“He believed in Evolution, and God credited to him as righteousness”
Okay, this isn’t exactly a verse in the bible, but I wanted to get your attention.
As I’ve been doing my word study on righteousness, thoughts naturally gravitate back to Evolution, Creationism, and Geocreationism. I’ve been reading this great book which I cannot find in my morning haze, but it advances the common argument that God’s testimony is in scripture and in science. In other words, what we discover about the world, is knowledge that God wants us to have… and why wouldn’t He? I mean, anything we learn about Him, whether it be how He saved us from our sins, or created the world in which live, is more knowledge about Him and His love for us. Why wouldn’t I want to know?
I realize that the arguments about Evolution usually pigeonhole people like me into one of two groups: deism, or wannabe atheists. Deists believe God created the universe and has had nothing else to do with it since. He could be watching it all, but He leaves it alone. A wannabe atheist think he’s a Christian, but really he’s just brainwashed… his acceptance of Evolution shows that he doesn’t really take God that seriously, or else he’d see what the scripture clearly says and realize from it that the science that contradicts it must in some way be wrong… infected by the very sin that humanity tends to ignore. Neither characterization is true about me, or other Christians like me.
I see the science and logic of it. I see secular scientists and Christian scientists duke it out, and in court of logic, the secular scientists characterize the Christian scientists’ view quite accurately, and are ready with logical responses; the Christian scientists usually mischaracterize the beliefs of secular scientists, and dismiss their challenges as those of pagans who are going to hell for rejection of God.
And then I found out that there was a Pagan myth of a water canopy above a solid sky (waters above), and that the sun is literally “in” the sky; “in” it, as in embedded… which is precisely what Genesis 1 says. And so I came to see that Genesis 1 was recasting of the Hebrews understanding of the Pagan creation myth, recast in terms of a loving personal creator… the one true God. This removes any sign of science from Genesis 1, and renders it sound theology that is relatively silent on the science. It is therefore left to me, the believing Christian, to study the science if I truly want to know how the world works.
So, I’ve studied it, both sides, and secular scientists’ explanation of what we see in the world makes complete sense. For me, it shows a God who designed a universe so vast and awesome, that processes such as Evolution are capable of producing life at God’s command… right up to and including the individual lives that God knew before their earthly conception. It is a much more convincing design argument to me than one that has God creating the universe as whole, because a design that produces is more impressive than a design that just sits there. I love it!
Science tells me about a God who wants me to study His work, to understand it. It tells me about a God who wants to reveal himself to non-believers in perhaps the only way that most any of them will accept. Remember Jesus’ statement about the very rocks crying out? Well, they are crying out folks, and it would seem that the secular scientists believe those rocks more than most Christians do… and for those who realize that it’s God talking to them, their belief will be credited to them as righteousness.