More Than A Monkey: A Thoughtful Yet Incomplete Attempt, In Less Than 30 Minutes, To Address Questions Of Creation, Evolution, And The Origins Of The Universe And Why Such Questions Have Any Relevancy Or Importance In A Community Of Hurting People Stumbling Towards Christlikeness In The Power Of The Risen Lord Jesus
Series: In The World But Not Of It Genesis 1 April 10, 2005
Intro:
Back in January, we began a series of sermons looking at how we live as Christians in our world today. What should we think, as believers in Jesus, about the many different, complex issues that we face as a society? We began with a Biblical look at why we should be involved in the issues of our world, then looked at natural disasters such as the tsunami, and then spent two weeks on the issue of marriage. We took a break from that series to focus on the season of Lent and a journey of repentance, and are now jumping back into that series which is driven, overall, by Romans 12:2 as both guide and prayer: “let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” I’ve included the upcoming topics and dates in your sermon notes this morning.
The next four topics we are going to examine are the questions of life: today, questions of origins; then questions of life at its beginnings (reproductive tech, conception); then questions of life and health (issues in research, cloning, stem cells, etc.); and then finally questions of life at its end (assisted suicide, “right to die”, etc.).
Title:
Or…
The Driving Question:
As I hinted at in my title, why should we bother talking about creation and evolution? What does it matter in our lives today?
Let me step back into what I believe is the big question, and maybe we will see. “Who are we?” If you want to be more individualistic, “Who am I?” Part of that question entails wondering where we came from, and the two extremes of “creation” and “evolution” present very different answers: am I nothing more than a slightly more “evolved” form of a monkey, existing out of pure chance and gifted with a life that must be ultimately pointless and futile? Or am I a precious child of an intimately involved God, who lovingly formed me and then placed within me a spark of eternity and an ability to know and be in relationship with my creator? Those two answers lead to drastically different ways of living, of interacting with others, and of facing difficulty and ultimately death.
Fundamental Assumption:
It is always a good idea to state your bias up front, so let me do so. I believe that all truth is God’s truth, and that ultimately truths discovered by science will lead to God.
While there may be some scientists with an agenda to disprove the existence of God, there are many many more who see no conflict between their pursuit of truth through science and their pursuit of truth through God. I am married to one of those scientists who sees God with great admiration through the eyes of science, and who in many ways has a much deeper understanding than I will ever of Romans 1:20 – “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” I will even go a step further and say that the tools of science are a gift of God that can lead us to a more full life, and offer as evidence the simple fact that in 1920 the life expectancy of a Canadian was 60 yrs; in 1990 it was 78.
Underlying Philosophies:
Science and faith have different underlying philosophies, and so there is an expectation of conflict. I see that often in meeting new people, when they find out I am a pastor and my wife is a scientist… Let me do a quick poll – how many of you have post-secondary scientific training, ie: have taken college or university level courses in science. An entire science degree? And how many of you are still Christians?
Faith begins with the assumption that God exists and then seeks answers and truth and purpose from that assumption. Science is often perceived to begin with the assumption that there is no god and that everything is “natural”. And there is a lot of truth to that – much of science is driven by the philosophy of “naturalism” which rejects the existence of god and then seeks to understand everything from that philosophy. Note I did say “much of science”, because there are also a large number of Christians who are scientists and are not driven by naturalism, but rather by a fascination with the world God has created and a desire to use their gifts of knowledge to improve the lives of people everywhere. Because of these competing philosophies, there has been a great deal of tension between the scientific community and the community of faith. Even a history of significant conflict.
Questions of Origins:
That conflict has been seen clearly in the question of the origins of life. “Creation” and “Evolution” have waged a pitched battle, and in many situations continue to do so today. Communities have split, educational curriculums battled over, and proponents on both sides have rejected and ridiculed and marginalized the opposition. Did God create us like the Bible so clearly and simply says, or did life gradually evolve over billions of years through a completely natural process, devoid of any type of God? Since I am a Christian and come from the perspective that God exists, let’s begin with what Scripture says.
Genesis 1
What Does It Mean?
That is a beautiful, moving, poetic, deeply true passage of Scripture. As with all passages of Scripture, we need to reflect on it, put it into context, seek to understand what truths God is trying to communicate, and then ask how we should live as a result of what we have read. As I do those things, here is what I find:
1. God created. The universe was God’s idea, was God’s action, was God’s intention, and was God’s glory. It was designed, intelligent, ordered, deliberate, purposeful, and infused from the very beginning with the creativity, power, wildness, beauty, and perfection of God Himself. God created, and he created out of nothing.
2. What God created was good. It had meaning, significance, and had purpose – namely to bring glory to God. At the close of the 6th day, God looked at all that He had made and stated it clearly: “it was very good.” Even the text itself is worshipful, as we read it we are drawn to worship of the God of the Universe. And it culminates in worship with the institution of the 7th day, described as “blessed” and “holy”.
3. Humanity is unique. There is a distinction between us as humans and the rest of creation, something that sets us apart, which the Bible says simply is “the image of God.” This uniqueness is even more apparent if we keep reading chapter two, where the description is of God tenderly and carefully modelling us from the dust of the ground and then breathing His Spirit into our nostrils.
What I don’t find is an attempt by God to communicate the technical details of how exactly He went about creating us. This is not a science text, it is ancient Hebrew poetry communicating deep spiritual truths. It is God answering, in a beautiful way, that “driving question” of “who are we? How do we relate to the universe around us? Do we matter? Is there purpose and meaning?” It is God answering the most important questions, and proclaiming the most important truths. As I looked at this topic again in preparation for today, that was the most significant thing that I felt God was saying to me – Genesis 1 answers the most important questions very well – the other questions (generally along the lines of “how” creation happened) are simply not as important, and might cause us to miss the most important ones.
And, just so we are entirely clear, hear God’s answer to that “most important” question: you and I are far more than a distant cousin of a monkey. We were dreamed up by God, we were designed by God, we were set apart from the rest of creation by God, and we were even made in the very image of God. So we do matter. We are important, and significant, and even when we feel cast out and unknown and alone in a crowd of other people, we can always return to this incredible truth: you and I matter to the God of the Universe, because God created us. And it wasn’t a mass-production facility either – we are fearfully and wonderfully made, quirks and freckles and imperfections and all.
In the movie “Good Will Hunting”, Robin Williams plays a psychologist counseling a troubled young man with serious intimacy problems. In one scene, he starts sharing about his late wife, and he says: “My wife’s been dead two years, Will. And when I think about her, the things I think about most are the little idiosyncrasies that only I knew about. Those made her my wife. And she had the goods on me too. Little things I do out of habit. People call these things imperfections Will, but that’s the good stuff, the stuff that only those we love most ever get to see.” (my paraphrase).
God’s answer to the most important question, “who am I?”, is that you are His precious, special, unique, and deeply loved creation.
So What About the “Science”?
So what then of the scientific evidence of evolution? Doesn’t that evidence prove that the Bible is wrong, that in fact there is no God?
Let’s acknowledge first that evolution is a theory, not a fact. It is a widely held theory, and it is much of the scientific community’s best attempt at explaining the things they observe, but it is still a theory. And theories can and do change – for example, scientists believed for many many years that ulcers were caused by stress, and so they treated them with antacids. Now we know that 90% are caused by a bacteria and so now are treated with antibiotics. I personally think that since it is impossible for us to observe or recreate the very beginning of the universe, our best attempts to understand it will always be theoretical.
That reminds me, “One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and
do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and get lost."
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this, let’s say we have a man making contest." To which the scientist replied, "OK, great!" But God added, "Now, we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam." The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"
As the joke points out, even if we accept the theory of evolution, we must still somehow account for the “raw materials.”
Viewpoints:
The origins debate is really quite complicated. To ask “do you believe in creation or evolution?” is really an oversimplification. It is not so much an “either/or” as it is a continuum. On the one side, we find those who interpret Genesis 1 completely literally, 6 days, about 6000 yrs ago (young-earth creationism). Others interpret the “days” as “eons” (old-earth creationism). Some believe that God created the Big Bang and then each organism in the time indicated in the fossil record (progressive creationism). Still others see an inherent supernatural design in the world and so focus on the intelligence of God behind creation (intelligent design creationism). Others believe that God used evolution as a tool to create, yet remains very much involved in human life (evolutionary creationism). Some see a God who started it all, but is no longer involved (theistic evolution). And finally, some see it all as completely natural and deny any existence of God (naturalistic evolution).
So What?
One thing I want you to notice out of all of those is that, up until the very last, all of them believe in God. Now, what they believe about God varies greatly, some we would consider completely wrong, some we might disagree with, others we might accept.
For many non-Christians, one of the issues is the feeling they have that to become a Christian means they have to turn their brains off, turn their back on science, specifically here they have to reject the evidence that backs up the theory of evolution and instead believe in what they would call a “creation myth.” If nothing else, I hope that continuum will enable us to remove the creation/evolution debate as a barrier to evangelism, and instead come back to the most essential question – “who are we? and how do we relate to God?” Let’s talk about Jesus instead of Darwin.
And let’s love one another even though we might come down on different points along that continuum. I know that here this morning we have people at both ends of the continuum, and we are called to love one another deeply, even if we think that others are wrong on this particular topic. And by the way, when I say “love each other deeply” I don’t mean we pretend the differences don’t exist – I don’t mean we bury our head in the sand and create a false peace – I mean we talk, we argue, we challenge. But we do so in a way that builds our love for one another, not in a way that tears one another down.
What Does Steve Think About Creation v. Evolution?
Of course, you all want to know the answer to this question… so let me tell you. I do not have a firm position, because I haven’t studied the details in enough depth. I come down somewhere between old earth creationism and evolutionary creationism.
Back to the Driving Question:
Ultimately the most important truth in the whole origins discussion is that God created us, not how God created us. The search for origins is a question of identity – do we matter? Are we significant? I believe that God’s first intention in Genesis 1 and 2 is to answer that question in the affirmative. God reveals His power in creation, and then reveals that He took special care to create us “in the image of God”.
Maybe this issue has been a barrier in your life to coming to know God, well let’s get it out of the way. I invite you to know, personally and intimately, the God who created you in His image, and who longs for you to know life. As the worship team comes and leads us, I invite you to respond to God in faith, and let Him change your life.
Life is not futile, nor meaningless. God is powerful, and God is good. We can face life, difficulties, and even death without fear and with hope and strength, because we rest in the love and purpose of God and in His creative and intimate love.
