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."
amd: The biology of the human brain has no transcendental or mystical properties. It is a larger more resource consuming ape brain.
Spirited: Either we are dual beings in the Biblical sense or we are not. If we are, then it is only because our mind transcends the material that we are able to “be in our material bodies” yet simultaneously transcend them mentally and say such things as: “I (allmendream) have but an ape brain.”
Your argument is based in materialist scientistic presuppositions and assumptions (naturalism). In the main, materialism is revamped “pagan-monism”-—Epicurean Materialism. Naturalism by any name is pagan monism. From the essay, “Occult Pagan Revival Signals Death of America and the West, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2659568/posts :
“Materialism teaches that all that exists is merely material or energy which is impersonal, totally neutral to any moral system or any interest in man as man. In this view, there is no basis for law, and no basis for man as unique and important.
Materialism is of the world view of monism which teaches that all that exists is “one self-creating, self-sufficient substance” which may be divine spirit (pantheism) or spiritless substance (materialism).
Monism is held in common by materialism, pantheism, and spiritualism and dates back to pagan antiquity and was or is taught by all non-biblical thought systems from Buddhism to Epicureanism, Gnosticism and today’s New Age Cosmic Humanism.
Monism teaches that all things, including mankind, are merely diverse parts of the one-substance. God is acceptable to this monistic frame of mind only if He is not something outside of and superior to the one-substance but one with it. In other words, God must be dispersed throughout the whole substance.
In his book, “Utopia: The Perennial Heresy,” Thomas Molnar explains that evolution, whether Darwinian or a spiritual conception such as Teilhard’s idea, serves as an imaginary mechanism of perfection for both man and the one-substance:
“Through evolution the world substance becomes progressively pure, homogenous and perfect until the terminal point is reached...” (p.235) At that point, there is either a perfected non-spiritual substance (materialism) or a perfectly spiritualized substance (pantheism). For utopians this means a heaven on earth ruled by perfected god-men.
In that materialism excludes the transcendent Creator, angels, demons, heaven, and hell it must also explain away man’s God-given individual spiritual endowments —soul, mind, free will, and conscience— attributes defined by the Founders as self-evident truths, for it is self-evidently true that all men think, choose, and feel guilt. In short, in denying the existence of God the Father and man’s supernaturally endowed attributes, materialist scientism abolishes our unalienable rights, thereby making worthless both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”
Theistic evolution also rests upon the notion that evolution “perfects man,” which really means that man perfects himself.
Here in the West, all who are offended by Jesus Christ, judgement, and eternity flee to some form of evolutionary conception.
Christianity addresses this supposed paradox by admitting that the final answer is beyond our human limits, that God manifests in three ways which we Christians believe is the triune nature of God. God may have many more 'unes' but we have evidence of three: God the Creator Who IS and thus IS before and after all that there is + God the Holy Spirit Who sustains the balance which is so delicately posed to keep the universe capable of bringing forth life + God The Son as Jesus The Word Who took flesh and dwelt among us.
In the Christian conceptualization of The Trinity, God The Creator is not diminshed when God The Holy Spirit sustains the entire of the universe, nor is God diminished when The OWrd become flesh and dwells among us. In fact we use an analogy to simplify this non-dimishing nature of the Triune God: when you love, you are not diminished by giving that love (in agape or eros or filia).
The problem is not merely that the creator changed after an act, but that the creator was never free from the bondage of time, in the first place. A change of state required to perform something at a finite moment renders the performer chained to the influence of time, both before and after the act was performed. Otherwise, change would not be possible. No change implies no finite moment of creation.
Well, you’re almost correct. Without time, events cannot occur. But as a Christian I would reply that The Creator created dimesnions time and space and infused His creation with energy/impetus. God created the dimesnions with information, THEN utilized the results of these most primal elements to build the universe in which we have emerged. The Christian cenceptualization of God is first greater than the creation, thus not within the limits of time and space. THEN, later (a temporal meaning) took flesh and dwelt among us in time and space without diminishing His Godness existing outside of Time and Space. You define god as you see fit, I’m merely giving you a picture of the way Christians define God.
The classic god of the gaps.
My paraphrase is based on Plato's quote of Socrates in the Apology. Here is the relevant passage — you can judge for yourself how "accurate" my paraphrase is ("I know that I know nothing; and because of this knowledge, I am wiser than other men.")
...I will endeavor to explain to you the reason why I am called wise and have such an evil fame. Please to attend then. And although some of you may think that I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise; whereas the persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom, which I may fail to describe, because I have it not myself; and he who says that I have, speaks falsely.... And here, O men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of the credit; that witness shall be the God of Delphi —Time for a time-out: the "persons" to whom Socrates alludes are the God of Delphi, Apollo, the sun god; and the Pythia, Apollo's prophetess and priestess, through whom his oracle spoke. Picking up where we left off
— he will tell you about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is. You must have known Chaerephon; he was an early friend of mine.... Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether ... anyone was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser....
When I heard the answer, I said to myself, what can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of this riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, "Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest." Accordingly, I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him — his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination — and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise, and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is — for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him....
Then I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity I provoked, and I lamented and feared this: but necessity was laid upon me — the word of God, I thought, ought to be considered first.... And I swear to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear! — for I must tell you the truth — the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wise and better....
And I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise.... [Emphasis added.]
But the very act of creating time in order for change to take place required change on the part of the (supposedly) unchanging God, that is—before time existed!.
The other problem is that by becoming flesh (a temporal event) God is no longer the same as he was eternally, but has eternally changed. If he has changed he is not timeless.
Besides, the Old Testament tells us that God was active in the temporal world before he became flesh.
Yes.
But as a Christian I would reply that The Creator created dimensions time and space and infused His creation with energy/impetus. God created the dimensions with information, THEN utilized the results of these most primal elements to build the universe in which we have emerged. The Christian cenceptualization of God is first greater than the creation, thus not within the limits of time and space. THEN, later (a temporal meaning) took flesh and dwelt among us in time and space without diminishing His Godness existing outside of Time and Space. You define god as you see fit, I’m merely giving you a picture of the way Christians define God.
I understand your view, but this can only be possible if you allow the violation of the rule you mentioned at the beginning. That is, a creator cannot create without changing. In other words, a creator has passed through the stage of non-creating to the stage of creating. Such a transition cannot be possible without the creator being under the influence of time. That is, to allow a change in the prevailing situation, the creator cannot be outside of time. Thus the creator "creating time" is a meaningless statement.
This is why I had mentioned:
The moment something changes what it was doing (or not doing) is the moment it ceases being changeless, and therefore ceases being timeless. The moment of creation is such a moment. For the created and the creator.
The paradox thus remains unresolved.
“Genetic changes within a population are the only thing that DO result in changes in morphology of a population.”
Seems to me, that one’s a bit off.
I’m no expert on feral pigs (outside the realm of my crosshairs), but let’s take a look at them. Longer snouts, bigger tusks induced by change in environment.
“What would preclude two separate populations of the same species from accumulating enough differences in DNA over time that they could no longer reproduce between groups after sufficient time and the accompanying INEVITABLE change in DNA?”
The question contains the same error as that which asks: “What would preclude a very large number of chimpanzees from typing out the complete works of Shakespeare, if we just provide them with enough time and typewriters?”
The error is failing to understand that (observable) objects and events in the real world are not unrestrained by space and time in the way mathematical calculations are.
To answer your question, the list of preclusions would be almost without end.
Aristotle used counting (1,2,3...) as an illustration of time. And it seems reasonable to me that we remember events, e.g. each step in the counting, in a serial/sequential order.
Indeed, we never actually perceive in the present because there is a tiny time lag between sensory perception and cognition of it.
One gathers that not a few scientists nowadays are committed to a posture of agnosticism in the face of the obvious.
Whatever. One senses that, today, an academic scientist who believes that God created the universe would be regarded in horror by most of his colleagues. Plus he would probably have enormous difficulty in obtaining research grants. Better just keep your mouth shut, or the editors at the prestigious science journals will refuse to publish your work.
To me, the enforcement of conformity, even orthodoxy, in science today is profoundly troubling.
I wish your friend well, wmfights. Thank you so very much for writing!
Which read:
You must have me confused with someone else, bb. I even went as far as to bolden the "a" to draw your attention to the key words so that you would not choose foolishly, but to no avail.
When and where have denied the real world or the possibility of the objective basis of truth?
My objections are directed at the imaginary, subjective, "spiritual," world and its purported truths based on mere beliefs and not objective, real world. It's the world of talking snakes and magic.
If you are irate with my objections because you think they deny the real world or objective basis of truth, then you must not differentiate between fantasy and reality, confusing and conflating the subjective world you live in with the real world around you. I hope that's not the case.
As for b, where do I propose nothingness or nonexistence as my "nihilistic" views? Is reasonable doubt in your view nihilism? You can't be serious.
Time is a dimension and there may be more than one dimension of time (Vafa, Wesson et al) just like there are at least three dimensions of space.
Moreover, space/time does not pre-exist, it is created as the universe expands. There was a beginning of real space and real time. (Jastrow et al)
Time and space are required for physical causality - not the other way around.
The first cause (the cause of a mathematical point of zero spatial dimensions which can then change giving rise to dimension time) cannot be physical.
God alone can be the uncaused cause of physical causation. The Creator is not physical, He is not a part of the creation.
Words and measures that we use to describe the beginning of creation - indeed, the creation itself - are themselves part of the creation - as we are - and cannot apply to the Creator of them.
God is not thingly.
Man is not the measure of God.
This same scientist pointed out to me that the great discoveries in science are more often then not found by the "outliers". He loves to point out that Einstein produced his Theory of Relativity while working as a patent clerk because he could not get a job at a college. He laments that the grant writing process has become an obstacle to creativity.
Of course I keep pointing out to him the Christian "outliers" do have answers.
Is it any wonder that as the educational system becomes more centralized and conformity driven it's quality has declined.
Seems that way to me, D-fendr!
I'm sorry not to have acknowledged you as the original source (on this thread) of the Plato, Einstein, and Schweitzer quotations then cited by kosta50 in a reply to me.
Then again, you didn't ping me to your excellent essay/post! A marvelous, lapidary essay for which I thank you from my heart!
I hope you will ping me more. :^)
(Spoken like a truly humble Christian/s)
"It is impossible to reason with one incapable of seeing reason due to the fact that his soul is inward-turned where it sees only its’ own darkness."
(You mean like those who confuse their darkness with divine light?)
"No Kosta, the rest of us are not like you. Because you take yourself as “first principle” you very naturally use yourself as the measure for all others"
(The rest of you are like me in that humans think their thoughts as they see things; you must think you are right and I am wrong. That makes you no different then the rets of us)
"For this reason, liars always believe that all other people are liars; “gays” assume that inside every straight man is a “gay,” and the covetous assume that all others are as gluttonous, greedy, and avaricious as “self” is."
(Oh the "saved" are different I must admit. Their Gnostic delusions tell them they are the (s)elect, better than the rest, who know the truth, who live in the light, etc., etc. Talk about STIFF NECK pride, you don't even seem to notice the log in your own eye! And you talk about darkness in others...gee!)
"This is called transferral of guilt. You have transferred onto these good yet imperfect people your own vices in order that you can then crucify them, a process you call “reasoned argument.”
(Thank you Dr. Freud. We all sin, even if some believe they are "saved" they still sin. I can't believe the degree of hypocrisy that comes out of people who preach morality. But thank you for you thoughtless post. It was amusing)
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