Thursday, April 24, 2008
Creation and Evolution
I know that it is cliche to write on this but as i was looking at the works of W.H. Calvin I was lead to the area of evolution and creation and how each are viewed by different people. There were three in particular that I viewed. 1) The Creation Explanation by Robert E. Kofahl and Kelly L. Segraves. This is the more religious oriented view (uses the bbible as a reference to explain creation); 2) The Origin of Species by Darwin. This, of course, is the piece that has the more scientific view with the ideas of evolution of species to another (primates to humans), and 3) Evolution by Henry T. Edge who takes the ideas of both and makes a hybrid. Either way that you look at it it is very interesting to see how so many people can get to the same conclusion in so many different ways. According to Calvins work, that is true intelligence. I just wish that i had a real idea about what it is that i believe in. On one hand i do believe in some of the ideas of evolution but some of the theroies are so hard to grasp it just seems impossible to be fully correct. (total of approximatly 35-40 pages between all three works)
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I understand your dilema completely (I think).
Many people who read the Bible make the mistake of thinking that verse 2 of Genesis is how God originally created the earth just prior to the six days of creation, that is, covered with water and in darkness. But that is not what the text says. Verse 1 says God created the earth. It doesn't say how long ago that was - it could have been millions of years ago. And verse 1 doesn't say God created the earth in darkness and covered with water, and null and void. There is evidence elsewhere in the Bible that the original creation was not null and void. Then verse 2 indicates that at some time after verse 1, the earth was in a state of being null and void, covered in water and in darkness. This could have been caused by an event, similar to Noah's flood, that destroyed the surface of the earth and left it desolate.
Verse 3 then begins the account of how God renewed the surface of the earth, restoring it to a condition of life, repairing the damage, and preparing it for man. This is the six days of creation that occurred about 6,000 years ago. And at that time God restored the species that had existed before but had been destroyed by whatever event caused the earth to become desolate, "null and void" as the King James Version words it.
So prior to verse 2, there could have life that existed for millions of years, and it is that life that existed before the six days of creation that we see evidence of in the fossil record.
Moreover, if God created life, not all at once, but in generations, creating the species by modifying the genetics from one generation to the next, that would not be evolution through natural causes only, but it would look like evolution in the fossil record and in genetics. But it would not be evolution, it would be creation.
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