Ha...I'm plagarising myself!

I wrote this and posted it somewhere else tonight, but since I was typing for like and hour, I figured I'd throw it on my blog as my first new post, now that I have the internet. I was answering the question of whether or not Evolutionists can have faith or not when the person who wrote the post stated that Evolution could not be reconciled with faith in God. Here's more of my idiotic ramblings:

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Hmm. Reading these comments is definitely interesting. In no place is the rational dichotomy between the Christian and the non-Christian so pronounced as when talking about the origins debate.

It is an interesting question that Simon raises. If Evolution is some sort of attack against the Christian God (and the Bible he wrote), then how WOULD one explain how so many Evolutionists have faith?

To answer that, one would need to define "faith". But, in order to do that, we'd have to settle on a common authority for our definition. As a Christian, I would want to derive that definition from God, the source of all truth. The way I would derive that definition from God is to see what he's said about it in his self revelation: the Bible. I'd want to know if God said anything along the lines of defining "faith", and if he did, I would seek to align my understandings to God's position on the issue; which is ultimate, objective and authoritative truth.

It's at this juncture that the non-Christian (or possibly the person who calls himself "Christian" but doesn't uphold the authority or relevance of the Bible) would raise his voice in objection and ask, "Why the Bible?" or "Why YOUR Bible?" You can see how the argument inevitably ends up being a debate on the nature of the scripture.

By definition, a Christian loves God and must, if they love God, obey the Bible for that is the very teaching of the Bible itself. 1 John 5:1-5 and John 14:23-24 are two passages that explicitly teach this, among many others (but I'm not here to write a book. If anyone wants to talk about any passage I present, feel free to bring it up).

Beyond obeying it, one must understand that is the only authority on all matters of truth, eclipsing even one's personal experience. In 2 Peter 1:17-21, Peter presents that that the Bible exceeds his own dynamic personal experience of seeing Jesus in his glorified state (if only for a moment), and this is so because God wrote the Bible; it's divinely authored.

And because it's divinely authored, it's true. True in the sense of Cartesian certainty; 100% correct, not 99.44%. God isn't just smarter than me, he's smarter than mankind as a whole. That would be part of being a creator; in the procedure of designing, constructing and maintaining something complex (like an X-Ray machine) I, the creator of said item, would have to understand how I designed and built and maintain it. And, if God is the designer, creator and sustainer of everything that is (including things like language, though, mathematics, etc.), then God has perfect knowledge of those things and the creatures that utilize them. God isn't just smarter than me, he's smarter than mankind as a whole, over the entirety of history. The Bible states this explicitly when, in 1 Corinthians 1:25, it says:

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."

Even the stupidest thing God has ever done is smarter than the ultimate wisdom of all humanity, period.

So, if I have an authoritative revelation of God on an issue, I have certainty on the issue.

This brings us back to the question:

“How do you explain so many evolutionists having faith?”

If I'm seeking to stand on firm, objective, revealed truth, I am slapped in the face with only one answer.

Evolutionists cannot, by biblical testimony, have faith.

One might contest, saying, “Uh, what? They sure as heck seem to claim to be Christians! They believe in Jesus, read the Bible, go to church, pray, etc. Who are YOU to say that they DON'T have faith?”

Well, I’m nobody to say anything. Good thing it's not my idea. That's the great thing about being a Christian. I don't have a whole lot of original ideas (or any, for that matter); God told me what faith is and I’d only dare suggest that God is correct.

So one says,"Okay. What did GOD tell you faith is?"

For that, I could type a few thousand pages, but I'll stick with one pretty good passage (again, if anyone wants, I'll show this from any of a few dozen other passages in the Bible. I only pick one to stop this from turning into a book!); Romans 4:1-12.

Romans 4 is commenting on how Abraham was made righteous by God, and in the midst of the argument is what I'd suggest to be a great little definition of "faith".

In verse 3 of Romans 4, Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 when he writes:

"What does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness’."

Then, in verse 9, Paul rephrases his quotation and says "We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness."

Now where in here do I get a definition of "faith"?

Well, in the 3rd verse it says "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

So what is the "it" that was credited to him as righteousness?

"Abraham believed God..."

Believed God about WHAT?

If you look back in Genesis, you see that in 15:4-5, God promises Abraham a son (who we learn later to be Isaac).

So God made a promise and Abraham believed him.

Now, jumping back to Romans, Paul restates his quotation and says "...Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness..."

Instead of saying "it" or "believed God", Paul says "faith". I would suggest that Paul saw "believing God's promise" and "faith" as synonymous.

So, IF "faith" is "believing God" (or what God says), then do Evolutionists have a biblical definition of "faith"? Do they believe what God says about the origin of life?

Does not God comment in plain language that he created the Earth in 6, 24 hour periods, a few thousand years ago (not a few billion). Do Evolutionists believe God’s testimony or do they toss out the ONLY account of the event from the ONLY living eye-witness in a search for a more "scientifically reasonable" explanation?

I don't know about you, but I would suspect that if there was a car accident in Tokyo and I, who saw nothing of the accident, showed up and attempted to argue about what happened with an eye-witness, one may think MY efforts were absurd.

Does it strike you as strange how so many people with PhD's can do EXACTLY that and wonder how anyone could ever disagree with them?

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Yeah. It's good to be back. For the record, I'm going to be kinda scarce as blogging takes up SO much time. Either way, I hope some of you enjoy the post and are prodded to ponder. Until Next Time,

The Armchair Theologian