How Can the Fact and Theory of Evolution be Reconciled with the View that Jesus is Christ

Sunstone · Apr 10, 2020

exchemist said:
Er, but then why start this thread? Unless you are fishing for fundies.

I thought it might interest some people to discuss how evolution and Christianity could be reconciled. I didn't realize the answer to that was question was "It's all been done before so let's not talk about it."

PureX · Apr 10, 2020

I'm puzzled by the question, since I see no particular irreconcilable nor reconcilable correlation between "Christ" and the theory of evolution. "Christ" refers to theological/spiritual 'position', as the one who fulfills the requirements and responsibilities of Divine Representative. Which, as far as I can tell, would have no relevance one way or another to the theory of evolution via natural mutation and selection.

Vouthon · Apr 10, 2020

Hubert Farnsworth said:
Well, how can Christianity be reconciled with evolution if sin is actually good? Christianity is based upon guilting people into believing their very nature is "bad" and that they need a savior. But human nature is simply a consequence of natural selection. If we're by nature sinful, then sin is good, since it led to the most reproductive and survival success.

Whether something is "sinful" or not is a value judgement, which cannot be derived from scientific study of natural processes. (i.e. 'ought' cannot be derived from 'is').

Original sin does not make sexual relations sinful, anymore than a genetic trait in a given family which predisposes members to having a greater hereditary orientation for aggression as a result of a certain gene, makes them reproducing 'sinful'.

What original sin teaches, as a dogma, is that human nature - while not entirely losing its primordial purity - has an inherent propensity to sinfulness (a weakness or wound), owing to some very ancient adaptive event which we call "the Fall".

It is not a denunciation of human nature as 'bad' or utterly corrupt (unless you're a Calvinist and believe in the 'total depravity of man', which Catholic doctrine rejects as heresy):

Catechism of the Catholic Church - The Fall

The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man....

Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering...and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence".

exchemist · Apr 10, 2020

Hubert Farnsworth said:
There is no role of the crucifixion if evolution is true, because the idea that humanity needs a "savior" is based upon the idea that human nature is by definition "bad." But we know human nature evolved by natural selection. Thus, human nature is the nature that led to the maximal amount of survival and fecundity. Human nature isn't "sinful"; it's useful in that it promotes survival and reproduction. Most "sins" according to Christianity were the traits that led to the highest probability of leaving ancestors. Human nature is not a result of rebellion against any deity; it is the way it is because of how it was shaped by natural selection. Most of the so-called "seven deadly sins" are actually not deadly at all. In fact, they are necessary for survival.

No human nature is not bad, just weak.

The point is made very poetically in Genesis, by the allegory of eating the fruit of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil". That speaks of something we are all individually aware of as we grow up, of acquiring knowledge of good and evil and thus becoming morally responsible beings. The other animals do not have this sense and we do not hold them morally accountable for what they do, nor do we little children.

So, then, as Man evolved, he acquired moral responsibility, which is both a blessing and a curse, as it involves a loss of innocence. And the condition of Man is morally weak: he can tell right from wrong, yet often does wrong. This is what the story of the Garden of Eden is about. Original sin is this predisposition to do wrong. The moral influence theory of the Atonement suggests that Christ, by his life and death, gave Man a new teaching and a new example to follow, to help him overcome this inherent weakness.

Evolution does not present any issue at all in this picture.

(I see I am in part ninja'ed by @Vouthon

)

Rational Agnostic · Apr 10, 2020

Sunstone said:
Now I see what you're saying. Well, the notion I am proposing in the OP sidesteps that take on Christianity. After all, that take on it is the product of Christian Theologians -- such as Augustus -- and not the Bible. Or at least that's how I understand it. Not really my field.

The bible defintely teaches human nature is bad. See Ephesians 2:3 among many others

exchemist · Apr 10, 2020

Sunstone said:
I thought it might interest some people to discuss how evolution and Christianity could be reconciled. I didn't realize the answer to that was question was "It's all been done before so let's not talk about it."

Hahaha, no I'm not objecting to the thread, but I do think the OP might have acknowledged what mainstream Christianity already teaches about evolution, instead of presenting your ideas as if they were revolutionary. I admit I'm a bit sensitive about this, as it seems to me far too many people in this forum have a warped view of Christianity, apparently solely informed by the more extreme Protestants of the US Bible Belt.

But no big deal. I enjoy the topic.

stvdv · Apr 10, 2020

Sunstone said:
In before anyone else: "Evolution cannot be reconciled with the Christian message."

There. Now you don't have to say it.

It depends who explains the Christian Message. Not all Christians think alike. I was brought up as a Christian; evolution never was a problem for me

Only when coming to RF, I discovered that some Christians have a problem with evolution.

Vouthon · Apr 10, 2020

Hubert Farnsworth said:
The bible defintely teaches human nature is bad. See Ephesians 2:3 among many others

No it doesn't, the verse you cite does not actually say this either.

Christ referred to human flesh as "weak" (i.e. "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak").

Weakness does not equal inherently bad/totally corrupt.

Ludwig Ott wrote, concerning the Fall, in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books, 1974 [orig. 1952], translated by Patrick Lynch):

"The Reformers . . . admitted the reality of original sin, but misunderstood its essence, its operation, since they regarded it as identical with concupiscence which corrupts completely human nature . . .
Original Sin does not consist, as the Reformers . . . taught, in ‘The habitual concupiscence, which remains, even in the baptised, a true and proper sin, but is no longer reckoned for punishment.’

The wounding of nature must not be conceived, with the Reformers and the Jansenists, as the complete corruption of human nature. In the condition of Original Sin, man possesses the ability of knowing natural religious truths and of performing natural morally good actions....The Council of Trent teaches that free will was not lost or extinguished by the fall of Adam." (pp. 108, 110, 112-113)

Sunstone · Apr 10, 2020

exchemist said:
Hahaha, no I'm not objecting to the thread, but I do think the OP might have acknowledged what mainstream Christianity already teaches about evolution, instead of presenting your ideas as if they were revolutionary. I admit I'm a bit sensitive about this, as it seems to me far too many people in this forum have a warped view of Christianity, apparently solely informed by the more extreme Protestants of the US Bible Belt.

But no big deal. I enjoy the topic.

I presented my ideas as revolutionary as a joke. I'm sorry my kidding wasn't clear. It often happens with me, I'm only one to get my jokes.

Rational Agnostic · Apr 10, 2020

exchemist said:
No human nature is not bad, just weak.

The point is made very poetically in Genesis, by the allegory of eating the fruit of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil". That speaks of something we are all individually aware of as we grow up, of acquiring knowledge of good and evil and thus becoming morally responsible beings. The other animals do not have this sense and we do not hold them morally accountable for what they do, nor do we little children.

So, then, as Man evolved, he acquired moral responsibility, which is both a blessing and a curse, as it involves a loss of innocence. And the condition of Man is morally weak: he can tell right from wrong, yet often does wrong. This is what the story of the Garden of Eden is about. Original sin is this predisposition to do wrong. The moral influence theory of the Atonement suggests that Christ, by his life and death, gave Man a new teaching and a new example to follow, to help him overcome this inherent weakness.

Evolution does not present any issue at all in this picture.

(I see I am in part ninja'ed by @Vouthon )

This "predisposition to do wrong" that you allude to is one of many things that led to the success of the human species.

Sunstone · Apr 10, 2020

exchemist said:
Hahaha, no I'm not objecting to the thread, but I do think the OP might have acknowledged what mainstream Christianity already teaches about evolution

Good idea. I have edited the OP accordingly.

Vouthon · Apr 10, 2020

Hubert Farnsworth said:
This "predisposition to do wrong" that you allude to is one of many things that led to the success of the human species.

Well, Christians disagree.

If we had not 'fallen', in the Christian doctrinal imagination, humankind would have remained perfectly free to make every moral decision but wouldn't have been plagued by selfish desires and cravings which disordered both ourselves and wider human societies.

Every natural bodily function would have been enjoyed without inclination to immoderate excess - the pleasure of eating without the inclination for gluttony, the pleasure of sex without the inclination for lust etc. There would have been no hierarchies of power or private grasping of resources, with one human exalted over another in privilege or position.

As the Epistle of James in the New Testament puts it:

"Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts." (James 4:1-2)

In this sense, St. Cyprian of Carthage (c. 200 – 258 AD) - an important early church father - explained the qualities to be expected from a life of habitual divine grace:

CHURCH FATHERS: Treatise 8 (Cyprian of Carthage)

"This is truly to become sons of God by spiritual birth; this is to imitate by the heavenly law the equity of God the Father. For whatever is of God is common in our use; nor is any one excluded from His benefits and His gifts, so as to prevent the whole human race from enjoying equally the divine goodness and liberality. Thus the day equally enlightens, the sun gives radiance, the rain moistens, the wind blows, and the sleep is one to those that sleep, and the splendour of the stars and of the moon is common. In which example of equality, he who, as a possessor in the earth, shares his returns and his fruits with the brotherhood of his fellow man, while he is common and just in his gratuitous bounties, is an imitator of God the Father."

The goal of an individual Buddhist, by the way, is also to bring about the cessation of cravings. Craving is the cause of suffering in Buddhism. The end of craving is nibbana, dispassion or the extinction of inordinate desires. Same for many, or most, other religions.

From Abba Evagrius (345-399 AD), the first Christian hesychast, and the Desert Fathers who followed him, we similarily learn about "clear thinking" or "clear sight" of the image of God within one's heart, untainted by the obscuration of the passions and logismoi (disturbing thoughts) - the kind of passionate, wild thoughts that distract our attention and scatter the focus of the mind.

Buddhists don't call it 'original sin' or 'concupiscence' - nor do they have a God appearing in human form to offer them divine grace to overcome it (although they do have a Buddha and Arihants, as well as bodhisattvas in the Mahayana) - but the underlying logic is not entirely dissimilar.

It is therefore, rather, part of a wider cross-cultural understanding of human nature imho, even though the specific doctrinal formulation of the transmission of original sin is unique to Christian theology.

metis · Apr 10, 2020

Sunstone said:
So, how would you yourself reconcile evolution and Christ -- assuming, of course, that you have something more interesting to say about the matter than "you would not"?

Simply put, one simply does not contradict the other. The ToE neither posits nor negates Divine creation, nor does it in any way negate any of Jesus' teachings. It just is.

A Vestigial Mote · Apr 10, 2020

Sunstone said:
How can the fact and theory of evolution be theologically reconciled with the view that Jesus is Christ?

PLEASE SEE POST NUMBER TWO IN THIS THREAD BEFORE YOU RESPOND WITH THE INFINITELY WITTY, ALWAYS INSIGHTFUL, AND ENDLESSLY ENTERTAINING "THE TWO THINGS CANNOT BE RECONCILED".

As a non-theist, I am in no great danger of becoming a Christian theologian. However, I think it is obvious that were I to become one, I would be fated to become the most important Christian theologian since Tertullian, "the founder of Western theology", albeit so much more modest than that august man.

Recently, I have been whiling away my idle moments doodling, scratching myself, staring at the ceiling, and creating the most impressive theological reconciliation of evolution and Christianity the world is ever likely to see. Speaking in all modesty, 'tis a tragedy I don't have much more time for theology than an idle moment here or there.

Having now properly introduced the true subject of this thread (that would be me), let us hie to the comparatively unimportant part -- the theological reconciliation of evolution with Christ.

Traditionally (to some Christians, but not all), the essential problem evolution presents to Christian teachings is NOT (as many of us believe) that it contradicts the Biblical account of creation. Traditionally (to some Christians, but not all), the essential problem is that evolution renders unnecessary the incarnation of Christ in the form of Jesus. That is because evolution destroys the notion that all of humanity is descended from Adam and with it, the notion that Adam's fall must be atoned for by every last one of his descendants. Or something like that. I mean, no need to be too precise about the traditional view now -- because I have invented a much better view.

My much better view begins by asserting that evolution is a fact and that the theory of evolution explains how evolution works. It goes on to claim that the fact and theory of evolution shows us how God involves himself in the world. That is, he operates through nature, such as through evolution, in order to bring about his divine mission -- which is to save every last human soul (except, apparently, Mileus Hornbreaker's soul, the only kid who ever succeeded in beating me up during the entirety of my childhood. A soul damned to hell if ever there was one.)

Now an obvious implication of the view that God involves himself in the world through natural processes is that God loves materialism -- much in the same way Tertullian pushed philosophical realism almost to the point of becoming and out and out materialist. In short, if God decides to do something, he decides to do it his way -- by involving himself in the (material) world. (Of course, this has the incidental consequence that Christianity and the sciences are rendered theoretically compatible because studying the material world now works out to studying the will, mind, or intentions of God. No need to thank me for reconciling Christianity and the sciences. I had an extra minute this morning -- what better way to spend it?)

Hence, what could be more "natural" of him (shameless pun intended) than to save humanity via incarnating himself as a human? I will answer that for you, if you don't mind. Nothing. Nothing could be more natural.

The only piece of the puzzle that I do not quite have brilliantly worked out yet is why Jesus had to be crucified. Why not just spend decades preaching a message of salvation, and then have done with it? But I am certain I will have all that figured out the next time I get five or so idle minutes to think about it.

Oh, by the way: The view that God works through evolution comports well with the view of at least some Jews that they and God are in an ongoing process of discovering their relationship to each other. So, I think it is fair to conclude that I am not only the greatest Christian theologian since Tertullian, but also the greatest Jewish theologian since Maimonides.

COMING SOON: My modest corrections of the Diamond Sutra.

So, how would you yourself reconcile evolution and Christ -- assuming, of course, that you have something more interesting to say about the matter than "you would not"?

Also, most mainstream Christians have no problem with evolution. Just to make sure you know.
_______________________________

This post sees a lot of strange jumps back and forth between sarcasm (I think/hope) and attempts to make it all seem "a very serious matter indeed." I don't feel there is any reason to address it in that "very serious" way, to be honest. Good luck becoming "the greatest"... well... whatever it is you were after.

ManSinha · Apr 10, 2020

shunyadragon said:
only evolution cannot be reconciled with the ancient belief and scripture of ancient religions

That only goes for the Abrahamic religions - the cosmology of the Vedas leaves open the possibility that we do not know what we do not know

exchemist · Apr 10, 2020

Hubert Farnsworth said:
This "predisposition to do wrong" that you allude to is one of many things that led to the success of the human species.

I don't understand this comment. How do you work that out?

shunyadragon · Apr 10, 2020

Sunstone said:
[yawn]boring![/yawn]

Open wide! Good way to catch flys.

shunyadragon · Apr 10, 2020

ManSinha said:
That only goes for the Abrahamic religions - the cosmology of the Vedas leaves open the possibility that we do not know what we do not know

Yes, the Vedas leave that possibility open.

dybmh · Apr 10, 2020

shunyadragon said:
Actually virtually all of science not only evolution cannot be reconciled with the ancient belief and scripture of ancient religions. A lot driving square pegs in round holes to make thing work, and even than they do not you just get splinters all over the floor and many conflicting divisions of ancient religions.

Jews use Midrash, Christians live in denial.

And Baha'i use allegory...

shunyadragon · Apr 10, 2020

dybmh said:
And Baha'i use allegory...

No problem with allegory, because literal views of the OT are archaic and down right false. The Baha'i Faith considers ancient religions to be in the perspective of the people and culture of the time. Revelation is progressive, and the human view of God and Revelation changes over time, it not so Jews and Christians would still be worshiping Canaanite Gods, and supporting slavery as described in the OT today.. Not too long ago many Christians supported slavery as described in the OT

How Can the Fact and Theory of Evolution be Reconciled with the View that Jesus is Christ

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