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."
Your reasoned and correct replies on this thread are appreciated. Sorry i didn’t join in, but too many years of the creationist echo chamber have dulled my vigor.
allmen - You know I’ve been asking for that magic button that tells DNA to stop imperfectly replicating for almost 10 years here. I’ve yet to get an answer on that one. Especially from the “micro-evolution happens” crowd. It’s such a simple, straight-forward question too.
I keep hearing of this “all powerful god” on this thread and then I read that mere mortal men like me can “deny” him? I’m not understanding that.
Anyway, good job to you all.
A language changes over time, all the “Romance” languages were once Latin. We can tell that these languages shared a “more recent common ancestor” than any of them have with a “Germanic” language; and yet they all changed so that today a group of formerly Latin speaking people in Italy can no longer freely converse with formerly Latin speaking people in Spain.
Now when, exactly, did Latin become Italian in Italy and Spanish in Spain? Depends upon how you want to define it, because there is no clear line, and neither does every single change have to be documented and reproduced for us to know that Italian was once Latin.
What is going to stop the inevitable change in language over time such that two populations that formerly could freely converse, when kept separated for long enough accumulate enough changes in the language that they can no longer understand each other?
Similarly, what is going to stop the inevitable change in DNA over time such that two populations that formerly could freely reproduce, when kept separated for long enough accumulate enough changes in their DNA that they can no longer reproduce fertile offspring?
And I thought it should come from the heart—you know, that part about "love your neighbor as yourself"...but the way you put it it sounds like you are just "following orders."
Tell me, padre, where does faith come from? God or man? If faith is salvific, then it must come from God (lest believers save themselves), so why would God want you to preach? Who preached to Abraham and Moses?
Jesus used a metaphor about pearls to teach us that there is such a thing as a point of futility
How charitable and loving to compare those who don't dance to your tune to dogs and pigs. [Mat.7:6]
That's a really interesting way of thinking about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, D-fendr. I happen to agree with Eugene Wigner's remark about "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences." That somehow, mathematical structures are good tools for exploring the phenomenal world, evidently because the natural world — the Creation — itself has some sort of commensurate, intelligible structure.
Regarding Number Theory and the problem of undecidability within the theory — Gödel's main interest leading to the development of the Incompleteness Theorem — Robert Rosen has some interesting observations:
Number Theory has historically been plagued with conjectures (really inductions, based on limited experience or sampling with small numbers), which no one has ever been able either to prove or produce a counterexample (disprove). Is Fermat's Last Theorem a theorem? How about the Goldbach Conjecture, that every even number is the sum of two odd primes? Is Number Theory general enough, even in principle, to cope with these very specific situations?Or to put it really crudely, there can be truthful statements within a given system of axioms that are not provable from that system's particular set of axioms.
The situation is made even more interesting as a result of Gödel's celebrated work on undecidability in Number Theory.... In brief, Gödel showed how to represent assertions about Number Theory within Number Theory. On this basis, he was able to show that Number Theory was not finitely axiomatizable. In other words: given any finite set of axioms for Number Theory, there are always propositions that are in some sense theorems but are unprovable from those axioms.... The conclusion here is that every finitely axiomatized system is too special, in some abstract, absolute sense. But there is no way of telling whether a specific assertion or conjecture about numbers is provable, or disprovable, or undecidable (unprovable) within such a system. — Life Itself, p. 35.
A "finitely axiomatized system" is "too special" — meaning, one gathers, that it does not exemplify the general case, speaking universally. It is also the construction of a human mind — which also is limited by finitude.
And so it seems to me that Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem points to a "Beyond" — to a "something about self-referencing and creation needing something outside creation to explain it." :^)
I just loved this:
The feedback loop is of course what makes the complex possible from the simple, makes it all work and, speaking efficiently, makes it alive. It is all so… elegant.Oh so beautifully said — especially the "so...elegant" part!
Thanks so much for writing, D-fendr!
“what is going to STOP the inevitable genetic change in a population that is a result of the absolute impossibility for a living system to copy DNA with 100% fidelity.”
The best answer is what I’ve given—that you have no empirical grounds to claim that continous, intra-species change will occur based on the observation that change has been observed in discrete instances within a single species.
But a more concrete answer is that genetic change has a negative feedback effect on reproduction—too much of it will cause inability to reproduce and therefore the particular line of genetic change reaches a dead end.
There is no such thing as “intra-species” change that is different than “inter-species” change. Change within a population is change that is “intra-species”, but will in separate populations eventually BECOME “inter-species” change when the change is so great that they can no longer reproduce fertile offspring.
Just as the changes to Latin that made it into Italian and Spanish were all intra-language changes, until the languages were so distinct that people could no longer understand eachother; then the changes were obviously inter-language changes.
Based upon the observation that change in DNA of a population is INEVITABLE in all species over any significant portion of time - what is going to STOP this change?
If genetic change has “a negative feedback effect” such that it “will cause inability to reproduce” - where is ANY example of such?
What species has ever changed in its DNA so much that it could no longer reproduce?
And if your “answer” holds any water AT ALL, why would bacteria have an error prone DNA polymerase that is expressed during stress?
Wouldn’t you think that such would accelerate the point where they change so much in their genetics that they would “dead end” and die off?
If such was even slightly reasonable, why would they have such a gene, and have it expressed during times of high stress?
Do you presume that bacteria, despite all observations, engage in behaviors that are suicidal?
Well duh!
An aside to xzins: It seems, dear Padre, that kosta has got us there! LOLOL! What a splendid exhibition of "bean-counter" mentality!
I mean, does kosta really suppose that "love thy neighbor as thyself" is an immediately executable programmed command? Something fitting for God's "wind-up toys" — that would be those pesky, brainwashed, superstitious Christians — to execute, automaton-like? Thus to repress "the rest of us" (whomever that may be)?
Okay. What do you say we bring back the ducking stool, just to prove these guys are right about us evil Christians? LOL! :^)
Or maybe we should take up the practice of shunning again.... :^)
But I'm not going to get into "dogs and pigs" here [Mat.7:6].
May God's blessings abide with you, dear Padre, and all your dear ones!
Dear kosta, you are in my prayers.
“There is no such thing as “intra-species” change that is different than “inter-species” change. Change within a population is change that is “intra-species”, but will in separate populations eventually BECOME “inter-species” change when the change is so great that they can no longer reproduce fertile offspring.”
Your assertion depends on doing away with the definition of “species.” Yet evolution depends on maintaining the definition.
“Based upon the observation that change in DNA of a population is INEVITABLE in all species over any significant portion of time - what is going to STOP this change?”
The problem with your argument is that it depends on both preservation of species and termination of species, which seems to be inherently contradictory.
“What species has ever changed in its DNA so much that it could no longer reproduce?”
An example, if one accepts the premise of evolution, is when one “species” tries to mate with another and can’t conceive offspring. For example (according to evolution), dogs and cats for are separated by evolutionary changes in their dna.
“And if your “answer” holds any water AT ALL, why would bacteria have an error prone DNA polymerase that is expressed during stress?”
Do you think this proves evolution?
Yet, the change from my ancestors to me which you describe as significant in phenotype is 100% insignificant in terms of “species.”
Say what? Two separated populations of the same species growing different over time such that they can no longer reproduce together hardly depends upon the preservation and termination of species. It depends upon genetic changes being inevitable, the changes in different populations being different, and genetic changes causes inability to reproduce fertile offspring.
Now you are changing your argument about genetic changes causing a “dead end” and inability to reproduce to cats and dogs? Which one is a “dead end” then?
Your original statement seemed to indicate that you thought mutations would lead to the extinction of a species through inability to reproduce, a “dead end”. Now that ignorant garbage is supposed to apply to cats and dogs? Wow!
I think the fact that bacteria HAVE an error prone DNA polymerase, in addition to its high fidelity DNA polymerase, and that it expresses it during stress indicate a few things....
a) genetic change does not lead to a “dead end” and the inability of a species to reproduce (thus extinction).
b) genetic change in a bacterial population under stress improves the survivability of the population, otherwise they would not have the gene, and would not express it during stress.
c) The expression of error prone DNA polymerase during stress leads to an increase in the rate of genetic change. This increases the genetic variability of the population, allowing stress to act as a selective pressure upon this variation, such that beneficial variations become more prevalent in the population (natural selection of genetic variation).
Now Science has an explanation at the ready for why bacteria would have error prone DNA polymerase and express it during stress.
Creationism, as usual, is of absolutely no use in explaining it.
It’s not my metaphor
So far as evangelizing God-deniers, it is a duty after you’re sure they clearly heard you the other times. Paul turned from those who reject and said that he’d go to the Gentiles.
Give me a good reason for continuing to evangelize one who rejects your message and has become clear about that?
The intellectual error on your side is that you believe that genetic changes, which can be described empirically and predicted mathematically, will cause the emergence of discrete species—yet you fail to realize that the change in discrete species can be neither described empirically nor predicted mathematically.
Change in “discrete” species CAN and ARE described empirically, and to some extent they are indeed predictable.
For example, if I take a species of cold water bacteria and expose them to hotter and hotter water, I can predict that they will express error prone DNA polymerase increasing the genetic variation within the population, and that those variations that lead to better survival in hot water will predominate in subsequent generations.
Thus I predict that my population of cold water bacteria, when exposed to hot water long enough, will become a hot water adapted population.
The intellectual error on your side is that your model has no explanatory or predictive power, thus you cannot explain why a bacteria would have an error prone DNA polymerase nor why it would be expressed during stress.
I just took the lazy way out.
Methinks our friend may be looking for the infamous crocoduck or panda hawk.
Oh, and genetic changes lead to a “dead end” where a population can no longer reproduce; you know, like how cats and dogs cannot reproduce with each other; and thus cats and/or dogs are “dead ends”.
Yeah...... the ignorance is one thing, the disengenousness is a different matter.
just same=just the same
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