Creation or evolution - Why not both?

Before I go into answering all the questions posed in my previous blog (more on that later this week) I want to talk about the creation story and the creation/evolution argument..

When we talk about what we believe it can with a lot of issues end up being and/or. In this case if you believe in the theory (yes, theory, not proven historical fact) of evolution, then to some or even to most people you can't believe that God created the world.

A question. Why not both?

Can't they be two sides of the same coin?

Why can't God have created the world, and used evolution as His tool? Just because the Biblical story of creation (which is actually a poem, and more likely a metaphor rather than historical fact) doesn't advocate it doesn't mean it isn't how God created.

God is God, and He can do things however He chooses. You don't mess with God.

Its only when we get legalistic or proud, and insist on being right and that you have to believe one or the other that we start to get into the realms of falling out over these things.

Creation/evolution issues have caused major division amongst Christians. There are other issues as well where people are falling out over either/or when it might be both/and. God isn't rigid and bound by anything. He can do as He chooses.

The bottom line is that however it happened, none of it changes the truth about Jesus. It shouldn't do anyway.

The point of the creation story for me isn't to tell us in exact detail how God made the world and isn't necessarily historically accurate (I hear cries of heresy already...). The point is that it illustrates the fact that God made the universe and everything in creation, and that we were the pinnacle of that and rejected Him, hence the need for Jesus.

That's more important than actually knowing the exact details of how He did it. The idea that He made it in six literal 24-hour days has flaws. For a start, the way we measure 24-hour days isn't even created until the third 'day'. So how were days measured before that? Who measured them?

It doesn't add up.

If God used evolution to create the world, then so what? Seriously somebody give me an argument to prove that it matters.

Truth is, it doesn't.

What matters is believing and knowing God made the earth. God created everything. That's the principle behind this story.

Some people criticise Christianity purely on the basis of the creation v evolution argument. But once you tear that down they are left with the simple truth and way of Jesus. Then they have little left on that score. Because they seem to have the same way of thinking, not the three-dimensional way of thinking outside of it all that God has.

It could change everything.

There are some people whose whole relationship with Jesus depends somehow on whether God made the earth exactly as described in the creation story, in six 24-hour days.

If your faith depends on that, then its not very strong faith. Take one thing out and it all falls apart? Not exactly built on rock is it?

However God made the earth, that's up to Him isn't it? The point is He made it, and however He did it doesn't change one bit the truth about Jesus and our need for Him. God created everything, we rejected Him and He sent Jesus to save us and show us how He wants us to live and the values and lifestyle He wants for us.

That's what's important. Not how God made the world.

Science and faith - Complimentary!

There are some people who think science can disprove Christianity. They say that the theory of evolution (note: its a theory) proves once and for all that the creation story in the Bible is rubbish, therefore the rest of it can be written off.

Then when you give them the story of Jesus, they throw science at you again and say He may not even have been dead in the first place and that He didn't rise from the dead.

Okay, lets look at these issues.

Who says science has to disprove faith? Why not science and faith?

For example, the idea of 'the dials' in creation. The proven scientific fact that there are hundreds of different measurements in creation - percentage of salt in the sea (the exact same as in the human body), the exact degree that the earth faces the sun, the distance we are from the moon, the level of certain elements in the air and hundreds of others, that all have to be exactly as they are to sustain life on earth.

Not only that, but the simple truth that if even one were out of sync then it wouldn't matter if all the others were correct. No life on planet earth would exist. Now one or two coincidences is one thing, but hundreds and hundreds (at least 300) all being the exact correct measurement? A complete coincidence and accident?

Not for me. Looks to me like there's some kind of design.

Then there is the fact that scientists are now beginning to conclude that there are at least 11 dimensions to reality, and as many as 13. Scientists are starting to conclude that there is some scientific uncontrollable force out there which governs everything we do. This is science by the way, not some religious texts. Starting to sound similar aren't they?

To me that many coincidences in creation, the different dimensions to reality, the way nature all fits together and apart from all that the sheer beauty in creation suggest to me that there has to be something more. There's simply no other explanation.

Once you come to that conclusion then you look at all the accounts of creation, and the one which sticks out is in the Bible. It may not be the literal description of events, in fact personally I think the creation story is a metaphor, for both the fact that God created the heavens and the earth and designed them, and for the fall of man. Who says that evolution was not the method that God created the universe and life on earth? In fact even more, does it actually matter?

Should our faith in Jesus really be dependent on whether the creation story is literally true?

If it is, I'd humbly like to question just how strong someones faith is. Personally my faith is based on the fact that I believe Jesus is true. That He was who He said He was and that His way is the best way to live. Simple as that.

The creation story and what exactly happened is not as important as what that story represents, and its certainly not what my faith is based on.

But nevertheless, to me the idea that God created the universe explains all the coincidences and science of creation better than any story that it was all just an 'accident'. It only adds to my faith, rather than destroys it. The science of the universe makes much more sense to me when you explain it through the idea that it was specifically designed and created by a sovereign God.

So you see, science doesn't disprove the idea of a creator God. To me it merely strengthens the idea that there is a creator God behind it all and therefore gives me even more confidence that Jesus really is who He said He is and did what the Bible says He did.

If you want to go into whether Jesus was dead, well that's simple to me. The background to the whole story, the science and the historical facts behind it, leads to a different conclusion.

Jesus had been through a Roman flogging, which was known to have killed people on its own without any need for official execution. Following this He had then been executed in the most painful and brutal form of execution ever devised by man. He was totally emotionally drained, and given that He'd been abandoned not just by all His friends but by God as well (unlike anyone else in history) I think its perfectly believable that He died on the cross. To me there is no question. He surrendered His soul to God, He was physically dead.

Even if you question if He was dead, there's the cultural issues and facts around the story of the empty tomb.

It was near enough impossible for a Roman tomb to be opened from the inside, especially by someone with the level of injuries Jesus would have sustained. Roman gravestones would have needed several men to move them, from the outside. Given the amount of Roman guards guarding the tomb, whose lives may have been at stake if they had failed in their job, there is no way the stone could have been moved by anyone without it being noticed. Not a chance.

Then there's the fact that the first person to discover the empty tomb was a woman. In Jewish culture a woman's testimony wasn't valid at all. Only men's' testimony was valid. If Jesus wanted to convince people of a lie that He was risen from the dead, a woman was not the best person to tell first.

Bottom line, to me there's simply no other realistic conclusion than that the story in the Bible is true. Not for me. The evidence otherwise just doesn't add up, scientifically, culturally or historically.

So yet again scientific fact, in this case research about Roman and Jewish culture and how the human body reacted to Roman executions, doesn't destroy faith, it supports it and even encourages it.

Far from one destroying the other, science and faith can in fact be very complimentary.

Be Progressive

People often defend the idea of absolute, fundamental truth.

I agree that at a very basic level, there are basic truths - about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and also scientific truths.

They are all linked as well. Science is part of God's creation. He made it, He defined it, and so any proven 100% (as opposed to 99%) scientific fact can be called true. True about God's creation.

Science is limited however. There is only so much you can measure with science.

However, if you look at science as a dimension of God's creation, or even part of God, then you have a slightly different view. God the creator expressing Himself through creation, and science as a means of making it all happen.

Almost like God created science in order to help us understand His creation and measure it. They are two sides of the same coin. They compliment each other. Science can't 100% prove God's existence, but God can sure explain the existence of science.

There are things about God, and about science, that we don't know yet.

Believe it or not.

In terms of science, well we are learning more every day; there are plenty of people looking for those new ideas.

As for God, well that's a different story. Progressives are always called heretics by their generation.

The problem, which can be found in science as well as in Christianity, is that every generation seems to think they are the enlightened ones, that they have the definitive answers to everything, both spiritually and scientifically.

Each time this happens progressive thinkers come along and come up with new interpretations, new ideas. In science, until they prove it, they are called crazy.

If you're a Christian, you're called a heretic.

The Christian faith as we know it now is very different from that 400 years ago. Most Christians living now would be burnt at the stake as heretics if they went back there and spoke the same things.

Yet now, many of these self-same people call any preacher or church that comes up with progressive ideas which challenge us to look at things or at God in a different way, in a new way, in a way which is radically different from anything before, a heretic.

Here's an interesting fact for you. Jesus Himself was effectively called a heretic. He was accused of blasphemy. He was executed for it in fact.

Is that not a lesson for us?

Every so often a time comes in history where we need to push forward, where we need to look at things in a new way, where God is showing us new dimensions of Himself and giving us new challenges.

The church needs to move forward and adapt and change so that it can communicate a relevant message in a relevant way. The basic truths never change, but how we live them out has to change.

I think often we're more the problem with making Jesus relevant.

We limit the message, we put boxes around it, and we say there is only one right interpretation or meaning to a passage.

Well some people do anyway.

There are so many new things God wants to say through old scriptures. Teachings which don't go against old truths, but elaborate on them, but open them out and open our eyes to new ways of seeing them and new ways of applying them.

Christianity more than ever before is something not just that we believe in, but a way of life. A culture in itself. A way of living, a lifestyle choice.

It always was meant to be so, but now, in the lifestyle culture we live in, that teaching, that interpretation is more relevant now than ever. Being a Christian isn't just about believing and going to church.

It’s a lifestyle choice.

It’s an attitude.

It’s a state of mind.

Based on basic truths found in the Bible.

We need to be humble. We need to be open to anything God says, even if it hurts our pride or ego. Fear too is a boundary to hearing new ideas and teachings from the Bible.

As long as they don't contradict the nature and character of God, as long as they don't contradict the very basic truths in the Bible - at a very basic level - then they are worth considering.

Basic truths for me are summed up beautifully in the Nicene Creed....

"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen."

In my opinion if any teaching comes along which doesn't in any way deny this, and doesn't go against the perfectly just, loving, merciful, gracious and forgiving nature of God then it is worth considering and thinking about.

There is so much more to learn about God, and about how to be a Christian. There's so much more He has to say to us.

Let’s not get so caught up in religion and tradition that aren't aware of how God wants us to live. Now. Today.

Because the way He wants us to live today will be different from what has gone before, purely because the culture, society and world that we live in today is different from even 50 years ago, yet alone 400 years ago.

Let’s not get stuck in tradition. Let’s be progressive. Let’s grow.

Personally I'm excited to see what new things God wants to say and do and I want to be open to see and hear them.

Aren't you?