In a series posted by the BioLogos Forum, the question of whether death, which is often thought to be a central part of how natural selection works, is considered. A Southern Baptist theologian doubts that such a mechanism is consistent with scripture, and with the goodness of God. A christian biologist responds, indicating that it is.
The biologist puts forth a couple of important ideas: biologists have a more complex view of the role of death and natural selection than Darwin (and most modern non-biologists) have, and some important theologians, before Darwin's theory was ever proposed, believed that non-human death could have occurred before the fall.
Here's the last post in the series, which provides links to the other three. (Look to the right of the photo of a church.)
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because it is public domain. I am grateful.
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The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
2 comments:
I've never understood those that say "this or that science" isn't compatible with the Bible or Christianity.
Why would they fail to see, God put the process in motion.
IE, the Big Bang or evolution.
I completely believe the Big Bang Theory, but I don't believe in the timing that science has placed on it.
I completely believe in evolution because both science and natural history support it (some of which I believe is hinted at in the Bible, like The Creation Museum posits)
As for death, we are not in The Garden anymore. We were told that we would die. In order for the process to be complete, everything had to die. Death was our punishment for the first sin.
Death is a factor of decay. Science proves that.
The original death was a factor of our decaying innocence and separation from the everlasting and immortal God.
Thanks.
If we understood nature correctly, and the Bible correctly, there would be no conflict. We don't.
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