glenn morton wrote:
>
> At 09:42 PM 1/16/00 -0500, George Murphy wrote:
> > Does Genesis then "indicate" ~25% helium abundance from the big bang?
> >The "logic" is precisely the same & in fact leads to the ultimate
> conclusion that
> >all true science is "indicated by" (& not just compatible with) the Bible.
> But the
> >fact that the Bible is God's Word doesn't mean that it says everything
> true that
> >can be said.
>
> The Bible doesn't talk about any details at all of the big bang.
"Let there be light" - i.e., EM radiation.
> Howver, it
> does talk about at least one detail of the creation of life which has huge
> consequences--that is, the land created living things!
You will no doubt call this a quibble but the land doesn't "create"
living things. God creates living things by having the land produce them - i.e.,
through the capabilities with which God has endowed it. There is a big theological
distinction here, the kind of thing that tends to get ignored if one is just trying
to read a series of events out of the text.
> If the land did the
> bringing forth, what exactly can that be other than evolution?
OK, the land brought forth "vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees
bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind" before there was
any life in the sea or any animals on land. Not single cells but trees &c. Then the
waters brought forth all the sea animals and birds from the waters before there were any
land animals - which in turn were brought forth from the land, not from any connection
with life in the sea. There is no statement of any change in any of these living things
once they have been brought forth. & finally human beings are simply created with no
indication (in the 1st creation account) of being "brought forth" from anything.
Is this an evolutionary picture? Not in anything like the sense in which the
word is used in modern biology. It's a picture of fully developed kinds being made
from the earth & waters separately.
Now of course you'll say that the order of events doesn't matter and that what
we have is some sort of simplified scientific version so that it "really" is an
evolutionary account. You ignore or explain away the parts that don't fit. But you are
simply reading a modern scientific understanding into Genesis, not out of it.
Nobody that I know of before the 19th century - including Nahmanides, who you
quoted earlier - found evolution here: Note his actual language, "He decreed that there
be among the products of the earth a force which grows and bears seed _so that the
species should exist forever_." (My emphasis added.) Species don't "exist forever" in
evolutionary theories. (& the same is true for Gregory of Nyssa. While he like other
fathers saw mediated creation here & while he had something that sound evolutionary with
his idea that humans had to first have a purely vegetative soul before having an animal
and then a rational one, that is his philosophical construction rather than his reading
of Genesis.)
> God didn't
> create life directly which rules out special creation and it rules out
> progressive creation as normally defined because it requires God act
> directly. The only thing left is evolution. Rather than telling me what you
> think of my ideas, why don't you tell me what else there is other than
> evolution that can fit the creation of life by the land? That would be far
> more useful than what you are doing.
Of course I am not trying to argue for some alternative to evolution & I think
I've made my view of Genesis clear several times. (Whether you consider that useful or
not is another matter.) Genesis gives important theological statements about God's
creation of the world & relationship with it, including the very important idea of
mediated creation of life. Anyone understands this can then see that Genesis does not
_require_ that either "special creation", "progressive creation" or evolution be held as
a scientific theory, but that the idea of mediated creation provides an important
connection with doctrines of providence & an openness to evolutionary views.
> >> PC doesn't generally acknowledge mediate creation.
> >
> > You lost me. PC? Political correctness. Pierre Curie?
>
> For goodness sake, progressive creation! This abbreviation has been used on
> this list for a long time!
Quite right, mea culpa. But having acknowledged my inexusable mental lapse,
I'll point out that there's no reason at all why PC shouldn't involve mediated creation.
Once could easily picture God bringing forth new life forms from earth & waters at
critical points in earth history.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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