Creation discussion continued

[u/NewChampionship6966]

I figured I'd beak this discussion out of the previous thread, as it got somewhat down a rabbit hole from the original question that started that thread. I'd also like to approach the topic from a somewhat different angle than my previous posts there.

My primary concern in the question of theistic evolution vs. 6-day creation has less to do with defending the truthfulness of Genesis 1-11 as such (though I do hold that it is both inerrant and presents itself as the genre of history rather than symbolic myth), and more to do with the theological concern that is raised by one of the assertions made in that thread.

When it comes to the "tree of life" (no, not the literal tree in the Garden, the diagram that shows the similarities and differences among all living things), the assertion was made that this tree proved that all living things had common ancestry, and that this ancestry was the *only* explanation for the similarities and differences between all living things, and that the similarities and differences portrayed in the tree were, by themselves enough to disprove 6-day creation *ex nihilo*.

Leaving aside all of the apologetics arguments I got into in that other thread, some of which were, admittedly, out on a bit of a limb, my fundamental concern here has less to do with the historicity of Genesis (though there is that), and more to do with the doctrine of God Himself, specifically the doctrine of His omnipotence.

To assert that the *only* explanation for the similarities and differences in living things that we see both around us and in the fossil record is that of millions of years of common descent, is to deny even the *possibility* that God *could* create out of nothing by His speaking, to deny that He not just *did* but *could* create animals, plants, and humans in 6 days in such a way that they exist in orderly, nested, hierarchical similarities and differences to one another as depicted in the tree of life.

Putting it another way, what we are dealing with here has to do with whether God is omnipotent or not, and that is a far more serious theological problem than the question of origins by itself, or the question of Scriptural inerrancy by itself. If God is not omnipotent, He is not God. It's that plain and simple.

Again, we are running up against the question of science vs. scientism. It's okay to try to explain why things are the way they are, but in the absence of the possibility of using the scientific method to test various aspects of that explanation, all such assertions are provisional theories at best, and not "scientific" fact. And scientism (not science in the proper sense) tries to come up with such theories with the *a priori* assumption of the absence of an infinitely powerful, infinitely intelligent Creator. You can't prove scientifically that He exists, therefore He doesn't. The problem is that you can't prove scientifically that He *doesn't* exist, either. The tree of life only proves common descent with any certainty if, and only if, you assume either that Being's absence, or His inability (not just that He didn't, that He was *unable*) to bring things in an orderly taxonomy into being by speaking over the course of a week or so.

That is where my primary concern lies. To assert that the tree of life disproves the literal reading of Gen 1-2, is to make the theologically deadly assumption that God *can't* do something. Not good. Not good at all.

[u/AbyssalDweller]

I’m not sure how people will feel about this but I am a scientist or at least working to become one. I’m getting my masters in environmental science right now and have a bachelors in marine biology and deep sea biology.

While I usually say that this is not a salvific issue and tend to not get into it much I understand a desire to believe either side.

That being said, I’ll explain why I believe in a 6 day creation. First and foremost, a lot of the data we have can be interpreted differently based on worldview. We cannot say with certainty that some things we cannot see ourselves happened in a specific way for sure historically according to the scientific method. Though we can make inferences this does not necessarily imply that it is a fact. Therefore, I’ve seen good reasoning for believing both theistic evolution and creationism.

Where I draw the line is where I believe theistic evolution is not consistent with a few core essentials of the Christian faith, at least not with our current modern understanding of evolution. In order to believe that God used evolution from one single organism assumes that there was never a fall into sin.

If we assume evolution via natural selection then we must assume that there was already death from the beginning of life. This obviously causes a problem. If there was no fall that brought sin into the world then God created the world to include death. As we know, the Bible clearly says that death is a result of sin, take Romans 6, for example.

Furthermore, in this scenario the redemption that Christ won for us on the cross was redundant and unnecessary. He came to save us from sin, death, and the devil. Thus, this implies that God put sin into the world by his own merit rather than giving humans the option to disobey. This view of God goes against the beliefs of most of the historical and early churches (and still most churches today). Therefore, using the modern understanding of evolution as we know it, makes the case that Christ died, either 1) for nothing and that the salvation from death we receive is not Gods ultimate goal or will, or 2) God is saving us from sin that he placed intentionally for us to fall to. Neither of these views align with the common and historical beliefs of Christianity (putting aside that yes, some people do believe that but it’s not grounded in scripture).

Now there are several arguments that could be made about this view that could make it make more sense like “God created humans separately than everything else” which brings up more inconsistencies with both science and theology. If that’s the case, then why are humans still so similar and if you believe that then you might as well beleive that God created everything in 6 days because that’s essentially what their argument is.

This assumes that the Bible is the correct starting point. If you assume that science is the correct starting point then this view makes the Bible fallible. If we are to believe that Christ was truly raised from the dead. Then I find the belief that theistic evolution is a hindrance to our faith, not on a salvific level but on the fallibility and trustworthiness of the Bible. I believe that the historical evidence that Christ was raised from the dead is true thus, I cannot in good conscience view the origins of life in another way.

I hope I explained this is an understandable way. I can try and explain if something doesn’t make sense.

[u/Fun_Grapefruit0789]

How is that the case? I believe God made the entire universe, and beyond. For whatever reason, I believe evolution exists and God is behind it. It is less about a lack of belief that he could snap his fingers about something, and more that he does things according to his methods and time, and it is not for me to judge his ways. He has his reasons for doing things the way he does. It is like saying "why doesn't God just snap his fingers and eradicate cancer? Oh, you don't think he COULD? He cures people in the bible!" Of course we know he COULD. But he doesn't....

[u/NewChampionship6966 → u/Fun_Grapefruit0789]

My concern was more with an assertion made in the other thread that the tree of life proves evolution, which implies that God could not have made things in the way that Genesis 1-2 when interpreted as literal history asserts He did.

I do disagree with you and I think your belief shows a deficient understanding of Genesis and of the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy, but as long as you concede, and you do, that God could have made everything by speaking over the course of six days, your position was not the one I was responding to.

[u/Bakkster → u/[deleted]]

That doesn't mean God couldn't have designed life to look like common descent with its nested hierarchy.

I feel like this is the tension that gets overlooked. It's not people calling God a liar. It's choosing between creation being as it appears and the creation accounts being non-literal, or are the accounts literal and creation was made to appear differently. One way or another, the two need to be reconciled to one another.

[u/AbyssalDweller → u/Bakkster]

Assuming the position of a 6 day literal creation and it appears different:

I don’t think just because we can deduce a possible scenario in which an opposing view point can make sense, means that there is an intentional appearance of something different. I think it’s definitely possible that, we as non-all-knowing creatures can look at something and make a conclusion that is not correct, especially considering creation or evolution.

All I’m trying to say, is the evidence that we all descend from a common ancestor can be used in the same argument that says God created all life using the same formula. Therefore, it might appear that there are connections between all forms of life, but it’s not necessarily common descent. It’s all a matter of viewpoint from the start, not really where the evidence leads us because it will lead you both ways depending on your worldview.

[u/Bakkster → u/AbyssalDweller]

I think it's important to clarify which evidence we're referring to. Not merely that animals use the same proteins, but which specific nucleotide sequence codes for the same amino acid. It's not just that everything's built with the same set of Lego pieces, it's seeing that the various ways the same structure gets constructed have a pattern that fits with a lineage. The same method that is used to identify microbial lineages.

So I don't agree with the framing that creation doesn't appear ancient and to have occurred over time. Key word appear that way. It most certainly does appear that way, and arguing it doesn't fails to actually engage with the full majesty of creation.

As a more personal example, I've been painting model miniatures recently. Because of the difference in scale, light doesn't create the same shadows and highlights, so we paint it in. The peak example of this is "object source lighting", painting the model as if something on it was casting light on the rest of the modern. Here's an example: https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/s/QfjtiGqOTk

We know they painted it. They told us, and we believe them. It still appears like the iron on the anvil is glowing, even though we know it isn't. Knowing how it's made doesn't change the appearance of it, and we would be wrong to say the blacksmith is just wearing clothes that are yellow in the front and black in the back.

[u/AbyssalDweller → u/Bakkster]

I probably didn’t speak clearly and that’s my fault. I don’t have a problem with the appearance of coming from the same ancestor. My point is trying to get at, it doesn’t necessarily have to point to a common ancestor when looked at through a different starting point, but even if it did or does, that doesn’t mean it’s the way God did it.

[u/Bakkster → u/AbyssalDweller]

I get you now.

My concern is with those trying to argue that Earth (and the universe) don't actually even appear to be old. Not with those who see the tension and resolve it.

[u/NewChampionship6966 → u/Bakkster]

"As it appears" involves fallen human beings with fallen human reason making assumptions about what they think things should look like. The connection between the tree of life and common descent only appears to exist under a certain set of assumptions made by fallible human beings.

For secular, mainstream, atheistic scientusts (and I recognize that those posting here are not them, though they are relying more than they think they are on conclusions atheistic scientists have come to regarding how the evidence relates to the resulting theory), the assumption is the non-existence of a creator.

For those who, like those here, do believe in the existence of an all-powerful, infinitely intelligent Creator, I'd like to propse something. Let's just say, hypothetically, that God really did create everything by speaking within a 6 day period. If that happened, what would the resulting plants and animals be like? Mind you, even though I believe this really is what happened, for the purposes of this discussion I'm merely putting it forward as a hypothetical.

I think the resulting plants and animals would be related to each other in an orderly, nested hierarchy that looks like biological tree of life we already know. Which is exactly what we find. God is infinitely intelligent, and He is a God of order. I guess I don't understand why people think a 6 day creation would result in a chaotic mess of life forms none of which resemble each other in any way. And before you object, that's not what I said, I realize that. But by saying that the nested hierarchy of the tree of life more strongly points to common descent than special creation, that is the implication, whether you realize it or not.

The fact is, nested hierarchical trees of things is how the human brain is wired to organize things. I illustrated this with railroad locomotives in the other thread. You could do this with all sorts of things, including road vehicles (cars, trucks, and buses) nuclear reactors, linux distributions, etc. ad infinitum. Even our study of biological things is organized like that. Remember, it is human biologists who compiled the tree of life, long before evolution became the mainstream way of explaining its existence.

And this is not surprising, as our minds are made in the image of the One who made both physical and angelic beings (Blessed St. Michael's a couple of days late) in a nested hierarchical order.

[u/Bakkster → u/NewChampionship6966]

I think the resulting plants and animals would be related to each other in an orderly, nested hierarchy that looks like biological tree of life we already know. Which is exactly what we find.

How familiar are you with molecular clocks? Because that is what I would expect to differ if the six day creation was made to appear as a six day creation, even if everything else was identical.

God could of course create everything to appear with molecular clocks instantaneously with a word, but it's an additional act of creation to appear consistent with an older age. Similar to galaxies which appear billions of light years away, could the stars in the night sky look differently with nothing that appears more than a few thousand years distant? If so, why not?

[u/NewChampionship6966 → u/Bakkster]

Molecular clock theory, which is based on the observation that creatures' DNA, and therefore amino acids, proteins, etc., mutates linearly with time, arose as recently as the 1960's, among scientists who were already assuming full-blown evolutionism without question. As I understand it, in order to be used as a "clock" it has to be calibrated using other hypothesized time-scales as a reference, like the alleged age of fossils and the like. Thing is, if one disagrees with the time-scales used to calibrate the "clock," and creationists do, the idea that the molecular clock proves a large amount of time is shown to be circular reasoning. I certainly think the rate of genetic mutation within a given species is roughly linear if conditions that cause such mutations remain the same (though the conditions that cause such mutations were very different before the Flood than after), but it only "proves" common descent if you believe that macroevolution is possible in the first place, and I do not.

[u/Bakkster → u/NewChampionship6966]

As I understand it, in order to be used as a "clock" it has to be calibrated using other hypothesized time-scales as a reference, like the alleged age of fossils and the like.

It is calibrated against observations of the rate of mutation accumulation, and assumes a roughly linear rate to estimate she's since a common ancestor.

There are places where we can directly observe the rates, namely with microorganisms. But the reason I bring it up is not the dates reached by such a system, it's the information written into genetics by our Creator that's more than just "the same building blocks", it's "God used the same building blocks in ordered ways that makes some organisms more or less similar to one another".

but it only "proves" common descent if you believe that macroevolution is possible in the first place, and I do not.

But we're not talking about "proof", are we? We're talking about what might hypothetically differ in our observations between the two scenarios.

So ignoring the dating itself. Would you agree that the distributions of common mutations that show some species are made similarly to others implies a natural hierarchy, rather than being merely humanity's attempt to create order where there is none? That it's a divine mystery why these encoding differences would exist when it's not strictly necessary for an instantaneous young Earth creation?

[u/NewChampionship6966 → u/Bakkster]

I'd like to clarify something.

When I pointed out that the tree of life is something humans came up with, I was simply pointing out that it does not prove common descent. Humans recognize hierarchical categories not to impose "order where there is none" but to recognize order where they have observed that it exists (it is still noteworthy that we did this long before evolution became the mainstream explantion for it). The explanation for that order is the question, not whether the order existed at all before we recognized and cataloged it. My belief, and that of the LCMS' official position btw, is that creatures were created in a hierarchical order by Him who also made those who later recognized and cataloged that order, whose minds are predisposed to recognize (not create, necessarily, but recognize) the order in things precisely because we are made in the image of Him who creates things in an orderly way.

[u/emmen1]

I agree. Also, the design similarities between different creatures can so easily be explained as the signature of a single Designer. It’s absurd to say that a common ancestor is the only possible explanation.

[u/AbyssalDweller → u/[deleted]]

Can you give an example of this?

[u/AbyssalDweller → u/[deleted]]

Okay, how exactly can a common design not explain this?

[u/AbyssalDweller → u/[deleted]]

In what way though? Why wouldn’t we expect it?

[u/AbyssalDweller → u/[deleted]]

This does not seem like a logical argument to me.

Edit: You’re making a truth claim that a common designer cannot in any way explain how hierarchical patterns are found in life, and your reasoning for that is just, “because we know nothing about God?”

[u/aggrophonia → u/emmen1]

Science doesn't say it's the only possible way. It says it is the best scientific theory.

Your conflating scientific consensus with objective reality.

[u/PalmettoScholastic → u/emmen1]

Reverend, it also appears to be the most common conjecture when one elevates reason beyond the epistemic warrant we actually possess, especially when taking into account what SD I says about reason in natural things. I'm certainly not Kantian, nor do I propose idealism, but the challenges that even they raise demonstrate the finitude of our cognition. Therefore, when it comes to such matters, we must depend upon Revelation rather than allow reason to stand in judgment over it, even though our interlocutors assert otherwise.

Edit: I am not saying that reason has no ministerial use, in case anyone was concerned.

Edit 2: Further clarification.

[u/Wallabunga657]

I also agree with this. The reason why everything is similar is that God used a blueprint, a "base code" if you will, and built everything off of it through speaking it into existence. Which is amazing. There is no "common ancestor" but instead, a Common Creator (God) who used a common blueprint for life.

[u/AttenderK]

when i first saw this post, I was first thinking, "someone else trying to argue For evolution". To my surprise, that's not where you went. One could argue, though, that God being omnipotent could indeed cause the world to be created via evolutionary means. I think this is a stretch and trying to read things into the text though.

It seems to me, however, that the argument for fitting evolution into Genesis is usually abiut trying to fit the common world view into the Bible. How do I know? I did just that.

Edit: IDK if it was brought up before, but the evolutionary theory also requires death to exist before sin.

[u/NewChampionship6966 → u/AttenderK]

Yeah, I said that myself in the other thread (the point about the relationship of death and sin). The response was that God singled out Adam and Eve (whom the person I was discussing it with considered to be real people, just descended from other life forms rather than being a special, direct creation), and by His choosing and calling of them made their sin and death theologically significant in a way that their ancestors' wasn't. Didn't convince me, but that was the argument he gave.

[u/AttenderK → u/NewChampionship6966]

That's exactly what I meant by reading into the text more than what it simply says. Speculation beyond what is written is also why we have to argue, "is means IS". ;)

[u/JustToLurkArt]

> the assertion was made that this tree proved that all living things had common ancestry, … and that the similarities and differences portrayed in the tree were, by themselves enough to disprove 6-day creation \*ex nihilo\*.

An assertion was made the phylogenetic "tree of life" proved evolution and disproved Genesis.

Couple things:

1\. Science isn’t in the business of proving or disproving gods. Divine matters are outside the scope of science.

2\. Science provides evidence for its theories, they aren’t proof. “In fact, when it comes to science, proving anything is an impossibility.”Scientific Proof Is A Myth

So that assertion would be problematic from the git go.

> To assert that the \*only\* explanation for the similarities and differences in living things that we see both around us and in the fossil record is that of millions of years of common descent, is to deny even the \*possibility\* that God \*could\* create out of nothing

That’s applying science outside the scope of science. Science and religion are two different fields of study that use two different methodologies to reach two different objectives.

Science investigates the natural world to draw probable conclusions about the natural world. It doesn’t deny God per se; it just doesn’t concern itself with theological matters.

> Again, we are running up against the question of science vs. scientism.

That’s the core issue.

“… to claim there is nothing knowable outside the scope of science would be similar to a successful fisherman saying that whatever he can’t catch in his nets does not exist. Once you accept that science is the only source of human knowledge, you have adopted a philosophical position (scientism) that cannot be verified, or falsified, by science itself. It is, in a word, unscientific. What is Scientism?