Evolution and Christianity

   Galileo

   In 1633, Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment by the
Inquisition in Rome.  The charge was "suspicion of heresy". He was
teaching the Copernican theory, that the earth revolves around the sun.
This was after the church had adopted the position (during and because
of the Renaissance) that if a Biblical interpretation was found in
conflict with scientific fact, the Bible was to be interpreted
allegorically.  It was simply too difficult for people who had not
studied mathematics and astronomy to believe that mathematical pencil
marks on a piece of paper could have any relationship to the real
world.

   Today, people accept these concepts without question even though
they have not made the measurements and performed the calculations for
themselves.  However, people who have not studied geology and
paleontology have trouble believing that the measurements and
classifications of those scientists are real.

   Genesis

   Genesis contains two separate passages that talk about the creation
of human beings.  This has been cited as evidence that Genesis was an
oral tradition coming from different sour ces, or explained as a
general account followed by a detailed description (Richard P. Belcher,
The Inerrency Debate, Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1980, pp.17,
18). There is a third explanation.

   Genesis 1:27 says that mankind was created in God's image.  God is
Spirit, therefore so are we.  This passage seems to be talking about
the creatioon of the human soul.  Gen. 2:7 says God formed Adam from
the dust of the ground.  Here the Bible is clearly talking about the
creation of the human body.  The breath of life is the uniting of the
human soul to the body; the human part from God animates the physical
part from the earth.  So these passages may be talking about two
different aspects of the creation of human beings.  Whether the
physical body was formed by an act of divine sculpture or was formed
from lower forms of life through the physical laws God created; the
soul is what makes us human.  The spirit God created sets us apart from
the animals. I am a human being; I have a body.

   If the earth were 4 billion years old, formed out of cosmic dust and
gases, and life evolved over the last billion years or so, those
concepts would not be in Genesis.  The early Hebrews simply did not
have those concepts in their world picture, and could not have
understood them.  The account in the Bible is to instruct us about
God's authorship of the universe.  The Bible is not a text book on
geology or paleontology.

   The miracle of creation is the same miracle whether God did it in
144 hours starting Oct 10, 4004 BC at 9:30 AM, or he created the
universe with its natural laws and set it into motion 7 billion years
ago.  The record of the formation of the earth and the rise of life is
written in the earth itself.  By the Creator. If the earth was created
in six 24-hour days 6000 years ago, then the record written in the
earth is either a forgery or a practical joke.  I don't believe it is
either.

   Explaining the World

   The fact that atheists use the concepts of cosmology, geology, and
evolution to support their religious beliefs does not invalidate those
concepts.  A person can ignore any facts or evidence it takes to
support his beliefs.  Explaining the universe and the earth through
cosmology and geology alone does nothing of the kind.  The origin of
the physical laws on which they rest remain unexplained.  Explaining
ourselves through evolution alone again does nothing of the kind.  The
soul which makes us human remains unexplained.  These disciplines can
only explain part of the mechanism by which the earth, or our bodies,
were formed.  They do not address God's underlying authorship, or our
own humanity. They are limited to the physical world.

   The Future

   Many "fundamentalists" seem to insist that to be truly Christian, we
must believe the traditional interpretation of the creation story.  Our
children will be confronted with overwhelming evidence from the earth
itself that it is much older than 6000 years, and that the human form
evolved from lower forms.  If they believe they must accept
"creationism" and Christianity as a package, they will quite logically
reject both.  This is an unnecessary tragedy, because Christianity is
about the soul, not the mechanism God used to create the universe.  We
must not insist that our children limit their knowledge of the world
and ignore the record written in the earth.  They will not. We must
give them something to hold on to.

   Christianity survived the revelation that the earth is not the
center of the universe.  It will survive the knowledge that God took
slightly longer that 144 hours to create the universe, and that the
human form is closely related to and descended from lower forms of
life.  However, we must not weaken it by seeming to insist on ignorance
of the world God built for us as a condition of being a Christian.