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Against Evolution
There is a growing number of militant scientific atheists and I grow tired of hearing spew their hatred and their lies. They scoff at the bible, they scoff at the church, and they scoff at God Himself. These scientific atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett have written books designed to make a person question their beliefs by using science and false logic. The claim evolution is a fact because they have "evidence" that it is true, well who's interpretation is place on the "evidence"? If two people with two opposing views on how the world and man came into being dig up a bone both of them will have a different interpretation of it, based on the evidence so to speak. Should we even consider evolution to be partially true? Absolutely not, it is incompatible with scripture, completely. So we shouldn't even consider it since it cannot logically and scientifically explain the origin or beginning of life. The big bang is the most widely accepted theory as to how everything came into being as this speck of matter just existed, this is where they start off, and it began to spin faster and faster until it exploded and there you have it! there are some problems with this, first the matter came from where? nothing according to scientists, so something from nothing even though we cannot observe this today, whats stopping that from happening again? even more disturbing is where did the space come from? first there had to be space, an area for the matter that came from nothing to exist that would mean time. space HAD to come first for the matter to exist, but why did the space come to be FOR the matter to come into existence out of nothing? this shows a creator not a coincidence. according to science matter just decided to be after space decided it would make room for this matter to exist. sound like a fairy tale? Of course, they apply this term to our belief without being able to explain their own. They reply that it is only a theory and thats how science works. So WE have to try and explain everything to you, without saying it is faith, while you (the scientists) can just say, "its science". It seems as though these militant scientific atheists have traded in the Christian mystery of origins for another unexplainable mystery. Since science deems it necessary to delve into origins then how can we take them seriously if they cannot explain the beginning or the middle, just the end? If evolution is the only way to explain how we came to be, why were all the founders blatantly racist, and why did they support eugenics? Evolution serves as the catalyst to move a person of faith to a person of no faith. No believer can just outright reject God, this is why evolution is so dangerous, it is a delusion.
Comments
I am sorry my friend but I cannot agree with you. Evolution is not a testable theory, it is not observable in any way shape or form, unless you count micro-evolution which is basically adaptation not changing into another species. Evolution is not science it is speculative pseudo-science that trys desperatly to explain away God with what they claim is "evidence" which really is just a simple interpretation of some scientists that makes that particular thing (bones, rock layers microbes etc) evidence. The scientific community accuses us of the same thing they practice. It would be like us telling them that the Eucharist is proof of the existence of God, they will scoff that this notion while we take it serious, its interpretation. Yes the 4 men I mentioned above do actively seek to destroy religion and the faith of unsuspecting people ignorant of the facts. I couldnt disagree with you more.
I am sorry my friend but I cannot agree with you. Evolution is not a testable theory, it is not observable in any way shape or form
if u think about it neither is your belief that God created everything in 6 days
NESS<><
I am sorry my friend but I cannot agree with you. Evolution is not a testable theory, it is not observable in any way shape or form
if u think about it neither is your belief that God created everything in 6 days
NESS<><
that is exactly why its called faith, and i never said i could prove God the Father ever existed, i assert it is the most logical claim, but science by definition is SUPPOSED to be testable, and observable and this theory simply isnt. so why call it fact, or treat it as fact?
I'm not saying whether evolution is true or not, but if it is science, then we should consider science. Are you going to reject the theory of gravity because it says Jesus ascended into Heaven? You know... the one who came up with the theory was a Christian, although there are people who use it against religion. Well at least you believe in micro-evolution. So the problem here is macro-evolution (incl. human evolution)? That all life forms come from a single source? By the way, how old do you think the universe is? I would say faith does not imply "no proof," rather trust. Also, we believe in God because He has revealed Himself to us, not because of evidence.
Darwin was a Christian? First off I do not ever recall Darwin being Orthodox or even a pious protestant. He himself withered away his own belief that God existed. He most certainly was NOT a Christian when Origin of Species came out, and certainly was not a Christian when he wrote Descent of Man. Why is that term Christian applied to just about anyone and everyone who even hints at just believing in Christ. Read his biography and I think you will realize that your statement is incorrect.
The universe is around 7 thousand years old, based on the coptic calendar. Now your probably going to mention two things, the geological column and how it proves me wrong and evolution right, and you'll probably talk about some cosmology. First Charles Lyell's theory is just that, a theory. There is no method of dating that can accurately date each layer to come up with a uniform date of each layer. Besides that there are many anomalies that really throw a wrench into the geologic column, human remains in layers dated 2 billion years, mortar in pestals in same kind of layers etc. Now as far as cosmology, I will wait for you to mention it.
I never said, as the quote shows, that I can prove the existence of God which is what you alluded to in your previous post. Faith IS believing in the unseen, belief that something, in this case God, is there when there is no evidence for His existence, atleast the existence of God the Father. Again I never said we believe in God because of the evidence, what kind of statement is that? I never said it, you implied it, and now you make a point to attack a point I never made. Please don't play silly games.
God asked Job were were u when the heavens were made? .... and so on
the thing is our God is so big so strong and so mighty there is nothing my God can not do
as christians we need to learn how to ask good questions listen to others and follow what God showed us in the bible and give an answer to any one who asks concerning our faith
judgment is Gods job our job is to be faithful
if anyone happens to think they have inside information on how God created the earth speak now or forever hold ur peace but the reality is we dont know we only know that he did and he made it GOOD!
scientist are not dumb they are only trying to answer the important questions Who am I why am i here and what is my purpose?
unfortunatly yes they do try to come up with these aswers with out God in the picture and if u think about it there only doing what there sin nature tells them to do
but we are christians and we ought to be doing what God has called us to do ultimatly they (the world) have to give an accont to God we are not responcible for them we
NESS<><
Entertaining the idea that maybe God used evolution to create the world, well that directly contradicts scripture.
How does it contradict? Which scripture exactly?
What rings a clear warning bell is that it has become an important tool in the hands of atheism (so, who's behind it investing this situation?). Naturalism, humanism (which effectively contain a bunch of anti God and anti humane 'principles'), atheism and materialism are strongly reinforced by this theory.
You can however study it as one of the proposed scientific theories (though I am convinced it is totally non-scientific). Moreover it is being actively imposed as the only one true universal explanation of all things in all research and culture areas.
It contradicts Scripture from paragraph one.
The History of Creation, Genesis 1:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Please watch these:
Unlocking the mystery of life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRfkal_GaC8
No Transitional Forms..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8W88otaPeU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncsBSMmqZaM
Fingerprints of creation
The Seeing Eye (2 parts)
http://www.answersingenesis.org/media/video/ondemand/seeing-eye/seeing-eye
Richard Dawkins admits to Intelligent Design
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoncJBrrdQ8
Who Designed The Designer?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcHp_LWGgGw
Why Is Richard Dawkins So Popular?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcHp_LWGgGw
All Churches believe Scripture (Old and New Testaments) is the highest rock solid reference, the most important and most trustful inspired by God basis for the Christian Faith. What happens if you doubt or cast doubts or stumble believers?
Furthermore, Darwinism old or new implies extreme racism, which is incompatible with Christianity.
GBU
I don't tend to worry about evolution, but at a bare minimum we would need to say that if there were evolutionary timescales and processes involved, at some point God breathed spiritual life into two human beings who were Adam and Eve.
Anything less than this is not Orthodox, and cannot be Orthodox as far as I can see.
Personally. I believe that the universe has an apparent age but is objectively young from God's point of view. It is not possible to create a tree or a river valley or anything without it having an apparent age. Adam appeared to be in his early 20s, let us say, even when he was only a second old. As I say, it is physically and logically impossible to create a world without it having an apparent age. Therefore it is entirely reasonable that the universe might appear to be very old and have been formed by slow, geological processes, but actually be very young.
When God created the stars he created them as gaseous stellar objects which had already an apparent age, and the passage of their light was already created so that they shone on Adam and Eve in their first evening together. He didn;t create the stars and then tell Adam and Eve to wait four years before the first one appeared, and the hang on for a few million years while the rest slowly filled the night sky. Otherwise creation has no meaning. It is not a creation from nothing.
It is impossible for a scientist to show that God did not create the world less than 20,000 years ago with an apparent age of billions of years. It would be impossible for God to create the world out of nothing without it having an apparent age. Imagine creating a tree. If you create it 100 feet tall with 57 tree rings then it has an apparent age of 57 years even though it is only a second old. It is not a con trick. It is a necessity of the miracle of creation. If you create a seed then it still has the apparent age of the tree that bore it, even though that tree never existed. There can be no seed without at least the notional history of the tree that bore it.
Father Peter
[quote author=Ioannes link=topic=8416.msg107127#msg107127 date=1256246228]
I personally believe that evolution destroys faith because it acts as a catalyst for the doubter, whom cannot reject God completely without an explanation.
lol, what are you going to do in high school (assuming you study it where you live)?
I personally believe that evolution destroys faith because it acts as a catalyst for the doubter, whom cannot reject God completely without an explanation.
lol, what are you going to do in high school (assuming you study it where you live)?
I have no idea what you mean by that statement.
What I meant was that something created would appear to have a certain age, and in a sense that would be a real age, a real history, which was created with that creation.
If I created my dog, which is sitting here next to me, then he must have an apparent history, which would appear real to anyone examining him. The fact that he has hair presupposes that each hair has grown over a period of time. The fact he has teeth presupposes that his teeth have all grown over a period of time. And it would be possible for someone to examine his body and describe the processes by which his hair and teeth had grown.
Yet he would be only a second old from my point of view as his creator.
The apparent history is real. A scientist would be able to write a paper about how teeth in a dog grow, and how much they grow each month, and how the various parts of a tooth are formed in the jaw etc etc. And from the point of view of the created history of my dog this would all be true, yet it would also be true that 'at 9:24 am Peter created a dog'.
Therefore, as far as it seems to me, evolution may or may not be part of the created history of the universe. There may or may not be large flaws in the arguments being used to promote evolution, especially when used as a mechanism which denies God. But in the end it doesn't matter to me. I believe that God created this world ex nihilo. And that theological fact is worth more than any scientific exploration of the apparent mechanisms which might or might not have taken place.
I have not been convinced by those who seek to show that the geological and cosmological record etc is consistent with the universe being very young. But I do believe that it is both young from an absolute point of view, and ancient from the point of view of the history with which it has been created.
Try and think of creating something, as though you were omnipotent. What could you create that did not have a built in history? You could not create a star, or a planet, or a galaxy, or a tree, or a fish, or a river valley, or a mountain. All of these which come to mind are the result of a history, and of the effect of processes over time. Therefore you would have to create them with their history. It seems impossible to me for it to be otherwise - and I don't mean I disagree with anyone who says differently, I mean it really seems impossible from a scientific, philosophical, even common-sense point of view.
Father Peter
But in the end it doesn't matter to me. I believe that God created this world ex nihilo. And that theological fact is worth more than any scientific exploration of the apparent mechanisms which might or might not have taken place.
This is a very good point, and we should remember this in all discussion of evolution. Regardless of the specifics of what happened to bring the world to what it is today, there is no disagreement that God is the ultimate cause, and that is the crux of the matter.
Fr. Peter I must say that I don't fully agree with what you've said about the universe's apparent age. As you said, we all believe that God must have created the universe ex nihilo, meaning that the very concept that things must grow and develop over time was created with the universe. If God was the designer of this principle, then in creating a universe with the appearance of age implies that He must have consciously falsified the appearance of the universe. I believe the universe is as old as it appears to be (about 12 billion years) and that the Earth itself is several million years old also because I can't see why God would knowingly give them a false appearance of age, when He wrote the very definition of what it means to 'aged'. (I hope that makes sense :))
Genesis tells us that God created the Heavens and the Earth, and yet we know for a fact that the Earth was not formed supernaturally, but by a purely natural collection of gas and dust by gravity. All the evidence we have tells us that God did not click His fingers and cause the Earth to suddenly appear, rather the universe itself was programmed to support the creation of a planet fit for life in this very spot. So God did create the Earth, but through the agency of the laws of nature which He Himself wrote into the universe. Why could this principle not apply to life on Earth also? In fact I find the notion that God designed the universe so in tune with His will that it simply arranged itself into what it is today completely by itself somewhat more appealing than the notion that He would create the Universe but continually return to tinker with it supernaturally.
I do not feel that this notion conflicts with Genesis, in fact I think that it fits quite well with it. Genesis tells us that the universe was created in several stages, the Days of Creation. However God is omnipotent, if He was going to supernaturally create everything in the universe why would He do it in stages? Why not simply do it all at once? These stages I think are indicative of the way that the Universe was 'programmed' to arrange itself over billions of years. This does not make God impotent nor does it eliminate the need for Him - it only makes Him an infinitely good designer.
Regardless, I think at the moment any objective conclusion about evolution is impossible to reach. There is simply too much controversy surrounding it. We Christians have been hardened against it by its years of use as atheist propaganda, and atheists drawn to it for the same reason. The idea that evolution, if it is true completely undermines religious belief is absurd. Science can never ultimately answer the question of whether or not God exists because science is by definition the study of the natural world, and God (if He is truly to be called God) must exist completely outside of the physical world. Thankfully, as Christians our faith is not reliant on any scientific theory, but on the person of God Himself which will always remain constant and unchangeable.
PPFM
I have no idea what you mean by that statement.
lol, I was saying that... assuming you study it [EVOLUTION] where you live, what are you going to do when they tell you to study and learn it?
I do not agree that the appearance of the universe has been falsified by God.
Can you explain how you would create a forest of trees, with mulch on the floor, and trees of varying heights from shoots, through saplings to great Oaks, without there being an implicit created history?
How would you create a river valley without it having to, by the very nature of things, appear to have been slowly eroding for thousands of years?
What does a planet with no implicit history look like? Surely it would have to be an exactly spherical object? A moon without any implicit created history would have to have no craters.
It seems impossible to me. Either God did simply cause the 'Big Bang' and then let things run, or he created the universe as we see it with an implicit created history. The first seems to me to not fit easily with our theology, the second causes no problems as far as I can see, either for history or theology.
How do you know that the earth was not formed supernaturally? You do seem to have assumed that it must have taken millions of years? I am not sure why that is reasonable since we begin with 'God created' not with 'Scientists say'. All the evidence I have to hand tells me that God did create the universe with the click of his fingers. He commanded and they were created does not fit easily with evolution over millenia. Nor all things were made by him if in fact they were not made by him but by very long lasting natural processes.
Evolution does cause grave damage to the idea of Adam and Eve as our father and mother. How do you fit then into a theistic evolution?
Once again, can you show me how it is possible to create anything in the universe without it having, of necessity, an implicit history? It seems to me to be impossible. If you can show me where I am wrong then I will modify my conviction, but it seems impossible, absolutely impossible, to create a river valley without an implicit history. This is not a falsification of appearances it is a matter of necessity.
It seems wrong to me that we should judge what is appropriate to God from our position WITHIN creation. We do not have the best view. From the viewpoint of the One who matters there is no contradiction between the universe looking ancient and being young.
I must say I am concerned that you say you prefer the idea of God kicking things off at the beginning and then leaving things to work out in accordance with his will, rather than him returning to tinker with his creation. That does seem rather to diminish the whole Christian message of a God who does constantly tinker with his creation and has indeed become part of it. I do not worship a God who set things in motion x billion years ago, but one who works miracles in his world every day.
I am not doubting your faithfulness, not suggesting that it is impossible to maintain some acceptance of evolution and the Faith, but some aspects of your post at the least highlight some of the dangers which lead others into difficult places.
What do you think about miracles? Does God intervene in the world in a direct manner?
Father Peter
If this world came about by an evolutionary process, then God was the author of it.
1. Evolutionary theory as we understand it today relies on mass extinctions and the fact of mortality. Death, as we understand it, came into the world as a result of the sin of Adam. Death is a calamity, not the engine of progress.
2. As far as the time scale is concerned, it seems that human civilisation began about the time usually accepted (in th EO calendar, anyway) for the creation. Before human civilisation, humans (if they already existed), were part of natural history.
I rather want to find compatibility between the notion that the world has existed for Ages, and the Creator God. If God started the ball rolling and then took a back seat then we are talking about Deism, not Theism. So I'm still thinking about it.
Btw, some Orthodox people have recommended Life's Solution by Simon Conway Morris which seems to offer some hope for both sides. Haven't read it yet.
Prayers please
[quote author=peterfarrington link=topic=8416.msg107144#msg107144 date=1256307329]
What do you think about miracles? Does God intervene in the world in a direct manner?
Oh yes definitely, I even personally know several people who have experienced miracles first hand. And my own life would be very different if God had not constantly been guiding and 'tinkering' with it. Of course, if God completely remains outside the universe and does not influence it at all, then Christian faith is largely void. But why would God need to interfere with the universe before we entered it? To demonstrate His power? Surely the fact that He could create universe so complex and so massive is a good enough indication of His potency.
If God did allow the universe to arrange itself without His intervention, then the universe itself could have formed the Earth, allowed life to grow and evolve on its surface for millions of years, but nothing more. When it came time for our fallen race to enter the Earth, supernatural intervention was required. Again, this purely speculative, but once God had placed humanity into the universe (exactly how or when He would've done only He could possibly know) then He had a reason to begin supernaturally intervening with the universe. Once we were here, once we began to go through trials and hardships and face obstacles, then He began to assist and help us by influencing the world around us. When you take into account that God started His influence on the Universe when humanity needed it, the Deist which aidan mentions above vanishes and God is confirmed to be a personal God, who takes a direct interest in each of our lives. But for Him to be personal God does not require that He influenced the natural world when no spiritual beings inhabited it.
[quote author=peterfarrington link=topic=8416.msg107144#msg107144 date=1256307329]
It seems impossible to me. Either God did simply cause the 'Big Bang' and then let things run, or he created the universe as we see it with an implicit created history. The first seems to me to not fit easily with our theology, the second causes no problems as far as I can see, either for history or theology.
Remembering that God is timeless and omnipotent, it is not as though God sparked off the universe and then waited billions of years before touching it again, the entire passage of all these billions of years would have barely registered to His infinite consciousness, to whom everything, from the beginning to the end is completely accessible. God created the universe incredibly large, far larger than it needs to be to support us. If God did this in space, why not in time also? Both these things emphasise both the fact that we are small and weak before God's infinite grandeur but also that we are special, a diamond in the rough of this vast desert of space and time.
[quote author=peterfarrington link=topic=8416.msg107144#msg107144 date=1256307329]
Evolution does cause grave damage to the idea of Adam and Eve as our father and mother. How do you fit then into a theistic evolution?
Of course we can only speculate, I do not have an answer except to say, as you speculated in a previous post that Adam and Eve could have been 'breathed' into two carnal bodies at some point in history. Of course this demands that the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man did not occur in this universe and the Garden of Eden is not a physical place on this Earth. Certainly this challenges the Genesis account somewhat, namely because it says that Adam and Eve were made to name the animals, which suggests that they were in fact upon this Earth. I am not sure about this one...I will have to look into it further.
[quote author=peterfarrington link=topic=8416.msg107144#msg107144 date=1256307329]
Once again, can you show me how it is possible to create anything in the universe without it having, of necessity, an implicit history? It seems to me to be impossible. If you can show me where I am wrong then I will modify my conviction, but it seems impossible, absolutely impossible, to create a river valley without an implicit history. This is not a falsification of appearances it is a matter of necessity.
It would be a matter of necessity for you and me, but not for God. God was not limited by the rule that things must have implicit age. God did not only create the physical universe, but also the logic and ideas which pervade it. I think God could have created an object without an implicit history because He could just as easily have created a round square or make 1+2=5. God wrote these laws Himself, but if He wanted to make it clear to us that He had in fact supernaturally made things why would He give them the false appearance of age?
If God really did create the Earth at a click of His fingers, then why would He place fossils so deep beneath the ground? Why did He give the moon scars which are indicative of processes that occur over millions of years? These and many other things make it very hard to deny that the universe has existed in a deterministic sense for a very, very long time before we were here to see it. The pivotal point is, does the universe actually have a real history or did God give it a history? Ultimately I suppose there is no difference between the two, but there is no evidence to suggest that the history of this universe is anything but real and factual.
[quote author=peterfarrington link=topic=8416.msg107144#msg107144 date=1256307329]
I must say I am concerned that you say you prefer the idea of God kicking things off at the beginning and then leaving things to work out in accordance with his will, rather than him returning to tinker with his creation. That does seem rather to diminish the whole Christian message of a God who does constantly tinker with his creation and has indeed become part of it. I do not worship a God who set things in motion x billion years ago, but one who works miracles in his world every day.
As do I, as I've said at the beginning of this post. Christianity could never work with a Deistic God at its core. God clearly helps us with our own lives and has been an undeniable force for good throughout human history, but there is no Theological demand that God supernaturally tinkered with creation before there was anything supernatural within it. Perhaps it is a symbol of our rebellion and free will, that while the whole universe is completely in tune with God's will and does what He wills without question, we require constant correction and guidance; while everything else is physical and finite, we are unnatural and eternal - made in the image of God, Sons and daughters of God created in His image with our own separate wills, not mindless servants of His will like the rest of the universe.
[quote author=peterfarrington link=topic=8416.msg107144#msg107144 date=1256307329]
I am not doubting your faithfulness, not suggesting that it is impossible to maintain some acceptance of evolution and the Faith, but some aspects of your post at the least highlight some of the dangers which lead others into difficult places.
I do acknowledge that, definitely this notion requires several departures from traditional thought, most troublingly a need to question the literal accuracy of Genesis. We must be careful not to interpret Genesis scientifically, because it is not a scientific text book and was not intended to be so. It is unwise in any situation to interpret a text in any way other than the intention of its author. But as I've outlined before, this theory of a clockwork universe fits quite well with the Genesis creation story - the only significant problem is that of Adam and Eve, which will doubtlessly occupy my thoughts for a while :) As long as we are only speculating I think it is healthy to explore all these possibilities. We need these answers to justify our faith to the world. As we have all said, Christianity does not centre around our beliefs in how God created this universe, only that He did.
[coptic]ari`hmot twbh ehryi ejwi[/coptic]
PPFM
That's what Jesus said (below).
John 11: (NKJV)
Jesus Raises Lazarus From the Dead
38Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39"Take away the stone," he said.
"But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days."
40Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"
41So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."
43When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."
What follows is the usual repeated reaction of the world: some understand and some have fear, misunderstanding, unwillingness and refusal of God's Glory.
The Plot to Kill Jesus
45Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. 46But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
"What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs.
[Note: These KNEW He is Christ, didn't they??]
48If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."
49Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! 50You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."
51He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
Miracles:
From the miracle cited in the verses above I claim to understand better now how a human should figure out: "how does God create?"
- bad odor: laying dead for 4 days means that all tissues ARE decomposing already, no viable cells, fluids, systems, nerves, neurons, eyes, ears and no muscle or bone or any body systems are scientifically possible to be repaired
- no human biological activity is possible anymore: all systems spoiled
- DNA is not intact: cannot be used to make a clone!
- the spirit has left the body
But...
Jesus commands dead Lazarus to rise, and he rises immediately.
Think about this. All the cells/tissues in Lazarus' body (in billions) are perfectly replaced (actually created) by new, viable healthy ones already fully working in tandem and having exactly the same age as before Lazarus death - and his spirit is again tied within. Thus the effects of many years of growth, development, personality and life time experiences are instantly active.
God proved here that when He commands things are created immediately.
It's inseparable of God's Glory.
That is why I like Fr Peter's explanations so much: thank you, very wise indeed.
GBU
Dear epchois
I do not agree that the appearance of the universe has been falsified by God.
Can you explain how you would create a forest of trees, with mulch on the floor, and trees of varying heights from shoots, through saplings to great Oaks, without there being an implicit created history?
How would you create a river valley without it having to, by the very nature of things, appear to have been slowly eroding for thousands of years?
What does a planet with no implicit history look like? Surely it would have to be an exactly spherical object? A moon without any implicit created history would have to have no craters.
It seems impossible to me. Either God did simply cause the 'Big Bang' and then let things run, or he created the universe as we see it with an implicit created history. The first seems to me to not fit easily with our theology, the second causes no problems as far as I can see, either for history or theology.
How do you know that the earth was not formed supernaturally? You do seem to have assumed that it must have taken millions of years? I am not sure why that is reasonable since we begin with 'God created' not with 'Scientists say'. All the evidence I have to hand tells me that God did create the universe with the click of his fingers. He commanded and they were created does not fit easily with evolution over millenia. Nor all things were made by him if in fact they were not made by him but by very long lasting natural processes.
Evolution does cause grave damage to the idea of Adam and Eve as our father and mother. How do you fit then into a theistic evolution?
Once again, can you show me how it is possible to create anything in the universe without it having, of necessity, an implicit history? It seems to me to be impossible. If you can show me where I am wrong then I will modify my conviction, but it seems impossible, absolutely impossible, to create a river valley without an implicit history. This is not a falsification of appearances it is a matter of necessity.
It seems wrong to me that we should judge what is appropriate to God from our position WITHIN creation. We do not have the best view. From the viewpoint of the One who matters there is no contradiction between the universe looking ancient and being young.
I must say I am concerned that you say you prefer the idea of God kicking things off at the beginning and then leaving things to work out in accordance with his will, rather than him returning to tinker with his creation. That does seem rather to diminish the whole Christian message of a God who does constantly tinker with his creation and has indeed become part of it. I do not worship a God who set things in motion x billion years ago, but one who works miracles in his world every day.
I am not doubting your faithfulness, not suggesting that it is impossible to maintain some acceptance of evolution and the Faith, but some aspects of your post at the least highlight some of the dangers which lead others into difficult places.
What do you think about miracles? Does God intervene in the world in a direct manner?
Father Peter
Father Peter, that helped me alot. I totally agree with you. I never thought about it that way.
Thanks for your post about Lazarus.
I hadn't thought about the irreversible damage done at a cellular level by death. This does indeed require a creation which also incorporates a history.
But if we look at other miracles they also require something similar. The man born blind required that God create working eye balls, and these needed to be mature, adult ones. Such that anyone examining them would have said that they were x years old based on their size and maturity yet they had just been created.
When our Lord multiplied the loaves and fishes, each miraculous mouthful looked and tasted exactly like a loaf that had been baked earlier that day, made from grain which had taken months to grow, and which had been planted from seeds that had grown the year before, or looked and tasted exactly like a fish that had been growing for several months, had been spawned earlier that year and had been dried a few weeks before, perhaps. This was not a 'falsified history' by God, but was a necessary part of his act of miraculous creation.
What would a loaf with no apparent history look like? I cannot even conceive of such a thing. And we cannot say that God can do anything, for he clearly is limited by his own nature. He cannot cease to exist for instance. Within our universe there is no possibility of describing a loaf or a fish created without an apparent history. Indeed in regard to the loaf we can even imagine the implied history leaving marks from the kneading, and grains from the wheat that was never baked in reality but truly is perceived as having been baked to the human eye and mind.
Father Peter
Indeed, all of God's works are glorious and always perfect. Please add to this the state of the optical centers in the born blind man's cerebral cortex: it is known that if these were not trained to translate and interpret visual impulses (while collaborating and interacting with other numerous brain centers) which must be working very early during infancy - otherwise even if the eyes are physically miraculously restored there were neither neuronal connections nor their necessary information for correct visual perception. So here also the Lord made it possible by instantly creating fully all this time lapsed complex obligatory status.
Thank you Father Peter for illuminating me with this long time searched logical common sense view.
We should also make good notice of the fact that in the born blind man's newly created eyes Jesus used earth dust mixed with His own saliva - while He could just issue His command vocally or spiritually, e.g. like in many healed leprous cases and the healed paralytic. Wasn't Adam created from dust this way?
GBU
Thank you for the insights you have provided from physiology. They have been very useful to my own thinking.
God bless
Father Peter
GBU