In comparison, extreme evolutionists completely refute the idea of a divine creator. They believe that all life started as a chance event of amino acids coming together, and all subsequent evolutionary steps were chance mutations leading to natural selection and thus change in species. In general, extreme evolutionists believe that the driving force for change is simply chance rather than some sort of divine being.
It is quite obvious that these two schools of thought are extremely different. However, both theories carry some commonalities that will be explored later in this paper. First, I would like to dismiss certain ideas on both sides as being incorrect and explain the reasons why.
In Christian belief that God created the world in the six day fashion is simply incorrect. As compared to popular believe, the bible cannot be taken as a scientific handbook on the creation of the world. While I concede that the Bible is “..the Inspired Word of God” (Cooper 46), I do not believe that it was meant as a accurate representation of the truth. Rather it is a simplified version of what actually occurred that could be easily understood and accepted by the common person. It would be ignorant to believe that God would simply “will” the entire universe into existence. “The universe, as we know it, was not created in an instant of absolute coercive power.” (Korsmeyer 84). Using Biblical references, many Christians, Jews and Muslims believe that world is only 10,000 years old. This belief is commonly referred to as “recent creation”, as compared to the other belief that the universe is 4.5 billion years old. While conceivable that God simply created the world exactly the way it is today, it is vastly more probable that the universe was created over millions and millions of years. There is an incredible amount of evidence supporting creation over time, and “… not a single article in the vast body of international, peer-reviewed scientific literature offering evidence for a recent creation” (Raymo 83).
Another point that Christian belief may be lead astray is that humanity is the pinnacle of creation. This is actually not the case. Most Christians differentiate our species from that of animals with the notion of a soul. And through that soul we have the knowledge of right and wrong, therefore must face the consequences of heaven and hell. However, studies have shown that chimps also have concepts of right and wrong within a social system, where inappropriate acts result in punishment (Sagan 314-315). Another reason that humanity is not the pinnacle of creation is that we are still evolving. It is only possible to “know our nature to the point we have evolved…we don’t know [ ] what human nature will become” (Korsmeyer 89). Scientists have even gone as far to say that if the entire evolutionary process were to be repeated, the chance for our species to evolve to exactly the state, if at all would be near impossible.
On the evolutionary side, the idea that everything is up to chance is in itself very improbable. The common analogy of evolution in terms of chance would be, having a million monkeys typing on a million typewriters for a million years. It is said that after that million years, by chance alone an entire Shakespearean play would have been typed out. This idea is nonsensical. The idea that through time, chance alone caused the first amino acids to join, and chance alone caused mutations that would in affect change a species is impossible. In respect to the laws of nature, the idea of entropy would limit this chance evolution. Entropy is the amount of disorder in the universe; high entropy is high degree of randomness. In natural law, objects of high entropy are more thermodynamically stable, meaning they do not have the tendency to change. Objects of low entropy are thermodynamically unstable, and have the tendency to more towards higher entropy. In simple terms, it is against universal law for things to move from a state of disorganization to a state of high organization. An example of this would be a bicycle falling apart over time; this is the law of nature. You would never see a pile of bicycle parts spontaneously come together to form a bicycle. Therefore in terms of thermodynamics, it is impossible for low entropy amino acids to evolve to highly organized organisms such as humans, regardless of the amount of time given. In the end, it is simply impossible that the evolution of life occurred simply as a product of chance; there must have been some sort of divine guidance.
The remainder of this paper will be used to draw comparisons between creationism and evolutionism. Through these connections, I will try to draw the two theories together to form one coherent one.
To start, in Genesis 1 “God created the heavens and the earth.” Christians in general believe that this verse is referring to a sudden burst of creation. It is believed that God existed outside of time and existed before creation. Evolutionists generally believe in the Big Bang theory. This theory is that before time and space, there existed an extremely high density moment, which increased in density forming the first protons and neutrons. From there, the plasma radiated outward forming larger atoms and in the end formed the universe and all the atoms that exist today (Trefil 24-29). It is still unknown what existed before the Big Bang, and also, it is impossible for scientists to know what first propagated the conversion from vacuum to matter. This is where the Christian belief enters the picture. It is actually quite easy to accept that God’s creative moment was in fact the Big Bang, making the two theories non-exclusive, but in fact a single, logical explanation for the initial start of creation.
According to the next few verses in Genesis 1, God created plants, the sun and moon, fish and birds and then terrestrial animals, in that order. As noted before, the Bible should not be taken as a literal representation of creation. Primarily since it would be impossible to have created plants before there existed the sun and moon. Plants are defined mostly by their ability to convert CO2, water into sugars, powered by energy derived from the sun, without the sun, there would be no plants. Therefore, it would be easier to say that God simply did control the creation of those things, but the timing is irrelevant.
Empirical evidence has shown that the early life on Earth were plants, which is consistent with the story in the Bible. First sentient life began in the ocean, and progressed to the land and air over millions of years. While it is hard to understand how a single life form could have been the evolutionary origin all future life, evidence has leads many people to believe this theory. There are a few common misconceptions about the radiation of species that leads people to disbelieve evolution. Firstly, many people, especially Christians think that evolution is impossible, because they cannot comprehend how a fish could suddenly change into a frog and live on land. The problem with their thinking is that evolution takes millions of years and subtle changes occur, such as developing fins, which eventually develop into limbs. Another misconception is how in today’s world, we do not see half fish, half land-dwelling animals. This can be explained by looking at the fossil records. Creatures that have both aquatic and terrestrial properties have existed in the past, but since they were neither totally aquatic nor totally terrestrial, they died off and were replaced by fully aquatic and fully terrestrial animals. It is suggested that there exists over 100 million species of life on earth, and at the same time, 27,000 species goes extinct every year (Korsmeyer 82). Stephen Jay Gould explains “evolution is more like a copiously branching bush than a straight line (35).” This branching leads to many forms of life end up going extinct (Edwards 45). That is, they are the linking species, those not fully evolved to meet a new environment. Since according to natural law, any one modification, i.e. an limb, that serves more than one function will not be fully efficient at both. Rather, over time, the modification will lean towards either one or the other. In regards to Christian beliefs that God created the animals, it would not be too far fetched to suggest that God uses evolution and natural selection to shape the species of this world. Also, in this dynamic world, where species are going extinct and new species are evolving, it appears that God is not “done” in His creation, but is still “creating” today.
The most controversial part about evolution is the evolution of man. Christians refuse to accept anything less than divine creation. According to Genesis 1:27, God created man in His own image, therefore it would be inappropriate to believe that humans were not always as we appear now. The evolutionary story behind humans is actually quite well documented and studied. Contrary to common belief, our species did not originate as chimpanzees. Rather, humans and chimps are two distinct species that evolved from a common, now extinct ancestor. This ancestor was neither fully adapted to live in trees and on four legs, as the chimps are, not fully adapted to be standing upright, as humans are. Therefore, they no longer exist, and only the two divergent evolutionary results can be seen today.
Christians, on the other hand believe in the story of Adam and Eve. O’Brien and Major, working for the American Academy of Religion did extensive work on the origins and understanding of the Adam and Eve story. They found that the story of Adam and Eve is not isolated to just creationism, but rather it was a set-up for “… the unfolding of Yahweh’s promise to Abraham” (91). Regardless, the original text speaks of Yahweh creating Adam from the earth, breathing life into him. Placing him in the Garden of Eden, where the moment of original sin takes place. It should be noted that contrary to popular Christian belief, Adam and Eve are not actual people, but “Adam is a collective name for all of humanity and Eve means ‘the mother of all who life’” (O’Brien and Major 92). O’Brien and Major come to the conclusion that this story is not an accurate representation of what really happened, rather it is just part of an “epic” incorporating famous stories of that time period (91).
While this is not the story that Christian find easy to accept, the evidence does not lie. Also, again it is possible for somebody to imagine that God might have used evolution to guide the progress of mankind rather than some instant creative moment. Also, it would be inconsistent with all of God’s other actions if He were to ignore natural law in His creations. Christians evolutionists believe that God set the framework and the “rules of the game” that allowed for the evolution of Humans.
The story of creation, as written in the Bible is probably one of the most well-known and repeated stories in western civilization. This constant repetition is one of the major reasons that most of society is unwilling to accept anything except Divine Creation. However, in religious circles, specifically Christians, Jews and Muslims, the problem lies in theology. The idea that humans are not a divine creation and that the Bible is not completely accurate is hard to grasp. But, there is actually no need for the religious world to be so afraid of accepting science. The Bible, while not completely accurate, is by no means false. It is simply not to be taken literally, the ideas held within the Bible are true, and the stories are told to either make the ideas easier to understand, or to give examples for Christians to follow. The idea that humans are not divine creations is also a half-truth. Although humans were not created in an ultimate creative moment, our evolution must have been guided by some divine being. The incredibly intricate human body is evidence enough that we cannot have occurred simply by chance.
In the end, it would not be anti-religious, or anti-evolutionary to believe that God used the Big Band and directed evolution. Evolutionists give us the answers to “how” and religion gives us the answers to “why.” Albert Einstein, one of the greatest thinkers of all times said it best. “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” (Cited in Berry 1).
Works Cited
Berry, R. J. God & The Biologist. England: Apollos, 1996.
Edwards, Denis. The God of Evolution. New York: Paulist Press, 1999.
Korsmeyer, Jerry. D. Evolution & Eden: Balancing Original Sin and
Contemporary Science. New York: Paulist Press, 1998.
O’Brien, Joan, and Wilfred Major. In The Beginning:Creation Myths from
Ancient Mesopotamia, Israel and Greece. Chicago: Scholars Press,
1982.
Raymo, Chet. Sceptics and True Believers: The Exhilarating Connection
Between Science and Religion. Sydney: Walker Publishing Company,
1998.
Trefil, James S. The Moment of Creation. New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1983.
Works Consulted
Burke, Derek. Creation and Evolution. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1985.
Gamow, George. The Creation of the Universe. New York: The Viking Press,
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Young, Willard. Fallacies of Creationism. Calgary: Detselig Enterprises
Limited, 1985