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Evolutionary Morass, Or a Fool Rushes In
I usually avoid two topics in Christian circles: eschatology and evolution/creation. Neither discussion seems profitable, nor is the conversation likely to turn out well. However, I've been reading Genesis and Madeleine L'Engle, a dangerous combination. And I thought it might actually be of some practical use to write about my thoughts concerning creation and the first two chapters of Genesis. Note that I am neither a scientist nor a theologian, just a layperson who believes that all Scripture is "God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." In other words, I believe that the first two chapters of Genesis are in the Bible for a purpose and that they are given to us by God himself for our instruction. Those are my pre-suppositions.
So I'm reading along in Genesis 1 and I read that on the first day God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And then the formulaic words: "There was evening and there was morning, the first day." What is that repeated phrase "there was evening and there was morning . . . the first day" supposed to mean? I don't see how it could mean that the earth turned on its axis for twenty-four hours in relation to the sun, since the earth and the sun haven't been created yet. We don't get an atmosphere separated from the the oceans of earth until the second day, and we don't get the sun, moon and stars until the fourth day.
So days must have meant something else besides the twenty four hour period that it takes the earth to turn on its axis in relation to the sun. Here's where *Madeleine L'Engle comes in. She says in her book And It Was Good, "So according to our human perception of time a century may seem long, but all that has happened since that first moment of creation is no more than the flicker of God's eye. In the life span of a star, an ordinary star like our sun, our lives are such a fragment of a fragment as to seem practically nonexistent, even if we live four score years and ten, like my mother, or even five score, like my grandfather. So, according to one perception of time, the zealous creationists are right---God created everything in an instant---or, rather, seven days; and according to another perception of time, the pragmatic evolutionists are right, and life has evolved slowly over our chronological millennia."
I'm with Ms. L'Engle almost to the end of that statement. I don't see how we can place our human limitations upon God and insist on a "young earth" as if God lived inside time. God's days are not our days. He is not limited by time; Time does not even apply to Him. If this concept is difficult to understand, that's completely understandable. God isn't comprehensible, and the story of creation in Genesis, although perfectly true, is an attempt to put into human language and human story an event that happened outside of our categories of time and space.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Then He stepped into Time and created other things, organized the universe. None of this, so far, should disturb anyone's faith in God or in science. But Ms. L'Engle and I part company when she comes to the end of her paragraph: ". . . life has evolved slowly over chronological millennia." Genesis indicates to me that, although the time for the creation of all things by God may have been long or short or in between or even Not Time but Something Else that we can't understand with finite brains, life and the stars and space and everything that is was actually created, formed by God.
I can see no evidence for the idea, popularized by Darwin and his followers, that Time plus Random Chance equals Complexity and Organization and Life. Not even lots and lots of time. Why should it? Why would it? How could such a thing happen? As someone (I don't know who) has said, I don't have enough faith to believe such a tale. Then, there's my presupposition that Scripture is God-breathed by an infinite God. If I find out someday that God used the process of Darwinian evolution to create and then organize the universe and particularly life on this planet, I will be amazed, and I will have many questions to ask. However, my faith in God and in His initiation and guidance of creation will be unshaken.
I attend a rather conservative evangelical church where I daresay these thought would be, ummm, not too well received. But I thought I'd step into the quagmire here and see what happens. Just know that these are thoughts-in-process, and I don't have it all worked out and put into a box. Nor do I expect to anytime soon.
*By the way, Madeleine L'Engle, author and Christian, died a few days ago, and she has stepped outside of Time and into Eternity.
The hebrew word for day is yom. It is used 38 times (I think) outside of Genesis 1. Every single time that it is used, it refers to a literal day.
Even in Genesis 1, after the sun was created, the day is still a day. After Adam and Eve are present on the 7th day, when God rested, the evening and the morning were a literal day that Adam and Eve lived through.
The real question is, "why is the day 24 hours long?" Maybe the day isn't that set amount of time because of the big ball of burning gas and the rotation of our planet. Maybe God decided to make the day that long before he made all of the other stuff.
God being outside of our limitations doesn't mean that we can't take His word literally. At least, when I read Genesis 1 I don't think that saying a day is literally a day is limiting at all.
Super-fast hurry-up comment (sorry, life, the usual):
1. It could be literal days, but not necessarily. This is one of those things that Doesn't Bother Me Either Way.
2. I really liked Madeleine L'Engle's books growing up, but I've only ever read her fiction.
3. Here's something I think is interesting: Genesis doesn't say, "...first day." It says second day, third day, fourth day, etc. But the first time, scripture says "day one". Why?
The Hebrew word yom does not always refer to a literal day. In Genesis 2:4 the use of yom is meant to indicate the time period that God created the earth and the heavens (and in many Bibles the word "day" is used). Essentially, if there is no grammatical rule that mandates the translation be 24 hour periods, then other translations are allowable, as long as they do not introduce contradictions within the text. While one could argue that a "plain" reading of the text would leave one with the impression that the days referenced were 24 hour days, one is still left with difficult issues to resolve. For instance, besides the issues Sherry mentions, what are we to make of the number of activities that occur on, ostensibly, the 6th day? Is it reasonable to conclude that they occurred within a 24 hour period? ("Hurry up naming those animals, Adam! The sun is setting!") Or what are we to make of the fact that the 7th day does not have the "and there was evening and there was morning" modifier?
Then we need to harmonize the account in Genesis 1 with the account in Genesis 2, as well as the other creation references in the Bible (e.g., Job, Psalms).
I think it, ultimately, does matter, because we have multiple, independent methods of age analysis, all of which indicate an old earth and universe. How do we reconcile our understanding of the text with our understanding of the world around us?
As far as Madeleine L'Engle's take, I appreciate her artistic (or, spiritual) approach, but I think she too easily brushed aside the rational approach.
Of course, I could be wrong.
I'm O.K. with the days of creation being twenty-four hour days, but I don't see why they must be interpreted in that way. And my more scientifically educated friends seem to need the longer time periods to make provision for the observations that have have been made by scientists about the universe itself. Why is that a problem either biblically or theologically?
Why is that a problem either biblically or theologically?
Sherry, I've seen many make the argument that if you're going to say that a day isn't a literal day, then you open up the whole Bible to be taken "not literally;" i.e., Jesus really didn't say "X," or he didn't really rise from the dead, etc.
They see people who call themselves liberal Christians denying the truth of all sorts of things that we read in the Bible, saying that "X" really doesn't mean "X" if you interpret it according to this scholarship and that scientific information, yada yada. They see the "day" argument as being in the same category as a biblical truth "reinterpreted" in light of "modern-day knowledge."
If we're looking for truth, though, spiritual truth, then the Bible has to be consistent with itself. So, as Rusty said, we need to reconcile all parts of Scripture. The liberal folk (for lack of a better descriptor) say that we can't do that; it's ridiculous to assume that Scripture has to be consistent. But that's because they tend to look at Scripture as strictly historical documents written by (and originating with) men rather than as God's Word. God's Word being that which reveals the truth about Him and mankind, and chronicles His dealings with mankind.
In other words, it's a different kind of history, one in which spiritual truth is a lot more important than, say, exactly how big Noah's ark was.
I understand the "slippery slope" argument that if we take one part of the Bible as figurative rather than literal, we may be buying into an interpretive scheme that "interprets away" whatever in Scripture is inconvenient or at odds with our own desires.
Howver, I still don't see how interpreting the word for day as a period of time, either long or short, undermines any of the truth of Scripture. To take another example, the word resurrection means bodily resurrection in the New Testament, and if you try to reinterpret it to mean anything else, you come slap up against all sorts of passages that say flatly that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead in a physical body. The day thing is more open to interpretation, and of course, the important point of Genesis 1-2 is that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." And yes, that truth, both physical and spiritual, is a lot more important than the exact amount of time that God chose to use to hold that creation process.
I don't say that it's ridiculous to assume that Scripture has to be consistent, but I do say that it's hubris to assume that we will ever understand all that Scripture leaves unsaid (the exact creative process, for example), and how that fits together with the truth that we have been able to observe using the scientific mehod. I'm not even saying we shouldn't try, but to say I won't believe until this or that thing in Scripture makes sense to me and is completely reconciled in my mind with the truth of science is just a self-imposed and prideful roadblock to faith and to the obedience that God calls us to. And for Christians to say that they know exactly how and when God created the universe is also hubristic and places a stumbling block before those who may not see their way to exactly the same interpretation.
I'm with you, Sherry. I don't agree with either the "literalists" or "liberalists" that I described in my comment. I think the literalists have reacted against the liberalists, and vice-versa (substitute "literalists" with "fundamentalists"). The literalists try too hard to be "safe," to defend God's truth in such a way that they make a type of legalism out of Scripture interpretation. The liberalists are probably either genuinely or disingenuously doubtful of certain "truth claims," because, rather than take both scientific evidence and God's word as truth, they try to weigh the truth of biblical claims against "empirical evidence."
The "liberalists" I speak of would be those you describe in your comment as those who won't believe until Scripture and science are reconciled in their mind. Or, you might say that science is their religion.
Sherry,
I wouldn't characterize the quest for harmonization within scripture as well as between scripture and the natural realm as hubris, much less the notion that we will ever understand all that scripture leaves unsaid. I believe the Christian faith is one that invites testing and honest skepticism. Christ's resurrection, for example, is presented as fact, supported by eyewitness and empirical evidence. Paul commended the Galatians for searching the scripture to validate his claims. While I hold to an old earth creation position I will be the first to admit that the case for OEC is not airtight. Yet I think it does the best in harmonizing what we understand from scripture with what we understand of the natural realm.
I don't consider the OEC / YEC controversy to be a creedal issue. I'm simply taking a look at the evidence for an old universe and earth; and the evidence gives us a good idea of when God created the universe and earth (as to the how... that's His business).
Hi Sherry,
Like you I avoid the eschatological and creration/evolution debates. I prefer having discussions offline over coffee. Anyway,
"But Ms. L'Engle and I part company when she comes to the end of her paragraph: ". . . life has evolved slowly over chronological millennia."
Not sure what you refer to there - all life or does she make a distinction for humans? It is possible to hold to an evolutionary process but not for humans - some do. That doesn't presuppose that God did not create all life forms. I think Genesis is pretty clear about a non-evolutionary creation of humans though. In fact it points to a much more rapid genetic process and technicality than evolution.
Rusty: I respect the quest for harmonization, but question the pride that says I have harmonized everything and you need to agree with me in order to be an orthodox Christian. I agree that young earth/old earth is not a creedal issue, but many people hold to YEC espeially and use that belief as a litmus test of orthodoxy.
Catez: No, Ms. L'Engle doesn't make a distinction between humans and other forms of life and in fact indicats that she believes that human beings are the products of the process of evolution and that we are continuing to evolve. That's one place she and I part company. I still think she's an awesome writer, and I expect to discuss many things with her in heaven someday.
There's a discussion going on in a post right now at Evangelical Outpost that illustrates what's been discussed here. It's on Joe's point #13 in the post, "When creationism becomes a stumbling block."
I tried mixing in over there and I seemed to have killed it dead - at least, nobody's posted anything back for a day. :(
Atlantic, have you looked back? Doesn't look like it's dead yet ;-)
Square water melons and genetically engineered food are samples that once in a while, life is created. Not a proof, but a plausibility.
