Christianity and Evolution

Romans 5:12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

If the pre-historic animals as they are called existed before Adam then they would not have died according to Paul, death entered into the world when sin entered the world through Adam.

1 Corinthians 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

Adam was the first living soul, that would exclude any animals living prior to creation.

 

based upon original question as asked...

CAN one be a Christian and believe in it?
Yes, as thing that will deny one eternal life is refusing to place faith in Jesus Christ, and receive eternal Life in his name...

BUT
SHOULD one believe in Evolution and be a Christian...

NO

bad science involved, it denies their is a God who created all things, denies man as a special creation of God, denies literal truth of genesis...

One MIGHT be able to be a Thesitic one, by allowing For God as Creator, and that he used it to guide lif eon earth, almost an Intelligen Designer arguement, but that position to me atrikes as being too muc leaning on trying to 'shoe horn" truth of God word int o accomandating modern science!

best bet just stick with God creating Life, man as His special creation...

 

Theistic Evolution was began as a way of explaining evolutions belief in an old earth and still holding to creation. God creted the ameba that began life and then when it stopped progressing God helped with a little more progress and the Evolutionary process continued. As the life forms halted in development God would add a little more and let it progress till it needed His help again. So the Theistic Evolution process went.

 

basic problem with that though is Genesis seems to indicate that God made ALL Things after its OWN kind in the beginning...

IF you mean that there was/is evolution in species that would be acceptable...
example would be God created male/female 'dog" and within them is genetic template for ALL coming dogs, based upon the climate they migrated into, size, etc
BUT
would still NOT see a species cross evolving from 1 kind into another, cat to dog!

 

You get me wrong I was explaining the basic premise of Theistic Evolution didn't say I believed it.
Too much scientific evidence of a young earth and man having only been here a very short time.

So the basic problem with Theistic Evolution I whole heartedly agree with you on.
I had to write a paper on it for one of my science classes in Bible college. So what I wrote here was in a book on the subject abd in my paper.

 

Eve became the transgressor because Adam was a weak man...Gen 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Adam was right there watching the whole thing. Why didn't he stand up as the head of the household and grab that fruit, throw it into the bushes and scold her? He knew the truth, He's the one who was told by God. Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Had he not fulfilled his husbandly duty of teaching his wife God's commands? He certainly didn't fulfill his husbandly duty of protecting his wife from Satan's wiles.

Eve may have sinned but it was Adam's fault she did so.

 

It is amusing to read all the variant concepts of theistic evolution. It reminds me of all the different viewpoints on calvinism and arminianism. Everyone knows, it seems, but what is their source? I suppose it comes from an inaccurate source which creates yet another error, and the opposition eminates from error rather than thorough thought.

It is said that Adam and Eve had 27 offspring, yet only three are named. Adam lived 900 years according to the bible. How many years after Adam's death did Moses pen Genesis?

Just some food for thought.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Moses is said to have used the family septer to write what was there. The ancients it is said wrote the family history on a staff in the form of a shepherds staff that carried the lineage of the family and that is where Moses wrote it from. So if it is incorrect it was incorrect as passed down from father to son.

 

Read the verse again, especially the part "death passed upon all MEN". No mention of sin affecting animals in this verse (animals don't sin), therefore the door is open to animal death prior to the fall.

 

Umm...no, that's not theistic evolution.

 

but do theistic Christians believe that God was the Creator of life?
that God created all things after their OWN kind in the original creation?
that Genesis is literally, not myth/allogorical pose?
that God created man as a special creation, man did not 'evolve" from a lower/prior homid being?
That God would allow evolution within same species but NOT across species?

 

The sources of my research explained it that way, I'll go back and double check in the mean time please give your view on what Theistic Evolution teaches.

 

I'm not a theistic evolutionist, but your definition,

is inaccurate. Theistic evolution states that God's hand was continually on the process, not "helping it along when it stalled." Also, I doubt that theistic evolutionists would state that God created the ameba and all life flowed from that point.

 

Yes.

Can't answer these questions, as I don't know.

 

Jim, please explain the following:

a) how those pre-evolved pre-humans who lived and died before Adam and Eve died when the Bible says there was no death yet. More to the point, the Bible describes man as being completely ensnared by sin after Adam’s fall (Romans 7:18-19). But in evolution, sin is made meaningless, and that is exactly the opposite of what the Holy Spirit does—He declares sin to be sinful. If sin is seen as a harmless evolutionary factor, then one has lost the key for finding God, which is not resolved by adding ‘God’ to the evolutionary scenario.

b) why the Bible calls death "the last enemy" when you claim that God used it as a beneficial tool. Why ascribe death to God, when the Bible says that it's the result of sin?

c) what it was about God's creation, called "very good" (Genesis 1:31) and "perfect" (Deuteronomy 32:4) that was so incomplete that He had to continue on by trial and error to bring it to completion.

d) Why did Jesus, in His statement about the creation account in Matthew 19:4-5, appear to be ignorant about the idea of theistic evolution?

e) If theistic evolution does not acknowledge Adam as the first man, nor that he was created directly from ‘the dust of the ground’ by God (Genesis 2:17) then the creation account must be merely a mythical tale, albeit with some spiritual significance. However, the sinner Adam and the Saviour Jesus are linked together in the Bible (Romans 5:16-18). How can the same heretical view of creation that mythologizes Adam preach a true, literal Christ? By believing in a mythologized first Adam, you attack the Biblical basis of the redemptive work of the Second Adam.

f) In no other historical book do we find so many and such valuable statements of purpose for man, as in the Bible. For example:

Man is God’s purpose in creation (Genesis 1:27-28).
Man is the purpose of God’s plan of redemption (Isaiah 53:5).
Man is the purpose of the mission of God’s Son (1 John 4:9).
We are the purpose of God’s inheritance (Titus 3:7).
Heaven is our destination (1 Peter 1:4).

However, the very thought of purposefulness is anathema to evolutionists. Evolution, by nature is random and not purposeful. Therefore, a belief system such as theistic evolution that marries purposefulness with non-purposefulness is a contradiction in terms.

 

Theistic Evolutionist in most cases see God as greating a small life form millions of years ago. Then as that life needed help devloping He would help it along until finally man was able to become a human being. Again let me back to where I look at my paper I wrote and the sources of what I found.

 

It was taught as fact in my high school in the 1960's. Also, one day in the school cafeteria a teacher pushed a cart through the room, and we were told to surrender any Bibles we had.

 

Which taking the Bibles was illegal then and is still today.

 

I did not vote, because there is no choice that matches what I know and hold about the subject.

First, can one be a Christian and an "evolutionist?" If you are defining evolutionist as a pure naturalist -- one who holds to a fully mechanistic and naturalistic means for the cosmos, and all life within it to come about -- then no. It is impossible for a Christian to also be an "evolutionist, for that would mean setting aside the tenets of a supernatural Divine Being that we all hold in common, and as expressed in the Scriptures.

Second, can one be a Christian and hold certain "evolutionary tenets?" I would have to say, yes, but with qualification. I believe that we can find AMPLE evidence that evolution exists. The modification of species by the gradual change in their cell structure based on environmental factors, genetic defects that are passed along, etc., are all amply demonstrated. Even the uber-conservative Genesis Museum holds to this sort of evolutionary evidence. We see it every day -- breeds of dog, cat, cow, horse, etc., etc., etc., and yes, even humans, who are now different due to genetic changes.

This level of evolution is called "micro" evolution. While a dog or a cat or a cow may change into different size and appearance factors over time with genetic selection, they are yet -- ALWAYS -- dog, cat, etc. A dog does not become a cat, nor does a mud puddle become a man.

Third, there is another level of evolution called "macro" evolution, whereby those small genetic changes that make for differing species are held to also allow for the potential of that creature (plant, animal, human, virus, etc.) to become SOMETHING ELSE. We do not hold to that level of evolution, for God tells us plainly that all things will reproduce according to "kind."

I believe that we go off the deep end when considering this issue, largely because of the loaded (and poorly defined) terms. We hear the "E" word and have a similar reaction to people of color when the "N" word is applied. The term "evolution" is not a dirty word. We can learn about it, properly apply what we observe in nature alongside what it is that God reveals, and hold the tenets that do not violate God's Word or our faith in a supernatural Creator.

EDIT:

By the way, science has currently struck out (for the most part -- they are still trying and spending a LOT of our $$$) in their efforts to demonstrate how life could have arose by chance in a purely naturalistic means. That in large part is what is driving their effort to find extra-terrestrial life, either on some of the planets in our own solar system or farther into the cosmos. They have invented a mult-verse scenario whereby a First Cause to the cosmos seems to be eliminated (I say "seems" because they have not really eliminated the need for a First Cause, they have only pushed back the purported boundaries to a point where they can NEVER be tested!). They have decided that life on earth must have been "seeded" (called "panspermia").

One particular movie had a great ending clip "Mission to Mars" that exemplifies one way that many in Science are looking at the origins of life on earth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvISV0wGusU

Other ways are seeding via asteroid, meteor, comet, or space dust.

 

Amen Brother Allan!

And my answer too is that I find them incompatible but have known Christians that do believe in theistic evolution.