@BobRyan: Ok, Let’s do that. Here is the relevant …

Comment on Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation by Ron.

@BobRyan:

Ok, Let’s do that. Here is the relevant quote. I have searched several pages before, and after and
a. I find no indication that she was advocating expelling anyone from the church.
b. I note also that she is referring in INFIDEL geologists who are trying to use science to undermine belief in God. Not dedicated teachers in our schools.
c. She grants the findings of science, she is here just disagreeing with the assertion that the findings prove the non-existence of God.
c. She is attempting to do what myself, and many other Adventists are trying to do. i.e. find an explanation that addresses all relevant facts.
d. She is referring to the position that the first week required vast lengths of time. She in fact endorses the concept that there has been a lot of evolution since the flood.
d. While looking for this statement, I ran across another statement on the E.G.W. web site explaining her statements about amalgamation. See second quote below.

Again. Just because species are not fixed, and do evolve, that does not imply the non-existence of God, which I believe was the main thrust of E.G.W’s argument.

In it the author acknowledge that creationists have lost one argument they had with Darwin, the idea of a fixed species. I would argue, that Mrs. White in fact agrees with Darwin on this account, by her description of “amalgamation”. If the species were in fact fundamentally fixed, then “amalgamation” would be impossible.

Just to be clear, I disagree with the author that there are still barriers that correspond to “kinds”. I don’t see any absolute barriers anywhere.

First quote:
“But the infidel supposition, that the events of the first week required seven vast, indefinite periods for their accomplishment, strikes directly at the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. It makes indefinite and obscure that which God has made very plain. It is the worst kind of infidelity; for with many who profess to believe the record of creation, it is infidelity in disguise. It charges God with commanding men to observe the week of seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike his dealings with mortals, and is an impeachment of his wisdom.
Infidel geologists claim that the world is very much older than the Bible record makes it. They reject the Bible record, because of those things which are to them evidences fromthe earth itself, that the world has existed tens of thousands of years. And many who profess to believe the Bible record are at a loss to account for wonderful things which are found in the earth, with the view that creation week was only seven literal days, and that the world is now only about six thousand years old. These, to free themselves of difficulties thrown in their way by infidel geologists, adopt the view that the six days of creation were six vast, indefinite periods, and the day of God’s rest was another indefinite period; making senseless the fourth commandment of God’s holy law. Some eagerly receive this position, for it destroys the force of the fourth commandment, and they feel a freedom from its claims upon them. They have limited ideas of the size of men, animals and trees before the flood, and of the great changes which then took place in the earth.
Bones of men and animals are found in the earth, in mountains and in valleys, showing that much larger men and beasts once lived upon the earth. I was shown that very large, powerful animals existed before the flood which do not now exist. Instruments of warfare are sometimes found; also petrified wood. Because the bones of human beings and of animals found in the earth, are much larger than those of men and animals now living, or that have existed for many generations past, some conclude that the world is older than we have any scriptural record of, and was populated long before . . . ”

Second quote: http://www.whiteestate.org/issues/amalg.html
Darwinism and Creationism

At the time she wrote her amalgamation statement in 1864, Darwin’s influence was only beginning to be felt in the world. Until he published his Origin of Species (Nov. 24, 1859), most scientists, and religionists generally, had held firmly to the view that the species are “fixed,” that is, they cannot be crossed. Darwin theorized that all creation is in flux, with no ultimate bounds on any form of life. He reasoned that natural law, expressing itself through natural selection and survival of the fittest, causes simple forms to become increasingly complex and to rise constantly in the scale of life, until man finally appears. His theory and the doctrine of the fixity of species could not live together. One devoured the other. To Darwin and those who agreed with him, it seemed that the chief obstacle to acceptance of his theory was the doctrine of species fixity. And to orthodox Christians belief in species fixity seemed absolutely essential to belief in Genesis.

Thus when the battle began between the Darwinites and the believers in Genesis the fighting was chiefly over this question of the fixity of species. Creationists generally considered the term “species” as equivalent to the “kinds,” in Genesis, to each of which was given the divine order to “bring forth . . . after his kind.” Gen.1:24. Such an equating of “species” and “kind” we now know to be unwarranted.

The outcome of such an uneven fight is known to all. Evolutionists had little trouble in proving that there are “endless varieties of species of animals,” if we might borrow Mrs. White’s words in her amalgamation statement. And whenever creationists have sought to make their stand on the point of fixity of species, as that term is generally understood, they have been put to rout.

Present-day creationists who have any knowledge of genetics, which treats of the laws governing “heredity and variations among related organisms,” fare much better than did their fighting fathers. Genetics shows how endless varieties may develop within certain limits–the limits of the potential variations within the original strain–but no farther. In other words, the simple fact of variations in species does not, in itself, provide any proof for evolution. That much is certain. Thus we may believe in “endless varieties of species” after Ararat without believing in evolution. Mrs. White wrote in 1864 that these “almost endless varieties” “may be seen,” though creationists at that time, and for about a half century more, saw no such thing; they saw only fixity of species. Yet Mrs. White had no leanings toward Darwin’s theory. From the outset she spoke vigorously against evolution!

(I disagree with this last assertion. I think she disagreed vigorously with using evolution as a reason to doubt God.)

Ron Also Commented

Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
@BobRyan:

How much post creation evoltion is allowed?


Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
@BobRyan</

I never even implied a proto life or anything other than a six day creation. I am talking about what happens after creation.

Sean thinks that at least some Darwinian evolution takes place now. How does that happen?. Did god create the mechanisms originally, and they now happen atheistically, or does He continue to be active in the process?


Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
Sean, So I think I am hearing from you that a Biblical creation model would allow for basically any kind Is htof evolution there is, or which we might discover as long as it is destructive in nature, or is not too complex. is that right? You don’t believe that it is possible to believe that significant improvements are possible and still be a creationist.

Are you able to define that bounday between significant and minor theologically?


Recent Comments by Ron

Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation

Sean Pitman: No one is demanding that they “get out of the church”. . . . . anti-Adventist views on such a fundamental level.

You don’t see how characterizing a dedicated believer’s understanding of truth as “fundamentally anti-Adventist” would drive them out of the church?

I guess that explains why you don’t see that what you are doing here is fundamentally wrong.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation

Professor Kent: Nothing saddens me more than the droves who leave the Church when they learn that many of their cherished beliefs regarding this evidence don’t hold up so well to scrutiny.

I agree. I am sure that Sean and Bob don’t mean to undermine faith in God, but every time they say that it is impossible to believe in God and in science at the same time, I feel like they are telling me that any rational person must give up their belief in God, because belief in God and rationality can’t exist in the same space. Who would want to belong to that kind of a church?


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation

Sean Pitman: and have little if anything to do with the main point of their prophetic claims

And by analogy, this appears to be a weak point in the creation argument. Who is to decide what the main point is?

It seems entirely possible that in trying to make Gen. 1 too literal, that we are missing the whole point of the story.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Regarding falsifying the existence of God through the miraculous:

While it is true that one can’t falsify the existance of God and the Biblical miracles at a philosophical level, it seems to me that it is possible to falsify it at a practical level. For instance prayer for healing. How many families who pray for a miracle for a loved one in the Intensive Care Unit receive a miracle?

While the answer to that question doesn’t answer the question of the existence of God at a philosophical level, it does answer the question at a practical level. After 36 years of medical practice I can say definitively that at a practical level when it comes to miracles in the ICU, God does not exist. Even if a miracle happens latter today, it wouldn’t be enough to establish an expectation for the future. So at a practicle level it seems it is possible level to falsify the existence od God, or at least prove His nonintervention which seems to me to be pretty much the same thing at a functional level.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Sean Pitman:
Sean, what is your definition of “Neo-darwinism” as opposed to “Darwinism” as opposed to “evolution”?