Christianity and Evolution

A friend recently asked me the following question via email: "Being a woman who loved science and also religion, what are your thoughts on creationism and evolution?"

I began answering her, and it became far too long for an emailed response. Instead, I am posting it here and burdening you all with it, that is, if the question at all interests you.

My answer:

First, I should say I really dislike the word religious/religion/etc. because I feel like it means a set of practices or rituals that really are devoid of true spiritual significance. I often say that the only thing I do religiously is brush my teeth before bed! I do not consider myself a religious person in the least. However, I think I understand the sense in which it is meant and I am not offended. I think the intention is for "religious" to mean: a person who takes their faith seriously, reads the bible, likes church, etc. (however, I do not like a lot of churches).

My short answer to the question is that I think truth is truth (or, to be cliche, all truth is God's truth).

Of course, I also think that not everything science presents as true is so necessarily. There is just as much "religion" in the scientific community as there is apart from it. I do not believe there is anything special about coming to "scientific" knowledge. I believe human beings are knowers and that our process of "coming to know" is the same across disciplines. It frustrates me that modern journal science would pretend to claim it only marks things as true that have 100% certainty (or 98% or whatever). I think all people, if honest with themselves, believe LOTS of things to be true even when they do not have near 100% certainty (for example, Andrew is in Portland at a conference right now....could he be lying and having an affair...well, I suppose that is rationally possible but I do not believe it to be true for one second because my process of coming to belief is not based on certainty and takes into account many unmeasureable factors). Truth does not equal certainty.

Now to address the evolution question. I suppose it depends on what is meant by "evolution". I have read most of Darwin's "Origins of the Species" and find his argument incredibly persuasive. However, Darwin hints at the possibility that his theory concerning species might extend to all of life. This is where the modern "Darwinists" have picked up and ran clear to evolution explaining the origin of all life itself and have placed their trust in one big bang for the energy required (something out of nothing?! Contrary to science itself!). I do not believe that Darwin's system makes sense of all the data as an explanation for the creation of all of life (and I am not sure that Darwin would even make that claim...he hints at the possibility, he does NOT present it as true, for I think he would want more evidence), further, I think Darwin would be amazed at modern micro-biology and the human genome project, and thus would not be able to extend his theory to reduce all of life to one common ancestor. I think Darwin himself would reject modern Darwinism (funny how that is often the case, like Luther and Luthranism, etc.)

I do believe it is possible that God created several (at the very, very minimum 5-6) different life forms that then could have evolved over billions of years into the vast species we know today (though not without His guidance and orchestration, since he designed the very laws of physics and limits of the creation). There is too much strong evidence for evolution as Darwin presented it (still occurring in small forms today) to deny it completely with any strong credibility.

It is, of course, rationally possible that God created an "old looking" earth with what would appear as species in the middle of an evolutionary progression. He is God; He can do whatever He wants; He is not bound by our rationality. However, I believe that God created us with our rationality and it would be strange for Him to "dupe" us into thinking the earth was old when it was not. It would seem a mean trick on the brain He gave us. So, for now, I trust that I can know. Additionally, I think whether the earth is billions of years old, or merely thousands, it makes very little difference to God's call and demand on my life to confront the person of Jesus and make a decision about who I am before God. So, in many ways, creation vs. evolution is an interesting, but unimportant question to me.

In fact, I am even willing to go so far as to suggest that man may not have been any more special than all the other animals. Perhaps God just picked the genus "homo" (or perhaps even an earlier predecessor) to do something unique with in this story. In the history of man as depicted in the Bible we see God doing similar things. He randomly picks Abram and says, "I am going to make a nation out of you". Abram was not special. He did not earn anything from God. God just picked him. God just picked Jacob rather than Esau. Over and over again we see that Israel was not a special group of people except for the fact that God had decided to do something unique with one particular nation - namely them - for His glory and not due to their credit. Why not allow this same randomness with man. We think too highly of ourselves. What if we were rational dolphins, or elephants, is God so limited He could not have created a redemption story around us if we looked physically different? I do not think so.

What I have shared thus far would likely raise two significant objections from many "religious" Christians. One, they would immediately wonder how I mesh these views with Genesis chapter one (the supposed 6-day creation layout). Two, some would question how I reconcile my non-chalance about man being homo-sapien because the Bible says that when God formed man out of the dust that He (actually They) made man in His (actually Their) image.

To address the first concern - I do not think that Genesis chapter one is intended to be read as history. It is too clean, too parallel, not to mention would not make sense of our concept of "days" anyway since the sun was not even created until day 4. Additionally, Genesis 2 launches into another creation account (reading more like a story, though I would still argue it is unlikely that it is a historical narrative as it contains too many allegorical elements) in which the events are not in the same order as in Genesis 1. People that want to claim a 6-day creation based on a biblical literalism have a lot of explaining to do when the next "literal" chapter disagrees.

I do not believe that the bible disagrees with itself. Rather, I believe we need to do a better job at reading and recognizing genre and the art of communication (not to mention realise what the book is intending to talk about!). I have not devoted any great study to the early chapters of Genesis, however, I might argue that Genesis chapter 1 is a "blue print" of sorts for what God decided to do with our physical creation. Chapter 2 seems some sort of allegory about how we came to be where we are. Again, someone insisting on biblical literalism would have difficulties explaining how Adam and Eve (if they are the only two people on earth) have two sons, then one kills the other and runs away to live among a large group of other people whom he is afraid, at first, will kill him (um....where did all those other people come from?). They do not kill him, and he settles down and marries and has children and founds the first city as we know it.

In response to the second possible objection reguarding man being created in the image of God, I do not think this is a real objection. For if man being not homo-sapien, but rather elephant, undid the image of God, we would in big trouble concerning what we think God "looks" like. God is not matter. God created matter. As a potter is to clay, so is God to us and all creation. I think our "image of God" has more to do with our rational, creative and relational capacities. If He wanted to grant those to an octopus, so be it. Do I like my human shape....yes! but I would not know any different if we were all lions and I would probably like my lion shape just as much.

I hope I have made sense and not completely over-answered the question! I would love to hear others' thoughts on this matter as well.