Great question, im in a similar spot. Broafely trying to connect the scientific details of EC ( the how), compared to the Genesis narrative ( the why/who).
I really want to know ‘why’ God created life through evolution? Whats the narrative?
My rough scramble thoughts goes something like…
I see some similarity with evolution in the notion that God is both creative but also has a principle of developing maturity in us.
He’s an active, hands on, devoted God. His primary focus was to create humanity to be in companionship with him. He wants us to be amazed by Him, and delight in His creation - but gave us free will. The process of evolution could be viewed as refining and bringing all aspects of life into ‘shalom’, for us to be amazed.
Transformation of one creature into other species would be good fun? The fossil record, though limited, suggests we have had a huge amount of creatures. Most kids are amazed at dinosaurs, that sense of wonder and awe came from somewhere ( i muse that Jesus - the son enjoyed the dinosaus in a similar way, perhaps passing time while the earth’s environment cooled off etc ).
In the big picture of biology, there was a crazy amount of activity taking place.
Ive run out of time to ramble on, but i haven’t seen much content in this EC narrative type of thought. Are there other sources?
We’ll have to wait until we get to heaven to find out the answer to that one
Have you checked out all the articles and things on the Biologos site? I’m not sure what sort of thing your after, but there’s all sorts of great stuff.
OEC still has a long way to go in developing a reasonable explanation for the billions of years of evolution leading up to humanity and then the very slow 4 million years of development of homo sapiens. What purpose did this serve in a created world? How are these historical facts reflected in the biblical narrative?
The other difficulty is in recognizing the transition from animal to modern man - the development of culture, language, and reason - human spiritual characteristics. There are no genetic markers for reason! And then how does the Adam and Eve story fit into this timeline?
Thanks Shawn.
One ‘hypothesis’ i have is that evolution was not only a developmental process, but perhaps it was a way of ‘managing’ life - to secure survival of the individual species, but also to enable their place (best fit) in the whole of creation - that was and is dynamic and moving.
In this context, i also wonder if Satan’s interference was an issue?
My take would suggest that it is because if it were other than evolution, there could be scientific “proof” of his existence, and I don’t think that is what he wants. The DI and ID proponents are not going to achieve what they want.
That is developed a bit here, and I refer to it in my ‘conversion story’, starting about here.
(YECism also belittles the import of Psalm 8:4, not only because of the vastness of the size of the universe, but also because of the vastness of its antiquity.)
This does not address the purpose for this time, but it does provide the proper scale.
“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Rev 12:9)
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. (Rev 12:4)
The number of angels that were cast out of Heaven are in the billions of trillions. For the millions of years that the earth was a cooling ball of molten rock, did it not look like a “lake of fire?” (Rev 20:14-15) Isn’t it possible that God used these last 13.7 billion years mold these fallen souls into something worthy to become human?
And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. (Luke 19:40)
Wouldn’t it look like Hell being captive in a stone for billions of years, and wouldn’t you cry?
I think if modern people could read (or hear) Hebrew the way ancient Hebrews did and see the plays on words (especially Adam and earth), it would be easier for them to accept a non-literal Adam.
Modern readers of the early chapters of Genesis can see two creation stories with different orders and methods of creation, making a reading of both the first two chapters as literal history impossible.
From when I was a twelve year old christian (fifty years ago), I never gave the slightest consideration to a young earth. Astronomy and geology necessitated an old earth. Dinosaurs belonged to another world. I was perfectly comfortable with a sort of gap interpretation of Genesis, which was to me a natural reading of scripture and in keeping with literal interpretation.
At the same time, I was fervently anti-evolution until my late twenties. A pastor once asked me what I thought of evolution. I replied even though the fossil record was consistent with evolution, the purported mechanism, mutation, could not be a driver.
The shift to EC came after I had to deal with a re-alignment of my views on biblical interpretation, which was a lonely and painful time. I agree that genomics is compelling evidence of common ancestry, but molecular biology and population genetics is much more technical and demanding to pick up than the notions of plate tectonics and distant starlight.
Yes that is the question that interests me also – to move on from the question of whether evolution is true to what does it mean for theology?
I believe it is because free will is the very essence of life itself, learning as it grows from the very small by constantly becoming more than it was in a self-organizing self-creative process. God’s role is thus that of shepherd and parent rather than designer, for even though living things create themselves they do not do so in a vacuum.
I like to contrast this with the angels who are made as they are and can never be other than what they were made to be. I think they are described as servants in comparison though the a more accurate word might be tools (as much as an intelligent spirit can be a tool anyway) – spirits made for a function rather than as an end in itself as any child must be.
The point is that free will is not some magical add-on but the very essence of our existence as living organisms. This is why we are created through evolution – because that is the only way that living beings with free will can exist without losing a large portion of their self-determination.
Evolution theory is a solid one, but its extension to creation is not. The creation of life is a different process then the evolution of life. God created life and evolution is an integral part of the restoration process. The early Christian theory of the Restoration of All Things (Apocatastasis) describes an imperceivably slow process, just like evolution. So, for me, God created primitive life and allowed that life to evolve slowly into conscious life, moving from basic instinct to a loving and caring society over billions of years.
You love the linguistic aspects and wordplay? Then let me recommend Robert Alter’s recently completed translation of the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament). This has been a decades-long endeavour (I first encountered his work the mid-1980s), and is highly respected by biblical scholars and theologians. It has very detailed footnotes which go into the linguistic details and Hebrew wordplay.
It’s a fairly big outlay in cost! So if you’re not sure, various individual books have been separately available over the years as he has done the work.
In my experience, most Christians believe in Dualism (i.e. mind and brain are separate). On top of that, I doubt many Christians believe that God is an ape, or has a physical human form. So why the hangup on the physical nature of being human if Christianity argues so strongly for the importance of the non-physical? While Christians seem to be arguing against scientism and materialism, OEC and YEC seem to be supporting those philosophies.
That’s a good point. I do believe the image of God is more than physical, but details are a mystery. One of my problems with YEC outlooks is that many of the more stringent ones basically make the gospel of Jesus dependent on how old the earth is, and other things of that nature, which I think gives those details far too much importance to Christian thought. But perhaps this is similar – Christians might say the spiritual is more important, but that’s pretty much negated if we make the spiritual dependent on the biological.
That’s a good question (or observation). Which I think your next observation may begin to uncover.
Indeed. I think part of the inclination (of all of us perhaps - not just OEC or YEC) toward these emphases on the physical is that we don’t want to fall into such stark dualism of pitting spirit against material. For Christians the whole message is about God investing so much into
this material creation, culminating even in the incarnation itself. So there is an unwillingness to participate in a perceived “divorce” that would have us trying to believe in two separate realms. Speaking for myself, anyway, I tend to insist on the physical as being an expression of (and subset of) the larger spiritual realm rather than separated from it. I know there are scripture passages (like John 12:31) that speak as if there are two separate realms, and indeed if taken as an isolated proof text would see this world as Satan’s dominion. But on balance with (I think) a greater weight of scriptural teaching, this should still be seen as being within God’s ultimate dominion as it is impossible to escape that penultimate reign even if rebellious pockets are found in our hearts, communities, and even entire civilizations or worlds.
It adds significance to Psalm 8:4:
: