Curiosity and God
Here is my response to the query from my friend. This was an email exchange and some of it might not flow as smoothly as my blog so please allow a little grace.
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Offended? No. I don’t see any reason to be offended. He has assumed that the Theory of Evolution is truth and that somehow God is using it but I have some basic problems with that premise. If we are to accept what God says in his Word then we have to accept it all. If I begin to pick and choose what I believe then where is the foundation for my belief? I believe that God meant what he said in Genesis when he says he created the universe is 6 days. I have no problem with the distances involved or the fact that he could put light in motion and have it appear to have traveled great distances or that dinosaurs existed before the flood.
Evolution requires survival of the fittest and that means death to get to the evolved man. The bible says that death did not come into play until after man sinned and tried to be god himself. No death, no evolution.
My belief is that there are rational explanations to these questions regarding fossils, apparent age and stratification using a great flood theory. The fact is that there is NO evidence of evolution any more than there is evidence of creation that we can test and prove today. Faith is required in either case. There is no physical evidence of any cross species evolution. Micro-scale evolution, yes. Flowers mutate based on environment. Butterflies, moths, fish, mammals and many other species adapt to the environment but they do not change from reptiles into birds, etc.
I think we suffer under the idea that “God said it and I believe it without question” and many fundamentalists operate that way. Christians get a reputation based on the behavior of those that we see in the news and we know that just may not be the whole picture. Most of the country thinks about Christians as being against homosexuality or abortion or smoking or drinking and the like but I want to be known by what I am FOR, not what I am AGAINST.
I believe that God made us curious for a reason. He wants us to learn about his creation and to enjoy what he has made. That used to be the whole basis for science until the last 100 years or so. The earth today is a mere shadow of what once was, in the perfect creation he made. It now groans under the curse of sin just like we do. It will be redeemed along with us in the end but for now it is all we have physically and we are responsible to be good managers of it. I think that includes learning all we can about His creation.
There is a bias in science today that tries to exclude God because he cannot not be measured or felt or smelled, etc. but I like the analogy that your email brought up. I suspect the exclusion has more to do with submission to God if we have to admit he exists than it does with the empirical evidence dispute. My goal is to be curious. To search with an open mind and try to interpret the data but I am forced to do that with a bias of my own. The whole idea of science is to put forth a theory and then to go about trying to prove or disprove it based on the facts. Either bias can do that but we have to look at it honestly. If the data does not fit our theory then we have to make a change to the theory or see if we have interpreted the data correctly. It may be we have a limited amount of data and the more we dig, the more we understand the reality.
There is a story about a scientist who had a trained cockroach. He had trained it to jump on command. In order to study the ability of the cockroach the scientist set up a hurdle and got a tape measure, stop watch and a notebook. He placed the cockroach in front of the hurdle and said “JUMP”. The cockroach jumped and the scientist wrote into the notebook the height and distance the cockroach jumped and how long it took. He then picked up the cockroach and pulled the back two legs off it. Placing it in front of the hurdle again he commanded it to “JUMP”. The cockroach did but it was not as high or as far and it took longer to do the task. Again the scientist wrote all the information in the book and picked up the cockroach, this time pulling the front legs off. Placing the cockroach again in front of the hurdle he said “JUMP” and the cockroach did. It took much longer to complete the task as it barely made the climb this time over the hurdle. The scientist made notes again about the time and distance and finally he picked up the cockroach again pulling the middle two legs off. He placed the cockroach down in front of the hurdle and commanded it to “JUMP”. … Nothing happened. Again he said “JUMP” and nothing happened. After 3 more attempts to get the cockroach to obey he wrote in his book “Subject refused to jump. I can only conclude that pulling the middle two legs off a cockroach makes it deaf.”
He had a bias and judged the data accordingly. We all do that but if we are truly curious then maybe we will try to see what the data actually says and adapt our theory to it instead. Is God big enough to stand all this curiosity? Of that I have no doubt. He not only can stand it, he relishes it. It is his desire to know us and to be known by us. That is the whole reason he came in the form of a man just so we could know him. In the time of Adam and Eve, God was over us. He came and walked with them in the cool of the evening and sought to be their companion. They violated his only rule and tried to take his place in their own lives but God had a plan. While He was over us in that time he later became Emmanuel which means God With Us. We as humans could touch and hear and smell, etc. God in the flesh. Jesus himself claimed to be God. If you don’t believe that to be true then start reading John in the New Testament. He said over and over again that he was GOD and it ticked off the religious leaders so bad they had him killed. He allowed himself to be killed as a sacrifice to reconcile us to him and what replaced him “with us” was the Holy Spirit who is now God IN Us. He inhabits our very being and while I don’t fully understand it, I believe it is true because I have experienced it. His Spirit is connected to my spirit and that is just more than I deserve. It is by his grace that I am saved and I love it.
I agree with Don that the Universe is a wonderful and amazing place both theologically and scientifically. I do not believe that we have to try and fit God into any box. He won’t fit. Is it possible that God is using a time span of billions of years? I suppose it is but how does that fit with scripture? I believe that all of the scripture is truth. I don’t however believe that all the truth is in scripture. I am sure there are things that we don’t know or see yet but we will in time. I don’t believe that it is an either / or situation here. I think it is a bias in how we choose to interpret the data we have. My challenge is to not be a fundamentalist either way. Not in evolution or creation. Be curious instead and seek to understand what God has to say about his creation and himself. I would contend that he makes himself known to us in the very things we see, feel, smell, taste and hear. To deny that is to be a fundamentalist.
If you want to see a more organized, structured approach on a creation bias to the data then go to www.icr.org and do a little looking around. There are lots of other resources but this is one that I find helpful.