Re: Fw: Fw: Fw: Mere Creation conference

Murphy (gmurphy@imperium.net)
Mon, 25 Nov 1996 12:49:44 -0500

Russell Maatman wrote:
>

> I'm not exactly sure what you are asking, George. If you are asking about
> the book, it's _The Impact of Evolutionary Theory: A Christian View_.
>
> But perhaps you are asking about the idea itself. I think the question of
> evolution needs to be divided into two parts: the origin of humankind and
> the origin of everything else. I am sure that the Bible teaches that Adam
> and Eve are the parents of us all and that they were not descended from
> animals. I am sure of that because the Bible says so--not just in Genesis
> but in the NT as well. The Bible links that idea to our salvation itself.
> It's not a peripheral matter--even if there are peripheral matters in the
> Bible.
>
> For the other kinds of evolutionary claims, there seems to be no scientific
> problem with microevoluton. There seem to be many scientific problems with
> macroevolution. I am not _sure_ the Bible speaks to these questions. It
> might. But my opposition to macroevolution is based on scientific evidence.
>
> So my antievolutionary stance is based on two qualitatively different
> sources of knowledge--the Bible and natural scientific conclusions. Yes, I
> realize that both kinds of conclusions are subject to human error. But we
> are talking about faith on the one hand and empirical knowledge on the
> other hand. So that is where I stand; that's why I used the word
> "nonnegotiable."
>
> Some of the places in the book where I discuss these things are Chapter 10,
> "Genesis," especially pp. 184-85, and Chapter 11, "Human Origin and the
> Evolutionary Paradigm," especially pp. 200-02.

Thanks for your elaboration. However, I don't believe that one
can really say that the Bible teaches that human beings are not
desennded from other animals. In fact, as I argued in my 1986 Journal
of the ASA article ("A Theological Argument for Evolution"), the
relationship between human beings and other animals required by
evolutionary theory allows one to understand passages such as
Rom.8:18-25 and Col.1:20 in a more theologically sound way than does a
theory of the special origin of humanity.
SHALOM,
George