These two theories do not seem compatible. On one hand, the creationist view affirms God created heaven and the Earth and human fully formed on it in 6 days, with no previous related species. On the other hand, scientific evidence shows that the Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago and the first humans date back only a hundred thousand years or so. Also, the father of Evolution, Charles Darwin, explained in his book The Origin of Species (1859), that the species inhabiting the Earth were a result of repeated evolutionary branching from common ancestors. Moreover, the scientific evidence for evolution is nowadays overwhelming.
But what if Evolution is God’s tool? Darwin never said anything about God. And many scientists believe it would be perfectly logical to think that a divine being used evolution as a method to create the world. Henry Drummond also combined both theories when he talked about the length of the first day of the Creation. Albert Einstein himself was convinced there was intelligent life behind the universe. And nowadays, scientists are not less likely to believe in God and they say there is no conflict between their faith and their work.
There is, of course, no way to prove religious faith scientifically; and there isn’t a test able to tell the difference between a universe created by God and one that appeared without God either. Nevertheless, science and religion can explain different things. As Greene said, ‘‘Science is very good at answering the how questions, such as ‘how did the universe evolve to the form that we see?’. But it is woefully inadequate in addressing the why questions. Why is there a universe at all? There are the meaning questions, which many people think religion is particularly good at dealing with.’’
Science keeps progressing, going deeper and deeper each time. But it doesn’t really matter how further their research go or how tiny the particles they find are, because there will still remain a why at the end as to why the ultimate rules are the way they are.
Indeed, science provides theories to explain how certain aspects of our world came to be: science is the study of our existence. Religion answers the mysteries unsolved by science, such as why certain aspects of our world exist and what or who decided why it should exist: religion is the explanation behind why we exist.
Even the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, said ‘Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis’ (Vatican, 22 October 1996). Religion doesn’t question the idea if the Genesis, but this declaration of John Paul II shows the point of view of Church has evolved and integers the scientific advances,
Personally, I think that Creationism and Darwinism are not incompatible. First of all because the Bible is a text that has a symbolic meaning, and we should not read it at the first degree. For example I don’t think God pulled out Adam’s rib to create Eve. Moreover, there are some contradictions in the Bible itself, for instance it is written that Noah took two animals o each species and put them on the Ark, and in a later section it says that he took seven pairs of animals.
And second of all I think that the Bible and the theory of Evolution respond to different questions: I agree with the fact that science answers the how questions and religion the questions and religion the why questions.
The town people of the movie first only believed in Creationism because they didn’t know, and refused to, Darwin’s theory of Evolution. However, times have changed and we now recognize that both theories can be used effectively together to find answers about our past. Both points of view are of equal value, one should not be discredited over the other. And as Albert Einstein said, ‘Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind’.
Bibliography:
-
Video Inherit the wind; by ; 1960
-
National Geographic Society; 1996-2005;
- Farlex Inc.; USA (Huntigdon Valley, PA 19006); 2005
search ‘creationism’, ‘theory of evolution’ and their links.
