Presentation Notes from Creation vs Evolution

Here are my notes from this last presentation...

Creation vs. Evolution?

Review:
1. Science, not scientism (philosophies of science have raised difficult challenges for those who express science as a religious passion, ‘scientism’). Both science and Christian philosophy have challenges to face, which we covered in week one.
2. Richard Dawkins, as a leading proponent of materialistic naturalism, was taken to task:
a. The “real world” can be explained without the help of a deity.
b. The cause (he wants to say most, if not all) of human problems is rooted in religious beliefs.
c. Religious beliefs are internally inconsistent and cannot be reconciled with evolutionary biology or science generally.
In an interview in the New York Times in 1999, Richard Dawkins… "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet someone who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."

d. The world would be a better place without religious beliefs.
e. Dawkins, along with Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris: we might consider prohibiting parents from teaching their children religious superstitions. [This is the sort of threat that gains the attention of people of faith!]

Today
I. Creation vs. Evolution: four positions
a. Naturalistic Materialist: Dawkins/Gould/Dennett, etc.—
I would dismiss this based on the awkward position of atheism, which is difficult to support logically. See the blog for references.
b. Old Earth Creationist—these are often labeled ‘compromising evangelicals’ by some Young Earth proponents.
c. Young Earth Creationist—questions legitimacy of geologic data,
d. Intelligent Design
Let’s look at the text, then…
e. The story in Genesis 1
Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Gen. 1:2 Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water.
Gen. 1:3 God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light!
Gen. 1:4 God saw that the light was good, so God separated the light from the darkness.
Gen. 1:5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” There was evening, and there was morning, marking the first day. [NET Bible]

a. What does it say?
i. In the beginning: before time, we understand, God started with creating ex nihilo

John Sailhamer: Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Genesis
The term “beginning” (re’shith ) in biblical Hebrew marks a starting point of a specific duration as in “the beginning of the year” (re’shit hashshanah)
By commencing this history with a “beginning” (re’shith), a word often paired with its antonym “end” (‘aha rith ), the author has not only commenced a history of God and his people, he has also prepared the way for the consummation of that history at “the end of time” (‘aharit )
In the beginning: timeless period or just a point in time?

ii. God created: a personal deity, personally involved in the creation Himself
iii. The heavens and the earth: all we can see and beyond
iv. Etc. YOU DO THE WORK!

b. What does it not say?
i. How this came to be, other than by the spoken word of God.
ii. No other mechanism is mentioned or suggested.
iii. Etc. YOU DO THE WORK!

c. What does it mean?
i. God existed before the heavens and the earth.
ii. God created all things in the universe.
iii. God supersedes the heavens and the earth: he is eternal, that which is created is not.
iv. These same phrases are used to describe the end of all things.
v. Etc. YOU DO THE WORK!
Sailhamer
The fundamental principle reflected in Genesis 1:1 and the prophetic vision of the times of the end in the rest of Scripture is that the “last things will be like the first things” (Ernst Boklen, Die Verwandtschaft der judisch-christlichen mit der Parsischen Eschatologie [Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1902], p. 136): “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth” (Isa 65:17); “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 21:1). The allusions to Genesis 1 and 2 in Revelation 22 illustrate the role these early chapters of Genesis played in shaping the form and content of the scriptural vision of the future (‘aharit hayyamim ).

f. The problem of definition
a. Some say that we can’t resolve these differences…
i. Evolution is logically possible.
Plantinga’s article: Faith and Evolution [previously posted on my blog]
“It is possible (epistemically possible) that this is how things happened; God could have done it that way; but the evidence is ambiguous. That it is possible is clear; that it happened is doubtful; that it is certain, however, is ridiculous.”

ii. Question: is evolution biologically possible?
1. Assumed by a large majority of biologists.
2. Difficult to prove
a. Experimentally
b. Missing transitional examples in the fossil record.
Evolution News
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/04/one_step_forward_two_steps_bac.html
Authority Jennifer Clack even admits that before finding Tiktaalik, the large morphological gap between fish and true tetrapods was "frustratingly wide":
"It has long been clear that limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) evolved from osteolepiform lobefinned fishes, but until recently the morphological gap between the two groups remained frustratingly wide. The gap was bounded at the top by primitive Devonian tetrapods such as Ichthyostega and Acanthostega from Greenland, and at the bottom by Panderichthys, a tetrapod-like predatory fish from the latest Middle Devonian of Latvia (Fig. 1)."
(Jennifer A. Clack & Per Erik Ahlberg, "A firm step from water to land," Nature 440:747-749 (April 6, 2006); emphasis added)

c. Probability arguments bite back.

b. We cannot deny reason or its importance, lest we deny our ability to understand, sort, and interpret Scripture!
Plantinga: The Lord can't make a mistake: fair enough; but we can. Our grasp of what the Lord proposes to teach us can be faulty and flawed in a thousand ways. This is obvious, if only because of the widespread disagreement among serious Christians as to just what it is the Lord does propose for our belief in one or another portion of Scripture. Scripture is indeed perspicuous: what it teaches with respect to the way of salvation is indeed such that she who runs may read. It is also clear, however, that serious, well-intentioned Christians can disagree as to what the teaching of Scripture, at one point or another, really is. Scripture is inerrant: the Lord makes no mistakes; what he proposes for our belief is what we ought to believe. Sadly enough, however, our grasp of what he proposes to teach is fallible.

c. Can A Darwinist Be A Christian?
i. Yes
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/march/37.74.html
Stan Guthrie | posted 3/12/2007 09:05AM
Certainly millions of Christians—including the late John Paul II—have believed in both evolution and God without apparent spiritual harm. They say evolution is the method God used to create us. Francis Collins, who heads the Human Genome Project, is one of them.
"The evidence mounts every day to support the concept that we and all other organisms on this planet are descended from a common ancestor," Collins told me. "When you look at the digital data that backs that up—which is what DNA provides—it is extremely difficult to come to any other conclusion. There are many things written within our instruction book that not only tell us how we function but also represent DNA fossils left over from previous events. And those fossils, in many instances, are found in other species in the same place, in the same way. Unless you're going to propose that God placed them there intentionally to mislead us, which does not fit with my image of God as the Almighty Creator, then I think one is, like it or not, forced to the conclusion that the theory of evolution is really no longer a theory in the sense of being untested. It is a theory in the sense of gravity. It is a fact."

ii. No
This is the position of Young Earth proponents. The argument is that Genesis 1 describes a six-day creation history, precluding 4.5 billion years of evolution, or even 1,000 years. Historically, this has been the position of most Christian scholarship, until 1859, when Darwin published On The Origin of Species. Since that time, scientists began to rethink their commitments to a six-day creation (as most had embraced) and theologians became quite confused.

iii. Maybe
Many conservative theologians have moved to an ‘agnostic’ position on this matter, refusing to take a stand.

d. Evolution
i. Agreements with Gen 1-2
ii. Disagreements with Gen 1-2
1. The problem of six days of creation.
2. The sense of divine fiat, expressed by the spoken word of God with no hint of processes or means.
3. The problem of death: Genesis 1-2 seem to imply that death did not enter the world until after Adam and Eve sinned. The entire fossil record presented by evolutionists would argue that death had been common to all creatures before “Adam and Eve” whenever they might have lived.
iii. Essence of Genesis 1-2
1. The state of interpretation regarding Genesis 1-2 is quite complex.
2. A large majority of biblical scholars read Genesis as if it were legendary, not historical.
3. A small minority of conservative scholars hold that the two accounts are historical and literal.
4. A growing number understand that the stories are told in a certain style, conforming to (but varying from) similar creation accounts from that era and earlier. Their questions target ‘genre’ issues: how was this story intended and how should it be understood? Those questions were asked long ago by liberal scholars, but are now being reprocessed by more conservative theologians.
5. John Sailhamer has proposed something of a middle position: the creation account of Genesis 1 introduces the arrival of Eden. Gen. 1:1 is true of the universe, 1:2 and following describe the preparation of the land of promise. He suggests that Eden’s Garden may well have been on Mt. Zion.

e. So, if a Christian CAN be an evolutionist (not that that has been demonstrated here!!), are there examples of such?

Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project
Hugh Ross [Canadian, physics at UBC, astronomy at UofT], founder of Reasons To Believe