Why Not Creation and Evolution?
by People have been arguing about Creation vs. Evolution since Darwin came back from the Galapagos Islands. Isn’t it possible though that God created our Universe and designed it with the evolutionary process in order to allow life to adapt to a consistently changing environment?
Image via Wikipedia
I know there are plenty of people who choose to believe the literal Biblical creation story – the story that God created Earth and put Adam on it, then created Eve from Adam’s rib and they went on to populate the entire Earth. For these folks the idea of evolution just runs contrary to their very fundamental system of belief.
But there are a lot of religious and spiritual folks who believe in the existence of a Higher Power – but don’t necessarily think the Bible should be interpreted so literally. For these people I propose the scenario that, assuming there is a God, the Higher Power created the Universe and everything in it, and had the foresight to install a mechanism that allows change to happen so that Life could adapt to changing conditions in the environment.
Image of Charles Darwin via Wikipedia
If you have faith in modern science, then you will understand that the Universe is supposed to be about 14 billion years old. Scientists have tried to figure out what the environment might have been like in the past. There are scenarios that show the Earth to be a firey, much hotter and wetter environment. Life was different back then. In fact, if you believe in evolution, warm-blooded mammals are one of the most recent evolutionary adaptations. Mammals can handle cold weather better than their cold-blooded counterparts.
To my mind it makes sense that am omnicient God would have the vision to establish a process for change. We can actually watch evolution happen on simpler organisms like viruses. The common cold and flu viruses evolve all the time – right in front of our eyes. I also think the idea of a changing environment and evolution is just a lot more interesting than the simplistic idea that God just created each individual creature in their current form and then put fossils in the ground to test our faith. That, to me, seems preposterous.
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Post CommentKaren Gross
On August 4, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Well written article. It sounds quite logical, but from a Biblical perspective there are a few flaws..
One is the word \\\”day\\\” in question. The Hebrew word \\\’yowm\\\’ is the same word used in the commandment to work for 6 days and rest for one. I for one would not want to work for 6 of those figurative million years days.
Christian geologists do not teach that God planted fossils on the earth for us to argue about. We believe that most of the fossils in the earth were animals killed during the flood described in Genesis 6 – 8. This would explain \\\”fossil graveyards\\\” where archaelogists have found bones of many animals strewn together. Theses animials died at the same time and were quickly covered in mud, the ideal conditions for fossils to develop.
The evolution you see in a lab is microevolution, not the macroevolution where one species becomes a new species. Tell me about it when scientists try to turn a fish into a frog. If they manage it, then we\\\’ll talk. Genetic mutations in the wild are usually detrimental – they make it less likely for the mutated animal to survive.
Evolutionists did not start by gauging the age of the universe, and then come up with an idea about how species might have evolved during those billions of years. They started with Darwin\\\’s theory of evolution, and then reasoned that for changes like that to have occured, it must have taken billions of years.
Genetists have managed to make genetic changes in the lab, or in animal husbandry. Sure – they can selectively breed a smaller bull, but it takes a very intellegent human designer to do so. It wouldn\\\’t happen on its own in the wild. And scientists have yet to make living matter out of nonliving matter. They can\\\’t do anything without use of the building blocks of life that God made.
As for climate change, a huge climate change took place during and after the world wide flood of Noah\\\’s day.
Why should you take the creation story about Adam and Eve literally? All of Christianity depends on it. Through one man (Adam) sin came into this world, and by one man (Christ) we receive reconciliation.
Jesus took the books of the Old Testament literally – His words included quotes from almost all of the Old Testament books.
Earl Schmegley
On August 4, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Well there’s the rub – if you believe the world is only a little over 6000 years old then evolution isn’t a reasonable theory. If you believe modern scientific thought and that the Universe is more than 14 Billion years old – then the idea of a fish turning into a frog, over aeons, becomes a little more believeable.
That being said (assuming you give evolution some credence) no modern creature evolved from another modern creature – we all evolved from earlier life-forms. We didn’t evolve from modern apes, the apes are another stream of evolution that developed right along side of us.
But I know we may never see eye to eye on this subject. I can’t understand a literal interpretation of the Creation story and you can’t understand any other way – I trust we can agree to civilly disagree.
Thanks for your feedback!
Earl Schmegley
On August 4, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Also, there was an experiment done back in the 1950’s in which scientists did manage to make organic material from inorganic elements. It was called the Urey-Miller experiment and attempted to re-construct conditions on early Earth’s surface that might have lead to the creation of life. It’s really interesting. They created amino acids from inorganic compounds – not exactly creating life, but definitely an interesting initial step in that direction…
I know that many believe the Bible is God’s direct word – but I can’t help think that it is still God’s word filtered through human understanding. Human language has inherent limitations – particularly when it comes to describing spiritual experiences.
I for one don’t think we could understand the mind and the word of God perfectly; not as the measly, imperfect humans that we are!
Kaz M
On August 4, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Nice article. Very reasonable. just one clarification for Karen, Scientists used many different methods for dating the universe,(Radiometric dating for one) not evolution. Evolution would not have been a good way to measure the age of the universe since the universe is older than the earth and the species on it.
Maddie
On August 12, 2009 at 6:03 am
I’ve always believed in a mix of the Bible and the evolution. It clearly says in the Bible that God created the fish first then the animals on land and last the humans so I think it’s perfectly logical that dinosaurs lived before man and that they probably never met each other. And a day for God could be millions of years so that is not a proof of any kind. Good article!
Uma Shankari
On August 24, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Loved the article. All religions need this artifact: even though we know our religions to contain undeniable truths, we have to correlate scientific findings with religious expositions and reinterpret the same. It surely does not negate the religion. If this can happen to christianity, think of Hinduism which is several hundred centuries old. And it wasn’t expounded by a single individual. It is the aggregated wisdom of several centuries. When we re-interpret something, our understanding gets deeper and clearer. In fact, Comparative Religion is a good exercise too.
Keep up the good work.
Madde
On September 4, 2009 at 1:37 pm
We should start researching about if there are fairies and trolls too.