"Can God and Darwinism Coexist?" an article I did on Helium.com

Throughout much of the modern media today, both the extremes of atheistic evolution and young earth creationism have found the spotlight. As our science has developed over the centuries, the piercing question of, "Is there really something out there?" has continued to plague us. Such developments include the publishing of the Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin in 1859 and the development of Gregor Mendel's Laws of Inheritance just a few years later finally began to shed some light on this question much to the dismay of the church.

In lieu to the more pertinent question at hand, "Can God and Darwinism coexist?" we must determine a few things if we are to have a successful "experiment in logic and science" at all. The questions that we have are, "What God are we talking about? The God of the Jews, and the Christians? Perhaps Allah of the Muslims?" We could even be referring to the Bhagavn of the Hindus. I think this question would be most objectively argued from the perspective of a "model deity" meaning the general sort of "God" concept that all faiths share in some fundamental way with whom they attribute the creation of the universe and the state of affairs and relationships between that deity and man. However, this particular inquiry is to some degree loaded to bring the God of the Jews and the Christians, Yahweh, into the spotlight. The next set of questions that we have must define what we mean when we say "Darwinism." Certainly we are not to place ourselves in nineteenth century Europe and debate about the issues plaguing both the Darwanists and the Theists of that day; no, we are indeed talking about whether or not the God of the Bible could possible coexist with the modern theories of evolution as recognized today.

To make sure that we cover all bases, I'm first going to discuss the two extremes that we often hear about in the media. The first of which being that of young earth creationism, the second being atheistic evolutionism.

"Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'arets." This transliteration of Hebrew contained in Genesis 1:1 reads, "In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth." He went on to say, "Vayomer Elohim na'aseh adam betsalmenu kidemutenu veyirdu bidegat hayam uve'of hashamayim uvabehemah uvechol-ha'arets uvechol-haremes haromes al-ha'arets. Vayivra Elohim et-ha'adam betsalmo betselem Elohim bara oto zachar unekevah bara otam. Vayevarech otam Elohim vayomer lahem Elohim peru urevu umil'u et-ha'arets vechiveshuha uredu bidegat hayam uve'of hashamayim uvechol-chayah haromeset al-ha'arets." (Genesis 1:26-28) This was the concerning the first account of the creation of man. Many passages such as these tell of a creation that took place in six "days" (I place quotes around days because of the various opinions surrounding the translation of the Hebrew word for day, yom, as potentially being translated as an undefined period of time or era), and picks up with the story of Adam and Eve leading all the way through to the story of Moses and the Patriarchs. As there are numbered lifespans ascribed to the various people in the Genesis account, many Christians who subscribe to the very literal interpretation of Genesis and thusly young earth creationism would testify that Genesis tells us that man, the earth, and the universe for that matter are approximately six thousand years old. This is how we will define "young earth creationism."

As we come to atheistic evolutionism, to be fair, we do not restrict ourselves to just this field of science. For the purposes of this particular discussion we will encompass both the field of evolution, and the commonly accepted Big Bang Theory so that we might level the playing field in regards to time. Though there is no scientific consensus on the origins of life (though there are proposals), I do not deny that the science of tomorrow will only further develop the theory of evolution; in this way we will give evolution the benefit of the doubt. So too with modern physics, we will entrust that later developments in physics will allot for our present lack of understanding in the mechanics regarding the initial moments after the Big Bang.

It first should be reminded of us that there are a great many Christians, and some Jews that also adhere to another particular "literal" translation of Genesis relating back to the Hebrew word, "yom", we discussed earlier. Many make an attempt to reconcile the "literal" translation of "yom" as being "and undefined period of time; or era" with that of the precepts of evolution current theories about the origins of the universe. This, in a sense, would allow for some sort of reconciliation with these two vastly different doctrines. This explanation by some modern Christians, coupled with a similar argument recounted and summarized by another author on Helium, Eric Lannak, details of a dialogue between man and God about the "creation event." The dialogue, in a somewhat humorous manner, reminds us that mankind did not always have the understanding of science that we have today, and that, consequently, such an explanation of evolution and the creation of the universe (if it matched those current theories of evolution and astronomy) would make little sense to a man of prehistoric cultural foundation. This is important to note in our discussion, not that some individuals interpreted Genesis in any particular way, but that man had little scientific knowledge between 500 and 1000 BCE (when Genesis is believed to have been written and reached its final form).

A noted Hebrew scholar, Dr. Ting Wang (a professor of Biblical Hebrew at Stanford University in California) would argue that Genesis "means what it says" and that the earth, and the universe are indeed told by Genesis to be 6,000 years old. He gives a compelling argument that one should interpret "yom" as meaning "day" and not "an undefined period of time or era" as it is modified by a number and is contextually surrounded by the descriptive terms of having an evening and morning. Others aside from him would argree that Genesis indeed "says what it means", meaning, that though Genesis recounts its events as "days" that the style of authorship, much like other pieces of literature and creation tales of the time were written allegorically or even poetically. Though Wang disagrees with this notion as an explanation, many scholars hold firm on both sides of the fence.

As our question bears further down upon us we really do have to ask, "Does the Book of Genesis really recount events describing evolution and the Big Bang, or are we simply trying to fill in the "gaps" of the Bible with scientific data of today?" This is a question perhaps best left for another time; another "yom." if you will. Something I do think is very important to all of us, however, is that as seekers of truth, we ought not fall into the politics of arguments such as these, or any for that matter, and that we analyze the data best available to us at the time and attempt to make some sort of decision for ourselves.

When it comes to creationism of any form, both "young earth" and "old earth" we have to remember that we cannot conduct any sort of scientific experiment to verify the existence of God. Whether it be the God of the Jews, the Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Jains, etcetera or any for that matter, we cannot provide "proof" sufficient for the scientific community. This I believe has much to do with a proposition as fallible as "Can God create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?", and that is that theists around the globe are being challenged to "prove" the existence of a supernatural being, with natural explanations. If indeed there is a God, most would agree that "He" would "exist outside" of this universe and that the mechanics with which we explain phenomena within it (physics) would become useless to us.

Something I brought to our attention earlier was that when the Book of Genesis was written, mankind had no understanding of science as we do today. Such explanations were meaningless to human beings at that time. From research too arduous to go into detail about in this article, the archaeological community is finally having a picture of the ancient world form before their eyes. They see the Sumerians emerge with a written language around 3000 BCE and the Egyptians erecting the great pyramids of the Pharaohs. Many of the great epics of history were recorded from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Enuma Elish. The great laws of Hammurabi stretched its hand from Babylon all the way through our recorded history. Many of these themes we see in the Bible: accounts of creation, great floods, laws for civilized man on and on to give us context for our treasured creation narrative. I think that as more is learned about science the creation account in Genesis will be given more and more light, for better of for worse.

I would just like to say that no matter how you view the Book of Genesis, that from what we know it is a book that contains history. Whether or not it is a historical book is up to you. It contains stories of love and struggle, of hardship and defeat, and of a relationship between God and a peculiar people of the Mesopotamian region. I think that the important question for us to ask really is not whether or not the events described in Genesis really happened that way, but to discern as to whether or not the account tells us about a relationship between God and a people that is of use to us. Does it show us anything about human nature that we can use today? Does this story of creation teach us about the role of God in the creation of the universe? I think so.

In Christ,

Stephen