CHAPTER 6

GENESIS AND EVOLUTION: COMPLEMENTARY OR ANTAGONISTIC?

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Gen. 1:26-28

The unfortunate controversy between proponents of creationism(1) or so-called creation science versus evolutionary science demonstrates the difficulties Judeo-Christians face when we fail to ask pertinent questions that generate useful answers. We must recognize an important fact: The argument primarily takes place among Judeo-Christians, not between Judeo-Christians and atheists (or agnostics).(2) Even if further rigorous scientific investigations completely disproved the current model of evolutionary science, atheists would not automatically accept the Genesis accounts of creation as valid. Persons with the atheistic mindset would simply search for another scientific account of how the universe was formed and how life began on Earth without any divine influence or causality. Why? Because rejection of scientific theories and even laws through the scientific method always generates additional scientific hypothesis, followed by new or modified theories that lead to new scientific laws. From a purely scientific perspective, this process does not require including God in any explanation of the origins and operations of the universe, much less how life began.(3)

Cosmological Science or Cosmology

Cosmological science, a branch of Physics, explores the origin, structure, and development of the universe in an attempt to elucidate some of the most basic questions about our existence. Cosmology, like any science, utilizes the scientific method.(4) Astronomical observations from various sources (e.g., optical, infrared, and radio telescopes) furnished most of our cosmological data until recently. The advent of powerful particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider located near Geneva, Switzerland, allows direct experimental investigations into conditions that existed within the first few microseconds after God brought this universe into being and into other fundamental aspects of creation.

Although popularly regarded as a gigantic explosion or Big Bang, cosmologists tend to think of the initial act of creation as an expansion from an infinitesimally small, hot, and dense point termed a singularity. Inflating a balloon serves as an analogous illustration of the expansion. No simply analogy can be offered for the concept of a singularity, a point where space and time do not exist as we know them. Importantly, our space and time began with the initial moment of this expansion. The first several minutes of creation after the initial expansion were characterized by light so intense that it had mass. Cosmology gives us no explanation of what existed before this singularity or its origin; but, the obvious parallel with Genesis (Let there be light) may explain why some Judeo-Christians can more readily accept the Big Bang or expansion theory than evolutionary science.
The Big Bang included all of the components and parameters necessary for the universe to form and stabilize, and for biological evolution to proceed. Many authors have written easy to read explanations of how our universe began, descriptions that do not require a pre-requisite scientific background to understand.(5,6,7)

Evolutionary Science or Evolution

The term, evolution, refers to the process of change over time. In biology, evolution means changes in life forms with the passage of time, from the simplest unicellular organisms to the complexity of species existing today.
I markedly prefer the term evolutionary science rather than the theory of biological evolution used in the public arena.(8) Evolutionary science has the following components: (a) all forms of life on earth originated through common descent, (b) parent organisms pass on inheritable traits to offspring from one generation to another, (c) some changes, such as mutations, naturally arise when organisms have offspring, and (d) over time these changes resulted in the variety of life forms, including humans, we see on earth today. Although the concept of evolutionary science arose in many forms before Charles Darwin, he most often receives credit for the first enunciation of the idea based upon empirical data.(9)

Importantly, evolutionary science primarily deals with the development of subsequent life forms from predecessor life forms but does not postulate how life originated. Models, some of which come from laboratory experiments, have been developed to explain how the first living organism could have arisen from non-living materials. The present hypothesis postulates that all life began on earth when certain molecules self-assembled into a single replicating cell. This cell, through evolutionary processes that incorporated a high degree of randomness (trial and error), ultimately produced human life.(10)

The scope of Through The Wilderness does not encompass a detailed explanation of evolutionary science or a counterpoint to arguments Creationists and various religious fundamentalists have raised against the concept of biological evolution. Many excellent summaries, primarily written for non-scientific audiences, describe the major findings of evolutionary science.(6,11,12,13) As Richard Dawkins lucidly explains, all objections Creationists and others have promulgated to disprove or cast doubt on biological evolution have themselves been scientifically countered.(14) No gaps or so-called missing links exist in the fossil record. All contrary statistical objections, such as the supposed mathematical impossibility of the formation of eyes and other optical structures through random processes, have been thoroughly discounted.

Randomness In The Design

A major, albeit misunderstood, point of contention about evolutionary science revolves around the idea of “randomness” inherent in biological evolution: Random but inheritable changes (mutations) in the genetic material (DNA) of a parent organism produce offspring that may or may not be better equipped to survive (natural selection). If better equipped to thrive and survive through the heritable changes, new species ultimately will be produced, and older species will die out due to competition for food and habitat. For some Judeo-Christians, this randomness appears to contradict God’s providential design of, and care for, creation: How could a loving God allow creation to proceed through random processes?

An obvious answer resolves the apparent, but not actual, contradiction: Randomness constitutes an integral component of God’s design for the creation of living organisms. Two elegant books, each written by a faithful Judeo-Christian scientist, thoroughly illuminate this point.(6,7) Following the lead of these two authors, I envision God’s creative activity establishing non-random boundaries within which degrees of randomness can occur. While this internal randomness takes place with many varied results, the non-random boundaries cannot be crossed. The speed of light might be considered a non-random boundary (with a few exceptions according to Einstein). The Laws of Thermodynamics could serve as non-random or limiting boundaries: Numerous energy interactions can occur as long as they do not violate the Laws of Thermodynamics. We might say, therefore, God specified the speed of light and Laws of Thermodynamics as boundary components of creation.

Perhaps a more mundane analogy will illustrate the idea of non-random boundaries constraining or limiting internal randomness, keeping in mind that all analogies suffer some lack of precision. From 1998 to 2009, Andrea (my beloved wife) and I lived in Franklin County near Lavonia, a small town in Northeast Georgia. A railroad, originally named the Elberton Air-Line Railroad, runs through Lavonia to connect Elberton to the east with Toccoa to the west. Construction of the 51-mile railroad was completed in 1878 with the express purpose of joining the Seaboard (now CSX) Railroad at Elberton with the Atlanta to Charlotte to Richmond Railroad (now the Southern) at Toccoa, thereby affording an easier transit of goods and people into and out of Northeast Georgia.
Several routes were proposed for the new railroad. A flat depiction of the area, such as an ordinary roadmap, indicates no obvious choice for the rail bed. The selection of any route seems entirely random. For instance, the railroad could have been constructed along the Broad River to the south of the present location. An examination of the area with a topographical map, however, clearly shows the rail bed running along the ridgeline between Elberton and Toccoa. Even in the later part of the 19th century, engineers knew that construction and subsequent maintenance of the railroad along this ridgeline required less energy (i.e., was more efficient) than any other route in that section of Northeast Georgia. The historical record of the Elberton Air-Line Railroad reveals the engineers understood construction along the southern route would have necessitated two bridges over the Board River and that drainage of water from the rail bed would be difficult. The parameters of the topography (non-random limiting boundaries) dictated one choice, among several, for the route. What, therefore, appeared to be the result of randomness was in fact a non-random selection.

If another group of investors had decided to invest and build a railroad along the southern route, which had some appealing characteristics due to the location of population centers, competition or “survival of the fittest” would have taken place with the Elberton Air-Line Railroad. Overtime, the expense and energy required to build, operate, and maintain the southern-routed railroad would have resulted in its demise. The Elberton Air-Line Railroad was more energy efficient and thereby able to win the competition.

This analogy illustrates what happens with biological evolution. Many pathways can be envisioned and actually embarked upon (random) but the energy constraints (non-random) will ultimately dictate the pathway of development and generation of new species from old. The enormous time scale over which biological evolution has taken place facilitated the development of human life through what may appear to be, but is not wholly, a random process.

Reconciliation

I believe the best way to reconcile Genesis and evolutionary science requires us to ask and answer appropriate questions. To this end, we may return to our Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How questions concerning creation.
Genesis gives us answers to Who, What, and Where, along with some information or reasonable speculation about Why:

Who God, of course, is the primary actor.

What Creation of all that exists, seen and unseen.

Where This universe, the site of our physical reality.

Why Based upon God’s statement about creation, And God saw that it was good(15), we can make a logical inference that God enjoyed the creative effort or that the outcome pleased God.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which I studied in my youth within the Presbyterian tradition, makes the following profound, if mechanistically vague and temporally imprecise, summary: What is the work of creation? The work of creation is God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.

We must turn to science, especially cosmology and evolution, for answers to the When and How questions.

When Genesis gives us no precise information about the When, other than the cryptic In the beginning(16) but, when did the beginning take place in real time? According to the latest cosmological estimates, the initial act of creation occurred some 13.73 billion years in our past.(17)

How Cosmological and evolutionary sciences provide the best available information on the mechanisms God employed to create our physical universe and to produce the various life forms, including humans, that have appeared on Earth.

A Personal Summary

My scientific background convinces me that cosmological and evolutionary principles comprise integral components of creation. My Judeo-Christian convictions compel me to believe that God designed and created all that exists. I am, therefore, a creationist who believes in an intelligent designer whose actions in our physical universe can be discovered through the scientific method and utilized. No conflict between religion and science should distract us as long as we remain clear headed about the questions we ask from each source of complementary knowledge.

The viewpoints expressed above trouble some Judeo-Christians. The concept that the initial act of creation incorporated all components and parameters necessary for the physical universe to develop into its present form and for biological evolution to proceed contains elements of Deism. This school of philosophy, to which some people grant religious status, grew from the intellectual ferment of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Many founders of our democratic republic were Deists.(18) The Declaration of Independence and US Constitution may be viewed as prime expressions of Deist political philosophy.

Deists believe this universe operates according to laws of nature that a Creator put in place with the initial act of creation.(19) This Creator then withdrew to leave the universe and humans to exist without divine supervision or intervention. Deists neither equate the Creator to the traditional Judeo-Christian God nor do they accept the divinity of Jesus Christ, although they agree he existed historically. Thus, Deism excludes divine revelations and miracles. A core principle of Deism specifies that humans can know this Creator only through reason and observations of nature. I depart from Deism on the following fundamental points: (a) I believe in the Judeo-Christian God, although I am reluctant to accept some of the characteristics traditionally attributed to God; (b) I believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, although I cannot postulate an intellectually rigorous explanation for this foundational principle of Judeo-Christianity; and (c) I accept that knowledge of God through non-rational revelation can, and frequently does, take place.

Despite these reservations, a strong affinity with some aspects of Deism exists within my religious beliefs, a factor that resonates with my scientific approach to exploring the mysteries of creation. If God directly intervenes to change the outcome of natural laws God put in place at the time of creation, the universe and God become irrational and untrustworthy. Divine manipulation of the course of natural events on a case-by-case basis more than implies God can undergo a change of mind or intent. Such changeability or capriciousness would reflect imperfection in God’s original actions. An old philosophical but important question relates to divine changeability: Can our perfect God act imperfectly? I think not. Thus, what God brought into being must be perfect without the necessity of divine change.(20)

I realize many people in effect pray to alter the outcome of natural events, that is, to change God’s mind. A pertinent example occurs with prayers for healing. People get sick and recover, often with the help of modern medicine, as a result of natural laws. Even so-called miraculous cures seemingly outside the scope of current medical knowledge will ultimately be explained through scientific principles. Additionally, a random “healing” due to the probabilistic nature of disease and recovery cannot be excluded. A presumed correlation between prayer and a healing does not prove causality, that the prayers of the faithful resulted in recovery.

I previously stated my belief in prayer; however, I try to pray according to the insight C.S. Lewis put forth, Our prayers are not meant to change God but to change ourselves.(21) God would be subject to human emotions and transitory whims if our prayers could convince God to violate natural laws. What about purported Biblical examples of God apparently exhibiting a change of mind? I think these episodes illustrate humans aligning themselves with the will of God.

I issue the following challenge: Listen to the prayers of other persons and ourselves. How often do these prayers, implicitly or explicitly, ask for God to violate a natural law, in other words to manipulate God? Inclusion of the phrase, Your (God’s) will be done) does not alter the situation: If the universe and all within, including human activities operate according to God’s will, why should we pray for a change of God’s mind and intent?

The very idea, for instance, of a religious leader claiming to have prevented a hurricane from making landfall on the US coast(22) strikes me not only as idiotic but blasphemous, a total disregard of prayerful purpose and God’s perfection. In my best moments when I am under the influence of my better angels, I refrain from insisting that God must or must not act in specific ways. Nevertheless, while I can accept that God has the power to violate a divinely instituted natural law, I see no evidence that God has exercised this prerogative.

When I have broached these ideas, a typical response from non-scientifically oriented Judeo-Christians has been, “Therefore you must feel extraordinarily alone, separated from God.” I usually counter in two-parts. First, by stating I would feel even more distanced from God if I believed our prayers could alter the outcome of events and circumstances dictated by God’s natural laws, laws our perfect God put in place to maintain creation. Simply put, what about two persons or two groups of people praying for opposite outcomes? Does God have some way to assess the fervor of opposing prayers in order to choose outcomes? If so, how can we rely upon God to be consistent? Secondly, I profess my reliance upon the great promise St. Paul enunciated, No circumstances can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.(23) This reliance allows me to make sense of my place in the universe regardless of how the outcome of God’s natural laws may affect me. My task then becomes to align my will with my understanding of God’s will, including scientific laws by which the universe operates.

References

1 Creationism indicates a belief or doctrine that the Genesis accounts provide complete and accurate (i.e., inerrant) accounts of the creation of the cosmos and origin of life on earth. Creation Science refers to attempts to disprove Evolutionary Science through presumptive scientific arguments, all of which have been debunked.

2 Chapter 5

3 Chapter 4

4 Chapter 4.

5 Greene, Brian. The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY. 2004.

6 LaRocco, Chris and Rothstein, Blair. The Big Bang. http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/bigbang.htm.

7 Big Bang Theory – An Overview. http://www.big-bang-theory.com/

8 Chapter 4, differences between scientific and non-scientific use of the term, theory.

9 Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Complete first edition available on-line at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin.html

10 Colling, Richard G. Random Designer: Created from Chaos to Connect with the Creator. Browning Press, Bourbonnais, IL. 2004.

11 Collins, Francis S. The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Free Press, A Division of Simon & Schuster, New York, NY. 2006.

12 Kung, Hans. The Beginning of All Things: Science and Religion. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K. 2007.

13 Ruse, Michael. Can A Darwinian Be A Christian? The Relationship Between Science and Religion. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK/New York, NY. 2001.

14 Dawkins, Richard. The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, NY. 2009.

15 Genesis 1:25

16 Genesis 1:1.

17 The on-line encyclopedia, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe), gives an accessible summary, Age of the Universe, of how the most recent estimate of the universe’s age was determined.

18 George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin to cite some of the most prominent.

19 Deism in Wikipedia

20 Although not within the scope of this chapter, we must understand that evil, which results from our God-given free will, also represents a component of God’s perfect design for creation, if God cannot act imperfectly. I am not sure about the actual existence of the Devil, as opposed to evil; but, if God created all that exists, God also created the Devil (or what the Devil represents) and allows evil to occur.

21 C.S. Lewis. Find reference.

22 Robertson, Pat in reference to Hurricane Gloria. 700 Club on Christian Broadcasting Network, 1985. Honesty does compel me to point out that Rev. Robertson subsequently state, “I don’t think He (God) reverses laws of nature,” on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on American Broadcast Company, 01 May 2005.

23 Romans 8:38 – 39.