Evolution and The Bible

Keeping it Real?

One of the ministers in my church gave a mini-sermon entitled “Keeping it Real.” The message was that we need to keep God and the Bible real in our lives instead of using the reality of the world as an excuse to not live according to God’s plan. I agree with the intent of this message but not when it is used to justify unscientific views of the world like Intelligent Design.

The minister dismissed the theory of evolution as being “full of holes” in favor of the intelligent design which is more popular among religious leaders. This view of the world is not “keeping it real”. Scientific observation is reality. That is not to say that scientists do not make mistakes. Scientists frequently record what they see with bias. They also make inaccurate conclusions, but what we observe is our reality, and “keeping it real” should not dismiss the reality inherent in scientific observation.

God is real, and so are our observations. Our conclusions based on those observations can be in error. So can our conclusions based on our reading of the Bible. Keeping both real can lead to a richer understanding of our world. Applying a belief in both the Bible and scientific observation can guide us to a richer understanding of our world and the Bible. Religious authorities once believed theories that a round earth which revolves around the sun was heresy. Instead, they could have accepted the reality of our scientific observations as evidence that God created a much more magnificent universe than the world they formerly understood.

If we truly believe in the reality of God, then new, scientific knowledge is not a threat. New knowledge will prove many of our prior beliefs to be false, but it won’t change reality. Our beliefs that are based in reality will survive. Those that are not will be proven false.

"When I was child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."
I Corinthians 13:11

When I read Genesis as a child, I re-interpreted the story based on my experience. I watched cartoons full of super heroes with super powers. Hence, I imagined God as a well-built, costumed magician who waved his hand, conjuring a formless planet on one day, the sky on the next, and humans from dust several days later. Now, I know more. We know more.

We know enough to reread Genesis as better informed adults. We know that comic book super heroes do not exist. We know how long it takes for atoms like carbon and uranium to decay, and that this information can be used to determine the age of some rocks and bones. We know that the chemical composition of these rocks and bones suggests that the life on earth has existed for billions not thousands of years. These facts and conclusions do not mean Genesis is wrong. They mean our old interpretation of Genesis could be wrong. The earth is not flat, but maybe it is more magnificent.

The question is, “What is reality?” Instead of calling Copernicus and Columbus heretics, 15th century Catholics should have asked themselves is, “If Columbus is right, what new things have I learned about Bible and God? What could I have misinterpreted?”

Let’s explore potential misinterpretations.
Our old interpretation of Genesis is that God created heaven and earth on the first day and man on the sixth day. Hence, since Adam was the first man and his geneaology goes back less than 10k years, then the earth can only be no more than 10,000 years old. Tests of rocks in the earths crust, on the other hand, suggest that the earth is 4 Billion years old, 400k times older. This is a significant gap if we hold to our old interpretation of Genesis. We could ignore reality, or we can reread the Bible and question our old interpretation.

The Bible (NIV) says,

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth …and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters … And God said, ‘Let there be light’ … there was evening and morning – the first day. And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse between waters’ … And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day.”

These are the days of creation according to Genesis:

1.	Let there be light separated from darkness
2.	Let there be an expanse between the waters called sky
3.	Let dry ground appear … Let land produce vegetation
4.	Let there be lights [stars] in the sky … God made two great lights [sun/moon]
5.	Let the water teem with living creatures, birds fly, and multiply
6.	Let the land produce living creatures … Then God said let us make man
7.	On the seventh day he rested

In light of our new information about the world, could we have misinterpreted Genesis to mean the earth is less than 10k years old? Moses, the author of Genesis, never explicitly stated that the earth is 10k years old.

•	What if Moses did not literally mean seven consecutive days? Perhaps Genesis recounts the 7 greatest days in earth’s history.
•	What if the beginning was billions of years ago? Perhaps the spirit of God hovered over the waters for billions of years before God said, “Let there be light”
•	What if an event occurred that set all of these events into play? Perhaps “let there be” did mean “there will now be.”
•	What if “the light” was a (divine) meteor? Perhaps God terra-formed the earth with a meteor that arrived with DNA, materials, and such force that it cleared the sky, made stars visible, and forever changed what there would be on the surface of the earth?
•	What if Adam was not the first man? Perhaps “creation” existed for billions of years and “man” existed for millions of years before Adam?
•	What if Adam is the missing link between chimps Neanderthals and modern man? Perhaps our temporal lobe, the part of our brain that gives us the power of reason, evolved after our ancestors ate from the tree of knowledge. (It should be noted that the increased brain size helps make child birth uniquely painful for human females.)

This is just one set of scenarios. It is unlikely that they are all true. These scenarios are more complicated than are old assumptions though. The real truth may be even more complicated. Can the truth be more complicated? Yes. Is a round earth that revolves around the sun more complicated? Yes. Is God complicated, wonderful, mysterious, knowable, and real? Yes.

Let’s keep God real. Intelligent design has no basis in reality. Evolution is scientific and real. Let’s teach it to our children in school and show them how it links to the Bible at home.
And that is “keeping it real.”