Evolution & Creationism

Zoxsasi

Hi

Given that "evolution" is now scientific fact; I have a few questions:

a) Did God create Adam and Eve? 

- If He did not create Adam and Eve, then what does the story of the creation signify?

b) If He did create them, then does it mean that Adam & Eve are 6,000 years old?

c) How do you reconcile your faith, your spirituality with Evolution? 

It seems, on the outside, or at 1st glance, that everything on this planet is made for us. Its as if we are the centre of attention. However, with Evolutionary Theory; apparently, we are all just ancestors of apes and that's it. The only meaning to life is simply what we eat, what we love to do, what we hate, what we accomplish, or what we strive for. That's it.

We are nothing more than glorified Apes.

Kahan

Evolution is a hypothesis, a theory at best. It is not a scientific fact.

minasoliman

I think I answered these questions in detail elsewhere, but let me address the "meaning to life".  Let us suppose we are created directly from dust.  Then we are all just ancestors of "dust" and that's it.  The only meaning to life is simply what we eat, what we love to do, what we hate, what we accomplish, or what we strive for.  That's it.

Therefore, it makes no difference whether we come from apes or from dust.  What makes the difference is the "image of God" we were stamped with.  This means our ultimate destiny is deification.  If there is no such thing as deification, then "the only meaning to life is simply what we eat, what we love to do, what we hate, what we accomplish, or what we strive for.  That's it."  I don't care if you find out that science teaches you came from chickens, dust, rain droplets, or apes.  It matters not what type of material you were created with, but what are you going to do with yourself in relation to the One who created you.

Zoxsasi

Hi Mina,

Thanks again for your time and support.

I know we've been through this, but there are some points I need help on.

The questions that I need to have answered are:

a) If God created us in His own image, then at which point did He create us if we all came from apes?

b) Did Adam and Eve really exist even? if we came from apes??

c) At which point in the history of mankind were we "stamped" with in the image of God?

@kahan - evolution is a scientific fact.

Kahan

@zoxasi
Good for you.

Scientific facts need extensive experimental or observational validation, which is missing in the case of the theory of evolution. This is why any respected scientist, just looking at the concrete facts, will refer to this theory as ... a theory.

I am not dismissing this theory, by the way. My reply was intended to be accurate in defining evolution.

But whatever floats your boat ...

minasoliman

Hi Zoxsasi, I'll find you a message I wrote awhile ago. Give me some time.

Zoxsasi

@Kahan, What you are saying is homologous to someone saying that Gravitional Theory is simply that: a theory. Its not proven. What I'm telling you is that evolution is scientific fact. 

We've been through this in other discussions. On the contrary, any respected scientist will accept evolution as scientific fact.

Mankind has already been sourced to 2 humans or pre-humans: Scientific Adam and Scientific Eve who were somewhere in Africa, millions of years ago. 

All of us came from the same 2 people millions of years ago.

How does all this come together in terms of God creating us? I do not know.

Are these 2 humans, or pre-humans, God's creation? Where/how did God create us? 

Did God initiate some plan that gave rise to mankind through some Intelligent Design Mechanism that used Evolution and Natural Selection to produce human species as we are today?

One particular atheist professor said something that I found compelling: He said that God could not have created us because the physiological features we have in us (such as the size of our jaws, and teeth) are so unoptimised for their use that any engineer could have done a better job. What this particular scientist failed to conclude, if he was being honest, was that IF God had created us through some Intelligent Design process that depended on Natural Selection & Evolution, he preferred to create us using a system of beauty as a tradeoff for practicality.  

In other words, if God did design the creation, its more or less proof that He leaned towards beauty than practicality. 

Zoxsasi

minasoliman said:

Hi Zoxsasi, I'll find you a message I wrote awhile ago. Give me some time.

I've read the message. 

minasoliman

Ok...I saw them now.

I will help you out on this issue. I think your questions need to be considered in light of your presuppositions, which are what is troubling you.

When I get to a computer I will answer your questions.

minasoliman

Dear Zoxsasi,

One of the most interesting presuppositions I have seen with atheists and with Protestants is that if there is no hint of some sort of unexplainable event, but that if you can explain all of nature with science, then there is no God.  I find that a bunch of malarkey.  It is because of our present day system of being taught that leads us to this sad conclusion.

You want to ask me if I believe God created Adam and Eve?  I not only believe God created Adam and Eve, but He created you and me as well.  He created your nails, your fingers, your skin, your nerves, your brain, your heart, your bowels, etc.  He created your house.  He created your parents.  He created your food that you are eating, and He created the restaurant and market that supplies that food.  He created the trees, and He created the wood of the house, and the wood of the Church, and the wood of the iconostasis.  I ask God that He is the one typing this response to you, not my fingers.

"Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain.  Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen watch in vain." (Psalm 127).

Do you have a car that you drive?  God built it.  Do you take the bus or the train?  God built those and even made the roads and the train tracks.  Do you wear clothes?  God is the one who knit them for you.  Do you have electricity?  God built the framework, and He even built the outlets and appliances that you buy.

God is not one who is not involved in all of man's creation, all that man does that is good.  If a patient I saw is healed, it is God who healed.  If a surgeon removed the problem in a patient, it is God who removed it.  If a scientist found a great discovery that would qualify him/her for the Nobel, it is God who whispered in his/her ear the secrets of His creation.

God has an infinite hand in all things.  We are still free creatures, and the world still freely acts as well.  In fact, are diseases God's will?  Most probably not.  God does not wish for man to suffer, but God has a much better plan for any man or woman who does suffer.  If you get a disease, God becomes sick with you and lifts you up with Him because you bear the suffering blessing of His Son.  If you are distressed, God wants to be with you in your times of distress because you are sharing in the distress of His Son.  God is your all in all.  God's infinite hand is involved in all things good, and when all things bad occur, God is involved in bringing the good out of that bad in your life.  God is not a magician or a charlatan to work wonders to make you believe in Him.  It is in your virtues and your love where you will find God, and then you will see why the questions you ask matter not.  Because even if evolution is true, it is still God who created every single species on Earth.  And when humanity was born, God was especially there for that moment and stamped him with His divine image, to partake of the Holy Spirit.  Man, however, disobeyed God and forfeited the divine life He shared with the Spirit.  That is man's uniqueness in the world.  He is spiritual, and that means he can transcend all that is natural around him, and he can do so now in a unique spiritual way through Christ.

Do not think God is the type of person who turns the clock and He is no longer involved in creation.  He is involved in every split of a second in all the cosmos.  The Big Bang?  God.  The formation of galaxies?  God.  The dynamic forces in physics?  God.  The formation of our solar system?  God.  The formation of the first bacteria?  God.  The formation of animals?  God.  The formation of man?  God.  The formation of you in your mother's womb?  God.  The formation of your own car that you drive?  God.  There is no where and no place and no time that God is never involved.

This is the mystery.  What you are made to believe is deism, not true belief in God.  In true belief, there is no contradiction between what science explains in the "how" of something that is made and what TRUE religion explains in the ultimate "Why" things are made.  He is our "Why".  Why and Who are two sides of the same coin.  He is our purpose and our Life.  He gives us our existence, and He can take it away.  All things exist and continue to exist because of Him.  We are nothing without Him.  Once you understand that, you will then understand that your questions are really the wrong questions to ask.

God bless!

minasoliman

So in the end, when you say something like "did God or evolution create Adam and Eve", that is called a "false dichotomy".  That is like me asking you, "Did God or the sperm/egg fusion create you".  To a man with true faith in God, there is no contradiction.

Zoxsasi

Mina,

Here's what you've written:

"...and when humanity was born," 

If you believe in evolution then Humanity is still being born. At what stage did we become humans? At what period in time did mankind become our species from apes? 

"God was especially there for that moment and stamped him with His divine image, to partake of the Holy Spirit. "

So, what you are saying is that when the Ape evolved into man, God stamped him with His Divine image. It means that we were always prone to death. We were only "spiritually" given eternal life when God "stamped" man. 

What about Eve? Which "man" did God stamp?? And when He told them to be "fruitful and multiply" - who was He talking to?? Mankind was already being fruitful and multiplying.

Joshuaa

I have a question.

If there is a God. Would He of told us in any other way or done anything different than the way He has done it?

Maybe more questions.

If Adam is in the image of God and in the old testament He is light, would Adam be representing Jesus Christ?

minasoliman

Zoxsasi said:

...

If you believe in evolution...

I'm going to refuse answering your question until you answer me this question.  Do you believe in Satan?

Kahan

@ zoxasi

Your analogy between evolution and the gravitational force and acceleration is a good example of a difference between a scientific fact, demonstrated and measured in the lab and in reality beyond doubt, and a theory or hypothesis like evolution, which is an attempt to explain a fact by .... Theorizing with no solid proof.

I do not know of an interrupted chain of archeological discoveries to document the development of apes into humans. There are only the beginning ( a skeleton of an ape) and the end ( a human skeleton) and a theory to replace the non existing scientific evidence.

I leave you at this stage, hoping you develop some critical thinking.

Zoxsasi

@Kahan,

Evolution is scientific fact. Ask Minasoliman to give you the proof. You need to accept it as fact.

Why do you have a problem accepting this as scientific fact??

Name me ONE scientist that does not believe in Evolution of man from Apes?

Tobit

Minasoliman and/or Zoxasi,

could you explain to us, using your own words, how evolution is a "fact" equal to that of 2+2=4? And not still a theory based on inference given the minimal data we have? I'm not asking presumptuously, but genuinely curious.
If "observationally" and "experimentally" evolution is a fact equating to me writing 2+2=4 on a piece of paper then I'd like to understand it better. Because unless it can be observed (which is impossible) or experimented with (pending) then I don't see how it can be called utter and absolute fact. Unless I'm mistaken, in which case I'll welcome any correction.

Another question is, how is all of mankind (currently 7 billion people) at the same level of evolutionary state without some people slightly more or less evolved than others? Would that make sense given that evolution is fluid wave of organic change? Could it be conceivable given what evolution is that we're all the same physiologically?

Zoxsasi

@Tobit,

I'll let Mina explain. He's the one that convinced me its fact. Its now standard science: we came from Apes.

Zoxsasi

@Minasoliman,

Dear Mina,

I believe in God, and hence I believe in the Devil. But God doesn't make any sense (the Christian God) if He didnt create us. If we evolved from other species, it puts into question the existence of Adam and Eve. 

There may have been other men and women BEFORE Adam and Eve. It changes everything for me.

How on earth can you reconcile evolution (i.e. we evolved from Apes) with your Christian faith? Its really beyond me.

minasoliman

Right now Zoxsasi, I'm concentrating on you.  When I have the time, I can explain the other questions other people are asking.  I recommend anyone here who wants to know more about evolution with easy to read language read Ken Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" and Francis Collin's "The Language of God".

If you believe in Satan, how can you believe in God?  That makes no sense to me.

I don't believe in medicine.  I trust medicine may work most of the time, but it is not my purpose in life.  My purpose in life is God.  I do not believe in Satan.  I do not believe in medicine.  I do not believe in my own car or engineering in general.  So I do not believe in evolution or any science either.  I trust the conclusion of science showing the fact of evolution, but to say "believe in" is something I loathe for anyone to say.  I was hoping you get my point when I asked you "if you believe in Satan."  I know you acknowledge his existence, but to say "believe in Satan" is a blasphemous statement.

Now, what is about the last post about God creating all things did you not understand?  If you cannot get that basic issue, then I am sorry, I cannot help you.  I need to destroy in you this supposition that God is not involved in ALL things of life.  If you cannot understand that God built your own house, then I cannot help you answer all the other questions you have.  It is a stage by stage process.  I cannot teach a baby about medicine until he learns his numbers and alphabet.  I cannot answer your other questions if you cannot understand that God is involved in every split of a second in all things.  Otherwise, this "God of the gaps" you seem to believe is a fallacy and will lead to failure of belief.  This is why there are so many atheists who come from Protestants.

God bless.

Kahan

@ Zoxasi

I do not need to accept any theory as a fact as long as it lacks proof from my point of view. I was hoping you could show this undisputed evidence rather than refer me to another poster, regardless of his level of knowledge. It is you who asks, not I.

This position is not motivated by my religious convictions. I held this position as an atheist and as a believer. It is based on looking at scientific facts and judging that they are insufficient. My faith is not threatened by evolution, whether I regard it as fact or theory. Evolution can be accommodated in Orthodoxy if you consider an intelligently directed evolution model.

You asked about scientists who are skeptical of evolution. Try Brian josephson ( atheist), Richard Smalley, Abdus Salam, John Eccles, Ernest Chain, Wolfgang Pauli and Marconi, all of them Nobel laureates in either Physics, Chemistry or Medicine.

Fred Hoyle and Ray Damadian are other notable skeptics of evolution. Charles Townes, the inventor of the first maser and the renowned Nobel laureate is somewhere in between, strongly supporting intelligent design and using it as a platform for evolution.

Joshuaa

I think minasoliman when you say God is involved in all things, you are saying the Holy Spirit is doing it as the Holy Spirit is in everyone.
If the Holy Spirit wasn't in everyone then God couldn't judge anyone.
That brings me to a point where we have a share of inheritance with Christ
So is it blasphemy with the Holy Spirit if our inheritance comes from apes?
When the world is corrupted and ending with earthquakes are we to inherit that firey lake of magma below us or something better when this old world has gone past it'use by date?
I'm sure those apes are closer to the magma right now.

I also think that we live in an analytical world from the age of reason to the present that prove what we see.

God made things so ambiguous, even His name (I Am), so that we require faith.

I think the dangers are that the reasoning that evolutionists use comes from the ego.

Tobit

I must admit, this whole thread is strange and I'd like a bit of clarification on your part, Minasoliman, if you don't mind.
The whole premise that God is involved in everything is correct, but how does that justify evolution.
I can concoct a number of theories and simply follow it up with the statement "God was involved". I understand the point you're trying to convey, but talking about God's omnipotence in this matter does little to prove how factual evolution is. I can say we evolved from dogs, and repeat your second statement of God being involved in everything. Now my second statement is true but that is just a cover for my first statement which may or may not be true.
At best it's fallacious, at worst it's escaping a possibly different reality than evolution that we aren't willing to entertain. With all due respect to your points, I'd like some clarifications. 
What sort of evolution is being posited here? Evolution from a single celled amoeba? Apes? 

God bless

minasoliman

Here is the fallacy both of you are making.  You are equating evolution and science in general with God.  You think it has to be one or the other.  If that was the case, as I said before, then you might as well say, "How can you believe in God and believe in your own parents at the same time?"  Let me give you a bunch of beliefs about God and creation in the world.

1. The most popular is that there is no God.  All the universe is "self-sufficient" to be explained on its own.

2. The next popular belief is that everything that exists is God.  All the universe is "self-sufficient" that it is "uncreated" and should be worshipped as such.

3. The next popular belief is that God created the universe.  But He only created the beginning of the universe, and let's the universe continue in its own creation.

4. The next popular belief is that God created the universe, from beginning to now, and He has chosen who will be saved and who will not.

1 and 2 are both sides of the same coin.  Whether you call all that you can sense God or not does not matter.

3 and 4 is also two sides of the same coin.  Either God does not care by not being involved, or God does not care by being so involved, that He uses us as toys of His makings, not true free peoples.

So far, I have seen in Protestant Christian thought either number 3 or number 4.  And what I see from Zoxsasi and others is that you believe in number 3.  Now you will be offended and say, "NO!!! YOU ARE MISREPRESENTING US."  But am I?  Let me modify number 3 for you:

3.  God created the universe.  But He only created "some things" of the universe, and other things of the universe are on its own.

That is called "God of the gaps".  God of the gaps is not the Pantocrator God of Christianity.  When you are all panicking about evolution, what you are essentially telling me "this is one of those 'some things' of God, not of the 'other things' on its own."  You have no problem with gravity, with exploding stars, with processes of diseases and healing, with embryology, but for some reason, you find it so worrisome for your own souls that God knows whatever reason that evolution somehow violate or endanger belief in God.  The arguments you make are so silly and sophomoric.  God is not some magic hand where, that we replaced with "apes" or "dust".  Is "dust" any better to avoid "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit"?  Really?  

Yes, we live in an analytical world.  That never was different in all of history.  The only difference is nowadays, it is more common for people to ask questions about "analysis of God".  And so anything in the world that "you can't explain" is "proof of God".  That is not what St. Paul meant when he said "the heavens declare His glory".  God is not an analysis.  You are just as guilty of limiting God to a few "unexplained phenomena" of the universe than the atheist who assumes that all explained phenomena makes God more unlikely.  God is likened to a light.  We cannot "see" light, but through this light, we see other things.  The Pharisees who claimed haughtily to Christ that "they see", Christ replied that because they said so, "their blindness remains."  What is it that caused them to be blind?  They limited God to laws and rituals.  They worshipped their own intelligence in memorizing the laws.  They could not possibly expand their concept of divinity farther than just laws and rituals.

I'm not saying accept evolution like me.  But it is petty enough to think that something like evolution somehow steals away from the hand of God in creation.  So what is a Christian concept of God?

+++. God created the universe.  He created all things from beginning to end.  He knows all things from His eternal mind.  And yet there is also a mystery.  There is a freedom that God created the universe with.  He however is still involved in the universe even if there is freedom, and showed us the fullness of this freedom in man himself.  Whichever way science explains the historical creation record and how it connects, it does not in any way lessen God's involvement (since He is involved in every moment of creation until today), but not to the extent that we lose our freedom.

Now you will ask how?  Both statements seem to contradict.  Was not God "especially" involved in man?  Yes, I do believe His Holy Spirit stamped man, even though He is by nature "impermanent" like all other animals, He also created man with the capability to partake of the Word by the Holy Spirit in a full and rational sense.  Man chose to descend to His natural state of death than to transcend His nature into the realm of the divine.  So Christ came and partook of our natural state that by this nature, we may partake of what is beyond nature in Him in a more dignified manner than the first human beings.

But then you still ask "how" do I believe if they seem to contradict.  They only contradict because you are thinking in your own limited human logic.  You think there are only four options to believe in God, but all of these reflect how you can limit God in your understanding, not transcend your own understanding into the divine Light of creation.  Once you can see in that Light, then it might become clear to you that these questions you ask are the wrong the questions.  Still confused?  Well, better for you to have real confusion than false assurance.  That is why we do not explain God by philosophical arguments or scientific analysis, but by prayer and our actions through faith.  Therefore, if you are having trouble, then you should begin to pray and pray hard that you may grow in the faith, and not continue in the milk you continue to drink.  You want the hard meat of faith.  Here it is.  If you can't swallow it, then pray that you may grow to understand it better.

Zoxsasi

Hi Mina,

May God bless you abundantly for your time and effort in educating us. It befits me greatly that you are coming here from a scientific/medical background.

I've learnt quite a bit on tasbeha.org. The 1st thing i've learnt is that God created us impermanent. I always thought that God created us eternal, and we died. So death - physical death, is simply a design intent.

Growing old is part of God's plan.

The next question is how God created us: We know we evolved from apes, but where in all this is the intelligent Design? what is Intelligent Design? Where is God in the creation of the Universe if everything that is existing today, just evolved through natural selection and evolution??

And the big question, the biggest question, the mamma of all questions is this:

If we evolved from other non human species, and other animals also evolved; then who the heck are Adam and Eve?? Did they even exist??

minasoliman

Zoxsasi, you are continuing to make the same mistake.  How is that you are not seeing the "intelligent design" in the most simple things of life, like the rain, the clouds, the grass?  How is you do not see intelligent design in how the water, the nutrients in soil, the sunlight in making plants grow, which all give credence to God, even if we can explain all of that 100% scientifically?  Why is it so bothersome that evolution somehow contradicts God?  Please, I am confused in how you are unable to see this.  How is that you can ask "where is God in creation?"  Is it only when we are created from dust directly by some magic divine hand that it makes more sense to you?

Maybe I'm not sure what you are asking.  If you are asking at what point God breathed man with the Holy Spirit, the Bible never tells us "when" or "how" that happened.  So why is it so important for you to know how?

Joshuaa

I acknowledge and understand the points you are making minasoliman.

However, works done by the Holy Spirit come through to us by the understanding of the Church Fathers. I'm sure none had evolution concept.
Is the Holy Spirit going to inform us or is man's concept?

I don't think you reconcile both and hold an orthodox veiw.

Zoxsasi

Mina,

OK. I see what you mean by intelligent design. fair enough.

But if man did indeed evolve from other animals and was already destined to die, then there's a problem here:

If Adam and Eve sinned, then we inherit that corrupt nature. Hence, we inherit a fallen state. If God intended for man physically to die (i.e. that's part of the intelligent design plan), then our "fallen state" is only a spiritual condition, not a physical one. You agree??

So , if its a spiritual fallen state, how on earth can we inherit that??? how do my sins make my future sons and daughters sinful???

That makes no sense.

Joshuaa

Joshuaa said:

I acknowledge and understand the points you are making minasoliman.

However, works done by the Holy Spirit come through to us by the understanding of the Church Fathers. I'm sure none had evolution concept.
Is the Holy Spirit going to inform us or is it man's concept?

I don't think you reconcile both and hold an orthodox veiw.

minasoliman

Joshuaa said:

I acknowledge and understand the points you are making minasoliman.

However, works done by the Holy Spirit come through to us by the understanding of the Church Fathers. I'm sure none had evolution concept.
Is the Holy Spirit going to inform us or is man's concept?

I don't think you reconcile both and hold an orthodox veiw.

This is a very strange question.  The Church fathers did not have a concept on penicillin either.  I'm not sure this question makes any sense.  Just because the fathers had no concept of the scientific method or advancements in understanding science, does that mean that we should only accept the "science" of the fathers.  Science is not a Church dogma habibi.  It has nothing to do with the Church or with belief in God.  Those who turn science against God, like atheists, are blind idiots.  

The Holy Spirit informs us that God is Pantocrator, and informs us the truth of Christ and our attaining to become like Christ.  That is the central purpose of our faith in the Church.

Zoxsasi, I will answer your question later.

minasoliman

Zoxsasi said:

Mina,

OK. I see what you mean by intelligent design. fair enough.

But if man did indeed evolve from other animals and was already destined to die, then there's a problem here:

If Adam and Eve sinned, then we inherit that corrupt nature. Hence, we inherit a fallen state. If God intended for man physically to die (i.e. that's part of the intelligent design plan), then our "fallen state" is only a spiritual condition, not a physical one. You agree??

So , if its a spiritual fallen state, how on earth can we inherit that??? how do my sins make my future sons and daughters sinful???

That makes no sense.

Okay...thank you for explaining your question more clearly.  We are by nature made from non-existence.  There is no one, not even the angels in heaven, who are "immortal by nature".  Only God is immortal (1 Timothy 6:16).  We are destined not for death, but to be "made immortal" (Wisdom 2).  When God breathed the Holy Spirit into man, man was given the opportunity to maintain the grace of incorruption and immortality he has received.  But, he disobeyed God, and "surely died", not merely physical, but also spiritual.  It's both.

St. Theophilus of Antioch, in the second century, actually taught something even more mysterious.  God created man neither mortal nor immortal, but was given a choice, and he chose mortality.  In the divine liturgy, we pray that God created man "in incorruption".  He did not create man "without corruption" as some priests might say, but "in the divine grace of incorruption", as St. Athanasius taught.

Therefore, death was never something God intended for man.  God gave man the opportunity to transcend even his own physical death, and he instead forfeited it and continued with the rest of the natural world in its state of death and corruption.