Question for Christian Evolutionists

[Northern Christian]

If God created the world through evolution, then why didn't he just say so in Genesis? Why put the current story in the Bible if it isn't true?

 

[Vance]

God could not possibly have put His entire creative process in the Bible. If He chose to use the evolutionary process as part of His creative work, there is no way He could adequately explain it so that it would be understood by people of all ages. The concept of creating "from the earth" is not a bad way of saying it, though.

The bottom line is that there is nothing I can see in the text that strictly contradicts the possibility of creation through evolution. Some of the language may be symbolic for more complicated processes, but there is much symbolic throughout the Bible, so that is not a problem really.

The other question would be why God would create an Earth which looks exactly as if it is billions of years old if it is not? In fact, it looks so much like it is old that one of the common YEC arguments that God created it to look old (for some reason I am not sure).

 

[lucaspa]

If God created the world through evolution, then why didn't he just say so in Genesis? Why put the current story in the Bible if it isn't true?

1. The current stories (there are 2) in Genesis 1-3 are true, just not true as literal history or the how God created.

2. When trying to understand any written document, you need to understand what the author intended to say, not what you want him to say.

Genesis 1 was intended to reassure the Hebrews at a time when they were under considerable duress to leave Judaism and convert to the Babylonian pantheon. The 6 days are there to make an (unnecessary) justification for a central tenet of Judaism -- the Sabbath. Creation took 6 days and God "rested" because God had already commanded the Hebrews to rest on the 7th day. Exodus happened before Genesis 1 was written.

Genesis 1 was written to show that Yahweh was the one and only deity. It was written to destroy the Babylonian pantheon.

Genesis 2 explains why each of us is cut off from God: we disobey him at some point in our lives. Adam and Eve simply represent each and every one of us.

Now, why didn't God just out and out say "evolution"? HOW!!??? God is inspiring humans. While God may not be limited, humans are. We communicate with language and our thoughts are limited by our language. Ask Nephilimyr what the Hebrew word for "evolution" is. There isn't any. God cannot explain a concept for which humans had no language any more than you can explain the details of television to your 3 year old child.

The Bible doesn't have a glossary, so God can't invent a lot of new words and have them defined in the glossary. The people of the day couldn't understand evolution and such was not necessary for the message God wanted to impart.

So, the theological messages of Genesis 1 and 2, and all the OT, are set in the best "science" of the day -- Babylonian cosmology. However, the messages are not dependent on the science. They work just as well in modern science as they do in Babylonian.

One of the tragedies of Biblical literalism it that, on trying to make Genesis 1-3 history, it completely overlooks the theological messages. IOW, it doesn't even hear what God intended to say.

 

[Northern Christian]

My question has been ignored for the most part.

 

[Northern Christian]

God could not possibly have put His entire creative process in the Bible. If He chose to use the evolutionary process as part of His creative work, there is no way He could adequately explain it so that it would be understood by people of all ages. The concept of creating "from the earth" is not a bad way of saying it, though.

The bottom line is that there is nothing I can see in the text that strictly contradicts the possibility of creation through evolution. Some of the language may be symbolic for more complicated processes, but there is much symbolic throughout the Bible, so that is not a problem really.

The other question would be why God would create an Earth which looks exactly as if it is billions of years old if it is not? In fact, it looks so much like it is old that one of the common YEC arguments that God created it to look old (for some reason I am not sure).

How hard would it have been to say "I made the world over a very long period of time, and made animals from other animals?"

 

[Vance]

How hard would it have been to say "I made the world over a very long period of time, and made animals from other animals?"

There are a LOT of things God could have written more clearly, but chose not to. The fact that we have myriad denominations fragmented over different interpretations of Scripture (even to the point of killing each other over the differences), is evidence of God's willingness to allow His Word to contain portions that are not crystal clear.

As for what He could have said, I think that saying that He created creatures "from the earth" is not a bad way of saying it at all.

As for the creating over a long period of time, all He said was that He created the universe and all that is in it over a period of six "periods of time". It is Man who has insisted God said He created over six 24-hour days, choosing one of the possible literal interpretations. I believe He *did* create the universe over six distinct periods of time.

The question, it is true, becomes why He wrote it in a way that could be read more than one way, and would most likely be read one way in particular by a lot of Christians (keeping in mind that not even all early Christian and Jewish leaders and scholars thought this meant 24-hour periods). And this gets back to my first point: why did God allow ANY of His Scripture to be written in such a way that it would create such dramatic divisions in the Church itself?

We are not God, so we don't know. The fact that we can't understand *why* God would do such a thing doesn't automatically mean that we shouldn't believe that He did. God is God, we are not.

 

[lucaspa]

How hard would it have been to say "I made the world over a very long period of time, and made animals from other animals?"

Pretty hard. First, you have that "over a very long period of time". Isn't the first question the inspired author is going to ask is "how long?" As soon as God tries to say "billions" the wheels come off. No concept of numbers that large.

Same with "made animals from other animals". Immediately the humans has "How?" pop into his mind. Then what does God say?

I think "Let the earth bring forth ..." is about as close as He could have gotten.

 

[lucaspa]

There's also the issue that the phrase "God created" is thruout the OT. Lots of places it says simply "God created" without specifying how.

So, why are you so set on God actually saying the particular method in Genesis 1? Couldn't this be humans stating what they think the method was?

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

If God created the world through evolution, then why didn't he just say so in Genesis? Why put the current story in the Bible if it isn't true?

God didn't put it there. It was a specifically Hebrew version of existing creation myths. God inspired the collaters of Genesis to include it because it was a suitable vehicle for certain spiritual truths, but God did not write it.

 

[Jase]

How hard would it have been to say "I made the world over a very long period of time, and made animals from other animals?"

An interesting point to note. There is actually a hebrew word for an age or era, denoting a long period of time. Rather odd that the Bible used the word that meant day instead of ages, if the world were actually billions of years old. I don't think the ancient people would have trouble understanding the meaning of long periods of time.

You'll also notice that Adam is mentioned numerous times throughout the Bible, including by Jesus, referring to him being the only human in the beginning, and the cause of the worlds current state. It is all spoken literally, not figurative. If the world were really billions of years old, and humans have been born and killed off countless times over the years, the rest of the Bible, including the reason Jesus even died on the cross becomes meaningless.

 

[Jase]

There are a LOT of things God could have written more clearly, but chose not to. The fact that we have myriad denominations fragmented over different interpretations of Scripture (even to the point of killing each other over the differences), is evidence of God's willingness to allow His Word to contain portions that are not crystal clear.

As for what He could have said, I think that saying that He created creatures "from the earth" is not a bad way of saying it at all.

As for the creating over a long period of time, all He said was that He created the universe and all that is in it over a period of six "periods of time". It is Man who has insisted God said He created over six 24-hour days, choosing one of the possible literal interpretations. I believe He *did* create the universe over six distinct periods of time.

The question, it is true, becomes why He wrote it in a way that could be read more than one way, and would most likely be read one way in particular by a lot of Christians (keeping in mind that not even all early Christian and Jewish leaders and scholars thought this meant 24-hour periods). And this gets back to my first point: why did God allow ANY of His Scripture to be written in such a way that it would create such dramatic divisions in the Church itself?

We are not God, so we don't know. The fact that we can't understand *why* God would do such a thing doesn't automatically mean that we shouldn't believe that He did. God is God, we are not.

Lets see, the hebrew word used in genesis for days is Yom, which can mean a 24 hour day ( and there is separate words to denote long periods of time, that can't mean a single day). And surrounding those mentions of "day", are the words, morning, evening, darkness and light, as well as seasons. Now since when does a billion years have a morning and evening? And the world is supposedly 5 billion years old. The Earth was created on day 1. If each day is a "period of time", how do you account for unequal time periods each day? For example, every day in the Bible is spoken of the same. A morning and an evening on each "day", with rest on the 7th. That means the Earth AND universe should both be 6 billion years old, or why would each day be described the same way, if they were completely different amounts of time?

 

[Jase]

God didn't put it there. It was a specifically Hebrew version of existing creation myths. God inspired the collaters of Genesis to include it because it was a suitable vehicle for certain spiritual truths, but God did not write it.

Moses wrote Genesis, and since He is one of the few people in the Bible to speak directly to God the Father, I'd think he would have gotten correct info.

 

[Jase]

Pretty hard. First, you have that "over a very long period of time". Isn't the first question the inspired author is going to ask is "how long?" As soon as God tries to say "billions" the wheels come off. No concept of numbers that large.

Same with "made animals from other animals". Immediately the humans has "How?" pop into his mind. Then what does God say?

I think "Let the earth bring forth ..." is about as close as He could have gotten.

Well, if humans are nothing more than superior chimps, where did sin come from, and what did Jesus die for. Even Jesus said Adam is the cause of sin and the first human. Could people not understand humans being different from animals during the 1st Century either?

 

[LewisWildermuth]

If God created the world through evolution, then why didn't he just say so in Genesis?

Because we barley understand it after 100+ years of study, we have the basics down, but there still is so much to learn. And then you would have to go into the rest of the sciences... Just imagine if all the science textbooks printed today from all the different sciences were stapled to the front of the Bible, that would be a big book.

And then people still would not be happy, they would want a step by step version, so add another billion pages.

And then remember that most of the stories in Genesis were originaly oral, with the "scientificaly correct" bible ome would die before he could get out of the first few million years of history, so much for passing it down.

The history of the universe is unimportant to the core beliefs of Christianity so why waste time over it? I'm glad God didn't spill the beans in Genesis, it is fun learning on one's own.

Why put the current story in the Bible if it isn't true?

Who says that it is not true? Not any theistic evolutionist that I know.

There is a large difference between not being literal and not being true. There are many ways to state a truth. Jesus liked to use stories, maybe his Father did too.

Here is an example...

If I say that "The sky is blue." am I literaly correct? Is it a true statement?

Yes and no on both...

The sky may look blue at that moment but it is not made of a blue substance, a glass of sky is clear, it has no decernible color of its own. The sky is not always blue, it can be red, like at sunrise and set, it can be grey on a rainy day and it is black at night.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Well, if humans are nothing more than superior chimps, where did sin come from, and what did Jesus die for. Even Jesus said Adam is the cause of sin and the first human.

First, could you please reference the scriptures where Jesus says these things? I would just like to see them in context.

Simple, Adam is all of us, just as Eve is.

We all sin, that is a core belief. Like the figurative Adam, we all have done things that God has told us not too. We have all given into the snake of temtation and bitten into the fruit of our personal desire.

Jesus died for Adams sins, in other words, all of our sins. You didn't think God would be so petty as to blame us for the sin of our fathers?

Could people not understand humans being different from animals during the 1st Century either?

I suppose they could if one sat down and taught them everything that was going to be discovered over the next few thousand years. They probably wouldn't believe a word of it or treat it like any other religious creation story of the time.

I suppose you could teach them about computers too, but they would probably still call it a magic box.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

Moses wrote Genesis, and since He is one of the few people in the Bible to speak directly to God the Father, I'd think he would have gotten correct info.

Moses did not write Genesis. He may have been its final redactor (although I doubt it). There are at least four identifiable seperate sources in Genesis, and two versions of the creation story (Gen 1 and a couple of verses of Gen 2, then Gen 2). They come from different religious traditions, one where God is called "Elohim" (Story 1) and the other where God is called "YHWH Adonai" (Story 2). Granted God can be given more than one title, but the distinction is consistent - always Elohim in the first story, always YHWH Adonai in the second. If I had a document with two versions of Jesus' birth in it, and in one Mary was always "Mary", and in the other "The Blessed Virgin", I'd conclude I had a composite - one from a Protestant source, and the other from a Catholic source.

But this is bye the bye. I do believe the days are literal - it is the story itself that is figurative, not the individual elements within it.

 

[lucaspa]

Well, if humans are nothing more than superior chimps, where did sin come from, and what did Jesus die for.

Sin comes from disobeying God. That is the sin of Adam and Eve. God said not to eat the fruit, and they ate the fruit. Now, I always thought Jesus died for my sins. The ones I commit. The Law was difficult enough to keep, but Jesus made it impossible when thoughts became sin. For instance, looking at a pretty girl and thinking it would be pleasant to have sex with her counts as adultery! No way that a heterosexual male can avoid sin.

Even Jesus said Adam is the cause of sin and the first human. Could people not understand humans being different from animals during the 1st Century either?

Both Jesus and Paul are speaking in terms of what humans at that time "knew". However, having Adam be an archetype for each of us works just as well in their words, doesn't it?

This seems to be the sticking point for creationists. It's part of their linking a literal Genesis to the existence of God. If Adam doesn't exist, then supposedly no Jesus. But that simply doesn't follow. I don't see the necessity of that link. Adam gets to stand for each and every one of us, but that doesn't make him a literal person or require him to be a literal person. When we talk of "Adam's" sin, we are talking about our sin. We sin, each of us, independent of whatever Adam did.

God exists just as much if He used evolution to get humans as He does if He formed Adam from the dust.

All species are different in some way from all other species. In the 1st century they did what you do and the authors of Genesis did: they look at our technology and mistakenly think it means some fundamental difference in intelligence or cognitive ability. It doesn't. More and more studies show that there isn't a definitive major qualitative difference from us and other species. Chimps show moral behavior. Octopi play. Whales have culture. We got the opposable thumbs and the ability to make tools to make tools. Thus, the technology.

 

[lucaspa]

Moses wrote Genesis, and since He is one of the few people in the Bible to speak directly to God the Father, I'd think he would have gotten correct info.

That's the tradition, but scholarship over the last 150 years shows that Genesis has at least 3 authors and that it is a redacted document: it was put together from 3 other documents.

 

[lucaspa]

Lets see, the hebrew word used in genesis for days is Yom, which can mean a 24 hour day ( and there is separate words to denote long periods of time, that can't mean a single day).

I agree that the authors of Genesis 1 (the P tradition) wanted to have 24 hour days in the story. That is not to mean that the creation story is literal. Instead, it means that they wanted to have a justification for the Sabbath. Remember, Genesis 1 was written after the Exodus so God had already given the commandment for the sabbath. So, the P authors structured their creation story to be 6 days of creation and rest on the 7th. Then the redactor (in the time of Ezra, probably), inserted Exodus 20:11 to tie the whole thing together.

Notice that just after Genesis 1:1-2:3 tell us it took Elohim 6 days to create, Genesis 2:4 tells us that Adonai YHWH did all that creating "beyom" -- within a single day. Now, either Moses has Alzheimer's, or we have 2 creation stories from 2 separate traditions that are put side by side in one book with very little editing to make them agree. Since the Alzheimer hypothesis is not supported by any other data and it is unacceptable for God to have Alzheimer's, the second hypothesis is the one left standing.

 

[Vance]

Lets see, the hebrew word used in genesis for days is Yom, which can mean a 24 hour day ( and there is separate words to denote long periods of time, that can't mean a single day). And surrounding those mentions of "day", are the words, morning, evening, darkness and light, as well as seasons. Now since when does a billion years have a morning and evening? And the world is supposedly 5 billion years old. The Earth was created on day 1. If each day is a "period of time", how do you account for unequal time periods each day? For example, every day in the Bible is spoken of the same. A morning and an evening on each "day", with rest on the 7th. That means the Earth AND universe should both be 6 billion years old, or why would each day be described the same way, if they were completely different amounts of time?

Well, the words translated as morning and evening also have mutiple meanings, some of which are not limited to a literal 24-hour period.

Also, there is no logical reason at all that the "periods" of the creation would need to be the same length of time. If you said, "I worked at job X for a period of time, then worked at job Y for a period of time", would someone hearing have to assume that you worked at both jobs for the same period of time?

I believe the time periods described are simply a general breakdown of the order in which God began the creative process for different aspects of His Creation. I don't think that they are meant to be taken as mutually exclusive (ie He did not create a thing described during any other period than the one set out) or a complete list of everything He created. It is a true, but summarized and generalized, presentation of God's creative work for the purpose of indicating to us that God did, indeed, created everything, did it over a period of time (rather than just spoke it all into existence, which He could have done) and that Man had a special place in His creation. Then it goes on to describe the nature of that "specialness" and how Man Fell from this special relationship.