Theistic or Non-Theistic Evolution?

Evolution may very well be how we all got here, whether you believe in theistic evolution with its main complication being that God used death to accomplish the development of life and intelligence on Earth. If that is the case, you can't really think of him as being a loving, benevolent father.

On the other hand you could believe in non-theistic evolution which requires more faith in that all the order, design and intricacy of nature are the result of pure chance. Such a beginning for life makes it seem quite pointless. Intelligent beings developed by chance and may become extinct also by chance. If so, then their entire existence would be quite pointless and meaningless. There would never then have been any master designer to witness humanity's birth pangs or to bemoan their death throes as a species.

If Adventism accepts evolution as the Catholic church did after finally considering Teilhard de Chardin's ground-breaking studies, how would we evangelize the third world? Would we present our charts of bible prophecy side by side with charts of humanity's common ancestor(s) with primates? Or would we leave that for special seminars after we had convinced potential candidates for baptism that Christianity, Adventist style, is the way to go?

It sounds like Adventism is at a cross-roads. It could either stay afloat or sink. Let's pray it is the former, for God's sake, and for the sake of those of us who have invested most of our life's capital in the Seventh-Day Adventist church.

Evolution's impact on Good and Evil

Science insists that evolution has happened and may, very well, continue to happen. If evolution is good science, how can you fit the conflict between good and evil into the big picture? Do you suspend belief in science and it's proofs for evolution, i.e., natural selection, the fossil record, etc., and affirm your faith in the Bible's creation account and its concurrent 6,000 year age for the Earth? If you accept that Adam and Eve existed, and the Bible makes their creation very important to the future history of the human race, how do you account for evolution's suggestion that death existed before Adam and Eve sinned? These are not easy questions, but they should be addressed lest they continue to hound us for years.

Recently a possible solution started to take shape. Evil and it's close cousin, sin, existed from the very beginning of cosmic time. I'm not suggesting that there was never a time that evil did not exist, although theoretically it has always existed as an essential opposite of good and its close cousin, righteousness. If evil and sin existed before the fall, then how could Adam and Eve be punished, as well as their once-perfect world, if evil already existed before they sinned? Was the Adam and Eve experiment, if you will, another opportunity to see if free will would choose good instead of evil? How many other Adam and Eve experiments have there been? The universe is pretty old; its age numbers in billions of years. Has this tug of war between good and evil been going on for as many years?

In a related line of thinking, if evil theoretically could always exist as an alternative to good, would it make sense to prevent the possibility of evil rising again, if at some golden future event, evil is vanquished by divine agencies? Wouldn't that be as unjust as never allowing evil to exist the first time around?

The best our universe can ever hope for--realistically speaking--is to keep evil at bay. There will always be evil--albeit in its quiescent state--in the same way that all of the complimentary opposites must always exist. Left is incomplete without its direct opposite, right. Up and down must ever exist. Dark and light, as well. Good and evil, by their very nature, must always exist in some form or another. To think otherwise is impractical and incomplete.

Intelligent beings have at their disposal the option to bring about a universe where good and righteousness by the grace of God, triumph time and time again, over evil and sin, ad infinitum.

Should You Believe in Evolution Against All Hope?

I've believed a bit in evolution through the years what with science being something I was taught to respect. I was smug in by belief until I realized that believing in evolution would mean that God uses death to accomplish ever-evolving life.

I guess I can't fully believe in six literal days of creation either although if God had wanted to he, no doubt, could very well have created our world in six days. He can certainly destroy it in less time if he wanted to.

So I don't know what to believe regarding how we all came to be, but I, nevertheless, hang onto my belief in God because it makes me a better person than a life without God. I don't know the mysteries of life and its beginnings, but somehow that's not so important to me.

I will continue searching for an answer, but will not despair if I never find one. I ask God to sustain me as I continue my search for an answer to this vexing question. Perhaps I'll find that the answer will be the simplest one of all.

The Evolution of God?

My God is not a God of death; he is a God of life. However, since the creators of sophisticated robotic medical equipment are responsible for faulty product if something disastrous should occur, can our God be held liable for the death we see all around us since time began?

Yes, it is true that our God created all things perfect, but since he allows--for a variety of complicated reasons--for things to go on as they do, then, in a way, he has to take responsibility for the imperfections of our otherwise perfect world.

Let's face it, if God wanted to stop all pain and death right now, he could. God's hands are not tied. There must be valid reasons why so many negative realities continue to exist. Let's try to analyze what some of them might be.

Some conservative Christians believe that God allows the controversy between good and evil to continue to protect man's free will. Conservatively speaking, you have to admit that 6,000 years is ample time to show that God offers humankind his way or the other fellow's way.

Progressively speaking, however, we are not talking about 6,000 but millions of years for this cosmic struggle between good and evil to have been resolved.

This brings us to the subject that the title hints at. Does God bring about life, humankind's life specifically, through the death that is essential for natural selection and the survival of the species? It is, after all, only the strong that survive to procreate and pass on their genes to the next generation. How can a God of love possibly be responsible for a system that uses death in order to bring about life and complex organisms?

The Bible account is very simple: God creates all of our reality in six days and rests on the seventh day. For those who have a problem with such simplicity, then the only other option is that God used evolution, and before that--the Big Bang--to create our world and the cosmos. Because this would make God the author of death--and life--such a paradigm is not consistent with a God of love.

The third possibility we will not focus on very much other than to state, for the occasional agnostic who may wander in by chance, that evolution, life, death, etc., have nothing whatsoever to do with God, only with humankind.

So where does that leave us? Perplexed? Frustrated? Despairing? Not at all; there is a fourth explanation. We all think this is all happening to us. This dream called life, death, rebirth. The incredible reality is that we are dreamers twisting and turning--sometimes smiling and laughing--through a long dreamlike state called life and death. One day we will awaken and learn who God really is and why all this death and life and rebirth were necessary.

Until then, look to God and worship him for the hour of his judgment has come.

Making Sense of Life

Lately I've been reading about whether it's possible to see life as both the outcome of evolution and God. Or rather, whether it's possible to believe in evolution and still believe in God.

No Christian wants to let go of God altogether by embracing evolution as the only explanation for our presence on Earth.

As I read about and ponder these polar opposites, I sometimes look out on civilization and am amazed if only evolution is the explanation for the reality of the human brain. If that's the case, it defies explanation that so much complexity was the result of millennia of humankind's efforts. Our technological and cultural accomplishments are truly mind-boggling. Our potential for future achievements are equally astounding.

If God is responsible for evolution, then he is, alas, not the kind creator of the Bible. Evolution is successful only though violence and death. In no way can a committed Christian attribute these to God in spite of the fact that some Bible texts seem to attribute death and destruction to God under certain extreme situations, e.g., the Flood story and the final destruction of the impenitent.

What then to do about the conflicting demands of faith versus evolution? Would further study and reflection about evolution as the answer to our origins draw one closer to the God of the Bible or away from him? Unfortunately or fortunately, I find that the more I study about evolution and its survival-of-the-fittest motif, the more I want to get closer to God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. I need to suspend belief in the evidence of evolutionary history as that is the only way to continue believing and benefiting from a life time of approaching the God of the Bible.

I'm not saying the world was necessarily created in 6,000 years. I'm not saying that life isn't filled with too many mysteries to completely solve. I'm not saying I've finally arrived at the best situation that will resolve all these perplexing theories and their competition for my attention.

What I am saying is that I want to continue believing in God. Even more importantly, I want God to continue believing in me. The reason for this is that only as God continues believing in me will he continue helping and blessing me. For these realities I am very grateful. If only evolution were as kind then I'd love it in all its benign aloofness.

Practical Evolution and a Benign God

Violence caused by animals to other animals, as well as their death, is necessary, as hard as it is to accept. Otherwise what would animals who are not vegetarians eat?

I'm still wrestling with the possibility of evolution being God's method of creating the world. I don't like the thought of death and violence being the vehicle by which God used to bring about the self-referential reality of homo sapiens. Nevertheless, the simplicity of the six day creation week, plus the Sabbath rest at the end, sometimes requires more faith than I have on a given day. The six day creation explanation, however, solves lots of problems, but I, at least, have to suspend some apparent evidences that perhaps life has been here for millennia, and, hopefully, will continue to be here for millennia, as well.

Minimal blog post: These are scraps of blogs that died before they could really live. Sometimes the title is the most significant aspect of the post. Other times, a lot is left to the reader's imagination. I include them as one would include unbaked loves of bread at the dinner table.

Evolutionary Adventists: Death and God

Having just read the Adventist Today article on this topic, Debate: Can you be Adventists and an Evolutionist?, I came up with these options:

Man/Woman was created perfect then became imperfect, but can become perfect again. (Creationism)
Man/Woman was created imperfect (through evolution), is imperfect now, but can be made perfect when Christ comes again. (Adventist Evolutionism)

Nowhere is a third possibility given a chance. Life always comes in threes, e.g., hot, cold and lukewarm. What might the middle or third option be?

Therefore, it follows:

Man/Woman was created imperfect (through evolution or some other process) and will continue being imperfect until humanity becomes extinct.
Man/Woman was created perfect (through evolution or some other process) and is either as perfect as he/she will ever be or is on the way to becoming perfect someday.

Evolutionists without a Soul

At some point you have to give up on modern science. The claims or insights mentioned in a recent New York Times article, Science of the Soul? ‘I Think, Therefore I Am’ Is Losing Force, state that the soul is simply an illusion of the brain's processes. Additionally, some animals, to a degree, can be thought of as having awareness, or what was formerly called a soul, these cutting-edge evolutionists suggest. I oversimplify for the sake of brevity.

They practically say, we've proved that not only is there no proof of a spiritual aspect to a human being, but this is conclusive evidence that God never existed, nor can ever exist. For my own speculations on the latter, please click on http://perfectfuturo.blogspot.com/2007/01/future-creates-past.html

It now becomes harder to continue being an evolutionary Christian. Such Christians will possibly take the plunge and give up on religion altogether. Others, as does one theologian mentioned in the article, proceed in another novel attempt to make sense of God and the soul, and evolution. For another novel attempt at life in a universe with an absent God, please click on http://perfectfuturo.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-are-we-here-different-approach.html

At some point you have to look inside and ask yourself what is really important. What science tells me about my lack of a soul, or what your life experience has told you, otherwise. You do have a soul. It is capable of seeking and nurturing a relationship with God.

Click on title of this post for the full New York Times article that inspired this post.

Joys of Devolution

Q: Are We Not Men?

A: We Are Devo!

Instead of evolution: faith

“… Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful." 2 Chronicles 20:20 (New International Version)

I pray daily that God strengthen my faith in the inspiration of the Bible, especially the book of Genesis. I have to choose consciously to continue believing that God exists, that the Bible is the Word of God and not the Word of wise men. I have to want to continue believing. Sometimes the only proof that God exists is how he’s changed my life and continues to change my life from the self-centered and vain existence I’ve lived on and off for most of my post-childhood experience.

Sometimes in my moments of doubt, or low-brow intellectual posturing, I have to fight against the nagging suggestion that Moses is the only one responsible for the entire book of Genesis. What I mean is, in weaker moments I’ve wondered if this ancient genius, who was a byproduct of an advanced civilization, Egypt, didn’t himself synthesize much or all of Genesis from his great education, as well as his original mind.

If this were the case, it explains much of the supposed problems with the two creation accounts, the beginning of sin, and why we are here. It also, of course, creates other problems: if we’re alone in the universe, then it’s up to us and no one else to solve all or some of the problems we’ve inherited and which we’ve created. If humankind fails and blows up planet earth some day, and if it turns out, we were the only intelligent life in the universe to begin with, then how pointless it all would have been. We evolved from single-celled organisms. We lived, we loved, and we died as a species. Perhaps somewhere else in the universe, the miracle of life would come into miraculous existence again. Or perhaps, after the Big Crunch, there would be a new Big Bang and the entire miracle of life just might happen again? Or perhaps we’re only one in an infinite number of universes. Perhaps somewhere in one or more of those other universes there are intelligent beings or will someday be intelligent beings who will ask the same questions we’re asking now.

I personally hope and pray that Moses didn’t originate the Torah all by himself and in effect --because of a need to create a new system of thought and culture-- the entire Judaeo-Christian belief system that has been handed down to us. I hope instead that God gave Moses all or the more essential elements of the Torah. Perhaps faith is really about not believing what you'd like to believe, but what you need to believe in order to live a meaningful life.

The Truth about Life's Origin

It is impossible for God to lie (Heb. 6:18).

The word of God says “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1).

Evolutionary theory says that life created itself from lightning interacting with amino acids, which through eons evolved into all the species that have ever lived on earth, including humankind. It does not include any outside assistance from a supernatural force. Life in a sense, it seems to infer, created itself out of nothing, or at least out of the simpler elements found on primordial earth.

Evolution is therefore a lie. No matter how logical and scientific it claims to be. It is no matter that the fossil record indicates that simpler life evolved into more complex life. Actually Stephen Jay Gould’s Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History states that there was more complexity and variety in the earlier evolutionary stages than in later stages. Evolution makes no mention of God. It is a Godless scientific theory. It does not lead to God, but rather, away from God. Anything that leads away from God is not good for your spiritual health, as well as your mental or physical health.

Belief in evolution does more harm than it does good.

God give me faith, hope and love to believe in what the word of God says and not the lie that evolutionary theory claims about how life began on earth.

Deprogramming your own Progressivism

“I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also.” John 14

I started to write about an alternate and spiritual interpretation of this popular verse about the second coming when I got side-tracked. In the film The Shoes of the Fisherman mention is made of the Cosmic Christ. For unknown reasons I thought of searching Google for any information I could find. A site that caught my attention was revealing. I’ve tried to edit the paragraphs to make them relevant to my post. Of course, to get the original context and intent of the author, please see that website by following the link, if you must. http://www.trosch.org/for/teilhard-keene99l.htm

I remember hearing Jack Provonsha say, my apologies if dim memories of his sermon at Atlantic Union College during the 1970s contain any misquotes, that there was value in Teilhard de Chardin’s treatise on Christianity and evolution. I later heard Ronald Lawson of the Adventist Forum New York say in a casual conversation to others that Adam and Eve were not real people. After reading these excerpts, I’m intrigued that these progressive and highly educated Adventists were influenced in their thinking, if only mildly, by Teilhard de Chardin’s writings. Importantly for me, I have been influenced all these years through their impressions of Teilhard de Chardin. I’ve tried to shake much of this progressive thinking, but how does one make oneself less progressive? How do you "unbelieve" a progressive and ingrained world view and start thinking in a more conservative fashion? It is not easy, but perhaps I’m doing it every time I read and reread the Bible or argue with the Sabbath School lesson editor in what are clearly very conservative points. Who knows whether I’ll succeed or go off the deep end. I’m being a little funny here. Not to worry!

Now to the task at hand, selecting and commenting on these scattered impressions that have influenced me for almost 30 years or so.

“But in the theology of Teilhard we are all becoming Christ. There is no Original Sin, and therefore no need of Redemption. Evolutionary forces are ferrying everyone along to God-hood and all are `anonymous Christians' making faith in the literal death and resurrection of Christ unnecessary.” I actually like that phrase “we are all becoming Christ.” Of course, becoming like Christ is the more traditional. But Christ did say, “I in them and they in me, that we might all be one.” The ultimate temptation is doing away with Adam and Eve in which case Original Sin loses its meaning. Nevertheless, when you get down to practical human living, it makes sense that killing and stealing and sleeping with another man’s wife creates all kinds of problems and so is not desirable. Needless to say, I do believe and find value in the literal death and resurrection of Christ. I thank God for that.

Pope John Paul, unlike Teilhard, believes in Original Sin, the existence of Adam, and that Jesus Christ is not a `force of nature' but the God Man who literally died on the Cross and rose again. He told the scientists they were free to pursue `theories' of evolution as long as they realized that God's relationship with man was key. I thank God that I still value Jesus and his personhood. I could not love a ‘force of nature.” Regarding the Adam and Eve issue, there are some good points and there are some bad points. I’ve previously mentioned the good side of not taking the Adam and Eve story literally, (See this link.) While that approach solves some problems it, of course, creates others. If Adam and Eve didn’t exist, then man was essentially born a sinner, or worse, was always a sinner and was never perfect, or always had the possibility of being a sinner of his own accord. Either way, he can’t save himself and needs a savior to come to his rescue and to love him and to provide the object of infinite love, his creator. But we are getting into problematic waters hear by saying that man, or human kind, was never perfect to begin with. All the more reason for needing a helping hand from the creator of us all.

The world is not heading toward an Omega point of cosmic consciousness. It is headed for a judgment day and there are two groups emerging in a confrontation. On one hand there are those who worship, love and serve God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. On the other hand there are the New-Age disciples of Teilhard de Chardin and his ilk who think that we are God. The more Christlike one becomes through the genuine work of the Holy Spirit, one can get a sensation that one is becoming less imperfect and sinful. (Although one shouldn't kid oneself and ever think that is somehow closer to perfection than one was the month before. We should focus on Christ the author and perfecter of our faith. We shouldn't focus on ourselves.) In a sense we are becoming Godlike and is what “Be therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” is trying to get at. That perfection comes, of course, through the abiding Holy Spirit and not through one’s own moral achievements. I also wish to love and serve God, Jesus Christ, and significantly for me, the Holy Spirit. He’s often left out of the picture and I think it important to mention Him as often as possible. For me during the last two years, the discovery of the reality and the personhood of the Holy Spirit is something for which I am grateful to God, to Christ and to the Spirit Himself.

Perhaps next time I won’t get sidetracked and will focus on how Christ comes to you and me every day through the Holy Spirit.