“natural explanations for natural processes.”
That is your presupposition in a nutshell. God says He created the world by His command. You are applying a natural explanation for what God says is supernatural.
As to God ‘creating’ evolution, where do you get that? Where is there a hint in the Bible that God created evolution? [I’m referring to macroevolution.] Are you saying, in effect, ‘Of course there’s no hint of God creating evolution in the Bible, but I believe He did it anyway.’ Is that your bottom line?
Look at it like this: if God used evolution, the Genesis acct wd read quite differently. I.e.: when it came to man, it wd say that God took a semian-likie creature and formed it into a man. Subsequently the Bible wd not refer to man as made in God’s image but rather in the image of whatever ape-like creature He has used.
Iow, it’s not both/and; it’s either/or.
Did you know, btw, that the Bible actually does speak of evolution? It does, in so many words. Here’s the passage:
“3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” 5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, 6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” 2 Peter 3:3-8
It’s all right there in that passage. Evolution’s faulty assumption: “For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.”
The first non-natural event which evolutionists overlook: “For [a]when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water”
The second world-wide event overlooked by evolutionists:
“through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.”
& finally, the issue of time, indicating that God’s time is unique to Him: “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.”
Iow, evolutionists assume the natural world has operated under knowable, calculable conditions for billions of yrs. The apostle Peter says in order to believe this, one has to overlook 2 events: the creation of the universe by God’s word, & the Genesis flood. Christian evolutionists have to make one further assumption: that there is something divine about the animal-type that gave rise to man. How else cd man be both descended from animals & reflect God’s divine image?
Oh, & before you all rush in & claim that man & apes evolved along different lines, here are the words of Darwin himiself:
“There can, consequently, hardly be a doubt that man is an off-shoot from the Old World simian stem; and that under a genealogical point of view he must be classified with the catarhine [Old World monkeys] division . . . But a naturalist, would undoubtedly have ranked as an ape or a monkey, an ancient form which possessed many characters common to the catarhine and platyrhine monkeys, other characters in an intermediate condition, and some few, perhaps, distinct from those now found in either group. And as man from a genealogical point of view belongs to the catarhine or Old World stock, we must conclude, however much the conclusion may revolt our pride, that our early progenitors would have been properly thus designated.”
1. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man,Chapter Six, On the Affinities and Genealogy of Man:Rank of Man in the Natural System, Sixth Edition, edited under Encyclopedia Britannica, Great Books of the Western World, Vol.49, Darwin, William Benton Publishers, 1952, pp.335-336. Darwin further stated this belief on pp.337, “We have seen that man appears to have diverged from the catarhine [African and far eastern monkeys] or Old World division of the Simiadae [monkeys and apes], after these had diverged from the New World division.”
http://www.thedarwinpapers.com/oldsite/number9/Darwin9.htm#N_1_
Fantasywriter quoting BJK: " 'natural explanations for natural processes.' "That is your presupposition in a nutshell."
No, not my presupposition, that is the first rule of science itself.
It's the reason why there can be no conversation between science and anything outside the scientific realm of "natural explanations for natural processes".
Fantasywriter: "God says He created the world by His command.
You are applying a natural explanation for what God says is supernatural."
Of course, since that is the very definition of the scientific enterprise: natural explanations for natural processes.
The philosophical term for this is methodological naturalism.
That's what the word "science" means, and as soon as you inject it with the supernatural, then it is no longer real "science".
But, to be precise, if you read Genesis carefully, you'll notice that not everything God created came into being on His word alone.
For examples:
So note all those verbs: separated, made, created, finished the work, formed a man, planted a garden.
These verbs and many other descriptions of God's actions imply physical actions, and where there is something physical, there science can attempt to explain how and when it all happened.
Fantasywriter: "As to God ‘creating’ evolution, where do you get that?
Where is there a hint in the Bible that God created evolution? [I’m referring to macroevolution.]"
Since the Bible says nothing about how God made, created or formed the Universe, there can not possibly be a scientific hypothesis or theory which contradicts the biblical account.
But here is the more important question: if God did not intend for us to see evolution as His creative process, then why did He make the earth to appear as if that's just what evolution is?
Fantasywriter: "Are you saying, in effect, ‘Of course there’s no hint of God creating evolution in the Bible, but I believe He did it anyway.’
Is that your bottom line?"
First of all, Genesis does not say how God created, formed, made or planted those things, and so science is free to investigate and report its findings.
And more to your point: there are many modern scientific understandings which are not mentioned in the Bible.
Does that fact make any of those other scientific ideas invalid?
Fantasywriter: "Look at it like this: if God used evolution, the Genesis acct wd read quite differently."
Not necessarily.
Fantasywriter: "I.e.: when it came to man, it wd say that God took a semian-likie creature and formed it into a man.
Subsequently the Bible wd not refer to man as made in God’s image but rather in the image of whatever ape-like creature He has used."
I don't see your problem with the Genesis 2 account:
Evolution hypothesizes that life did begin, in effect, "from the dust of the ground" and clearly God's breath was necessary to create a fully living human being.
As for creating man in the image of a simian...
Do you suppose that somehow God did not know on Day One what He intended to create on Day Six?
Bottom line is: I don't criticize the Bible for what it doesn't say, and am always pleased to find where it does help confirm scientific ideas.
Fantasywriter: "Did you know, btw, that the Bible actually does speak of evolution?
It does, in so many words.
Here’s the passage (2 Peter 3)...
It’s all right there in that passage.
Evolution’s faulty assumption:"
In fact, that passage contradicts nothing of science in general, or evolution in specific.
It mentions creation, flood and fire all of which are confirmed scientifically as happening in the past, and likely in the future.
Fantasywriter: "Christian evolutionists have to make one further assumption: that there is something divine about the animal-type that gave rise to man.
How else cd man be both descended from animals & reflect God’s divine image?"
I don't see your problem.
That mankind is created in God's image simply refers to our physical form, of which any number of other biblical creatures share a likeness -- giants and some angels come to mind.
But the key action we find in 2:7 where God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.".
I think that is the moment when pre-humans of whatever physical appearance became fully human beings.
If that doesn't satisfy you, then I can certainly sympathize, but don't share your concerns.
Fantasywriter: "Oh, & before you all rush in & claim that man & apes evolved along different lines, here are the words of Darwin himiself:"
First of all, Darwin's basic ideas of evolution -- descent with modifications and natural selection -- are indisputable, even by today's anti-evolutionists.
But, Darwin was wrong about other things -- for example, he knew nothing of genetics or DNA -- and in this example was speculating about which branch of monkeys humans descended from.
It turns out: fossil and DNA evidence suggest that ancestors of today's Old World monkeys split from Great Ape ancestors around 20 million years ago, and pre-humans split from our ancestors common to chimpanzees around four million years ago.
Those millions of years of separation are enough to guarantee no possible interbreeding, however certain pre-humans like Neanderthals, separated by just hundreds of thousands of years are, it seems, a very different matter.