Evidence for God from Science

Jac3510 wrote:I had forgotten about this thread and was content to let it go until I read this:

I knew it'd catch your eye eventually .

Before I go on responding, let me state unequivocally and for what it's worth, I am not an evolutionist, TE or otherwise. I must admit I do see merits in it, however, and Jac what you said is certainly not without merit either.

Jac3510 wrote:

Byblos wrote:The moment of "human" creation so-to-speak is then shifted from an evolutionary standpoint to a theistic standpoint when God gave Adam anf Eve the gift of soul, conscience, reason (hence the first humans are born in the image of God at that time 30, 20, 10, whatever thousand years ago). That is what I consider to be the moment of special creation.

Appeals to Catholic doctrine aside, it has been well demonstrated, I believe on the main page, that both humans and animals have "souls"--they both are described as having a nephesh. We have no biblical basis, then, on which to say that we have souls and animals don't. Thus, the mythical "endowment of the soul" cannot be used as a basis on which to try to reconcile TE with the Bible.

All living beings have souls (nephesh) but none like a human's that was fashioned after God's image, unless you want to argue that all living beings were made in God's image. That distinction alone keeps TE in the running as far as I'm concerned.

Jac3510 wrote:As to your other question to me from some time ago . . .

I don't disagree with you at all Jac. I'm well aware that dust most likely is dirt and dirt from the surface of the earth at that. What I'm trying to say is the ENTIRE planet earth is the stuff of stars Jac. At least that's what astrophysics tells us. Now I've been reading a lot lately on star and planet formations and as it turns out, planets are the leftover stuff when new stars are born. This leftover stuff coallesce and forms into rotating planets around their mother stars. As it also turns out, it takes 3 cycles of star/planet births and deaths for enough life-capable material is produced but that's enough on that for now.

The point again is that the planet earth, including its surface dirt, is star dust by origin so there's no contradiction with Genesis. And another important point to mention is that astrophysics is not a theoretical science nor is is experimental but it is observational by definition. That's what we observe happening (or happened a few billion years ago).

The entire planet may be made of out star-stuff, but the entire planet is not made out of dirt. The Bible says that man was made out of dirt. It does not say that man was made out of the stuff that dirt was made of. It takes a rejection of the plain meaning of the word to hold to TE.

Unless you want to argue that earth's surface dirt has some kind of origin other than a cosmological evolution I don't see your point. Surface dirt came from the earth, earth came from the remains of our sun's formation, ergo our physical origin can be traced back to the star stuff. It's not a gigantic leap of logic.

Jac3510 wrote:Now, you can certainly do that, but you cannot, then, tell me that you take Genesis 2 literally. And hey, that's fine, too. That just means you have a different method of interpretation. Of course, if you are allowed to take one part non-literally, why not the rest, too?

As per above, I do not have a different method of interpretation.

Jac3510 wrote:

I'm not disagreeing that it could have been instantaneous (physically). I'm disagreeing that text clearly implies instantaneous pertaining to the physical part. It could just as well pertain to the spiritual part, the instance God made us into his image.

If taken literally, it doesn't imply it. It states it explicitly.

Instantaneous perhaps in our limited understanding of time as we are bound by it. Tell me, how long is a billion years to a timeless being? To Him all is instantaneous.

Jac3510 wrote:

Yes, I do know that but you also know I'm no ordinary evolutionist.

I'd prefer you not to be an evolutionist at all, Darwinian or otherwise.

Thankfully I am afforded the luxury to choose.

Jac3510 wrote:

Well I have communicated with you on many occasions with back-and-forth clarificationns and counter-arguments to refine our respective positions to one another. How many times have you done that with Moses?

Have you ever spoken to a person once and never talked to them again? Perhaps you ordered a cheeseburger once from a fastfood joint and have never been back. Now, without getting to know that person and they you, how could you possibly know what the other was saying?

Answer: no relationship is necessary to find out what a person means. Words, in context, have meanings. Objective meanings. The fact that we can debate on what Moses meant proves that to be the case. If it is true that I can't really know what Moses meant, we ought to walk away now and give up ALL of biblical study, including the part that relates to salvation. We can't know what words REALLY mean. You will, of course, appeal to your Church Authority, but that does you no good either. How do you know what THEY mean? You can sit down and have a direct conversation with the Pope for all I care. You can be present when he speaks ex cathedra. It doesn't matter if we can't know what words mean.

If, though, we CAN know what words mean, then my point stands vindicated. Moses' words have meaning in context. We can know precisely what was on his mind my looking at his words. If you deny that, you deny the very basis on which you try to know the Catholic Church's interpretations as well.

No I would not deny the basis on which I try to know the Catholic church because I believe only the Catholic church has what you claim is an individual right, that being the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But we are getting way out of the intended path of this thread.

Jac3510 wrote:

I reject that solely on the basis that we cannot possibly know exactly what Moses meant simply because we cannot ask him. Anything short of that is private interpretation (the evidence of that is abundant).

See above. What is the difference in the written and spoken word? Even if he were to explain himself in different words, the assumption that we can't know what words mean still stands. If we can't know what words mean, then MORE words aren't going to help, no matter how many there are.

The problem here is that Moses made a very clear statement. Man was made from dirt. That is as clear as anything else in Scripture. The fact that people have a hard time believing that does not justify them in saying, "Well maybe that's not what he REALLY meant here, and since I cant' ask him, I declare that we cannot know!" If that is the case, then we are just as justified in taking EVERY clear statement that we don't like and rejecting it as unintelligible. I don't like the Resurrection? Fine. I say it never happened, and the Apostles had something in mind that we can't possibly know about.

Since we can't take that view, we are left with the obvious way. Take Moses to mean exactly what he wrote. Man was made from dirt. Plain old dirt--the kind you find on the ground. That is what he said. That is what he meant. That is what he thought. That is what was on his mind. That is what was in God's mind. That is what really happened.

I have no doubt that Moses meant that we were made out of dirt. The doubt I have is that Moses made a distinction in his mind that this making was done instantaneously as he understood the meaning of time.

Jac3510 wrote:

Why is that? And more importantly, who decides? (oh no, back to that dreaded subject of authority? I hope not).

It doesn't matter who decides if we can't know what words mean. Let's concede that someone in your church gets to decide. Fine. We can't know what words mean, though, so there is no way to know what THEY really mean.

Question, Byblos: who decides what your Church means? You? Uh oh . . . looks like we still have that blasted private interpretation after all.

God does, as He promised his church would happen (but I'm afraid this is going to degenerate into a Catholic doctrine discussion and I so wish it would not).

Jac3510 wrote:edit: Keep in my that you accept as authoritive something the majority of us do not--the Church. If the Church were to come out tomorrow and declare ex cathedra that God created using TE, you would be required to believe it (whether you would or not is another issue). It wouldn't matter if I said, "But you are allegorizing the text!" You would say, "Fine. That's their right."

If the church were to do so I would not hesitate to believe it to be the truth (I say this knowing full well where this is going to lead).

Jac3510 wrote:The difference in us, then, is one of heremeneutics. For you, interpretation is NOT rooted in the objective meaning of words. It does not MATTER what the Bible literally says. None of that matters. All that matters is what the Church says that it means, regardless of the hermeneutic implied. Now, that's fine. There is nothing wrong with that. It's a method just like the literal-historical-gramamtical method is a method, and one, or both, of our methods must be wrong.

That's the point I don't get because I don't see a difference between your method of interpretation and mine. I do still see scripture in plainest, literal sense.

Jac3510 wrote:I'm just saying that let's not fudge here and try to talk about what Moses did or did not mean. Language and words matter no more to you than science matters to me. My authority is in the objective meaning of words. Nothing else outside of that ultimately matters. Yours is in the Church. Nothing else outside of that ultimately matters.

In a sense that is correct that I see the church as the ultimate interpretive authority but I'm afraid this statement will overshadow the fact that we also believe that is precisely how Christ intended it, under the divine guidance. But again, this is not the place for such matters.

All living beings have souls (nephesh) but none like a human's that was fashioned after God's image, unless you want to argue that all living beings were made in God's image. That distinction alone keeps TE in the running as far as I'm concerned.

What Scriptural evidence do you have that the image of God has anything to do with man's nephesh?

Unless you want to argue that earth's surface dirt has some kind of origin other than a cosmological evolution I don't see your point. Surface dirt came from the earth, earth came from the remains of our sun's formation, ergo our physical origin can be traced back to the star stuff. It's not a gigantic leap of logic.

Well let's follow that line of thought. Why, after all, should we stop with stardust? What is that made out of? Atoms. And what are those made out of? Quarks. And what are those made out of? Well . . . not that we know, but vibrating strings seem to be one idea.

So does that mean that the literal sense of the word "dirt" is vibrating subatomic strings? Obviously not, and that is what makes it a leap of logic. Dirt means dirt. Man is made out of dirt, biblically speaking. Now, if you can show me a version of TE that has man made out of topsoil--dirt like the kind in my backyard--I'll concede it is a possibility. Outside of that, it is pure eisogesis and absolutely impossible, and anybody who holds to it is in error.

As per above, I do not have a different method of interpretation.

If I take the word "dirt" to be dirt, and refuse to let it go further because that goes beyond what the word means, and if you take the word "dirt" to be dirt, but let it go further because of what it is made out of and thereby are willing to move beyond a word's semantic domain, how do we not have different methods, Byblos?

Instantaneous perhaps in our limited understanding of time as we are bound by it. Tell me, how long is a billion years to a timeless being? To Him all is instantaneous.

That's just playing word games. Let me be more specific so that we can avoid such silliness. The text, taken literally, explicitly says that God took dirt, formed it into the shape of a man, and breathed on it to make a human being. That is not the way one describes a process that takes billions of years. In short, the text explicitly describes a short series of events. It takes a non-literal approach to see the text as describing a long process.

I have no doubt that Moses meant that we were made out of dirt. The doubt I have is that Moses made a distinction in his mind that this making was done instantaneously as he understood the meaning of time.

I don't understand. How could Moses have had literal dirt in his mind when he penned Genesis, but then thought, "Of course, maybe I'm wrong, and God didn't really use dirt, at least, not as I understand the meaning of the word." If Moses didn't think it was dirt, he wouldn't have used the word. Or how could he have written that God formed man out of good old fashioned dirt, and then thought, "Of course, maybe God didn't really form man out of dirt in the way in which I'm describing it . . . maybe I'm writing a metaphor. Ah well, I don't know the meaning of what Iam writing. Let's just carry on anyway."

You see the silliness of that? If Moses didn't know what he was writing, then Genesis 1-2 is not revelation. Moses may as well have written, "Blah euuh off fliflop dur, da da ei ish vebagishgasham." He wouldn't have known what that meant, but whatever, right? If it isn't important for Moses to know the meaning of his own words, then it isn't important at all. In fact, maybe he didn't know the meaning of the words, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Maybe he was wrong about that, too.

Here's a profound thought. Maybe Moses was wise enough to recognize that he didn't know the meaning of his own words (like he didn't know the meaning of the formation of man from dust). He just wrote anyway. The problem is with us silly people. We aren't as wise as Moses, so we make the mistake he avoided by thinking we DO know what it means. Heck, we should abandon ALL meaning, right?

That's what you land yourself in if you believe that the biblical writers didn't understand the meaning of their own words and phrases. Complete and total skepticism.

But even if I let that go, what Scriptural evidence do you have in Genesis 1-2 that the word "dirt" is metaphorical, or that Moses thought that his description in Genesis 2 was wrong/metaphorical/incorrect/symbolic/whatever? If there is no evidence in SCRIPTURE for that, how could you hold it as a possibility?

That's the point I don't get because I don't see a difference between your method of interpretation and mine. I do still see scripture in plainest, literal sense.

Except for the OSAS stuff, right? And the literal fulfillment of OT prophecy. And whether or not man really was made from dirt as literally depicted in Genesis 2 . . . right?



Let's not get into the Catholic stuff. I didn't bring it up for any other reason than to show that if you deny the objective meaning of biblical words, then you must also deny they objective meaning of the RCC's interpretation of them. As such, if you deny the objective meaning of biblical words, then you can have no knowledge of what the RCC's interpretation is, either. In fact, you can have no knowledge of what I mean when I write to you. You end up in complete and total skepticism of all forms of knowledge.

Since you hold to the fact that words mean what they mean and that meaning can be known, we can press on to the issues I mentioned above.

My basic contention here is that the only way to allow for TE is to deny either 1) biblical inerrancy or 2) that the Bible should be taken in its plain normal sense. The problem with both is that they lead to the same place: complete rejection of all biblical authority. Thus, if TE is true, we can have NO basis on which to trust the Bible, since the entire Bible becomes a matter of personal, subjective interpretation that no one else has any basis to correct.

This topic was split from this one.

Jac3510 wrote:

All living beings have souls (nephesh) but none like a human's that was fashioned after God's image, unless you want to argue that all living beings were made in God's image. That distinction alone keeps TE in the running as far as I'm concerned.

What Scriptural evidence do you have that the image of God has anything to do with man's nephesh?

I really don't want to go into a debate about ensoulment and such as that is besides the point anyway. The point I am making is that God is described as a spirit (John 4:24) and as love (1 John 4:8). So obviously we weren't made in God's physical image but in the image of His spirit, His love, conscience, reason, with the ability to discern right from wrong. I.e. all non-physical attributes and all only possessed by humans of all living beings (i.e. special creation).

Jac3510 wrote:

Unless you want to argue that earth's surface dirt has some kind of origin other than a cosmological evolution I don't see your point. Surface dirt came from the earth, earth came from the remains of our sun's formation, ergo our physical origin can be traced back to the star stuff. It's not a gigantic leap of logic.

Well let's follow that line of thought. Why, after all, should we stop with stardust? What is that made out of? Atoms. And what are those made out of? Quarks. And what are those made out of? Well . . . not that we know, but vibrating strings seem to be one idea.

So does that mean that the literal sense of the word "dirt" is vibrating subatomic strings? Obviously not, and that is what makes it a leap of logic. Dirt means dirt. Man is made out of dirt, biblically speaking. Now, if you can show me a version of TE that has man made out of topsoil--dirt like the kind in my backyard--I'll concede it is a possibility. Outside of that, it is pure eisogesis and absolutely impossible, and anybody who holds to it is in error.

Did Moses really need to understand quarks and string theory to understand God's intention? No he did not. It was enough for him to know that we were made of the dust of the earth. How that was accomplished and how long it took is of no relevance to the point God was making. In fact I would submit to you that if Moses was made privy in his time to the sort of scientific information we have today he would most likely have believed he was nuts and would have dismissed God's revelations as nothing more that hallucinations.

Jac3510 wrote:

As per above, I do not have a different method of interpretation.

If I take the word "dirt" to be dirt, and refuse to let it go further because that goes beyond what the word means, and if you take the word "dirt" to be dirt, but let it go further because of what it is made out of and thereby are willing to move beyond a word's semantic domain, how do we not have different methods, Byblos?

Even if Moses took it to mean dirt and nothing more, it doesn't mean we can't. And what's more it doesn't change the meaning of the text one iota. Has the meaning of scripture changed since the discovery of DNA and its role in biology? Of course not. Would it have impacted the scripture writers? Most likely and in all probability in a negative way so God chose not to reveal it at that time.

Jac3510 wrote:

Instantaneous perhaps in our limited understanding of time as we are bound by it. Tell me, how long is a billion years to a timeless being? To Him all is instantaneous.

That's just playing word games. Let me be more specific so that we can avoid such silliness. The text, taken literally, explicitly says that God took dirt, formed it into the shape of a man, and breathed on it to make a human being. That is not the way one describes a process that takes billions of years. In short, the text explicitly describes a short series of events. It takes a non-literal approach to see the text as describing a long process.

Alas Jac, only if it were that simple. Don't we all wish there just were someone who could tell us what the explicit meaning of the text is (notice I am not appealing to any authoritative entities here ). A perfectly equally plausible interpretation is that man in his physical form was made out of dirt as cosmological evolution suggests (as God as the first cause of course), and man in his spiritual form, starting with Adam and Eve, were given the gift of self-awareness, if you wish, at a later time. It's all instantaneous to him; that's not playing word games, it's an alternative read.

Jac3510 wrote:

I have no doubt that Moses meant that we were made out of dirt. The doubt I have is that Moses made a distinction in his mind that this making was done instantaneously as he understood the meaning of time.

I don't understand. How could Moses have had literal dirt in his mind when he penned Genesis, but then thought, "Of course, maybe I'm wrong, and God didn't really use dirt, at least, not as I understand the meaning of the word." If Moses didn't think it was dirt, he wouldn't have used the word. Or how could he have written that God formed man out of good old fashioned dirt, and then thought, "Of course, maybe God didn't really form man out of dirt in the way in which I'm describing it . . . maybe I'm writing a metaphor. Ah well, I don't know the meaning of what Iam writing. Let's just carry on anyway."

Moses wasn't wrong at all. It is simply that God chose not to reveal to him the intermediate source of this dirt (the first source being the first cause). Again, Moses need not have been an astrophysicist to understand God's message. But that's not to say God revealed to Moses scientific truths. He simply revealed spiritual truths.

Jac3510 wrote:You see the silliness of that? If Moses didn't know what he was writing, then Genesis 1-2 is not revelation. Moses may as well have written, "Blah euuh off fliflop dur, da da ei ish vebagishgasham." He wouldn't have known what that meant, but whatever, right? If it isn't important for Moses to know the meaning of his own words, then it isn't important at all. In fact, maybe he didn't know the meaning of the words, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Maybe he was wrong about that, too.

Like I said, there is no silliness at all. Moses knew what God revealed to him. That is not to say that there are no other truths that weren't revealed.

Jac3510 wrote:Here's a profound thought. Maybe Moses was wise enough to recognize that he didn't know the meaning of his own words (like he didn't know the meaning of the formation of man from dust). He just wrote anyway. The problem is with us silly people. We aren't as wise as Moses, so we make the mistake he avoided by thinking we DO know what it means. Heck, we should abandon ALL meaning, right?

That's what you land yourself in if you believe that the biblical writers didn't understand the meaning of their own words and phrases. Complete and total skepticism.

All of this doesn't even apply in light of what I said. It's simply not true that one has to abandon all meaning or anything at all. Theistic evolution is not usually associated with a literal (literal, not literalist) reading of scripture but the idea is not new (I certainly didn't invent it). But it is an idea that's gaining popularity because it makes a lot of sense.

Jac3510 wrote:But even if I let that go, what Scriptural evidence do you have in Genesis 1-2 that the word "dirt" is metaphorical, or that Moses thought that his description in Genesis 2 was wrong/metaphorical/incorrect/symbolic/whatever? If there is no evidence in SCRIPTURE for that, how could you hold it as a possibility?

Why do you insist on doing that Jac? Ever since I started the TE discussion in the original thread I had always argued and still do that I am NOT taking anything metaphorical (unless that's what the text suggests). I read scripture with the standard historical-critical method and I see no contradiction whatsoever between reading scripture as such and theistic evolution. I have no evidence that the word "dirt" is metaphorical because I do not believe it to be anything other than literal. It is the origin (that it was irrelevant to Moses) and the timing (as to the physical part) on which I am disagreeing with you.

Jac3510 wrote:

That's the point I don't get because I don't see a difference between your method of interpretation and mine. I do still see scripture in plainest, literal sense.

Except for the OSAS stuff, right? And the literal fulfillment of OT prophecy. And whether or not man really was made from dirt as literally depicted in Genesis 2 . . . right?

Oy! Jac, do we really need to go there? But since you did I will respond:

- I don't believe OSAS is scriptural (I know I've wavered on this a bit but this is something on which I do appeal to an authoritative entity, even if I disagree with it).

- I have no issue with the literal fulfillment of OT prophecy (whatever gave you that idea?)

- Man was really made out of dirt

Jac3510 wrote:Let's not get into the Catholic stuff. I didn't bring it up for any other reason than to show that if you deny the objective meaning of biblical words, then you must also deny they objective meaning of the RCC's interpretation of them. As such, if you deny the objective meaning of biblical words, then you can have no knowledge of what the RCC's interpretation is, either. In fact, you can have no knowledge of what I mean when I write to you. You end up in complete and total skepticism of all forms of knowledge.

Understood and agreed. The problem is that we disagree on what an objective meaning really means.

Jac3510 wrote:Since you hold to the fact that words mean what they mean and that meaning can be known, we can press on to the issues I mentioned above.

I do and yet we are still disagreeing. What does that tell you?

Jac3510 wrote:My basic contention here is that the only way to allow for TE is to deny either 1) biblical inerrancy or 2) that the Bible should be taken in its plain normal sense. The problem with both is that they lead to the same place: complete rejection of all biblical authority. Thus, if TE is true, we can have NO basis on which to trust the Bible, since the entire Bible becomes a matter of personal, subjective interpretation that no one else has any basis to correct.

I am in total disagreement (obviously). I think I have shown (at least I do believe it) I neither have to deny biblical inerrancy, nor abandon the historical-critical method of scripture reading to hold to TE.