Maker of heaven and earth

I don’t mean to open a can of worms with this question, but based on this interpretation, could orthodox Lutherans believe in theistic evolution?

Darren,

The short answer is “no.” Though Luther’s explanation doesn’t say “God created the world in six 24 hour days,” that was Luther’s confession and it is the clear teaching of the Scriptures.

Two additional points that may be helpful. In Exodus 20, Moses gives some important exegesis of Genesis 1 when he says that “just as” God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, so also do we work for six days and rest on the seventh. There is no sense in Exodus 20 that the days in Genesis 1 were any different than the days that are being talked about in our work week.

Second, if we try to come up with a “theistic evolution,” we probably can, but it will not be Christian and cannot be. Evolution requires millions of generations of death before the rise of man. All death (in man and in creation) are a consequence of sin. This is clear from Genesis 2-3 but also from Romans 5-8.

On the original post:

Thanks, Dr. Veith! The personal nature of Luther’s confession regarding creation is the central thought of my book, “God Made It For You!”

Non-Lutheran here, so take my comments on this for the non-expert statements they are.

I’d say that it would be a ‘yes’ to Dan’s question. The statements in the first article here are much less precise than those of Genesis 1, so any way that one could stay inside the realm of Christianity and hold to TE would mean that one could also affirm Article One and remain Lutheran. (as far as Article One goes)

There are a number of ways Christians say the Bible allows for a theistic evolution history of the universe without doing violence to Original Sin, Adam and Eve, and Jesus as God and Man dying for the sins of the world.

Frankly, the theistic evolution view has a lot more Biblical validity than much of the end times theology out there. (that’s more a slam on the end times theology than a ringing endorsement of the TE view) We might disagree with the lousy end times theology, but we don’t (usually) say they’re outside of Christian belief. Likewise for much of TE.

TE may or may not be an accurate view, but I don’t see it as being outside the First Article here. There is much more to Lutheran theology than the First Article (obviously), so there may be other areas which might rule out the TE view for Lutherans.

Not to disparage further comments, but I think a discussion of theistic evolution distracts us from the point of the first article of the creed and of the catechism’s question: “What does this mean?”

What does it mean to have a God who is the creator?

Notice that Luther’s answer does not emphasize the origin of the species, but the ongoing act of creation as it continues today. God is the source of all things.

If a toaster is not plugged in to a source of electricity, is it still a toaster? Is it still properly called a toaster if it cannot make toast? Without being connected to a source, it cannot do what it was created to do.

God did not create the world; He creates it. He is not only the initiator of the world, he is the creator–present tense. “From Him . . . are all things.” All things. Have you really thought through the implications of that statement?

What does this mean?

Dan, I also really like the ongoing and everyday nature of God’s creative work as highlighted in the first article. I think the first article also sets up the Christian to ever grow in his or her understanding that Christ is the center of it all (Second Article).

Since Origen’s teachings were condemned by a Council of the Church, I’m fairly comfortable calling him heterodox.

In that all the others you list also held various positions at odds with the Scriptures, they are all, in the strict sense, heterodox.

Let’s just say I’m not a fan of George Calixtus, as popular as he is these days.

“f” above is Peter lLeavitt. How I became the “f” letter is an Ethernet mystery.

Augustine certainly held to an allegorical view of the six days of creation. It is not that he thought the days were longer than 24 hours, but that they were shorter. Augustine had a hard time believing that God would have to take any time at all to create, so he believed in an instantaneous creation that was expressed as six days for symbolic reasons.

I’ve been thinking about origins issues for thirty years, and know I won’t have it all figured out yet after another thirty years of study. But here’s one conclusion that I’ve reached: The Bible doesn’t really say anything one way or another about evolution, except perhaps when it comes to the origin of humans. Here are a few reasons why I say this:

1. One of the reasons given for rejecting evolution is what Genesis says about organisms reproducing after their kinds. A horse “kind” (whatever “kind” is; the Bible doesn’t give us a strict biological definition) will reproduce horses. Turtles reproduce turtles. Oaks reproduce oaks. That is all fine and true, whether one accepts evolution or not. What the Bible says doesn’t mean that a population of horses cannot change a bit from generation to generation. Even if the horses changed from Pliohippus to Equus over time, it was still horses reproducing horses. Are there limits to biological change? Perhaps, but this is a scientific question on which the Bible is silent. To say that evolution cannot happen because organisms reproduce after their kinds is reading something into the text that is not there.

2. Another objection to evolution that has been raised here is the problem of death before Adam’s sin. First of all, neither Genesis nor Romans explicitly says that animals died before Adam’s sin, so this is an area for interpretation. Did Adam’s sin affect all of creation? Yes. In what ways? It is not all spelled out. Think about this: If Adam stepped on the soil in the Garden of Eden (which was a place in Mesopotamia, not the entire Earth), did he kill any bacteria? Did he kill any worms? Where is the cutoff line? The Bible does not say. If organisms were to be fruitful and multiply, how long would it have been before the Earth was covered by bacteria? By slime mold? By squirrels?

3. Most young-Earth creationists accept evolution at an incredible rate after the animals left the Ark to repopulate the Earth. They left the Ark and filled all kinds of new niches by adaptive radiation in just a few thousands of years. This all happened at a rate that would make most Darwinists blush! Any distinction you try to make here on micro- vs. macroevolution is once again going beyond whatever Scripture says. It is a matter for scientific debate but the Bible doesn’t tell us whether or not there is a limit to biological change.

I have gotten to know a number of theistic evolutionists in the past couple of years. They believe in the authority (even the inerrancy) of Scriptures, a real creation of a real Adam, a real Fall into sin, and in Jesus Christ as the only solution for that sin.

Grace and Peace