Evolving Thoughts
Now, I have been convinced for a large portion of my life that evolution is a load of unproved, misinformed, atheistic crap. It seems the view of the modern church that Creationism is the only option that includes God. I have been wondering over the last several years, though- why must evolution be missing God? What if God was the one who initiated and sustained this process of evolution? Would that make Him any less God?As I was finishing the previously mentioned book, The Story We Find Ourselves In by Brian MacLaren, the character Neil Oliver is a Christian in the book who finds some parts of the theory of evolution not only interesting, but even exciting.
He starts by saying that the theory of evolution is not perfect and has many holes, but that, to him, it makes more sense than any theory because of God's creative nature. Basically, that God created the universe to continue creating, not just to be stagnant.
from page 98:
"Bottom line: Go back before creation. If God is the only thing that exists, the only being that is, then God has to create time, so that the universe can be itself, become itself, with some kind of freedom and authenticity. Otherwise, it's just a puppet universe, just a simulation. Do you see it? So if God wants to make a universe that's real, I think we would expect it to happen just as evolution says: the universe would develop, over time, writing its own story, so to speak. It's a story of becoming, of unfolding, of novelties emerging and possibilities being explored and diversity flowing. And best of all, it's not finished yet. We're still in process, still young, still moving ahead toward what we're going to be when we're all 'grown up.' And each of us, through our lives, through our choices, by cooperating with God or by withholding our cooperation, plays a part in the continuing evolution of God's creation. That's not so bad, is it?"
I don't think that's so bad. And while I don't know that evolution is the best theory we can come up with, there are some parts that do make sense and some parts of it that are intriguing, and I don't think that God has to be absent from it.
I have this feeling like all of the things we argue about and consider to be "Christian" and "atheistic" will not even matter to God when we finally get to heaven and ask Him. If He does tell us what He did, it will be something completely different from anything we could have imagined, I have a feeling. It reminds me of Joshua chapter 5, when Joshua meets an angel and says, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" The angel says, "Neither, but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." In other words, He doesn't come to take sides. His ways are higher than ours. His thoughts are higher than ours.
We haven't figured it all out. Maybe we need to view all of our theories as huge stabs in the dark, and everyone hits a different part of the bigger picture that no one will see until we meet Him face-to-face.
Evolution is something we don't discuss much in Christian circles, except to bash it and disregard it completely. Are we willing to consider it and discuss it?
Time for the passionate comments!!! Let's hear 'em...
posted by Gina @ 9:37 PM
23 Comments:
I appreciate your thoughts, though I completely hate the theory of evolution. The idea of evolution and God may not mutually exclusive, but there are some things about the Bible that lend a problem to it. In the creation account in Genesis the word used for "day" does in fact imply a 24 hour period of time. Yes, I know the whole, "a second is like a thousand years" argument, but I don't think it holds much water.
Here is an exurpt from http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i1/days.asp:
"When Moses, under the inspiration of God, compiled the account of creation in Genesis 1, he used the Hebrew word yôm for 'day'. He combined yôm with numbers ('first day', 'second day', 'third day', etc.) and with the words 'evening and morning', and the first time he employed it he carefully defined the meaning of yôm (used in this way) as being one night/day cycle (Genesis 1:5). Thereafter, throughout the Bible, yôm used in this way always refers to a normal 24–hour day.2,3 There is thus a prima facie case that, when God used the word yôm in this way, He intended to convey that the days of creation were 24 hours long.
The rest of the article is good. Basically, the language of the Bible, if taken as it was most likely written and intended, speaks to 24 hour periods in creation.
And finally, one last thought from the same article sited above:
"If the 'days' really weren't ordinary days, then God could be open to the charge of having seriously misled His people for thousands of years. Commentators universally understood Genesis in a straightforward way, until attempts were made to harmonize the account with longs ages and then evolution."
I think the fact that the world of science fights so ardently against Creationism is evidence that it is in extreme oposition to the bilaws underwriting the theory of Evolution. Evolutionists are constantly trying to prove how the living somethings and their comopsing parts came from a something else that was absent and/or lacking an essential part necessary for a new something. I once thought about accepting certain parts of evolution, but there was a struggle within me and then I realized that I must take God's Word literally and creationism is Truth and it's actually proven over and over each day with many scientists but those evidences are also cleverly supressed by Evolutionists. But, it can be found (when we seek). I think we can find racism, the devaluing of life itself, and humanism at the heart of evolution. Yes, living things do change, but because of something present that was first breathed into exsistence by God. Think of the pieces required to make a bicycle, nuts, bolts, and all, and say I propose to make a motorcycle out of those bicycle parts...a totally different species, if you will...well, some of the springs and nuts and bolts and spokes may be the same, but there are quite a few essential pieces missing needed to form the motorcycle. Maybe that's not the best example, but I think we are to look at all of creation as the formation of something exceedingly intricate created by the hand, by the word, of a creative and all-powerful God. The most recent scientific news I've heard is that scientists have discovered that the number of nucleic acid pairs in our DNA is actually less than once thought, meaning all of the differnces among a species are due to a more intricate and involved series of events that we've previously thought. Our thoughts, even our scientific holdings, must point us to God's Truth and Glory, the glorious image in which we humans were made.
Alas, you may be right...maybe all of this speculation will be seen as needless once we arrive Home...these old, mutated genes will be passed away...and I can't wait to experience the New that's coming!
ps: thanks for the stimulating conversation this morning! :)
evolution obviously happens to some extent. you can look at dog breeds,the galapagos finches, the brocolli-cauliflower-cabbage family to see that change happens and fairly quickly. but as for all of this happening randomly, not a chance. God likes to tell stories, so why not let creation change? (is it a cop-out cause i'm a Christian but see evidence of evolution? is Genesis that clear when it says God made every creature, or does "according to its kind" mean he created the species and then let them do their thing?)
Wow, Gina. Thanks for bringing this up and being open to the passionate responses! i disagree with dizzymusik. What you see happening in dog breeding and the like are NOT evolution. Evolution requires the GAIN of genetic information (to go from a single celled organism to a tulip, for example, even over billions of years, would require additional info). When you breed and breed and breed a dog into that cute dalmation, you have been strategically REMOVING genetic info, such that you will never be able to get a lab or a chow or a beagle.
But that's not even what i really wanted to talk about. My hang up with evolution is this: Even if we put God at the beginning of evolution, evolution requires millions, if not billions of years of life evolving...which means things living and dying and living and dying. These years are scattered with sickness and disease (which would have to be responsible for some of the dying). When we look in the Biblical account and read that after God was finished creating, He said it was very good. And with both the account of Genesis and Romans, we read that death entered the world via sin/the Fall. So how do we reconcile God calling His creation good if, for any amount of years, there had been sickness (cancer and alzheimers are good???) and death, and sin had not yet entered the world? It just doesn't line up for me. The only other argument is that the Bible (both Genesis AND Romans) don't really mean what they say...which says to me, that at least in those two portions it's not reliable. What are we to do with that? That's why i take God at His word. i may not have a thorough explanation for all of Creationism, but evolution is, by it's very nature, anti-God, and i can't buy into that.
One more thing...
the quote from your book is the kind of stuff that is dangerous. Sure it does sound really good. i won't argue with that. But it definitely romanticizes evolution, and gives no honor to the Biblical account of creation/the reliability of the Bible. With this magical, very artistic sweep of the pen, the basics of evolution are completely glossed over. And we do indeed end up with, "that's not so bad, is it?" It may sound good. It may look good. But at its core, is it actually good? Is it true? It is real? Geesh, how many times to we as Christians see this situation happen over and over in our lives? It's been happening since Eve and Adam had a bite of that piece of fruit that seemed so harmless. If it (whatever "it" is in my life today) had a sign on it that said, "i know i look good, but really i'm a snare straight from the pit hoping to destroy you!" what believer in their right mind would go after it? Just a thought... :)
OK, time for an education.
The Biblical account of creation was not designed to communicate, in any way, any minute amount of scientific truth.
The point of the first couple of chapters of Genesis is this:
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
This first verse is the summary of what follows in the next couple of chapters.
And what makes the creation account different from all of the other creation accounts of the era is this: rather than the gods being created out of the earth, OUR God created the heavens and the earth.
ahh, well i have to admit that i'm just glad i was able to post on this before mr. d. ashley because i would feel stupid saying anything on this topic after he chimes in. :) just kidding dave
first of all, i'll admit that i believe in creationism based on what i've read from the bible and the support that i've actually taken the time to read (which hasn't been much). but i struggle with the fact that i feel like the scientific discussion concerning evolution is beyond what i can understand (if i'm being honest).
so i'll start what i have to say by admitting that evolution is one of my remaining "major issues". what i mean is, i feel like this is a big issue and it deserves thorough thought, thorough reading, thorough discussion, etc.
and concerning my qualifications, let's face it, i made a C in biology here at GT. not very impressive background for diving into a scientific evaluation of something this hot.
at any rate, i do have some commentary for the discussion.
first of all, i don't think it helps for us as believers to approach something like this saying "you have to be stupid to believe in evolution".
i've heard this so many times. honestly i think this is on par with people who say "God hates fags" or anything else like that.
having open dialogue that places more value on honoring people and relationships than on "being right" is where we have to start. (if you're married you already understand this.) if we alienate those who we disagree with to the point that they can't even recognize that we are a people of love, why have the discussion in the first place?
as believers, our only hope or goal in discussing this topic should be that through it, people will SEE GOD. not that people be proven wrong so they will have to concede and convert.
i'm not saying anybody who's commented here falls into that camp. i'm just saying.
second, i'm much more interested in the social/spiritual aspects of evolution than the scientific. (i don't think science would ever lead me to walk away from Jesus, like don miller says.)
like for instance, one of the very compelling things mr. ashley has shared with me is the idea of how original sin relates to evolution. maybe he would care to share more.
or katie, as you say, the racial/humanistic aspects. (this from someone with a degree in biology no less!)
anyway, i hope my limited perspective can contribute something beneficial to this discussion as well...
A couple things as a background.
First of all, the idea of evolution came about from observation by Darwin. These observations challenged Catholic tradition at the time, so Darwin was seen as a heretic. Those Catholic traditions were that the world is the same today as when God created it. Nothing had changed.
After being rejected by the Catholic Church, Evolution became a rallying cry for Humanists who wanted to secularize society (yes, it started that long ago). And that is why Evolution has become the religious support for the Humanist movement. And why the secularists fight so hard to keep it the only scientific concept in the public schools, the third parent for most children ... if not the primary parent.
Where we have to be careful with the idea of evolution is with how it undermines the very nature of God and His historical plan.
To observe microevolution, change over time within a species, is basic fact. What cannot be proven about evolution is a change from one species to another, or macroevolution. That requires mutation, and mutation (despite cool X-men movies) is generally very bad and never an improvement on the species. Its usually deadly, actually.
Genesis has some very basic tenements that are important. God created everything. God created man for a purpose, designing man after Himself. Man disobeyed God (sinned), thereby placing all of creation under a curse. There's even a Messianic prophecy in Genesis.
So we have to be careful with how evolution undermines those basic truths, because they are foundational to understand the importance of what Christ accomplished on the cross and through His resurrection.
I would say that although I definitely have my own beliefs about the Genesis account, the important beliefs listed above are what is crucial, and where any idea, whether scientific or philosophical, opposes those beliefs, I believe we are called to stand for Truth.
Don't know if/when David will get in on this, but i'll leave any other response on behalf of the Ashley clan up to him. i just wanted to check in with Gina, knowing that the worst thing about web communication is that tone of voice isn't included. None of my thoughts were put forth in frustration, and no comment of mine was directed at you, Gina. As Ben stated, this stuff is a passion of David's, and thereby mine also. We've been around too many of the pompous intellectuals who like to argue about this for ego's sake, and only accomplish division. i don't want any of my comments to start sliding in that direction.
i'm not sure where i stand on this. but i definitely don't think that evolution is by its nature anti-God. on an extremely literal sense, i'm anti-God in much of what i do. yet that doesn't make me not true. big over simplication/extreme . . . i know. but just because it doesn't fit what we know doesn't make it anti-God.
initial thoughts.
i don't really like the term evolution. or at least as it is defined as single cell organisms mutating to monkeys . . . mutating to human. and everything in between. i think that indeed has tons of holes in it. i think the idea of adaption carries much more weight in the both the scientific and religious worlds. and most people agree with this, so i won't spend time defending or explaining.
so i think evolution as it relates to humanity evolving from other things is a stretch from my own perspective. not outside the possibilities. but i'm not jumping on that ship.
what i do think has tons of merit and is extremely interesting to discuss is the universe side of evolution. things like the big bang and all of those other cool little physics related theories.
the idea that the universe is "emerging" and has been. and part of the creation account is not only for humanity to model "new creation" but for the universe to model "new creation" as well. the only catch is that there is this thing called sin which has thrown the whole thing into flux. a downward spiral even. but then jesus comes in and stops the downward spiral. rights the sinking ship. and begins to model this new creation again.
to me this is what the miracles of the gospels were. it wasn't jesus just arbitrarily trying to validate his deity (although that is a possibility). perhaps they were outworkings of a human and a creation fully aligned with its original intent. food for thought.
i would love to explore the idea of how original sin in fact interupted and even extinguishes the creation project. nt wright does some excellent work regarding this issue as well as Jesus' miracles.
I don't know. I think the idea of evolution as it relates to the universe: how it gets bigger and then shrinks back in on itself. And all of those neat little theories have the possibility of being compatible with God. Humanity emerging out of slime . . . less in my mind.
Well there are so many different theorys and points of view on this specific topic that I could spend all day writing about it. But instead, I'll try and put everything into perspective. Being a scientist myself (a COMPUTER scientist, but nevertheless a scientist) I can understand why humans want to know the answer to the ever nagging question of how? Most of my career has been spent dissecting miscellaneous things and trying to figure out how the work. Unfortunately that idea doesn't exactly apply to God now does it?
Now. Be you a young earth creationist, an old earth creationist, or even if you believe in the validity of evolution we cant lose sight of the actual issue here. God is awesome. He made things. ALOT of them =). The method isn't that important.
Evolution is a theory. Unfortunatly most text books and scientists fail to recognize that it is what just that -- a theory. The deductive reasoning there is that its the best we have to go on, so it must be true! How frivilous! The shear speed at which the miscellaneous fields in science are changing (take a look at hawkings String Theory or a good quantum physics book if you really want your head to explode) speaks to me that it's not a good idea to assume evolution is the only method to our existence.
So in closing, I really don't care about the HOW, I just care about the fact that God is so incredibly amazing that it did happen (Read Romans 1:18). Don't get me wrong, its great to debate, and being able to quote evolution to a hardcore scientist is an awesome tool for witnessing. To witness to a geek, you gotta be able to speak his language ;).
And to back up the Jason Dean, microevolution is provable. Macro evolution is not. Why? Well you obviously can't do an experiment over billions of years can you?
Jduv
i lied. i'm back with one more question...this one's been rolling around in my head since last night, so i'll get it out...i just wonder what the writer of Hebrews was thinking when he/she wrote the 3rd verse of the 11th chapter...By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
"LOUD NOISES!"- Anchorman
In all seriousness, I'm glad each of you have such passionate responses. You people scare me, because of what you know. I've been blissfully ignorant my whole life, pretending I don't care about the logistics of Creationism v. Evolution. But now, you are forcing me to answer for myself. And all I can think of is, "Loud Noises!"
to play the devil's advocate, what does the verse in hebrews have to do with anything after the original creation? what if God created everything out of nothing to begin with but then put it humanity and the creation itself in the role of playing co-creators? thus the universe evolving and emerging on its on?
i personally don't think people evolved from monkeys. but the verse in hebrews just talks about an original creation.
and when luke is referring to things not seen, its actually a reference to God. that the invisible being made the visible beings. and luke doesn't say how or when or where.
just being the devil's advocate which is exactly what this blog needs.
Hi All,
i really had decided i was done with responding to all that was going on with Gina's blog, but i'm done saying i'm finished. i just wanted to talk straight with you. i feel like it's getting more tense on here, and i don't want to be divisive. Perhaps i'm most uneasy b/c it's not like we're all buddies, we know where each other is coming from, and at the end of the day we'll still feel like we're on the same "side" regardless of where we sit on the issue. It seems as though we give our input, certain that we've got the other contributors pigeonholed as one of "those" Christians (you know, the close-minded, dead-to-reality church goers)...which is highly unlikely given that they're cruising these very blogs...or as one of "those other" Christians (typical of our generation, out to ruffle feathers and go aginst the flow and be counter church cultural...Vigilante Christians ;). Given the demographic of the folks contributing to the discussion, to one extent or another, it's likely that we're all pretty skeptical of any answer that seems too easy, and we've probably spent a lot of time thinking and talking about the issue from every possible angle. Not to mention the fact that this issue has been hot for more years than we've been alive. It's highly unlikely that any of us is going to bring some original thought that will change everything. Maybe it's a moot point. i feel like even though we're mostly all 20-somethings we're already those folks who are set in how we think/believe, and we don't really want to engage on what really is important...and what's just NOT (see, can't you hear in my mind, me deciding that some of you aren't into what's really important!?) . So we've done our research, and decided to believe whomever we believe to be the authority on the issue, and we come with all of the confidence in the world to inform the rest of the readers...but you can see the obvious problem there. i may or may not submit to your chosen authority's opinion, b/c it doesn't agree with mine. i'm discouraged b/c i don't know where to go from here.
First of all, let me say thanks to everyone for being so candid and honest. I also want to say that I know that no one's intention was for things to get tense, and I sincerely hope no one felt that way. I wanted this to just be an open forum for discussion, and I hope it has provided such. Ben and I realized that we are the only ones who actually know everyone who has contributed to the conversation, and let me just say that everyone here loves Jesus, loves each other, and is honestly seeking truth. No one wants to cause offense or hurt to another.
We all have our opinions, and they are obviously very passionate and emotional in nature. Some of us hold more firmly to our opinions than others. I'll be honest, though, I never want to become so firm in my opinions that I am unwilling to listen to or consider another opinion. For that reason, I feel that discussions like these are important. They remind us that God is bigger and smarter than we are, and we should never be so proud in our opinions as to leave out any possibility that God just might have a way different from the one we like the best.
I also appreciated the clarification given by several of my more biologically-inclined friends. Perhaps it would have been helpful for me to have included some of the clarifications in my original post, and for that, I apologize. I feel like a lot of us are saying the same things, just in different words.
A couple of clarifying things I would like to make.
-My intent was not to talk about humans descending from monkeys. This, as Jason mentioned, is a very common misconception about evolution, and one that can make us seem very misinformed.
-My intent was not to question the validity of Scripture. I fully believe what Genesis says is true, but there are, admittedly, a lot of intermittent steps that God hasn't informed us about. He didn't explain why all species didn't originate from Mesopotamia. He didn't explain Pangaea. So we are left to reason those things on our own. Are they the most important things to discuss? No, but I think the discussion brings out our beliefs about God and Scripture.
On this note, I think it is interesting the different perspectives we seem to have on the Bible itself. There seems to be disagreement about whether the Bible was really written as a scientific book meant to be taken literally, or a story to find immense value and meaning and direction in. I would like to discuss this further on a future post.
-I also want to say that, while many evolutionists want to leave God out of the picture, that doesn't mean that we should disregard evolution entirely. I think that the theory of evolution and discussions about it can present an opportunity to say, "You know, evolution isn't a perfect theory, but even if it were true, there had to be a Creator, a God, who started all of this and sustained it along the way. The statistical chances are so small that there must have been an outside force." All science, even ones we don't agree with, point back to Him if we let ourselves see it. God spoke through a donkey, so he could surely speak through some intelligent humans, even if they don't like Him.
-I also think it is important to be willing to discuss the theory of evolution with people and not just disregard it as worthless. When we disregard something during conversation, we are making the issue more important than the person.
-Someday, perhaps soon, someone else will come up with another theory of ________ to explain how we got here. It will probably be better than evolution, I hope. And I hope that we won't just write it off because it doesn't use the term "Creationism."
-Maybe Eric is right- the fact that we have gotten so passionate about this shows that we focus too much on things that Jesus never asked us to focus on. At the end of the day, if evolution is true, it doesn't make God any less God. If aliens exist, it doesn't make God any less God. God can do whatever He wants. And none of these "theories" or ideas change what I need to do each day to please Him.
So, mooooooooooo...
hi, i'm jason. i was friends/roommates with adam, then met ben and eric, and a bunch of other folks on my way to failing out of tech (twice). i've been known to be difficult to pigeon hole as my views can change as i'm convinced/convicted of various things.
do i believe that God created every creature?
absolutely.
do i believe that we evolved from monkeys, fish, single cells in
boiling water on the ocean floor?
no way.
eve from adam’s rib?
yup.
do i believe in microevolution and the ability for little changes to occur within a species?
yeah, but i don't know enough about the term or the science around it so i avoided using it.
do i see how people could believe in evolution?
yes. as christians our eyes have been opened, and we see the world differently. i believe that if you don't have the holy spirit and faith to direct you, you're going to look for logical explanations to things, and what little i've seen about evolution makes sense, though personally i find it a lot easier to believe that there is no way in earth, heaven, or hell that all of this happened by chance.
that said, i talked to eric on the phone today, and being the songwriter/ photographer/ soon-to-be special ed teacher sensitive guy that i am, i saw a beauty in this conversation. i see adam who's got his dad's businessman tenacity, ben and britt in their reserved wisdom, and jeremy and “mrs. david” and others' technical expertise. i don't know a lot of you, but i think it's safe to guess that we're all pretty nerdy. but even in this select group or dorks, it's neat to see how we are different body parts and play our own roles, even in discussions like this. good stuff!
one final thought: i don't think that God would allow us to turn away from faith by looking deeper into things. evolution is just one example, but i think that in any situation the more we look into something, the more we are going to discover God's truth -- the only truth. people may disagree with me on this, and it might open a can of worms, but i have faith to believe that we will not be deceived by searching. searching, while at times can be frustrating and fuel doubt, will ultimately strengthen our faith. in the end we'll be able to look back and say "i had questions about that, but i've since answered them." it's okay to question and to have doubts. they lead to growth. and then there are things that don't matter at all because they don't have anything to do with a spotless man, a cross, and his blood.
Christians persecuted anyone who said that pi wasn't exactly 3, based on the Bible.
Yet that passage wasn't intended to describe an accurate scientific fact.
Neither are the first couple of chapters of Genesis intended to describe any accurate scientific or biological fact. It was intended to describe a worldview, which reflected their scientific understanding of the time (quite primitive -- that the entire universe was filled with water before creation!). Yet was quite unique in their claim that their god created the world and the universe, while other religions of the day claimed that their god was brought out of the river, or whatever.
In other words, the Genesis account is saying:
Nyah, nyah, if the Nile created your god, our God created the Nile!
Therefore, you can agree with "evolution" as an origination theory without discrediting the Bible. Personally, I don't buy their arguments, and the shaky foundations of it have been hidden by secularists who have been way too proud of how superior that theory is to a worldview inscribed in scripture that was authored thousands of years before. (Which is silly thing to be proud of.)
Yet they've put so much "faith" in their theory that they can't objectively evaluate any evidence to the contrary, obvious clues of ways in which evolution cannot explain the mechanics of biology that we're just now discovering.
The point is, I don't care. Our belief systems says:
Evolution may have created man, but our God created evolution.
And as Eric eloquently pointed out, we simply have more important things to worry about. Evolution, even if true, does not discredit the Bible, because Genesis was not intended to share scientific fact. It was intended to share spiritual truth.
Trying to say anything otherwise is like trying defend the value of "3" as the only "correct" value of pi, simply because it implies such in the Bible.
<Side Note>
In case anybody wants to read it, the Biblical value of pi which Derek is referring to comes from 1 Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2. Both of these verses say:
"Then he made the sea of cast metal. It was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference." (ESV)
This has motivated me to start a campaign against Zondervan to recall all Bibles and republish this verse saying,
"and a line equal to the limit of 10*4*summation(k=1,n) [(-1)^{k+1}]/[2k-1] as n approaches infinity measured its circumference"
just kidding :)
There is a great book written by Petr (sic) Beckmann called "A History of Pi" that is a really fascinating read if you ever have the time.
</Side Note>
Now, whereas I consider biology something I know nothing about, mathematics is different.
Maybe it's a just a semantic distinction, but I view mathematics as philosophy and not as science.
(Again, as a side note, I would call "applied mathematics" science. I digress...)
Perhaps this is because for all practical purposes, mathematical progress has blown past all other scientific fields for thousands of years and ventured into great abstraction. Even in biblical times.
So the problem I see with comparing the Genesis account with the Biblical pi account is this.
First of all, Genesis was not written by the same author as Kings or Chronicles. So can we assume related editorial intentions?
Second, to me, what this implies for Kings and Chronicles was that they lacked the ability to make precision measurements.
Concerning the reliability of cubits, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubit
My point is, they certainly didn't imply the circumference to be figuratively 30 cubits. It wasn't literary. Given the fact that a cubit was a subjective measurement, I tend to think, they just did the best they could. Maybe they had different guys measure the radius and circumference. :) j/k
I think this text is as true to their scientific ability as possible. (Unfortunately the Egyptians and Babylonians knew pi was much closer to 3+1/8 much earlier, but hey, what can you do?)
But when you talk about creation, it's only the past several hundred years where anything scientific could be studied that was even relevant to the discussion.
All we can base our discussion on is our understanding of the literary techniques that were employed in Genesis, which I'm no expert on. Other people have studied this extensively.
Again, David A., where are you? :)
We can't make a judgment on the genesis account based on their scientific prowess, which in the area of biology, would have been completely null.
all we can ask is, based on what they knew in addition to what we know of the literary context, what does it mean?
i certainly don't have it figured out, just thinking out loud.
a lot of you know a lot more about this than me, so I enjoy reading what all of you think about this. I learn from all of you.
in the end i agree with jeremy -
"God is awesome. He made things. ALOT of them =)"
There's one more thing I need to add here.
There's an important distinction between the first 11 chapters of Genesis and everything after that. What's the distinction?
Abraham.
Israel's "history" starts not with Adam, but with Abraham. This is why you see "the God of our Fathers" being used interchangeably with "the God of Abraham and Isaac". They never say "the God of Adam".
Everything in Genesis, before Abraham, is written in a different style. They are important theologically, but cannot be held with the same historical perspective that we can place on everything from Abraham onward.
A lot of my non-christian friends have brought this up with me on a few occations, and I've done my fair share of research on it, when one day I came to a conclusion: If evolution is proven, I wouldn't have any less faith. I would probably get defensive and my faith would get even stronger (as going against the grain to some extent seems to be permanently imbeded in my way of life).
This is why I agree with Derek.
I always used to disagree with evolution because of the "rolling 6's" theory. I'm paraphrasing here, but it basically stated that the probability of the Earth forming was the same as rolling a 6 on a dice repeadtedly a very large number of times in a row. The probability was so high that I used it for my reasoning that it couldn't have occured. Then I thought about the fact that God can do anything, and if anyone could make what seems to be impossible occur, it would be Him.
Maybe Moses did his best to understand, and God did his best to explain, but the people of the time simply weren't ready for complex molecular break downs of how they came to exist. I have this picture of God trying to explain how He created the big bang, when exactly the dinosaurs existed, how man was formed, and finally just getting fed up with Moses and going "look Mo, I created the heavens and the earth. Then I made animals. Then I scooped down into the primordial ooze to create... wait. That's still to complicated. Dirt, tell them it was dirt, Mo. You guys understand dirt right?"
I am not trying to say that Genesis is in any way incorrect, or that it doesn't apply to me today (you should have heard rev. Dave let me have it a few days ago when I made a comment about Liviticus... the cannon was leveled and the barrel pointed at me... I had it comin' though). What I will say is that I am not, nor will I ever be, able to say I completely understand anywhere near the depths of knowledge found in the Book. In fact, the more I study, the more I see that the hole goes deeper than I thought. Sometimes I think that the Book is so God-breathed that in some cases the authors themselves didn't truly grasp what they were writing (Revalation?), and simply did their best to get out of the way. I agree with Adam that attempts were made to harmonize "Genesis days" to a time outside the exact 24-hour standards. I think this occured when evidence began to surface that heavily refuted that. Is anyone going to dispute the existance and subsequent death of the dinosaurs? (other than the website adam quoted, which apparently believes the dinosaurs are still around: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v23/i1/living.asp)
The fossil record continues to shoot big holes in the 24 hour creation days.
But I have to, at a certain point, agree with Eric. It's really not terribly important to me. Science can't explain away God. Even if they find a way to explain how He did it, they will never be able to prove He didn't do it. Some people retort with "It can't be proven that He DID do it" and I agree. I can't prove God exists, but I know He does, it's called faith.
can I just say that its cool Mrs. David thinks I'm a 20 something?
Well, Britt, the other Gina did say "mostly 20-somethings"...
Hugs! I love you! And I am getting old, too!!!
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