2) It diminishes the character of God
I used to have a frequent visitor to my blog who went by the screen name, The Paleobabbler (let's call him, PB). PB had his own blog and described himself as a theistic evolutionist. In one post, when commenting on John 12:24, he said this about theistic evolution:
Jesus describes a process of change, the bringing about of something new. This can be applied to Christ himself, where his death on the cross changed everything and brought about new life - this alone should be ample reading for seeing the death in the John verse as intended. Evolution by natural selection is a process which involves death, but it does not stop there. The death is instrumental in bringing about change, in bringing about new life. It is an act of redemption, which is small in scale compared to Christ on the cross, yet large in scale with regards to cosmic history. Many scientifically minded theologians have noted that evolution is a cruciform process. It redeems death into new life. What better way for Christ to create?
According to PB, death is good. Death brings life. Death was the best way God could have used to create us. Unbelievable!
Do people really see beauty in death? Perhaps. Proverbs 8:36 says that all who hate God love death. If they love death, the theory of evolution has it in abundance. Evolution, of course, is a very slow, cruel process. Richard Dawkins describes nature this way:
The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives whimpering with fear, others are slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.
An often spoken criticism used by atheists is, if God is good, why do bad things happen? To believe in evolution is to believe God intended the world to be full of death, disease, and suffering. It is saying that bad things happen because God wants them to happen and the bleak picture Dawkins paints of nature is exactly how God planned things to be. It would be a very capricious god who would waste billions of years of pain and extinction only to look back on everything he had made and describe it all as “very good” (Genesis 1:34). What's more, God would pause at the end of each day, look at what He had done, and each time would say it was good. So God describes creation as good, good, good, then very good. Theistic evolution says the creation was a billions-of-years long process of bad, bad, and more bad leading up to the moment where God says everything He had created was “very good.”
There is also the fact that God said He made everything in six days. Theistic evolutionists often claim God simply explained the creation in terms that an unscientific people could understand. In other words, God is a liar and an imbecile, who couldn't figure out how to explain “billions” to uneducated readers so He just said, “six days.”
4 comments:
I feel like I haven't been holding up my end of this conversation. Part of the problem is that I largely agreed with your two columns immediately preceding this new series, and I've never (call it a character flaw) been comfortable with just posting "ditto" or the equivalent.
The other part of the problem, regarding the first post of this new series, is that I'm not sure you're wrong. You might be -- we don't know how the original authors (as opposed to commentators centuries later) understood the Genesis creation accounts. And the Church, historically, has not always interpreted them quite literally -- Augustine thought that earth and sky were created instantly some six thousand years before he lived, and that the "six days" were a literary scheme for setting forth its components rather than a schedule. And several early church fathers thought that the "days" might be millennium-long periods. But for the most part, tradition has favored your interpretation (unfortunately, the evidence doesn't).
In other words, God is a liar and an imbecile, who couldn't figure out how to explain “billions” to uneducated readers so He just said, “six days.”
Again, I see your point: we can explain geological eras and billions of years of cosmic history to children, so why could not the author of Genesis, if such things really existed? But by the same token, we can explain to them that the sky is not the sort of thing that could have windows (Genesis 7:11) in it, or a supercelestial ocean above it (Genesis 1:7; Psalm 148:4). The Bible mentions several things (pillars of the Earth, storehouses of hail) that make literal sense given a standard ancient near eastern (flat-earth, hard sky) cosmology, but don't seem to correspond very well to modern geology, meteorology, or astronomy. I assume you regard all these passages as "obviously figurative" even as you insist that a six-day creation (with the sun created after the planet that orbits it!) is meant literally.
To believe in evolution is to believe God intended the world to be full of death, disease, and suffering. It is saying that bad things happen because God wants them to happen and the bleak picture Dawkins paints of nature is exactly how God planned things to be.
But if we assume that God has perfect foreknowledge of the future (a trait I don't see evidenced in Genesis -- why regret, in the time of Noah, making humans, if He knew all along how it would turn out?), then obviously at some level God did intend a world full of death, disease, and suffering. He foreknew the outcome and made it anyway. And it exists because God inflicted death, disease, and predation on the entire living cosmos for the sins of two members of a single species. I'm familiar with the argument that Adam was the "federal head" of creation and hence it was punished along with him and all his descendants. I merely note that this seems contrary to Abraham's comment in Genesis 18:25 that it is unlike God to punish the innocent (all those sinless tyrannosaurs and capybaras and penguins) along with the guilty, or with Ezekiel 18.
The Bible is all over the place on the question of what God considers justice (e.g. He burns down fifty hapless soldiers -- twice -- because their commander is rude to one of His prophets, but will not rain down fire from Heaven on cities that refused a night's lodging to His son), but it seems to me that if cursing the entire creation for Adam's sin does not diminish His character, then using evolution (the horrors of natural selection are, after all, merely the horrors of biology as we see it today) does not.
One further comment, if I may.
I believe in the all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God of the Bible who spoke the universe into existence.
Did God literally speak the universe into existence? Speech is the production of patterned vibrations in air. It's doubtful that the ancient Hebrews realized this, or thought much about the problems of speaking before an atmosphere existed. Did God create (without speaking, having neither a medium to carry sound waves or physical vocal organs) some sort of air-filled physical space, incarnate Himself as Jesus, and then speak the (rest of) the universe into existence? Or is "speaking" here a metaphor for something else? And if it can be a metaphor, how much of the rest of the account could be?
Steven J,
I appreciate your comments but don't feel obligated to comment on every post I make. For your own reference, if I write a political post which you largely agree with and you don't feel moved to write, “I agree,” you're also welcome to add any another points you might have. On the other hand, I'm sure I'll soon be writing another post with an opinion different than yours so you're also free to wait until those posts come before commenting. :)
It seems that so far in this series, you and I have little disagreement. I suspect you agree with me that evolution is not easily compatible with Christianity. Still, I'll address those points of contention you've raised.
You said, “I assume you regard all these passages as "obviously figurative" even as you insist that a six-day creation (with the sun created after the planet that orbits it!) is meant literally.”
Yes. I mean it is obvious which passages are literal and which are figurative. We are very practiced at discerning the intended meaning of the speaker/author in any other medium; I'm not sure why it's so hard for some people to do the same with the Bible. If I said, “I could eat a horse,” you would know I'm using hyperbole. If I said, “My grandfather told me he was going to butcher a horse and we were going to eat it over the winter,” you would know I mean it to be factual. Even though both sentences discuss eating a horse, context tells us which is figurative and which is literal. The exact same thing is true for the Bible.
You said, “But if we assume that God has perfect foreknowledge of the future (a trait I don't see evidenced in Genesis -- why regret, in the time of Noah, making humans, if He knew all along how it would turn out?)”
I discussed this once while teaching a Sunday school class. I still have my notes from the class; I may dust them off and use it to write a post for my blog. The short answer is that we tend to believe God feels emotions in exactly the same way we feel emotions. When we feel regret, it's usually because we either didn't know what the consequences of our actions would be or we didn't appreciate the full scope of them. God sometimes makes hard choices, knowing what the outcome will be but still sad when they come to pass. When the people of Israel wanted a king, He told Samuel to explain to the people what life would be like for them having a king. They didn't care at the time so He made Saul the king and, sure enough, he turned out to be exactly like God had warned. The Bible says that God “regretted” making Saul king (1 Samuel 15:11). It wasn't because He didn't know how Saul would be but rather, He was sad because Saul did exactly what God knew he would do.
You said, “I'm familiar with the argument that Adam was the "federal head" of creation and hence it was punished along with him and all his descendants. I merely note that this seems contrary to Abraham's comment in Genesis 18:25 that it is unlike God to punish the innocent (all those sinless tyrannosaurs and capybaras and penguins) along with the guilty, or with Ezekiel 18.”
God created the world to be of service to us. Adam didn't have to work for his food – he could pick the fruit off the trees and eat. Part of God's judgment on man was to make the world hostile to us. After the fall, Adam had to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. He had to plow the hard soil and it would yield thorns, for example. It would make very little sense to judge man, but continue letting him live in a paradise.
Continued...
You said, “Did God literally speak the universe into existence? Speech is the production of patterned vibrations in air.”
Yes, He obviously spoke because that's the plain meaning of the text. Of course, I'm not exactly sure how this was accomplished. How did God “speak” to the prophets? Sound is merely our brains interpretation of vibrations in our ears. People sometimes “hear” a voice in their heads; maybe that's how the prophets heard God. There's the old riddle that if a tree falls in the forest but no one is around to hear, does it make a sound? If no person was around to hear God, did there even need to be sound waves? Maybe God spoke it the same way we sometimes “say” things to ourselves. Maybe He spoke the same way He spoke to the prophets. I'm not sure – just speculating.
Thanks for your comments. God bless!!
RKBentley
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