I will finish answering the last couple attacks on theistic evolution; dangers eight, nine, and ten (also if you have not read parts one and two go ahead and look at them).
Alright, enough babbling, lets dig in;
Danger no. 8: Loss of Creation Concepts
At first glance, um...no it doesn't, and if you look further their first reason I am afraid isn't very convincing:
Certain essential creation concepts are taught in the Bible. These
include:
--God created matter without using any available material.
Theistic Evolution does not imply that matter was created out of existing material, the Big Bang implies almost a creation out of nothin; of course boith sides will interpret the Big Bang by how they see the universe.
--God created the earth first, and on the fourth day He added the moon, the
solar system, our local galaxy, and all other star systems. This sequence
conflicts with all ideas of ‘cosmic evolution’, such as the ‘big bang’
cosmology.
Here is an excellent article on why this isn't necessarily the case; there is also one article addressing this topic on the Answers In Creation website. And I should mention one more interesting article on Rich Deem's God and Science website on why the old earth interpretation makes as much if not more sense as the young earth interpretation.
Danger no. 9: Misrepresentation of Reality
The Bible carries the seal of truth, and all its pronouncements are authoritative—whether they deal with questions of faith and salvation, daily living, or matters of scientific importance.
Evolutionists brush all this aside, e.g. Richard Dawkins says, ‘Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth, and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants’.4
If evolution is false, then numerous sciences have embraced false testimony. Whenever these sciences conform to evolutionary views, they misrepresent reality. How much more then a theology which departs from what the Bible says and embraces evolution!
Now this is almost amusing, the young earth creationist writer seems to think theistic evolutionists in particular are the same as atheistic evolutionists. The bible is definitely authoritative in the opinion of many theistic evolutionists including myself. It simply doesn't give us the full story: the story not told God has given us the joy of finding out for ourselves, now can you young earth creationists stop interrupting please? Of course I and most all Christians disagree with Richard Dawkins on what he said about particular creation stories. And lastly Evolution is probably true, and the scientifically established age of the earth as well as the Big Bang are definitely true; so I think our theology is pretty safe, how about you?
Danger no. 10: Missing the Purpose
Missing the purpose of the entire bible is what AiG supporters do best, now why do they think we are missing the purpose? Lets see:
In no other historical book do we find so many and such valuable statements
of purpose for man, as in the Bible. For example:
--Man is God’s purpose in
creation (Genesis
1:27-28).
Agreed...no stumbling blocks for the theistic evolutionist
--Man is the purpose of God’s plan of redemption (Isaiah
53:5)
Agreed...no stumbling blocks for the theistic evolutionist here either
--Man is the purpose of the mission of God’s Son (1
John 4:9).
Agreed...once again this is no problem for the theistic evolutionist, only the deistic or atheistic evolutionist.
--We are the purpose of God’s inheritance (Titus
3:7).
Agreed, not a problem for the theistic evolutionist.
--Heaven is our destination (1
Peter 1:4).
Sigh...will you please bring up a something which actually is a problem for theistic evolution? this sensory underload is killing me; the author was doing good at first but now he's just showing a how little he knows about theistic evolutionists.
However, the very thought of purposefulness is anathema to evolutionists. ‘Evolutionary adaptations never follow a purposeful program, they thus cannot be regarded as teleonomical.’5 Thus a belief system such as theistic evolution that marries purposefulness with non-purposefulness is a contradiction in terms.
Well in the end even my view of evolution says that evolution doesn't have anything to do with our purpose in life or how we should act. Evolution is simply how God created us and how he created life on earth, it really doesn't determine who we are; Atheism and Materialism are the philosophies which say Man has no purpose not evolution. Evolution just biological change over time.
Well that concludes my rebuttal. AiG doesn't seem to understand evolution or theistic evolution. Either. Hopefully an era will come in the future where religion and science are in perfect harmony and both sides have learned to compliment each other. Unfortunately that time seems far into the future, it may never come before the second coming.
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