If evolution is one of the strongest explanatory theories in any academic field, I mean, the evidence is simply overwhelming, how do Christians reconcile this?
What about the Biblical scholars that generally dismiss Genesis as a "historical" representation... but rather "myth" (however you want to define that)?
I understand I'm courting "controversy" here, but I'd genuinely like to hear this, supposedly, untouchable theological answer.
Evolution is the change of alleles in populations over time, not the assumption of universal common descent going back to and including the Big Bang. Evolution, especially adaptive evolution isn't a theory, it's a phenomenon in nature. All we know about the original creation is that it was in the beginning, creation week follows when God creates life on this planet. Evolution is a living theory that starts when life is created, whether by naturalistic or miraculous means. The controversy is not between creation and evolution but between creation and Darwinism. I would ask your patience in enduring a lengthy quote:
Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited much attention. This justly-celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801; he much enlarged them in 1809 in his "Philosophie Zoologique,' and subsequently, in 1815, in the Introduction to his "Hist. Nat. des Animaux sans Vertébres.' In these works he upholds the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species. He first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition. Lamarck seems to have been chiefly led to his conclusion on the gradual change of species, by the difficulty of distinguishing species and varieties, by the almost perfect gradation of forms in certain groups, and by the analogy of domestic productions. With respect to the means of modification, he attributed something to the direct action of the physical conditions of life, something to the crossing of already existing forms, and much to use and disuse, that is, to the effects of habit. To this latter agency he seemed to attribute all the beautiful adaptations in nature; — such as the long neck of the giraffe for browsing on the branches of trees. But he likewise believed in a law of progressive development; and as all the forms of life thus tend to progress, in order to account for the existence at the present day of simple productions, he maintains that such forms are now spontaneously generated. (Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species)
More then anything else I am convinced this statement clarifies the issues involved. A categorical rejection of special and miraculous creation is at the heart of the controversy. Darwin's seminal work defined the theory of evolution as we have come to know it, this has never been about science and religion. Darwin's theory of natural selection includes and is predicated on one long argument against special creation:
I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgement of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained — namely, that each species has been independently created — is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification. (Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species)
Darwin's idea here was never intended to include all life at all times, in fact, he never went beyond the level of genus. The question of whether or not we evolved from ape has been the key issue for me and especially with regards to the evolution of the human brain from that of apes. As a theological issue it's impossible to reconcile Darwinism to the doctrine of Creation. That, I think, is the whole idea. There is a line of demarcation, specifically with regards to the creation of life in general and man in particular.
Darwin say an answer to a philosophical question here, or at least he thought he did:
These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species— that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. (Darwin, On the Origin of Species, Introduction)
But this mystery has already been revealed, in Genesis 1.
Grace and peace,
Mark
