Christian Views on Creation and Evolution

1. Christian Views on Creation and Evolution

2. Young-Earth Creationism Conforms in most respects to a literal reading of scripture. • Is a literal reading of scripture always the appropriate reading? Does not agree with a straightforward interpretation of astronomical, geological, and biological observations. • Could the scientists be wrong or biased in their inter- pretation?

3. Old-Earth Creationism Conforms in most respects to current scientific findings, while admitting some poetical aspects of scripture (e.g., “days” in Genesis 1 represent “ages.”) • How does one decide which parts of scripture to take literally and which to take figuratively? Need to revise whenever scientists find a natural explanation for something attributed to miraculous intervention by God (“God of the gaps”). • Shouldn’t we point out cases where naturalistic explanations seem to fail (e.g., “irreducible complexity” as evidence for intelligent design).

4. “Theistic Evolution” or “FullyGifted Creation” Stresses that scientific explanation is limited in scope and cannot reveal all aspects of truth. God’s creation is “good” in that he does not have to intervene to close “gaps.” • How does this understanding differ from Deism? Seems not to take sufficiently seriously the inspiration of scripture. • This objection would be true only for a particular view of the inspiration of scripture, and one not sanctioned by scripture itself.

5. Two Ironies • Scientists, working from a standpoint of “methodological naturalism,” themselves require a faith very close to that of Christians. When there is no scientific explanation for some phenomenon, they do not give up. They know from past experience that one is likely to be found, just as Christians know from experience of God’s faithfulness that he is present even when it seems that he is not. • Both materialistic scientists and those espousing “creation science” seem to agree (in practice, at least) that scientific truth is the only truth that matters.

6. What is Science? “Authentic science is a way of knowing based upon testable descriptions of the world obtained through the human interpretation of natural categories of publicly observable and repro- ducible sense data, obtained by interaction with the natural world.” —Richard Bube

7. “Nothing Buttery” —Donald McKay This sentence consists of a pattern of black marks on a white background. This sentence is nothing but a pattern of black marks on a white background. An explanation can be a true and complete description on one level, yet miss the most important point on another level.

8. Why is this issue important? • Education: If we are wrong, we will give students both bad science and bad theology. • Evangelism: If we are wrong, we may needlessly prevent people from coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus. “Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow to their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books.” —Augustine

9. The main issues: Interpretation of scripture •Need for cultural as well as linguistic translation •Need for appreciation of literary style Humility and agnosticism •We do not need to claim to have an answer for every quandary. Science vs. scientism •“The Cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be.” —Carl Sagan