I just finished a unit in my World Civ class on the evolution of the human species that made me think of some things....
Just so we understand each other on this term, "evolution," and because it seems to be a word that is feared by Christians, let me quickly define it:
1 : one of a set of prescribed movements
2 : a process of change in a certain direction
3 : the process of working out or developing
4 : the historical development of a biological group (as a race or species)
5 : the extraction of a mathematical root
6 : a process in which the whole universe is a progression of interrelated phenomena (www.m-w.com)
First I'll state my opinion on the big picture: Yes, I think at some point there has probably been some sort of "evolution of mankind," that is unless the Bible isn't literally true and perhaps God created several different types of people in various parts of the world at the same time. If that's the case, people didn't have to evolve, they simply were as God created them originally. Either way, whatever. God created the world and everything in it and he saw that it was good.
There is at least one thing in reality that cannot be ignored. People are different, VERY differnent. Take for example, European Americans and African Americans. Our skin colors are different, our hair textures are different and I'm sure we are biologically different in many other ways as well but those are the most obvious. So if you are going to believe in a literal interpretation of the creation story, you have to believe in some type of evolution. If we all came from the same two people, we have to evolve or develop into the different people that we are today.
Now here's the reason I have to question the literal interpretation of the Bible. In Genesis 4 it states, "Now Adam slept with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When the time came, she gave birth to Cain, and she said, "With the Lord's help, I have brought forth a man!" (Like she had never done this before and was amazed by it.) Later she gave birth to a second son and named him Abel." (My words are in italics - obviously.)
My interpretation of this is that Cain was Eve's first son and Abel her second. The story goes on to say that Cain and Abel fought and Cain killed Abel so God banished him from the land. The weird part comes in when Cain states his fear of the people "out there" who might kill him. WHAT PEOPLE??? If Adam and Eve are the only people and we all came from them and Cain and Abel were their first sons, where the hell did all these other people come from? And even if Cain and Abel weren't her first sons, seriously, she had that many babies and sent them off around the area to start new cultures? It's weird.
So herein lies our dilema. How do we interpret the Bible? Are we afraid of things we cannot know and understand fully? What role does faith play and what role does doubt play? Can we have faith in God while doubting our full understanding of truth? Can you believe that there is a God who created the world even though you don't fully understand how it came about?
I've heard Christians act like people who struggle to believe the creation story are stupid because it's just so simple. But it's not. And the more we try to explain it away and break the mystery of the Bible down into chewable pieces, the more difficult I find it. We try to put every Biblical truth into three easy to understand points and we destroy the mystery. Their is doubt and faith in everything. Even science. With the amount of discrepencies between various scientists hypotheses and discoveries and the constant changing of opinions, you have to have some amount of faith and doubt to believe in the truth of science. It's the same with Christianity. To try and take away the doubt and faith elements by explaining everything in simple, digestible nuggets, isn't helpful because it isn't real.
Anyway, I'm enjoying learning and thinking about these things. It's important to remember that learning isn't always about finding answers. Education isn't about being able to pass a test (don't get me started on The NCLB Act). Sometimes it's just about the process of growing your ability to fully think through and question things rather than just accepting easy answers. To memorize answers to pass a test (literally speaking or theologically speaking) isn't education and really isn't helpful. Information isn't the point. Transformation is (educationally and theologically speaking).
4 comments:
Or how about, man evolved from apes in Africa? (We have excellent superb fossil evidence for this, e.g. the famous "Lucy" in Ethiopia). Some early humans then moved northwards, out of the tropics (more fossil and archaeological evidence). Here the sun was less strong and thus there was less need to spend resources producing melanin, so their skin became lighter and they spent those resources on more useful things.
You would probably find a much better understanding of human evolution, and indeed evolution as a whole, if you stopped reading the bible and started reading scientific literature based on evidence and hypothesis. I'm not dissing the people who wrote the bible, but they were chronologers and story-tellers, not scientists. They had not yet discovered fossils of early humanoids (otherwise, perhaps a Disciple might have written Origin of Species?) and hadn't yet mastered the finer points of 13-Carbon dating techniques.
You seem to struggle to separate "faith", which is unquestioning, and "science", which IS questioning. I blame the American education system, because you are a fellow Nissen and so it can't be your genes that are at fault.
Ed Nissen (Oxford University, UK)
I also see that scientists can't agree on the origin's of man themselves so I don't see any point in putting my faith in them. And by the way, I have no Nissen blood, I married in. I disagree that faith is unquestioning. I think faith always has an element of doubt. Unlike many Christians, I do not follow a path of blind faith. I like to question and doubt and still make the conscious choice to be a follower of Jesus Christ. And science has LOTS of elements of doubt as year after year scientists prove old scientists wrong. I'd rather have faith in God than faith in man. But thanks for engaging in the conversation.
Aah, married to a Nissen, that makes sense... well, you do have good taste at least.
While scientists do indeed often disagree over some finer points, most of what we do is building upon what previous workers have done, not ripping it up; hence the phrase "standing upon the shoulders of giants". (I am a professional scientist by the way). The VAST majority of those who work in biology are united in their acceptance of evolution, and its application to all species, including man. They do so not because they have "faith" (an "unquestioning confidence", Oxford English Dictionary) but because they see that it is incontrivertable, in light of observations and experiments they have undertaken.
If you want to ignore these tens of thousands of scientists just because they can't agree on a few minor quibbles, then that is your choice. But you are blinding yourself to the truth; sad, considering you obviously have a genuine interest in how humans got here.
Also, it has to be said that scientists agree MUCH more of the time than religions do!! Show me a Bhuddist or Sikh who believes the world was created in seven days. Or show me a Christian who believes Mohammed is the prophet of God.
By the way, in Britain the majority of Christians believe in evolution; it is by no means incompatible with Christianity, only with a literal interpretation of the Bible.
Yes, I'm happy to say I don't have a drop of German blood in me. :) Just kidding. Well, sort of. I'm kinda proud of my LeMond/Wilson heritage. But it is funny to see that a scientist from Oxford reads my blog.
I actually am not a biblical literalist (shh...it's a secret...lol) but can't buy into the whole idea of evolution. I can buy some of it, but not in it's entirety. But I'm a kid with a degree in music so whatever.
I can say with confidence that if science is true, it doesn't destory the validity of the Bible, it just changes it's interpretation and I in no way think our interpretations are infallible. As you said, people often disagree on what it means.
I'd say that 99% of what I write for is Christian. I'm trying to challenge them, not you. I'm guessing that a lot of my readers are extremely conservative Christians. I'm just trying to get them to think outside the traditional perspective and hope I don't get burned at the stake for it...lol...
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