Creation comments

Let there be...

This is probably not the wisest post, but I thought I’d put myself further out there for the sake of those who may struggle to uphold both science and Scripture, especially in a time when the science is shifting so much. Since I’m already a heretic due to comments about The Shack, I guess I may as well put this out there.

A much respected elder wrote to me recently:

PS  Since I was about 16 years of age I have read, and read, material on the question of origins. Squaring creation or evolution with Genesis has never happened for me. I know the three main schools of thought among Christians but have large problems with them all. My lack of knowledge is the reason for dissatisfaction no doubt, though I have read a ton of books including the latest. But I know what I don’t or can’t believe.

Question. Do you have any settled ideas on this?

Here’s my reply:

Mmmm – not exactly “settled.” But I’m comfortable with where I sit currently.

Back in theological college, as we grappled with the mysteries and paradoxes of our faith (pre-destination / freewill, love / suffering, three / one, etc) I realized in some cases one needs to make peace with the tensions. Creation methodology may be another example. Oh I’m already a heretic for saying that much. But I feel you understand what I mean.

I too find it difficult to settle on what may be true, but not because of the tennis match between Creationists and Evolutionists trading reports and studies. That’s fascinating to watch, but who can sift all the available data? Is that data the only way to know if there’s a God anyway? No. There’s history and experience too. One has to account for all the data including history and experience, not just modern science. I find it difficult to settle simply because I can see more than one way to interpret the data, that would not rock my faith.

I see a continuum, the extremes of which are not helpful:

- The CreationISTS extreme says “if it wasn’t a literal seven days, then the Bible is wrong, and the whole of our faith is in doubt.” That seems a brittle faith to me, and a massive leap of illogic to make! My faith is grounded in the historicity of the resurrection, and historical experience. The specific method of creation is not such a big deal to me as the Creator Himself.

- The EvolutionISTS extreme says that “evolution must be true, and therefore God is ruled out.” That also makes an illogical leap, and is way too dismissive of the historicity of the resurrection, and the validity of spiritual and other-dimensional phenomena.

So ruling out the extreme positions, I guess that somewhere between them we may have a bit of both. How much of either, is the question: how do science and Scripture work together? This is my cosmological question.

Working along the continuum, then, here are my main thoughts.

1. God could have made it all in six days, like Jesus made superb wine in an instant: aged but new.

The earth is made aged for stability, as the wine is made aged for flavor. Therefore science would be tracking the stability processes required to get what we’ve got, and piecing together apparent timelines, rather than tracking actual time. Scientists may say this is a convoluted argument to wriggle out of the evidence, but the quantum conundrums we’ve encountered so far may make this more plausible in time – that’s a long way off though, and not necessary to make this theoretical point. It is possible.

2. How we interpret Genesis is a key, and more than one interpretation is possible.

Genesis creation accounts are not about science. They are theological. Therefore scientific discoveries need not have a bearing on the theological accounts. God’s creation is recorded first poetically, then again as a story, to be orally passed on. When Paul refers to creation (eg Romans 5) he can be referring to it theologically to sufficiently make his own theological point. (Paul wasn’t working in a scientific paradigm either. His case was based on the theological premise provided by Genesis.)

3. Evolution has some merit but not in the mainstream understanding. I don’t buy random selection.

Perry Marshall is a fascinating read. He has a take on evolution that is incredible, about how DNA strands “make choices” about the specific segments to change when threatened. This suggests the finger of God in the choosing (like Mindful quantum behavior) and / or the miraculous design of the molecular “choice” processes in the first place.

The Fall becomes a theological difficulty if we accept some form of evolutionary process. If we evolved under God’s hand, then death would be part of creation from the beginning of its evolution, but Scripture says death wasn’t part of the world until the Fall.
- We might resolve this by saying that God didn’t “breathe his Spirit” into us until we were evolved enough to be in His image.
- Or we might resolve it by using the same old-new argument as in point 1.
- Or we may resolve it by saying that as theological records, Genesis isn’t perturbed by scientific findings about processes: the process of creation may be evolutionary but experienced from a higher, other-dimensional viewpoint, which disarmed death. But death-in-respect-to-God came with our conscious choice to sin, and the out-of-Eden experience reduced us to the dimensions of time and space, giving death its frightening sting.

My current position is a short creation, made old-so-as-to-be-stable. This is my simple way of trying to integrate (with integrity) evolutionary evidence somehow. But I’m still sympathetic with those who try long-earth ways to integrate all the evidence.
Whilst I can’t go with sloppy pop evolutionism (that random mutation is responsible for it all: there just isn’t enough time even in a long-earth evolution) there are alternatives (like the afore-mentioned Perry Marshall.) But still,  the most difficult issue for long-age Christian evolutionists is that of death before the Fall, and how to integrate that without downgrading Scripture’s historicity across the board.

However it could be possible. For example:
- the space-time earth grows over a long-time as part of “Eden” which is the spiritual, more-than-space-time reality.
- seen from that viewpoint of all-dimensions, death might merely be a transformation from one form to another, and thus no problem in Eden.
- But when The Fall occurs and we become restricted to space-time, the viewpoint shifts to space-time, out-of-Eden.
- Now death is final, has a sting, is the consequence of sin for us.
- Perhaps this happens at a late point in a long-earth time-span of the space-time dimension of creation.

This approach then interprets the Creation stories as explanations of other-dimensional realities, just like Jesus’ descriptions of Heaven and Hell: descriptions in our terms, of spiritual other-dimensional realities we simply can’t imagine.
I’m sympathetic to such an approach, though it takes a lot more work for Westerners to grasp, due to cultural reluctance to accept evidences for spiritual dimensions.

Admittedly there is much conjecture here, but I maintain there are  ways to interpret and inter-connect the theological and scientific material.

More info is yet to come in. So perhaps it is appropriate that I don’t settle on one explanation until then (which isn’t likely this side of eternity.) As long as I can see a way to make sense of the science (including the other data about God’s presence and action in history and experience) within the theological framework of Scripture, then I’m happy for the Creation method to remain a bit of a mystery to me.

I don’t think I hold this position out of ignorance.

Cheers,
Geoff

I sure hope this helps someone!

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