Evolution and God Aren't Mutually Exclusive

beliefnet.com ^ | Larry Witham

[Tomax]

Intelligent Design Takes Center Stage

In the past, schools were urged to teach creationism or 'teach the controversy.' Now, intelligent design is the new war cry.

By Larry Witham

The debate over "intelligent design," a topic on the borderland between science and theology, has climbed its way to two new pinnacles lately: the White House and the Vatican.

Larry Witham is a Maryland writer who has published three books on science and religion, including 'Where Darwin Meets the Bible' and the forthcoming 'The Measure of God' (HarperSanFrancisco).

[freepertoo]

Yes they are mutually exclusive, sorry.

[BibChr]

Macro-evolution and god aren't incompatible.

Macro-evolution and God are.

Dan
Biblical Christianity BLOG

[Tomax]

Why? Is not the creation of Eve from Adam's side a simplified explanation of A sexual mitosis regeneration of one celled organisms? How else would God explain such things to primitive goat herders?

[Tomax]

What?

[FormerLib]

I've had the pleasure of meeting Larry Witham in his capacity as one of the Religion writers for the Washington Times. I'd be inclined to pick up his book and have a look.

That God created "all things visible and invisible" is an iron-clad Biblical truth; how He did it doesn't meet the same standard, IMHO.

[Tomax]

"how He did it doesn't meet the same standard, IMHO."

Please elaborate?

[BibChr]

Read slower. There are no typo's.

Dan

[scandalon]

One thing seems to be forgotten in all this debate. The Scripture states that "death entered into the world through one man." That man was Adam. Now is death did not begin until Adam sinned, then evolution can't stand. Evolution needs "billions and billions" of years to work and all the while death is occurring as the strong survive. Death cannot exist before Adam, the Scripture says so.

[sheltonmac]

One thing seems to be forgotten in all this debate. The Scripture states that "death entered into the world through one man." That man was Adam. Now if death did not begin until Adam sinned, then evolution can't stand. Evolution needs "billions and billions" of years to work and all the while death is occurring as the strong survive. Death cannot exist before Adam, the Scripture says so.

Perfectly stated!

[Tomax]

How Christain of you. I read it and catch phrases make for poor explanations of position. If you don't want to elaborate on what you posted, fine by me.

[Tomax]

What is meant by death? Physical or spiritual?

[FormerLib]

It is my belief that we cannot yet understand how God created all things AND that the Bible does not address those specifics as they are not relevant to the more important theological truth (ie. that God is the Creator).

[Brilliant]

Are you suggesting that if God wanted to use evolution to create man, he could not have done so?

[frgoff]

The issue is actually a conflict with Christianity and Evolution, not necesarily God and evolution.

Traditional Christian teaching is that death entered the world because of Adam's transgression. (Gen 2:17, Romans 5:12).

Now, you could read these passages and say that the death being spoken of was not a physical death, but a spiritual death or separation from God, and that the story of Genesis is an account of the point at which the evolving hominid reached a point where he became accountable before God for his moral conduct.

If you do this, you are basically taking the Urantian point of view, which states that life evolved until a point had been reached where humans were sufficiently developed to be "uplifted."

Christ then comes in the meridian of time to bring a second "uplift," if you will, allowing for an escape of the evolutionary bonds of death.

I suppose you could morph Christianity in this way to make it work with evolution (which is what the Urantia book does), but you have to pretty much abandon traditional Christian teachings to do it. Thus the conflict.

[BibChr]

Your response validates mine. The Bible actually discourages wasting time on people unwilling to think.

Dan

[Coyoteman]

If we are all to believe in creation, the real battle is to determine which creation. Is this the one?

Tsimshian Creation Story

At the beginning of the world it was covered in darkness. A chief, a chieftianess and son lived at Kungalas. Although the child was greatly loved, he died without cause. The whole tribe mourned each day beside the boy's lifeless body. One morning instead of her dead son the chieftainess witnessed the rising of a boy out of her son's body which burned brightly. She was overjoyed to see her son come back to life. This glowing boy grew large until his father began to call him a giant. Giant boy ate most of the tribe's food, so his father sent him over the sea to find more to eat. Giant boy flew inland and took with him a stone, a raven blanket and a dried bladder full of berries. He dropped the stone in the ocean and rested upon it. Each time he dropped a stone and rested he created a new rocky island. Giant Boy scattered the berries across the land and created a forest filled with fruit. He scattered the salmon roe and trout roe into the rivers to create an abundance of fish. From this day Giant Boy never lacked food in the new world.

[Preachin']

Evolution implies that there was an extraordinary amount of time between the creation days.

Using the Bible as a guide makes this impossible.

The Lord created all plant life on the third day and then our sun and moon on the fourth day.

Being that the Lord cause all things to reproduce after their own kind, there could not have been a long period of time between those days. The plants needed the sun to survive then, just like they do now.

Some try to state that the creation days were 1,000 years long, based on misinterpretation of other scriptures. If that were true, then there had to have been 500 years of darkness immediately after the plant life was created, followed by 500 years of light. The plant life would not have survived that.

[trebb]

Macro-evolution and god aren't incompatible.

Macro-evolution and God are.

Amen to that, brother!!!

[plain talk]

It is my belief that we cannot yet understand how God created all things AND that the Bible does not address those specifics as they are not relevant to the more important theological truth (ie. that God is the Creator).

Well said. This is a statement I can agree with.