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Evolution and Creation Aren't Mutually Exclusive |
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Written by Michael Salsbury
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Tuesday, 14 February 2006 |
You can read in almost any news publication that somewhere in the United States at
any given moment there is a debate raging on the theory of evolution versus the
story of creation in the Bible. I think that's sad, because the effort being spent
debating these points of view could be better used in so many other ways, like
helping to house the homeless, raise funds for schools, and so forth. But when you
realize, as I do, that these two concepts are NOT mutually exclusive, it's not only
sad but rather silly.
Creationism, depending on whom you ask, tells us that there is a God. God, we are
told, created the Heavens and the Earth. This took him six days to complete. When he
was finished, we had the Earth and all the creatures upon it, including humans. If
we look in the Bible for exact methods that God used to create these things, there
is little or nothing specific. Most theologians would tell us that it is an act of
blasphemy to suggest that we as humans could ever truly understand and/or reproduce
God's methods of creation. They would tell us that such understanding is beyond us.
This the image of creationism that exists in my mind. Yours may differ, as is your
right and belief.
Evolution, on the other hand, tells us that all life on Earth started from some
humble organism that gained the "spark of life". While there are theories on just
how that spark happened and how life began, there is no concrete proof. In this
sense, evolutionists and Christians have the same "question mark" in their heads when
they look at the initial "creation" of life on Earth. Neither side can say exactly
how it began. It should be noted at this point that Charles Darwin, who is credited
with inventing the theory of evolution, believed that there was a God of the Christian
variety and that his theory was in keeping with Christian beliefs. Evolution says
that from the initial living organisms, all other life on Earth came about through a
series of changes, mutations, and interactions. As a particular form of life
found itself ideally suited to its environment, it thrived and sometimes displaced
other less-ideally-suited forms. At the end of all that "evolving" we find the many
varied forms of life on Earth today.
If you accept the Christian belief that God is infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful,
and essentially well beyond our ability to truly comprehend in His entirety, one
thing should be clear... We cannot as human beings, merely "created in His image" but
by no means His equals, ever hope to really understand exactly how God does the things
he does. In fact, this concept is the underlying thought behind the old adage,
"God works in mysterious ways..." Thus, if we can never really, truly understand
how God works his miracles, we must accept that there are details in Creationism
that we will never understand.
The biblical story of Creation says that it took God six days to create the Earth and
all forms of life upon it. If God is indeed an infinte being, with no beginning or
end, is it not possible that those "six days" are not six of OUR 24-hour days
(especially given that the Earth did not exist on "day one") but six of God's own
form of days? If that is true, God being "infinite" might consider a day on his
terms to be a length of time that would be measured in centuries or millennia in
ours. So his six-day creation effort might have been six thousand years, or more.
Further, since we can never truly know HOW God accomplished the creation of Earth,
it's possible that his method involved creating that initial "spark of life",
followed by a careful tending to it that resulted in the creation of every other
form of life on the planet over a period of what to us would be centuries but to
him seemed mere "days". When he was finished, that initial spark of life might
be the thing that led to the dawn of mankind on Earth.
Thus, from my perspective, Creationism and Evolution are merely two sides of the
very same coin. Creationism tells us "who" started life on Earth, why, etc.
Evolution explains what happened during those "six days" of creation. They're not,
to me, mutually exclusive theories nor are they explaining anything differently.
The nice thing about living in a free country, though, is that you have the right
to disagree with me and believe that Creation means God waved his hand and
suddenly there was an Earth full of creatures. I would just think that, in the
spirit of "brotherhood" that Christianity teaches, you would find some way to turn
the other cheek and not try to force your beliefs on others. My step-children are
exposed to both points of view, and I think they're the better for it.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 20 February 2006 )
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