Evolution and/or Creation?
From time to time teachers of science and specialists in
religious education may be faced with questions about how evolution relates to
belief in a divine Creator. There is a view, encouraged in some churches and
held by certain scientists, that one has to choose between a belief in evolution
and creation-by-God.
For the thoughtful person who believes in God, it may appear a
little surprising to be asked to choose between the mechanisms by which living
things are thought to have originated and the act of a divine agent. It seems a
bit like being asked to choose between the mechanisms of automation by which a
car originates and the creative act of the designers. It seems more appropriate
to accept both.
Some of the muddle arises over the meaning of the word "creation". Creation,
used in its religious sense means the bringing-into-being-of-everything-by-God —
irrespective of how this is done. In this sense there can be no question of
having to choose between evolution and Creation, indeed it would be nonsense to
try to contrast these two unlike concepts.
However, some people have thought that, because Genesis, the
first book of the Bible, breaks up the account of creation into six ‘days’,
every ‘kind’ of living thing must therefore have been created separately. The
text does not say this but, there are those who think this way. Clearly,
evolution and separate acts of creation — called Special Creation— cannot both
be right. So, whereas evolution and Creation are compatible, evolution and
Special Creation are not.
A further complication has arisen because some people have read
the word ‘days’ as meaning consecutive periods of 24 hours. The 24 day, of
course, only has meaning with reference to the Earth’s rotation with respect to
the sun or the stars. But the text of Genesis records the heavenly bodies not
being created until the fourth ‘day’, suggesting that the word day is being used
in a different way. Such a view receives support from the New Testament where
Jesus counters those who criticise him for healing on the Sabbath:
‘Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this
very day, and I, too, am working.”’
His Father’s Sabbath is of course the seventh ‘day’, still it
seems, going on.
Those who believe the world was created in six, consecutive 24
hour days, generally believe in a young Earth some ten thousand years old,
compared with the 4.6 billion years currently held in science. This belief is
known as "Young Earth Creationism". It has become popular in the UK over the
last forty years following an American publication, The Genesis Flood, by
Morris and Whitcomb1, which first appeared
in 1961. This book drew upon the ideas of an early Seventh Day Adventist leader
Ellen G. White (1827-1915), who suggested that Noah's flood had buried the
fossils.
White’s idea was extensively developed and promulgated by the
Adventist, George McCready Price (1870-1963) in what he termed ‘Flood geology’2.
There are huge difficulties in this view, not least that geological strata all
over the place were laid down in similarly ordered layers despite a cataclysmic
inundation. No stronger specimens could, on this idea, have survived a little
longer to appear in a higher layer and all water-borne creatures, who would be
expected to survive longer in a flood, should have appeared predominantly in the
top layers, - but they don’t.
The Bible itself might be seen as warning against this
interpretation and suggesting a huge, but more restricted flood. It describes
geographical features like particular rivers and places both before and after
the flood, features which would have been unrecognisable after an inundation
interpreted to be world-wide and covering mountains like Everest!
A Young Earth?
However, it has to be recognised that a considerable number of
Christians hold a Young Earth view, though such views would be hard to find
among conservative evangelical Christians who are professional academics in the
relevant disciplines of biology, geology and cosmology. They, like others who do
not share their faith, realise the detailed way in which the scientific evidence
from these separate disciplines meshes together to present a coherent picture of
an Earth of great antiquity. To reject such huge amounts of evidence on the
basis of one, dubious understanding of the first chapter of Genesis raises the
questions as to whether such an interpretation is consistent with the text.
It is often overlooked by ‘Young Earth’ advocates that, even
before Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859, scientists as well as
Christians holding a high regard for the Bible, accepted that the Earth was very
old indeed. Early Church Fathers such as Origen (born c. 185 AD) and Augustine
(354-430 AD), long before modern geology developed, had understood the
references to ‘days’ as intended by the writer in a figurative manner:
"What man of intelligence, I ask, will consider as a reasonable
statement that the first and the second and the third day, in which there are
said to be both morning and evening, existed without sun and moon and stars,
while the first day was even without a heaven? … I do not think anyone will
doubt that these are figurative expressions." [Origen]
"Christians should not talk nonsense to unbelievers … Usually,
even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other
elements of this world … and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from
reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an
infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture,
talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such
an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian
and laugh it to scorn." [Augustine3]
Evolution not a threat to faith
There are a number of other reasons why some people have seen
evolution as a threat to Christian faith, but space restricts the number we can
consider here. Three such reasons are:
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There is the extensive time given by the media to a few
popularisers of science who have presented a view of science as atheistic. Such
a view is open to severe criticism both on philosophical and historical grounds.
Philosophically, science is limited to a study of the natural world and is not
therefore in a position to conclude that there is nothing (i.e. God) other than
the natural world to which the world owes its existence.
Historically, the development of modern science in the West was nurtured in a
Christian cradle and it can be argued that basic Christian teaching about
managing the Earth provided a strong encouragement to do science.
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There is the feeling that a process like evolution that happens
‘by itself’ doesn’t ‘need God’ or ‘leave room’ for him. But this does not
follow; the existence of the Earth and all within it as a working system doesn’t
imply atheism. Mark’s gospel describes one such natural process in these words:
‘A man scatters seed on the ground…the seed sprouts and grows, though he does
not know how. All by itself the soil produces corn — first the stalk, then the
ear, then the full grain in the ear.’ [Mark4:27f, NIV] Clearly Mark was not
trying to imply that ‘All by itself’ meant that God was not involved! He was
simply pointing out that there is an integrity to creation which makes it work.
God is just as much involved in the everyday functioning of the universe as in
special acts like miracles. For the Christian to think otherwise is to hold a
picture of God which is far too small. It has led to the muddle called the
god-of-the-gaps, in which God is only thought to be involved in the things we
cannot yet understand, rather than as being responsible for the making and the
maintaining of everything there is. With this in mind, it can be seen as odd
that evolutionary ideas, which emphasised the continual activity (immanence) of
God in the world, as contrasted with deism (God made it and left it) should have
been seen as atheistic. Many have seen evolution as a clever way of ensuring
that, provided food supplies and environmental conditions do not change too
rapidly, populations can adapt to novelty without dying out and are able to fill
available ecological niches.
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Another concern is expressed about the fact that evolution by
natural selection involves ‘chance’ mutations. Some think this sounds like an
accidental and unplanned universe. However, although, ‘chance’ and ‘randomness’
in popular speech are sometimes used to mean ‘accidental’ and ‘unplanned’,
science is not competent to judge on questions of ultimate plan and purpose.
Just because ‘chance variations’ plus ‘selection’ are involved in Darwin’s
theory of natural selection does not entail our being the result of a cosmic
accident. Increasingly, in this computer age, ‘chance variations’ plus
‘selection’ are employed in designing artefacts and procedures. For example,
aerofoil sections can be designed by randomising the values of factors which
affect ‘lift’ and by selecting those values which maximise it.
It is important to treat the text of the Bible more carefully
than by taking every passage at its superficial meaning. The literary genre is
important. For instance, is the passage using any figures of speech to
communicate its message? Is it intended as history? Is it a blend of history and
symbolism? For example, there is no such botanical specimen as ‘the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil’ (Genesis2:9)
There are many other issues concerned with evolution and
Creation. The nature of humankind and the meaning of being made ‘in the image of
God’ is one of them. Another one is the history of the way in which evolution
was deliberately used in the nineteenth century to promote the idea of conflict
between science and religion. But this piece is by way of an introduction only.
I have developed some of these ideas more fully in my Beliefs and Values in
Science Education, Buckingham: Open University Press, (1995) 0-335-15645-2
(Paperback) and presented them for a more general readership in A Guide to
Science and Belief, (2nd ed.), Oxford: Lion Publishing, (1997) ISBN
0-7459-3941-4 paperback.
Footnotes
-
Morris, H. M. and Whitcomb, J. C. Jr (1961) The Genesis
Flood, Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.
-
Numbers, R. L. (1992) The Creationists, pp 72ff, New
York, Alfred Knopf
-
Augustine (1982) The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Vol.
1, (trns. J. H. Taylor) pp 42f, New York: Paulist Press [commenced by
Augustine AD 401]
(Copyright Mike Poole)
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This article by Mike Poole examines the thorny issue of whether there is a
conflict between concepts of evolution and Biblical ideas of creation
Mike Poole is Visiting Research Fellow, Education in Science & Religion at
the Department of Education & Professional Studies, King’s College London. |
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