Phill Sacre

Tag: science

  • 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 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.