Thursday 6 October 2011

Faithful Science


At a recent seminar looking at the question of faith & science, three questions were posed:
  1. Does evolution pose an unassailable problem against scripture?
  2. Is evolution all clear-cut?
  3. Does evolution negate God?

The answers to these is surely 'No! No! No!'.Christians need not fear evolution as a theory - partly because it is just a theory rather than any proven (or provable) explanation.

Scripture tells us that God created, evolution suggests a mechanism within that creation. If you are prepared to allow for God to work through physical/natural mechanisms (as indeed He surely does every day), then theoretically He can work through evolution.It is always good to take stock from time to time.

Evolution still leaves questions unanswered, still has big holes in its portfolio of supporting evidence, and has not been demonstrated in a laboratory (for the species 'jumps' the theory proposes). So although many biologists accept the theory as 'the best explanation', it currently only stands as 'the best explanation' and nothing more.

Finally it only really speaks into just one subset of the overall cosmic riddle, leaving the big question of how 'biotic life' got started in the first place. Some would say that the kick-start to such life was a huge 'grant of luck' - hardly an argument that negates God. So evolution can remain as a theory, and maybe even improved upon or amass better supporting evidence, but rest assured the eternal God won't be going away any time soon (or ever for that matter)!

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