How evolutionism destroys SDA theology

[BobRyan]

Again, *my* marriage is not effected one skerrick by whether Adam and Eve were real historical people or metaphorical archetypes. You can keep making these broad assertions that 'if Genesis is not literal, nothing means anything', but assertions is all they remain - rhetorical flourishes intended to support a particular position.

I have a question for you (everyone reading): who was Zeus's wife?

1. Zeus is fictional - it is like asking "who is the easter bunny's wife". If Dawkins equivocates between Greek fiction and the Bible we can perhaps see why he is being totally consistent for doing so, given the perspective from which he comes. But how can we possibly do that as Christians?

2. But in Matt 19 Christ is speaking to the subject of Hebrew Law (which is not a document that appeals to fiction as it turns out) and He connects the Gen 2 facts about Adam and Eve to marriage when interpreting law about Marriage.

The same is true in 1Tim 2:9-15 when Paul makes his case about the proper relationship between men and women he appeals to the very details of Gen 2 that evolutionism argues is "least trustworthy" which is that Adam was created first and then Eve -- and that Eve sinned before Adam. "The very details" are being highlighted by the NT authors.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

Again, you are making massive assertions, based on your interpretations of the Bible. The bolded text there is the bit you guys always conveniently omit.

[BobRyan]

There are thousands of mainstream Christian Biblical scholars who do not read the first few chapters of Genesis as literal.

[Bravus]

My point about Zeus was this: ask anyone who knows anything about Greek mythology 'who was Zeus's wife?' and they will immediately say 'Hera'. And if they want to say something like 'As Zeus was frequently unfaithful to Hera, but her wrath tended to fall on his lovers rather than him', they won't find it necessary to say 'in the mythological story of...' as a preface. If the purpose of the creation story is to establish meaning for all of humanity, then Scripture can use it for that purpose in the context of both the Sabbath and marriage without finding it necessary to comment on whether it is literally or mythologically 'true'.

(Remember, 'myth' does not mean 'untrue story', it means 'story that gives meaning')

[Bravus]

So, again, you mere *assertion* that the story is literal does not make it so, you need to adduce *evidence*.

And 'guilt by association' with Catholicism, a technique you've used in a few posts, proves nothing either. Truth stands or falls on the evidence, not on who its friends are.

[BobRyan]

As Dawkins pointed out - making the moral case in the form of defining law without saying "and of course I am a Darwinist so I do not believe this story is actually true" - does not leave the reader in the same place as an "easter bunny" story would leave them.

In the same way - since we have no indication at all that Moses or Paul or Matthew were Darwinists - how much more difficult is it to simply assume they viewed the facts they listed as "fiction".

Even Dawkins argues that it WOULD be difficult to make that very same assumption with a known Darwinist preacher telling the story - how much MORE difficult it is to make that massive assumption when it is a non-Darwinist Bible writer appealing to "details" most doubted by an evolutoinist doctrine on origins.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

My point about Zeus was this: ask anyone who knows anything about Greek mythology 'who was Zeus's wife?' and they will immediately say 'Hera'. And if they want to say something like 'As Zeus was frequently unfaithful to Hera, but her wrath tended to fall on his lovers rather than him', they won't find it necessary to say 'in the mythological story of...' as a preface. If the purpose of the creation story is to establish meaning for all of humanity, then Scripture can use it for that purpose in the context of both the Sabbath and marriage without finding it necessary to comment on whether it is literally or mythologically 'true'.

(Remember, 'myth' does not mean 'untrue story', it means 'story that gives meaning')

I would argue that the cases of Zeus and the Easter bunny are in fact untrue - more precisely they are fiction because "in truth" they "did not happen". I am guessing we actually agree on this point.

Dawkins argues that Adam and Eve are untrue stories and that when a darwinist preacher makes a moral point based on the details of Adam and Eve they need to be up front about telling the listeners that they do not consider the Adam and Eve story to even be true (as in "Adam and Eve did not exist").

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

So, again, you mere *assertion* that the story is literal does not make it so, you need to adduce *evidence*.

[BobRyan]

And you guys are playing an enormously dangerous game in doing as you do. You very explicitly tie the authority of the Bible itself to your interpretation of the Bible, making big statements about 'if Genesis is not literal then there is no reason to trust anything at all in the Bible'. Then, if in the future your interpretation is found to be wrong - as the geocentric view of the universe, about which similar comments were made, ended up being - you have impugned the authority of the Bible itself.

Does it occur to you that your efforts to defend it may have the effect of harming it?

I get that a lot on the other discussion boards (not ClubAdventist of course).

It is a legitimate concern to say that we don't want the Bible or Christ to be discredited because of a wrong concept of science as in the flat earthers.

But that does not allow us to bend the text to any limit - for every whim and wind of doctrine that comes along. At some point the text itself has to have integrity and exegesis has to "mean something".

Exegesis is to help us detach ourselves from the whim of popular ideas (here today gone tomorrow) and what the Bible is actually saying.

Hence my delight in pointing to some of the few areas where Dawkins' argument has value.

in Christ,

Bob

[olger]

I rather like these paragraphs.

"But that does not allow us to bend the text to any limit - for every whim and wind of doctrine that comes along. At some point the text itself has to have integrity and exegesis has to "mean something".

Exegesis is to help us detach ourselves from the whim of popular ideas (here today gone tomorrow) and what the Bible is actually saying."

regards,

g

[Stewart (SDA)]

This is just an 'aside' really, but many people use Jesus' story of the Rich man and Lazarus to "prove" that dead people are conscious. In that instance a parable is taken very literally... even when it is preceeded by another parable -- that of the Unjust Steward.

There doesn't seem to be any problem understanding the nature of the first parable.

But distinguishing between picture and reality seems to be difficult in the second.

It should not be that difficult I think.

stewart

[Bravus]

The trick, of course (responding to olger and Bob rather than Stewart), is telling which are "the whim of popular ideas (here today gone tomorrow)" and which will turn out to be true. Which camp would heliocentrism have been put in in the early days after Copernicus published?

And, incidentally, evolution is about the same age as SDAism... (OK, now I'm toast...)

[wayfinder]

and which is the only "gospel" where the parable of the rich man and Lazarus appears?

[BobRyan]

This is just an 'aside' really, but many people use Jesus' story of the Rich man and Lazarus to "prove" that dead people are conscious. In that instance a parable is taken very literally... even when it is preceeded by another parable -- that of the Unjust Steward.

Still that is not an example of Christ teaching from the "legal code" regarding either Sabbath or Marriage and basing legal interpretation on "fiction".

In fact the Luke 16 moral is not about legal code "interpretation" at all. It is about the need to read and accept scripture in general not a teaching on any specific legal "code" being rendered or interpreted.

Exodus 20 does not come in a "long string of parables".

Matt 19 is not a "parable about Adam".

1Timothy 2 is not a "parable about Eve".

They all refer back to actual Bible accounts.

As Dawkins points out - the ambiguity of insisting that the reader/listener must "assume you do not really mean" that the details are factual - is less than helpful in such a case.

His point is well made in that regard. Even more so when you consider that UNLIKE a known evolutionist preacher - the authors of scripture were NOT known for "otherwise teaching darwinism" such that the reader had some excuse for inserting "not factual" ideas into the text.

Hence our use of exegesis.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

The trick, of course (responding to olger and Bob rather than Stewart), is telling which are "the whim of popular ideas (here today gone tomorrow)" and which will turn out to be true. Which camp would heliocentrism have been put in in the early days after Copernicus published?

And, incidentally, evolution is about the same age as SDAism... (OK, now I'm toast...)

I am not going to deny that evolutionism may in fact grow even more popular over time and SDA-"ism"? less popular. However Sabbath observance is considerably older than the history of the SDA church - and the well accepted idea that Moses, Matthew and Paul were not darwinists is pretty much beyond dispute even to this day.

But your heliocentrism argument would have had more substance if the history for the dark ages (to which you are appealing) - was more along the lines of

Dark Ages - the Christian Church taught that the world was flat and held up by a giant turtle because the Law of God said "All are to have wooden turtles under a large table in the center of every home just as God has placed a large turtle under the flat plate of the earth to show that He is Creator and He alone is to be worshipped".

You know -- something along the lines of legal code where God as Creator is being presented via an appeal to a fact that is later proven to be fiction.

hence my repeated reference to this unanswered point.

But lacking such a precident, it is not easy to see how you are equivocating between heliocentrism and the 4th commandment of the legal code of Exodus 20 where the very essence of worship to God as "creator" is being defined. (Interesting that it is repeated in that form even in the 3 Angels message of Rev 14).

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

Getting back to the points raised

1- Hebrew legal code is never expressed in the form of "an appeal to fiction" - no not once in all of scripture.

At some point that will have to be answered or the entire argument for theistic evolution would simply end there.

2- Dawkins' argument that it is "less than helpful" even for an evolutionist preacher to appeal to the "Adam and Eve" example to hammer a moral point home as if it made the point "true" or "Authorotative" while never explaining how it all holds up in a "Well...NO.. - Adam did not exist - of course" context - needs to be answered because that case is even more glaring in scripture than in the now-and-again example of modern evolutionist preachers.

Another case where even our atheist evolutionist friends like Dawkins see the point.

3-- The Bible repeatedly appeals to the "very details" of the text most objectionable to evolutionism to make it's case for Law, and also interpretation of Law, instead of limiting the application to vague and more generalized "God did something in some way" and "people need to be nice to people" appeals.

So while it might be useful internally to ignore this point if one can not answer it - it would need to be addressed when it comes up in open discussion as in this case.

4-- All agree already that neither Moses nor Matthew nor Paul were "known darwinists" so no reader of theirs could simply "assume they did not mean it" when they referenced the "very details" that evolutionist most doubts about the Genesis account. Hence exegesis does not allow the reader to simply "insert evolutionism" into their texts or even to "delete details as if fiction" whenever "evolutionism needs it".

While ignoring these still-unnanswered points might be one way to solve the problem -- it is not as compelling a solution as some may have at first imagined.

in Christ,

Bob

[Bravus]

I've read and watched almost no Dawkins - don't like his style, don't need him. So debunking Dawkins is basically irrelevant to me... I guess it might be useful to someone here, though I'm now hearing anyone but you quoting him...

And given that Moses, Paul and Matthew lived thousands of years before Darwin makes your repeated point that they were 'not darwinists' just nonsensical.

[BobRyan]

I've read and watched almost no Dawkins - don't like his style, don't need him. So debunking Dawkins is basically irrelevant to me...

[Twilight]

I was referring to the Opening Post ( OP ) as my list.

in Christ,

bob

Sorry Bob :-)

With you now. :-)

[Twilight]

Again, you are making massive assertions, based on your interpretations of the Bible. The bolded text there is the bit you guys always conveniently omit. You accuse people of not trusting 'The Bible', but what you mean is not agreeing with 'your interpretation of The Bible'. There's an enormous gulf of difference there. There are thousands of mainstream Christian Biblical scholars who do not read the first few chapters of Genesis as literal. It is possible to have complete confidence in the Bible without agreeing with your interpretation of the Bible.

And, as with the Sabbath, so with marriage. God instituted it and blessed it: whether Adam and Eve were real historical flesh-and-blood people or mythological archetypes who represent all of humanity does not effect the Scripturality or spiritual authority of marriage.

The bible interprets itself.

Indeed we all get in trouble when we forget this simple fact.

But with the insistance you make that we do not need certain sections to be literal, then all we have is opinion.

Because once you begin dismantling the bible, then you can longer allow it to be self explanatory and you have to supply your own reasoning...

Any attack on the consistency of the bible, is a wedge for ones man reasoning to be superior to it and that mans opinion to be holy writ.

Mark

[Twilight]

I just wonder how God got by instucting His prophets to write the bible without all these "learned" men around.

These "learned" men that scripture needs for it to make sense.

It must have been so difficult for the Being that spoke the universe into existance to write the bible, whilst He did not have the opinions of such "learned" folk to fall back on.

Ahhh...

The arrogance of the carnal mind, that wants to show God to be incapable of supplying a coherent canon of Scripture for our lives...

Mark

[BobRyan]

I see that my prior post states...

Also - the fact that even he (Richard Dawkins) sees this point clearly (and he being the self problaimed "evangelist for evolution") should be of help to us all.

I guess that is what they call a freudian slip -- sorry.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

I just wonder how God got by instucting His prophets to write the bible without all these "learned" men around.

That is a good question giving rise to these questions.

1. Is inspiration of the form "let them guess whether I made life quickly or agonizingly slowly over 100's of millions of years"??

2. Did the language they were using include the concept "very very long time"?? or was everything done " in seven days" by virtue of limits of a language that only knew about a length of time no longer than 7 days??

3. Were those ancient authors so well known by their contemporaries for teaching Darwinism using 7 day metaphores such that their readers would quickly gave concluded "ahh there you go using that 7 day metaphore for 'very very long time' again". Recall that a key principle of exegesis is to consider the obvious meaning that the writing/language of the author would have had for his primary first-order intended readers. That helps us know the intent of the author.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

What is missing so far is any attempt to take the list of doctrines and associated observations about how they are destroyed by the counter-doctrines of evolutionism, and then present a plausible explanation from a theistic evolutionist POV showing how the doctrine "survives".

The silence on that key point is deafening so far.

in Christ,

Bob

[Bravus]

Um, have a quick look in the Origins forum, where there's a thread I started with precisely that mission.