[Alamo-Girl]

Although evolution is all around us, it remains a "dangerous idea"?

It would say it remains a dangerous idea when it affects the spiritual life of a man.

And it is dangerous to some (not all) on both sides of the crevo debate.

Those whose most certain source of knowledge is sensory perception and reasoning – those who do not have spiritual “ears to hear” - may receive the theory and extrapolate it as proof there is a natural explanation for everything and therefore Scripture or indeed any divine revelation witnessed by anyone is not real and not to be trusted. So for them, evolution may become their main reason to aver that God does not exist and thereby suffer the second death.

Conversely, some of those who say they believe in God and Scripture - may also accept and/or apply mortal reasoning to the words to conclude that if evolution were true then therefore God does not exist after all. For such a one, his faith in God hinges upon his own ability to comprehend Him and therefore, should he become convinced of the dangerous idea, he will deny God and likewise suffer the consequence of the second death.

But the cause, albeit on both sides, is the same, i.e. man rejecting any God he cannot comprehend with his own mortal mind. To both, God is merely a hypothesis – He is not real to them.

No one who actually knows Christ is at risk:

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. – Romans 8:9

Or to put it another way, when man holds himself up to be the measure of God, he makes himself his own “god” – and that makes him an idol worshipper and he will suffer the same fate as all idolators.

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. - Revelation 21:8

Man is not the measure of God.

For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:8-9

So whether one accepts or rejects the “dangerous idea” – the vital part is that he knows God is not a hypothesis. He lives. His Name is I AM.

Love Him. Believe Him. Trust Him.

To God be the glory, not man, never man.

[betty boop]

Those whose most certain source of knowledge is sensory perception and reasoning – those who do not have spiritual “ears to hear” - may receive the theory and extrapolate it as proof there is a natural explanation for everything and therefore Scripture or indeed any divine revelation witnessed by anyone is not real and not to be trusted. So for them, evolution may become their main reason to aver that God does not exist and thereby suffer the second death.

That seems to be the normal progression.... But jeepers, the flaw is in the first step — the expectation that sensory perception gives us an exhaustive picture of reality, and that reason itself has no limits. Both presuppositions can be shown to be false.

But if we want to embrace such notions, really, we're in tough "ontological shape" because our epistemology is faulty. As you point out, to reduce the world to the competence of the human intellect — to make man the measure, in other words — is to falsify reality. And thereby, to falsify one's own position in it.

I gather it is the persistent desire to live in untruth that causes one to suffer the second death....

Thank you ever so much for your beautiful essay/post, dearest sister in Christ!