Leon kicked off The Agora series of workshops based on the RZIM Bali conference with a presentation on "God & Science". Check out the exciting notes here.
Next up, Steven Sim will be presenting on "The Lotus & The Cross" - on how we could engage resurgent Buddhism in our own backyard.
Date: 9 October (Sunday)
Time: 1.45 pm
Location: City Discipleship Presbyterian Church ( Location Map )
After Leon's presentation, we had an interesting session on Q&A... A UM student asked, "Why can't evolution and creation be compatible?" I stuck my neck out to challenge our usual 'creationist' model a bit...
Do we really need a person to repent of Darwinism FIRST before becoming a follower of Jesus? (Btw I'm not Darwinist)
A teenager, whose ambition is to be a 'missionary scientist', was glad tat we are on the same wavelength. He was unsatisfied with the current impasse, hopeful that future discovery will show us a better way.
A new-born Christian, who is also medical doctor and CEO, commented about the limitation of science. We observe things happen and repeat experiments.
But our conclusions may be guilty of the fallacy that just because A follows after B, therefore A is caused by B.
John See's fren from MMU also made some interesting remarks about 'darwin's black box', how biomolecular discoveries show how impossible gradual, incremental changes can explain diverse lifeforms.
At the same time, Steven and I raised questions about the temptation to use pseudo-science in evangelism (Joshua's missing day? God of the gaps?) while Rev Wong and Ps Caleb emphasized the need to be prepared to tackle scientific objections from skeptics... "If there is good science (ie DNA) we should use 'em".
Overall, it was a stimulating discussion... It is not the final word on the issue, but a primer for our further exploration.
Next up, Steven Sim will be presenting on "The Lotus & The Cross" - on how we could engage resurgent Buddhism in our own backyard.
Date: 9 October (Sunday)
Time: 1.45 pm
Location: City Discipleship Presbyterian Church ( Location Map )
After Leon's presentation, we had an interesting session on Q&A... A UM student asked, "Why can't evolution and creation be compatible?" I stuck my neck out to challenge our usual 'creationist' model a bit...
Do we really need a person to repent of Darwinism FIRST before becoming a follower of Jesus? (Btw I'm not Darwinist)
A teenager, whose ambition is to be a 'missionary scientist', was glad tat we are on the same wavelength. He was unsatisfied with the current impasse, hopeful that future discovery will show us a better way.
A new-born Christian, who is also medical doctor and CEO, commented about the limitation of science. We observe things happen and repeat experiments.
But our conclusions may be guilty of the fallacy that just because A follows after B, therefore A is caused by B.
John See's fren from MMU also made some interesting remarks about 'darwin's black box', how biomolecular discoveries show how impossible gradual, incremental changes can explain diverse lifeforms.
At the same time, Steven and I raised questions about the temptation to use pseudo-science in evangelism (Joshua's missing day? God of the gaps?) while Rev Wong and Ps Caleb emphasized the need to be prepared to tackle scientific objections from skeptics... "If there is good science (ie DNA) we should use 'em".
Overall, it was a stimulating discussion... It is not the final word on the issue, but a primer for our further exploration.
Comments
I am afraid, Xtians will fall for the same error, not only the urban legend of Nasa discovering a missing day.
hehehe... look at MPH series of creationist apologetics! This local fella accuse Darwinism as a conspiracy of jews and zionists hahah...
It seems to me tat evolution is not 'knock out' punch for intelligent design.. it only renders it 'unnecessary'.
But even this argument, I've found a strong rejoiner so frankly I dun have a good theological argument again theistic evolution. All I have are scientific arguments... hehehe just the opposite of Leon's analysis.
1. It’s impossible to reconcile hermeneutically to the scriptures. (And this really must be the chief reason if I am to be Sola Scriptura, though I understand that the Geocentric hermeneutic fallacy could be in play here again, so, I cant be to dogmatic about this point due to the ambiguity. Now, I would have a weak argument if I didn’t have 2-4 too add to this)
2. It’s a means to the ends of naturalism – so if we aren’t going to embrace naturalism, why do we need evolution? (I realise there is a seemingly ad-hominem element here, “since naturalist embrace it, we should not” – but that’s not what I am talking about. I call it the means based on Philosophical connections made by credible philosophers and historians of philosophy, not by demographics of it’s proponents)
3. It is at best a weak hypothesis – that really is embraced by faith rather than hard facts. Now, if I was committed to naturalism – it would be the only possible explanation for human origins, so the debate really is not evolution but naturalism. So evolution is a metaphysical claim, that is highly plausible if – “if”, the naturalist are right about reality.
4. Christian theistic evolutionism has a very impressive following, thus, I must resist the temptation to base my position on a good rational argument, not ad-hominem.
The Bible teaches us that God sends the rain on both the righteous and the wicked... That's a biblical teaching.
But does that mean God can't use the 'water cycle' to send rain?
Well, not really, we know tat sea water evaporate to wap air, gathers into clouds, which in turn condenses into hujan etc...
There's a perfectly 'natural' way of explaining rain... yet the bible sees God as the agent of rain
Shall we say, "Since I dun buy naturalism, I dun need to accept the water cycle?"
Similarly it wud be suspect to suppose tat just bcos the Bible teaches creation, that therefore we need to reject 'natural explanations' for how tat creation may come about?
Galileo paraphrased: "the bible tells us tat God created, it doesn't tell us how creation was done"...
perhaps evolution is rejected a priori (before looking at the facts) due to the theists' philosophical commitment to theism, not bcos of 'hard facts'.
Scientists like Stephen Jay Gould do not appeal to philosophy per se to defend their views, they ALSO appeal to 'scientific data' ie fossils have 'confirmed' ape-to-human transitions and reptile-to-mammal transitions. So it's professedly an inductive approach, rather than deductive.
If these evidences turn out to be 'hard facts', then why do i need to reject evolution since my theism is not threatened at all?"
hehehe... just playing The Devil's Advocate...
But if life could have started 'naturally' from matter plus time plus chance, it wud not render God non-existent. But it may make Him 'unnecessary'.
How so? for example, we cud explain how water boils at 100 degrees celsius at sea level. We repeat experiments, get same result.
Now suppose I add in a 'supernatural' explanation tat everytime we heat up water to 100 degrees, invisible 'toyol's would come and stir up the water, and blow bubbles into it... ???
Of course science can't disprove these mischievous fellas, but using Ockham's Razor, we simply dun need this 'extra' explanation at all... the simplest explanation is water just naturally boils at 100 degree.
Same thing for evolution...
The presupposition that give people a problem is that God must act on top of nature – for it to be an act of God, rather than the Biblical model where all reality and happening is an act of God – and when he changes some circumstances to make His involvement noticed to blur mankind – we call this a miracle in our ignorance of all His already consistent miracles – we call this universe.
The theological problem is who was Adam? Was he the first evolved hominid? Then, we have to treat Genesis as myth. Now some will say here – AHA ! You don’t take the six days literally as 24 hours- but this is simply an attempt to bridge the cultural (did they think of days in 24 hours) and the literary (can they use day like we do in English – “yesterday once more” meaning a time in the past) divide. We still take the text literally – or else, we can disregard all of the Torah! And Christ would not have been omniscient fir he seemed to believe in the myth too.
Could it come a day when evolution is as empirical as the water cycle is hypothetical?
It is precisely bcos "the bible does say that God is responsible and the cause for the effects we see, like rain, it does not do so at a denial of the natural means and processes" that the theological argument tat "if we believe creation, we can't accept 'naturalistic explanations' for how it happened" is considerably weakened...
Indeed, given ur framework, we can easily see evolution is part of the sustaining and continually 'miraculous' working of the divine? (ie not a violation of natural laws)
Aik! seems like we have raised a NEW theological problem by bringing in Adam as mythical?
Not necessarily so..
Adam could be a literal hominid tat existed in space time history hehehe... so nobody made any mistake, right? heheh... Devil's Advocate
Ok, ok, in plain English – Evolution is the perfect hypothesis of reality IF the world was as Naturalist claim. And to try and fuse it with the Bible, would only be necessary IF the Scientific case was so compelling and we were forced to make a hermeneutic revision. In such a scenario – we would have to concur with the liberals that they were right all along and Genesis was myth. And such a revision hermeneutically would be so much greater in degree compared to Joshua’s seemingly Geocentric statement. But I am enjoying this – this really is challenging, but its forging my convictions even more.
Karl Popper,1974
(of course we know that he questioned evolution as scientific, because it was not falsifiable)
IF evolution is 'empirical' and compelling, then we have to do some er... 'hermeneutical adjustments' right? hehehe...
But I dun think we are required to admit tat Adam is mythical... he's just a literal hominid, tat's all hehehehe..
Now, it's the *IF* here that is the issue... so the objection against evolution is a scientific one, not a theological one.
Evolution is required by naturalism, yes, i see where ur coming from. But it also sits comfortably with one version of theism or supernaturalism, it's all i'm saying :)
1) Whether evolution as a scientific hypothesis hold water or not ultimately rests on whether the evidence supports it or not. Technically it's falsifiable... if the lord tarries for another billion years, we cud observe if any species evolve to another species or not, rite? So it's a scientific issue, cos evolution could be loaded for both naturalism and at least one form of supernaturalism... (pantheists have no problem whatsoever)
2) Well, the hermeneutic adjustment wud not necessarily render us 'silly'... There are precedence like the case of the
6-day creation or 'the earth is center of the universe'. That doesn't seem to make us lose any ground in treating Genesis as mythical, does it? A long process of evolution guided by God finally brought about the first pair of homo sapiens, whom we call Adam and Eve. It's not a myth. That literally happened in historical, space-time continuum 4000 yrs ago.
Does that mean that God did not literally made a mud humanoid and literally blow a literal mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, CO2, hydrogen etc into its mouth?
Yea, probably not. But does it really necessitated by good hermeneutics?
Could it not rather be a theological-metaphorical narration of God's intentional creation of man and His giving of spirit, life and imago Dei into this newly evolved homosapiens?
Perhaps it's not meant to be read as a literal, scientific textbook? Does that give any grounds to liberals? If we say yes, then wouldn't conceding an 'old earth' do the same?
Gen 1:4
And God saw that the light was good
ESV
To mean good in any moral or perfect sense, or I would have the following problems;
1. when was animal death introduced – fossil records and geological data prove that many a species were extinct by the time man appears on the scene.
2. If it was all good, where did evil come from? My solution to the problem of evil is the Augustinian model, where, evil is a privation of the good.
3. Thus in such a model of the problem of evil, why would God need to assert that everything He did was good – if there was no possibility of evil apart an allocation or failure on God’s part (example: God allows the serpent to tempt Eve or the serpent sneaked in without Him noticing)
Thus my solution to these problems – is to say that the meaning of the many statements “it was good” in 1-3 Gen, was “it is exactly what He (God) wants!”. God will not perfect His creation until;
Rom 8:19-23
19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
ESV
Rev 22:1-5
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
ESV
Thus, the account of Genesis 1-3 are not meant to be a complete account of creation, but the beginning of it – the rest of the sacred scriptures will move on to show us the creation of human societies, the first believer, a race and nation set apart for God, the Incarnation of God’s Son, the first church and the implications of all these other creations on the single reality of creation from the first church to the end of the World. Thus the creation is not over yet – and its really not “good” (as in perfect) yet.
i.e. Bruce Waltke's take is that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" was the title of book. (this 'genesis')
When the part comes when God said Let there be light! The fall of satan has already happened, resulting in death and chaos on earth.
In the midst of this toho de boho (void and chaos) God moved in redemptively to create.
If this is rite, death already existed before Adam's sin... cos Satan sinned first rite? hehehe...
Now physical death and mortality was designed to remind us of the stark reality of our spiritual condition (I got that from Piper) and the new body and creation that is free from death and evil would be a great glorious God exalting triumph in the end. This fits perfectly with a scientific approach to the data, and in the past, when the church was more superstitious and less scientific, she accepted this doctrine if physical death being the result of sin, but really, scientifically, death is an important part of nature – and if man has life beyond the grave I see no problem with learning this truth from science.
That wud explain the 'toho de boho'
Adam is still alive as part of God's redemptive creation in genesis ar... and as u said, mortality is part of tat creation.
So there is no theological objection to the idea that 'since creation is good, god cant use evolution' ler...
http://www.origins.org/articles/milne-bohlin_christianviewsofearth.html