Theological Implications of Evolution.

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, if we are talking about "theology" we have to consider all possible definitions of God, not just the traditional Christian one (which not all Christians use, anyways).

 

[Erik Mesoy]

I note that this has sunk to the 3rd page and classical_hero hasn't said anything more.

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.

He may be. In which case I question the criteria. I am willing to discard "omnipotent" as an attribute of God because it's ill-defined and leads to stupid questions and quasi-contradictions. (Can God make a triangle with four sides? Can God make a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?) More useful, IMO, is the description of God as Almighty - in that he has literally all might, all authority.

(Note: I have, through silly thinking, determined that the answer to the second question is yes. God can create a rock of such a size that it collapses into a black hole under its own mass, which will then be a point with no surface, and since force can only be applied to a surface, not a point or a line, and lift requires the application of force, a black hole is not in the category "objects that can be lifted".)

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.

Once you remove the logic-transcending omnipotence in favor of ultimate power, the PoE seems to collapse quite simply - a benevolent, all-powerful God is in the process of removing evil, and He isn't finished yet.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

That's actually a good answer to the problem of evil, I think, and one I haven't heard before. Also, the greatest answer to the rock question ever.

 

[Veritass]

Once you remove the logic-transcending omnipotence in favor of ultimate power, the PoE seems to collapse quite simply - a benevolent, all-powerful God is in the process of removing evil, and He isn't finished yet.

But that denies another attribute of God, that He/It is the [one and only] Creator. If God is the Creator, He/It must have created the evil that He/It is busily removing, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

[Murky]

The Theory of Evolution and the story of creation as described by the bible are not compatible.

You have a few options.

1. You can decide that you think the Bible is the literal truth and that evolution is a big lie.

2. You can decide the evolution is backed up with enough evidence to be an accepted theory.

3. You can take an agnostic approach to the issue not taking a side.

If you accept evolution then you automatically imply a rejection of a literal translation of creation as it is written.

That doesn't mean that you reject the moral and ethical teachings of the Bible or Jesus Christ. Just accepting the Theory of Evolution doesn't imply that you have thrown away your moral or ethical standards. It simply means that you accept the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence in favor of evolution. In my opinion that is far more rational than taking the story of creation at face value.

I think everyone without knowledge of either creation or evolution starts out as agnostic. If they are indoctrinated at an early age in creation then they will probably accept that until they learn the truth about evolution. Once you really understand the fundamentals of evolution, you are much more likely to accept it over creation.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

But that denies another attribute of God, that He/It is the [one and only] Creator. If God is the Creator, He/It must have created the evil that He/It is busily removing, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

I'm not sure if I understand your argument. Doesn't this apply anyway - that either God isn't the sole Creator, or else God created evil?

But I think we're getting a bit off topic here. The problem of evil deserves its own thread and probably has three that could be bumped.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

But that denies another attribute of God, that He/It is the [one and only] Creator. If God is the Creator, He/It must have created the evil that He/It is busily removing, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

One could hold that God is the Creator but has limits on what he can create, or that it has flaws He cannot directly remove.

 

[Stewbert 08]

How can an holy God have death and suffering as part of his plan?

Cuz God sucks?

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.

Uh... why the long chain of logic?

Here's a shorter one.

1. God created the world and foresaw everything that would happen and could have created any kind of world he wanted.
2. The world has sin in it.
3. God deliberately 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.

Yup!

OF course this would be hypocritical of God for being angry at anyone who sins if he allowed sin and death to be a natural part of living on this planet.

Yup!

3. It makes Jesus a liar.

Yup!

 

[Bill3000]

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.

I don't see how, when this is explicitly the case in Judaism...

 

[Stewbert 08]

In which case I question the criteria. I am willing to discard "omnipotent" as an attribute of God because it's ill-defined and leads to stupid questions and quasi-contradictions. (Can God make a triangle with four sides? Can God make a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?)

Omnipotence just means God can create any world he wants that is logically feasible. God couldn't create a square-triangle world, but he could easily create a world where objects with mass repel each other, etc.

Re: omnipotence you really only have three choices, either you can accept the premise that God is omnipotent and move on with the deductions, OR you can attempt to prove that a world without moral/natural evil is logically not feasible and thus God could not create one (good luck with that), OR you can say that God is not omnipotent by this definition.

In the last case, of course, you have constructed a copout-deity, one with no relation or resemblance to anything anybody actually worships - a deity constructed only to escape a thorny theological problem. In which case no one is obliged to respect your arguments.

Once you remove the logic-transcending omnipotence in favor of ultimate power, the PoE seems to collapse quite simply - a benevolent, all-powerful God is in the process of removing evil, and He isn't finished yet.

Oh please, even Plantinga did better than that, and he tried prong 2 of my three-horned dilemma above.

1. Where did evil come from in the first place?

2. Why does God need all of history to remove evil? Either God exists outside of time, or he is as finite as time is. In the latter case he's no God, in the former case all the events of history are as equidistant from him as the events in a play are from me when I'm holding the script. Why would I write a script wherein the narrator gradually makes life less miserable for the actors? Isn't it obvious that any claim I'd make to be a beneficient playwright would be a complete conceit? Why does God need to act WITHIN time?

3. Moreover, what proof do we have that the universe as a whole is getting less evil? Or even our world?

Doesn't this apply anyway - that either God isn't the sole Creator, or else God created evil?

Yes.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Omnipotence just means God can create any world he wants that is logically feasible.

BUTBUT GOD TRANSCENDS LOJIC shift-eleventy-one limx->0 (sin x)/x Int_1_e 1/x dx -(e^ipi).

And that is exactly as serious as I wish to get in this thread which we have by now hijacked quite thoroughly. Take the PoE to its own thread, I say.

 

[Stewbert 08]

Fair enough. Why don't you start a new thread quoting my post

 

[Steph]

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.

a) Can a plant or an animal sin? Yet they can die.
b) I don't see why holy and death are not compatible. Aren't you suppose to join God in paradise after you die? Or do you think there is no afterlife?
It seems to me it's quite a contradiction.
c) You may doubt Evolution, but you can't deny Death. Death IS part of our world. So either God created the world as it is now, with Death. Then why did he do so? Or then Evolution is real, and Death is a needed tool for it (survival of the fittest).
So, supposing God exists (or the debate is useless anyway), He has two tools at his disposal: create us as we are (no use of Death, except perhaps for the little technical aspect of the undying soul, see b) ). Or He used evolution, and then Death makes even more sense. And so He can still be pleased of what He did (it works).

What is strange in this first argument is instead of criticizing Evolution, you seems to criticize the very existence of God, or souls, etc.
Evolution doesn't make God unholy. You are doing this all by yourself with your line of reasoning.

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.

a) Evolution is not random.
b) What makes you feel better:
- Case 1: God created the World as it is, including Death, diseases, Earthquake, etc. For what purpose? If he really cared, then He would have avoid these nasty things. Beside, if Evolution doesn't exist, what is the hope of Humanity? Can we progress?
- Case 2: Evolution is a fact, in which Death, diseases, Natural disasters, and also wars, etc. are all factors, and therefore have a meaning. Humanity can still evolve, there's is hope for the future that we could become better.

Note that in case 1, the all loving God denying us Evolution, creating us as we are, is in the same time depriving us of a part of freedom. "You are created like that, and you will remain like that"
While in case 2, God could have created the conditions for us to appear and prosper, and progress, in our own.

Let's make a small analogy.
In Case 1, God is a sculptor who make a statue and enjoy watch it.
In Case 2, God is a father who has children and enjoy watching them grow and make their own path and future.

Perhaps you have no children yet. I have two. I can tell you that having children requires and brings much more love and joy than making a statue.

3. It makes Jesus a liar. He clearly states that Man was from the Beginning of creation, meaning that man was around when all the other now extinct animal were around. If Jesus is God and that is what the Bible says, then why did he not just say that after millions of years of change man finally came into being. But Jesus never said that so since he did not say that then he must be lying if Evolution is true.

Or it could mean when God created the world, he put the seeds that will one day create man after millions of year of Evolution.
Like if the coming of Man was part of his Grand Plan from the Beginning.
Beside, Jesus may have adapted his language to his public, without lying.

When a child ask you where do babies come from, you can just say "Because Daddy and Mommy love each others, a little seed appeared in the belly of Mommy, it grew and when he is big enough, the Baby gets out".
Then, several years later, you can explain the same stuff with Spermatozoid.

Where you lying with the first explanation? No, you were adapting your language to the audience.

Perhaps 2000 years ago Humanity was not ready to understand Evolution, so Jesus simplified the language to make it understandable to all. And now we (at least some of us), have grown enough to understand Evolution and so we can move to a new level of explanation.

You can decide to lower yourself and stay at the level we had 2000 years ago.
Or you can decide to mover forward and progress to the next level.
Your choice.

But just think about a little thing: If Evolution is real (and it is), and if God exists (not proven or unproven), then Evolution was intended by God, and is a tool for him to reach his ultimate goal, whatever it is, by denying Evolution and refusing to embrace it, aren't you going against the will of God?

If God wanted us to progress, to make discoveries, to grow, and to learn new things about us and the nature of the Universe He created, what message are you giving him when you say "I refuse to progress and grow, I refuse to learn, I refuse to think and use the wonderful gifts you gave us: intelligence and free will, but instead I will stick to words written 2000 years ago and more, refuse to think by myself and let these words replace my own thinking".

Imagine a father who is watching is 20 years old son... And the son is still walking on all fours and saying "Ba-ba-ba" because he refused to rise and to learn how to speak... You will get an idea of what God is probably feeling when He watch you, and you will understand why He has tears running down His cheecks.

Spoiler :

I'm quite happy with the last part. Is it dramatic enough?

 

[Steph]

God couldn't create a square-triangle world,

The question "Could God create a triangle with 4 sides" is a stupid one anyway, because triangle is just a convention, a name we decided to give to an object with 3 sides. we could have as easily named that a square, and name the figure with 4 sides a triangle.
And guess what? Where I live we don't have square. We have "carré" instead.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

OR you can say that God is not omnipotent by this definition.

In the last case, of course, you have constructed a copout-deity, one with no relation or resemblance to anything anybody actually worships - a deity constructed only to escape a thorny theological problem.

The idea that God must of necessity be omnipotent to be God is actually completely nonsensical. Lots of people have worshipped a non-omnipotent God - perhaps most - and don't do it just to "esapce a thorny theological problem'. It's not a copout.

 

[sourboy]

If you take that as a given then this discussion is pointless; of course, that defeats the purpose of the whole thread.

Exactly, thread over.

 

[Stewbert 08]

Still waiting for a response, Erik

The idea that God must of necessity be omnipotent to be God is actually completely nonsensical. Lots of people have worshipped a non-omnipotent God - perhaps most - and don't do it just to "esapce a thorny theological problem'. It's not a copout.

Wrong, if you ask the average Christian on the street "Could God have created any world he wanted that was logically feasible" the answer WILL BE "Yes and he chose to create this one." Exactly which world faith are you referring to here? Cuz there isn't one I know of that doesn't concede that the creator of the world was omnipotent by my definition.

The fact that some smart people have seen the problems-down-the-road if you concede the omnipotence of God, and altered their description of God accordingly, doesn't change anything. We can't prove if God exists or not, where "God" as a word applies to a potential infinity of deities with a potential infinity of characteristics. It only makes sense to examine the Gods that are commonly claimed to exist. So, any argument you make that my average Christian "is just wrong because they don't understand theology," etc., is frankly irrelevant...

Anyway, believing that God is honor-bound to include evil into the world doesn't end your difficulties in God-apologetics. Let's say that God is duty-bound to include x amount of evil in the world. Well is the specific amount of evil in our world more than x, or just equal to x?

If God created more than the necessary evil, you have to explain why he gratuitously included that evil in the world, which is the POE all over again of course.

If we are experiencing the minimal amount of evil, then you are implicitly arguing that this is the best of all possible worlds. Number one, that's silly as there are evils only a moderately good person - such as you - would have not created. Number two, that makes me really NOT want to worship God. Number three, I'm no more inclined to respect a Liebnizian than someone who constructs copout deities. It comes to the same thing.

The problem you're running into here is: any logical person admits that "something has to give" with regard to God's textbook description, as the qualities of "full benficience", "full omnipotence", "full omniscience", and "full worship-worthiness" are clearly contradictory (and "existence" I guess. But I'm not an atheist and I'm not using the POE to disprove God).

You're trying to solve the POE by going after God's omnipotence, because you want to preserve his qualities of beneficience and worship-worthiness. But this doesn't help... really the POE is insoluble for a beneficient, worship-worthy god.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

What God can possibly be is not limited by what the average Christian thinks. And of course, as I said, people have been ascribing non-omnipotence to God for millenia. We didn't just make this up over evolution. You have no idea what you're talking about. Your claim that, once one theologian said that God was omnipotent, then everyone had to believe that He/She/They/It was, or were copping out, is nonsensical.

Actually, now that I re-read your post, you aren't saying that God can't be omnipotent, only that such a being is not worthy of worship. Although that doesn't make any more sense to me either.

 

[Stewbert 08]

Well,

1. Your handicapped god still doesn't solve the POE as I showed. You either end up back at the POE, or you're making a Liebnizian argument for our world being the best of all possible worlds.

2. While any hypothetical God is worthy of being discussed, I'm only really interested in discussing God as he is commonly described. One of those kinds of Gods (the Christian one) is the subject of this thread, and the one you're engaging in apologetics for, right? You haven't contested my claim that the avg Christian would accept my def. of omnipotence for God. You've just said that the real-God isn't like that; ok.... and I showed the problems with hypothetical real-God as well.

 

[Stewbert 08]

Actually, now that I re-read your post, you aren't saying that God can't be omnipotent, only that such a being is not worthy of worship. Although that doesn't make any more sense to me either.

Simply put, if God is so mighty that he created the world, undoubtedly foresaw that the Holocaust would happen, but couldn't create a better world instead, I don't feel obliged to worship him.