Here's the problem that's been getting me down at least since the Cup came to Austin to visit: How in the hell do I reconcile biology with theology?
As a child, I was taught a literal, miraculous, six-day account of creation. God spoke the world into existence one literal twenty-four hour period at a time. If one takes the Bible literally (whatever that means), it seems like a stretch to take "evening and morning" to mean anything but a calendar day. Evolution was dangerous and at the same time a mere "theory."
But in scientific parlance, a "theory" is a pretty big deal. A theory "summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing." Evolution is not just one hypothesis, but a unified system of hypotheses, each supported by evidence. And as it turns out, the evidence for the evolutionary theory is overwhelming. Bacteria evolve to become drug-resistant, alleles become fixed or lost, DNA mutations occur at predictable rates (varying across locii), natural selection lurks in every corner, etc. In any case, I don't think I want to debate the merits of creationism vs. evolution vs. intelligent design here. The point is, I'm convinced. Perhaps more to the point, it's depressing to be convinced.
But before I tell you why it's depressing, I feel like I have to make a preemptive defense against anyone who supposes that maybe the liberals at Richland College and the University of Texas have somehow corrupted me and stolen my faith. Not so. I don't remember when I began to doubt creationism, but I do know that I chucked a literal interpretation of the Genesis account in church. I took a Genesis Sunday school class a few years ago taught by a DTS professor. Forget geology, paleontology, and biology. A close textual criticism of Genesis lends some pretty strong evidence to the notion that the Hebrew creation story is fundamentally theological--not historical--in nature. Thank God--I think we're all better off with a Bible that aims to teach us something about the Creator rather than the creation.
It would seem I've answered my own question. The first few chapters of Genesis employ myth to teach the truth of YHWH's cosmological authorship. So science and theology are discrete disciplines, and gosh darn it, they probably complement each other somehow. But things start to get sticky right around Romans 5: "For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." If you're a DTS professor teaching a Sunday school class, you solve the problem by saying that yes, evolution occurred, but there was an actual Adam. Science meets theology and the two play nicely.
But the scientific community begs to differ. Probably the population of Homo sapiens sapiens that displaced all other hominids consisted of about a thousand individuals. No literal Adam. Can we have original sin without Adam? (Do we even need it?) And what about H. floresiensis or even H. sapiens neanderthalensis? Were they not created in the image of God? Do we push Adam farther back in the fossil record, perhaps even before hominids developed the genetic basis for language? Does it seem likely that such a creature could sin?
Maybe what really gets me down is that the magic rug of teleological biology has been yanked from underneath me. There is no "purpose" in biology, only "function." And H. sapiens is just one link in the chain. Hard to draw a line between the morally accountable "us" and the animal "them." Even harder to make sense of a theology that seems to lean heavily on sin entering the world through one actual man. I mean, if there's no Adam, I feel bad for Paul for making that embarrassing analogy. (Oh, and Never mind Scriptural inerrancy while we're at it, but can we still have infallibility?)
So, theologian and arm-chair theologian friends, what do you got for me? If you're a six-day creationist, I wonder, could you suppose for a moment that the Evolution wins in the end?
Because the BIG question is this (assuming, as I do, that Evolution turns out to be not just theory, but reality): if Christianity can't tackle the evolutionary theory head on and come up with a theology that accounts for it, then what is it worth?
15 comments:
I, too, have traveled down this path and have found it challenging. I don't dispute the overwhelming evidence for evolution, but I have yet to totally resolve it with the biblical account of how sin and death entered the world.
This paradox is the key sticking point between evangelical theology and evolution. In evolution, death is how life moves forward. In my theology, death is the consequence of evil.
One possible lens through which to view the issue of death in Scripture is that spiritual death is the primary concern of the biblical narrative. Thus, at some point after gaining enough consciousnesses to communicate with God, mankind lost its innocence when it chose to know and do evil. Paul, in the soteriological passages in Romans, uses both Adam and Jesus and proxies for mankind in the fall from innocence and in redemption. While this approach to resolving this paradox has many flaws, it is consistent enough for me hold to without too much cognitive dissonance.
Man, those are seriously good questions. It has been a long, long time since I've considered those. Your scientific knowledge far surpasses mine. I do have a few thoughts.
First, from what little I have read it seems that are also some flaws with the theory of evolution. The primary one being that there is no evidence of macroevolution, no link between species. If one is going to affirm evolution there is a big step of faith involved.
Having said that, holding to an infallible, inerrant, literal Bible requires just as much, if not more, faith.
Personally I reject both in varying degrees. I think creationists miss the point (you hit that nail on the head). It should never have been science against the Scriptures. I see the Bible as an inspired collection of writings of a specific community. I am going to start going down a rabbit trail. We'll save that for another day.
I guess what I'm saying is that I am a skeptic. Whenever individuals or communities begin preaching personal agendas my gut tells me there is something deeply wrong here. And creationists and evolutionists are agenda pushers. They are self-proclaimed scientists but hold to dogma they cannot prove. And their goal is to push their religion on us.
The people I listen to are the ones who say, "Yep. Here is where evolution seems to be right. Here is where it fails. The Bible can be trusted as truth without holding to absolute inerrancy of every single letter."
That position takes courage in this day and age. I think it is the right one. A the risk of being completely misunderstood.... I will hit submit. Then I'll let the heretic comments come flying my way.
Thanks, Spoon, for putting this up in Facebook, too. You kind of look heroic, in the Norse-mythic sense, with that blond mane of yours.
I was going to bring up the macroevolution problem. I had a geology professor who struggled with evolution, based on that question of macroevolution. While the logical extension leads to macroevolution (lots of small changes lead to one large change,) the scientific community can’t find one.
And, to zoom out further, is it possible to suggest evolution is a modernist’s approach to the ‘where we came from’ project in philosophy? That many scientists and lay people feel comfortable with both creation and evolution in their beliefs seems to be the zeitgeist.
And we, the arm-chair theologians and evangelists, pose the question like they’re mutually exclusive. Highly lauded by evangelists, C.S. Lewis said the sign of a genius is the mind that can comfortably contain paradoxes. However, evangelists would like to suppose there is one way of looking at evolution and creation.
The stomach, the heart, of the question returns to the philosophic basis for questions like this. (It’s funny how often the Bible ignores man’s philosophy – or defies it. Even further, it is hilarious to consider how many questions/issues that are tangential to Biblical teaching are often rooted in old philosophic debates.)
What role does the spiritual play in the material?
If mankind did evolve, where – along the spectrum of mankind’s growth – did Adam come in?
If you hold both evolution and creation in mind, you face a dilemma: does cranial growth indicate a capacity for spirit?
We don’t want to say animals don’t have a soul. (The Bible is addressed to man, I’d say.) However, we also feel uncomfortable with the concept that Jesus died for animals’ salvations, too. (Animals get lumped in with creation.)
Thus, as Adam evolves, we lay-folk are forced to say (if we hold the dual view) that he is an animal, a monkey, until this certain point.
After that point, he is human, made imago dei, and imbued with an immortal soul.
But is imago dei dependent on development?
Scientists mark the line between neanderthalis and Cro Magnon man as cranial development (and other physical characteristics). Are those also the difference between immortally souled Man and creation-bound Animal?
Of course not.
Then what is the difference?
We can be sure of one thing: man holds his immortal soul.
We cannot be sure of that line between animal and man.
It is convenient (and I use the term derogatorily) to cut off evolution because it demoralizes man.
It is also convenient (again, derogatorily) that none of it can be proven. I cannot blame God for leaving the question out there; I can blame Man for obsessing over its answer.
This is a very interesting post and an impressive amount of thought on a difficult subject. Wow.
I'll tell you the way I have resolved this in my own mind. You may find it dis-satisfactory. :)
I just don't resolve it.
I think it might be an endless knock-down drag out in the temporal between two straw men. Like trying to pick the shell with the ball under it.
I believe it is a particularly fantastic error for people hang their faith (INERRANT LITERACY) - or lack of faith (SCIENCE > GOD) - on this issue.
But no matter what.. remind me now and then to visit your blog. ;)
The question you pose, Spoon is just the tip of a generationally-large iceberg. What I mean is, the question for this generation whose most highly esteemed virtue is authenticity is, "What is true?" Or maybe, "What is real?"
It seems that our postmodern generation is comfortable with competing truths or realities, but if you notice, that hasn't stopped us from asking the question. We get the sense that there are in fact criteria for determining what is true or real. There are apriori and aposteriori criteria. There is the gathering of evidence using empirical means, but we also get the sense that there is a reality beyond that which can be observed with the senses.
This is particularly sensitive with people of faith. Its the whole faith in God gives you the Spirit, which gives you the ability to discern Spiritual things bit that Jonathan Edwards so eloquently explained in "Religious Affections". And because we are by definition people of faith, we also do in fact confess BY FAITH certain things about the scriptures that the church has confessed for over 2000 years. Namely, that it is God breathed (inspired) and useful for lots of fun things which I don't remember right now, and feel that it would be pompous to look up and quote.
Now, like it or not, it is a problem that an infallible God could breath-out or "inspire" something which is errant (or containing error). Let me say that again. IT IS A PROBLEM. God is by definition without error, and the Spirit therefore CANNOT inspire something which is in error. That is as ontologically sound for people who are already people of faith as knowing that the sky is blue and grass is green.
So then it creates tones of cognitive dissonance when the Scriptures seem to be both internally inconsistent (and there are some really nasty parts that seem to be) as well as at odds with the natural order as best as we can empirically determine it to be so.
Try this one on for size, two Gospels record the exact phrase of Jesus but each in a different language. So what language did Jesus say it in? Maybe he repeated it twice for those speaking Spanish. This led another well-known evangelical professor at DTS to say in a DTS class, "I believe the Bible is true in what it teaches." That's an entirely different stance than L. S. Chafer confessed (the DTS founder).
What I'm getting at is that, we as people of faith, do in fact believe in certain scripturally recorded events as having more than a mythological value. For example, Luke tells us that his Gospel was written as an evidentiary document, relying on empirical data (eye witnesses). Much less, we must believe in a literal, physical, bodily resurrection of the Messiah, as recorded in the Scriptures. Let me say that again, WE MUST BELIEVE IN THE LITERAL PHYSICAL BODILY RESURRECTION OF THE MESSIAH, as recorded in the Scriptures, or your faith is in something, but it's not in the God of the Bible and its not in the God of the Church and I wouldn't call it Christianity (and I don't think Paul would either). So there is a relationship between the Scriptures (the witness of an event) and reality or history (the event itself).
As a side note, here I should point out my divergence with the suggestion of Ben above couldn't be any stronger, where he suggests, "...spiritual death is the primary concern of the biblical narrative." To which I would disagree sharply, on two accounts. In the Biblical Narrative, there is no difference between physical death and spiritual death. In Gen 3 sin entered into the story and physical death immediately following in Gen 4, and in Gen 5, the text couldn't be more repetitive with the evidence of that sin- namely, people start dying. As best as I understand it, physical death is not merely the physical manifestation of spiritual sin, but they are in fact intwined with each other inextricably. This is why throughout both the Old and New Testaments, physical, bodily, resurrection is so important. Because death is in fact everything that is wrong with the world, it cannot be redeemed, it must be eradicated with life. This is why it was necessary that the Messiah be resurrected physically, and is why the indwelling Spirit is given as a down payment of a promised future resurrection for those who believe. And it is why redemption does not end with mankind but all creation is redeemed with a recreated earth.
But back to my point at hand- the question is (and is the question for this generation), what exactly is the relationship between the two? Namely, history and the witness of history as recorded in scripture. Is the witness an exact depiction like a Rembrandt painting? Or is it interpretive like a Monet or Van Gogh? And if it is interpretive, to what extent is it or can it be and still be considered infallible and God-breathed? Could the scriptures be a Chagall? A Picasso? or what about a Salvador Dali?
Whatever the relationship between the scriptures and reality is, my study of it has led me to believe that the Scriptures not only serve as the playing field for a life of faith but also determines the rules of the game as well. Maybe that's not the most poetic analogy, but what I mean is that the Scriptures must be approached with questions that it in fact dictates, not questions that we bring to the Scriptures. That is to say, God not only gives us what answers He deems necessary (and by extension also omits others He deems unnecessary) but he also gives us the questions that He deems relevant (and by extension omits others as well). And the Scriptures, if they are to be understood at all, must be approached on the basis and with the questions that are laid out as appropriate questions in the scriptures themselves.
And as I now spend another year figuring out what questions those are, I am only relatively confident of a couple things. First, I believe the scriptures, to not only be scripture for a particular community, but of all communities. This is the very nature of Scripture. So I suppose my opinion is in disagreement with the opinion above which suggests that, the Bible is "an inspired collection of writings of a specific community." This is not the very nature of scripture. Take the Psalter or the Epistles for examples. These are a tapestry of totally different documents with different writers, intended for different audiences, some separated by hundreds of years in composition. Yet, they were circulated by the community of faith universally because they were recognized as having a value and a meaning which transcended the contexts of their first and last chapters. They were considered specifically over other writings to be unique and different- inspired if you will. The very recognition of the documents as scripture means by definition that they possess another context for reading and understanding- a context greater than the borders of their pages, a context within the larger canon of scriptures.
Its this nature of scriptures which leads me to my 2nd opinion regarding their nature- that they are first and foremost literature, not history. Note, I did not use the word "myth" (as you did, Spoon). I believe that word is too loaded with meanings I don't wish to attribute to the scriptures. And it doesn't seem to me that the word "myth" best describes the relationship between history and the witness to history in the scriptures. Now, me saying that the scriptures are first and foremost literature, and not history, is not really a novel concept. Isn't it Braveheart which suggests that history is written by those who win wars? My point being, even history is told with a bias, from a perspective, with a slant. And this isn't novel to a generation which readily sees that Fox News is wholly different from CNN.
But specifically, the scriptures are theological literature, meaning that the main character of the Biblical Narrative is God himself, and it doesn't seem to me that the Scriptures really concern themselves with much else, much less science and evolution. The authors of scripture themselves confess to editing and omitting and including certain events for the purpose of shaping their metanarrative the way in which they intended to shape it. The authors take poetic liberty and license, they shape the events of their day with the theology imbedded in the scriptural witness of past events.
Now, don't hear me wrongly, the scripture, to me is literature, but it is God-breathed or inspired literature. That is to say, it's not just another witness to history, it is in fact history as seen through the lens of faith. Or to put it another way, it is history as seen through the eyes of God. It is, in the same manner as much other literature, an invitation to the reader to come and make the world of the Biblical story the reader's world and the reader's story as well. On that basis, one might argue in some sense that the Biblical narrative is in fact more "real" than reality as we otherwise would know it.
My first and best OT professor handled the evolution-creation question, when he started in Gen 1-3 by saying to the class: "If you think these chapters have anything to do with creation vs evolution, you've totally missed the point of the story." He also fundamentally read the scriptures as literature and not history, and consequently deemed it inappropriate to come to the Text with non-literary or non-theological questions. And the more I've labored over those chapters in Hebrew, the more I grow in aggreement with his opinion.
It's not gonna help the tension to point out that "Adam" isn't really "Adam" and was never intended, as best I can tell, to be understood as such. What I mean is, that the Hebrew word for ground is Adamah, for which a derivitive pun was created to label that which was created from the ground- namely, Adam. Adamah-Adam. Its the difference between one consonant and a vowel (a vowel which wasn't even in the original script).
Lest you've tuned me out, by virtue of me saying "Hebrew", this importance of this point in the text couldn't be overstated. When you read Hebrew text, you don't get far without realizing that "naming" and "names" have a HUGE role in understanding the story. For example, the book of Exodus, is never called "Exodus". The Hebrew name of the book is the first sentence in the book which is, "These are the names". Why would the author choose to title his book so? Well, it might have a little something to do with people being judged in the tower of Babel story for "seeking to make a name for themselves". It might have something to do with the contrast in the Abraham narrative in which God promises to make Abraham a great name which comes by faith in God. It might be worth pointing out that Pharaoh is never named- yes that's right. Pharaoh is a title, not a name. In the Abraham narrative, the King of Egypt is given a name, Pharaoh is not. There's a reason for that. There is a literary and theological reason that Pharaoh is not given a name, but the midwives, which have no role whatsoever in the story, are given names. There is a reason that Moses asks God in Ex 4, who will I tell them has sent me and what is his NAME? Lets not forget that the next time God declares his name to Moses in chapter 34, he declares the same name, but then Moses who in chapter 4 hid his face from God because he was afraid of him, now asks of God to show him His glory.
My point is, that in Gen 1-3 our English Bibles shouldn't say "Adam" because we understand that as a proper noun. It should say "man" because the text couldn't be any more generic. It does the same thing with man-woman in chapter 2. The word for man (gender specific) is Ish and the word for woman (gender specific) is Isha. Ish-Isha. In just the same way the word for man (generic) is Adam because he came from Adamah, the word for woman (gender specific) is Isha because she came from Ish (man, gender specific).
The names and the naming here is important because in a passive tense, the Ish/Man says upon creation of Isha/Woman, "She will be called (passive tense verb) Isha." But after the fall in Gen 3, he calls (same verb but now in active tense) Haava. Oh yeah- the word "Eve" never really shows up in Hebrew either, that comes from the LXX and Vulgate. Why is that important, you might wonder? Because the word for Haava is a pun for the Hebrew word Serpent, with two letters reversed. So implicit in the literary tapestry of the chapters, you should hear that a change has happened. Before the fall, there was harmony. After the fall, the man asserts dominance over the woman (using the same verb as he did in naming animals) and names her a name which will perpetually remind her of her actions in the Garden with the serpent. After the fall there is conflict.
My point in making these literary observations in the text is to say that I don't think that the literary nature of the text was ever intended in supporting or defending a scientific view of the creation of the world.
Allow me one more literary observation. In the first few verses in Gen 1, God is said to "separate waters and create dry land." Why is this exact phrase important? Because it's the exact phrase used after the Noahic flood and more importantly, its the exact phrase used at the most crucial event in all of Israelite history, namely the parting of the Red Sea in Ex 15. I don't know what specifically that means that God did or did not do in the creation of the world, but I think its safe to say that the author of that chapter choose language which would shape the actual historical event (whatever that may be) in such a way that the original audience would have immediately correlated with the experience they had in crossing the Red Sea. It's a phrase which communicates redemption and salvation and to push a meaning out of that text further past that is hazy and conjecture at best, and at worst, distorts the actual intent of the text. And while I'm humming that tune, I'll suggest to you for your own exploration the nearly identical nature of the account of creation in Gen 1 and the instructions to build the Tabernacle in Ex 21-24.
I guess, all in all, this is a long-winded way to say that the tensions quit bothering me, when I started approaching the Text on its terms. The internal inconsistencies are there, and the inconsistencies with science are there too. But none of that infringes on my understanding of how the Text is to be read and understood as a person of faith. I guess that's easier for me to say because, holding antinomies doesn't really get under my skin. I think the problem is being taught for years that holding such a belief system is somehow not really Christian. But I hold many similar antinomies without reserve or internal conflict.
I believe even Christians are 100% depraived and 100% righteous untill resurrection.
I believe that God is a good God which cannot sin nor cause evil because he has no evil within him. Yet I believe that every event in human history has been foreordained by God to take place, and he is responsible not just for the beginning and the ends but all the means as well.
I believe the Bible has internal inconsistencies, and might in some places be more "myth" than "history" but I also believe it is inspired and therefore inerrant.
I believe it is possible for evolution to have occurred and that wouldn't change my faith or understanding of scriptures one bit.
I believe that the scriptures tell the truth and about the events which they record (and perhaps even record them accurately), but I believe that those events may or may not have happened the way they have been recorded, if at all.
I believe that in some matters, no matter what the emperical evidence may suggest, faith must trump anything potentially discoverable by science.
I believe that no matter what science will suggest, I will always believe that God exists, that he exists in Trinity. That man is by nature depraved and evil. That there did in fact exist Jesus of Nazareth who was fully God and fully Man, and that he did in fact die, was buried, and raised from the dead literarily and in bodily form. And that by faith, we are made righteous and will someday be raised from the dead as well.
Ironically, as skeptical as I am about teachings in the church and in the Christian faith; and as how the older and more learned I get, the more skeptical I become and the more I hold things with diminishing conviction, it is weird that I can write here with total honesty and straight face and say, today I probably believe less "things" to be true than I ever have to date in my life, but I do in fact feel that I've never believed more deeply as I do now.
I struggle with this. It bothers me.
Is evolution and Biblical Christianity mutally exclusive? It seems to be so to me. We can hold that the Bible is often poetic and has a purpose other than historical, but if it was by a man's sin that death came into being, then you can't have animals dying prior to that event.
Whether Genesis 1-3 is myth or not, sin is a major theme in the Bible. It would be important for the Bible (and God) to communicate clearly on this topic: How sin started, why death is here, why we need saving from eternal torture. It's the whole reason Jesus died a brutal death.
So, are all the scientific means of dating and following DNA strands wrong?
But then what are we left with? To Whom else will I go? If I'm wrong about Christianity, like Paul said, am I among men to be most pitied?
There are many lesser problems aside from dating and DNA. How about animals having carnivorous characteristics when they were all created tame? We can say that animals changed at the fall. That's a pretty big event to not be recorded, but again, we're not viewing the Bible's purpose as being purely historical or scientific.
If evolution is absolutely proven, all I can do is turn off my brain and make a blind leap of faith: Let God be true and every man a liar. It's scary believing all the Bible teaches with seemingly no tactile proof. I have personal experience, but is that a good thing to base faith on?
It's also incredulous to believe, however, that we all just popped into existence by chance. Consider the structure and laws of the universe. Look at the intelligence of man. Think about what is required to sustain life. Why is it that what the Bible teaches regarding morality happens to work pretty well for a person's benefit?
If you want to check out some good information and see an interesting film on evolution, check out the Intelligent Design trial at Nova.com.
-bagger's sister
Thanks to Kever for responding in email and asserting that I've apparently dictated a set of epistemological rules here. That wasn't my intent. And just identifying that epistemological conditions affect the possible solutions to the question made a big difference in how I've thought about this for the past twelve hours or so. That said...
Ben--Thanks for playing by the rules. I think your take is a couple steps ahead of where I've been headed, on the same path. Only, at least initially, I get uncomfortable with reducing Adam to just a proxy because what's to stop Jesus from being just a proxy? Hey, it's not MY analogy; Paul's the one that puts them on equal (although opposite) sides of the equation. And isn't that a couple of steps removed from "Jesus was a swell guy"? That's my worry, anyway, but I've been quite uncomfortable in new theological territory before, and somehow it's always worked out.
--An equally enthusiastic thanks to all who didn't quite play by the rules (or just flaunted them).
Blogbarger--My understanding is that there is evidence to support macroevolution, e.g. the infamous "Lucy" and...penguins. Seriously, where are penguins going? They're halfway between bird and some futuristic aquatic badass, the likes of which we can only hope for and fear, and if we're lucky enough, make steaks out of. But penguins are beside the point. Still, they have to know that we know that they're up to something...
Anyway, Blogbarger, I'm with you in questioning inerrancy on both sides. There's room for adjustment in the evolutionary theory, ways to make it fit Scripture, if we so desire. I'm not sure that's a good idea. Yet I do find it interesting that science can't help but employ Scriptural metaphors at times. Biologists speak of a "Y-chromosomal Adam" and a "mitochondrial Eve." Again, I digress. I think "the people [you] listen to" might be on to something. Who are these people?
Youssef--Thanks for the zoom-out. There does seem to be an epistemological element to the question which I hadn't considered. And paradox-acceptance does count for something. But, if I may say, the church does a pretty crappy job of preparing the individual to do so. To quote Dr. Jacobs, "That's not an argument, just an explanation" (one explanation) of why I'd rather reconcile my scientific and theological beliefs than not reconcile them. But where has blaming the Church ever gotten us? What role indeed does the spiritual play in the material, and furthermore, can one be a materialist and a Christian? That's the next hairy, crisis-inducing question on my to-do list.
cAPS--Thanks for the living, breathing example of paradox-acceptance. Perhaps one day I'll join you. Nice to know it can be done. I'm trying to work out the meaning of "two straw men."
Bagger--"Antinomies???" Is that Kant on your breath? Thanks for your thorough response. I especially appreciate the linguistic insight. I think I'm on board with Scripture as literature, but I feel like it's at least a partially historic literature. Like you, I believe that a fully-God, fully-man Jesus died and rose again literally...at some point in history. I suspect that's why I'm trying to make sense out of the convergence of say, a biologically-informed, anthropological history and the history that the inspired writers of Scripture thought was soteriologically relevant.
Bagger's sister--You raise questions I hadn't even thought of, particularly relating to what amounts to pre-Fall death. Very interesting. I take it you lean towards ID?
I don't know what to believe....I hold it all lightly, like I'm waiting for a piece of the puzzle to be revealed so the picture suddenly makes sense.
Aspects of evolution seem as true as gravity. We can observe adaptation and the changing of species. There seems to be enough fossils and living animals to throw out the "missing link" arguments. We incarcerate people on the basis of DNA evidence. It's hard for me to believe that all of our means of dating are totally wrong.
However, if we are merely a speck in the universe and there is a God effortlessly "holding" this expanse together, our infinitely inferior minds cannot even guess how He has done or does it. (An ant will never have a clue as to what is going on in a human's mind, and the superiority of God over us is likely way greater than our superiority over an ant.)
I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but to be honest, I am embarrassed by the Intelligent Design camp. They have some very, very poor arguments, and some of their stances deny reality. The statement, "I didn't come from no monkey" really makes my face red.
Beyond evolution, enough bad things have happened in my observation and in my life that some days I wonder if Jesus is real. Then I feel guilty having so little faith. Still, I look to Him and look forward to the life beyond this one. I continue to teach my kids about Him and pray that He will be their best friend.
Why is God so big on faith? At least give me a Bible that is pure. Why do we have sections of Scripture that are not supposed to be in there. That bothers me. It scares me what God required of His saints in the Bible. I don't feel safe with God. Who knows what He will allow or ask. I cling to "Surely goodness and mercy" and "I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." But, I digress...
-Bagger's sister, Bekah
This is an interesting topic my cutlery friend. I wrestled with it for quit a while too. I am not going to go into nearly the detail that I've read here...although there are many really great ideas and questions that have been posed by the others.
My simple take on it was this- every sect of Judaism and Christianity has had branches of fundamentalists, moderates and liberals. Usually the majority of attention gets directed to the polar opposites while the middle remains relatively quiet.
There is not much mention of "adama" in the Old Testament. "Adama" simply is a title, not a name. I would agree with the statement above that the writers of the OT manuscripts were more interested in conveying ideas about the Creator than the Creation. To get muddled in the details of how God did it would probably border on either idolatry or just missing the point. It is also extremely important to note that the narratives that make up Genesis were not written down until a few thousand years after the fact.
A "literalist" creationist will say that the earth was created 6K years ago. That would take "creation" then back to about 4K B.C. The major event found in the Torah would be the Exodus which didn't happen until about 1200 B.C. so that puts about 2800 years gap between the creation account and the time that they actually started recording these events. So much can happen in that span of time.
The other thing to take into account is the mode for communication in the Hebrew community- not so much "stories that are true" but "stories that teach a truth." That is why I believe that it is debatable as to whether or not Jonah was really swallowed by a big whale. The fundamentalist would argue that Jesus himself believed that it happened since he made a reference to it in speaking about his resurrection....but the fact is that he didn't mention whether he was referring to the event or the story. He could have just been referencing the story to illustrate something greater that it represented.
Now, in all honesty, I have lost belief in the scriptures being divinely inspired, inerrant or infallible but that comes from my own deductions. But what I can say is that I believe that Paul's theology seems to remain consistent within itself, though I would find issues of disagreement between he and Jesus.
Much of what Paul seems to believe is that what what is written in the O.T. is mostly allegory that will ultimately manifest in some physical truth. So the understanding that I took is that whether or not an actual physical "Adam" ever existed, the principle was still true- Man in his natural state inherits evil from himself....but one day the real alternative [Christ] will be the reality. {For now we see dimly as in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face...For in the first Adam all have died, but in the last Adam [Jesus] all men will be made alive...For all those things served as an example for us that we would not fall into sin; but the reality is Christ}
Both Jesus and Paul are really silent on the issue.
The interesting thing that I found even from a "literal" reading of it though is that even with a literal 24 hour creation view it sure seemed to speak of a hurried evolutionary process; especially if you read it out of the KJV. Each step you will find Genesis say "And God said 'Let the waters bring forth from themselves fish and fowl...and the earth brought forth creatures of the sea and fowl of the air." So even in the text you don't hear God say "Life- happen in the water." You see that something happens when he tells the water to do something with itself that will produce life....and birds coming out of the water? That's what it says. "Let the earth bring forth trees yielding seed that will reproduce after its kind...and the earth brought it forth and yielded fruit after its kind." He didn't say that it was good until after he saw the fruit. Doesn't that take longer than just a day?
OK, so this is longer than I expected it to be....but the point is that I don't believe that science and theology will ever totally be compatible with each other. They can probably only go so far with each other before one, the other or both have to concede to faith in one place or another. I do believe though that "science" has raised many points that have really resulted in the questioning of traditional theological constructs that just might not work anymore. This is inevitable to happen in any religion at some point that gets involved with taking historical positions...that's why you don't hear of these types of debates within Hinduism or Buddhism.
Ultimately one has to look at both sides, examine the "evidence" or lack thereof and make a firm decision for one side or the other and be satisfied with their justification.
It is no doubt a very interesting topic though that has had more attention in our lifetime than all of past history combined.
Sorry to put a second batch of graffiti on here but I just re-read your final question and wanted to comment briefly-
Because the BIG question is this (assuming, as I do, that Evolution turns out to be not just theory, but reality): if Christianity can't tackle the evolutionary theory head on and come up with a theology that accounts for it, then what is it worth?
In my opinion, it would be an extremely monumental occurrence for a group to suddenly "come up with" a theology that accounts for evolution. While it would not be impossible there are a few things to take into account for something like that to happen-
1. It would not be popular to the mainstream believers.
2. It would take A LOT of time for it to catch on.
3. It would take even more reconciliation than we can imagine to try and figure out just who was and wasn't real in the Bible and try to make sense of each story accordingly.
4. Ultimately the Church would have to accept a new "canon" of supplemental literature to explain those other parts of the Bible that have now been corrected and explained.
So the question of what it would be worth is an interesting one, but I don't think that it would be any different than asking the question of any other religion. Why religion at all?
The role of religion, whether it is right or wrong, is to try and explain origins, current meaning for life and ultimately try and quantify the unseen.
Now, I have been out of the "Christian" scene for around a year and a half now and I have noticed some interesting things that the rest of the subculture might easily overlook. One of the biggest things I notice is how ingrained certain thought patterns are. Here's an example:
Just the other night I was part of a conversation with some other parents about our children's names, how we came up with them, and what they mean. One lady has 2 boys. She said that during one of her pregnancies that she kept feeling like God kept "putting a name on her heart." They didn't know that they were going to have a boy....the name that "God kept putting on her heart" was a girl's name. In all sincerity she couldn't understand why God would put a girl's name on her heart when they were going to have a boy.
Now, in trying to be polite I didn't say anything. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she sounded nuts. I didn't have the heart to question her in front of everyone else as to why she would even think that God would be responsible for causing that kind of confusion....so my question for her would have been the same..."Why would God lead you to do such a thing? Or would he really at all? It sounds to me like the chances are really high of it NOT being God at all that was telling you that....but rather it was just your mind doing something unexplainable to you and so you just assumed that it was God."
According to modern religion good things happen when God moves. Bad things then happen either because God is trying to teach someone a lesson or because Satan was given an opportunity to tempt. Seems pretty convenient compared to just admitting that one has no clue as to why something happened....but we all seem to need some explanation of things, even if it might not be rational....after all we are taught that sometimes the most rational way to think about things to to accept their irrationality based on faith. It's a sure-fire way to deal with anything.
So I think that my answer to your question as to the value of Christianity with an absence of being able to justify evolution is that it will still be an option for whoever chooses it as their mental drug of choice for coping with the hard questions that come up because of this difficult thing called life.
Hey Dude,
Ben reccomended that I check out your blog- very cool. I was interested to read about your struggle with biblical creation and evolution by natural selection-of course I might be a little biased. It seems like that subject is something that all of us that have had a similar sort of upbringing might have to think about. At some point I should get your contact info- I am in Austin not infrequently, and I am not too far up the road anyhoo (in DFW).
Later,
Christian
Bekah - If there is a God holding the universe together--and I believe there is--I think I'll have to concede that that's not a scientific proposition, but a religious one. That's the reason ID doesn't fly; it's not science (no empirical observation, falsifiable hypotheses, etc).
Sometimes, as people of faith, it's all we can do to cry "I believe; help my unbelief!" Also, as I read your comments, I couldn't help but think of Lewis (all roads lead to CS in evangelicalism, don't they?) and this bit of goodness from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:
"'If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than me or else just silly.'
'Then he isn't safe?' asked Lucy.
'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver. 'Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'" Sometimes, there are no arguments to be made, only mantras to recite and "just-so" stories to be told.
TRP - I'm about to be late for a movie, but I wanna respond to your comments.
Christian - Man, I was hoping you'd weigh in here, but all you gave us was a tease. What gives? (Do you still have that Iowa cell #?)
Well... in the spirit of the conversation I feel compelled to make a couple corrections to Raging's most recent post above.
First, as to the frequency of the hebrew word "adamah" in the Hebrew Scriptures, the word occurs 114 times, which, of course isn't as frequent as some others, but is certainly enough to deduce a relatively reliable understanding of the word's nuances and personally more frequent than can be properly described as "not having much mention." And to be sure "adamah" is neither a "title" nor a proper noun. It is best understood as a simply a noun meaning, "ground or land". The word "adam" however, is not a proper noun either, nor would it be considered a "title." The word "adam" is best understood as a generic "man" or "mankind".
So, while some of the details may need adjustment, the observation that "adam" is not a proper noun like "Aaron" or "Ben" is accurate and helpful for understanding. I think that was the also the exact point I was making in my initial comment above.
Now although I myself might also find it "debatable as to whether or not Jonah was really swallowed by a big whale", the premise however did not seem to be above question: "The other thing to take into account is the mode for communication in the Hebrew community- not so much 'stories that are true' but 'stories that teach a truth'." There are certainly aspects of the Hebrew scriptures that would seem to in fact suggest the exact opposite. As an example, off the top of my head, there are multiple references in the Former Prophets to other non-canonical works upon which the authors have relied upon in their own retelling of events, as well as other non-canonical works which the narrator directs the readers to for supplemental information related to the events being recounted. Certainly the very purpose of doing this is to substantiate the "accuracy" of the recounting. Or at the very least it could be said that if the authors were not at all interested in retelling history as it actually happened, it would be self defeating to then suggest that they relied on other historically reliable sources, and to direct the readers to other documents that would show the canonical accounting to be in error.
This gets me back to a observation that I made earlier regarding the explicit intent of Luke-Acts being that of an empirical recounting of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. And then there is also John, who claims himself to have told an accurate recounting of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, but admitting as well, that he has edited some of the events out at authorial discretion.
A problem that should not be glossed over is that, not just Jesus, but none of the Biblical characters or authors treat any existing scripture as myth. In fact, they all treat the existing scripture that they were privy to as completely reliable and accurate.
And then of course, there is the resurrection of the Messiah, which is the biggest problem of all. It's one thing to suggest that stories like Jonah or Job are more myth than historical. It's quite another to suggest that the biblical account of the resurrection was also not recounted with historical accuracy. This point cannot be overstated. IF THE RESURRECTION DID NOT OCCUR, THERE IS NO CHRISTIAN FAITH. Yes, I believe I heard an apostle say something to that effect. But how then does one determine Biblical myth from Biblical reality? Especially if all Biblical characters and authors treat both the same? At a minimum, it is a slope with unsure footing.
And I think the "problem" that was observed in Raging's comment comes more from reading the KJV than anything else. In a good translation of that verse life doesn't "happen in the water" neither do birds "come from the water". To put it like Raging did, that's not what it says. A good (but intentionally wooden) translation of Gen 1:20 is, "And God said, 'Let the waters swarm with living soul(ed) swarming things. And let the birds fly above the earth, above the expanse of the heavens."
That being said, the observation that it takes longer than a day for a tree to "bear fruit" is a helpful observation for the discussion.
Now, I realize that this comment might have a more "fundamental" tenor than my former one. Which I accept but isn't my total opinion on the issue. I think my former statement was that although I think the text might not be a Remembrant portrait of reality, and some "stories" might be more "story" and less "history" I can't bring myself to say that it has error, because it was composed not only by man but by God. This is ontologically factual. By that I mean, it is in the very definition of scripture to be co-authored by God. If it was not, it is not scripture by definition. So if I confess by faith, that the text is scripture and therefore co-authored by God, it cannot ontologically contain error. I say that and say out of the other side of my mouth that I say that I might be able to show you some errors. My point is in this discussion, that the relationship between the text and history is a very complex one, and certainly should be treated with care, and above all accuracy with respect to observation.
And I would be curious to find out exactly where Paul's theology seems to deviate from Jesus'
Sorry Man, I am not much for the discussion thing (and I am definitely no theologian). I will try to think about it and see if I can contribute anything to the discussion. Yup, Iowa Cell is the same.
Peace,
Christian
I have thought about it, and one thing I wanted to comment on was the assertion that there is no evidence for macroevolution. I think there is pretty good evidence for macroevolution (I will detail some of the evidence below), but first I want to discuss on the nature of this information. Of course, we are all familiar with experimental science (e.g. an experimental condition, a control, compare the two) and in fact much of classic statistics was designed for this sort of science. When we deal with broad historical biology (systematics, biogeography, paleontology), we cannot conduct controlled experiments, and the inferences we can make are more limited than with experimental science. I should mention that we are getting a lot better statistically with historical science, expecially with the advent of model based statistics, and are able to answer increasingly sophisticated questions using historical methods.
Despite that disclaimer, I want to go through three different lines of evidence for evolution that I find especially convincing. The endosymbiont theory of eukaryosis is probably one of the coolest theories in biology altogether. Briefly, eukaryotes are cells that contain membrane bound organelles- this group includes all plants and animals. Membrane bound organelles are important parts of the cell machinery, and include the nucleus (houses DNA), the mitochondria (generate energy from organic molecules), and chloroplast (generate organic molecules from CO2 and sunlight), among others. I will discuss the endosymbiont theory regarding only one type of membrane bound organelle, the mitochondria. First I should mention that mitochondria are small capsules inside all of our cells that contain unique DNA sequences, are enclosed in a double membrane, and reproduce asynchronously from the host cell. The endosymbiont theory states that at some point, a smaller bacteria was engulfed by a larger bacteria. Instead of being digested, the smaller bacteria persisted in a symbiotic relationship with the host bacteria, exchanging energy for substrates in catabolic processes and protection. Beyond being a great story, this theory is born out by evidence- mitochondria are enclosed by a double membrane- which would be expected if they are engulfed by a larger bacteria, mitochondria reproduce like bacteria, with DNA replication followed by binary fission of cells, and most interesting, contain DNA sequences similar enough to bacteria that we can hypothesize the group of bacteria that is ancestor to our mitochondria.
This leads nicely into the second type of evidence for macroevolution as the source of biodiversity- the stark similarity of DNA across broad groups of organisms. Systematics is a sub-discipline of historical biology that uses some basic methods to try and reconstruct evolutionary history of taxa. Recently, focus has been on molecular systematics, which compares gene sequences for different organisms. This work has revealed that despite disparate phenotypes, all organisms contain similar genes and gene classes. Moreover, the sequences between animals that were hypothesized to be similar based on old evolutionary taxonomy are more similar than distantly related taxa. We have enough knowledge now that we know many of the mechanisms that lead to molecular divergence, and match that with what we see for various organisms. And like Spoon mentioned, we can use the same methods that are used to reconstruct ancient evolutionary history on rapidly evolving organisms whose evolutionary history we know (bacteria, viruses), and see that our statistical methods for recovering the history of organisms is corroborated by independent evidence (we find that it is).
The final bit of evidence that I will just mention is the fact that evolutionary history is recorded, albeit imperfectly, in the fossil record. I have never understood why people have made such a big deal about missing links, because the fossil record only captures a tiny fraction of the organisms that have existed. Nonetheless, there are several nice series of fossils that appear to represent the evolutionary history of a group. Stephen Jay Gould, in his book "Dinosaur in a Haystack", goes through an excellent example of this, using whales.
Jeepers Creepers, I wrote rather a lot. Well, I am sure my explanations are scanty at best, and I will acknowledge that they are not the ironclad experimental evidence that my chemist friends insist upon. I do think that this sort of evidence is pretty suggestive of a macroevolutionary mechanism underlying biodiversity (including us). I also need to say that there is a lot more info out there, and I would be glad to suggest some materials if anybody is interested. I apologize for not addressing the theology, but maybe the above will be useful for thought or discussion.
Christian
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