Posted on 03/31/2011 1:08:45 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
Theistic evolution is a serious threat to the Christian worldview. It is a harmful doctrine that compromises Christian theology (especially anthropology and man as image of God) for the sake of upholding Darwin's theory of common decent. While Scripture teaches that God directly made the first human persons, theistic evolution says man came from non-God and non-images. The creation account and its answering of some of the most important questions of human life, probably didn't happen; most the events and characters are generally symbolic. And somehow, we are supposed to believe that all of this is compatible with Christian orthodoxy and that none of it negatively changes our understanding of what it means to be God's images. Just bow the knee to "science," say we all came from monkeys, and keep going to church with a smile and everything will be fine.
What a complete lie. And needless to say, this lie is a growing disease. Not only has open-theist Greg Boyd and former Westminster Seminary professor Peter Enns given their approval to theistic evolution by joining the BioLogos Forum, but so has the Presbyterian Pastor and increasingly popular author Tim Keller. Who's next?
Well, I know who isn't next: Dr. David Murray, Professor of Old Testament at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He recently wrote an excellent article entitled "The Quest for the Historical Adam" in the latest Reformed Baptist Trumpet. Read it for free here.
The problem with all this evolution talk...is that you have subtle signs that evolution is actually underway today. I went and toured Amsterdam about four years ago...going into a house which dated back to the 1500s. It’s funny...the doorways and ceiling are a great deal lower than normal, so this begged a question from the tour group. The tour guide admitted that Dutch folks in this time period were shorter than what they are today. If you look at this...and imagine 500 years into the future....our current doorways will have to be six inches higher than what they are today. You can call this anything you want....but at the end of the day...we are still changing.
(I ask because I saw similar in Germany— yet the homes etc. of the welthy (merchants or rulers) were scaled for present-day-sized people, and the tour guides said it was ‘cuz they ate better than the hoi polloi.)
*wealthy
I have seen the children of Japanese immigrants who were as large as typical Americans, while the immigrants were quite small and short. To make any conclusions about the size of humans, one has to be able to compare diet and overall health and control for those factors.
One thing that has measurably changed within the “recent” human past is the size of teeth. Concurrent with the change in our diet from raw to cooked food, our teeth have been shrinking, and can be shown to be smaller than the teeth of humans 10,000 years ago.
In any case, no one (IMO) should believe that by accepting the validity of evolution as a scientific theory, one somehow rejects God. Instead, one should marvel at the laws of physics that function in such a way as to make life possible. What completely amazes me is that, physically, every living thing is nothing more than a chemical reaction vessel. Yet—where does the sense of being alive come from?
What if you believe that God created everything and everyone, but it was in a time frame that agrees with the science, rather thatn genesis? What is that called?
Look at Dutch who were young or born during the German occupation. They are shorter than their parents or children.
Nutrition does a lot of that.
That is a little something called ‘adaptation’.
People (humans) can change taller heavier, thinner, darker, lighter, and yet, despite ANY changes, they are still people (humans).
Lots of dog breeds, yet ALL are still dogs.
Evolutionary theory would have you believe that humans came from non-humans; that perhaps given time, you could breed dogs (non-cats) and come up with cats (non-dogs). Talk about a leap of faith involved.
Change is universal.
Evolution? Heck, I´m still waiting for some great ¨scientist¨ to create life. Can´t do it, boys? Gee, that´s too bad.
What you’re seeing in this argument is the fallacy of equivocation. Folks look at the changes within species, call it “evolution” and then state that it proves “evolution” in the “molecules to man” sense of the word.
That’s kind of funny, too - they are carefully constructing experiments using their intelligence to show how life could be created accidentally without intelligence involved.
And their magic ingredient is always “time”.
Right now stars are forming due to gravity and nuclear fusion. God created and is creating those stars, via the mechanism of gravity and nuclear fusion.
I was created by God “from dust” and “to dust” I will return. But I was also created via cellular processes involving DNA.
Was the creation of Adam “from dust” more literal than my own creation “from dust”? No chance that it also might involve an understandable process involving DNA?
When does science say you were created?
When does science say man was created?
I received my Bachelor of Science degree in biology some 50 years ago. At that time, there was a great debate - Creation vs. Evolution. The debate continues, and will probably continue long after I leave this life. I have come to this conclusion, and therefore, no longer try to debate the subject. To those of you who wish to do so - have at it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.