Mohler takes on 'theistic evolution'

Associated Baptist Press ^ | January 13, 2011 | Bob Allen

[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."

[James C. Bennett]

Nothing can create, or rather change, anything without having time to describe the change.

Saying that change can be made (going from the state of pre-creation to the act of creating, thereby undergoing a transition from ‘yet to create’ to ‘caused creation’) in the absence of time is an absurd statement to make.

[betty boop]

I note with amusement the arrival of many dictionary definitions as if to circumvent my previous suggestion about not yielding the rules of engagement which include the control of the dictionary?

And likewise, that is with convivial amusement, may I note that people demanding dictionaries as the sole authoritative arbiter on any question whatsoever are very likely the very people who should be prevented from getting anywhere near a dictionary? :^)

For what they propose to do with the dictionary is: reduce reality to words alone. Totally hollowed out words at that: They have been stripped of their experiential component.

We've read our Rosen. He well illustrates this problem by citing David Hilbert's magnum opus, the attempt to reduce the universal natural language of mathematics — number theory here — to its syntactical basis only.

You'll recall from Rosen's presentation that all natural languages have two basic constituents: syntax and semantics.

Syntax by and large refers to the rules governing the use of the language; IOW its grammar. The "rules of the road" of that language, so to speak.

Semantics, however, always refers to the meaning being conveyed in language. The communication of meaning is the reason that language exists in the first place.

So I'm amazed that a world-class mathematician would even try to "reduce" the semantical part of language to the syntactical element only.

Had he succeeded, of course, language could be thoroughly "digitized" and made compliant to processing by human-built machines.

One imagines that such as Hilbert and Russell were saying to themselves: Semantics is just too problematical to have to deal with, in a computerized world. So find a way to "simulate" it.

But then fortunately Gödel showed up, and put an end to this nonsense.

And the rest is history, still unwritten....

You are such a blessing to me, dearest sister in Christ! Thank you ever so much for your wonderful essay/posts, this one and others on this thread!

[MHGinTN]

I will make this my last reply to you, so you don't feel obliged to continue repeating your reasoning, but if you do continue, so be it.

You are trying desperately to establish the axiom that the Creator must have temporal limits else The Creator cannot create. I am asserting that The Creator created time, so the act of creating is not itself a temporally limited 'thing'. You come back that: "Change is impossible without time. Even for a god." In so doing, you pose your own paradox through your circular reasoning, i.e. 'in time and space change cannot occur without time, the event of creating time is an event along a temporal chain, therefore God must be on the temporal chain before creating time, which is paradoxical.'

Sorry, you cannot expect me to buy your paradox when it is a creation of your own devising, meant to refute that which you hold to be paradoxical. You are doing exactly what Dawkins cleverly tried to do in the video to which you linked. Perhaps someone more naive will like your approach. I find it disingenuous at best, so I will leave you to your enigma.

[James C. Bennett]

You’re desperately trying to establish that change can occur without time.

For as long as you persist in trying that, you’ll fail. Change cannot happen without time. As simple as that.

You believe that an entity has the power to arbitrarily remove time while continuing to cause change. This is the absurdity I’ve pointed out to you that you refuse to acknowledge, as I think you’re dogma prevents you from letting you do it. To refuse to acknowledge it in the face of this clear explanation requires superstition on the part of the one who believes that change is possible in the absence of time.

[RobbyS]

Australopithocine was an extraterrestrial? I doubt it, but am certain he was not "Adam." No, the only evidence of "our" ancestors is much newer than that. There is old evidence of primates, but it does not converge even to a population that we can say surely is "usuns". Convergence gets us close to a genus but not a species. The closer you get to escape velocity, the more small differences make. I bremember as a child reading "Before Adam," by Jack London. London was a thorough-going darwinist, a novelist rather than a scientist, but he gives good insight into the thinking of the day. His protagonist was a "near-human," or perhaps already human. He seems to have "awakened." to have crossed some threshold. Some additional circuit having been added to his brain. (my language, not his). How in the world are we ever going to find a way to measure that "leap."? Only by replicating it in the here and now. Digging into the earth, all we can do is to try to substantiate our faith.

[RobbyS]

Australopithocine was an extraterrestrial? I doubt it, but am certain he was not "Adam." No, the only evidence of "our" ancestors is much newer than that. There is old evidence of primates, but it does not converge even to a population that we can say surely is "usuns". Convergence gets us close to a genus but not a species. The closer you get to escape velocity, the more small differences make. I bremember as a child reading "Before Adam," by Jack London. London was a thorough-going darwinist, a novelist rather than a scientist, but he gives good insight into the thinking of the day. His protagonist was a "near-human," or perhaps already human. He seems to have "awakened." to have crossed some threshold. Some additional circuit having been added to his brain. (my language, not his). How in the world are we ever going to find a way to measure that "leap."? Only by replicating it in the here and now. Digging into the earth, all we can do is to try to substantiate our faith.

[RobbyS]

Australopithocine was an extraterrestrial? I doubt it, but am certain he was not "Adam." No, the only evidence of "our" ancestors is much newer than that. There is old evidence of primates, but it does not converge even to a population that we can say surely is "usuns". Convergence gets us close to a genus but not a species. The closer you get to escape velocity, the more small differences make. I bremember as a child reading "Before Adam," by Jack London. London was a thorough-going darwinist, a novelist rather than a scientist, but he gives good insight into the thinking of the day. His protagonist was a "near-human," or perhaps already human. He seems to have "awakened." to have crossed some threshold. Some additional circuit having been added to his brain. (my language, not his). How in the world are we ever going to find a way to measure that "leap."? Only by replicating it in the here and now. Digging into the earth, all we can do is to try to substantiate our faith.

[LomanBill]

”Oh yes, Mr. Bill. Ice always has a lower entropy and lower [heat] energy level than water.”

[Liar]

[alstewartfan]

I know what you are saying, James, but you are trying to understand God using your finite thinking. Belief in God is the lesser of two absurdities, humaly thinking. The fact that there was no beginning is ncomprehensible, yet of necessiy it must be.
I say that it takes much more faith to believe that life, consciousness, vision, hearng, sexuality, feeling, circulation, digestion, excretion, etc, etc. can NOT come into existence without the Creator. You believe that it can. The onus is upon you to prove that phenomena which appear to be miraculous are in fact natural. Just a couple questions: Where would bees be without their hives? How does a spider live without a *pre-existing* ability to spin webs? I think that your belief that some undirected evolutionary process begat such marvels is suspect, to say the very least. Bob

[YHAOS]

kosta quotes three notables:
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing. And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all. - Socrates;
We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of school children. The real nature of things we shall never know. - Albert Einstein
As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious. - Albert Schweitzer

If one were to read these quotes without any spiritual discernment, as though they were a lab report from an experiment testing a biological or physical hypothesis, one would immediately encounter difficulties:
How can one know that one knows nothing, if one knows nothing? How would the question even arise in one’s mind?
If “we” know nothing at all, how can “we” comment on the knowledge of school children? In fact, knowing nothing at all, how can we even be aware of the existence of school children? Much less the state of their (the school childrens’) knowledge.
And, surely the good Doctor is not proposing that the less we know the more comprehensible matters become.

None of these gentlemen, being of high integrity and intellectual accomplishment, can be thought guilty of indulging in fallacious, or even merely careless, logical behavior. It must be, then, that they are engaging in some of that high philosophical thought with which they are known for peppering their more profound scientific observations.

Understanding that, what they have to say is not difficult to discern at all, translation complications notwithstanding.

Thanks boop, for calling me to this fascinating discussion.

[MHGinTN]

[Alamo-Girl]

For what they propose to do with the dictionary is: reduce reality to words alone. Totally hollowed out words at that: They have been stripped of their experiential component.

So very true! And how appropriate to bring Rosen's analysis of Hilbert's failed attempt to slay semantics.

Thank you oh so very much for all of your wonderful essay-posts, dearest sister in Christ!

[Alamo-Girl]

None of these gentlemen, being of high integrity and intellectual accomplishment, can be thought guilty of indulging in fallacious, or even merely careless, logical behavior. It must be, then, that they are engaging in some of that high philosophical thought with which they are known for peppering their more profound scientific observations.

Indeed! Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear YHAOS!

[caww]

Indeed, we never actually perceive in the present because there is a tiny time lag between sensory perception and cognition of it.

When you think about this...without communication and memory where would we be?

The scriptures speak of "A time" for everything under heaven. As well as things which came in order to pass,... "and it came to Pass"... Nothing really stands still. Everything seems to be within this or that time and how and when we perceive it.

I almost feel quite silly speaking with such minds as you and Betty....but as you know my brother does get me going now and then and does give examples so that I might understand at my feeble level. HA!

[BrandtMichaels]

Why? Can you not read for comprehension?

Or is it b/c you and Kosta only read the Bible to critique it while continually taking things out of context...

[kosta50]

Again, time is a dimension. And God is not physical - He is not a denizen of the space/time continuum

And you better believe it, JCB; it's so because AG says it is. :)

To the contrary, God is not time bound. And time does not apply to the Creator of it.

Did God create and finish his Creation in seven days (whatever they may be), or was he eternally creating? What was God doing when he wasn't creating?

God is not thingly

So, what is fleshy? Was God flesh eternally, or did he only become "fleshy" at some point in time (i.e. changed his whole essence)?

[kosta50]

The uncaused cause of the universe of limits is by my definition outside of the limits He creates

Well, that's honest. Except I get attacked by some Freepers for using my own definitions, and worse, get called all sorts of nasty things for being my own "measure" of everything.

You are, of course, free to believe anything, even if it violates the very basic rules of logic. It is, after all, your belief and is not subject to criticism. But if you are going to allow for your own definition of God, it is only fair not to attack Dawkins, or anyone else for his; it's everyone's world, you know. :)

In which case I say that pink unicorns live on Jupiter simply because, to use AG's modus oeprandi—it is so. :) It is, to paraphrase you, "by my definition." It doesn't mean it's true; it simply means I am ready to stick to my story no matter how ridiculous it is.

[kosta50]

And likewise, that is with convivial amusement, may I note that people demanding dictionaries as the sole authoritative arbiter on any question whatsoever are very likely the very people who should be prevented from getting anywhere near a dictionary?

If we can't depend on the uniform meaning of words how can communication be possible? By "touchy-feely"? We can't make up our own definition for every word, and use words as we see fit, according to our measure, as long as it fits our narrow agenda.

Words are meant to be used for clear and accurate exchange of ideas, and vocabulary standardization is done precisely for that purpose. Otherwise we will be talking right past each other, as seems to be the case with some who choose to define words their own way.

[kosta50]

You are trying desperately to establish the axiom that the Creator must have temporal limits else The Creator cannot

I don't think JCB is trying to that at all. He correctly observes that God is not changeless, but would have to change in order to start creating. Without time there can be no "start", no beginning.

[Alamo-Girl]

You are wise, dear brother in Christ, for ending your sidebar because there is no point in arguing in the face of persistent circular reasoning or begging of the question – or any other logical fallacy for that matter.

I too am ending my part in the sidebar with this post because when the difference in the correspondents’ sense of reality is so great, no useful dialogue can result.

For instance, to a person whose sense of reality is based on the Newtonian scale of a mechanistic universe (materialism at scales greater than quantum and less than astronomic) time may be perceived as a measure only, a scalar quantity, an arrow of time. The man took a week to climb the mountain and he's on the mountain top; there is only the present. The past is gone. The future may be predicted and artifacts may be discovered - but only the present can be sensed.

But Relativity and Quantum Mechanics shows that the physics of the Newtonian scale fails in the very large and very small scales. It is not an acceptable scale for materialists these days.

And wouldn’t you know, time is at the very heart of the matter.

Indeed, the lowly photon is the clue. The photon although traveling a worldline “in” space/time is moving at the speed of light, the “null path,” and therefore, for the photon no time elapses. If the photon could be an observer, to it that mountain climber’s entire life is not even a blur.

But to another man accelerating through space obviously slower than the speed of light, that mountain climber may not only have scaled the mountain but got married, had kids and grandkids and then died all while he was enjoying his dinner on his spaceship.

And considering the equivalence principle even more events may occur in the lives of the mountain climber’s descendants in mere seconds from the viewpoint of yet another man approaching a black hole.

Of course at the opposite extreme, the quantum, we must now consider Schrödinger’s cat which is dead and alive - and Everett's multi-world physical cosmology. The man climbed the mountain and also didn't climb the mountain, he got married and he also did not get married and so on.

And if there is even one more dimension of time as some world class geometric physicists have theorized then time is not a plane but a volume. Past, present, future all exist at once - like Everett's theory on steroids. The mountain climber is on the bottom and on the top of the mountain, alive and dead, young and old, here and there, now and then – all at once (if any observer could actually get outside of space/time to perceive it.)

Bottom line, in twentieth century advanced physics space/time is a continuum and time is a dimension of that continuum. Moreover, if multi-temporal dimensions exist then the direction of time can be reversed, cause>effect and effect>cause - time as a vector not a scalar.

But no mere creature can remove himself from space/time to see such things. Indeed, the full number and types of dimensions is both unknown and unknowable for the same reason we cannot rule out massless particles which have no measurable direct or indirect effect.

Only God, the Creator of the physical, is not bound by His creation, anything physical, including space/time and physical causality. Only He can see all that there is all at once. He alone knows objective truth. He alone speaks objective truth.

Indeed, God is Truth – for when He says a thing, it is. It is because He says it.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. - Genesis 1:3

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. - Psalms 33:6

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. – John 14:6

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; - Titus 1:2

For all these years, the theologians have been closer to understanding reality than any other knowledge discipline. As Jastrow said:

At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greated by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. - God and the Astronomers page 107.

God’s Name is I AM.