Theological Implications of Evolution.

[Erik Mesoy]

Peter: No, I swear, he said - "Yay, I say unto you, Mankind was not created of clay but was created by intentionally modifying apes so that humans developed a sense of language that allowed complex semantics to be created"

John: You're crapping me? We're out here trying to push that Jesus is God. Are you telling me he doesn't even know what Moses wrote? I didn't come from no ape!

Of course, much of the same could probably go for Moses.

God: "First, and here I mean 'first' in the absolute sense that there isn't even a concept of 'before' because this event was what brought time into being, I created the universe in a fireball of such great heat and small size..."

Moses: "Dude, I'm just going to write that you created the earth and the heavens."

God: "This happened about 13 thousands of thousands of thousands of years ago..." (Editor's note: Stupid billions, here in Norway we call them milliards and use 'billion' to refer to the next number up.)

Moses: "How does 'in the beginning' sound?"

--Back on topic...--

1. The main problem that I have is that it changes the Nature of God. How can an holy God have death and suffering as part of his plan? That is what the geological record shows a history of death, since there are plenty animals that died way before humans. This is the pre-eminent attribute of God that he is Holy. Isaiah 6:3 say "Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts". If God did use Evolution, then he is certainly not Holy, since he made death as an intricate part of this world and since the Bible says "The Wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23) According to the Bible Death is a result of sin, so that means that God created sin.
Also the Bible clearly states that God said that what he had done was very good, so for him to say that death is very good, then something must be wrong with him.

Please explain which definition of holy you're using, because I don't see that holiness is incompatible with death. The first three in my dictionary are:

1) specially recognized as or declared sacred by religious use or authority; consecrated
2) dedicated or devoted to (the service of) God, the church, or religion
3) saintly; godly; pious; devout

All of these appear to be relatively tangential.

I quote from Romans 6 in return:
"How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin."

Otherwise, I second downtown's opinion on physical death and spiritual death.

2. It makes God as someone who does not care. This is here since if God just used a random process to get us where we are right now. But The Bible does say that "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, because you've got a dangling "if" without any "then" following it, and the "but" in the next sentence has no antecedent that is visible to me.

--Back off topic...--

I think I should wait for c_h to post a bit more before I say anything more, or else I'll end up beating at hypothetical constructs. (Similar to strawmen, only I don't claim to have won, and so the argument is just useless. )

 

[dot]

Heavily Off Topic:

I couldn't resist but put the quote from Eran's last post into my sig. It's way too good, if taken ooc (out of context). Maybe I'll leave a serious post, i.e. on topic, later.

All the best, .

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Yay!

Anyways, back on topic, it is true that certain theologies are not consistent with the theory of evolution by natural selection; where the OP goes wrong is to assume that these are the only theologies out there.

 

[neviden]

Evolution has a theological implication when it contradicts something that is supposed to be “100% truth – directly from god”. They basically painted themselves into a corner..

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Not all theologies, howver, say that all scripture is 100% literal truth straight from God.

 

[Integral]

1. The main problem that I have is that it changes the Nature of God. How can an holy God have death and suffering as part of his plan?

Wait, so "millions of years of death and suffering" via evolution is not ok, but drowning humanity in a worldwide flood is ok?

Of course, much of the same could probably go for Moses.

God: "First, and here I mean 'first' in the absolute sense that there isn't even a concept of 'before' because this event was what brought time into being, I created the universe in a fireball of such great heat and small size..."

Moses: "Dude, I'm just going to write that you created the earth and the heavens."

God: "This happened about 13 thousands of thousands of thousands of years ago..." (Editor's note: Stupid billions, here in Norway we call them milliards and use 'billion' to refer to the next number up.)

Moses: "How does 'in the beginning' sound?"

God: No, I'm serious. This whole thing happened 13 billion years ago, and...

Moses: Please, we've gotta keep this under 20,000 words for the publishers. 13 billion years is way too much ground to cover. I really like "In the beginning..."

God: This is gonna cause so much confusion in about six thousand years...

Moses: What?

God: Never mind. "In the beginning..."

 

[neviden]

Not all theologies, howver, say that all scripture is 100% literal truth straight from God.

Well.. how many of them have any problems with evolution?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well.. how many of them have any problems with evolution?

Just those that are both Biblical fundamentalists and Biblical literalists. Within Christianity. There are also religions outside Christianity that dispute evolution on theological grounds, but I don't really know their exact reasons.

 

[neviden]

Just those that are both Biblical fundamentalists and Biblical literalists. Within Christianity.

painted into the corner

There are also religions outside Christianity that dispute evolution on theological grounds, but I don't really know their exact reasons.

Well, I don't know which religions you have in mind, therefore I can't comment.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

It is my understanding that some Muslims and some Hindus also have problems with it on theological grounds - Muslims use the Mosaic chronology, and of course there is a wide range of beliefs within Hinduism.

 

[neviden]

It is my understanding that some Muslims and some Hindus also have problems with it on theological grounds - Muslims use the Mosaic chronology,

"There are three different viewpoints of Muslim theologians and scholars about evolution. One view is that evolution is totally contradictory and incompatible with the Islamic teachings. The proponents of this view believe literally in the Quran and Hadith."

http://www.hssrd.org/journal/summer2002/muslim-response.htm

So, basically we are talking about Biblical literalists that got to read a different book (Quran instead of a Bible). painted into a corner

and of course there is a wide range of beliefs within Hinduism.

I was under impression that Hinduism is quite open to the whole evolution thing.. they may have more spiritual outlook on things, but they generally accept evolution. Do you have any specific instances where they reject evolution in mind?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I have heard of some Hindu groups that reject evolution (I think there was a case in California) but must admit I am relying wholly on my memory here, so that wouldn't help much.

 

[neviden]

Well.. my guess would be of another painted into a corner type of response..

 

[bigfatron]

--Back on topic...--

Please explain which definition of holy you're using, because I don't see that holiness is incompatible with death. The first three in my dictionary are:

1) specially recognized as or declared sacred by religious use or authority; consecrated
2) dedicated or devoted to (the service of) God, the church, or religion
3) saintly; godly; pious; devout

I guess he is referring to the (as I understand it) generally accepted theological view that the Christian god has three fundamental characteristics that are a necessary, definitional part of being God, i.e. that an entity can't be God unless it meets these criteria:
- omniscient
- omnipotent
- beneficient.

There are a raft of philiosophical issues that then arise from reconciling this definition with what we see in the real world, the most problematic being the 'problem of evil' (i.e. how come a benevolent, all-knowing and all-powerful God allows evil to exist?) which is only solved in Christian theology through the doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin.

I also guess the evolutionary value of death offers a bigger problem to the fundamental nature of God than the existence of evil becasue it can't be explained away through the doctrine of Original Sin (although even that doctrine requires you to believe that God is benevolent while allowing all humanity to suffer for one individual's actions).

All the best
BFR

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I think the problem with defining God, necessarily, as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent is that it forces us to redefine all the other entities called gods that don't share those characteristics; the beings worshipped by the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Celts, Aztecs, etc. etc.

 

[bigfatron]

I think the problem with defining God, necessarily, as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent is that it forces us to redefine all the other entities called gods that don't share those characteristics; the beings worshipped by the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Celts, Aztecs, etc. etc.

I think that is the point! By Christian definition these are not God, but merely gods.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

No, according to what you are saying all that means is that only God is real, the One True God, the rest aren't. But otherwise Christians haven't had a problem calling even entities they don't consider to exist "gods". But there is a difference between saying something doesn't exist and saying something, logically speaking, can't exist.

 

[aneeshm]

Evolution, as such, isn't any more damaging to the Christian idea of God than any other view of the universe which does not pass moral judgement upon it, or which does not posit a "Cosmic Equaliser", or any "external force" which will render the universe somehow "just" from the POV of our morality. It simply makes the acknowledgement of the amorality of the world unavoidable, because it applies directly and without intermediary to us, in a way physics and chemistry did not (though they have the same potential).



@ classical_hero

If you're really interested in evolution, but want to avoid most of the polemic which now surrounds it, I would recommend two books. The first is Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene". He had written this 30 years ago, and it doesn't contain anything which I think would be offensive enough to you to render it repulsive enough to turn you away from it. The second is Geoffrey Miller's "The Mating Mind".

 

[aneeshm]

It is my understanding that some Muslims and some Hindus also have problems with it on theological grounds - Muslims use the Mosaic chronology, and of course there is a wide range of beliefs within Hinduism.

The sort of nihilism which Nietzsche posited would come about at the time Christianity ended is the starting point of enquiry within what are today called the "Hindu" traditions.

EDIT: Wait, scrap that. We start with the nihilism, but without the history of a religion like Christianity behind us. It's a start from a natural state, not something done after coming full cycle.

 

[bigfatron]

No, according to what you are saying all that means is that only God is real, the One True God, the rest aren't. But otherwise Christians haven't had a problem calling even entities they don't consider to exist "gods". But there is a difference between saying something doesn't exist and saying something, logically speaking, can't exist.

I think the point of the Christian definition is to say these entities could exist, but cannot be God or manifestations of God, i.e. the one true Christian god.