Struggling With My Faith

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

I grew up in a YEC home and church culture (if I ever grew up anywhere ), and never bought into the explanations of light’s existence before the sun was created in Genesis 1 – they always seemed lame and contrived and without any solid biblical support. But I didn’t know there was any other way, since I was also taught that ‘believing’ in evolution necessitated atheism.

My most recent reference to my ‘journey’:

@Dale

(In my younger years I was a YEC and then I was an OEC for over three decades. Actually kidney cancer was a factor in my acceptance of the legitimacy of biological evolution, that God is sovereign in his providence, even, duh, over the mutations in DNA.)

And similarly:

@Dale

Two things, no, three things combined to change my mind. I was an OEC for about three decades (and a YEC but not a noisy one for decades before that).

1. ID is not scientific
2. “…the most common mutations, transitions, are not really ‘copying errors,’ because the keto-enol transition of the base is driving them and the polymerase is working correctly. So if you’d like, that can be seen as providence more than chance.” John Mercer, molecular biologist
3. The obvious sovereignty of God’s providence in the timing and placing of mutations in DNA before my nephrectomy.

Add a fourth:

4. Five short of fourscore years of experience of my Father’s providences in my life, a small multitude of instances – I keep a log to enumerate them. Some of them fun, some are hard, some startling, but all are wonderful and all are good, even the hard ones.

I have been shown much grace because my coming to endorse biological evolution as a person of faith has been almost entirely without trauma. Even when I explained my revised perspective to my wife (she’s no dummy), she was accepting of it. Of course, her strong faith in our Father’s loving care and providence was a big part of that (not so much my skillful explanation ; - ).

I do have to be careful at church to whom I divulge it, let alone anything about the antiquity of the earth and the cosmos, so there is a sadness in that. But my closest Christian friends besides my wife are okay with it too, even accepting of it. So I’m thankful.

My story may not directly address your questions except maybe the last one, but @Christy did a good job with the others.