Guest Column by Jessica Gardner
Do you remember walking into science class for the first time to discover that you were going to learn about evolution?
During those times, I would find myself thinking that my teachers were trying to corrupt my mind with scientific facts that went against my religion, Christianity.
I would think to myself that all they teach is about Earth’s beginnings in the context of evolution. They wouldn’t teach the specifics of creationism.
Over time, I began believing that evolution was also true. The facts accounted for themselves and explained all too easily how living things became as they are today. Once I realized my belief in this, I asked myself, “How can I believe in both evolution and creationism?”
According to the theory of evolution, the world began as random acts of natural forces joining together.
Based on evolutionary theory, the organisms we see on Earth today exist because genes have adapted, evolved and been naturally selected throughout many generations of beings.
Another theory that exists is that of creationism. This theory states that an all-powerful being (a.k.a. God) willed Earth into existence. According to creationism, the all-powerful being had created the different kinds of living things that developed into the population of Earth that exists today.
With creationism, the unanswered question is, “What happens physically when a being is willed into existence?” Things do not just pop up out of thin air. With evolution, the question is how random acts of natural forces can lead to the complex life forms we see today. If taken into account all the probabilities of the evolutionary events in Earth’s history, the place we call Earth seems like a work of fantasy.
Individually, these theories seem to not give an accurate enough answer, but when both theories are considered under the same entity, the flaws of one theory explain the other.
For example, the evolution theory’s explanation that the Earth has come into existence by random acts is rather questionable.
If combined with creationism’s explanation, the will of an all-powerful being brought Earth and its beings into existence, then the random acts are no longer random. There is a reason as to why things happened as they happened.
In other words, evolution is the mechanics of creationism. The things that the all-powerful being wills into existence are created by the means of evolution. This belief is known more commonly as theistic evolution or evolutionary creationism. The name “theistic” evolution comes from the Greek word “theos,” which means “personal God.”
Denis O. Lamoureux, an associate professor of science and religion at St. Joseph’s College in the University of Alberta, has written an article about the evolutionary creationism theory. Throughout this article he explains the parallels of creationism and evolution.
He also points out that no Christian believes that God physically comes down and places a nose, ear, arm, eye, etc. on a baby in a woman’s womb. Instead, Christians believe in embryonic development.
He parallels the Christian’s acceptance of embryonic development to how evolutionary creationists believe that God does not physically cause every little change in Earth’s biological makeup. Instead, it simply happens through evolution.
At the end of Lamoureux’s article, he states, “The intention of the Bible is to teach us that God is the Creator, and not how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit created.”
For believers of evolution, consider the slim reality of Earth’s creation. Maybe this can shed a light on why people believe there is an all-powerful being.
For believers of creationism, consider who was and is in existence as Charles Darwin observed the finches of the Galapagos Islands so many years ago. If evolution doesn’t exist, what were the patterns that Darwin observed?
It may be hard to believe that religion and science can overlap to explain how today’s organisms came into being, but when it comes down to the facts, evolution and creationism fill in each other’s gaps.
lancegeologist • Oct 2, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Believe in a God if you want to, study the history of the Earth. If you do both one will find tremendous beauty around us, now and during the past 400 million plus years. One would also find that the history of the Earth is on of change. Mountains come and go, life changes, some forms of life die out, other forms change and become different from past forms. All this if available in the geologic record and the genetic record.However there is NOTHING in the geologic record that says there is or is not a God(s).Believe is your God, teach about your God in your home and place of worship, however look at the FACT of change over time and teach science in schools . Evolution is NOT a belief system. One does NOT “believe” in evolution, one observes evolution ( change). That evolution has occurred is a fact. How all life came to be is unknown, but many have beliefs about that point.How life changes through time is being discovered, that is the nature of science. Examine evidence, postulate reasons to support the evidence and test or examine the postulated thesis. “God ” did it is not a scientific reason, it is a religious belief and not testable.why not believe God started life and gave it a push and then let it roll on?My point is this, science and observation of the earth and the history of the earth does not have to be in conflict with a belief in a God.Examine physics,geology,biology,chemistry,math and still believe in a God,if you wish to, they are not in conflict unless one forces a conflict.
Jason • Sep 30, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Jessica, you don’t seem to have read or be aware of any arguments against the thoroughly unoriginal idea you present in your column. I defer to a much better writer than myself:
“Let us grant the assumption of the religious. Some one or some thing was indeed “present at the creation,” and gave the order to let matter explode and then let the evolutionary process begin on this planet. Never mind that this assumption could never conceivably be proved. Make the assumption, anyway. After all, it cannot be decisively disproved, either, any more than any other random unsupported assumption.
The godly person still has all his work ahead of him. On what authority can he hope to show that the original flying-apart of matter was set in motion with the object of influencing life on a minute speck of a planet, billions of years later, at the very margins of the whirling nebulae and amid the extinction of innumerable other worlds? […]
Or again, and coming down in point of scale by several titanic orders of magnitude, and given that at least 98 percent of all species on this tiny speck of a planet made only a few hesitant steps “forward” before succumbing to extinction, on what warrant is it proposed that all this massive dying-out and occasional vast life-explosion (as in the Cambrian period) also had as its sole object the presence of ourselves? And isn’t it odd that religion, which continually enjoins an almost masochistic modesty upon us in the face of god, should encourage such an extreme and impossible form of self-centeredness and self-regard? By trying to adjust to the findings that it once tried so viciously to ban and repress, religion has only succeeded in restating the same questions that undermined it in earlier epochs. What kind of designer or creator is so wasteful and capricious and approximate? What kind of designer or creator is so cruel and indifferent?” – Hitchens
expat • Sep 30, 2011 at 12:32 pm
As an American living abroad, it was refreshing to read the thoughtful and mature observations of a Christian who is not at odds with accepted science and is comfortable enough in her own beliefs to not feel threatened by those of others. If God used the natural process of evolution to create man, then science and religion are not in conflict, as so many opinions on both sides of the argument presume.
However, there appears to be some confusion when you wrote:
“For example, the evolution theory’s explanation that the Earth has come into existence by random acts is rather questionable. “
Firstly, evolution deals only with what happened after the first single-celled organism appeared. The study of how life originated is called abiogenesis. Evolution makes no claims as to how life began. And geological history is a lot more helpful in explaining how the earth was formed than evolution. Evolution’s ‘random acts’ have to do with natural selection and have nothing to do with astronomy or geology.
Secondly, if these ‘random acts’ are ‘rather questionable,’ then I assume you’ve looked at some statistics. Taken from a creationist website, the probability of a single-celled organism coming into existence is 1057,800 to one. That’s 57,800 zeros. Rather questionable is an understatement. Nobody would take that bet and you make the understandable argument that life forming on its own is a fantasy.
Based on that reasoning, your existence is also impossible.
You say: “Christians believe in embryonic development,” which is a natural process resulting from one of 50 to 500 million sperm and one egg meeting during conception. Talk about random. That exact combination needed to create a specific human would not be possible without the exact combinations needed to create that person’s mother, father, grandparents, and so on. Take that back to the dawn of mankind and there is a 1 in 1.8 x 10403167 chance of being born. Statistically, you didn’t write that article because you don’t exist.
And that’s why religion and science don’t go hand in hand or overlap. When a believer feels that a supposedly natural phenomena is rather questionable; they notice a higher power. The scientific thought process never leads to that conclusion. Evolution and creationism certainly do not fill in each others’ gaps, but as you so aptly demonstrated, it is perfectly possible to have faith and accept science.
Mike Magee • Sep 30, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Georg Wald, a scientist, wrote about 50 years ago:
” Throughout our history we have entertained two kinds of views of the origin of life: one that life was created supernaturally, the other that it arose ‘spontaneously’ from nonliving material. The opening paragraphs of the Book of Genesis can be reconciled with either view. In its first account of Creation, it says God commanded: ‘let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life… Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind.’ God is not Himself doing the creating but the waters and the earth. The second version of creation suggests a direct creative act: ‘And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air…’ The Genesis myths therefore justify either view.
This great controversy ended in the mid-19th century with the experiments of Louis Pasteur, which seemed to dispose finally of the possibility of spontaneous generation. For almost a century afterward biologists proudly taught their students this history and the firm conclusion that spontaneous generation had been scientifically refuted and could not possibly occur. Does this mean that they accepted the alternative view, a supernatural creation of life? Not at all. They had no theory of the origin of life, and if pressed were likely to explain that questions involving such unique events as origins and endings have no place in science.
A few years ago, however, this question re-emerged. Conceding that spontaneous generation doe not occur on earth under present circumstances, it asks how, under circumstances that prevailed earlier upon this planet, spontaneous generation did occur and was the source of the earliest living organisms. I have presented a supernatural and a naturalistic view, which were indeed opposed to each other, but only one of which was ever defended scientifically. In this case it would seem that science has vacillated, not between two theories, but between one theory and no theory.
Our present concept of the origin of life leads is that, in a universe composed as ours is, life inevitably arises wherever conditions permit. We look upon life as part of the order of nature. It does not emerge immediately with the establishment of that order; long ages must pass before it appears. Yet given enough time, it is an inevitable consequence of that order. What do those persons mean who make sentences containing the word God? I would be happy to know what they mean much better than I have yet been able to discover. What I have learned is that many educated persons now tend to equate their concept of God with their concept of the order of nature. This is not a new idea; it is firmly grounded in the philosophy of Spinoza. When we as scientists say then that life originated inevitably as part of the order of our universe, we are using different words but do not necessary mean a different thing from what some others mean who say that God created life. It is not only in science that great ideas come to encompass their own negation. That is true in religion also; and man’s concept of God changes as he changes. “
Seal97 • Sep 30, 2011 at 9:53 am
Evolution isn’t about how the earth came to be. Fail.
Herman Cummings • Sep 30, 2011 at 9:26 am
Why are the atheists, clergymen, creationists, educators, and scientists all avoiding the truth of Genesis (Observations of Moses)? Because they all have their own ideology, and want to remain in ignorance. The so-called Bible believers don’t want to change from their false and foolish creationist doctrines, and the atheists want to keep the monopoly of evolution being taught in schools. Yes, there was Creation week, but that is not what Genesis is about.
You can’t teach Creationism in schools. First, no teacher in the system is qualified to do so, and second, Creationism is not the opposing view to evolution. The correct opposing view is the “Observations of Moses”.
Herman
ephraim7@aol.com
Trevor • Sep 29, 2011 at 9:24 pm
This argument really doesn’t accomplish anything. The problem of reconciling evolution with creationism come when trying to fit the theory of evolution into the confines of the creation story in the bible. All the author of this column accomplishes is simply ascribe the name “God” to whatever forces are ultimately responsible for evolution. This doesn’t do anything to fit evolution into the Christian theory of creationism.
straight curve • Sep 29, 2011 at 7:03 pm
There is no theory of creationism. A theory is the well defined result of a scientific process; creationism is the result of rationalizing religious texts in a modern world.
L • Sep 29, 2011 at 6:56 pm
This is ridiculous. First of all, one need not ‘believe’ in evolution. Believing implies that faith is needed. In the case of evolution, you can watch happen in real time under a microscope if you’d like so no faith is needed to know that it is real. Also, you state that the way the earth evolved is some sort of random act which clearly shows that you do not actually know what evolution is. Evolution relies on natural selection to determine what step to take next, it’s not a random process. The genetic mutations which serve the best purpose remain.
Truthfully, I don’t care what you believe. If you want to believe in creationism, that’s your choice. However, to say that creationism ‘fills the gaps’ that evolution theory leaves unanswered is very ridiculous. Are there unanswered questions when it comes to evolution? Certainly, but all that means is that there’s still research to be done. There’s no need to fill the gap with something for which there is no proof. Apparently, you weren’t paying attention in that science class after all.
Derp • Sep 29, 2011 at 12:48 pm
If believers want to play a game where God is the explanation for everything we don’t know about the natural world, that’s fine. You’ve just put your God into an ever shrinking box.