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[Craving Odd Stuff]

Do Christian creationists accept that humans are primates and related most directly to chimpanzees?

[jimwalton]

I believe that God created the cosmos, the world, and life. What Genesis doesn't tell us is what processes God used to create, or how long it took. Many Christians also believe in evolution, but not in evolution without the involvement of God. They believe, as I do, that God was involved in the process of evolution. Therefore a Christian can (and many do) believe in both creationism and evolution (to some extent).

It is well-established in science and genetics that there is taxonomic similarity between humans and chimpanzees. The discovery of numerous skulls and bone fragments has allowed scientists to attempt the composition of a human ancestral tree, which has proved to be difficult. But it's still enough to allow us to reasonably conclude the possible evolutionary relationship between these ranges of species. Most paleoanthropologist are reluctant to make definitive interpretations of direct ancestry between species. Attempts to do so have many gray areas of uncertainty.

Genetic comparisons of humans, chimpanzees, gorilla, and orangutan lead us to a common primate ancestral branch, though they don't show that we came from chimps or from apes. Chimps came from the same branch humans did. The tree of homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and homo erectus is still being investigated and sorted out.

[Craving Odd Stuff]

While I happen to share your thinking, no creationist would agree with your statement on Genesis, as they claim that Genesis states that God created people as they are and in his image. This doesn't really leave any room for up being created as a primitive primate and 'evolving' into God's image.

[jimwalton]

Actually, I take my position from Dr. John Walton ("The Lost World of Genesis One," https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genes ... is+1&psc=1), a position that has millions of people in agreement with it. Secondly, the Catholic Church has been in agreement with evolution since always. Augustine himself (4th century) draws out the following core themes: God brought everything into existence in a single moment of creation. Yet the created order is not static. God endowed it with the capacity to develop. Augustine uses the image of a dormant seed to help his readers grasp this point. God creates seeds, which will grow and develop at the right time. Using more technical language, Augustine asks his readers to think of the created order as containing divinely embedded causalities that emerge or evolve at a later stage. So he was cool with the idea of process and progress. Catholics, as far as I know, and from interactions on this forum, have always been taught that evolution is fine.

Many Christians (multiple millions) believe in evolutionary creationism. There are Christian scientific organizations such as BioLogos (https://biologos.org) that have been advocating evolutionary creationism since their inception.

As far as God creating in his image, the Genesis text itself explains that to mean their role to rule the earth and subdue it (Gn. 1.26-28). Being in the image of God means representing Him as his co-regents on Earth.

In other words, all of these legitimate perspectives on Scripture leave plenty of room for being created as a primitive primate and evolving into humanity.