Evolution vs creation

[Sophie2003]

So, I personally believe that evolution was the process in which God created us. I believe that the Adam and Eve story is not purely history, but a metaphor to explain evolution, and it bothers me when people say “how can you be a Christian if you believe in evolution?” and i always say to them that I don’t view the Bible as 100% literal, because if the Bible were taken 100% literally, it would be acceptable to do things like sell your daughters into slavery. I definitely believe that lots of the stories are literal, for example Jesus rising from the dead, and a lot of other stories. But the ones that can be disproved by science, I believe are metaphors used to convey a bigger meaning.

i don’t really want to see comments of people telling me they think I’m wrong on this post. I respect if you have different beliefs, but please respect mine as well. I simply want to know if anybody else on here does share similar views to me? And if so, how do you cope when people tell you that you can’t believe in both science and God?

[Omegaman 3.0]

Well,  a comment on something you said.

You think that evolution was the process that God used to create us. Evolution is a process of change. Creation, is something else. In other words, if evolution is true, then it describes how things went from simple life forms to more complex life forms. Origins of matter are another story, and how matter came to be, and later came to live, are a little different, still, I understand what you are fishing for in your question.

Here is the thing though. Scientists, who happen to be evolutionist (some are creationist) disagree about evolution, what it looked like, why it happened, and in what time frame.

Christians disagree with each other, some holding to a more literal understanding of Genesis, some to a more symbolic one, that can include the evolution models.

Disagreeing, does not make you a Christian of not, nor a scientist or not, it makes us human. I happen to be more in the literal, young earth view of creation and speciation. I came do those view from being a science minded Atheist.

My Christianity, did not and does not hinge on what I believe about Genesis 1 and 2, which are clearly not exhaustive treatments of the subject. What makes us Christians, is if we believe by faith, that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead, and that we love Him as He has loved us, and demonstrate that by attempting to live in obedience to him.

. . , and yeah, I believe in science and God, but that does not mean that I have to believe in everything scientists say. Scientists are like everyone else, they believe by faith in somethings, they have agendas, they have doubts, and the are prone to make mistakes. The good ones, learn from them and change as is appropriate.

[Tristen]

Hi Sophie,

Before I start addressing your post, I think you should know that I am a Biblical creationist with formal scientific credentials based on almost ten years of secular university. I therefore obviously disagree with much of what you wrote. I nevertheless hope that I don't come across as disrespectful – as that is not my heart.

 

You said, “I personally believe that evolution was the process in which God created us. I believe that the Adam and Eve story is not purely history, but a metaphor to explain evolution”

Firstly, I want to deal with the term “evolution”. It's a tricky word because secular science uses the word to mean so many different things; e.g. any change to a population, Natural Selection, genetic mutations, adaptations, speciations, Common Ancestry etc. As a creationist, the only one of these that necessarily disagrees with the Bible is Common Ancestry. So most of what is called “evolution” is perfectly consistent with the Genesis narrative (i.e. without appealing to “metaphor”).

I see some dangers in your hermeneutical (Bible study) approach. The Genesis creation account is very methodical, and written in the style of an historical narrative. You feel some obligation to believe something from outside of God's Word, and therefore you are choosing to subjugate God's Word to these other ideas. Rather than taking the stance that God's Word can be trusted as the primary authority over your faith, you have made yourself an authority over which parts of God's Word can and cannot be trusted. That means – any time you don't like or agree with God's Word, you have given yourself the right to dismiss it as “metaphor”.

Furthermore, the point of a “metaphor” is to provide a symbolic representation of the truth. The Genesis creation account does not reflect the secular “evolution”/Common Ancestry story. Everything in the Genesis account is contrary to the secular account; the timing, the mechanisms, the order etc. - it just doesn't fit. If you had no previous knowledge about “evolution”, you wouldn't find it in a straight forward reading of Genesis. So in effect, you are simply choosing to replace the account of God's Word with a secular story – including many details that are fundamental to a consistent Christian world-view (e.g. the origin of sin and death, why humans are accountable for sin and require salvation, how God can be good when the world He created is corrupt etc.).

 

“it bothers me when people say “how can you be a Christian if you believe in evolution?””

On this we agree. I think it is fair to ask how you reconcile the two narratives. But I don't think the sincerity of your Christian faith should be called into question. If Christ is sincerely your Lord by faith, then you are a Christian – even if you (or I) happen to be wrong about some things.

 

“i always say to them that I don’t view the Bible as 100% literal”

To say that “the Bible as 100% literal” is incorrect. The Bible is written for humans – and is thus full of symbolic language. However, we don't have the right to arbitrarily decide that something in God's Word is symbolic. Any claim of symbolism has to be justified by grammatical context (i.e. not just because we don't agree with what the Bible says plainly).

 

“because if the Bible were taken 100% literally, it would be acceptable to do things like sell your daughters into slavery”

I have two problems with this answer;

Firstly, I think it oversimplifies, and thereby misrepresents, what the Bible actually says.

Second, the scriptures you are appealing to are found in the covenant between God and Israel (a.k.a. the Law). That is not the Christian covenant. So even if the Bible did say what you claim, that would not be applicable to Christians.

 

“I definitely believe that lots of the stories are literal, for example Jesus rising from the dead, and a lot of other stories. But the ones that can be disproved by science, I believe are metaphors used to convey a bigger meaning”

So here again you are subjecting God's Word to the authority of human systems. If what the Bible says plainly disagrees with the secular narrative, then you conclude that the plain reading of the Bible is wrong. But instead of saying “wrong”, you say “metaphor”-  to ease your conscience about dismissing God's Word.

A couple of points on science;

1) The Scientific Method only allows us to come to conclusions about current, natural phenomena; i.e. those thing we can experiment with and observe. We cannot perform experiments or make observations in the past. Therefore, we cannot use the Scientific Method to investigate the past. We have to use a different method that is far less logically robust. All claims about history are just stories about what might have happened; given our current information. Secularists like to call it all “science”, but don't get fooled into thinking it's all the same.

2) Science has therefore not logically “disproved” anything the Bible claims. To believe so is to believe a lie. Secularists have a story about what might have happened in the past - based on interpreting the current facts from the starting faith assumption that the Bible is wrong about history and God. That's a perfectly fair method, but it does not come even remotely close to logically undermining the Genesis account of history (or any other Biblical claim). Your degree of confidence in the secular story is therefore misplaced.

 

“how do you cope when people tell you that you can’t believe in both science and God?”

I tell them there is no logical inconsistency between what the Bible claims, and the proper application of the Scientific Method. Then I challenge them to show me otherwise. If they accept the challenge (i.e. provide some form of evidence), then we examine the logic of the claim to assess whether their confidence is justified (hint: it never is – not so far anyway).

It is somewhat easier for me being a) a creationist (since that provides a robust, consistent Christian world-view), and b) having scientific credentials (so they can't easily dismiss my position as being uneducated or anti-science etc. - though they still sometimes try this fallacious strategy).

 

[appy]

Religious humanism says that the bible is merely a metaphor. The problem with this is that humanism declares for itself the attributes of Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent that belong solely to God. We humans are NOT  Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent.  We are creation.  The bible was not written for the purpose of amusing men with stories. Its purpose is to teach, rebuke, correct, and train us humans in righteousness. That we may know God's will in our lives.

Bad things happened in the Old Testament, true. But those stories are meant to show us the damage the fall had done, and the hardness of man's heart towards each other and God. The fall had severed man's relationship with God. The bible is written by many author's over many centuries, inspired by the Holy Spirit, telling us what God wants us to know and how we can get right with Him again.

[AnOrangeCat]

5 hours ago, Omegaman 3.0 said:

 I believe in science and God, but that does not mean that I have to believe in everything scientists say. Scientists are like everyone else, they believe by faith in something, they have agendas, they have doubts, and the are prone to make mistakes. The good ones, learn from them and change as is appropriate.

Just to add to this, there are also ideas that end up worming their way into the public consciousness as a scientifically proven notion and it carries on for so long that younger people entering the field just accept it as fact without really examining and questioning the raw data. As a case in point most of us have probably at least heard the idea that depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. It turns out that the actual evidence for that is shaky and it's a great deal more complex than chemistry.

To further address the question of whether or not you can have science and God, there was a guy who once presented the idea that there were things that were largely invisible to us that could drastically affect our lives. The scientists of the day openly mocked him and dismissed the idea, but he turned out to be right. That was Joseph Lister. A scientist discounting the possibility of God is pretty much doing the same as Lister's peers. How many more unseen yet meaningful elements are there for us to discover still? I think that's a question that the scientifically minded should keep in mind.

[David1701]

8 hours ago, Sophie2003 said:

So, I personally believe that evolution was the process in which God created us. I believe that the Adam and Eve story is not purely history, but a metaphor to explain evolution, and it bothers me when people say “how can you be a Christian if you believe in evolution?” and i always say to them that I don’t view the Bible as 100% literal, because if the Bible were taken 100% literally, it would be acceptable to do things like sell your daughters into slavery. I definitely believe that lots of the stories are literal, for example Jesus rising from the dead, and a lot of other stories. But the ones that can be disproved by science, I believe are metaphors used to convey a bigger meaning.

i don’t really want to see comments of people telling me they think I’m wrong on this post. I respect if you have different beliefs, but please respect mine as well. I simply want to know if anybody else on here does share similar views to me? And if so, how do you cope when people tell you that you can’t believe in both science and God?

A few questions to consider.

1) On what basis do you believe that evolution was the process in which God created us?  Is it from the Bible, or the shifting suppositions of secular scientists?

2) How did the first life come about? (You don't believe in spontaneous generation, I hope?)

3) What is your basis for thinking that early Genesis chapters are metaphors (they are written in Hebrew narrative style, not poetic style)?

4) Do you realise that there are professional scientists who believe in creation and take the Genesis account as it is written (narrative, not metaphor)?

A couple of Web sites for your perusal, if you are interested.

https://answersingenesis.org/

https://creation.com

[Billiards Ball]

9 hours ago, Sophie2003 said:

So, I personally believe that evolution was the process in which God created us. I believe that the Adam and Eve story is not purely history, but a metaphor to explain evolution, and it bothers me when people say “how can you be a Christian if you believe in evolution?” and i always say to them that I don’t view the Bible as 100% literal, because if the Bible were taken 100% literally, it would be acceptable to do things like sell your daughters into slavery. I definitely believe that lots of the stories are literal, for example Jesus rising from the dead, and a lot of other stories. But the ones that can be disproved by science, I believe are metaphors used to convey a bigger meaning.

i don’t really want to see comments of people telling me they think I’m wrong on this post. I respect if you have different beliefs, but please respect mine as well. I simply want to know if anybody else on here does share similar views to me? And if so, how do you cope when people tell you that you can’t believe in both science and God?

Did Jesus literally die for me? Did He literally exist? Am I going to a literal Heaven? These are three questions besides Creation that have to do whether God's Word is literal or metaphor.

 

There is much evidence for Evolution out there AND for Creation. You'll have to decide at some point.

[Deborah_]

10 hours ago, Sophie2003 said:

So, I personally believe that evolution was the process in which God created us. I believe that the Adam and Eve story is not purely history, but a metaphor to explain evolution, and it bothers me when people say “how can you be a Christian if you believe in evolution?” and i always say to them that I don’t view the Bible as 100% literal, because if the Bible were taken 100% literally, it would be acceptable to do things like sell your daughters into slavery. I definitely believe that lots of the stories are literal, for example Jesus rising from the dead, and a lot of other stories. But the ones that can be disproved by science, I believe are metaphors used to convey a bigger meaning.

i don’t really want to see comments of people telling me they think I’m wrong on this post. I respect if you have different beliefs, but please respect mine as well. I simply want to know if anybody else on here does share similar views to me? And if so, how do you cope when people tell you that you can’t believe in both science and God?

Hi Sophie, I also believe that God created the process of evolution and then directed it in order to make us. And many other Christians do (but few will say so on forums like this one). 

It's too simple to say "I believe the Bible is literally true" because we nearly all agree that some parts of it aren't "literally true" (the lover in the Song of Songs isn't literally made of gold, ivory and marble, and Jesus isn't a literal vine or light!). Some parts are historical record, other parts are poetry, and metaphors crop up all over the place. Some Christians take Revelation literally, others don't. The same applies to the first few chapters of Genesis - I believe that they are powerful stories that tell us the truth about the beginnings of the human race, but not all the details may be "literal".

Can you "believe in" both science and God? That's actually a poor way of phrasing the question, because when we say we "believe in God", we don't just mean that we think He's there and is true, but we trust ourselves to Him. And trusting in God precludes trusting in anything else (because of the first commandment). But I think it's perfectly possible to believe in God and also accept the findings of science; after all, the scientific method has proved itself highly effective in discovering how our world works. And science doesn't contradict God's word - it only contradicts a certain interpretation of God's word.

https://biologos.org 

https://deborahsbiblestudies.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/in-the-beginning/

[David1701]

14 hours ago, Sophie2003 said:

So, I personally believe that evolution was the process in which God created us. I believe that the Adam and Eve story is not purely history, but a metaphor to explain evolution, and it bothers me when people say “how can you be a Christian if you believe in evolution?” and i always say to them that I don’t view the Bible as 100% literal, because if the Bible were taken 100% literally, it would be acceptable to do things like sell your daughters into slavery. I definitely believe that lots of the stories are literal, for example Jesus rising from the dead, and a lot of other stories. But the ones that can be disproved by science, I believe are metaphors used to convey a bigger meaning.

i don’t really want to see comments of people telling me they think I’m wrong on this post. I respect if you have different beliefs, but please respect mine as well. I simply want to know if anybody else on here does share similar views to me? And if so, how do you cope when people tell you that you can’t believe in both science and God?

There is something very important that no-one has touched on yet.  Evolution (i.e. molecules to man evolution) undermines the gospel.

The NT says that death came by sin, that Adam and Eve were real people and that as by man came death, even so by man (the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God and man) came the resurrection from the dead.

Evolution denies that death came by sin (it claims many millions of years of death, disease and suffering, before man even existed).

[Justin Adams]

4 minutes ago, David1701 said:

Evolution denies that death came by sin (it claims many millions of years of death, disease and suffering, before man even existed).

Good points and how do you 'evolve' a spirit??