Does the title sould contradictory? I don't think so, and I hope to explain why...
In an earlier article (Can God Exist within Science?) I described two of the great scientific theories of the 20th Century, and how they leave room for God to still exist and exert influence on the Universe. I would like to now deal with the third leg of the altar of science today, and that is the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, as described in the book The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
So, I'll deal with a few issues here:
1) How can the age of the Earth, as measured by geologists and the time required for evolution be squared with the description of Creation contained in Genesis?
The classic way to get around this one is to say that the length of the "day" was not determined unil later in Creation, but I don't think this stretch is necessary.
My opinion is that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but does not, and was not intended by God to be, the literal truth. Abraham and Moses could not have ever understood the timeframes represented by the some 15 billion years that have passed since the Universe came into existence. God revealed to them that He had created the Universe in a way they could understand, not the literal truth. By the same token, I believe that many great minds over the centuries like Newton, Einstein, Heizenberg, Fermi, and even Darwin came to the revelation of their truths through Divine Inspiration, and God revealed additional truth to mankind when we were ready to understand it.
2) How could Evolution have produced such complex life?
One attempt many religious people have made to discredit Evolution is the Intelligent Design (ID) movement, saying that Evolution cannot be true because it is insufficient to describe the complexity of life on Earth.
Again, I think that they are missing an opportunity to fit into the holes in Evolution and exploit them, and rather attacking a theory with much evidence backing it directly.
The Origin of Species, despite its title, describes only how life forms evolve from other life forms. It does not describe how life itself started, or how the first lifeforms came to be on the Earth.
One scientific explanation, abiogenesis (life from lifelessness) has never been able to be experimentally duplicated, and has the same amount of scientific evidence behind it as Creation does.
Evolution & Religion Together
Evolution is not opposed to religion. In reality, the theory of abiogenesis is the antethisis of Creation, not evolution. It is my belief that God set the first life forth on Earth, in the full knowledge that thanks to His Law of Natural Selection, that life would multiply, evolve, and eventually give rise to intelligent creatures who would wonder about His creation.
Now here's the kicker: Scientists cannot disagree with me, as their theory of creation has the same amount of evidence, and is as much a testament of faith as Genesis is.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
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12 comments:
I said that I believe that the Bible was inspired by God, but does not represent literal truth.
Essenitally, my thesis on that is that God explained things to people in such a way as they could understand.
Of course the other guy could have evolution on his side. See my article The Yezedi
With all due respect, if the Bible is not the "literal truth", then it is not the truth anymore.
The Bible is either true or it's not. If God says it's one day, we have to either accept it as the "literal truth" or think this God is a concept.
Why can the Bible not be inspired by God without being the literal truth?
If things like evolution and geology are not reality, why would God leave so much evidence of them around for us to find?
People in the time of Moses had not the ability to understand the wonders of the Universe, so God explained his wonders to them in a way they could understand. Then as we developed, he revealed more of his grand design to us through other prophets.
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This piece by Charles Krauthammer resonated to the soul I may be closer to believing I possess.
"How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein?"
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Vicki, I don't presume lack of intelligence in the time of Moses, but I do recognize that human knowledge is cumulative, and one piece builds upon another.
Einstein could not have formulated General Relativity without the foundation of Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation for example. The fact that Relativity is a more complete and comprehensive description of Gravity does not imply lack of intelligence in Newton, but only that he did not have the information available to him yet (ie. the Law of Gravity, work of Mach et. al. in four-dimentional geometry, etc).
Neocon...I like your quote there. I don't posess the elegance of language of Krauthammer, but that summarizes my belief quite well.
So basically you're saying that the Bible is literally true, except when it's not. It's the absolute, accurate word of God, except when you need to weasle around something that doesn't really work.
Is that how all you Christians find the prohibitions against homosexuality to be absolute mandates, but can ignore the stoning adulterers and not eating shellfish or wearing mixed fabrics stuff?
deanp:
I've never once said that the Bible is the literal truth. One of my main points is that it is not literally true, but is inspired by God. In fact, I believe that many other great truths, like Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and even Evolution are also inspired by God.
Jeff G.: Do you believe in a literal Adam?
As a student of apologetics, I'm enjoying the comments here. I too believe as Jeff explains. It does seem some are bent on an agenda and blinded by that. The mistake that both believers and quasi non-believers alike make is trying to put a size on this thing we refer to as God. God is bigger than any of us could ever imagine and we shouldn't place limits on Him or what He could accomplish. It could have been six 24 hour periods or even six 24 million year periods to create the earth. So what?
But, Vicki, in the Gospels, Christ often speaks in parables and metaphors, neither of which are intended to be thought to have literally happened, but are literary and verbal ways to communicate a message and a lesson without needing to be literally true. The fact that they are not literally true does not diminish the value of the messages.
Is it not possible that the Genesis story itself, the scribe of which never claims to have personally witnessed, and as such there is no claim of literal truth, may be such a parable, intended to convey a message or lesson without being the literal truth?
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