Waltke on theistic evolution

Since Waltke's position on theistic evolution has become a matter of public debate, it's helpful to document what, exactly, his position really is. Here are some statements of his:

Waltke cautions, “if the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult…some odd group that is not really interacting with the world. And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God’s Providence that brought us to this point of our awareness.”

We are at a unique moment in history where “everything is coming together,” says Waltke, and conversations—like those initiated by BioLogos—are positive developments. “I see this as part of the growth of the church,” he says. “We are much more mature by this dialogue that we are having. This is how we come to the unity of the faith—by wrestling with these issues.”

http://biologos.org/blog/why-must-the-church-come-to-accept-evolution/

“I had not seen the video before it was distributed. Having seen it, I realize its deficiency and wish to put my comments in a fuller theological context:

Adam and Eve are historical figures from whom all humans are descended; they are uniquely created in the image of God and as such are not in continuum with animals.

Adam is the federal and historical head of the fallen human race just as Jesus Christ is the federal and historical head of the Church.

I am not a scientist, but I have familiarized myself with attempts to harmonize Genesis 1-3 with science, and I believe that creation by the process of evolution is a tenable Biblical position, and, as represented by BioLogos, the best Christian apologetic to defend Genesis 1-3 against its critics.

I apologize for giving the impression that others who seek to harmonize the two differently are not credible. I honor all who contend for the Christian faith.

Evolution as a process must be clearly distinguished from evolutionism as a philosophy. The latter is incompatible with orthodox Christian theology.

Science is fallible and subject to revision. As a human and social enterprise, science will always be in flux. My first commitment is to the infallibility (as to its authority) and inerrancy (as to its Source) of Scripture.

God could have created the Garden of Eden with apparent age or miraculously, even as Christ instantly turned water into wine, but the statement that God “caused the trees to grow” argues against these notions.

I believe that the Triune God is Maker and Sustainer of heaven and earth and that biblical Adam is the historical head of the human race.

Theological comments made here are mostly a digest of my chapters on Genesis 1-3 in An Old Testament Theology (Zondervan, 2007).”

http://biologos.org/blog/why-must-the-church-come-to-accept-evolution-an-update/

Ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies are a very different literary genre from the genre of scientific writings. These ancient cosmogonies–including that of Genesis 1–do not ask or attempt to answer scientific questions of origins: the material, manner, or date of the origin of the world and of its species. The biblical account represents God as creating the cosmological spheres that house and preserve life in six days, each presumably consisting of twenty-four hours. But how closely this cosmology coincides with the material reality cannot be known from the genre of an ancient Near Eastern cosmology, which does not attempt to answer that question [footnote 80]. Recall that biblical narrators creatively and rhetorically represent raw historical data to teach theology, An Old Testament Theology, 202.

The best harmonious synthesis of the special revelation of the Bible, of the general revelation of human nature that distinguishes between right and wrong and consciously or unconsciously craves God, and of science is the theory of theistic evolution [footnote 81]. By “theory,” I mean here “a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for the origin of species, especially adam,” not “a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural.” By “theistic evolution” I mean that the God of Israel, to bring glory to himself, (1) created all the things that are out of nothing and sustains them; (2) incredibly, against the laws of probability, finely tuned the essential properties of the universe to produce adam, who is capable of reflecting upon their origins; (3) within his providence allowed the process of natural selection and of cataclysmic interventions–such as the meteor that extinguished the dinosaurs, enabling mammals to dominate the earth–to produce awe-inspiring creatures, especially adam; (4) by direct creation made adam a spiritual being, an image of divine beings, for fellowship with himself by faith; (5) allowed adam to freely choose to follow their primitive animal nature and to usurp the rule of God instead of living by faith in God, losing fellowship with their physical and spiritual Creator… (202-03).

There is a synergetic modus vivendi in recognizing that both science and theology have a contribution to make to our understanding of the origins of the creation. A scientific cosmogony contributes to answering the questions of how and when, and the rhetorical biblical cosmogony answers the more important questions of who and why (203).

The renowned theologian B. B. Warfield supported the concept of biological evolution (202n80).

I have been helped in reaching this conclusion by Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Collins was director of the Humane Genome Project and is a devout Christian (202n81).

By way of comment:

i) Why theistic evolution was a permissible option for Presbyterian theologians like Warfield and A. A. Hodge poses an interesting sociological question regarding the intellectual ethos of 19C Presbyterianism. A question which some church historians have explored.

However, while that sociological question may be of keen historical interest, it is quite irrelevant to the normative question of what policy the 21C Church ought to put in place. It is not the duty of the Church to reproduce the intellectual ethos, or coping strategies, of a particular era in church history. For example, the fact that many Colonial Americans turned to Unitarianism is hardly a normative precedent for contemporary Christians.

ii) Walkte appeals to comparative mythology. However, other scholars in the field handle these materials quite differently.

iii) Waltke equivocates over the nature of ANE cosmogonies. It’s trivially true that prescientific cosmogonies were not designed to answer scientific questions. That, however, doesn’t mean that ANE cosmogonies were never meant to make factual claims about the real world, as the author and audience understood it.

iv) Waltke only cites one side of the argument. He doesn’t engage the scientific critics of macroevolution. And he also ignores the realist/antirealist debate in philosophy of science.

v) Waltke’s position on Adam and Eve seems to be that God took a male and female protohuman hominid and made them “spiritual beings.”

vi) Waltke calls his position a “synthesis” of science and Scripture. However, his position is really a stopgap. It isn’t scientific, and it isn’t Scriptural.

It’s not something he derives from science alone, or Scripture alone, and it’s not something that he can properly derive from combining science and Scripture. For both Gen 1-2 and macroevolution present self-contained narratives regarding the origin of life on earth. One can’t properly graft Gen 1-2 onto the trunk of macroevolution. These are independent explanations. And they tug in different directions.

vii) Waltke redefines original sin in terms of Adam and Eve reverting to their bestial ancestry. That is completely at odds with the narrative. It introduces an extraneous dynamic while it also disregards the narrative factors.