Phill Sacre

Tag: evolution

  • Is Evolution becoming a religion?

    This other day I read Nick Spencer’s article “The big fat lies of evolution” (you’ll have to read it to understand the title). He talks about the way a layperson – not a scientist – casually used an evolutionary mechanism to explain obesity. He concludes:

    But the use of this narrative [i.e. the evolutionary narrative], by someone who is not by profession an evolutionary biologist … does show how deeply such evolutionary Just So stories have penetrated into our culture, neatly bypassing our cognitive faculties and settling down into the comfortable positions of reserved for received wisdom.

    Oscar Wilde once remarked that “everything to be true must become a religion”. Just so with evolution, as it accumulates the myths and legends that no respectable religion would be seen in public without.

    I found this fascinating. I’ve been thinking about this a little bit recently – how it seems that evolution has reached the “no-one is allowed to question it” stage, at least in wider society. Just this morning on Twitter I saw another round of creationist-bashing (although I imagine pretty much every second on Twitter, someone is ridiculing creationism – it’s apparently an easy target). Now, I’d just like to put my cards on the table and say I’m not a 6-day creationist. However – I wonder if there’s more going on here than meets the eye. The attacks on creationism seem to happen with a religious fervour you don’t find in other places. People rant and rave against it with a shiny-eyed religious zeal. (more…)

  • Creation / Evolution 6: Putting it together…

    This is the final post in my mini-series on “Creation, Evolution and Evangelicalism.” In my last post I looked at what the ground rules would be for interpretation. So in this, the last post on the subject, I will give you the answer you’ve all been waiting for: all your questions about Genesis, Paul, Creation and Evolution will fall away and you will never have to wonder about it again! … I wish. Part of the frustration with a topic like this is that I don’t think there is a clear answer, a clear synergy.

    That’s the main reason why I’ve been somewhat putting off writing this post – because I can’t really give “an answer”. However, I think there are some interesting things I’ve learnt along the way, which I will share with you.

    At some stage in the future I will consolidate all these posts into one, hopefully iron out some of the unevenness which naturally arises from blog posts (well, my blog posts anyway). But for now, here we go…

    Who was Adam?

    There are a variety of explanations, some of which I think are more valid than others.

    One explanation which in some ways is very attractive is that of ‘federal headship’. This is the view Denis Alexander explains in his book. He posits the view that God chose a pair of neolithic farmers (a man and a woman) to be ‘federal heads’ for all of humanity. They then sinned, and that then became the sin which Paul refers to in e.g. Romans 5. This view is attractive because it would fit in well with evolutionary history as far as we know, it would seem to explain about Adam and Eve being farmers at the approximate time period that the Bible seems to indicate they were around, and would seem to fit with God ‘choosing’ people (e.g. God chooses Abraham, God chooses Israel etc.) Under this view, Paul’s reference would not be to Adam and Eve as the progenitors of all mankind in a biological sense, but in a representative sense.

    Such a view might also shed some light on Genesis 6:1-4: It’s an interesting exercise to read that passage in the light of this theory, the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men” … but then, it’s a very difficult passage to interpret any way you look at it. It would also seem to solve the perennial problem “where did Cain get his wife?”, although there are – again – all sorts of options on that subject for every view of origins.

    I’ve heard that Alister McGrath is a proponent of a view like this, although I haven’t been able to find any hard evidence so I’m willing to stand up to correction on that one.

    Of course, there are problems with this view, for example: it seems to do damage to a doctrine of original sin, and leaves unsatisfied the question of what happened to all the other neolithic people.

    Another view is to place the creation of Adam way back approx. 150,000 – 200,000 years ago, to the first hominid pair. Although this would be much earlier than the traditional dating of Adam and Eve, if the Biblical chronology would allow a much longer period of time during Genesis 1-11 it would seem to gel more neatly. Apparently Hebrew genealogies don’t function in the same way that we might write a genealogy, they picked out key people and allowed for the possibility of gaps – of course, 150,000 years is a lot of gaps but then Genesis 1-11 is unique.

    One suggestion which Henri Blocher made is that the reason for the slow development over the course of time after the initial Adam was to do with the fall – i.e. the fall impacted negatively the development of mankind.

    Conclusion

    I think it’s difficult to be proscriptive about the question of origins when there is so much that is still unknown. One thing I’ve been encouraged by is that a lot of the people I’ve read who are conservative theologically also take the question and science of evolution seriously: as such, people like C. John Collins, Henri Blocher and Tim Keller all seem to believe in evolution even if it’s not 100% clear how we fit it all together theologically. (I’ll link to some of the relevant books below).

    What I’d like to conclude with is a quote from Henri Blocher’s essay in ‘Darwin, Creation and the Fall’:

    We should not be embarrassed to conclude with uncertainty: it is a mark of a mature faith, properly based on adequate evidence and serenely bearing the tensions of a pilgrim’s progress by faith, not sight. Free from a neurotic need for certainty on every matter, we trust the trustworthy Creator and Redeemer.

    Helpful Books

    Here are a few of the books which I’ve found helpful:

    • In the Beginning by Henri Blocher – scientifically a bit out of date, but theologically right on the money.
    • Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? by C. John Collins – I found this book really helpful, surveying the relevant literature and Bible passages, as well as surveying some of the models of understanding Adam and Eve in the light of science. Doesn’t draw any firm conclusions but helpful to think some things through.
    • Darwin, Creation and the Fall – a collection of various essays by several different authors, specifically about the problem of the Fall with respect to evolution. I found Blocher’s essay, once again, very helpful – although there were also a number of other helpful essays.
    • Creation or Evolution: Do we Have to Choose? by Denis Alexander – I’m not sure about this theologically, but it’s well worth reading and contains lots of good info about the science.
    • Should Christians Embrace Evolution? by Norman C. Nevin (ed) – the answer of this book is basically “no”; it was written as a response to Denis Alexander’s book. I found this book a bit uneven – I agreed with some of what was said, but I often think the authors went a bit too far in their critique of theistic evolution. That said, it’s still worth a read.
    • Reclaiming Genesis by Melvin Tinker – in the introduction of the book, Melvin explains why Christians shouldn’t see the Bible as being in conflict with evolution. He then goes through and delivers expositions of Genesis 1-12 which are brilliant. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really talk about Adam and Eve and how we should understand them in the light of Paul – but if you want a good exposition of Genesis 1-12 this is good to go for.

  • Creation / Evolution 5 – Ground Rules for interpretation

    This is part five in my (not-so-mini) series on “Creation, Evolution and Evangelicalism”. I’ve talked in previous posts (see that post for all the links) about why I think that so-called “Creationism”, more properly known as Young Earth Creationism or YEC for short, is not a sufficient explanation to account for both the Biblical and scientific data. Well, I’ve now done my assignment and the relevant reading for it and I think I’m in a position to at least move on slightly!

    In my previous post I looked at Genesis 1 and how we might understand that from an old-earth and, I believe, a Biblical perspective. We now come to looking at the rest of the Bible, specifically, what do we do with the question of Adam and Eve? What do we do with the fall? Now I should say at the outset that anything I say here is not going to be anything other than tentative. The long and the short of it is, at the end of the day we just don’t know exactly what happened.

    That said, I think there are a few points which we need to agree on before moving towards any kind of resolution.

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  • Creation / Evolution 4 – Genesis 1

    This is the fourth instalment of my mini-series “Creation, Evolution, and Evangelicalism”. Note that the series is still technically on hold, I just wanted to expand on a couple of things I mentioned in previous posts, namely to do with Genesis chapter 1. All clear? Good! 😉

    But first, a clarification: I mentioned in a previous post that I had problems with ‘creationism’. I probably should have been clearer in this post but the particular version of creationism which I have a problem with is ‘young earth creationism’ (which for brevity I shall refer to as YEC from now on): obviously, all Christians are “Creationists” in the sense that we believe God created the world and “the fulness thereof” (a phrase which Mike Ovey is particularly fond of, from the King James version of Psalm 24:1). However, what I am arguing for is that being a ‘creationist’ does not conflict with being an ‘evolutionist’, in the sense that one can believe both in the creative acts of God and the biological process of evolution.

    The second thing I’d like to clarify is that I’m not necessarily arguing for evolution in the sense that “I’m a scientist and I believe this to be true”. I think my point is more general, that I believe science and Christianity should never be in conflict: that we can accept what science to be saying, provided that it doesn’t come loaded with any metaphysical connotations (i.e. I don’t believe evolutionism is required by science, despite what people like Dawkins would have you believe. Evolution is a scientific model / biological process, it has no concerns with God.) In other words, if scientists come up with a better theory than evolution (or a more refined version) in the future, I’d be happy to go with that.

    That turned out to be a slightly longer clarification than I intended, sorry! – but anyway, what I’d like to talk about in this post is something which is contested by the aforementioned Creationists. I touched on this in my previous post on creationism but I’d like to expand on it now: how are Christians to read Genesis 1?

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  • Creation / Evolution series on hold

    Just wanted to write a quick post to say that my series on Creation and Evolution is on hold at the moment – just started a new course today on the Old Testament, which – amongst other things – looks at the issues around Genesis. There is also a reading list around the subject which I’d quite like to get into before blogging again on the subject, particularly given that I think most people’s objections to evolution and the like would be theological.

    So, I probably won’t be finishing my mini-series until early next year. Just a heads up in case you were holding your breath for it! 🙂

  • Creation / Evolution 3: Why evolution?

    This is the third instalment of my mini-series, “Creation, Evolution and Evangelicalism”. In this post, I intend to explain some of the evidence for us believing in evolution.

    Now, this will probably be the second most contentious post in the series (the most contentious one being the theological post I intend to follow up with): I appreciate that many Creationists see the evidence I will present differently. After I posted up the first part of this series, someone on Twitter sent me a link to a book called “Should Christians Embrace Evolution?”, which is a response to the Denis Alexander book I mentioned I was reading. If you want a Creationist response to the arguments I have presented thus far, and here, I suggest reading that book. (Note that I haven’t read it as yet, I am planning to, but from the reviews I’ve read it seems that is a fair assessment.)

    Part of the problem with scientific data is that I don’t have the expertise needed to evaluate it fairly. If on the one hand many scientists are saying “evolution is true because…” and on the other hand Creationists are saying “evolution is not true because…”, arguing over the science, because I don’t have the knowledge of biology I can’t determine which are necessarily true. All I can do is present some of the arguments, as explained by Denis Alexander, and claim this is the current ‘scientific consensus’.

    Why look at the evidence?

    Now I’m sure some people may be wondering why do we need to even look at the evidence for evolution? Surely the most important thing is the Bible: if the Bible says that we were created in six literal days, several thousand years ago, surely that’s enough for us! Why would we even need to look at the evidence?

    Well, I believe it’s right to look at the evidence for evolution for a number of reasons:

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  • Creation / Evolution 2: The problems with Creationism

    This is the second part of my series “Creation, Evolution, and Evangelicalism“. To be honest, it’s not the most snappy title I’ve ever come up with, but it will do for now.

    In this post I will be exploring the reasons I believe that Creationism is wrong. Creationism is the belief that Genesis 1-2 describe literal events, i.e. that the world was created in six literal 24-hour periods. You can find out more information about it than you’d probably ever want to know on the Answers in Genesis website. Now, I should point out before we start that the Answers in Genesis beliefs were my own up until relatively recently (well, 2003, which I will admit is not all that recent.) In my teenage years I used to get magazines which set out the standard Creationist arguments about flood geology and the like. I probably still have some of the magazines at my parents’ house, I should look them out at Christmas!

    Anyway, my contention is that there are problems with Creationism which aren’t just to do with believing in evolution per se. Let me try and explain a few objections which I have. Note that I’m not arguing here for evolution, I’m just arguing against a literal 6-day Creationism.

    What is a ‘Plain Understanding’ of the text?

    If you read through the Answers in Genesis section on the Bible, you will often find that they appeal to a straight or plain reading of the text. In general, if you believe that the ‘day’ of Genesis 1 is not a 24-hour, literal day then you are being influenced by external factors and not accepting the text as it is speaking to you.

    Now I think this is a wrong way of looking at it for several reasons:

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  • Creation / Evolution 1: Why it matters

    This is the first part on my mini-series Creation, Evolution and Evangelicalism.

    I thought I’d start off by answering the question, “Why does it matter?” Why should we bother discussing issues of evolution – is there any difference in whether you believe in a literal 6-day creation or evolution? Well, in some ways I think the answer is “no”, in that – I don’t think it’s a salvation issue. On the other hand, I do believe it is a huge apologetic issue.

    If people’s perception of Christianity is that it is at odds with science – that’s going to work as a huge barrier to many people from entering into the faith. My science / faith view is that the book of God’s word and the book of God’s works are never in conflict: God created or wrote both the Bible and nature. This is how science originally started – the early ‘natural philosophers’ believed that by doing experiments and finding out how the world worked, they were finding out about the mind of God, so to speak: a Christian worldview underpins the modern scientific endeavour.

    So, I believe primarily the issue with creation and evolution is one of evangelism: it is not our job to make the gospel more offensive. If the Bible is not in conflict with science, we shouldn’t teach that it is. I could be overstating the case here, but it is my belief that people only hear “science has disproved religion” in the media so often because the creationist movement has set it up that way.

    Of course, it’s not just a matter of apologetics, it’s a matter of truth. Perhaps I should have put this first, but still! 6-day creationism and evolution cannot both be true. If we’re getting the teaching of the Bible’s creation narratives a bit wrong, then it’s actually our duty as Christians to fix that and get it right.

    So I hope this lays out why I believe it’s an important debate to have, and why it matters what we believe. In my next post (a teaser? On this blog? Surely not!) I will examine the reasons why I believe 6-day creationism to be false. Stay tuned. (Or, subscribe to this blog. Or, check back soon. Staying ‘tuned’ to a blog probably isn’t really a good metaphor.)

  • Creation, Evolution, and Evangelicalism

    If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you will know that I don’t shy away from the Big Questions: what I had for tea last night (pasta and chicken), what I think of the latest Coldplay album (at the time of writing Mylo Xyloto – I’m not a fan of it at the moment…), and the colour of the jumper I’m wearing (blue. No, gree – aaaaaaaahhhhh!!!! *ahem* apologies for the Monty Python reference).

    However, I thought I’d break the mould this time by writing about creation and evolution: a subject I’ve talked about before on this blog several times. In fact, I have changed my mind since I started writing this blog – when I started this blog back in 2003 I was a 6-day creationist; however after reading a book called “Rebuilding the Matrix” by Denis Alexander I became convinced in the truth of evolution (unfortunately the link in that post to the Crossring forum post doesn’t work anymore as the forums have disappeared into the ether, but still).

    In fact, so great an effect did “Rebuilding the Matrix” have on me that I mentioned it in fellowship group a couple of weeks ago – we each had to talk about a book that changed our lives, and I chose that one. And it was that meeting which has spurred me to thinking about creation again: I had previously thought that evolution was widely accepted in evangelical circles, but it seems that this isn’t always the case. I’m not sure how representative the group of people I was with actually were, but there seemed to be a number of questions to do with the theological significance of evolution: can we trust in the Bible still, if evolution is true?

    Anyway, Denis Alexander has written another work more recently entitled “Creation or Evolution: Do we have to choose?“. I’m half way through reading it at the moment, but he has made some very interesting points already which I’d like to come to in my next post.