(This is a repost from my old blog)

So now that I’ve explained the history, the context, and how a “baptized” version of Evolution looks, I think it only fair that I consider some common objections. If you haven’t already, you may find it best to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series before this section as I will be building off of my previous writings to make some points in this one.

First of all, I have to applaud answersingenesis.org for writing a good guide to some very bad arguments. Its a nice primer for anyone who wants to keep up on the debate. That list takes care of a few common arguments, so if you are wondering why I don’t address a particular one, you may want to check that list. Now that I’ve covered all that, its time for a SHOWDOWN!!!

Most arguments saying that God could not have used Evolution are very similar. Essentially they go something like this:

The Bible means what it says and Genesis 1 is no exception. Since the Bible itself is completely inerrant, the days of Genesis therefore must be literal days for the entire Bible to be true. Additionally, if you believe that the earth is older than 6,000-8,000 years, you are arbitrarily picking certain things to believe from a cohesive whole which makes the entire Christian faith a matter of personally choosing parts of the bible to believe.

Its a pretty decent argument, but it makes some very big unjustified leaps of logic. First of all, this argument sets up a straw man. The advocate of this position assumes that if you don’t believe in whatever timeframe they are currently advocating (it varies from 6,000 to 12,000 years depending who you ask), that you completely deny or simply don’t believe the Genesis account at all. Not only is that usually untrue, it is a massive leap in logic as it is completely possible to believe Genesis 1&2 but not take it literally. Here’s a quick and slightly absurd dialog to explain what I mean:

• Joe: Do you believe that Jesus is the Lamb of God?
• Bubba: Yeah I think its a great metaphor for Jesus’ sacrifice.
• Joe: So you don’t believe Jesus really was the Lamb of God?? Are you saying the Bible is lying when it says that?!!

Hopefully no one would ever say that since it is generally acknowledged that portrayals of Jesus as a lamb is metaphor. My point is simply that one can quite truthfully say that they believe the truth of something even if they hold it to be a metaphor. This obviously isn’t true for all points of the Bible as there are many things that must be literal. That is why church history, theological study, biblical scholarship, and honest scientific searching must work together to make informed doctrine.

Secondly, it makes the dubious and arbitrary claim that the story of Creation is the keystone of all biblical understanding, denying the literal verity of this one story invalidates everything else. This would make sense if our understanding of revelation is purely chronological with the most important dogma occurring in the very beginning. However, if you are to believe every easter sermon I’ve ever heard and all theology I’ve ever read, that idea is completely and blatantly false. Time and time again Christians have upheld that the life, death, and resurrection of Christ is the lens through which all scripture needs to be interpreted. Despite differing opinions even during his day, Jesus didn’t seem to care or teach a certain interpretation of Genesis. When taking those facts into account one’s beliefs on God’s chosen tool of creation cannot be made a  central pivotal dogma. That conclusion is also exactly why the actual method and length of the days never made it into the historically accepted creeds of the Church.

Essentially what this argument does is put more weight on the timeframe of creation than on the actual theological principles expressed in the story. That has the effect of forcing the reader to address fairly irrelevant side issues, detracting from the main theological issues in a metaphorical reading that affirm the message of the Creation story.

That is the most common form of argument against Theistic Evolution, but in this article Answers in Genesis provides a few more objections. Here they are, with my responses:

1.  Misrepresentation of the Nature of God

I dealt with the problem of death in part 3, but it is a very valid question to be addressed. Lets take a look at what the curse actually says:

“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:19.

This is spoken directly to Adam and not to the animals. If one takes into account the fact that Adam was made in the image of God, this passage would indicate that God is revoking immortality from Adam that was part of the original creation. There is no indication in Genesis 1-3 that the animals didn’t die. In fact its a little ridiculous to believe that God created carnivores after the curse. So, what does that say about the nature of God? Nothing that isn’t said everywhere else in the Bible. Never in the Bible is the death of animals a moral issue or an issue puts into question the character of God. The point of Genesis is that the pinnacle of Creation, the images of God Himself, chose to disobey and thus brings about suffering and death upon themselves.

2. God Becomes a God of the Gaps

Not really. This is only true if you believe that the Universe could have created itself and just needed a few kicks from the good old supreme being to get it going. A much  more biblically sound way of thinking about the Universe is commonly called Panentheism. This is the belief that everything is in God, but God is transcendant and not bound by what exists. So in a sense, every bit of the physical realm is a manifestation of God and all physical laws are miracles powered by God. This means that the evolution of the Universe isn’t its self-creation, but very much God’s work of Creation and part of the universal movement towards God’s promised eschatology.

3. Denial of Central Biblical Teaching.

Already addressed above. As they say, there is no reason to believe the Genesis account was not factual and literal, but there is also no reason to assume it must be literal.

4. Loss of the Way for Finding God

I don’t know of any Theistic Evolutionist who would say sin is part of evolving, simply a straw man.

5. The Doctrine of God’s Incarnation is Undermined

I have no idea what the argument here is since it isn’t actually explained. But man’s position relative to God is the same with both forms of Creation and the miracle of the incarnation is diminished in neither.

6. The Biblical Basis of Jesus’ Work of Redemption Is Mythologized

Paul does indeed compare Jesus to Adam, but both comparisons are about archetypes. As far as Adam goes it doesn’t actually matter if he was a real person. The metaphor is saying that through Adam (or whoever the original sinner was) sin entered the world, and through Jesus salvation came. Its an inductive logical fallacy to assert that since one part of a metaphor is mythological, the second part is also.

7. Loss of Biblical Chronology

The actual time period of the bible is not  actually theologically relevant as I’ve explained in part 3, so the main point of this “danger” is irrelevant.  The ancillary 2 points though are worth considering.  The first one, that one can pick and choose what to believe is a very important but would take a full book on church history and hermeneutics to properly explain why and how things are considered doctrinal. The second one is also dubious, since having an old earth doesn’t change the fact that Jesus will come like a thief in the night.

8. Loss of Creation Concepts

Ex nihilo creation is preserved with theistic evolution since nothing would exist without God creating still. The order of planetary creation isn’t really important theologically, but the fact that man was created last is. Both interpretations affirm this though.

9. Misrepresentation of Reality

The author asserts here that the bible is authoritative on science as well as on spirituality. This is would be true if the bible were written to be a science text book, but it simply isn’t meant to explain science. It is very much a product of a pre-scientifc time, and refers to the earth as flat and square supported by pillars.

10.  Missing the Purpose

This is a little silly. If you believe that God has a purpose in creation, its pretty ridiculous to say that just because he used evolution, he suddenly has no purpose. Sure its a contradiction in terms to combine something without meaning with something that has meaning, but in this case God explicitly gives it meaning.

(This is a repost from my old blog)

There’s been a few times in my life when I’ve been asked to explain my thoughts on the Creation stories in Genesis 1 & 2, this series is an attempt by me to explain my interpretation of Genesis and the reasoning behind it. Its my prayer that I and all who read this may approach the subject with humility and faith looking to God for answers.

So now that we’ve considered the history and context of Genesis 1&2, lets move on to the theology of it, along the way exploring what a Creation theology that embraces Darwinism would look like. First of all, what are the most vital points of the Creation story that? Christian theology and dogma relies heavily on the following points:

1. God Created.
2. Humanity was created in God’s image.
3. Man sinned and was cursed because of it.

The first point I believe is pretty obvious and self explanatory. It goes right along with the very first verse of the Bible “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God is the most important actor in the Creation myth. Without God nothing is and nothing will be. The Bible is pretty clear that the universe did not create itself.

Secondly, and very important for a lot of Jewish and Christian theology is the idea that Man was created in the image of God. No one really knows for sure what that idea means, but it separates Humanity from the entirety of the created order. From the beginning humans are set apart for a special purpose as the very pinnacle of creation, an integral part of God’s grand plan.

Thirdly, and especially stressed by a lot of evangelicals is the idea of original sin. God setup a paradise for Adam and Eve with only one rule: do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yet, we went and did it. From then on sin became an endemic part of the human experience and with it the curse of death, toil, and suffering.

You probably noticed that I did not include the length of the days as an important theological point. I did that for one very important reason: it’s really completely irrelevant. God is not any less God, nor is creation any less created if the days of his creation were exactly 24 hours, or 24 hours and 16 minutes long, or even if they were 47,899 years. Additionally, there are no passages later in the Bible that make reference to the days of creation requiring that they be exactly 24 hours to make sense. As Augustine said: “we should not think of those days as solar days…. He made that which gave time its beginning, as He made all things together, disposing them in an order based not on intervals of time but on causal connections” [emphasis added]. We should really think of the days not as literal risings and settings of the sun — after all, three of them were before there even was a sun — but more as metaphoric logical dividers that setup a pattern later on for the sabbath rest.

So, how can these three most vital points work with Evolution? Quite easily really. First of all, for a Theory of Evolution to be Christian it absolutely must affirm the first point. Evolution must be a God guided, God instigated, and God powered process. Secondly, man must be created in the image of the Creator. This is a little more difficult to enumerate, and Theistic Evolution sometimes causes objection with this point since it affirms that man is similar in some ways to animals. But from a Christian perspective it also emphasizes that there is a huge gap between Adam and apes in that man is the pinnacle of the creation process explicitly endowed with God’s image.

Lastly, there is the issue of sin and the curse. This is understandably a big stumbling block for many people. The problem is that evolution, with its long time frames and evolutionary failures, requires death to even operate. However, Genesis 3 is when God explicitly curses humanity with death. So it would seem that there was no death before the first sin. This assumes two things: first, that no creatures ate during the first three chapters and secondly, that the first three chapters of Genesis are literally the way creation happened and are not stories meant more to explain theology and to make a point.

The first assumption applies to both Theistic Evolution and Young Earth Creationism. I don’t know of any interpretations of Genesis holding the belief that digestive systems were created after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, so lets assume that creatures of all types functioned essentially the same before sin and after it. Therefore every animal in the Garden of Eden had to eat something. I’ve heard it argued by some biblical literalists that the animals in the Garden were all vegetarian, but that is not only a little silly but denies the fact that plants  would have had to die en masse to feed these ravenous herbivores. Secondly, that assertion assumes that God “adapted” all the future carnivores after sin was introduced, essentially “evolving” them to fit a niche as of yet unfilled. It becomes a rather counter productive argument when phrased that way. Theistic evolution on th other hand usually deals with this issue slightly differently, which leads me to the second assumption.

Many Theistic Evolutionists prefer to skirt this whole issue and assert that the Creation stories are mythology meant to explain theology and put the supernatural into more understandable terms. This, as I’ve touched on in part 2, is not a new idea by any means but a fairly established belief in the Christian tradition. Essentially for a Theistic Evolutionist this means that death has always been a part of Creation. Theologically this is difficult to explain, but Augustine says it well: “For He has wrought them all in His wisdom, which, reaching from end to end, governs all graciously; and he leaves not in an unformed state the very least of His creatures that are by their nature subject to corruption, whose dissolution is loathsome to us in our fallen state by reason of our own mortality.” Simply put, just because man was created immortal doesn’t mean that animals were meant to be the same way.

Theistic Evolution is the belief that God chose to use Evolution and perhaps even the Big Bang as a means  to create. It meshes well with accepted scientific evidence and doesn’t contradict the Bible, however, it does necessitate a belief that God inspires and works through mythology.

That is a quick overview of the theological basis and issues with Theistic Evolution, unfortunately due to time and space constraints I may have to go more in depth if I ever get around to writing a book.

(This is a repost from my old blog)

There’s been a few times in my life when I’ve been asked to explain my thoughts on the Creation stories in Genesis 1 & 2, this series is an attempt by me to explain my interpretation of Genesis and the reasoning behind it. Its my prayer that I and all who read this may approach the subject with humility and faith looking to God for answers.

Growing up in the evangelical church I’ve always assumed that Christians have always seen the days of Creation as literal 24 hour periods and the creation story as a factual historical account. I assumed that church theology was unanimous on this right up until atheists and other ne’er-do-wells attacked Christianity with Darwinism. It really wasn’t until a couple years ago when I was introduced to theology and church history that I realized that Christianity has never been in total agreement on what exactly the time frame or the method of Creation was. Yet, amazingly enough this has never been an an issue of mandatory dogma in the Church. Lets look at a few of the early church fathers and their views on the days of Creation and its relation to the science of the day.To begin, lets consider Origen, an early church theologian. In his book Contra Celsus he responds to Celsus who is a critic of his an other Christians’ works. In book 6 chapter 60 Origen responds to Celsus’ comment: “By far the most silly thing is the distribution of the creation of the world over certain days, before days existed,” saying:

‘…we have treated to the best of our ability in our notes upon Genesis, as well as in the foregoing pages, when we found fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world, and quoted the words: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.”‘

Secondly lets look at an obscure theologian by the name of St. Augustine. There’s an excellent article here that gives a wonderful overview of Augustines treatise entitled The Literal Meaning of Genesis. Its really intriguing to a modern Christian like I, that while Augustine staunchly defines his interpretation of the Creation stories as literal, it is entirely different than what we now normally think of as “literal.” I strongly suggest you read the article, but to summarize Augustine makes several points:

1. The interpretation of the Creation stories is difficult and not at all obvious.
2. The interpretation of the stories needs to be fluid and account for new observations about our earth.
3. We should not make statements about what the bible says when it flatly contradicts what we know from observable facts.
4. Extra-biblical knowledge is important and even necessary for responsible interpretation.

St. Basil the Great had a slightly different view of science, but an important one as well. In his first homily of the Hexameron he addresses some of the finer points of cosmology from his day. He quite well frames and debates some common theories, but ends saying that since we will not know the fullness of the universe’s complexity lets not get bogged down in debating details like the philosophers:

Do not let us undertake to follow them for fear of falling into like frivolities; let them refute each other, and, without disquieting ourselves about essence, let us say with Moses “God created the heavens and the earth.” Let us glorify the supreme Artificer for all that was wisely and skillfully made; by the beauty of visible things let us raise ourselves to Him who is above all beauty; by the grandeur of bodies, sensible and limited in their nature, let us conceive of the infinite Being whose immensity and omnipotence surpass all the efforts of the imagination. Because, although we ignore the nature of created things, the objects which on all sides attract our notice are so marvellous, that the most penetrating mind cannot attain to the knowledge of the least of the phenomena of the world, either to give a suitable explanation of it or to render due praise to the Creator, to Whom belong all glory, all honour and all power world without end. Amen.

This is definitely a different approach than Augustine but yet they have a very similar underlying message: we may never know the exact details of the Creation, but we need not be afraid of new developments in science as we have the most important assurance of all in that “God created the heavens and the Earth.”This is an extremely small sampling of the various opinions on science and Creation held by the early church fathers, and I urge you to take a look at some other sources as well for more info. There are many fathers who believed in a literal 24 hour creation day, and others who interpreted the stories as metaphor for many other things. Simply put though, all these differing opinions are part of the extremely varied and beautiful pattern of historic Christianity.

See also:
Early Church Fathers on Genesis
Creationism & the Early Church (an extremely well researched work)
To be continued.