Could Jesus have accepted Evolutionary Theory?

Note, I never claimed that Jesus "spoke of evolution" per se. I did point out that Jesus referred to the Genesis creation story as a true and authoritative account. When He said, "Therefore..." He showed His understanding that the account (of how man and all the animals & plants were created) was to be trusted to the degree that important moral lessons could be drawn from it (and He proceeded to do so, teaching a moral lesson about marriage). While He did not directly address the issue of macroevolution, the Genesis account itself-- indirectly and without naming it-- addresses and negates the macroevolution hypothesis (which is not even worthy of being classified as a theory, let alone as settled fact). Here's how it does so: Genesis teaches us that God created all of the distinct species; this means He did not wait for them to create themselves by happenstance, by "natural selection," or by some other means. Genesis records that God spoke them all into existence, just as He spoke the earth and the universe into existence.

When God the Son refers to the creation story as credible and authoritative, what higher authority is there? He was there; He saw it unfold; He made it happen!

 

It seems that statements that conflict with your preconceived narrative will be discounted, which isn’t the way science works. There are plenty of active scientists today who state otherwise than what you’re asserting. I’ve already cited one academic source, which you’ve simply ignored. This is 2023, not 1980.

 

This is an argument from silence, at best. Your reasoning here is also fallacious, as it attempts to derive a universal negative from a particular affirmative.

We might as well ask what Jesus would have thought of Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, of Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, or of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. All presuppose concepts and a history of thought with which the people of his day would of necessity have been utterly unfamiliar. The same goes for Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.

 

At best we can only agree on the fact that the narrative attributed by the Gospel writers to Jesus Christ indicates that the audience He adressed accepted Genesis as historical. Jesus Christ himself may or may not have, because merely mentioning their names, (which in the case of Adam, Jesus Christ in the Gospels does not do anyway), is not evidence that the intention of doing so was to establish as fact that they were all actual historical characters, merely because they appear in the book of Genesis. The genuine hitoricity of Adam, as a distinct and individual, physical human being, is a very different matter than the possibly truly historical nature of Abraham or Moses.

Merely not being an actual historical character though would by no means preclude Jesus of Nazareth, another historical person, from referring to Adam AS IF HE WERE an actual historical person, (for the sake of argument), simply because his audience at that time firmly believed Adam to be an actual historical person, in the same way as they believed Abraham and Moses, also referred to by Jesus, to have been, actual historical persons.

May I remind us all that, Ἀδάμ Adam אָדָם ’âḏâm, in Hebrew means mankind. (man, mankind, human being, mankind (the much more frequently intended sense in OT). It is in this sense that Jesus could, just as legitimately, have referred to 'THEY' in the frequently quoted passage supposedly as supporting Young Earth Creationist theories and their literalist interpretations of scripture. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."

This little verse reference is being made to do an awful lot of work for the cause of Biblical literalist interpretational method, as a theory.
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I don't think Jesus would have needed to have said and did anything different than he actually did, even if he HAD supernatural knowledge that Natural Selection was the driving force behind Evolution. THAT would not have changed anything he said to the human race about himself or God. Why do Young Earth Creationists seem to think He would have had to change his message to mankind?
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I do not think the narrative merely indicates that the audience accepted Genesis as historical. They accepted it as an authoritative statement and evidence of God's will. Or at the very least, they should have done so because Jesus clearly regarded it as such:

Mat 19:3-6 The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Jesus cites the passage as authoritative evidence upon which a firm conclusion about what is right or wrong should be drawn, and He lays out that conclusion as a settled fact.

Imagine if Jesus had cited the text of some earlier philosopher or historian instead of Genesis. It would have been "historical" but it would not have been something that one could look to as an authoritative statement to discern between right and wrong. When Jesus cited Genesis, He cited it as 'all the proof you need' (a firm authority) for correct conduct regarding marriage and divorce. It's as clear as if a judge were to cite settled law and then pronounce his judgment in accordance with that law, as opposed to if the judge tried to base his ruling on, say, the Oedipus Rex play or The Epic of Gilgamesh (which are historical but not authoritative).

 

With respect, I don’t see how this is relevant. Ancient mythological accounts of humans coming from animals as if by magic are not the subject of this thread. The OP specifically asked about Darwin’s scientific theory, which has nothing to do with prescientific ancient myths, despite any superficial similarity the latter may have to modern thought. Darwin’s theory presupposes so much that it would have made about as much sense to a 1st century hearer as the theories of the other thinkers I mentioned, which is to say, none at all. It does sound like an interesting science fiction premise though: transplanting modern thought back into the ancient world via time travel (possibly in order to accelerate human progress?). Perhaps someone should write an alternate history novel with such a premise...

 

The bottom line here is that Darwins theory of evolution is pure heresy

 

Ànd a lie

 

The first question I always ask whenever anyone throws around the word "heresy" is: what dogma of the Church does Darwin's theory (allegedly) violate? Please name the ecclesiastical decree (or the council) that defined it, and the year it was promulgated. (Remember, according to the Anglican formularies, it is the Church, not private judgment, that determines what and how precisely the Scriptures bind in matters of faith and practice.)

 

Exactly so! Which tenet/s of the Nicene or Apostles creeds does Darwin's or anyone else's theory of Evolution by natural selection contradict?

If it does not contradict any tenet of what is defined by these as 'The Faith', then how can it be a 'heresy'? and since it only postulates a method by which all creatures have come to be as they are, as we now observe them, how can it be 'a lie'?

At most it may merely be a wrong conclusion, but that is very far from being a lie in the way Jesus Christ would have defined it. If the religious Biblical fundamentalist Young Earth Creationist dogma, based upon a particular treatment and interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis is promoted as the only possible explanation for the method of the appearance upon earth of all creatures, as we observe them today, it could likewise be considered a lie if not actually confirmed by one of the tenets contained in the Nicene or Apostle's creeds.

In fact it is far more likely that the notion that God literally, actually 'magic-ed' them all into existence over night around 6000 years ago, and paraded them all in front of the first man for him to literally name every creature on earth one by one until he found a suitable mate, would be a less strictly, literally and historically truthful one, than that they and we have taken many billions of years to develop into what we actually observe them to be today.
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So do we live by the Holy Scriptures or the Book of Common Prayer? They are not the same.

 

Quite. In fact, just as St. Paul ironically turns out to be one of the best historical sources for 1st century Judaism, Darwin’s letters are a wonderful source for what was happening ‘on the ground’ in 19th century Anglicanism. Articles such as this one are an important corrective to the cartoonish portrayals of Darwin that often get passed off as serious history in some circles.

 

Yes.

 

Do the Creeds speak to every area of Christian life.

 

Is anyone claiming they do?

 

A question; Did Homo Sapiens evolve from the lower primates as Darwin àsserts?

 

You just did about the validity of evolutionary theory