I hope this is the right place to post this. Sorry if it’s not. I’ve never really understood how science says we share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, and that we evolved from that said ancestor. The bible says that Adam and Eve were the very first humans. The bible also gives us seven days of how the world was created. Some people say that science is false, but can’t science and God coexist? There’s so much debate in the Christian and science communities about this topic, and I’m still very confused.
God can use processes without giving up authorship. Our starting point is God’s Word, and we test every claim, scientific or theological, under Scripture’s authority.
The simple answer is that science since the 1900s has rejected the authority of the bible for man’s authority.
Science actually depends on a Christian world view. That a consistent, reasonable and understandable God created time, energy, matter and the universe.
Without these the universe has to be as evolution e plains as due to random events.
This is not demonstrated by science or engineering.
May I suggest that you start following either Answers in Gennesis or Creation.com, as well as the ColdCaseChristianity Web site and the wintery Knight blog.
Link Dr. James Tour discusses the case for design in nature with Tucker Carlson | WINTERY KNIGHT
Do talk to your minister about creation and be prepared to ask where his or any Christians final authority lies, do we believe God or man?
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I love this topic because I love science. No, they do not have to be opposed to one another; however, the problem is that it takes a long time for science to catch up. Let’s start with your examples. Logically, if we did evolve from Moneys, it would still be happening. Every missing link we have found has been proven to be a hoax
The Bible claims that God created animals “after their kind.”
“And God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day.” Genesis 1:11-13
Nineteenth-century biologists argued that animals evolved from other, very different animals, but today biology confirms that creatures reproduce within their own kind.
"And God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day.”
It took a while, but Science caught up. Some moe examples Covid 19. The one that has played out a lot lately today. Quarantine is needed to keep the majority safe.
Turn to Leviticus 13:45-46
“The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp."
Is this a punishment? No. Of course not. However, it is needed to protect the healthy. Look around today. What does Science say is the best way to protect the healthy? A 14-day Quarantine. Wait, A 10 day, no, a 5-day, well, whatever. Face masks and social distancing. Separation and the disease can in no way spread.
The Bible told us this somewhere around 538–332 BC. Today, our top Scientists have found it to be true. Here are some others. Let’s stick with health for a sec. Also in Leviticus, Leviticus 17:11
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.”
Again, Leviticus was written somewhere between 538 and 332 BC. During that time and many years after, it was thought that to heal a sick person would be to bleed them. Actually removing their life force instead of attempting to heal the disease. In bloodletting, doctors use sharpened tools or leeches to drain “excess blood” from a patient in an effort to cure the patient’s illness. Bloodletting was an accepted medical procedure worldwide for 3,000 years until it was discredited as an ineffective medical practice in the late 19th century AD.
Interesting note, George Washington died one cold night in 1799, due to bloodletting. Washington developed a fever and a swollen sore throat. Within hours of falling ill, doctors had drained Washington of almost half of his blood. Washington died the next day from what doctors have retrospectively diagnosed as a severe throat infection and shock.
Now it is true that bloodletting is still used in the present day in very specific medical procedures, but bloodletting is generally discredited as an ineffectual treatment for the majority of ailments. Today, modern medicine agrees with the Bible that blood gives our body life. Studies have discovered that blood is vital in nourishing living tissue by carrying oxygen and nutrients, forming blood clots, transporting antibodies to fight infection, moving waste to the kidneys/liver, and regulating body temperature.
Continued.
Peter
While we are at it. Jesus sweating blood? Luke 22:44
“And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
Not possible? Commonly referred to as Hematidrosis or Hemohidrosis, this condition results in the excretion of blood or blood pigment in the sweat. Under conditions of great emotional stress, tiny capillaries in the sweat glands can rupture, thus mixing blood with perspiration. This condition has been reported in extreme instances of stress. 76 cases of Hematidrosis were studied and classified into categories according to causative factors. The most frequent causes of the phenomenon were found to be “acute fear” and “intense mental contemplation.” So yes, Jesus, facing all He was about to, including the Cross, DID sweat blood.
Let’s get away from all this blood talk. What about simply having a positive attitude? What about the connection between having a positive attitude and good health? What about depression causing harm, possibly to the point of death? Proverbs 17:22
“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
The Bible also tells us this.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4:8
Today, the mind-body link is such a respected tenet of the medical community that world-renowned academic medical institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins promote positive thinking as a way to maintain physical health. This is also why it is so important that if you or someone you know is feeling depressed or hopeless, you seek help as soon as possible. There is no shame. We all need a hand from time to time.
Let’s talk about the Earth. Shall we? The Bible does tell us all about it. First, God created it. The Big Bang did happen. God spoke, and BANG! Oh, that is nonsense, some say. Evolution is a scientifically proven fact. No need for faith. Really?
First, you have to believe in the scientifically impossible. There was nothing, then something just happened. This is scientifically and mathematically impossible. God was the first something, but they exclude that, rendering the theory of evolution junk science. Then you have to overcome the next hurdle. They want you to believe from this first single that something came from everything. Not only came all that is, from trees to plants, from fish to people, that want you to believe that we did not all come from the same man and woman.
Well Science says the Earth is millions of years old. OK. And? That contradicts the Bible. Does it? How old were Adam and Eve? They were not crawling around. They were created as fully grown adults. So God can create anything, at any age, for any reason.
The Bible claims that all humans are “one blood” descended from one man and one woman. Some nineteenth-century biologists argued that different races descended from lower animals, but today genetics has verified that there is only one human race.
What about Earth in space?
“He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing.” Job 26:7
We now know this is true. However, the “fixed earth theory” was most notably argued by Ptolemy, and his geocentric model was used for astrological charts for 1500 years. Some people actually believed that the earth was on the backs of animals. Seriously.
How about the flat earth? The flat earth model is an archaic conception of the earth’s shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period 323 BC, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period 31 BC, India until the Gupta period (early centuries AD), and China until the 17th century. Believe it or not, there are still some today that believe this to be true.
What does the Bible say? Isaiah 40:22
“It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;”
Wait, it says “he who sits above the circle of the earth.” The Circle. No question there.
There are many examples we could discuss, but no. Science is the the enimty of God nor vice versa.
Peter
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1Ti 6:20 O Timothy, guard that which is committed unto thee, turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called;
Science started out attempting to describe the natural world that God created. It gained a legitimacy in that it was an indirect description of God by measuring his handiwork. This credibility was necessary for Satan to cash in on to promote his idea of evolution to discourage people from either believing in God or attributing to him what he deserves.
Millions of years are necessary to explain why no one has actually observed an evolution actually happening. When one reduces evolution to its basics, it sounds unlikely, “Nothing existed and then it blew up and became everything which then organized itself into us”.
Since no one was there during the creation of the world except the Creator, I choose to believe Him.
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This is a topic on which Christians disagree. And in some ways this disagreement is hyper-modern, or at least the way it often is framed today is often a uniquely modern phenomenon. If we go back even just 100 years even strident Fundamentalist opponents of biological evolution didn’t hold to a strictly literal interpretation of the Creation story; the most common view among Fundamentalists of the late 19th and early 20th century is what we’d call Old Earth Creationism. This began to change, largely, in the 1960’s and 70’s. At least in the United States.
The question of how to interpret the earliest chapters of Genesis has been something Christians have always held different opinions on. Some, like Origen of Alexandria, subscribed to an allegorical interpretation. On the other hand, St. Basil the Great seems to have held to a more literal interpretation. St. Augustine argued for something in the middle, he saw the days of creation in Genesis 1 as non-literal, and somewhat allegorical; though as best I recall he also took the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden and what happened as literal (whereas Origen had taken the eating of the fruit as meaning something more than literal fruit-eating).
This fuzzy territory of biblical interpretation continued well beyond the Patristic era, we still see it in the middle ages and the Scholastic period of Western Christianity. One of the earliest examples of a more emphatically literal interpretation can be found in Luther, who believed that we should try to stick to the plain words-as-they-are meaning of the text unless we have some other reason to think otherwise.
Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant views of various kinds have continued to co-exist. There is the famous historical episode concerning Galileo, often used as a classic story of “religion vs science”, but that classic retelling lacks the real historical nuance, the politics, and becomes dumbed down and over-simplified. It’s true that Galileo butted heads with the Pope, and this eventually got him in trouble resulting in his being put under house arrest and his writings censured. But it’s not because he believed in the Copernican model of heliocentrism; the Pope supported Galileo’s work as the Pope at the time was interested in the emerging science of astronomy. It’s that the Pope wanted Galileo to include alternative hypotheses (e.g. the traditional Ptolemaic geocentric model) and Galileo refused and also insulted the Pope. So it ended up becoming more of a political issue. Not justifying Galileo’s treatment, only that the idea that religion and science are natural enemies is fundamentally wrong and Galileo’s story doesn’t really teach that narrative.
Further, Christians–especially clergy–were deeply interested in the sciences; and many major scientific breakthroughs in the last 500 years were the result of devout Christians who studied the sciences out of a deep reverence for God who created everything.
And that includes Christians who have contributed to the study of biological evolution, right up into the modern day. Our knowledge of evolution and deep geological/cosmic time (including the Big Bang model of the universe) is not a product of atheism or a rejection of Christianity–but just the opposite, but has often been a product of devout Christians desiring to study the created world out of their love of God. Take the Big Bang model I just mentioned. The term “big bang” actually originated as an insult from the secular, atheist community of scientists who thought Fr. Georges Lemaître’s theory of Cosmic Inflation was just an “excuse” to add God to science. At the time the mainstream scientific consensus was that the universe was eternally static–the universe had always existed, and always been the same (that’s what much of the math at the time seemed to suggest). But people like Lemaître and later, Hubbel, challenged that model. Lemaître, as a devout Catholic priest, believed by faith that the universe had a beginning, so by suggesting the universe had a beginning and that this was scientifically consistent with his faith led to his being mocked; but it turns out he was right, and we actually observe the universe expanding. We have evidence, observed evidence, of “the big bang” in the form of cosmic microwave background radiation from right after the big bang. Cosmic Inflation Theory (i.e. “Big Bang”) is now the standard model.
On this point: Millions of Christians around the globe have no problems accepting modern science and also believing in the infallible word of God, the Scriptures. Scripture and science are not in conflict. Yes, the universe is billions of years old, yes life on earth has been evolving for millions of years, human beings share a common ancestor with the other great apes (our closest cousin being the chimpanzees). And it’s also true that in the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, and that we are all the children of Adam and Eve, that we live in a fallen world, and Christ came to save us.
It’s not either-or. It’s both-and.
I accept the modern scientific consensus concerning material origins and biological (including human) evolution.
I also believe the Scriptures are the infallible word of God, true; and in the words of the Ecumenical Creeds; and that there is no name besides Jesus Christ by which we can be saved.
This is actually very normal among Christians, across denominations and traditions.
As far as Christianity is concerned: this isn’t a first order issue (it never has been). Christians can disagree and still be in fellowship and communion together. This is not a communion-breaking issue. This isn’t a heresy/orthodoxy issue.
Because the Greeks seek after wisdom and not God.
Agreeing with PeterC, Christianity and science do not need to be at odds. Like all things, God created the very things science is based upon. We are only just “discovering” what is there. Yet while Christianity is not at odds with science, science is sometimes often at odds with Christianity.
If we as a planet paid more heed to what’s in the Bible, we would see it speaks on many sound topics of what is now known as “scientific fact” and even modern medical knowledge, and it did so before modern science and modern medicine put it forth as their idea. (I posted back in December on this)
Even with Biblical guidance available, the scientific community gets a lot of things wrong. Of those who remember the lunar landing, you will recall the overtly large landing pads. Science believed the moon to be millions of years old, thus, by their calculations, it should have several feet of dust. So the large landing pads were there to keep the landers legs from sinking in deep. But suprise, there was only a scant 2 inches of dust, or about 6,000 years worth.
*Notice the landing pads didn’t even sink in the dust.
While science’s timeline for humans does not match the Bible, I assure you, God does not have that problem and his timeline matches flawlessly.
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