By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm (Psalm 33:6-9)
I have good Christian friends who are young-earth creationists, old-earth creationists, creation scientists, intelligent-design creationists, evolutionary creationists, and theistic evolutionists. I don’t have any friends who are atheistic evolutionists—primarily because both at work and at leisure I’m surrounded by followers of Christ. But, to be frank, I have to confess that after following the creation-evolution debate for more than forty years, I’ve come to believe that those who look at life’s origin according to Genesis mostly as a question of science are belittling Scripture.
Let me explain. By “belittling” I’m referring to the word’s original connotation: “to regard or portray as less impressive or important than appearances indicate.” In other words, trying to squeeze into human categories and understanding what is outside of human comprehension. I don’t believe that anything in God’s creation can be made to fit perfectly into any human categories. Genesis is one of the world’s grandest statements of truth—with meaning and implications that we can only begin to grasp. Science philosopher Michael Polanyi expressed it like this:
The book of Genesis and its great pictorial illustrations, like the frescoes of Michelangelo, remain a far more intelligent account of the nature and origin of the universe than the representation of the world as a chance collocation of atoms. . . . The scientific picture denies any meaning to the world, and indeed ignores all our most vital experience of this world. The assumption that the world has some meaning which is linked to our own calling as the only morally responsible beings in the world is an important example of the supernatural aspect of experience which Christian interpretations of the universe explore and develop. [My emphasis -DO]
I feel that “creation science” often belittles God’s Word and “secular science” belittles God’s world. Typically those who say that special creation alone gave origin to life and those who say that evolutionary processes alone gave origin to life seem to imply that they have some comprehensive explanation of the origin of life. They don’t. Nor do you or I. Life is so awesome and its origin so beyond our ken that our primary response to it should be worship (what Paul was surely implying when he said that the natural world reveals the Creator’s eternal power and divinity in Romans 1:20).
These conclusions of mine (simple, incomplete, and non-comprehensive as they must remain) have caused me to be fascinated with the studies of John H. Walton both in his book The Lost World of Genesis One and his study of the entire first book of the Bible The NIV Application Commentary on Genesis. One of his most significant conclusions is that the Genesis account of creation is part of a temple ceremony and that its purpose, in part, was to proclaim to nations surrounding Israel and especially to the children of Israel that there is only one true God and that the earth is His temple. So Walton would go beyond John Calvin who saw the earth as “the theater of God’s glory” and say that the earth is “the temple of God’s glory.”
This emphasis, then, has significant implications regarding the theme and purpose of this Website: celebrating the wonder of creation. A theater is a place where you go to observe, and its elements are mundane. The observer has no responsibilities in a theater but perhaps to applaud. A temple, on the other hand, is a place where you go to worship, and its elements are sacred. In a temple you are a participant and have responsibilities. In the next few posts I would like to explore the implications of seeing the cosmos as God’s temple.
(NOTE: My introductory statements are not an invitation to make WOC a platform for the creation-evolution debate, which I feel is terribly disruptive in the church. Those discussions can better take place at venues dedicated to that one issue. If you’re interested in reading my concerns about that debate, you might want to read the RBC Discovery Series booklet on it: “The Genesis Account of Creation: Diffusing the Controversy.”)
August 19th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Dean, I had to read this one over 4 times, and I still feel like I need some more study on this. When you define the word “belittle” then say that Creation Science often belittles the Word, I believe you will get letters! But your explanation of belittle, that it “regards of less importance than appearance indicates” certainly seems right especially if Genesis was meant to be a temple ceremony.
I don’t know about the temple ceremony part, but Genesis to me is all about our worship and obedience to our Creator. And what a creator He is. All throughout the history of this blog Dean, I have come to realize that I can’t fathom the tremendousness of what God has done. To try to understand it, much as I would like to, is impossible. Each of the verses in Genesis 1 defies explanation. Can you imagine what went on when God created the sun? And our universe defies exploration, as much as we want to see it all. Each molecule and its smallest parts, as we discover them, keep showing more that is left to examine. It seems there is infinity within and without. So what is left for me is worship. What else is there.
Jesus asked the disciples if they would go away when folks left after hearing we must eat Jesus’ flesh. Peter made a profound statement: To whom shall we go? There is no Other. If God isn’t big enough now, and His work isn’t great enough now, we need to open our eyes, get a small glimpse of His majesty then fall on our knees.
Bob
August 19th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Good thoughts, Bob!
As you point out, we need to approach these issues with great humility—a humility, in fact, that most of us modern believers find hard to attain. Over the years I have seen so much pride in Christians about their supposed ability to “explain it all,” that I think some are incapable of getting the point of what I wrote in this post.
The huge majority of evangelical theologians going all the way back to Augustine in the fourth century have agreed that the Genesis creation account is not a scientific statement and that it contains mysteries and truths that we simply can’t come close to grasping. So when we shout and shoot at each other over the meaning of the account, I know it has to grieve God.
I sincerely hope that anyone who feels compelled to shout and shoot at me will first study the conclusions of Walton before they do and not just “shoot from the hip” compulsively. Walton’s views, now shared by many evangelical theologians, have the potential to greatly diffuse this terribly disruptive controversy and actually help compel Christians to come to a much greater and much more biblically sound understanding of the meaning of both the Genesis account of creation and the creation itself—and our requirement to be good stewards of it.
Dean
August 20th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Dean, I clicked on the link that took me to “The Lost World of Genesis One”, and read on-line about 30 pages. Walton has me thirsty to read more. Just finding out that putting our cultural minds into thinking about what was written to an ancient culture, can really get us confused. Without at least a partial understanding of the culture at the time of the writing can cause us to be way off the mark of gaining insight into what Genesis is all about.
Thanks for the link. I must get that book.
Bob
August 20th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
I really like that book by John Walton. I think he makes a good case for his interpretation. It’s been awhile, and I really must reread it, because it is definitely a learning experience. And the booklet you mention that you wrote, Dean, I think is most helpful.
Actually the beginning of the Bible reminds me of the ending of the Bible in telling the Story of God. To make it some sort of scientific treatise is to misread the text especially considered in its Ancient Near East context (I’m thinking now of Genesis). And makes it harder to really get at what God’s Story is all about, in Jesus. Not that I understand well what I’m saying. I speak over my head, but am anxious to settle in and try to learn more, especially what really matters in it all.