How can theists believe in Darwinian evolution?

It really depends on one's view of God. If God is nature, then evolution does not pose a problem. If God is the deist's god (a "hands off" approach after creation), there is also no problem. However, if one's concept is a "god of the gaps" then science is in conflict with that idea of God.I think most theists who are evolutionists favor something approaching the deist's god, though probably a bit of compromise between the deist's god and what is presented in the gospels.I would guess that the miracles actually pose a big problem for scientist Christians. If there were only miracles during the time of Jesus, they might be able to make allowances for a special time. But it seems that there were miracles before then and after then, and that the miracles stopped only when skeptical scientists started to examine them more closely. That's enough to make a scientist wonder if any of them were real.The creationist's god appears to be some amalgam of a god of the gaps, and a gee whiz poof bang god of miracles.

I want to know what Bolder feels not you. He is the one making the assertions.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

As I said No True Scotsmen. You feel that you are able to decide who is a christian. Even though people that call themselves christians do not follow your dogma you feel more than able to declare them not christians. Sounds kind of pompous to me.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Theo, I think we will disagree on this...it may be "no true scotsman" but one only has to look at what Scripture says...I understand you may disagree with scripture and feel it's chalk full of errors so "anything goes" but if I said, yes, you can be a christian, you will even go to heaven but you can also kill 10,000 Jews in an oven, claim you believe in God, cheat on your wife with another man (assuming you are a man) (or woman for that matter), and you are "ok" in the eyes of God, because you believe in GOD, would you say that is biblical??? If your answer is "no, it's not biblical" then I did not use a no true scotsman line of reasoning or argument.In a nutshell Theo, you keep throwing out this no true scotsman arguement when Scripture gives us the way to heaven (plan of salvation if you will). If you believe that anyone who says with their mouth that they are a Christian is just that, a Christian, no mater that their lifestyle says something else, then your issue is with Scripture, not me.Take this verse for example....21 "Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 "Many R238 will say to Me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' 23 "And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.' 24And one of my fav quotes:The greatest single cause of atheism today ...?
... is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny him with their life style. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.--Brennan ManningEdited by Flyer75, : No reason given.

Boy talk about building strawmen, and so quickly.What Bolder is saying, and you seem to be in agreement, is that one needs be a creationist and not ascribe to the scientific facts of the TOE, in order to be a christian.That sir is a classic example of No True Scotsmen and it would make 100's of millions of people that say they are Christians, not Christians.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I have never said such a thing...my point is this...IF Genesis and Scriptural revelation is relegated to mythology just because science tells us something else...then how strong is your faith and trust in the historicity of the resurrection??? One can certainly believe in OEC and still be a christian...i.e. the great C.S. Lewis.BTW, my post that you responded to had ZERO to do with creation. The term never even came up.Edited by Flyer75, : No reason given.

Well maybe you should read the prior posts and have some semblance of an idea what the topic is about.You jumped in on a response I had to Bolder and now you complain that I am not discussing what you want?I guess I need to just ignore everything you have said on this thread, because obviously from this response I see that you are not even concerned with the topic. Al you want to do is spout fundiisms.Here is a hint.FIND THE TOPIC AND STAY ON IT.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Theo, then you've misread what I've been saying. My whole point, and i just said this in my last post but I'll spell it out again, is how can one claim to believe that Christ resurrected from the dead, or any of the "history" of the Bible, yet relegate Gen 1-11 to mythology or allegory???? This is my point...yes, the topic got off onto what a Christian is or the definition of a Christian but that wasn't my sole doing.I apologize for answering the question for Boulder...although he is certainly free to respond if he'd like. I guess we can't interact here and answer questions that get posed???? I gave you my perspective on it. I won't do so again.Edited by Flyer75, : No reason given.

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This is a question that to me is puzzling in it's logic.
There are people who proclaim themselves to be Christian, or holding other similar faiths, who believe 100% in Darwinian evolution. It makes no sense at all to me. One tenet of such religions is that there is a soul, or at least a connection between the human and its God-a connection that differs from a connection that exists between an insect or other being, and a God. So how can one believe this? Is it through ignorance of the meaning of Darwinian evolution, is it through denial, or is it rational in someway that is not readily apparent.

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What do you mean by "Darwinian evolution?" Often when Christians use the term they mean not only Darwin's scientific claims, but also his philosophical worldview. Much of the latter is generally rejected today by non-Christians as well as Christians (e.g. Darwin's view that evolution moved monotonically upward to higher and better forms of life, with the British upper class at the pinnacle).

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Afterall, if humans came to be through natural, unguided mechanisms, how in the world could there be a soul?

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First, although "unguided" is part of the philosophy of Dawkins and perhaps of Darwin, I don't believe it is an integral part of the science of evolution. Orthodox Christians (including TEs) believe that God upholds the universe every second; the universe is contingent on God; nothing happens apart from God. So in this sense, there is no such thing as "unguided" natural process of any kind.
Second, why couldn't a transcendent, omnipotent God implant a soul in man?

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And have can humans have a unique relationship with a God, when there was never any plan for any of us to exist anyway, and we are absolutely no different from any other living being including plants and bacteria- other than our complexity-which is really just an illusion anyway.

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Why/how does evolution preclude a divine plan? This makes absolutely no sense. An omniscient, omnipotent God could easily use evolution as the mechanism for achieving His plan. No matter how a Christian reads Genesis 1 (either literal or allegory), it teaches that man was the goal of divine creation.

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God decided to develop a relationship with humans AFTER he found out, to his surprise that this sentient being arrived out of the chaos? That seems like a silly joke.

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An omniscient God would not be surprised at the outcome.

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How can people like Kenneth Miller and the like even begin to address this? I have no clue-but it strikes me as idiotic.

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There seem to be two main approaches:
1) God supervised and guided evolution, to direct it toward the goals He was after. All orthodox Christians believe that He continually upholds the "laws" of nature to make them regular "laws", but this view goes a bit further. To some it implies a more "hands-on" guidance of random processes, and to others it almost implies a "tinkering" with the processes.
2) God "front-loaded" the regular "laws" which He upholds, so that man would inevitably result. You might like to look at the writings of Simon Conway Morris, a TE who does research on biological "convergence." He believes (completely opposite to Dawkins) that if evolution were to start differently, it would still have nearly the same result. He believes that man was an inevitable product of evolution.

To which one might reply: how can one claim to believe that Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, yet relegate the story of Romulus and Remus to mythology?

Hi Flyer, I think your main mistake here to in viewing "The Bible" as though it were a single comprehensive source. It isn't. Any Bible canon is made up of many books, by many different authors, each with his own views, message, style, biases, culture, etc. Many "books", like Genesis, are heavily redacted from separate sources. Some of it is contradictory, some more harmonious.Whether or not Genesis is an allegory has nothing to do with the historicity of Christ and his resurrection. The events are based upon wildly differing sources, from different times and cultures.The claims made by Genesis and the NT are of very different natures as well. The life of Christ takes place in a recognisable place and time in human history. It is at least conceivable that the NT scriptures are based on eye-witness testimonies. The creation of the earth, even according to Genesis, is not something that any human could possibly have witnessed.In short, I think that attempts to interpret the Bible as a single document are profoundly misguided. That approach is never going to help you work out which bits might be historically accurate, nor even help you understand what the authors were really trying to say in the first place.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

If you want to discuss something that is off-topic then propose another thread for it.Now you seem to be getting back on topic with this. Millions do. Don't ask me how, I am not a christian. I think the resurrection is a whole bunch of hooey too, as a matter of fact I do not think there is any historical basis for believing that this Jesus guy ever existed at all.The point I am trying to make is that there are a lot of christians out there that do believe that Genesis is allegory. It obviously isn't your Christianity but it is theirs.I do not understand how you feel the need that the bible has to be taken as an all or nothing proposition. The books of the Bible were not even decided on until 393 C.E. With the numerous translations and interpretations and glaring errors, anachronisms and conflicts how can one not look on a lot of it as other than allegory.But back to my point. You have obviously decided that anyone that does believe in the Genesis story(I guess you have to miraculously believe in both of the contradictory stories) as historical fact is a a Christian. Anyone that believes it is myth or allegory is not a Christian.A lot of Christians would vigorously disagree with you.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Darwin himself didn't really hold that view: Anyway, back to the topic.

If the creation itself is to be relegated to deception, merely because some pre-scientific human writers described it wrongly, then how can you believe the God was creator?If you were reading Genesis as literature, rather than as sacred text, you would immediately recognize that Genesis 1 is metaphor, and that Genesis 2-3 is fable. This is quite evident in the way they are written. Why should a Christian be expected to engage in self-deception, and to delude himself as to what he is reading?

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Theo, then you've misread what I've been saying. My whole point, and i just said this in my last post but I'll spell it out again, is how can one claim to believe that Christ resurrected from the dead, or any of the "history" of the Bible, yet relegate Gen 1-11 to mythology or allegory???? This is my point...yes, the topic got off onto what a Christian is or the definition of a Christian but that wasn't my sole doing.

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Look at the descriptions of the resurrection of Christ in the gospels, and in Paul's letters. It is portrayed as a real, literal, historical event. This is clearly what the authors are claiming; I don't think there is any other responsible way to interpret their words. Gen 1-11 is much less clear in this regard. It is possible for Christians to decide that Gen 1-11 was originally meant as a sort of "theological mythology" to counter the pagan myths of the surrounding cultures, while the resurrection was a literal, historical event.