Scott,

I take it you disagree with Glenn Morton on the human status of Neanderthal, Homo Erectus, and other so-called pre-sapiens.  What about his particular arguments (which are also advanced by YEC'ers) do you find unconvincing?

What, then, do the references to "life" refer to?  It sure seems to be physical life given the flow of thought:

21: For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

The "For" in v.22 is explanatory of v.21 which seems to be speaking of physical life by ressurection. 

Post Edited (jefscott) : 2/3/2005 8:45:01 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (markporter) : 2/4/2005 9:57:00 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (scott_jorgenson) : 2/4/2005 5:41:10 PM (GMT-6)

Mark: Tom did you just delete a post, or am I getting confused?

Tom: Yeah, I posted and then removed it. Get this, I got online and pulled up this thread. When I scrolled down there was a thread of YOURS with MY picture as an avatar. Hmm. So I posted asking you about it. Then when my post posted and the page refreshed, my picture wasn’t on your thread. So I removed my post. But it was weird. Su’im fishy going on.

Mark: I guess there are two ways our for the theistic evolutionist, the first is the spiritual death thing, which I think is warranted in some cases given what Jesus says about not tasting death - the second, I think, is to look at the long-term and not restrict death to a thing associated with this earth but to bring it all the way to the final judgment.

Tom: I hear ya. But I can’t believe this whole “death” thing hasn’t erupted into a huge deal before.

Mark: BTW, what's your stance Tom, are you a TE?

Tom: I honestly don’t know. Here’s the thing. I got no science background. And I’ll never ever know enough science to make my own independent examination and judgment of the issues, not at this point in my life. So I have to depend on others. So I listen to Scott and others argue evolution and think, hey, that makes sense. Then I read Michael Behe and (oh what’s his name? He’s got two Ph.D.’s and has written a couple of books on this whole thing), and oh yeah, Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator (the chapter in there about evolution) and I say to myself, here you have super smart people who understand evolution, who were evolutionists, and who aren’t today for reasons that sound pretty good to me. I mean, I read their arguments and think, hey, evolution has holes, big holes.

How in the world can I adjudicate the two positions? I can’t on the basis of the scientific arguments alone. I just don’t have a good enough grasp of the science. Behe gets up and talks about irreducibly complex systems that aren’t producible in evolutionary terms. Miller (and Scott I suppose) have neat answers. But I’m thinking, come on, Behe’s just an idiot? A Ph.D. in biochemistry. It’s his field. Miller’s a biologist. Scott, is biochemistry your field? I don’t know. You can see my frustration. You can stand up there two believers who are both experts in science. One is an evolutionist. One is not. They both love God.

Very confusing.

I know the Creationists can be judgmental and rude. Miller talks a bit about them in his book. But I’ve met theistic evolutionists who speak pretty condescendingly of believing scientists who don’t buy into evolution any longer, blowing them off with “Ah, I just have no respect for believing scientists who aren’t evolutionists. That’s just ridiculous.” I’ve heard it.

All I can do is decide whether or not evolution is compatible with my own biblical/theological commitments. And I’d have to say that I don’t see that there’s anything incompatible between God’s existence, activity in the world, the uniqueness of humanity (and so forth) and the idea that humanity took a very long time to get here. Miller has that great analogy in which he says, "Hey, you (a believing Creationist who denies evolution) believe God qued up each ball on the pool table, took 15 strokes and pocketed 15 balls perfectly. I (a believer and evolutionist) believe God made one stroke, struck the cue ball and pocketed 15 balls with one stroke. Whose God is greater?" Well, certainly the latter is the greater POOL player, but this doesn't translate into evolution revealing a GREATER God than traditional creationism. So the analogy doesn't work. But it's sweet!

I’m far more bothered by the tension between an evolutionary view of physical death and the NT’s theological interpretation of physical death, which right now look incompatible to me. And I’m far more likely to side with a non-evolutionary science (which sounds just as plausible to my unscientific mind as does the evolutionary view) and maintain my commitment to the truth of scripture. I don’t envy the position of a believer who really IS convinced by the scientific argument for evolution and also believes this conflicts with certain theological claims made scripture. Looks like faith is a more fluid thing than science, so usually the science wins and faith adjusts. I don’t know if I could make that kind of adjustment. I don’t mind living with the tension for now. I’m not saying I’m afraid of the truth. I don’t NEED the truth to be this or that. But I just can’t now imagine myself saying, hey, Paul and others who wrote the Bible, Jesus too, shoot, they were just wrong. Some inaccuracy IS consistent with believing God is speaking truth through an individual. But not the inaccuracy OF WHAT ONE ADMITS IS THE (so-called) TRUTH being spoken.

I appreciate Scott’s comments on death/life, but it doesn’t change the fact (from my point of view at least) that in 1Cor 15 Paul views physical death, the death of our bodies, as an “enemy” of some sort. Of what sort? I don’t know. An enemy of God’s purposes and intentions for us perhaps. An enemy of the quality of life God intends us to share. I don’t know. If some sense can be made of this enmity while believing that God is the author of such death (which God is in the theistic evolutionary approach), then fine. Let’s do it. Sounds like a tall order. But let’s not just say Paul doesn’t view physical death itself as an “enemy” which is destroyed in the eschaton by physical resurrection; that his whole discussion boils down to spiritual death and life. Yes, it’s resurrection TO a very special kind of embodied life, to “spiritual bodies,” but the point is that it a world that is entered upon through physical resurrection, an event that spells the destruction of physical death itself. It’s about our bodies, why they die, and why there’s something wrong with their dying, and how physical resurrection addresses whatever it is that’s wrong with their dying. I don’t know. But it seems clear to me that Paul’s understanding at least was that physical death doesn’t “fit,” doesn’t “belong.” It’s an “enemy” God will destroy. Now we can take Mephi’s route and just say “Paul was wrong, just flat out theologically in error. So what. Let’s adjust our understanding of what scripture is to allow for erroneous theology to be intentionally aimed at and taught by Paul, or any one, heck, even Jesus.” I’m hoping the truth is somewhere else.

I may never come down with an opinion, and that bothers me too.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 2/4/2005 9:12:03 PM (GMT-6)

Hi Tom,

No, I'm not a scientist of any kind.  I'm a software engineer with about 15 years experience whose education consists of a BS in computer engineering - a barely related field to the sciences.  So I claim no personal expertise.  If I were advocating an idiosyncratic view here I'd rightly feel far more tentative than I do.  But the fact is that all of my thinking on the science - none of it original - merely reflects the consensus of the scientific community worldwide, including those in it who are also Christians.  And I base my belief that I fairly represent this consensus upon the many years (since I was 18 or 19 - I am now 37) that I've studied this issue off-and-on as an interested layman.

You know, I can understand where you're coming from.  I'm not sure I'd recommend to anyone investing the amount of time and energy into my investigation as I have.  But, you know, its rare in life that we ever become expert enough ourselves in various subjects to independently make well-justified conclusions; and yet that needn't always prevent us from doing so.  Whenever we see a community of tens or hundreds of thousands of diverse-as-can-be experts, who agree on nothing except trying to be professional, objective, and creative, so that they can be accepted, respected, and even honored by their colleagues - then I think we see a community whose basic, stable, consensus ideas can almost always be fairly trusted - perhaps not in all the details, but certainly in broad-brush strokes.  The vast majority of economists agree on the basic principles of supply and demand - so even though I've never studied the issue, I am warranted in trusting their judgment.  And similarly, the vast majority of scientists agree on the broad-brush strokes of evolution, the age of the earth and universe, the emergence and disappearance of species over the epochs, and the basic continuity of physical life and death since its beginning.

This is true within the Christian scientific community and even among those Christian scientists who reject some parts of the basic story.  You mentioned Michael Behe - did you know that his only problem with the basic story is the idea that natural mechanisms (as opposed to miraculous ones) are sufficient to drive biochemical evolution?  Behe thinks that, in effect, some kind of miracle must have driven biochemical evolution - ie the evolution of the first cells.  He accepts the existence of death from the origin of life, the progressive emergence of life through common descent over the last few billion years, and even the evolution of mankind.  The same, or similar, is true with most of the other minority scientists who, with Behe, follow the new "Intelligent Design" movement.  Only the young-earth creationists - like those employed by Answers in Genesis and Institute for Creation Research - would disagree about death, and they are probably only 1 or 2 percent of the American scientific community, outnumbered by the "Intelligent Design" people and everyone else.  What are the chances they're right - especially when their view of prehistory isn't something fresh that's never been carefully considered before, but in fact was the de-facto view of scientists until the 18th century, and was only slowly rejected over the next 100 years?  There's simply no precedent for it.

Now, I could be wrong about the integration I prefer of Paul's teaching with science.  I agree with you that physical death, if only because of the attendant suffering that goes with it (for those who die and those loved ones who are left behind), is not God's best for his creation.  That, I think, is why Paul says the creation groans for its own redemption, and has always up to even this day.  I believe that the redemptive act of Christ suffices to (in some manner) save all of creation, in the new creation; and that Christ's redemptive act was accordingly planned since before the creation in order to fulfill and complete it - to make perfect the creation that was created merely good and capable of sin.  You might want to read some of George Murphy (physicist and theologian) on that.

But, you know, I could be wrong about that.  If I were you, I wouldn't let that theory of integration stand in the way, for there are other theistic evolutionist approaches that I hinted at earlier that might integrate Pauline teaching in a way more traditional and perhaps palatable to you (eg, an immortal community of original humans - Adam and Eve in the Garden - set apart from the rest of the age-old mortal world, who then fell and caused us to fall into death through them).  I could dig up a paper on the Web I once read, overviewing some of those approaches, if you'd like.

But that's enough said, I think - probably too much said, actually.  I'm not trying to "convert" you to "my side", or "win an argument", and the above looks like I'm tryin to do that.  I'm actually happy to just be accepted as a fellow Christian who honestly tries to come to grips with the world.  So I thank you for being so irenic and charitable.

Best regards,

Scott

I think these last few posts have showed a greater acknowledgement that there are REAL problems with all views.  And it would take a long time to detail them all.  But the point is,  ALL sides need to be honest about their own problems and show due diligence to resolve them.  I am constantly keeping up with new findings to see if evidence is moving towards or away from my own paradigm.  Empirically-based paradigms change all the time.  And Kuhn is right - abandonment of paradigms is resisted by scientists even when the evidence justifies it.  But they don't until something better comes along.  So it is an oversimplification to say scientists are a bunch of objective folks.  Their just folks that like science with the same personal hang-ups we all have.  Many, like Ruse and Gould, have admitted as much.

I am also open-minded to new evidence for alternative hermeneutical systems that can account rationally for an abandonment of the principle of authorial intent.  But by "rationally" I mean evidence.  If, as Scott has argued, there is no evidence that the OT or NT writers believed that Genesis was merely parabolical, don't we need evidence that they DID believe it WAS parabolical until such an alternative hermeneutical system can by justified?  Otherwise, there is just another unresolved problem.  Namely, how do we get to parabolic interpretation exegetically as opposed to eisegetically.

Same goes for theodicy.  The problem of evil has not been seen as problematic for centuries for nothing.  It IS a problem.  It needs a logically coherent resolution if logic is to be accepted as valid.  And, of course, all respectful debate requires just that.

Like Tom said, we all have to live with tension (even non-Christian philosophers and scientists admit that).  May God give us the diligence and patience to work towards resolution with His and each other's help!

Scott,

Let me make a few comments in defense of progressive creationists with whom, I also, disagree.

The inability to reconstruct Alexander's exact movements is expected based on what we know about historical evidence in general.  But the lack of certain intermediates, especially in cases like the Cambrian explosion, is recognized as problematic even by most evolutionists.  It is NOT what one would expect.

I think the progressive creationists would argue that the number of intermediates can only be seen as confirmation of evolution if they are what is expected given a specific view of taphonomy and a specific genetic mechanism (gradual or non-gradual).  Since there is no consensus on a mechanism and there is an acknowledgement that certain episodes like the Cambrian explosion are contrary to expectations about taphonomy, many evolutionists rightly see these as problems in need of resolution.

A progressive creationist need not postulate creation events at specific times and places anymore than an evolutionist.  He/she is free to use all the arguments about poor preservation, etc. to account for his/her ignorance of when creation events occur.  What's fair for one is fair for the other.  That, then, puts the progressive creationist in a better position, parsimoniously, because he doesn't have to account for the elusive mechanism. 

Moreover, progressive creationists can accept those mechanisms we already know about to explain a great deal of radial evolution.  The question is, can those mechanisms explain eyes, livers, etc.  Even a number of materialists seriously doubt it, given the mere 600 million years to create SO much information.

I think progressives would agree with you here.  But they could argue that it is more parsimonious to just allow for God creating organisms given that most religious folks concede that He has and will perform creative acts.

In short, I think parsimony may be on the side of the PC's.