The Central Questions - Part 1

(This is a repost from a few years back.)

The central questions

In my 54 years on earth, I have had only two significant challenges to my faith.  It occurs to me that both of those challenges focused on the same basic questions, perhaps the central questions that all human beings have to ask.

This will sound a bit odd, but those two challenges were evolution and Calvinism. (More)

The Central Questions - Part 2

Evolution, built on a foundation of naturalism and uniformitarianism asserts that what we experience now, including corruption, suffering and death, have been the norm from the beginning of life on the planet.   Death is not an enemy, but is instead part of the engine of progress toward higher life forms. It is necessary for the weak to die so that the strong can prosper.

In it's atheist form, there is no purpose at all to this pattern.  Life arose, but it could have failed to arise.   Creatures that survive are "better"  only in the sense that they were better equipped to survive.

In it's theistic form, God may have devised a universe that made life possible and may in some hidden sense be the energy behind the laws of nature, but the "survival of the fittest" reality is nevertheless the overarching fact of existence.   Death cannot be an enemy if it is a necessary component in the development of more complex life forms.

So why do we suffer?   Because suffering and pain are evolutionary developments that aid our survival, a notion that is brutal if there is no purpose in existence and perhaps far worse if this was "God's method of creation".

In either case the traditional "free will" explanation for the origin of evil and suffering cannot be maintained.   Evil and suffering are part of the fabric of reality from the beginning and by design.   

Misquoting Augustine, Revisited

A number of months ago I posted several times on the misuse of Augustine by Theistic evolutionists.   The gist of the posts, here, here and here, was that Augustine's "Literal Meaning Of Genesis", often quoted in a way that implies Augustine would have approved of reading Genesis 1-11 in a non-historical manner.  I countered with extensive quotations from City of God that showed Augustine was very insistent that Genesis was true history, and more specifically, that if there is an allegorical meaning or spiritual meaning, that always is parellel to and not in opposition to the historical.

Australian Creationist organization Creation.com is one Young Earth Creation site that I frequent, along with certain ID and Theistic Evolution sites to keep myself up to speed on things. 

This article profiles Professor Benno Zuiddam who teaches theology at North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa.  He essentially makes the same point, that yes, some early church fathers believe there was an allegorical meaning in the Old Testament, but that allegorical meaning did not negate the historical truth of the events.