For my entire life I have heard people arguing over whether Creationism or Evolution best explains life as we know it. I don't understand all of evolutionary theory, though my understanding is that current research tends to indicate that humans and the great apes share a common ancestor. (We'll ignore for a moment that fact that if this is true, natural selection did not work out so well for the great apes.) Whether this claim is true or not, it does nothing to negate a belief in creation, or the God who created. If humans share an ancestor with other primates our ancestor was the product of his ancestor, and that ancestor had an ancestor as well.
The problem of using evolutionary theory to explain the origin of our species or of our world, is that you cannot have an infinite regression of causes. At some point, there had to be an uncaused cause...an unmoved mover. Something simply cannot evolve out of nothing. Something, whether it be mankind or the primordial ooze out of which our ancestors sprang, was first created. You can look at a line of dominos all day, but they won't begin to fall until a force moves the first one. Christians call this unmoved Mover, this uncaused Cause, God.
Can evolution and creation be reconcilled? Absolutely. Is there any way to sanely argue that something can come from nothing? Absolutely not. No one can force you to believe the narratives of Genesis 1 and 2. Even many Christians think this is a symbolic account of creation. But you cannot deny that something outside of this world, acted to produce the first things that evolved. My lack of scientific understanding gives me pause from commenting one way or the other on the topic of macro-evolution, but I am confident that whatever large scale changes may have occured to produce humans as we know them could never have begun without God first creating something.
Well said. I often think that Christians and non-Christians alike tend to look at the Bible as a science or history textbook, which is definitely not the case. The Bible is a written account of God's plan of salvation for His chosen people. Where it intersects with science and history just further proves the accuracy of the events, but I don't believe it was ever written to explain scientific theory or historical events one way or the other. The Creation story in Genesis is just that. Perhaps God is vague for a reason because the method of creation is not the important lesson to be learned in the story, the importance of the story is that God indeed created man and the purpose for which he created them. I don't think that Christians who believe in some sort of evolutionary theory discount the power of God in any way because most will agree with your argument that God was the First Cause.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree. Genesis 1 and 2 are clearly Hebrew poetry. That statement does not mean they are not true, however. There are groups though, like Answers in Genesis, who really seem to see the Bible as a science text book.
ReplyDeleteI have never felt the need to defend creationism vs. evolution, because; like you, I don't see any conflict. In fact evolution supports that plants existed prior to fish and birds, and that fish and birds existed prior to animals, and that animals existed prior to man. Even the Big Bang theory supports Genesis account of the Heavens and the Earth (universe) being without form and void. An interesting site on which to explore this further is "Reason to Believe" at http://www.reasons.org/
ReplyDeleteIn Christ,
Carter