Evan Minton's Blog, page 32
August 11, 2018
My Top 5 Books On Evolutionary Creationism
Recently, I announced that I had become an evolutionary creationist (more commonly known as "Theistic Evolutionist). I now believe based on my studies of The Bible and science that God created all of biological life through the process of biological evolution; natural selection acting on random mutation. You can see my announcement posts here and here. I have been asked by a few people which books most heavily influenced my thinking into accepting this view, so in this blog post I will list t...
July 30, 2018
Q&A: Answering Questions Of An Agnostic Brother
Hi Evan,I really like your work, really helped me.
But I have a brother, he is agnostic, and he has a few objections I can’t answer (it’s so uncomfortable), so I decided to ask you.
The first is on skepticism in general. Shouldn’t we be skeptical about anything? Since everything is subjectively perceived? Especially moral values? Also, in a pragmatic sense, shouldn’t we agree we can’t know and just follow Aristotle’s “man is a political animal”?
And then on the fine-tuning argument, well he has...
July 20, 2018
Why The Calendar Day Interpretation Of Genesis One Is Internally Incoherent.
Young Earth Creationists hold that Genesis One teaches a chronological account of the natural history and that that pre-human natural history lasted literally a week (144 hours). Each creation day, they take to be a literal, 24 hour day, and they believe that this account accurately describes the material origins of all of God's creation.
They are very confident that this interpretation is correct. So confident are they, that a good majority of them are unable to separate their interpretation&...
Why The Calendar Day Interpretation Of Genesis One Is Exegetically Untenable.
Young Earth Creationists hold that Genesis One teaches a chronological account of the natural history and that that pre-human natural history lasted literally a week (144 hours). Each creation day, they take to be a literal, 24 hour day, and they believe that this account accurately describes the material origins of all of God's creation.
They are very confident that this interpretation is correct. So confident are they, that a good majority of them are unable to separate their interpretation&...
July 11, 2018
Why I'm No Longer Skeptical Of Darwinian Evolution
Over the past 4 years, I've been reading material from Evolutionary Creationists, from BioLogos blog posts to books like Origins: Christian Perspectives On Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design. I've been open to Evolutionary Creationism for a long time. For a long time, I've believed that Christianity and Evolution were compatible, I was just on the fence as to whether Darwin's theory was actually true. Now, after years of research, I'm no longer on the fence. I am an Evolutionary Crea...
July 10, 2018
How I Evolved Into An Evolutionary Creationist
For much of my life, I have been opposed to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Like many Christians, I considered it to be incompatible with God’s existence or at the very least epistemological justification of believing that God exists, and I found it to be incompatible with a faithful reading of Genesis 1-3. I knew of the view popularly known as “Theistic Evolution” but I considered that an untenable position. After all, doesn’t Theistic Evolution require us to jettison a historical Adam and Eve...
July 4, 2018
Q&A: The Big Bang, The Planck Era, and The Cosmological Argument
Greetings Evan,In a blog post of yours titled "Is The Big Bang The Origin Of The Universe?", you stated:
"There’s just simply no reason to think that we can’t extrapolate the expansion all the way back to an absolute beginning out of nothing."
Reading this got me thinking, and although I did agree with you, I decided it would be beneficial to study the Big Bang Theory (and other competing theories) more thoroughly myself. In doing so, I've read some interesting details concerning the contempora...
June 23, 2018
Q&A: Matthew 11:21-24, Middle Knowledge, and The Age Of Accountability
Hello Evan,I am a Molinist, but I’m not sure yet if I should take Matthew 11:21-24 as a case of Jesus having middle knowledge. If I do come to accept that view, it could potentially cause some other problems.
For example, Dr. Craig has said that when a small child is killed or a baby is aborted, they will go to Heaven. He justifies this claim by arguing that God has knowledge of how they would have responded had they matured to a point of being able to understand the gospel. This present...
June 22, 2018
Q&A: Can't Natural Theology Be Used To Prove The Existence Of Any Ole Deity?
This a discussion I had with an Atheist about Natural theology. Is he correct or am I missing something? Sometimes I'm not sure if he is being tricky or not. Now if I'm wrong, let me know. He provided a link on Natural theology.Is this correct?
(Me) is me talking to him.
(Me) You asserted without proof - namely your argument that "Natural theology can be made for every god-concept ever imagined."
(Atheist) That's exactly what every religion has ever claimed since humans first imagine...
June 20, 2018
Q&A: On Molinism and Prayer For The Lost
Hello Evan,In your post titled, "What Is The Point In Praying For Someone's Salvation?" you explained how on Arminianism and Calvinism, such a prayer is useless. On Arminianism, God is already doing everything he can to save the person without overpowering their free will. On Calvinism, God has already elected specific individuals before creating the world so your prayers cannot change that. But it seems like you propose that on Molinism our prayers can change who God elec...
