Christian evolutionists, what do you think?

Question

For the Christians out there who don't deny fossil records and solid peer-reviewed science (aka: not www.answersingenesis.org)

How do you reconcile Christianity with evolution?

One of the biggest issues I see is that the book of Genesis must be a complete lie, even if you look at it allegorically.

Humanity undergoes death and suffering because of our sins - that is the conclusion from Adam & Eve. According to evolution, death and suffering are a natural cycle of nature - without it we couldn't have developed into humans!

Answer 1

I've always wondered how people could reconcile Christianity and evolution as well. The way i see it, evolution demolishes Christianity completely. If there was no fall of man there exists no need for a redeemer and thus Jesus died for a null cause.

From what I've observed the people who reconcile their faith and science are good at compartmentalizing their beliefs. Science exists in one bucket while their faith exists in another and neither really ever mix. Their faith also seems to be more of a belief in belief itself more than a belief in the tenets of their religion as an absolute standard.

Answer 2

If you accept Genesis as an allegorical story, then an allegory by defintion is a story telling a story about something else. It therefore can not be a lie if it is allegorical, it is just a story--a parable if you will. If let there be light is an allegorical description of the big bang then the garden of Eden could as well be an allegorical story of how prehominids achieved sapience. (Eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil could simply be describing sapience--life could certainly be an Eden on Earth for animals of the planet--before they ate adam and eve walked around naked-just like an animal. Modesty, the ability to understand right and wrong--are all hallmarks of sapience. So I do not have a particular problem with the story of mankind in Genesis, I think it is a story written for it's audience's intellectual level. If God can do anything at all then he is a master pool player, divine intervention set off the big bang. If he knows where every ball will land after a pool break, then he could know where every atom and the interactions thereof would wind up. He'd know for example that if he nudged the big bang just so--in a few billion years a star and a planet called earth would form, and after a few more billion years a sapient life form would evolve.
What's less miraculous about "calling your shot" 15 billion years ago in a great cosmic pool game as snapping his fingers? If He knew that by one action he could set everything in motion to make man--then--did he not create man?

Answer 3

A) God is infinite. This means He's got lots of room to do stuff in.

B) God is eternal. This means He's got all the time there is to do stuff in.

C)
1. Genesis begins with stories rather obviously plagiarized from earlier creation myths and written down by at least 4 different authors (when they finally got around to writing, that is).
2. The point of Genesis is NOT scientific evidence of HOW God did His creating schtick. The point is to convince folks that God IS God and that He does it all by Himself, without any other "gods" helping Him out because there are NO other gods running around TO help Him.
3. The story of Adam and Eve is the early Hebrews' best guess of why there is death and evil in a world they knew doggone good and well was created by one God and Him a good guy; NOT the whimsical, petty, spiteful, nasty types that most other cultures recognized as godlike. Whether they got that part right or wrong is not germane to the point of the book (See C-2).

D) BTW, I am Catholic, a theologian and a scientist. Evolution strikes me as a brilliant idea because it gives all of created matter the freedom to do its own schtick without God having to be some kind of super puppetmaster (yucko!).

E) Hope this helped.

Answer 4

I find you question almost amusing.

"Christian evolutionists" is an oxymoron if there ever was one, like "Military Intelligence".

There is no solid peer-reviewed science to prove the fossil record. The fossil record proves the flood of Noah, nothing else.

25 year old rocks, which formed out of the molten lava which came from the volcano Mt. St. Helens, which erupted in 1980 have been tested and determined to be 65 million years old by your "peer-reviesed scienctsts".

Many "scientists" have become Christians when they honestly examined the evidence and compared it with the Bible.

So what I think is that you, my friend, have not done your homework.

I feel sad for you.

Since you have been so thoroughly deceived, just like Eve.

Pastor Art

Answer 5

that's real. Many Christians inspite of the shown fact that do not accept as true with the Bible besides, not all Christians bash the bible in peoples faces (yet many do) you will possibly be Christian and understand the fact of evolution....and doubtless, purely in line with probability settle for the two introduction and evolution..and why not? Evolution is how God created and creates the international. Evolution is the answer to how and what, not why or who. There are Christians that surely have brains, and use them, for that reason understand the fact of evolution and settle for it.

Answer 6

Christianity is an offer of everlasting life for those who care to believe the Gospel.
If you'd rather not accept the stories of the Bible, don't.
God is so far advanced technologically, that only now would we be able to begin to understand how he did the things proclaimed there.
Call God a lie a your own peril.

Answer 7

I actually agree with Dakes. He has a study Bible that is very fascinating.

I believe in both..............I totally believe the creation story, however, I believe the earth was re-generated in Genesis and there were people/animals here before. The earth was covered with water in Genesis 1:1...........so I think the fossil accounts are pretty accurate and that world was destroyed.

Answer 8

Simple: God created evolution.

I am not a "Scientologist," but I am a scientific kind of guy that totally believes in Creation. I'm actually working on a way to combat the school board when I start teaching high school biology when they tell me I can't teach Creation as a valid theory.

I believe that God created His creatures to be able to adapt as the world developed. I don't think man spawned from monkeys. We were created the way we were and have grown over the years. It seems a bit irresponsible to think that with all of the complexities of existence that we were merely some cosmic accident. Some intelligent design is definitely involved. It makes sense that God, being a bit of a tinkerer, would do what He did to inspire us to learn.

An exerpt from Isaiah 1:18 - ""Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD."

This was in regards to sin, but God is obviously a thinker and wants us to be as well. It makes sense to me that we were created and we were expected to try to figure out why and how.

Keep in mind, too, that the Bible doesn't necessarily say that Adam was the first man. He's the first man in the bloodline of Jesus. The only reason he's mentioned is for this reason. When Cain murdered Abel he was concerned with the potential retaliation from other people he'd run into on his travels. Not his brothers and sisters, but other people.

Gotta love radiocarbon dating!

Answer 9

We were created human - there is no missing link. Evolution is the methodology used by our creator. Death and Suffering
are, but were not a natural cycle of mankind. This Universe was created around man, who through his own misstep
blew it.

Answer 10

I reconcile it by realizing that the bible was written by fallible men and is not the literal word of God. That being said, the messages of the bible are not invalid because of the fallibility of its contributors.