Pastoral Musings

The leap from microevolution to macroevolution is unobserved: it is simply an extrapolation.

See this article.

One does not have to accept macroevolution simply because he accepts microevolution.

First of all, definitions:

Microevolution:

Microevolution is evolution on a small scale—within a single population. That means narrowing our focus to one branch of the tree of life.

 

Macroevolution:

Macroevolution generally refers to evolution above the species level. So instead of focusing on an individual beetle species, a macroevolutionary lens might require that we zoom out on the tree of life, to assess the diversity of the entire beetle clade and its position on the tree.

Macroevolution refers to evolution of groups larger than an individual species. Macroevolution encompasses the grandest trends and transformations in evolution, such as the origin of mammals and the radiation of flowering plants. Macroevolutionary patterns are generally what we see when we look at the large-scale history of life.

 

Note that macroevolution refers to evolution above the species level  and tries to understand the origin of groups larger than species, while microevolution looks at change that is pretty much change within species.

Now Young Earth Creationists generally speak of created kinds instead of species, because kinds seems to include more than a single species. That does not mean that the change within kinds that YEC believe in necessitates their believing in macroevolution. The reason is that macroevolution looks far beyond speciation to the largest of all trends in evolution. Notice that the definition above shows that macroevolution looks at the origin of mammals and not simply change within mammalia. Thus there is a vast difference between the YEC view of change and the macroevolutionary view of change.

Furthermore, YEC are not the only folks who have issues with macroevolution. There are proponents of Intelligent Design who have problems with it.

Surprise! There’s no satisfactory mathematical model for macroevolution, at the present time

In 2006, Professor Allen Macneill acknowledged that macroevolution is not mathematically modelable in the way that microevolution is. He could have meant that macroevolution is not mathematically modelable at all; alternatively, he may have simply meant that macroevolutionary models are not as detailed as microevolutionary models. If he meant the latter, then I would ask: where’s the mathematics that explains macroevolution? Surprisingly, it turns out that there is currently no adequate mathematical model for Darwinian macroevolution. Professor James Tour’s remark that “The Emperor has no clothes” is spot-on.

Click here for the full article.

The argument that YEC’s belief in multitudes of changes within created kinds is a belief in some form of Darwinian macroevolution is simply a strawman fallacy.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

As Moses wrote the Pentateuch, the thing that was foremost in his mind was that Israel worship YHWH. For them to worship YHWH, they would have to know Him. For this purpose Moses leapt right into describing the nature of God.

We have already seen that the statement, “In the beginning God created”, shows us that there was a beginning to time. It also teaches us that God is before, above, and Lord of time.

Not only did God create time, but He also created space and matter. He created the heaven and the earth. Not only do we have time, but we have space and matter. Time, space, and matter are the creation of God.

The Ancient Near Eastern myths presented their gods as the products of matter. The ANE gods were not necessarily eternal, but had beginnings. They were often the products of the procreation of the gods. Some were created by other gods. The God of Israel, however, is the Creator of all things. He is before matter. He is above matter. There is nothing upon the face of the earth that should be considered a god, because the Creator is God of matter.

Moses understood this very well, because he wrote a song of praise to the LORD which said, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” (Psalm 90:1–2) Moses’ aim was to show Israel this truth so that they would recognize that YHWH is so vastly superior to the gods of the world that there is truly no comparison between them. They are made of matter, yet YHWH is God and Lord of matter; thus He is God and Lord of all things.

Today there are many who wish to present the Genesis account of the creation as being comparable to the ANE creation accounts, or even as having borrowed from them. Once we understand that the God who created all things is shown as so vastly superior to the gods of the world, we must reject this notion of parallelism and borrowing. There is simply no true comparison between the ANE myths and the Genesis account of creation, just as there is no comparison between the gods of the world and the Creator of all things.

Not only is this so, but there are those who wish to deny that the Genesis account of the creation is a historical narrative. We are told that we should not take it literally, because it says nothing about science. Once again, this is a notion that the text bids us to reject. Why? We must reject it because it makes a bold scientific statement that says God is the Creator of matter.

If we accept Genesis 1:1 as making a theological statement that God is Creator of matter and greater than the gods of ANE cultures, we must also embrace the whole of the Genesis creation narrative as speaking historically about God and His creation. To do otherwise is to be arbitrary, seeking to speak to the Scriptures instead of allowing Scripture to speak to us.

Related articles

• Theology In Genesis Chapters 1-3: The Eternal God

the system is thoroughly atheistic, and therefore cannot possibly stand. God has revealed his existence and his government of the world so clearly and so authoritatively, that any philosophical or scientific speculations inconsistent with those truths are like cobwebs in the track of a

tornado. They offer no sensible resistance.

Charles Hodge, vol. 2, Systematic Theology, 15 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

 

In saying that this system is atheistic, it is not said that Mr. Darwin is an atheist. He expressly acknowledges the existence of God; and seems to feel the necessity of his existence to account for the origin of life. Nor is it meant that every one who adopts the theory does it in an atheistic sense. It has already been remarked that there is a theistic and an atheistic form of the nebular hypothesis as to the origin of the universe; so there may be a theistic interpretation of the Darwinian theory.

Charles Hodge, vol. 2, Systematic Theology, 16 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

 

 

Professor Huxley says that when he first read Darwin’s book he regarded it as the death-blow of teleology, i.e., of the doctrine of design and purpose in nature. Buchner, to whom the atheistical character of a book is a recommendation, says that Darwin’s “theory is the most thoroughly naturalistic that can be imagined, and far more atheistic than that of his despised (verrufenen) predecessor Lamarck, who admitted at least a general law of progress and development; whereas, according to Darwin, the whole development is due to the gradual summation of innumerable minute and accidental natural operations.”

Charles Hodge, vol. 2, Systematic Theology, 16-17 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

Charles Darwin, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

Darwin, therefore, does teach precisely what Dr. Gray pronounces atheism. A man, it seems, may believe in God, and yet teach atheism.
The anti-theistic and materialistic character of this theory is still further shown by what Mr. Darwin says of our mental powers. “In the distant future,” he says, “I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.” Of this prediction he has himself attempted the verification in his recent work on the “Descent of Man,” in which he endeavours to prove that man is a developed ape. The Bible says: Man was created in the image of God.

Charles Hodge, vol. 2, Systematic Theology, 19 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

 

Note that Hodge explicitly states that one can hold to Darwinism and be a theist. On the other hand, Darwin’s theory is essentially atheistic.

One does not have to be an atheist to hold to what began as an atheistic philosophical theory. One can be a committed theist, and even a Christian theist, and hold to this theory. The fact that Christian theists hold to some form of this theory does not make it correct, however. That is part of what Hodge is telling us here.

While the genetic fallacy is certainly a logical error, this is not a genetic fallacy. It is recognizing that Darwinian evolution is an atheistic philosophy that has been too carelessly accepted by many.

Ideas have consequences, and atheistic ideas will have atheistic consequences.

…two important themes are discernible in the writings of Darwin and his fellow naturalists: Gnosticism and natural theology. Gnosticism is an

ancient belief system that draws a strong distinction between spirit and matter. Spirit is good and matter is evil. Whereas the Bible says that God made the world, Gnosticism holds that God is separate from the world; thus Gnosticism is a theodicy. Yes, there is evil, but it is far from God. God is separate and distinct from the world and not responsible for its evils. In Darwin’s time the world was increasingly seen as controlled by natural laws. God may have instituted these laws in the beginning, but he had not since interfered; the laws were now his secondary causes. As in Gnosticism, God was seen as separate from the world.

The ancient Gnostics were also antihistorical. Whereas the Bible presents a history of God’s activity in the world, including dates and historical figures, the Gnostics believed that God’s revelation was not open but secret- revealed from within rather than in public documents such as Scripture. Furthermore, whereas the Bible says that the heavens declare the glory of God, the Gnostics believed that one should not look for signs of God in nature. In Darwin’s day, a parallel view developed that urged the separation of religion and science…

Darwin’s God pg 129

Related articles

• Irenaeus, ANE Gods, Gnosticism, And Evolution (pastoralmusings.com)
• Irenaeus, ANE Gods, Gnosticism, And Theistic Evolution (pastoralmusings.com)

Just a couple of quotes for folks to think about.

Image via Wikipedia

Charles Darwin himself famously complained in a letter to Asa Gray, “I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae [parasitic insects] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.” Rather than such apparent natural cruelties being the result of divine intention, Darwin chose to hang them on the vagaries of natural selection. As a result, the presence of evil was rendered unproblematic because we could only expect a mixture of good and bad results from evolution’s ongoing natural lottery.

Source

That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes. Some have attempted to explain this in reference to man by imagining that it serves for his moral improvement. But the number of men in the world is nothing compared with that of all other sentient beings, and these often suffer greatly without any moral improvement. A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create this universe, is to our finite minds omnipotent and omniscient, and it revolts our understanding to suppose that his benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the suffering of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time? This very old argument from the existence of suffering against the existence of an intelligent First Cause seems to be a strong one; whereas…the presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection.

Darwin’s Autobiography

It is quite easy for folks to read misread a post with which they disagree. It seems that happens quite often.

Marv gets it, however.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Jason has come across an interesting and quite valid parallel.

Irenaeus objected to people in his day who thought so much of a prevailing non-Scriptural school of thought about the way the cosmos is constructed and how it all works that they saw fit to fold the constructs of their philosophy into the Scriptural narrative. The result is, rather than the profound simplicity of the Divine Sovereign who says to this one go and he goes and to that one do this and he does it (though it be mystery beyond our ken, even in that “simplicity”)–they posited intermediary entities–unknown to Scripture–through which the creation was effected. One can hear them now: “I’m not denying that Yahweh created the universe, only who’s to say he didn’t use a demiurge and angelic beings to do it?”

Now Jason is not telling us that Irenaeus ever heard of Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking. But a current practice not all that far removed from what the Gnostics of old were up to is rampant today. To wit: some wish to posit intermediary entities–unknown to Scripture–between the Divine Sovereign and His creation: “Who’s to say that God didn’t use blah, blah, blah, blah?” And all for the sake of blending in pet philosophy (diginified and Canonized by borrowing for it–illegitimately–the name Science).

Thus the creation reveals not God’s eternal power and divine nature–but the eternity of matter and the regularity of ongoing natural processes.

It’s bad enough when heretics like the Gnostics endeavored to steal glory from God. Must it be done by those who self-identify as Evangelicals?

 

Related articles

• Irenaeus, ANE Gods, Gnosticism, And Evolution (pastoralmusings.com)

Irenaeus’ “Against Heresies” is quite the tome to wear one out. Much of what he deals with simply bores me due to the fact that so much of it seems irrelevant. My reading has been to learn, and I have profited much by seeing the already established orthodoxy of his day. Beyond that things did not seem very relevant to me.

As I read Book 2 today, suddenly the information provided began to become relevant to today.

Ireneaus’ contention against the Gnostic sects is manifold. He overwhelms the reader with information. His attention to detail, however, has provided us with much of our knowledge of Gnosticism; so we have reason to be grateful that Irenaeus was so verbose as he was.

What does all of this have to do with ANE gods, Gnosticisim, and evolution? Much.

You see, the ANE myths consistently present us with a polytheistic worldview. So does Gnosticism.

Evolutionary theory presents us with life going through gradual change with the inferior and defective elements being weeded out via natural selection, or survival of the fittest. Gnosticism presents us with good and bad gods who were active in creating.

Here are Irenaeus’ words.

   God stands in need of nothing, and that He created and made all things by His Word, while He neither required angels to assist Him in the production of those things which are made, nor of any power greatly inferior to Himself, and ignorant of the Father, nor of any defect or ignorance, in order that he who should know Him might become man. But He Himself in Himself, after a fashion which we can neither describe nor conceive, predestinating all things, formed them as He pleased, bestowing harmony on all things, and assigning them their own place, and the beginning of their creation. In this way He conferred on spiritual things a spiritual and invisible nature, on super-celestial things a celestial, on angels an angelical, on animals an animal, on beings that swim a nature suited to the water, and on those that live on the land one fitted for the land – on all, in short, a nature suitable to the character of the life assigned them – while He formed all things that were made by His Word that never wearies.
For this is a peculiarity of the pre-eminence of God, not to stand in need of other instruments for the creation of those things which are summoned into existence. His own Word is both suitable and sufficient for the formation of all things, even as John, the disciple of the Lord, declares regarding Him: “All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.” Now, among the “all things” our world must be embraced. It too, therefore, was made by His Word, as Scripture tells us in the book of Genesis that He made all things connected with our world by His Word. David also expresses the same truth [when he says] “For He spake, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created.” Whom, therefore, shall we believe as to the creation of the world – these heretics who have been mentioned that prate so foolishly and inconsistently on the subject, or the disciples of the Lord, and Moses, who was both a faithful servant of God and a prophet? He at first narrated the formation of the world in these words: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and all other things in succession; but neither gods nor angels [had any share in the work].
Now, that this God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Paul the apostle also has declared, [saying,] “There is one God, the Father, who is above all, and through all things, and in us all.” I have indeed proved already that there is only one God; but I shall further demonstrate this from the apostles themselves, and from the discourses of the Lord. For what sort of conduct would it be, were we to forsake the utterances of the prophets, of the Lord, and of the apostles, that we might give heed to these persons, who speak not a word of sense?

Philip Schaff, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, electronic ed., 0 (Garland, TX: Galaxie Software, 2000).

Irenaeus contends that God created by command rather than by using inferior agents or means which were ignorant of him. He tells us that God formed each thing so that it would fit in the environment where it was placed.

He specifically tells us that this is reflective of God’s preeminence, or His glory. God chose to create by His Word rather than any other means so that His infinite greatness as the God who is all-sufficient would be displayed.

Irenaeus then reminds us that Moses gave to us an account of creation that tells us of a succession of events (six days, as we read in Genesis), and that even angels or other gods had no hand in the matter of creating.

Today, however, we find that people are trying to present the Genesis account of creation as simply a different form of Ancient Near Eastern myth. They tell us that there is actually no historical narrative in Genesis chapters one through three, but that it is theological, polemical, myth that shows that YHWH is the one true God. They tell us that modern evolutionary science has forced us to reexamine the Genesis creation account and , that Genesis is another ANE myth that does not contradict the theory of evolution. In so doing, they present to us God creating through evolution’s natural selection, or through powers that are greatly inferior to Himself, ignorant of Him, as well as defective and ignorant.

Sadly, this viewpoint has more in common with Ancient Near Easter paganism and Gnosticism than it has common with biblical Christianity.

Irenaeus calls it blasphemy.

if it was formed such as it really is, then He made it such who had mentally conceived of it as such; or He willed it to exist in the ideality of the Father, according to the conception of His mind, such as it now is, compound, mutable, and transient. Since, then, it is just such as the Father had [ideally] formed in counsel with Himself, it must be worthy of the Father. But to affirm that what was mentally conceived and pre-created by the Father of all, just as it has been actually formed, is the fruit of defect, and the production of ignorance, is to be guilty of great blasphemy. For, according to them, the Father of all will thus be [regarded as] generating in His breast, according to His own mental conception, the emanations of defect and the fruits of ignorance, since the things which He had conceived in His mind have actually been produced.

Philip Schaff, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, electronic ed., 0 (Garland, TX: Galaxie Software, 2000).

So, too, should we.

Image via Wikipedia

Science has two definitions. The first is the most well known. Science is about a methodology–observation, experimentation, testing, etc.–that allows researchers to discover the facts about the world. Presumably, this is what evolution is about–the facts of science. Science in this sense has prompted the litany of concerns expressed above by evolutionists.

The second definition of science involves the philosophy of naturalistic materialism: matter and energy governed by natural law. Any view that doesn’t conform to this definition is not scientific.

These two definitions are not always compatible. Evolution is a case in point. At first blush it seems like evolution is about scientific facts. But when facts suggest design, the second definition is invoked. The philosophy always trumps the methodology. That is, any scientific methodology (first definition) that supports intelligent design is summarily disqualified by scientific philosophy (second definition) as “religion disguised as science.”

via Stand to Reason Blog: Question Evolution.

Indeed!

I’ve been told that I’m ignorant of basic biology because I reject the theory and philosophy of evolution. I’m glad to see that I’m not alone in doing so.

I’m also glad to see that I’m not the only one who recognizes that evolutionary thinking is driven by philosophy rather than by fact.

As a matter of fact, evolutionists admit as much:

Clearly, the paradigm is paramount and everything must be done to save it. Harvard Genetics Professor Richard Lewontin is very candid about this fact. In The New York Review of Books he makes this remarkable admission:

‘Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs…in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.[6] [emphasis in the original]‘

ibid.

I especially love their closing:

The evolution/creation controversy is not about evidence. It’s about the power of an academic elite to enforce a philosophy. This fact is becoming increasingly obvious to the public. Once this becomes clear, then evolution will have to stand on its own merits and it won’t be able to do so.

Evolutionists are dancing on the Titanic. If it were not for philosophical strong-arming in the field of science, Darwinism would have become an historical curiosity long ago. It’s only a matter of time before the iceberg hits.

Related articles

• Question Evolution (str.typepad.com)

I was recently accused of ignorance because of a recent post of mine. In that post I stated that the lizard which had changed to live births from laying eggs was not an example of macroevolution.

Macroevolution generally refers to evolution above the species level. So instead of focusing on an individual beetle species, a macroevolutionary lens might require that we zoom out on the tree of life, to assess the diversity of the entire beetle clade and its position on the tree.
Macroevolution refers to evolution of groups larger than an individual species.

Macroevolution encompasses the grandest trends and transformations in evolution, such as the origin of mammals and the radiation of flowering plants. Macroevolutionary patterns are generally what we see when we look at the large-scale history of life.

Berkeley (See footnote)

My statement regarding the lizard was as follows:

The lizard is a lizard still. It simply has adapted to its environment. Creationists, as a general rule, will have no problem accepting this. Its change has occurred as a matter of adaptation, but it is still a lizard and it remains a reptile.

I am correct on this issue, however. The definition of microevolution is as follows:

Microevolution is evolution on a small scale—within a single population. That means narrowing our focus to one branch of the tree of life…For animals, it’s fairly easy to decide what a population is. It is a group of organisms that interbreed with each other—that is, they all share a gene pool.

Berkeley

Thus my statement about the lizard is based upon the very definitions of microevolution and macroevolution.

Note: It is interesting to note that Berkeley’s site presents an example of microevolution among fruit flies as an example of macroevolution and speciation. It is here where evolutionists go wrongly. They see evidence for microevolution and wish to use that data to prove macroevolution. It is also quite interesting to note that there is no fossil evidence of macroevolution.

By the way, since there’s this idea that humans and chimps are related somewhere way back; well, there’s a study that is showing that the genetic similarity between humans and chimps is not as great as was previously thought.

The true issue with the whole creation vs. evolution discussion is one of authority. Who is the authority? God is. That is not something created by man, but belongs to God by virtue of being God. This is not something that is imposed upon the text of Scripture, but is inherent within Scripture by virtue of its being the Word of God. What we must do is approach the biblical text with reverence, humility, and awe, because it is God’s Word. We must then submit to what God is saying to us in Scripture. He is the final authority, and His Word is true.

Just musing…