side of the debate would think harder about what evolution actually means, and own up to that. For example, what difference does it make if we just ‘yadda yadda’ evolution and (hey presto!) use creationist language of design to talk about why we are the way we are?

Natural selection is far more profound than I think many of us realize, and I think we tend to just check the evolutionary box and then fall back to centuries-old language of design, without considering what that actually means.

A simple example: Why is our sexuality the way it is? Well, those with a stronger sex drive/inclination that produce more offspring propagate their genes further, and on and on, until *all* of us here today share that same inclination. (A species disinterested in sex doesn’t get very far!) Why do we couple off? Same reason, with some oxytocin. Why do we find babies ‘cute’? Is it because they are innately attractive in ‘the way God made them’, or because there’s evolutionary benefit for all species to think their offspring are adorable? Why do babies cry? Evolutionary advantage.

And on it goes, all of which are excellent, concise, revealing explanations that are far more precise than “That’s how God made them!”. (Can I add that the tendency for Christians to ascribe all natural phenomena to God’s hand is particularly annoying, and borders on pantheism?)

Natural selection is far more profound and far reaching than we give it credit for, and it *does* cover much of the ground that we’ve traditionally described as design/special creation.

If we truly do believe in it, then let’s start talking about it, because there’s a huge amount of work to do. It has taken us past a point of no return—we can’t just tick it off and settle back into orthodoxy that predates it.

That would also take care of the vacuum we currently leave that gets filled by overt nonsense like YECS, or more subtle nonsense that’s used (often unwittingly) in far more circumstances.

(And don’t get me started on prayer… :P)

There’s a scientific reformation coming, whether we like it or not. It may not be today or tomorrow, but these questions aren’t going away, and we’ve only just begun to think about them. There’s decades of work ahead.

Nice thought lines Luke.
Didn’t catch the show, but iview is my friend.

I agree wholeheartedly with 99% of your comments, Luke. But before I get to the 1% niggle, I’d like to tell you about a forum that has just been initiated by my good Baptist mate Matt Stone; it is devoted to the interface between Christian faith and science, and will be held monthly at Pendle Hill Baptst Church Pendle Hill. (Ring me on 9871-4282 for further details, if you’re interested.) Now to the 1%...

Like you, I don’t know why so many Christians cannot see that (Old Earth) Creationism and Evolution are compossible. However, you wrote:

Can I add that the tendency for Christians to ascribe all natural phenomena to God’s hand is particularly annoying, and borders on pantheism?”

Have you not heard of panentheism - in a nutshell, the idea that God is both immanent and transcendant? Check out Philip Clayton’s The Problem of God in Modern Thought (2000),  Matthew Fox’s The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (1988), and Evelyn Underhill’s classic text Mysticism; also the writings of Meister Eckhart. This now-widely-accepted doctrine (it is well supported Biblically) circumvents the problem largely…

... but not completely, in relation to primary versus secondary causalities. Like you, I tend to vent steam out of my ears and grit my teeth whenever I hear the oft-repeated nauseating cliché “God is in control”. Maybe so, maybe not, but demonstrating direct causality by God is, at best, nigh-on impossible (even assuming it’s true), given the fundamental uncertainties inherent within the/God’s laws of Quantum Mechanics which underpin the fabric of our Universe.

Postscript: Let’s not waste any more time, thought, or energy on YECs - it’s beneath even average human intelligence, a travesty of Biblical exegesis…

Returning to Q&A.

I confess to greatly admiring Richard Dawkins - apart from when he satirizes Christianity by characterizing it theologically with straw men who are either nut-cases (extreme liberals) or simpletons (fundamentalists or YECs). His work demands that Christians lift their game intellectually. Alas, Dawkins’ own critique of religion betrays a flaw in his scientific knowledge, allowing his anti-religious Weltanschauung to be demolished easily without even mentioning religion: his apparent ignorance of metamathematics. Why don’t learned, scientifically knowledgeable atheists like Dawkins consider the ramifications of metamathematics - things like Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem - upon the rest of science, thereby illuminating the limitations of science and legitimizing the value of metaphysics (hence religious speculation)?

Thanks for the tips Ian, and by all means niggle away, always appreciate hearing about new/better ideas! :)

The problem I see with fitting evolution with Christianity, is, what do you do, philosophically, with the problem of death?
 
Christianity sees death as the wages of sin.  A black stranger in the world God created, an outrage.
 
Evolution uses death as the agent of progress.  Without death, accordingly, we wouldn’t have evolved, and wouldn’t be human.
 
Do you see this is a problem?  Do you have any idea of a resolution?

Ros, I think you’re confusing spiritual death (the wages of sin) with physical death (the outcome of entropy, viral and bacteriological invasion, etc.). There is no philosophical problem - unless you try to read a sacred piece of mythos (Genesis 1-13) at all times literally and as a scientific treatise.

Ian, I thought distinguishing physical and spiritual death would be the answer.  Howerver, the physical resurrection of Christ is the main argument used to point to the physical as well as the spiritual being involved in the sin-death-redemption-life story.  And I’m not sure precisely what you mean by reading Gen 1-13 ‘at all times literally and as a scientific treatise’.  There is a whole spectrum of interpretation of early Genesis.  Personally, I find it striking how close the Genesis description is to what science now tells us. For example,  ‘to dust you will return’ sounds like entropy, doesn’t it?

I’m not sure how I can answer you Ros. For instance, I’m not convinced that Jesus died spiritually - which I understand to mean as gaining total oblivion; how could Jesus = God cease to exist in some sense? - though he certainly was physically dead.

Regarding Genesis, all I meant was that its cosmogony is mythos, intentionally so, and does not map onto the physical world at all well as revealed by modern science (physics, cosmology). e.g. stars had to appear before Earth formed, due to the presence of heavier elements like iron.

Still, in certain details, it does seem accurate. e.g. on man (indeed, most of life on Earth) being made from clay, the genetic content of many life-forms originate from virii resident in the ground; see also A. G. Cairns-Smith’s Seven Clues to the Origins of Life (CUP), 1985.

Ian -
I agree, Jesus didn’t die spiritually.  That’s not what I meant.  I meant that his dying and rising physically points to our physical death, as well as spiritual death,  being a consequence of sin.  So I don’t think my initial problem is dependent on any particular reading of Genesis.

Ros, physical death is not a consequence of sin; it’s a consequence of physics and biology - and always was. Surely you don’t think that species - e.g. dinosaurs - that existed long prior to homo sapiens were immortal?

Ian,

The Bible teaches that physical death is the penalty for sin. You would have do some serious theological gymnastics to avoid that conclusion.

This is where I find evolution tricky theologically - if death was part of the world before sin, what do we make of the many places that say that death is the punishment for sin? Having said that, I think YECSers are on thin ice theologically as well.

No Lee,

The Bible teaches that spiritual death is the penalty of sin. This solves your evolution quandary.

Lee,
 
I agree with you.  The Bible consistently teaches physical death is the penalty for sin, which creates difficulties for accommodating evolution, but the YECs point of view is problematic also.
 
I think this has been in the too-hard basket for long enough, though, which is sort of what Luke said in #32..  It’s an impediment to some people considering Christiantiy seriously (I know at least one) - or at least an excuse.
 
Ian,
 
I’m not sure where you’re coming from theologically, which is why I’m not prepared to accept the spiritual death solution to the quandry.  To me it would create a whole lot of other theological issues, which I don’t want to go into here.  But thanks for the input.

Ros & Lee. Show me some proof texts, please, to bolster your assertion that the Bible teaches that “physical death [as opposed to spiritual death] is the penalty for sin” [boldface added]. Ros, it doesn’t matter where I’m “coming from theologically” - only the truth matters. But I would add that to assert to an educated person that ‘they die only because they’re sinning’ will serve only to create a possibly insurmountable obstacle for that person coming to Christ, not to mention them questioning your sanity…

Ian, why do you ask for proof texts?  You don’t strike me as a proof-text kind of guy. 
 
For the purposes of discussion, where one is coming from theologically is significant because it provides background to what one is saying.
Your last sentence is a misrepresentation.  Let’s be civil please.  I apologise if I sounded uncivil; this medium is notorious for making things sound worse than they are intended. 
 
Good night.
I’m going out tomorrow and won’t be posting.  Hopefully by Wednesday this will have blown over.

Ros, I’m asking for proof texts because of the assertions you made about Scripture. I can then check them for myself in context. It would be unwise of you to make assumptions about me; rather, ask questions if you like… And I don’t believe that my last sentence is a “misrepresentation” - it encapsulates the essence of your assertion; I proposed that it is problematic; try what I suggested and find out for yourself! - nor was I being intentionally uncivil. I am a call-a-spade-a-spade kind of bloke.

Regards,
Dr Ian Shanahan.

Ian - or Dr Shanahan if you prefer -
 
We die because death has entered the world, through sin.  (Romans 5:12). ‘Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—’.  This is quite different from ‘they die only because they’re sinning’.

Moreover, ‘they die only because they’re sinning’ is most certainly not what any reasonable person who holds my view would say to someone.  In this, I judge it a misrepresentation, and found the suggestion that I might say such a thing insulting and offensive. 
   
Now I will not pursue this argument further.  It is reaching a point of futility. 
     
I respect that you consider spiritual death, not physical, to be in question, and have taken on board that this has bearing on the evolution question.  Thank you for your responses.

Ros, as I expected you would, you quoted Romans 5:12. This doesn’t help one way or the other. The Greek θανατος, according to the lexicon I consulted, can mean physical or spiritual death. Other passages from Paul (e.g. 1 Co 15:56) clearly point to the latter meaning - even more so when Paul writes of ‘dying in Christ’. See also James 1:15, which again is referring to spiritual death.

Moreover, ‘they die only because they’re sinning’ is most certainly not what any reasonable person who holds my view would say to someone.

Well, in re-reading your posts, this does seem to be what you are saying - that because people sin, they die physically. My position was made clear in my post from 14 March.

In this, I judge it a misrepresentation, and found the suggestion that I might say such a thing insulting and offensive.

That is your prerogative. I have written nothing for which I need to apologize.

Now I will not pursue this argument further.  It is reaching a point of futility.

Agreed.

I respect that you consider spiritual death, not physical, to be in question, ...

On the contrary! I’m asserting, unambiguously, that what the Bible affirms is that spiritual death - not physical death - is the outcome of sin (since physical mortality had already been present in the world for aeons prior to the manifestation of homo sapiens).