My Personal Opinion about creation and evolution

People ask me at times, “How can you be a pastor and still believe in evolution?”  (This is usually after they learn I graduated with a degree in biology and did my masters work in biological sciences too.)  One clergy from another denomination actually told me that not only could I not be a Christian if I believe in evolution, I am more or less a heretic, leading people astray as well. 

First of all, I do not “believe” in evolution in the same sense that I believe (know with certainty) in Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, and in God as a God of love. I understand the theory of evolution (which, by the way, happens to be an evolving theory, as are most of the ideas/theories we have and almost universally accept as the way the universe works). I have read Darwin’s stuff on the subject, and much, much more that has been written in journals and books since. Furthermore, I fully understand that to reject the science behind evolutionary theory is to also reject much of modern medicine, a lot of agricultural progress that has helped to continue to feed a growing world-wide population, and much more of science that the critics of evolution accept without question. What we know of DNA and all of genetics, for example are interlaced with the overall theory of evolution. What the critics of evolution also overlook, for example, is that what we know of gravity is still only a theory.

A scientific theory comprises a collection of related ideas, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, and a theory makes up the entire body of tested work that describes a specific phenomenon, like gravity. It starts with an idea, an hypothesis that has been verified through testing that leads to repeatable results. In other words, for a theory to exist, it must be made up of hypotheses tested over and over again in such a way as to be measureable and repeatable—tested over and over again by many people. It starts out as an idea, an hypothesis, to explain what is being observed, followed by testing in measurable ways to see if the idea is correct. But actually, much of the work in science is devoted to proving the ideas wrong, not so much proving them right. Many of Darwin’s ideas have been found not to hold up as he wrote them, but the overall concept has been thoroughly tested, and continues to be.

Those who so bitterly oppose evolution do so out of fear. Fear of the unknown. Their fear is because they know so very little of science but somehow think science is in competition with faith, and once someone starts to learn about and believe in what science has learned, they will turn away from faith. Perhaps they believe if science is allowed to move forward unchecked it will prove God doesn’t exist as they thought, These are the same beliefs that religious people used against Galileo in 1633 when he was put on trial for his discovery that the earth revolves around the sun, and not the other way around. The vehement lashing out about evolution, and the expenditure of millions of dollars on a “creation museum” that is neither good theology nor in any way scientific, does much to drive thoughtful, educated young people away from church and Christianity.

None of the ideas behind creationism or intelligent design have been tested or hold up under logical scrutiny, and you don’t have to use science to argue against those ideas. First, there are two creation stories in Genesis, back to back, and they conflict. Next the idea of seven of our days for the creation is questionable because in the first creation story there is no day/night as we have it until after God had created the heavens and earth. We are given no indication of how long God waited after that before he created day and night. Further, the sun and the moon were not created to govern day and night cycles until the fourth "day", according to Genesis verses 14 through 16. So measuring time as we do is not possible using the creation story itself. For me, evolution is a process well within the capacity of God's creativity. God created the processes of solar and stellar dynamics, and certainly evolution as a process does not conflict with either God’s capability or his sovereignty.  For me, evolution actually clarifies and makes more understandable God’s creativity.

Genesis was never written to be exact history, and certainly was not written to be a scientific textbook. To assume it was is to lose the real meaning of its poetic message. God created, and he created for a purpose. He created humans for a purpose. He created us to learn, to explore, to search for understanding. He gave us the capacity for ideas and theories, and he gave us the capacity to think logically and to test those ideas. He also gave us the capacity, and the desire, to see purpose for our lives. The fight against evolution smothers that capacity, and kills that desire.

Evolution is not the enemy of faith. Ignorance of science certainly is. I graduated with a degree in biology from a Christian Mennonite College with a very strong science department. I also took a lot of courses in bible and religious studies. In none of those classes, taught by passionately Christian professors, was there ever raised a conflict between science and religion, evolution and faith. My major advisor, a PhD ecologist who served as a missionary for a few years before coming to teach, made it very clear to me when he said “Science can only answer the questions of what is happening and how. It can never answer the question of why. Why is the realm of theology and faith.”  Science deepened his faith, and it has mine as well.