Re: Evolutionary creationism

On 3/12/2025 11:35 PM, MarkE wrote:

On 12/03/2025 10:19 am, David wrote:

On 11/03/2025 13:51, RonO wrote:

On 3/11/2025 4:00 AM, David wrote:

On 10/03/2025 22:20, RonO wrote:

https://biologos.org/common-questions/what-is-evolutionary-creation
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https://biologos.org/common-questions/how-is-biologos-different- from- evolutionism-intelligent-design-and-creationism
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QUOTE:
Evolutionary Creation (EC) is a Christian position on origins. It takes the Bible seriously as the inspired and authoritative word of God, and it takes science seriously as a way of understanding the world God has made. EC includes two basic ideas. First, that God created all things, including human beings in his own image. Second, that evolution is the best scientific explanation we currently have for the diversity and similarities of all life on Earth.
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QUOTE:
The Identity of BioLogos
Core Values
Christ-centered Faith — We embrace the historical Christian faith, upholding the authority and inspiration of the Bible.
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Rigorous Science — We affirm the established findings of modern science, celebrating the wonders of God’s creation.
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Gracious Dialogue — We strive for humble and thoughtful dialogue with those who hold other views, speaking the truth in love.
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It looks like Biologos consists of Christians with some knowledge of science that want to fit what nature actually is into a Biblical context.  They seem to be a diverse group with some of them being evangelical Christians.  Essentially they want to do what the Reason to Believe old earth anti-evolution creationists have not been able to do.
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It seems like they understand the limits of science, and they are not trying to rewrite a cosmic mythology to replace the one that the Hebrew inherited from their neighbors.  These neighbors may have been civilized for thousands of years before the Israelites, but their flat earth cosmology is pretty far off the mark.  Any attempt to rewrite the Biblical creation mythology would be subject to future rewriting as a better understanding of nature continues to unfold. They just seem interested in conforming what we currently understand about nature with a few chosen Biblical claims about our existence in this universe.
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They are not trying to get their religious beliefs taught in the public schools.  Unlike the Reason to Believe old earth creationists that have undertaken the impossible task of trying to take the Bible as literally as possible.  The Biologos creationists seem to have given up on doing that.  Instead they seem to be picking out parts of the creation mythology that they might be able to conform to what we know about nature.  They are theistic evolutionists and some of them are supernatural tweekers like Behe that have not given up on their god's supernatural involvement in the evolution of life on earth.
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The Biologos creationists differ from the ID perps by how they approach science.  The ID perps focus on gap denial, while the Biologos creationists focus on claiming that their god can be responsible for what we already understand about nature.  They are still not abiding by Saint Augustine's admonishment about not using the Bible to make claims about what we can determine for ourselves about nature, so my guess is that their efforts can still fail to represent nature accurately depending on how consistent with the Bible that they want to be.
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Ron Okimoto

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What is YOUR thinking on this, Ron?
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I've admitted to being baptized into the Methodist church as an adult. At that time you had to go into a meeting with the pastor and be interviewed before being baptized.  I told the pastor that I did not take the Biblical view of nature literally, and he told me that, that was acceptable.  It is one of the things that Nyikos lied about to harass me for over a decade and a half.  Anyone can look it up, and the Methodists take no stand on those aspects of the Bible.  There is a YEC faction in the Methodist church, but they coexist with theistic evolutionists and old earth creationists.  How the Bible got it wrong about nature is not an issue in the Methodist church.  You can look into it and the Methodist church has been against teaching creationism and ID in the public schools since the start of the scientific creationist efforts.  As such I have never been inclined to use any of my science endeavors to support my religious beliefs.  Nature is just what it is, and science is just the study of nature.  I have always understood that my religious beliefs are not rational, and has never depended the same rational evaluation of nature that science depends on.  My take is that most religious scientists have the same view of the difference between science and religion.  They are not trying to justify their religious beliefs through their science.  They are just trying to contribute their part to a better understanding of nature. I see no reason to lie about what the situation currently is, and have always been against the anti- science efforts of creationists.

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I appreciate your response Ron. Thank you.

 Sharing personal background is appreciated (as Ron has done before).
 Ron, genuine question, would you subscribe to a form theistic evolution, or how would you see God involved in the origin and development of life?

First off I refuse to add to the 100% failure rate for God being verified to be doing anything in nature.  That would be my simple advice to anyone else.
Anyone that thinks that nature is the creation would likely be a theistic evolutionist if they understood the current science.  Denton and Behe are examples of ID perp thesitic evolutionists, but they are two different types.  Denton doesn't think that there is any reason why his god would need to interfere with the natural process in order to get something like we are, but Behe believes that his god was needed to tweek things every once in a while to get to where we are today.
As Behe and Denton indicate no one should likely be any single type of theistic evolutionist.  Science can't differentiate them, science has only been able to determine that biological evolution is what we call a fact of nature.  It can still be wrong.  The scientific creationists have already retreated to claiming that their god just created everything to make it look like life has been evolving on this planet for billions of years, and they believe that the creation only occurred less than 20,000 years ago.  They used to claim less than 50,000 years in order to appease the Jehovah's Witnesses, but since the JW became old earth creationists they went back to their 10,000 to 20,000 year estimates.  The Reason to Believe old earth creationists think that their god has been recreating life every once in a while, and continues to do so, in order to make it look like evolution has happened on this planet.
It is still a losing proposition to claim to be any one type of theistic evolutionist.  I'm a creationist, and I accept that bioligical evolution is a scientific fact of nature, but I see no reason to limit any theistic possibilities at this time.  No denial is needed, and guys like Behe are just incompetent or lying to themselves about what they think they need to believe.
The Bible was never meant to be a science textbook, and the 100% failure rate for using it as such should tell any competent creationist that they should not do that.  Saint Augustine and the early church fathers alreaady understood that the earth was not flat, and that the Biblical cosmology could not be taken literally.  We have subsequently found no firmament above the earth, and it turned out that the church fathers were wrong about geocentrism.  The Reason to Believe old earth creationists have found out that even the "day for ages" literal interpretation cannot be supported.  They are claiming that things said to have been created on one day (in one age) could have been first created in another age and just not mentioned in the Bible.
Since I'm a creationist, and understand that biological evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet, I am a theistic evolutionist, but there isn't any reason for me to claim any understanding as to what type of theistic evolution is the "best" one for creationists to believe in.  All science can do is improve our understanding of nature.  Science denial is probably never going to support your religious beliefs.  Some theistic evolutionists like Behe can't give up on the science denial.  I noted that some of the BioLogos creationists may be falling into that same trap.
Ron Okimoto

 

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Are YOU a scientist?
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