# Does Theistic Evolution and/or Old Earth Creationism Undermine the Bible **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 7, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592 "2010-05-07T03:29:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/121 "2010-05-11T20:05:59Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Uh, excuse me. Maybe I wasn’t clear or maybe you’re not getting it… > > What I meant to say is that there are at least two types of Liberal Christians- those who hold to the historic tradition Christian faith and those who redefine the terms as to claim Christian faith while totally parting with the historical meaning. > > My quote- clarified, I hope- > > There are Liberal Christians who truly affirm a saving faith in Christ & respect for Divine Revelation in the Bible, > (the first group) > > and those who so redefine the words so that while they confess Christ & honor the Bible, they do not do so in a way consistent with the historic Christian Tradition. > (the second group) > > Sorry for not making that clearer. A point worth making. But, having said that, do you realize that your second-group definition would also include virtually all evangelicals? The theology you regularly propone here as “the historic Christian traditio” does not accord well with the theology of traditional Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, or Lutheranism with traditional understandings going back well before evangelicalism was anything but “a heresy that Hus was tried for espousning.” (No insult intended, but defending evangelical orthodoxy as the one and only historical tradition of Christianity is somewhat akin to opposing the restoring of the traditional way of doing things on the grounds that “we’ve always done it this way” when it was the speaker’s grandmother who forced through the innovation she’s defending as ‘always done’.) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/122 "2010-05-11T20:13:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Look, if I told you that the Garden of Eden was in Seattle… [Well…](http://maps.google.com/maps?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hl=en&tab=wl) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/123 "2010-05-11T20:29:40Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > I find it funny your calling men such as multiple fouding fathers “non-scholars.” > > You have to twist the words and ideas in the bible quite a bit to get them to come out as myths and legends. The people writing them in every way took what they were writing as truth, and explicity claimed that they were doing so. Any time that they were not they would tell you. Like a parable for example. Considering I specified that I meant “myth or legend” in the anthropological rather than the popular sense, (which I note **Tom~** has spent time patiently explaining to you, I’d say you failed to read my post with comprehension. > [@](#): > > Oh, I completely agree; but I think I got enough knowledge of it after four years of public education. Enough to the point where I don’t need to spend time reading books on a theory that is forced to change its beliefs on a regular basis. You really should take some of your own advice though; if your continuing to argue that the bible and its writers didn’t mean for it to be taken literally, you must not have spent all that much time reading it. I have been studying Scripture on a regular basis since 1967, including a four-year college-level program. At what point do you think I will be qualified to disagree with you? Oh, and considering this comment: "I think I got enough knowledge of it after four years of public education. " – well, I suggest you try fifth grade sometime. My grandkids thoroughly enjoyed it. 😉 > [@](#): > > Oh I’m sure he no doubt could have–but he didn’t. He told us quite plainly what he did, and so thats why I believe it. The bible is supposed to be, as God intended it to be, more of a moral guide and general explanation for existence–not a scientific journal. Oh? Really? Where might I find this? What we have is Moses, or the Priestly and Yahwist writers, telling the stories of Creation and the Fall in _haggadah_ form. What the Bible is “supposed to be” is a matter of opinion, but in mine, it is a collection of records of God’s dealings with the Children of Israel/Jews and the early Christians, and their growing understanding of His nature and purposes, put together to instill and bolster belief in Him and to guide in making proper moral decisions for oneself. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/124 "2010-05-11T22:16:33Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > [Well…](http://maps.google.com/maps?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hl=en&tab=wl) To quote S J Perelman about Martha’s vineyard “Just like the Garden of Eden, but not so crowded.” ---
**Author:** ![Hold\_Fast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58f4c7/32.png) [@Hold\_Fast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hold_Fast)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/125 "2010-05-12T02:26:07Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > First off, you misunderstand the use of the word myth. In popular expression, myth indicates a made up tale in the manner of a “Just So” story. In various disciplines such as anthropology, myth indicates a story that expresses a truth to a society. The story is the framework for conveying the message while the truth is the message conveyed. > So we are agreed that the authors were attempting to express truth. The only question is whether they were attempting to use a narrative of facts or whether they were employing the literary expressions of their time. > > I realize that I will not persuade you to change your beliefs, but you need to at least understand what is being said so that you do not attack other arguments from a position of ignorance. Well that might have been relevent if we were having an argument about somthing like Oliver Twist, but we weren’t. The main topic of discussion that has been going on is whether what is said in the bible actually happened or not–I said it did, and most everyone else has been calling it ‘myth’. If you all would like to change the term you have been using then thats fine by me. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t set up a straw man argument with my name on it, and then push it over. > [@](#): > > I would be curious as to what “beliefs” you think have been “forced to be changed.” Science looks at evidence, proposes explanations for that evidence, then seeks to prove that the explanation is wrong. To the extent that an explanation holds up over long periods, it is treated as a reliable explanation. This is not a matter of belief. > > I do not believe that the authors of the bible meant for it to be taken literally because I have studied it. They employed a number of different literary forms as they wrote various different books and those forms rarely depended on strict adherence to facts. The truth of the story was always more important than the details employed to tell the story. > > Again, I do not expect you to accept my word on that topic, but making the claim that anyone who disagrees with you must not have spent enough time studying the book is just silly and demonstrates a rather naive world view. “I do not believe that the authors of the bible meant for it to be taken literally because I have studied it.” Well I’m glad you have, but as I have been saying, the bible is quite clear of the facts. "All Scripture is \*\*God-breathed \*\*and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:15-17). You said it well dude, “the truth of the story was always more important then the details employed to tell the story.”(with exception for the story of Jesus–which brigns up another issue with your stance–but we’ll save that for another time) Again, I made it very clear that, according to our faith, you can be a very strong Christian and not believe the book of Genesis word for word, and still be saved. Yet, as I am still trying to point out, the bible claims it own inerrency. ---
**Author:** ![Hold\_Fast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58f4c7/32.png) [@Hold\_Fast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hold_Fast)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/126 "2010-05-12T02:36:04Z")
Alright, for everyone whose been going on the back and forth with me, I always appreciate it. The thing is though is that I’m just gonna call it quits here. I’v got exams to study for, and now that its becoming like 5-6 on 1, its getting near impossible to find time for universal replies. Futhermore I always really hate when certain people start saying that I’m too afraid to reply to them, because I then almost apear to be skipping their posts in favor of others–I mean, it really does kind of look like that from another computer. I thought it would be stupid to post this when I first thought of it, but then I also didn’t want you to think that I just peaced. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be bumping heads sometime in the near future, its just this thread I’m gonna take a break from. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/127 "2010-05-12T03:06:29Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > Well that might have been relevent if we were having an argument about somthing like Oliver Twist, but we weren’t. The main topic of discussion that has been going on is whether what is said in the bible actually happened or not–I said it did, and most everyone else has been calling it ‘myth’. If you all would like to change the term you have been using then thats fine by me. **Tom~** made quite clear the sense in which “myth” is used. If you like, I’m saying it’s told as “story” not “historical narrative” – which as you’re well aware from collections that pull Bible stories out as children’s storybooks, does not mean “false” – it means the style of truth-telling is different. > [@](#): > > “I do not believe that the authors of the bible meant for it to be taken literally because I have studied it.” Well I’m glad you have, but as I have been saying, the bible is quite clear of the facts. > > "All Scripture is \*\*God-breathed \*\*and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:15-17). Except that Paul never wrote that, it’s not in the original manuscripts of the Bible. If you pick up your trusty KJV, you’ll see that those two instances of “is” are in italics, meaning, guess what, **the translators stuck them in there**. II Tim 3:15-18 is one long sentence, with subordinate clauses, where Paul is telling Timothy that he is well advised to found his teaching on the Jewish scriptures which he quite literally learned at his mother’s knee (Paul converted Timothy’s mother and grandmother to Christianity along with him) for the purposes given in 16-18. It says not a word about the Bible we have today, which was not yet even compiled, the canon not yet set. This is a classic example of “prooftexting” – taking one verse out of context and making it seem to mean what it most emphatically does not mean when read in the context of the passage it is in. > [@](#): > > Again, I made it very clear that, according to our faith, you can be a very strong Christian and not believe the book of Genesis word for word, and still be saved. Yet, as I am still trying to point out, the bible claims it own inerrency. Except that it doesn’t. And even if it did, that proves nothing – so does the Book of Mormon, the Qu’ran, etc. It’s God who validates the Bible, not the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/128 "2010-05-12T04:24:32Z")
We know the Bible is true because the Bible says so. Since the Bible is true, we know that it is telling the truth when it says it is true. **Hold Fast** : please take someone with you when you buy your next car in case a salesman tells you he is telling the truth. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/129 "2010-05-12T05:18:27Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > Oh, I completely agree; but I think I got enough knowledge of it after four years of public education. Enough to the point where I don’t need to spend time reading books on a theory that is forced to change its beliefs on a regular basis. You really should take some of your own advice though; if your continuing to argue that the bible and its writers didn’t mean for it to be taken literally, you must not have spent all that much time reading it. Oooh, burn! The old “if your beliefs ever change in the face of new evidence you are weak!” attack. I always found this one kind of puzzling and sad at the same time. They actually use the fact that science updates and expands its knowledge based on the knowledge we gain as we have more data and greater abilities to observe as a huge flaw of science. The thought process is nearly alien to me because it’s so absurd. Well, of course when you encounter new information, you change your world view to be compatable with that new information. The alternative is an utter dedication to unchanging dogma even when new factual information contradicts it. If a society that believed that the sun moved around the sky because it was on the back of a giant invisible turtle then learned about the nature of the solar system and that the earth was actually rotating, you are saying that the society that accepted the idea of the solar system is weak and wrong because their beliefs changed, and that the people who clung to the invisible turtle idea even into the modern age had the superior belief. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/130 "2010-05-12T05:22:51Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > Well that might have been relevent if we were having an argument about somthing like Oliver Twist, but we weren’t. The main topic of discussion that has been going on is whether what is said in the bible actually happened or not–I said it did, and most everyone else has been calling it ‘myth’. If you all would like to change the term you have been using then thats fine by me. > > I’d appreciate it if you didn’t set up a straw man argument with my name on it, and then push it over. First you exactly reverse the situation and then you accuse me of posting a straw man? Oliver Twist is fiction, pure and simple. There is no mythology involved in its creation or promulgation. Dickens may have been making a point about English society in the first half of the 19th century, it may have even included some truths, but he was not expressing as true a belief held in common by early 19th century British society. On the contrary, the bible does express truths held by the Hebrews. The two separate Creation Myths of Genesis 1 and 2, (that contradict each other on key points), make the separate points that God is the source of creation, that He has created order out of chaos, that He has created the world as good, and that humanity was created by God. These were beliefs held by the people to be true that are expressed in stories–which exactly demonstrates the the meaning of the word myth that has been used throughout this thread. > [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > “I do not believe that the authors of the bible meant for it to be taken literally because I have studied it.” Well I’m glad you have, but as I have been saying, the bible is quite clear of the facts. > > "All Scripture is \*\*God-breathed \*\*and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:15-17). > > You said it well dude, “the truth of the story was always more important then the details employed to tell the story.”(with exception for the story of Jesus–which brigns up another issue with your stance–but we’ll save that for another time) > > Again, I made it very clear that, according to our faith, you can be a very strong Christian and not believe the book of Genesis word for word, and still be saved. Yet, as I am still trying to point out, the bible claims it own inerrency. I am always amused when someone drags out that verse from 2 Timothy as evidence for the bible’s inerrancy: it does not even claim to be inerrant. Note the values attributed to scripture: “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” Not a single word in that text, (that addresses providing moral education and encouragement), refers to teaching history or science or any facts at all. Not one. In fact, you are claiming that that passage “proves” the inerrancy of scripture when the passage, itself, does not include a single word meaning “truth” or “accuracy” or “error.” It merely claims to be useful. The bible is not “quite clear of the facts” on that matter and that passage does not even address that issue. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/131 "2010-05-12T18:02:11Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > A point worth making. But, having said that, do you realize that your second-group definition would also include virtually all evangelicals? The theology you regularly propone here as “the historic Christian traditio” does not accord well with the theology of traditional Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, or Lutheranism with traditional understandings going back well before evangelicalism was anything but “a heresy that Hus was tried for espousning.” (No insult intended, but defending evangelical orthodoxy as the one and only historical tradition of Christianity is somewhat akin to opposing the restoring of the traditional way of doing things on the grounds that “we’ve always done it this way” when it was the speaker’s grandmother who forced through the innovation she’s defending as ‘always done’.) I don’t defend evangelical orthodoxy as the one & only historical tradition. I do defend creedal orthodoxy as such. Show me where evangelicals differ from the Catholic, Orthodox, & Reformational\* churches consensus on the Creed regarding the Triune God or the Person of Jesus. We do differ on the nature of the “One Holy Catholic & Apostolic Church”, but so do the Catholics, the Orthodox & the Reformationals\*. - I say “Reformational” to include those Christian churches which emerged from the Reformation- Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, even Anabaptist & Restorationist. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/132 "2010-05-12T19:56:05Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Except that Paul never wrote that, it’s not in the original manuscripts of the Bible. If you pick up your trusty KJV, you’ll see that those two instances of “is” are in italics, meaning, guess what, **the translators stuck them in there**. I don’t think that means anything in particular. Verbs of being are often understood in Koine Greek. For example, the opening verse of the Gospel of John is translated “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. (This is from memory). Literally, it would be: “from of old was the the Word, and the Word with the God, and the Word the God.” > [@](#): > > The theology you regularly propone here as “the historic Christian traditio” does not accord well with the theology of traditional Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, or Lutheranism Don’t know about Catholicism, Anglicicism or Othrodox, but I do about Lutheranism, and we have no problems with evangelical theology in its basics. _Sola scriptura, soles fides, solus Christi_, after all. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592/133 "2010-05-22T03:33:13Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Tell me what Bishop Spong’s views are, as you understand them. (Note: he is a personal though not close acquaintance; **Skulldigger** and I have mutual friends with him and his wife. I’ve met and talked with him, disagree with some of his stances, think he’s misunderstood (and doesn’t care) on others, and right on target on still others. > > I will tell you this: he does recite the Nicene Creed, evidently meaning what he says, and he’s not the sort of person to say something he doesn’t mean out of social niceties. I’ve been ten feet from him when he did it. > > Ball’s in your court, **Curtis**. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John\_Shelby\_Spong](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong) > [@](#): > > He also calls for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief, away from what he defines as theism and from the afterlife as reward or punishment for human behavior. The first part basically gets rid of one of the basic principles of Christianity. > [@FriarTed](#): > > To Curtis’s whole point: There are Liberal Christians who truly affirm a saving faith in Christ & respect for Divine Revelation in the Bible, and those who so redefine the words so that while they confess Christ & honor the Bible, they do not do so in a way consistent with the historic Christian Tradition. > > Also, one may be liberal or conservative in theology & not necessarily be so in politics. For most of his adult life, Robert Welch- founder of the John Birch Society- was a Unitarian (he’d been a fundamentalist Baptist as a child & near the end of his life reportedly converted to Traditionalist Catholicism.) On the other hand, William Jennings Bryan was by 1910-20’s standards almost radically liberal/progressive (his opposition to evolutionism was intensified by his opposition to Social Darwinism & militarism.) Charles Spurgeon was a Liberal (the British party) in his time and Billy Sunday was rather progressive for his time so certainly they don’t corroborate. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-theistic-evolution-and-or-old-earth-creationism-undermine-the-bible/538592.md?page=6)