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.

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.

Evolution of Sin

In human experience there was a time when sin did not exist. People were sinless and strangers to sin. Can you imagine what such a life could have been like? Everyone put their brother (sister) first. No one asserted themselves. Everything owned was the property of everyone else. No one had adulterous desires because there really was nobody else to have adultery with. Everyone loved everyone else perfectly.

It almost sounds too good to be true. So good, in fact, that it couldn't possibly last for very long. It sounds like the most perfect of ideals. Moral people today hold out that pristine moral purity as the future goal.

Understandably, such a state is to be desired, and no criticism is intended of its perfect qualities. What is difficult to understand is how such perfection could have existed.

Children have to learn not to throw tantrums and to not think that they're the center of the universe. It is their natural state. Can you imagine what a sinless infant would be like? I must admit that it is difficult for me to do so.

What if we were all born with a natural inclination towards evil and an inclination to good moral behaviour was a learned and conditioned response?

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.

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.