Introduction
“In the beginning there was…” can lead to complete concurrence or dissension depending on what completes that statement. If the Evolutionary theory is added to complete the statement, then you will have the scientists’ concurrence and the Christians’ dissension. If Biblical creation completes that statement, then you will have the Christians’ concurrence and the scientists’ dissension. There are also various positions that find themselves in-between the two sides; some Christians believe in the Evolutionary theory, while some scientists are Christians and believe their Bible. This paper focuses on the argument between Christians who believe that the Bible is clear about creation, the scientists who believe that science paints a different picture, and the ever-increasing middle ground that sees both sides coinciding rather than contradicting the other. It also will be written under the assumption that God exists. Many Christians tend to demonize science because it seems to revoke their traditional values; however, scientists see their work as not revoking traditional values, but progressing onto better values. A good example of this in another realm would be that slavery was a traditional value and seemed to be Biblical, but it was morally wrong and we progressed onto a better set of ethics, which were better supported by the Bible than slavery was.
Seeking Knowledge
It is a universal idea that knowledge is a good thing and this is explained in Sir Francis Bacon’s quote, “Knowledge is power,” and I would add the quote from Stan Lee (writer of Spiderman), “With great power comes great responsibility.” Seeing these two quotes we know that knowledge makes us powerful and with that power we must be responsible. Christians may still refuse to accept knowledge outside of God’s word as Lisle does: “From these kinds of biblical references, we know that the elapsed time between Adam and the birth of Christ was roughly 4,000 years. From other historical records, we know that Christ was born 2,000 years ago. … the entire universe, and everything in it were created approximately 6,000 years ago” (Lisle, 2006, pp. 40). His point seems valid, but it would assume that the genealogies in the Bible contain all of the people in that family; side by side comparison of them reveals that they do not. Another author, Sarfati (2004), states, “it [is] vital to establish the primary authority of Scripture over science,” which is an issue because the Bible is not science, it is a narrative of a god that people may or may not choose to believe exists. Those who believe in God should believe that all knowledge that is true must come from God because God created it all. If we read Genesis, we see that God created all things and manipulated his creation through words - that means that everything that has come to be came to be through God’s word. Knowing this, we can assume that any scientific knowledge comes from God because science is the study of God’s creation. If we stop seeking knowledge, then we stop seeking God because God created knowledge, therefore, it is a part of Him.Furthermore, the Christians must realize that they are not always correct in their interpretations of scripture or their ideas about the world because operating under the assumption that you are correct and the Bible backs you up will lose the intellectual crowd. Scientists and other intellectual peers will not listen to someone who rejects their (scientists and intellectual’s) knowledge and glorifies their own because the same things have been done during every scientific advancement. Science found that the world was not flat, but was actually round and the church denied it with scripture; science found that the sun was the center of the universe rather than the earth and the church denied it with scripture; science progressed to create the theory of evolution and the church denies it with scripture. “Haught points out ... that “creation science” is not actually a science. It is a prime example of conflation -- collapsing a literal reading of religious text into a scientific explanation regarding creation” (Michaud, 2010, pp. 907). The common theme here is that science figures something out and the Christians deny what science has done and tend to misuse the scriptures that seem to defend their views. The Christian crowd should open their minds to possibilities and see scientific progress as further enlightenment and not an attack on their beliefs. I think if Christians were truly educated on the Evolutionary theory, then they may not be so hostile towards it. Michaud (2001, pp. 909) also says, “If God is essentially self-giving love, and if love in turn entails ‘letting the other be,’ then, theologically speaking, both the world’s original coming into being and it’s indeterminate evolutionary transformation through time would be completely consonant with the Christian experience of God.”
The Theory of Evolution
The Evolutionary theory consists of five different sections, but only two of the sections are known to the general public; these five parts are Cosmological evolution, Abiotic evolution, Biological evolution, Socio-Cultural evolution, and Posthuman evolution (Palaeos). Of these five, the two that we know of are Cosmological evolution (the Big Bang) and Biological evolution (what one thinks of when one hears evolution). I will be focusing on what the Cosmological portion of evolution states. The Big Bang theory has six basic sections within it; the initial expansion, the plasma fog, “recombination”, “reionization”, the birth of solar systems, and the never-ending expansion (Chow, 2001). In the beginning there was a fourth dimensional mass that expanded (not exploded) when light separated from the mass. Scientists are unsure of why light separated, but they do know that this is what caused the expansion of the universe. In the first fractions of a second, the universe expanded and doubled in size approximately ninety times; this exponential increase has been observed today through telescopes viewing galaxies that are extremely far away and getting farther at an increasing speed. As light separated, it caused more chemical reactions to happen due to the absence of the light chemicals; these chemicals combined to make hydrogen and helium. Even though the light had separated and should have lit up the mass, the temperature in the mass was so great that it stifled any chance for the light to shine; the atoms crashing around in the mass also created a dense fog-like mask to cover light. After close to 380 thousand years the reactions had slowed down enough for the universe to cool off and light would have been able to shine, but all of the light chemicals had extinguished and we wouldn’t have another lighting until the stars formed. Another 399.62 million years passed (400 million years total) before the “age of reionization” occurred; in this age, nebulae (gas clouds) began to collapse on themselves and create stars and galaxies (Chow, 2001, 6). The reionization age was thought to take close to 500 million years, but scientists are beginning to believe that it took much less time due to new evidence. Scientists believe that our solar system formed approximately 9 billion years following the Big Bang and that it is 4.6 billion years old; this would mean that they believe that the Big Bang happened approximately 13.6 billion years ago and the article states that the Big Bang happened 13.7 billion years ago (Chow, 2001). This theory seems to add up when looked at subjectively, but lets move on to the Christian side of the argument.
The Theory of Creation
See Appendix A for full Biblical creation story
Even though the scientists seem to have a rock solid theory on creation, the Christians have a timeless book that has never been formally proven wrong; though many people try to prove it wrong and believe that they have. It is quite understandable why the Christians would be upset about the Big Bang theory considering it fuels so many atheists to deny the Christian god and at first glance it seems to deny their holy book. But, if we look into what the Bible says about creation and what the Big Bang says, is there a firm contradiction between the two theories or are there just minor details? We know that challenging the Bible is unacceptable, but is it unacceptable to challenge an interpretation of it? As stated above, at first glance, the Bible does appear to contradict the Evolutionary theory of the Big Bang and vice versa due to one seeming to state that God created everything and the other that everything happened due to chain reactions. They seem to be at ends, but we should do an in-depth analysis of what the Bible says before we come to any solid conclusion.There are six basic ideas of creation in the Bible just as there are six in the Big Bang; however, not all of these line up. The six steps in the Bible are; God creates the heavens and the earth and makes light, God separates (expands) the heavens from the earth, God creates land and vegetation, God creates the sun, moon, and stars, God creates birds and fish, and God creates the land creatures including humans (New American Standard Bible, Genesis 1.1-31). As we can see, there are some differences in the two theories, but lets look further into the Biblical side of creation.
In Genesis we see that God created the heavens and the earth, but He did not create light, He told the light to be and the light came from the heavens and the earth. I come to this assumption because Genesis 1 only says that God created the heavens and the earth, the sea monsters, and man and the rest says that He spoke things to be (Genesis 1.1-5). On the next day we see that God separated the heavens from the earth; the waters above are heaven and the waters below are the earth. The expanse that God made will later be described as the sky and space. When we look at the Hebrew in this scripture, we will find the word raqia, which means to stretch out and therefore, God did not create anything new, but continued to manipulate His original creation (Genesis 1.6-8). God then made dry land appear from the earth and we see again that He didn’t create anything new here, He just further manipulated the heavens and the earth. God also caused vegetation to rise up from the earth (Genesis 1.9-13). Next, God made the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens, which can be recognized as the sky and space and in this case refers to space. It will be shown later how God did not create the sun and stars from nothing. The Bible refers to the moon as a light, which conflicts with what we know about the moon reflecting the sun’s light; this will be explained later also (Genesis 1.14-19). The last portion of scripture goes beyond our topic of Cosmological evolution and pushes into Biological evolution, but this passage can help further explain that the heavens means the sky and space because the birds fly in the sky. This is the only other scripture in Genesis 1 that says God created, but this is prefaced with Him saying let it be and therefore can be seen as a further manipulation of the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1.20-23).
Combining the Theories
Now that we have read into both theories, we can adequately assess the two and see if they truly contradict or corroborate each other. If we set the two theories side by side, I propose that we will see a similar picture with a few mix-ups here and there. We see that both stories start with a single mass; the heavens and the earth and the fourth dimensional mass are most likely the same thing (Genesis 1.1). Next, we have the separation of light from the mass and God pulls the light from the heavens and the earth (Chow, 2001, 8 & Genesis 1:3). This separation causes the mass to expand and God expands the heavens from the earth (Chow, 2001, 8 & Genesis 1:7). The Cosmic evolutionary theory then states that nebulae then condensed into stars and you have to skip down in the Bible to see God create the sun, moon, and stars (Chow, 2001, 6 & Genesis 1:14). God had to recreate light because the temperature caused by Him expanding everything exhausted the light that He originally created. We also see that the Bible mentions the moon as a light giver, but the word for light in this passage is ‘owr, which means to be light or to be illuminated and we know that the moon is illuminated by the sun and in turn lights the earth during the night. The simple portion of the theories ends there and as you can see, there are a lot of similarities between the two. The Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development contains a passage that says, “Today, more and more scholars, including leading scientists, theologians, and philosophers are characterizing the relationship as complementary and interactive” (Scarlett, 2006, pp. 401). Imagine for a moment that you are an Ancient Near Easterner and you have no access to scientific knowledge and one day God gives you a vision of a fourth dimensional mass (unimaginable because we have no concept of the fourth dimension) and then it lights up and expands, but as it expands the light dies, then you see volcanoes erupting and lava turning into land, and then stars began to form in the sky. If you saw all of that and heard God’s voice orchestrating it all, would you imagine a very different creation account in the Bible? The days in the creation account also seem to be separated by God saying that what He had done was good, this would also line up with an ancient man being gifted with a vision as he wouldn’t be given a 13.7 billion year vision (see appendix B). We should also recognize that the word for day in these stories is yō·wm which means, day, daylight (sunrise to sunset), or time period and not bay·yō·wm, which means a literal day (Deem, 2006).
Conclusion
In light of this evidence, I would conclude that neither evolution without God, nor God without evolution is an accurate way to assess the knowledge that we have either been given or studied for ourselves. After all, how could the Bible outline an event that happened before life existed and tell it fairly accurately? How could science research the origins of the world without God and come to the same general description of Genesis 1? I don’t think it is possible unless they are both correct. Houlis (2007) quotes Steven Hawking in an article on this topic, “even if science could manage to explain everything that happened from the birth of the universe to this day, it will not be able to explain why.” I believe that the church needs to step back and realize that it was wrong about the earth’s shape and orbit before while using scripture to back it up and could be doing the same thing now with evolution. I also believe, however, that science should stop working to prove Christianity wrong and to work more on understanding how God did it all. Even the atheist author Stenger admits that science cannot disprove God (Stenger, 2013, pp. 300). I believe that if the church was educated on what science really says and if scientists were educated on what the Bible really says, then there would be a lot less friction between the two and a lot more advancement for us both. Who knows, maybe science could help prove Christianity 100% right or maybe there is a brilliant Christian who would revolutionize science, but refuses to be a scientist due to the conflict with his faith. Finding a middle ground between science and faith would glorify God because science is the study of what God has done and faith is the worship of Him for what He has done; if we combine them, then I think we could really grow in our attitudes of worship towards Him.
Appendix A
(New American Standard Bible, Genesis 1.1-23)“1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. 6 Then God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ 7 God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. 8 God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. 9 Then God said, ‘Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so. 10 God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them’; and it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. 13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day. 14 Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. 20 Then God said, ‘Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.’ 21 God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ 23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.”
Appendix B
Works Cited
Chow, D. (2011, October 18). The universe: Big bang to now in 10 easy steps. SPACE.com. Retrieved from http://www.space.com/13320-big-bang-universe-10-steps-explainer.html (Web)Deem, R. (2006, September 12). Does the bible say god created the universe in six 24-hour days?. Evidence for God. Retrieved April 30, 2014, from http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/sixdays.html
Genesis. New American Standard Bible. La Habra, CA: Foundation Publications, for the Lockman Foundation, 1971. Print. (Book)
Houlis, M. (2007, December 17). Faith and science: Contradictory or complementary meanings?. Retrieved from http://www.oodegr.com/english/epistimi/sxesi3.htm (Web)
Lisle, J. (2006). Taking back astronomy. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, Inc. (Book)
Michaud, A. (2010). John Haught--Finding Consonance between Religion and Science. Zygon: Journal Of Religion And Science, 45(4), 905-920. (Scholarly Source)
Palaeos (n.d.). Palaeos: Cosmic Evolution - the big picture. Retrieved April 13, 2014, from http://palaeos.com/cosmic_evolution/index.html
Sarfati, J. (2004). Refuting compromise: A biblical and scientific refutation of "Progressive Creationism" (billions of years), as popularized by astronomer Hugh Ross. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, Inc. (Book)
Scarlett, W. (2006). Science and religion. In E. Dowling, & W. Scarlett (Eds.), Encyclopedia of religious and spiritual development. (pp. 401-402). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412952477.n214 (Encyclopedia)
Stenger, V. (2013). God and the atom. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. (Book)
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