Kerygma and Catechesis: On Faith, Science and Evolution

The Bible, Science and Evolution:

The culture wars between creationism and science comes from the emergence of Fundamentalism in the nineteenth century. Fundamentalism held that there were new "essentials" of the faith. Rather than reverting to the historic Christian creeds, these new "fundamentals" stressed a literal interpretation of scripture and ultimately creationism as a logical step. They developed as a reaction to secularism and new understandings in science that were emerging. This has led to the unfortunate belief among many Christians that creation "science" is a doctrinal essential for "bible believing" Christians. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Although this topic is a large one, and the integration of faith and science has many avenues that need to be explored, I would like to just highlight a few very basic but important ideas for Christians to consider in this debate. First, this is an area of Christian freedom of conscience. Although I believe that a literal twenty-four hour creationism or "young earth" view is extraordinarily misguided, Christians hold multiple views on the relationship between the creation accounts in Genesis and modern views of evolution. Paul admonished his audience to allow freedom of conscience in non essential matters of faith (1 Cor 10:29, Rom 14:1-4). This is one of them. To insist, however, on a literal view of Genesis as a marker of fidelity to scripture is a doctrinal error that causes division and unnecessary disunity in the body of Christ. Multiple interpretations of the book of Genesis exist and have existed throughout the history of the church. The early church fathers often accepted an interpretation of scripture and Genesis that was allegorical in nature (see "Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Bible Creation Narratives Peter C Bouteneff; professor of theology at St. Vladimir Orthodox Theological Seminary).

Second, Evolution is not a threat to either the authority of scripture or the idea that God is the Creator of all that exists. Evolution does not automatically equal atheism. Many Christian denominations hold something similar to this statement from the Presbyterian church, "neither Scripture, our Confessions of Faith, nor our Catechism, teach the Creation of man by the direct and immediate act of God so as to exclude the possibility of evolution as scientific theory." (PCUS 1969). The PCUSA catechism states that "natural science has much to teach us about the particular mechanisms and process of nature, but it is not in a position to answer these questions about ultimate reality, which points to mysteries that science as such is not equipped to explore. Nothing basic to the Christian faith contradicts the findings of modern science nor does anything essential to modern science contradict the Christian faith." (PCUSA catechism). I have provided links at the end of this article to numerous Christian denominations stance on science and faith.

Favoring a view more compatible with Science

Third, there are very good reasons to hold views that are more compatible with what we now about the natural world through science as a methodology. A typical definition of evolution describes the phenomena as a natural process by which the emergence of complex life forms developed through genetic mutation, natural selection, breeding, environmental stimulus, and cell division. It is possible to see this as an act of God, as creator and sustainer of the universe, through the eyes of faith. When Christians understand that what we learn from science does not contradict our belief in a living Creator, we provide a way forward in which people do not have to choose between science or their faith. Too often people have been forced to either reject their faith and embrace science or else embrace their faith and reject science. This is a false dichotomy. We can learn about the natural world through science and still believe in God as creator.

Last of all, our view of scripture has to be one that recognizes the culture and history in which God's revelation comes. Scripture always comes to us in a specific time and place, for example, Abraham was a nomadic herder who lived during the bronze age. The people we meet in scripture would have naturally held the cosmology of their day, we cannot expect them to see the world in the same way that we see it. In a sense, communicating truth through myth, poetry, story, or saga, as is characteristic of the early part of the book of Genesis, is perhaps one of the best vehicles of communicating timeless truth through different cultures and worldviews across the world. Everyone understands story, whether someone is living in modern European countries or in traditional tribal cultures that still exist around the world (creation, fall, redemption, new creation). Both Augustine and John Calvin held favorable views of the science of their day, and those instances where the church was threatened by science, such as in the case of Galileo stand as cautionary tales of the church ending up on the wrong side of history, (or the wrong side of truth).

Much of this issue revolves around the ways in which Christians interpret the book of Genesis. It is possible to be faithful to the truth of scripture and interpret the early part of Genesis in a vehicle that communicates truth, but does not do so as a document recounting the creation of the earth in a 144 hour period. In other words, hippopotami, elephants, dinosaurs, simply pop into existence, and Adam materializes into existences as a fully formed adult male. Christians should hold the scriptures as the authoritative word of God, but this also requires the task of faithfully interpreting scripture, including its literary genre, structure, and ultimately the truth that it communicates. There is room for our understanding of the processes of the natural world.

When we become sidetracked by trying to prove certain elements in Genesis could have been historic realities, we begin to miss the larger picture and theological message of the book. In some Bible commentators obsession to prove for example, that Jonah was really swallowed by a large fish, feverishly examining early American whaleboats encounters for historical accounts of whalers who were eaten by a whale and found alive, to prove the story "true." Yet, they miss the critical part of the Jonah story, God's message of mercy towards the non-Jewish Nineties. Even in portions of scripture that are clearly historical documents, we must still look for the deeper theological message of the book.

As Christians who are people of truth, it is critical that we allow science to be science. By its very nature, science produces hypothesis that have to be tested, experiments that use empirical data to qualify results and draw conclusions. There is no way that a belief in God as a creator, or even the belief that everything miraculously appeared in the universe fully formed in a 144 hours period fits any scientific category. Therefore, in the science classroom it has to be rejected. This is why many Christian educators and clergy as well as others from different religious backgrounds have gone on the record endorsing the teaching of science and evolution in the classroom and rejecting religious notions such as intelligent design or creationism.

The Clergy Letter Project is a statement that has signatories from numerous Christian and other religions, that affirms and supports the teaching of evolution in the classrooms. This is essential in helping students not just remain competitive around the world, but understand the many ways that science (as a method of uncovering truth), has helped us to see our world. As Christians, we are people of truth. We know that God it truth, and therefore all truth is God's truth. As Christians we should not have to fear the truth. We should be people of truth. As such it is important that we remain open to those areas where we have much to learn about our world from science. As Neil deGrass Tyson often quotes, "the bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."

The Clergy Letter Project Statement from Christian Clergy:

Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.