One of the books I’ve been reading recently is The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Knoll. It’s an excellent call to evangelicals to serve God with all our minds (more on which in my discussion of the immaturity of the evangelical mind, coming soon). The book gives an interesting look at the intellectual history of American evangelicalism (which is rather different to British evangelicalism, but there are notable cross-currents and similarities).
Two areas it focuses on are science and politics, both of which have seen significant developments in the 20th century, both of which it argues are symptoms of the weakness of the evangelical mind in these two areas. One is the rightward shift in evangelical politics, and the other is creationism.
The book looks at the development of Creationism, and highlights how it’s the product of very particular cultural and intellectual influences. Creationism is, the book argues, very culturally bound to scientific trends of the 19th century and the cultural influences of the mid 20th century, and is a very recent phenomenon.
The first interesting point Noll makes is that the insistence by Creationists on the “plain and literal” interpretation of the Creation account in Genesis as the only legitimate evangelical view is based on a distorted understanding of God’s revelation at odds with that of historic orthodox Christianity.
Creationism is the product of a “super-supernaturalism” which emphasises the supernatural at the expense of the physical world. Creationists are right on the point that as Christians we should allow the Bible to interpret and critique our interpretation of Creation (i.e. science); the problem is that Creationists do not allow science to interpret and critique our interpretation of the Bible. Since both creation and scripture are God’s revelation, then to interpet the Bible by science and science by the Bible is to interpret God’s revelation by God’s revelation.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that young-earth Creationism is wrong, but that historically Creationism arose not out of vigorous theology and science, but as part of an anti-intellectual reaction against an increasingly secularised academia.
Secondly, although it may seem to Creationists self-evident to interpret Genesis as entirely historical and literal, it only seems natural because of the particular cultural and social background and assumptions within which they exist. Specifically, the popularist Baconian science of the 19th century, the conflict among Christians in the early 20th century on how best to respond to the challenges of modernism, and other influences, all shaped the Creationist hermeneutic.
That doesn’t in itself mean that the literal reading of Genesis is wrong; it’s possible to hold a true belief without having all the good reasoning to back it up. But it’s disingenous to claim a literal interpretation of Genesis is a neutral one – those interpretive assumptions need to be vigorously examined, argued and justified.
So where do I stand at the moment on the question of the interface between science and the Bible, especially in relation to origins? Having been brought up with Creationist views, I’m increasingly dissatisfied with some of the claims of young-earthers such as Answers in Genesis. Not so much the idea of young-earth creationism – I’m perfectly happy in principle to consider that possibility against the scientific and scriptural evidence.
But I’m no longer convinced by claims that you have to believe Genesis to be true in a narrowly literal sense or you don’t really believe the Bible. One weakness sometimes present among evangelicals is an overly simplistic approach to what the Bible says – a lack of appreciation of different styles, genres and modes or writing, and a lack of awareness of how our background, culture and presuppositions shape how we read the Bible.
Those on both extremes of the Creation/Evolution “debate” share some common beliefs, broadly: Evolution necessarily implies atheism; Christianity necessarily requires Creationism. Both Ken Ham and Richard Dawkins would probably agree with these, because both operate within a very similar “fundamentalist” mindset. But I don’t think that either of those beliefs necessarily follow.
There’s an important difference between the science of evolution and the worldview of Darwinism. If evolution as a scientific theory is true, then that doesn’t necessarily mean that the agressively atheistic conclusions of the likes of Dennett and Dawkins are true. Disproving the science of evolution is not the only way to refute the philosophy of evolutionism – some Christian writers such as Alister McGrath have attempted to refute that there’s a logical link between the science of evolution and the worldview of Darwinism.
I think one of the strength of the Intelligent Design movement is that it seeks to challenge the philosophical conclusions that some people draw from science. (Unfortunately the aim of the ID movement is to find that elusive piece of DNA with “Hah hah it was me after all. Signed God” written on it. If God had wanted to leave incontrovertable proof that he designed everything, and it can’t all have happened naturally, I think he’s have made it obvious by now.) Christians should rightly be concerned about any attempts to use science as a justification for atheism, but creationism is not the only alternative.
I’ve also become persuaded that a non-literal interpretation of the Creation account(s) in Genesis is a legitimate evangelical viewpoint. Genesis is divided into a number of “accounts”, and there’s no reason that they have to be all in the same genre. A non-literal Creation account would no more undermine the literal truth of other accounts in Genesis and other books of the Bible than the Psalms being poetry undermines the literal truth of the resurrection. The patterning and poetic style of the Creation account may well, looking purely at the textual evidence, only be a flourish to a literal account, but it doesn’t seem to me impossible that it is indeed a non-technical and non-scientific account. I’m not saying that the Bible is not true, I’m simply open to the possibility that it is saying something different to Creationist interpretations of it.
So that leaves me of the opinion that wherever the scientific evidence points, either young-earth creation or old-earth evolution, it does not necessarily undermine my faith. There is no good reason why I should rule out the possibility of a creator as inherently unscientific, because if a creator has intervened with the material universe in a way that is measured and observable, we can consider that using scientific methods, at least to a point. Equally, it doesn’t seem to me impossible from a Biblical viewpoint that the first Creation account in Genesis could encompass longer ages of the Earth than six literal days, for example.
Both positions – literal creation and old-earth evolution – raise questions for me. On the one hand, if Creationism is true, why would God make the world look like it was far older than it really is, if you worked on the reasonable basis that the laws of science haven’t changed? Wouldn’t that make God rather deceptive? On the other hand, with evolution comes the whole issue of the idea in the Bible that death and suffering only came about because of man’s rebellion – how does that square with God using “nature red in tooth and claw” as a process of creating the world?
Well, I guess I’ll have to keep on studying both Scriptures and science in the hope I’ll understand our origins better. But it doesn’t worry me – I’m not scared of finding out the truth, whatever that may be.