I’m glad that you are enjoying it as well!

For what it’s worth, I finally got my [Galatians] tag at top to sort in the right order so that will make it easier to find where you last were.

We can be in the reductionist stance, or we can be in a theological stance, and we can alternate between these stances depending on whether we’re doing science or theology, but we can’t be in the middle. To me, the people who want to smuggle naturalism into their theology are just trying to bend their theology to remake it in their own image. You see a lot of that these days, even with people who don’t hold to theistic evolution. People are so accustomed to deconstructing and objectifying the world that they think they can do it with theology.

FWIW, even under a completely naturalistic and atheist worldview, I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to talk about us sharing heritage with the apes. The staunchest atheists will admit that our capacity for 4th and 5th order intentionality is unique and definitive to humans and places us on an entirely different plane of existence. We share heritage with apes in the same way that apes share heritage with plants, or that plants share heritage with chemicals.

JS Allen:

So, here’s the way I think of it. It’s clear that some people opposed to Christianity are determined to use “science” to claim that the Bible is wrong. If the Bible talks about an earth that is flat, or about a sun that revolves around the earth, then we can just throw out the whole Bible, they say.

Do you know my Dad? Seriously?

IMO, it’s very foolish for Christians to accept these rules of engagement and insist that the Bible must harmonize with the scientific theory du jour. As soon as we engage in these debates, we’ve implicitly validated the claim that the Bible is a science textbook, or that the Bible derives its authority from it’s consistency with naturalist science. To me, that’s a terrible trap to fall into. We become complicit in undermining Christianity.

I totally agree. Science often contradicts science – by equating science with the Bible we’re placing it on a level playing field. The Bible is God’s written word, recorded through man. If I take anything as a superior text, it’ll be that one.

So, when I’m reading the Bible, or using day-to-day language, I say that the sun rises and sets. But if I were asked to design a guided missile, I would say that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. Of course, the Bible is infinitely more important to my life than the guided missile is, but I’m not convinced that it’s a sin to design navigation systems that treat the earth as if it revolved around the sun. For most matters in life, we say the sun rises and sets, and we are justified in mocking or ignoring anyone who wants to force a false dilemma between the two ways of looking at things.

Agreed

Likewise with evolutionary theory. For the most important purposes in life, death entered the world through Adam’s sin. It’s pretty simple. But when I’m predicting viral loads in patients infected with a retrovirus, I take the DNA similarities between apes and humans seriously, and I benefit greatly from models derived from evolutionary theory that show how things adapt under selection pressure.

Similarity in function and design is one thing. Presuming heritage is another.

Overall, these examples are all instances of a larger issue. The issue is that modern science is fiercely reductionist, and the reductionism works well for the limited goals of science. But you always have a choice of looking at things in a more or less reductionist way. In one sense, it’s accurate to say that humans are “made of meat”, or “bags of mostly water”, or “collections of body parts”. If you’re performing neurosurgery, you have to think of my wife as a physical object composed of neurons and other things. But at another level, my wife is a person, and this means far more than the component parts.

Again, I totally agree with you here.

So who is right? Am I foolish to consider my wife to be a person who was formed in the image of a Person? Should I allow the reductive “collection of body parts” stance take precedence over the soul? Emphatically, no! When doing surgery, we take the reductive stance, of course. But it is always subordinate to the stance that takes the person as primary.

My question was directed toward those who hold to a stance of atheistic evolution when it comes to origins, yet hold to a theological stance of theistic evolution and its implications on the Gospel. Not those who use genetic similarities to track disease, nor those who are involved in animal testing of drugs, nor, well, anything else. I wholeheartedly agree that great science can be and has been accomplished on the basis of using human analogues for specific testing and ideas. I do not, however, agree that we are ancestrally related to apes. God, in His wisdom, has created many things in this world and has done so with much variation while utilizing the same general overarcing design. Could God have created us such that we breathe through our hands and expel waste through our eyes? Yes, but is it necessary? Similarity implies similarity, not heredity. That’s my view.

biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions.

Right. The changes you were talking about, which lead to speciation, are not the “slight” changes, though. They are the “substantial” changes. The changes that lead to speciation are not typically considered to be “imperceptible” in any way.

I was referring to the spontaneous regeneration of matter – I can’t find a single natural law that dictates that process, and only those that state the exact opposite.

Right, there are lots of things that naturalistic science can’t explain yet, but science will happily accept a theory as soon as it “saves the appearances”. Regeneration of limbs doesn’t seem too high a bar for science to eventually accommodate, since some animals regenerate limbs. There is probably a higher hurdle to clear in the spontaneous generation of life. Vic Reppert had a good post on this. Al Moritz, who appears in the comments, is a practicing biochemist and Christian, and has written a really interesting paper on the topic.

Therefore, mankind is a descendant of apes. Apes are descendants from some form of mammal who was a descendant from some form of aquatic creature who was a descendant from some form of simpler life form, etc. Death is a requirement in this context as the new creatures would not be able to survive if every preceding life form were still alive and fighting for the same resources.

I think the current theory is that men and apes came from a common ancestor — not that men came from apes. But it’s roughly the same difference. At a minimum, modern science would agree that we share a common “ancestor” in the mud.

So, here’s the way I think of it. It’s clear that some people opposed to Christianity are determined to use “science” to claim that the Bible is wrong. If the Bible talks about an earth that is flat, or about a sun that revolves around the earth, then we can just throw out the whole Bible, they say. IMO, it’s very foolish for Christians to accept these rules of engagement and insist that the Bible must harmonize with the scientific theory du jour. As soon as we engage in these debates, we’ve implicitly validated the claim that the Bible is a science textbook, or that the Bible derives its authority from it’s consistency with naturalist science. To me, that’s a terrible trap to fall into. We become complicit in undermining Christianity.

So, when I’m reading the Bible, or using day-to-day language, I say that the sun rises and sets. But if I were asked to design a guided missile, I would say that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. Of course, the Bible is infinitely more important to my life than the guided missile is, but I’m not convinced that it’s a sin to design navigation systems that treat the earth as if it revolved around the sun. For most matters in life, we say the sun rises and sets, and we are justified in mocking or ignoring anyone who wants to force a false dilemma between the two ways of looking at things.

Likewise with evolutionary theory. For the most important purposes in life, death entered the world through Adam’s sin. It’s pretty simple. But when I’m predicting viral loads in patients infected with a retrovirus, I take the DNA similarities between apes and humans seriously, and I benefit greatly from models derived from evolutionary theory that show how things adapt under selection pressure.

Overall, these examples are all instances of a larger issue. The issue is that modern science is fiercely reductionist, and the reductionism works well for the limited goals of science. But you always have a choice of looking at things in a more or less reductionist way. In one sense, it’s accurate to say that humans are “made of meat”, or “bags of mostly water”, or “collections of body parts”. If you’re performing neurosurgery, you have to think of my wife as a physical object composed of neurons and other things. But at another level, my wife is a person, and this means far more than the component parts.

So who is right? Am I foolish to consider my wife to be a person who was formed in the image of a Person? Should I allow the reductive “collection of body parts” stance take precedence over the soul? Emphatically, no! When doing surgery, we take the reductive stance, of course. But it is always subordinate to the stance that takes the person as primary.

JS Allen:

The Bible is the infallible word of God on all matters of theology, so that’s the master text.

I have no beef with you. We’re golden.

The laws of nature state that it is impossible

Huh? Where are you getting that? Is there a “laws of nature” book that says these things are impossible? Thomas Jefferson thought it was impossible for rocks to fall from the sky, but now we know that the “laws of nature” are compatible with meteors. My grandfather was pronounced dead, put in the morgue, and came to life 2 days later. What do scientists say? Scientists will sat that it was possible according to the laws of nature, since it happened.

I was referring to the spontaneous regeneration of matter – I can’t find a single natural law that dictates that process, and only those that state the exact opposite.

Was God, in your opinion, just the guy who kicked off everything by initiating the big bang, then stepping away

Of course not. As any competent Christian theologian will tell you, God created time and exists outside of time. Christ is the alpha and omega; the beginning and the end. Every moment is sustained by God. Saying that God superseded nature at the beginning, but not after, shows a deep confusion about God’s relation to time. God is *always* super to nature.

Just getting your stance on origins.

For Christianity to make sense, there has to be an offended party (God) and a reason for Him to be offended

Christ was, emphatically, NOT a plan B. It’s not as if God said, “Oh, drat! I never expected that! Time to figure out a way to respond to Adam’s rebellion!” There is no place in Christian theology for the heretical notion that Christ was a plan B; theologians throughout the ages are consistent on this point.

I totally agree. God created the universe to display His communicable characteristics of long suffering, justice, love, etc. The plan from the very beginning was that of a course of redemption. Christianity as a religion hinges on the fact that God was offended (by design) through man’s rejection of His perfect law (only codified in the ten commandments some 3,000 years later) and the redemption that was promised to Eve was presented through Christ who is present in the old testament through types, shadows, prophecy, and Christophanies. The good news that God has made peace with mankind (specifically with those whom He has elected to salvation) through Jesus means nothing if no one has sinned before Him. Fwiw, I’m also an adherent to the doctrines of grace.

through trillions of successive imperceptible changes

No evolutionist believes this; it’s incompatible with the idea of natural selection.

“In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution … is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions.”

- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986
Source: talkorigins.org definition of evolution

So, outside of those evolutionists then…

where upon God finally stepped in and made His first covenant with man

As we already discussed, God doesn’t “step in”, and there are no “Plan B”s. God was there all along.

As a covenantal Christian I see that God has made numerous successive covenants with mankind, some where He is the one who promises to do things (Abrahamic, Noahic, and Davidic Covenant) and others where man is the one who needs to either do or not do certain things (Adamic and Sinatic covenants), all superseded by the Covenant of Grace as initiated and maintained by Jesus. I wasn’t stating a “plan b”, but rather God interacting with mankind to provide context and direction in a specific circumstance.

how is it that death is a consequence of sin when it existed long before man was even possible

What does it mean to say, “before man was even possible”? Before He created time, God knew your name. The “possibility” of you, Adam, or me existing was already there, long before the first life, let alone the first death. And God knew that we would sin.

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, and that sin entered the world through Adam. What more do you need?

This is in reference to an atheistic evolutionary mindset whereby man was an evolved creature. Most theistic evolutionists that I’ve encountered (49/50) believe in the basic tenets of Darwininan evolution with the mere addition that instead of the requirement for spontaneous generation of life from non-living material that God stepped in and inserted the “seed of life” from which all life on this planet erupted. Therefore, mankind is a descendant of apes. Apes are descendants from some form of mammal who was a descendant from some form of aquatic creature who was a descendant from some form of simpler life form, etc. Death is a requirement in this context as the new creatures would not be able to survive if every preceding life form were still alive and fighting for the same resources. Does that make sense?

if part of the Bible is accurate and part of it is fairy-tale

I don’t think that framing makes any sense. Although the Bible was never intended to be a science textbook, it is never a “fairy tale”. It is authoritative in its entirety. We don’t get to pick and choose pieces.

Again, we’re golden. This defines everything I need to know about your view on theology.

To answer some of your questions about theology, it’s hard to know where to start, so I’ll just respond in the order that the questions were presented.

Does God supercede the laws of nature or is He limited by them in what He does?

God *created* the laws of nature. Every moment of every day is a continuous miracle, wherein God sustains creation through his power. Why would He create laws that didn’t fulfill his will?

The laws of nature state that it is impossible

Huh? Where are you getting that? Is there a “laws of nature” book that says these things are impossible? Thomas Jefferson thought it was impossible for rocks to fall from the sky, but now we know that the “laws of nature” are compatible with meteors. My grandfather was pronounced dead, put in the morgue, and came to life 2 days later. What do scientists say? Scientists will sat that it was possible according to the laws of nature, since it happened.

Was God, in your opinion, just the guy who kicked off everything by initiating the big bang, then stepping away

Of course not. As any competent Christian theologian will tell you, God created time and exists outside of time. Christ is the alpha and omega; the beginning and the end. Every moment is sustained by God. Saying that God superseded nature at the beginning, but not after, shows a deep confusion about God’s relation to time. God is *always* super to nature.

For Christianity to make sense, there has to be an offended party (God) and a reason for Him to be offended

Christ was, emphatically, NOT a plan B. It’s not as if God said, “Oh, drat! I never expected that! Time to figure out a way to respond to Adam’s rebellion!” There is no place in Christian theology for the heretical notion that Christ was a plan B; theologians throughout the ages are consistent on this point.

through trillions of successive imperceptable changes

No evolutionist believes this; it’s incompatible with the idea of natural selection.

where upon God finally stepped in and made His first covenant with man

As we already discussed, God doesn’t “step in”, and there are no “Plan B”s. God was there all along.

how is it that death is a consequence of sin when it existed long before man was even possible

What does it mean to say, “before man was even possible”? Before He created time, God knew your name. The “possibility” of you, Adam, or me existing was already there, long before the first life, let alone the first death. And God knew that we would sin.

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, and that sin entered the world through Adam. What more do you need?

Do you believe in the creation narrative found in Genesis

Of course I do.

Which is your master text? That of modern science or that of the Bible

The Bible is the infallible word of God on all matters of theology, so that’s the master text.

if part of the Bible is accurate and part of it is fairy-tale

I don’t think that framing makes any sense. Although the Bible was never intended to be a science textbook, it is never a “fairy tale”. It is authoritative in its entirety. We don’t get to pick and choose pieces.