Is Belief in a creator God compatible with evolutionary Naturalism?

[brewdickle]

[RAMCLAP]

Trouble

[brewdickle]

Trouble not evil.

and again...

"What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" -Job 2:10 (KJV)

Evil not trouble

[Badmusic]

Brewdickle, you are arguing with Ramclap over the validity of a particular translation, and NOT making your point. This is about theology, not translations.

[Badmusic]

Bigmike82....

Is the God you serve good?

[brewdickle]

Brewdickle, you are arguing with Ramclap over the validity of a particular translation, and NOT making your point. This is about theology, not translations.

I wasn't at all interested in translations... someone else brought up that argument. I was using an arbitrary translation of the bible to refute the notion that evil is caused by humans and not god.

[ArmedJackal]

Armed Jackel...

An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true.
Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.

Try again, your argument was still a fallacious appeal to authority.

You can copy and paste from Wikipedia all you want. I don't think you understand what it means because you are still using it incorrectly.

[RAMCLAP]

Shall we not accept good (presperity) from God and not hara(an implement for removing weeds). It means to have something taken from you or the removal of prosperity. Does not mean evil. Good times/bad times, God brings both. He does not do evil.

[bigmike82]

He does not do evil.

So again.

Has man wrought something God could not?

And if we did, was it not according to God's plan?

Are we capable of doing things that God did not plan for?

[bigmike82]

Bigmike82....

Is the God you serve good?

I don't know.

But that's not the point. Evolution has nothing to do with Good or Evil.

"Is it rational for a Christian to believe God used Evolution to create man."

Of course. You don't *know* the mind of God. You don't *know* what He did, what He created, and what He used. It's entirely possible.

We've established that God can, and does, use suffering to impact His creation, right? So if your argument continues to be that pain and suffering equals evil, God is therefore evil.

But He isn't. And neither is Evolution.

Evolution doesn't even rely on suffering. It simply relies on a certain trait being better suited for survival.

[spectre-9]

The concept of Evolution precludes the involvement of God, and therefore, the ideas cannot be compatible. There is no middle-ground between 'creation', and 'evolution', they are exclusive. One must choose belief in either, but not both. The law of the excluded middle demands it.

This is a false dichotomy. The theory of evolution explains the diversity of life through natural causes, so yes the theory of evolution is naturalist in its methods, but it makes no assertions about the existence or non-existence of a deity.

Also, the theory of evolution is not an explanation of the origin of life. Abiogenesis and evolution are two completely different things. If you presuppose the existence of a deity, then there's no reason why that deity could not have set the universe in motion and written the laws of nature that would eventually give rise to life on Earth.

[hasserl]

Since this thread is in the Discussion of Faith forum, and the question in the OP is to those who believe in both God and evolution, then why has the thread devolved into ANOTHER thrashing of evolution and why are non-believers involved? I thought the purpose of this forum was for a place for believers to discuss things, without all of the acrimony and angst caused by non-believers. Is OT so slow that they have to come here to argue?

[bigmike82]

How do you define non-believers? Sorry, is this supposed to be an evangelical Christian forum? My bad...

[hasserl]

That's precisely what Badmusic said. In his sense of theology, God doesn't cause pain and suffering.

To circle this again. We are all part of his divine plan.

If that is true, God planned for evil.

If that is true, God caused evil to exist.

If God did not want evil, he would have planned for a world without evil.

No?

Have you heard of or considered Free Will. God wanted men to have free will. In the use of free will man sinned and evil resulted. So now you want to blame for evil? That is illogical.

[Bill Carson]

Since this thread is in the Discussion of Faith forum, and the question in the OP is to those who believe in both God and evolution, then why has the thread devolved into ANOTHER thrashing of evolution and why are non-believers involved? I thought the purpose of this forum was for a place for believers to discuss things, without all of the acrimony and angst caused by non-believers. Is OT so slow that they have to come here to argue?

This but I also welcome the Christ haters. They might learn something.