Posted on 01/16/2011 4:09:10 PM PST by balch3
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- A Southern Baptist seminary president and evolution opponent has turned sights on "theistic evolution," the idea that evolutionary forces are somehow guided by God. Albert Mohler
Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote an article in the Winter 2011 issue of the seminary magazine labeling attempts by Christians to accommodate Darwinism "a biblical and theological disaster."
Mohler said being able to find middle ground between a young-earth creationism that believes God created the world in six 24-hour days and naturalism that regards evolution the product of random chance "would resolve a great cultural and intellectual conflict."
The problem, however, is that it is not evolutionary theory that gives way, but rather the Bible and Christian theology.
Mohler said acceptance of evolutionary theory requires reading the first two chapters of Genesis as a literary rendering and not historical fact, but it doesn't end there. It also requires rethinking the claim that sin and death entered the human race through the Fall of Adam. That in turn, Mohler contended, raises questions about New Testament passages like First Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive."
"The New Testament clearly establishes the Gospel of Jesus Christ upon the foundation of the Bible's account of creation," Mohler wrote. "If there was no historical Adam and no historical Fall, the Gospel is no longer understood in biblical terms."
Mohler said that after trying to reconcile their reading of Genesis with science, proponents of theistic evolution are now publicly rejecting biblical inerrancy, the doctrine that the Bible is totally free from error.
"We now face the undeniable truth that the most basic and fundamental questions of biblical authority and Gospel integrity are at stake," Mohler concluded. "Are you ready for this debate?"
In a separate article in the same issue, Gregory Wills, professor of church history at Southern Seminary, said attempts to affirm both creation and evolution in the 19th and 20th century produced Christian liberalism, which attracted large numbers of Americans, including the clerical and academic leadership of most denominations.
After establishing the concept that Genesis is true from a religious but not a historical standpoint, Wills said, liberalism went on to apply naturalistic criteria to accounts of miracles and prophecy as well. The result, he says, was a Bible "with little functional authority."
"Liberalism in America began with the rejection of the Bible's creation account," Wills wrote. "It culminated with a broad rejection of the beliefs of historic Christianity. Yet many Christians today wish to repeat the experiment. We should not expect different results."
Mohler, who in the last year became involved in public debate about evolution with the BioLogos Foundation, a conservative evangelical group that promotes integrating faith and science, has long maintained the most natural reading of the Bible is that God created the world in six 24-hour days just a few thousand years ago.
Writing in Time magazine in 2005, Mohler rejected the idea of human "descent."
"Evangelicals must absolutely affirm the special creation of humans in God's image, with no physical evolution from any nonhuman species," he wrote. "Just as important, the Bible clearly teaches that God is involved in every aspect and moment in the life of His creation and the universe. That rules out the image of a kind of divine watchmaker."
Because what they believe is nonsense to a 2nd grader. It is easier for an evolutionist to claim "science doesnt address issues before time began, its outside the rhelm of science" ... than it is to state what their theory actually involves; first there was nothing, then it exploded into something.
I do not know what “God of the Gaps” mean.
But I wondered a few things when I have posted on this thread. Should I respond on a posting where the opening article I do not respect? Does Mr. Bennett know what entropy means?
What is to explain about “Subjective = intelligent designer”? It’s a simple equation. What are your questions about it?
I’m no Bertrand Russel who wastes a few years and thousands of pages to say 1+1 = 2.
The First Cause argument has its own problems too. Who / what ‘caused’ the First Cause?
No, it's not. I'm calling to question that it is an 'equation' at all. Putting an '=' sign between phrases does not an equation make.
Well, if there's no evolutionary connection between monkeys and people, how do you explain so many of the posts on these types of threads?
Commonly, a 'god-of-the-gaps' argument can be reduced to the following form:
1. There is a gap in understanding of some aspect of the natural world.
2. Therefore the cause must be supernatural.
A discussion with you is not possible at this time, so it appears, subjectively speaking. I say that as a person of intelligence and design.
I don’t see many monkeys spending their day in front of a computer screen.
Alright. Let me know when you're able to.
I kinda doubt that will be happening either.
Blame it on the newer anti-glare screens.
(Joke)
;^)
What a pity.
There is no “evolution” or “natural selection”.
Chuck Norris decides whether a species lives or dies.
How can you feel pity? Isn’t that a state of more disorder? De-evolutionary?
You have more time suddenly?
Isn’t that a state of more disorder?
Considering the fact that I realise the type of "debates" you choose to indulge in, and more importantly, choose to run away from, the increase in that certainty is actually evidence of more, not less, order.
De-evolutionary?
Just for the record, this is a meaningless term. Evolution can proceed in any direction that increases the odds of survival of the candidate that is under consideration. Others that I've pinged might be able to expand further on it, if needed.
The idea that the creation of the universe proceeded by purely natural means with no "interference"(???) from the Creator is based on extrapolation from our knowledge of present processes. That is, the formation of stars, galaxies, volcanoes, and canyons allegedly tell us exactly how the universe came into existence at the beginning of time. Similarly, the way babies are conceived and born allegedly tells us exactly how the "first man" came into existence.
Though full of unfounded assumptions, this is well and good if one is going to be internally consistent. Atheist evolutionists can do this. But "theistic" evolutionists cannot. "Theistic" evolutionists inevitably arbitrarily deviate from this model at any number of places. Orthodox Jewish evolutionists deviate from it when it comes to the splitting of the Red Sea or the Revelation at Sinai (both of which are impossible via purely natural law as observable today). Chr*stian evolutionists, while insisting that Adam must have been conceived and born exactly as all humans are today, deviate from this to believe in the scientifically impossible "virgin birth." There is also the conundrum that the same G-d Who allegedly would never have "interfered"(???) with the natural process of creation has done nothing but interfere with the functioning of the universe since that time. In short, "theistic" evolutionists are not and cannot be internally consistent on this issue.
Ultimately it all boils down to the sociological issue of "us" vs. "them." "Our" miracles are sublime and inspirational and worthy of belief by the greatest intellects while "their" miracles are for "trailer trash."
There is absolutely nothing more to add to this.
“There are so many problems with Darwinism per se as an explanation that I find it to provide a peculiarly unsatisfying description of how our Creator developed living matter from initial chaos to its present state. I — while a Creationist — am not an evolutionist. Nor am I a YEC. Therefore, I consider Mohler’s position that Creationists who are not YEC adherents must be some form of “evolutionist” to be disingenuous, specious, and frankly, dishonest. ..” ~ TXnMA
bttt.
See if you find any of these topics to be of interest:
“...Now, no matter how loudly and crudely Darwinists protest to the contrary, humanness is an achievement; it is higher on the vertical scale, not merely one more horizontal arrangement of genetic material.
Furthermore, some human beings are objectively better than others, which is to say they have achieved greater “humanness” — which is not something you can say of any other animal.
There are not objective degrees of sheepness or pigginess. True, Michael Moore is a perfect ass, but that is in a manner of speaking. ....”
Darwinism and Other Barriers to Human Evolution
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/08/darwinism-and-other-barriers-to-human.html
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“..Conversely, the omnipotent randomness of the Darwinian is truly a god of the saps, a dopiate for the scientistic masses to preserve their dogmatic slumber and prevent them from being disturbed by those annoying promptings that emanate from the vertical. Zzzzzzzzzz... Wake me when I’m tenured.
While there is obviously truth in biology and physics — this being a logoistic universe — it is absurd to suggest that either is the truth, for truth must be anterior to existence. To suggest that existence is anterior to truth is the fundamental error of all materialists, atheists, and neo-Marxists leftists. Of course they could be right. But if they are right they are wrong, for to derive truth from history instead of nature is to derive no truth at all, just a forever shifting mindscape of perishable opinion. ....”
Nature vs. History: The Truth of Evolution and the Evolution of Truth
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2010/06/truth-of-evolution-and-evolution-of.html
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“...Put it this way: either you have a reason for being here, or you do not have a reason for being here. If you do have a reason, then it cannot be located in you. In fact, even the materialist must allow this realization through the back door. For example, for the metaphysical Darwinist, your reason for being is not within yourself, but in your offspring. Your reason is to perpetuate your genes; according to Richard Dawkins, your reason is your genes.
But what is the reason for genes, especially since they do not exist in the absence of a human subject who can define them? Simple: ... the reason for genes is evolution, and the reason for evolution is God, who is both its origin and end, its alpha and omega. In short, the purpose of evolution is cosmotheosis, which is a doctrine that was held by many in the early church. That is, the shocking hominization of God is at the same time the otherwise impossible divinization of man, which is in turn the sanctification and salvation of the very cosmos.
Which, if you think about it, is the opposite of the way things stood prior to the emergence of man. ...”
“The Being Without Whom You Are Not Real”
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2009/04/being-without-whom-you-are-not-real.html
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For the more one discovers of God, the more one finds one has to learn. Every step in advance is a return to the beginning, and we shall not really know him as he is, until we have returned to our beginning, and learned to know him both as the beginning and end of our journey. —Bede Griffiths
...In the words of theologian Thomas Torrance,
“The fact that the universe expanded in such a way that the emergence of conscious mind in it is an essential property of the universe, must surely mean that we cannot give an adequate account of the universe in its astonishing structure and harmony without taking into account, that is, without including conscious mind as an essential factor in our scientific equations.... Without man, nature is dumb, but it is man’s part to give it word: to be its mouth through which the whole universe gives voice to the glory and majesty of the living God.”
Any philosophy that falls short of this is simply vandalism, not to mention blarney, since it has the effect of reducing the reality of our cosmic situation to rubble, or blarney rubble. All Stone Age varieties of materialism fall into this category, as they begin their exploration by turning the cosmos upside down and inside out in order to try to understand it. [...]
Human beings are not matter and they are not God. If we were matter, we could not evolve, and if we were God, there would be no need to. [...]
Vandalizing History and Ransacking the Cathedral of Time
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2009/05/vandalizing-history-and-ransacking.html
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“...But to point out that the material world cannot be understood in the absence of intuition is to simultaneously affirm the obvious fact that the world is not material.
Theists often argue that most of the world’s greatest scientists have been religious, but in the end, that is neither here nor there.
More importantly, science itself cannot operate without certain functions that most people would regard as spiritual or quasi-religious, certainly not “mechanical” or empirical. ... “reason requires data in order to function, otherwise it operates in the void.” Therefore, something transcending reason must supply the material for it to operate on, or else you are truly trapped in an absurcular universe from which there is no escape — not even into knowledge. ...”
Looking for the World, Finding the Creator
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/10/looking-for-world-finding-creator.html
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“...You might say that it is Darwinism without evolution — which is precisely what metaphysical Darwinism is, i.e., mere horizontal change with no telos, no purpose, no meaning. The Darwinian world is like the vast wasteland of television, in which there is a kind of protean variety that is simultaneously infinite and yet empty and meaningless, for it is merely the variety of bacterial and viral adaptations. There are so many ways to adapt to a world without light or air! ...”
The Fractured Fairy Tales of the Left
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2009/12/fractured-fairy-tales-of-left.html
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“...If God doesn’t exist, only He knows it, for a mere primate could never know of such ultimate realities. ...”
The Reach of Speech — God’s and Ours
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2010/03/reach-of-speech-gods-and-ours.html
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“...Among other things, I saw that the intellect had to be anterior to creation, or we couldn’t understand the creation so easily and so deeply. No mere created intellect — that is, created by random accidents and copying errors — could result in something so sublime and luminous as the human mind, any more than your computer upgrades itself when corrupted by viruses. It is absurd to think otherwise, if for no other reason than it is to render oneself absurd.
Consciousness is over, above, behind, below, and within the created order, otherwise we couldn’t understand a single truth; in its deiformity, the intellect is both immanent and transcendent. This is not just the religious view, but it is obviously implicit in science as well, as all scientists presume that the world — if not today, then eventually — can be “contained” by the mind, however narrowly and perversely conscrewed.
Even if you reduce the world to a set of mathematical equations, you will see that intelligence has already been there, as it is reflected in the tracks of the equations. The more deeply we peer into the cosmos, the more “deep intelligence” is revealed. No quantum cosmologist expects to look beneath the flux of the world and discover equations that are timelessly ugly and stupid. Rather, they will always be beautiful, beauty being the splendor of the true. And this is only a step away from the shocking realization that thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, an the Glory, forever. Very humbling, to say the least. ....”
Sorry Darkling, It’s a Light Thing... You Wouldn’t Understand
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/05/its-light-thing-you-wouldnt-understand.html
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Evolving Beyond Darwin & Luther
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2010/01/fighting-like-dogmas-catechisms.html
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Evolutionary Creationism
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/07/evolutionary-creationism.html
[excerpt]
...Now, metaphysics is all about first principles. As with the example of Reagan above, my intention is to have a completely consistent metaphysic, so that, in order to answer any question, I need only “return to first principles” to answer it. In this sense, Darwinism is a lie, because it cannot furnish any consistent first principles. In fact, whenever a committed Darwinist tries, they end up making self-refuting statements right out of the box, just like a liberal politician.
But so too, in my opinion, do literal “creationists.” Of course you are free to insist upon young earth creationism, but you must know that it is going to contradict so much evidence that you will essentially have to split your mind in two. You will live in a scientific world with all of its blessings, and yet, a part of you will have to reject it, or at least not be able to fully integrate it into your belief system.
[snip]
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Inner Space: The Final Frontier
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/01/inner-space-final-frontier.html
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Intellectual intuition (nous) involves the direct perception of Truth. Logic (dianoia), on the other hand, is merely a mental operation that can lead to true or false conclusions, depending upon the data provided it. Logic is particularly useless — even dangerous — without the a priori intuition of Truth, without which logic alone eventually leads one over the abyss.
The most important truths are indeed “self evident,” that is, evident to the higher self. Clearly they are not necessarily evident to the lower self, which is why liberty and human dignity are a tough sell in the Islamic world, which awaits the day when its progress is not thwarted by the infrahuman majority in its midst. In America, the anti-progressive forces are represented by secular progressives, anti-religious Liztards, and other spiritual medullards.
The application of mere logic would dismiss as silly superstition those transcendent truths that are known directly by the higher mind. This is why you cannot prove the existence of God to such a logic-bound individual, any more than you could prove it to a dog. Religious truths are conveyed through symbolism and analogy (with the assistance of grace), more like a great work of art than a mathematical equation. Although not merely logical, it would be a grave and simplistic error to suggest that the great revelations are illogical, any more than a Shakespearean sonnet or one of Beethoven’s symphonies are illogical. Rather, they are translogical.
In the case of those latter two modes, poetical and musical truth are conveyed directly to something analogous to the senses, only on level that obviously transcends them. Those who demand “proof” of God are almost always coming from a quasi-autistic plane where the transcendent truth is simply unavailable to them — like someone who listens to the notes but cannot hear the symphony. A musical boob and a connoisseur of music have access to completely different realities when they listen to a great masterwork, and only an ass would reduce the whole of the symphony to its parts, and then think he understands it better then the expert. ......
The Sunday Timeless
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/07/sunday-timeless.html
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“.... our educational standards have plummeted largely as a result of the attempt by leftists — who have obviously taken over the educational establishment — to impose their radical secular values on impressionable children. These values are not inspiring, to say the least, unless you are one of those odd people who draws sustenance from the idea that humans are merely clever animals, that objective truth is a hoax, that absolute morality is a fraud, and that Darwinism provides a remotely aequate account of the human state. ....
“...Darwinist tautology can normalize virtually anything. But once you understand that truth — not to mention, virtue and beauty — is real and that man is free, you are no longer a Darwinist. Man is only free — and intelligent — to the extent that he is free to choose truth. If, like the Darwinist Liztard, he is condemned by natural selection to understand only what his genes have been selected to understand... well, you figure it out. ...”
Little Queeg’s Footballs and the Coon Mutiny
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2008/07/little-queegs-footballs-and-coon-mutiny.html
What does “under consideration” mean? WHO is doing the considering?
You were unable to avoid the intelligent designer, even in your own attempts at describing evolution.
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