The commercials will hopefully be airing on television in the near future, but we wanted to give our blog readers a sneak peak! They’re a great introduction to our work here at BioLogos, and we encourage you to share them through email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Tumblr, Pinterest, or any other website you can think of!

“Mightily Hands On”, featuring Jeff Schloss and Alister McGrath (0:30)

“Beethoven Symphony”, featuring NT Wright (2:30)

Grantees will benefit from in-person interaction through a series of summer workshops in 2013, 2014, and 2015. These meetings will not only foster a broader knowledge base, but will build a sustained network of scholars and church leaders, both young and seasoned, who are serious about addressing the concerns of the church about evolution. Also in 2015, in connection with the third summer workshop, BioLogos will host a large conference open to scientists, scholars, and church leaders from around the world.

ECF History

In January 2012, BioLogos was awarded a multi-million dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation to fund the work of scholars and church leaders on evolution and Christian faith. In spring 2012 we worked hard to get the word out. You may have seen announcements on the BioLogos website, in our newsletters, on the Books & Culture, Leadership Journal, or First Things websites, on your professional society’s listserv, or perhaps on your friend’s blog.

The response was overwhelming: we received 225 letters of intent for a total request of $21 million—about seven times the amount we had to offer. We needed to invite the most promising applicants to submit a full proposal, but recognizing the projects with highest potential would require broad expertise. From the beginning, we envisioned that a panel of scientists, pastors, and scholars would oversee the application and review process as well as play key advisory roles throughout the project. A team of eight highly qualified individuals came on board in the early months of the project. They reviewed each proposal and together recommended that BioLogos invite 86 applicants to submit full applications.

The deadline for submissions was October 1, 2012. As in the previous round, the ECF panel evaluated each proposal. In addition, we asked 55 other experts to participate, so that each proposal received 3-4 scores. Criteria for the decision included significance of topic, project design, creativity and innovation, long-term impact potential, feasibility, and budget.

The panel then met together November 29-30, 2012, to make the final funding decisions. In the end, they recommended that BioLogos give 37 awards, ranging from $23,000 to $300,000. BioLogos staff notified applicants of their awards on December 14, 2013.

The Grantees

As part of our objective to create a network of scholars and leaders, we awarded grants to organizations across the U.S. and the world. Thirty of the 37 grantees are domestic; seven are international, hailing from Canada, France, Great Britain, Netherlands, and Spain.

Two-thirds of the accepted projects will be led by teams—some with three or more Project Leaders. We expect that the teamwork and time spent together at our summer workshops will be the start of a long-lasting network of people dedicated to helping the church think carefully about origins.

Applicants chose to apply under one of three program tracks: interdisciplinary scholarship (Track 1), intra-disciplinary scholarship (Track 2), and translational projects (Track 3). Track 1 projects focus on both the collaboration between individuals in different disciplines and the development of projects at the interface of different content areas. Track 2 projects focus on work done within a specific discipline. Track 3 focuses on projects that encourage Christians, especially those within more conservative traditions, to engage in meaningful and productive dialogue to reduce tensions between mainstream science and the Christian faith. The numbers of grantees in Tracks 1, 2, and 3 are 6, 8, and 23, respectively.

Many of the scholarly projects tackle questions about Adam and Eve, the Fall, human identity, and Original Sin—some of the most critical interpretive issues for evangelical theology.  Some examples: 

• Theologian Oliver Crisp of Fuller Seminary will take an analytic theology approach to ask to what extent a theological account of the origin of human sin depends upon the evolution of modern humans from one and only one ancestral pair—especially if that pair does not appear to correspond to what we would think of as modern human beings. 

• Pastor Michael Gulker and philosopher James Smith, leading a large team from The Colossian Forum, ask a related question: if humanity emerged from non-human primates—as genetic, biological, and archaeological evidence seems to suggest—then what are the implications for Christian theology’s traditional account of origins, including both the origin of humanity and the origin of sin? 

• Biologist Dennis Venema of Trinity Western University and New Testament scholar Scot McKnight of Northern Seminary will write a book on the evidence for evolution and population genetics, with informed theological reflection on how these issues interact with orthodox Christianity.

• Biologist David Wilcox of Eastern University will develop an updated model of human identity which reflects the complex recent scientific advances in genetics and paleoanthropology and yet is sensitive to theological concerns.  

These are just a few of the scholarly awards; check out the Grantees page for full descriptions of all Track 1 and Track 2 projects.

All projects have translational potential, but Track 3 projects are designed to meet the needs of a particular constituency within the evangelical church. These projects run the gamut from ethics to education to media production to ministry resources.  Some examples include:

• Theologian Lee Camp of Lipscomb University will produce “The Questions in Monkey Town,” an episode of Tokens, a live variety show that features musical performances, comedic sketches, brief interpretive monologues, and dialog with authors and scholars. The episode will be performed and filmed on the site of the famous Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee.

• Chaplain Joshua Hayashi and Educator Diane Sweeney of the Punahou School in Hawaii will lead a team to produce multimedia curricula aimed at helping high school students connect with their biology curricula and, at the same time, deepen their Christian faith.

• Physics teacher and pastor Benoît Hébert of Science et Foi Chrétienne in France will lead an international, multi-denominational team of French speaking Evangelical scientists, pastors and church leaders to produce a large number of resources on evolutionary creation.

• Pastor Seung-Hwan Kim of Grace Truth Community Church, a Southern Baptist church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will produce teaching and preaching materials about evolution for church leaders.

• President Gregory Wolfe and Director of Resource Development for IMAGE will gather artists and writers of faith whose work explores the dialogue between evolutionary science and faith practice, convening a conversation between them and scientists, theologians, and church leaders in private and public conferences.

Again, this is just a taste of the diversity of Track 3 projects. Read more about each project on the Grantees page. You can look forward to an incredible variety of resources coming out of the ECF program, many of which will be featured right here on the BioLogos Forum.

A common argument leveled against the theory of evolution is that scientists have not been able to produce the expected transitional fossils that show the change of one species into another. If evolution were true, wouldn’t there be instances of clear intermediary species, like, for example, a species that was half whale and half hippo to show the transition between those two? In this BioLogos podcast, Kelsey Luoma addresses this misconception about what a transitional fossil actually is. Rather than a mix between two related species, transitional fossils point back to the common ancestors that modern species share. The fact is that the number of transitional species is massive and it grows with each passing year. Given the rarity with which organisms are actually fossilized, the amazing thing is actually the completeness of the fossil record, not its incompleteness. The transitional species story strongly supports, and certainly does not disprove, evolutionary theory. ¹

1. To hear the full audio clips which have been referenced go to:

• Rational Response Debate with Kirk Cameron (from Way of the Masters)
• Behind the Scenes with Dr. Neil Shubin (from Cincinnati Museum Center)
• Mark Norell Publishes New Archaeopteryx Findings (from American Museum of Natural Sciences)
• Texas A&M Professor Discusses Findings of Autralopithecus Sediba and its Relationship to Humans (from Texas A&M University)
• Intro/outro music composed by Martin Minor (Minor2Go).

An audio only version of the podcast can be downloaded here.

Conversations about science and faith can be like that. People hold clearly discordant points of view, and it would be dishonest to ignore the conflict. Yet some voices emphasize the dissonance without any note of harmony to put it in context. Too often, science and faith becomes a hostile battle of worldviews, sounding angry, dissonant chords even among fellow Christians. But civil, gracious dialogue is possible. On the BioLogos Forum, we invite authors from a range of positions, including some that don't agree with all our beliefs, but we strive to set these dialogues in a context of respect and civility. When authors are fellow Christians, we don’t shy away from disagreements, but remember the broader context of our unity as fellow believers, the harmony that binds us together.

My own story is more harmonious than dissonant. My interest in music was paralleled by my interest in math and science and my involvement in church. My family and teachers encouraged my interests in science, and I remember how fun it was to play math games with my dad and brother. And every week we were in church: twice on Sunday, plus Wednesday night club, youth group activities, and Bible quizzing. While my church accepted the young earth position, they didn’t emphasize it, and I was never told that a particular science view was essential to being a Christian. When I encountered the evidence for the age of the universe and the evolution of life, I also found Christian authors who showed me how this scientific evidence could fit with Christian beliefs.

But others have experienced more dissonance. Nearly four years ago, Dr. Francis Collins launched this website with the story of a young university student in the midst of a profound personal crisis, what Dr. Collins called “a wrenching crisis of worldviews shaking her deepest foundations.” Without a context of harmony, too many people – young and old – feel they have to choose between two incompatible positions, either Christian faith or the findings of science. BioLogos exists to show another way. We hold fast to the authority of the Bible and the core beliefs of Christianity, and at the same time, accept the rigorous conclusions of mainstream science.

It is with these chords of dissonance and resolution in mind that I come to this opportunity to lead BioLogos. I have long sensed God’s calling to serve the church as part of this dialogue. Some of you know of me from a book I wrote in 2007 with my husband Loren, called Origins. I’ve been speaking and writing on science and faith for many years, but I did this around the edges of my primary career of teaching and research in astronomy. While I thoroughly enjoy teaching students and doing research, over the last year I have recognized God’s hand in leading me to shift my fulltime work to the science and faith dialogue. Now I’m looking forward to using and developing my gifts in service of BioLogos.

Joining me as a new member of the leadership team is Dr. Jeff Schloss, who will serve as our Senior Scholar. Many of you are already familiar with his work, and know he brings not only a strong track record of scholarship in evolution and philosophy, but tremendous skill in communicating to lay audiences. Jeff and I share a deep commitment to the unity of the body of Christ and a desire to remove barriers for people to come to Christ. I am delighted to have him on board.

Jeff and I inherit a strong and vibrant organization from our outgoing President, Dr. Darrel Falk. Darrel brought his deep love and concern for the church, along with his considerable creativity and hard work, to this effort. We plan to continue and build on the excellent programs he established.

One of the pleasures of my first few weeks on the job has been getting to know the BioLogos staff. Kathryn, Lisa, Stephen, Mike, Laura J, and LeAnne each bring key skills to the organization, as well as energy and a passion for the mission of BioLogos. The team keeps BioLogos functioning behind the scenes, from finances to computer programming to event planning. Two team members, Mark Sprinkle and Tom Burnett, have decided to move on to other opportunities after a year of dedicated service to BioLogos. As web editors, Mark and Tom revamped the blog, making it a forum for rich scholarly dialogue and vibrant testimonies, and drawing in new authors to write on a great mix of topics. They also organized the archived material, so that the best of BioLogos is readily accessible. We wish them well in their new endeavors. Joining the BioLogos team is Emily Ruppel as Interim Web Editor. You may know Emily from her work to develop and edit the e-zine God & Nature for the American Scientific Affiliation; she will join us part time at BioLogos while she continues to work with ASA.

We believe God has great things in store for BioLogos. We will continue to focus on connecting with scholars, pastors, teachers, and lay people, but in the months ahead, we will also be sharpening our vision and engaging afresh in strategic planning. We’ll be considering new audiences, new programs, and new priorities. I invite your comments below on directions you’d like to see BioLogos take.

In just a few years, this organization has impacted the lives of thousands of Christians and brought an important voice to discussions taking place within the church. Thanks to the strong support from The John Templeton Foundation and many other generous donors, the vision of Francis Collins is thriving. BioLogos is on the cusp of enormous opportunities and huge potential. While transitions are times of risk and vulnerability, they are also times of great opportunity. My prayer is that God will give us wisdom and guidance to be good stewards of this opportunity. May God continue to use BioLogos to bring harmony to a conversation that has emphasized dissonance for far too long.

As a Board, our transition process has focused on selecting leaders who embrace Christ as Savior and science as the pursuit of understanding God’s work in His creation. Both Haarsma and Schloss have demonstrated their commitment to these two fundamental principals in their scholarship as well as in their lives.

President Deborah Haarsma, Ph.D.

Dr. Deborah Haarsma is Professor of Physics & Astronomy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In recent years she has become well known to the BioLogos community as a regular contributor and consultant to our blog and Questions section, as well as an active member of the Board of Advisors. Dr. Haarsma’s deep commitment to her faith and enthusiasm for science have made her a popular public speaker in churches as well as private Christian schools and universities.

A graduate of Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Haarsma earned her Ph.D. in astrophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An experienced research scientist, her work on galaxy clusters and gravitational lenses has been published in The Astrophysical Journal and The Astronomical Journal.

Dr. Haarsma grew up in a Christian home and an evangelical church. Since her college days, she has felt God’s call to be an ambassador: to share Christ’s love in the academic world of science, and to share the wonders of God’s creation with the church. Her first book, Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design, was coauthored with husband, Dr. Loren Haarsma, a biophysicist. Origins respectfully explores the range of views held by Christians on creation, evolution, and human origins and is used in many Christian schools and colleges to navigate these complex issues. Haarsma’s latest book, Delight in Creation: Scientists Share Their Work with the Church, co-edited with Rev. Scott Hoezee, invites Christians to explore the discoveries of science through essays by Christian biologists, astronomers, mathematicians, and other scientists.

A gifted musician, Dr. Haarsma is active in her local church, playing piano for the choir and worship services. In a recent article, Dr. Haarsma shared how her own worship of God as creator has been intensified by her scholarship in science, saying “I have learned to praise God for the glory of the systems he has put in place. Rather than picturing God making each mountain individually, I praise him for carefully designing a whole system of continental plates that slowly but powerfully raised up the snowy heights of the Himalayas. Rather than picturing God creating each individual flower, I praise him for designing the system of evolution to create an extravagant variety of flowers of all shapes, colors, and scents. A scientific explanation does not replace God; rather, it is our best human description of the natural mechanisms God uses. This understanding can actually increase our awe and worship, giving us a glimpse into how God works.”

Dr. Haarsma is grateful for this opportunity to lead BioLogos in its work to draw pastors, teachers, scholars, and students into the expanding conversation about evolution and its compatibility with biblical faith.

Deb Haarsma is not only a scientist but an active participant in the church and a devoted follower of Christ. I could not be more excited about her leadership from my perspective as a pastor. She deeply cares for the faith community that she is trying to equip with the knowledge of God's creation, so that we will all be able to glorify Him more completely.

Joel Hunter
Senior Pastor
Northland Distributed Churches
Florida

Senior Scholar Jeffrey Schloss Ph.D.

Dr. Jeffrey Schloss is Distinguished Professor and T.B. Walker Chair of Biology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California where he directs the Center for Faith, Ethics and Life Sciences. He is well known to the BioLogos community through his writings on evolution and faith for our blog, as well as his informative presentations at numerous BioLogos events.

Dr. Schloss is well respected in the academic community for his extensive work on evolutionary theory, ethics, and the Christian faith. He is a frequently invited speaker at scholarly conferences, has co-edited several academic volumes, and publishes in venues such as Religion, Brain & Behavior, Behavioral & Brain Sciences, and Journal of Theology & Science. His many awards and honors include Oxford University’s Plumer Fellowship, the Crosson Fellowship in Philosophy of Religion at Notre Dame, and the Witherspoon Fellowship in Theology and Natural Sciences at Princeton’s Center of Theological Inquiry.

After a life-changing encounter with the gospel as a college drop-out, Schloss returned to school and graduated from Wheaton College. He went on to do post-baccalaureate fieldwork at the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan biological stations, completing his Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Since meeting Christ, Dr. Schloss’s life passion has been seeking to understand – and engaging others in their quest to understand – life through the revelation of scripture, the counsel of the Spirit, and the wisdom of science. Dr. Schloss has worked with Young Life and local high school ministries for many years. He speaks widely on Christian college campuses and at secular universities at Veritas, Intervarsity, and CRU (Campus Crusade) events. And he is grateful for the opportunity to teach and preach at his own and other churches. A mainstay of his life in Christ is a small group of long term friends in the faith, who hold him accountable and with whom he prayerfully considered the call to work with BioLogos.

Dr. Schloss is excited by the opportunity to build bridges of dialogue on the relationship between science and faith, in light of the invitation to “worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.”

Dr. Schloss will hold a joint appointment with BioLogos and Westmont College.

The future of a great organization depends on the quality of its leaders, and the quality of its leaders is shaped by the courage to form a succession of leaders. BioLogos began with splendid leaders and it is time now to move to the next generation of leaders. I could not support more the appointment of Deborah Haarsma and Jeff Schloss, both able scientists, intelligent teachers, and exceptional communicators of the importance of science for the faith of ordinary Christians.”

Scot McKnight
Author of Jesus Creed
Professor of New Testament
Northern Seminary

The Evolution of BioLogos

It’s been a little more than four years since this project was launched by Dr. Francis Collins and a group of energetic graduate students. At the time, Dr. Collins’ book, The Language of God had resulted in a deluge of emails and letters from Christian students across the globe, inspired by Dr. Collins’ ability to combine his award-winning science with his deeply-experienced Christian faith. Those thought provoking questions combined with Dr. Collins’ desire to offer meaningful answers, provided the inspiration for our website.

Since that time, BioLogos has experienced tremendous growth in the numbers of fully committed followers of Christ who resonate with our efforts and have joined the conversation. Our website now includes over 1200 blog entries and receives nearly 2 thousand “hits” a day. Nearly a million people have visited our website since it’s launch and many of them have returned, for a total of over 2 million visits.

Our annual pastors conference continues to attract some of the most noted authors and leaders of our time. Our summer workshop for Christian teachers is considered a professional high point in the lives of many participants, and we recently awarded 37 grants to scholars and church leaders to advance the dialogue between evolution and Christian faith. We are humbled and grateful as we’ve seen God’s hand at work in all of these blessings.

Throughout this growth, we remain committed to exploring and celebrating the compatibility of evolutionary creation and biblical faith. As always, we are guided by the knowledge that all things are held together in Christ our Savior.

Many have called the 21st century the 'Century of Biology'. A key challenge for the Church in this century is not merely to integrate, but to celebrate, the intricacies and beauty of nature as part of robust Christian faith. The work of the BioLogos Foundation is and will continue to be crucially important in helping the Church to meet this challenge. The addition of Deb Haarsma and Jeff Schloss to an already impressive team is an exciting next step in BioLogos' continuing mission."

Jeff Hardin Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of Zoology
Director, Biology Core Curriculum
University of Wisconsin

Transitional Fossils

Some time ago, the Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin commented on the human origins exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution, suggesting that palaeoanthropologists use evolutionary theory to describe the progression of the human lineage even when they don’t have transitional fossils with which to work. He writes:

What's ironic, however, is that if you ask the question How Do We Know Humans Evolved? the answer you’re given is, “Fossils like the ones shown in our Human Fossils Gallery provide evidence that modern humans evolved from earlier humans.” So whether you find fossils or you don’t, that’s evidence for evolution.

Indeed, it has become an article of faith for those espousing both the young earth creation (hereafter YEC) model and many who hold to the intelligent design model that transitional fossils do not exist and therefore evolution has not taken place. Support for this position usually entails attacking the weak areas of the fossil record, where burial processes have left us little with which to work, or the creation of straw men arguments in which transitional fossils are defined in such a way that none could ever be found. Often this centers on the concept of “missing link,” a term that is habitually used in the popular press and young earth creation and intelligent design literature when referring to fossil remains but which has little to no meaning for biologists or palaeontologists. As Ahlberg and Clack (Ahlberg and Clack 2006) write:

But the concept has become freighted with unfounded notions of evolutionary ‘progress’ and with a mistaken emphasis on the single intermediate fossil as the key to understanding evolutionary transitions. Much of the importance of transitional fossils actually lies in how they resemble and differ from their nearest neighbours in the phylogenetic tree, and in the picture of change that emerges from this pattern.

Contrary to common misconceptions, the fossil record does not record one single lineage for any family of organisms but rather a series of branches, with many related species coexisting synchronously. Darwin hypothesized that the evolutionary record reflected this bushiness and drew such a diagram in his journal. At the time, though, he had little in the way of fossil evidence to back up this position. Much has changed since his day.

An analogy for understanding this “bushiness” was best described by Prothero and Buell (Prothero and Buell 2007). They suggest that the reader consider his or her own genealogy. You and your siblings are the direct descendents of your parents and, while you are similar to them, each of you has different characteristics not shared with them as well as characteristics that you do share. Your parents have siblings as well (your aunts and uncles), and your grandparents are their last common ancestors. These siblings have their own children (your cousins), who have different and similar traits relative to their parents. They are broadly recognizable as being related to you (“oh, I see you have Aunt Edna’s nose”) but three or four generations out, they will become less and less so. These are the “nearest neighbours” that Ahlberg and Clack describe. In this analogy, each of these cousins represents a transitional form from what was (your grandparents) to what will be down the road.

For example, no one would confuse a frog with a salamander but if you trace the fossil record of each back in time, eventually you encounter a fossil, Gerobatrachus hottoni which was recently discovered (Anderson et al. 2008) that is best described as a “frogamander,” having the basal characteristics of both frogs and salamanders. Had we seen such an animal at the time, it is likely we would not have found it remarkable because it would have resembled the species around it. One lineage eventually diverged into frogs, salamanders and other amphibians. Most (just like Darwin proposed in his tree diagram with the little hatch marks at the tip of many branches) went extinct.

Taxonomy and the Beginnings of Human Origins

All life is classified based on a system devised by Carolus Linneaus in 1735 in his remarkable work Systema Naturae. This system gives all recognized species an individual place based on a system of hierarchy. The study of classification is known as taxonomy. A taxonomic ranking for humans would be this:

When a fossil is excavated, the first thing that the palaeontologist does is make a taxonomic assessment of where it fits in a sequence of known fossils. Traits that are shared with other like species or genera are referred to as primitive traits. Examples of this in humans are five fingers and the presence of three arm bones. We share this with all mammals. Traits that are new or are not shared with other like species are referred to as derived traits. Examples of this in humans are the skeletal changes in the pelvis and the foot to allow for walking upright. We do not share these with any other primates.

Transitional fossils in the human fossil record are distinguished at both the genus and species level. This group includes the extinct genera Ardipithecus and Australopithecus and the current genus Homo. All species except Homo sapiens are extinct. Much of the recent study of early humans focuses on the transition from Ardipithecus (‘Ardi’) to Australopithecus (‘Lucy’ and similar fossils) and from Australopithecus to Homo, the genus that led eventually to us. While each of the australopithecine species identified in the fossil record has derived characteristics that separate them from their ancestors and from each other, only one led to the genus Homo.

In future posts, I will describe the evidence for human evolution and why this evidence is compelling. It suggests that we have had a long, varied history filled with great leaps of change, crushing defeat, and eventual expansion into all areas of the globe.

Notes

Ahlberg, P. & J. Clack (2006) A firm step from water to land. Nature, 440.

Anderson, J. S., R. R. Reisz, D. Scott, N. B. Frobisch & S. S. Sumida (2008) A stem batrachian from the Early Permian of Texas and the origin of frogs and salamanders. Nature, 453, 515-518.

Prothero, D. & C. Buell. 2007. Evolution: What the fossils say and why it matters. Columbia Univ Pr.

Kenneth Keathley and I first met in June, 2011, when I was leading BioLogos and he was responsible for academic programs at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Many Southern Baptist scholars believe the universe is less than ten thousand years old and virtually all are opposed to evolution—the notion of God having created all life forms, including humans, through a process that includes common descent from microbial life. BioLogos, on the other hand, is an organization specifically dedicated to showing that mainstream science—including evolutionary biology—and a conservative biblically-grounded Christian faith are fully compatible. With our respective institutional affiliations, one would have expected Dr. Keathley and I to be at opposite poles in the science and faith dialogue, and on some issues we were. Yet in the brief time we had together that day, we came to see that on the matters that were most fundamental to our Christian faith, we weren’t poles apart at all. Because we were both followers of Jesus who fully respected the Bible as the divinely inspired Word of God, the ties that bound us together were stronger than the forces which seemed to push us apart.

Still, we could not ignore those forces that were pushing us apart: Dr. Keathley had legitimate concerns about theistic evolution¹ and we both believed it important to reflect on those concerns. In response to our conversation, I wrote the following note to him a few days after our initial meeting:

I am very concerned that we (those who are less skeptical about mainstream science) be thinking along with leaders like yourself about the theological issues in a respectful, indeed earnestly prayerful manner. I think we very much need the help of conservative theologians. We cannot rerun the slide towards a watered-down liberal Christianity! I also sensed that you would be willing to listen and explore with us how best to engage mainstream science in a manner different than most evangelicals have done so far.

With those aims of true dialogue in mind, I proposed that Dr. Keathley request a set of articles from his colleagues which would outline their concerns about the evolutionary creation view. The series, which included a set of BioLogos responses to the essays from the Southern Baptist theologians, began in March on 2012 and has continued intermittently throughout the year.

I am grateful to Dr. Keathley for arranging the submission of these papers, and to the authors for taking the time to articulate their concerns. As we have developed our responses, our own thinking has been clarified and this has given us an opportunity to outline our commonalities as well as our differences. I think each of us—Southern Baptist scholars and evolutionary creation scholars alike—would agree that we are nowhere near as far apart as we had thought. Indeed, I think a significant portion of what was perceived as a gulf separating us was due to the fact that we at BioLogos had not yet laid out our positions clearly enough, not least because BioLogos itself has been growing, adapting, and finding our place in the public square. Indeed, we have changed some of our focus as we have carefully weighed the concerns raised by our Southern Baptist colleagues and others to whom we want to be accountable as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Today, along with this overview of the project, we post the last paper of this series. Written in the Fall of 2011 by Dr. Steve Lemke, provost at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, it shows just how far we’ve come in clarifying our positions and addressing key issues other believers have about evolutionary creation. Virtually all of the issues that Dr. Lemke raised at that point have now been addressed in our responses to previous posts in the series. As you read his article, you’ll be able mouse over highlighted phrases to bring up sidebar text showing how we have responded to each given point through the other articles in the series. Indeed, I think Dr. Lemke’s article is a great ending for the series; it re-states clearly both the major concerns and the misconceptions that many evangelical Christians have about evolutionary creation.

This final post in the Southern Baptist Voices Series is also a fitting ending to my term as the as President of The BioLogos Foundation. My goal in leading the organization for these past three and a half years has been to lay the groundwork to help my fellow evangelicals see that the conflict between our faith and mainstream science is not as great as many perceive it to be. In the process, my thinking has been significantly shaped by listening to people who think differently than I do. Some of the people I came to respect and admire the most still believe the universe is less than ten thousand years old. Others believe it is old, but they do not believe that God created life’s diversity through the evolutionary process, and they don’t believe in common descent. Though I think they are wrong about those important facts (even as they think I am wrong about the findings of mainstream science), I have appreciated my interaction with them. After all, laying the groundwork for a more fruitful interaction between science and evangelical Christianity begins with gathering together at the Table to worship, to pray, to study, to think, and to be a manifestation of God’s love together, especially in and through our differences.

We believe that the Southern Baptist Voices project should and will continue, and we’re currently in conversation about the best steps to take to ensure that it does. Moreover there are several other important projects of this sort that have not been quite so visible—at least on the website—and I remain very enthusiastic about them as well. One of my favorite projects has been carried out in conjunction with my colleagues at Point Loma Nazarene University: our annual week-long workshop for fifty Christian school science teachers. Another is our work alongside of our brothers and sisters in Christ at Reasons to Believe. This kind of cooperation—between BioLogos and those who think quite differently about creation than we do—is important for the Church’s witness to our Creator and Savior; the foundation is now in place and we’ll be able to build upon it going forward—laying out our similarities and differences together, rather than building walls between us.

Looking back, leading BioLogos at this very critical junction in the history of the Church has been the greatest privilege of my career. A couple of weeks ago I was with my 96 year old father and we were going through some of his old files. We found a reference to a dream he had in September, 1977, while I was a brand-new Assistant Professor at Syracuse University. At the time, my career as a molecular geneticist was focused on trying to understand how genes worked in engineering the process of development from a fertilized egg. My father dream was that I had made an all-important discovery about the nature of life. Like most dreams, it never came true in the way he expected it might. But a few weeks later in mid-October 1977, I decided to visit a small evangelical church—a move I thought might be my last desperate attempt to find a church for my family and me that would equip me to function as both a scientist and an evangelical Christian: before that day I had all but given up my search for such a community. Yet it was finding that church, not something that happened (or ever could happen) in my lab, that constituted my single most important discovery about the nature of life. Much better than my father’s dream about genes, I discovered there was room for people like me in a Bible-focused church after all.

The Church must not lose its scientists and its many university-educated young people who go on to accept the findings at the core of biology, geology, physical anthropology and astronomy. But we who accept the foundations of these disciplines need the Church to affirm and hold fast to the centrality of Scripture and the truths of the faith, even as the Church, in turn, needs to listen closely to what science has to say about the creation we scientists study so intricately.

I continue to be in regular dialog with people who are somewhat leery about those science textbooks, and I have come to understand the basis of that leeriness. It is not that the science books are wrong, it’s that we scientists have done a somewhat lousy job of sitting down with those who are not scientists and talking about the contents of those books; moreover, it is that we scientists have done too much talking to each other and not enough listening to the legitimate concerns that others raise. We now need to move towards a new reality—a reality which begins with conversation.

That’s what this Southern Baptist series has been about. I know of no better way to end my leadership role in BioLogos than with the final posting of this series. However, even this ending is just the beginning. For all of us, the real work lies up ahead—just around the next bend.

Dr. Lemke’s essay may be found here. Please keep in mind that it was written about fourteen months ago, before the series began. Together with the work of all of the Southern Baptist scholars, this essay shows how important it has been to clarify our positions. Again, as you read the essay, each highlighted section is linked to a “pop-out comment” which will appear in the sidebar as you click or mouse over it. In each case, the comment will show where one of the previous BioLogos responses in this series has addressed the point Dr. Lemke has made. This does not mean that the matter is settled—not by any stretch. It simply means that we’re thinking about the issues he raises and it shows some of our thoughts so far.

Notes

1. Indeed, it is likely the term, “theistic evolution” was part of the problem: evolution is the noun and God’s role in it only an adjective. “Evolutionary creation” is a better term, and the one we prefer.

Part of the BioLogos mission, then, is to show how all things hold together in Christ—to show how a Christian worldview integrates the knowledge we have of God through the Scriptures with the knowledge we have of God through the other areas in which he reveals himself as Creator and Redeemer. Our website contains a wealth of Christian scholarship in a wide range of fields—from biology, to cosmology, to mathematics, to Biblical studies, to history, to theology—all demonstrating that the best contemporary science is compatible with Biblical Christian faith. But today we introduce a new tool—the BioLogos Navigator—to make these posts more accessible, and to show how they inter-relate (see sidebar on the right).

Modeled on the astrolabes that early astronomers and sailors used to orient themselves under the heavens, our Navigator makes the cross of Christ the starting point by which we understand the cosmos. Each of the four arms of the cross represents one of the domains of knowledge and experience through which God reveals himself to the world: Scripture, the Church, Nature and Culture. These domains are not in opposition to each other, but are complementary and inter-related areas through which we can recognize God at work in the world. Linking these four domains is a network of specific topics relevant to the science and faith conversation. Their arrangement suggests how each relates to the four domains but also to teach other. Clicking on an individual topic tag highlights not only that topic, but other topics that are linked to it—sometimes in unexpected ways.

Clicking a topic tag a second time takes you to the Topic Landing page: a curated selection of the best resources on that subject from the BioLogos archives. (The image above shows the Christianity & Science—Then and Now Landing page, complete with Navigator and highlighted tags.) At the bottom of each page is a link to our Resource Finder, where you can investigate additional materials on that topic, as well. By exploring the relationships between the topics on the Navigator itself, and by delving deep into each topic via the resources presented on the landing pages, readers can focus on specific aspects of the harmony between science and Christian faith while also getting the wide view of God’s providential work in all things in the heavens and on the earth.

In the coming days and weeks, the BioLogos Navigator will be more fully integrated into the rest of the site, accessible directly from the Forum homepage and from the Resources dropdown list at the top of every page. We’ll also be including features that help place each blog post on the “knowledge map” defined by the domains and topic tags. Finally, the Topic Pages will also be periodically updated with the latest and best new materials in each topic. In the meantime, you can access the Navigator by clicking anywhere on the small image in the sidebar, above, and find a link to this post at the upper right corner of our homepage. So take some time to explore our site with this new tool, which we think will to help orient our readers in the science and faith conversation, while always pointing to Jesus, the Christ, through whom all things were made.

Introduction

One of the reasons that some of us are hesitant to accept evolutionary creation is that it seems to make God responsible for the suffering and death of innumerable creatures over millions of years—before humans ever existed or sinned against their creator. Since we believe in and worship a God who is loving, benevolent, and all-powerful, it sounds quite implausible that our God would have created a world like that; therefore, any scientific evidence for evolution must be incorrect.

Other people look at the scientific evidence for evolution and find a compelling case that it has taken place during our earth's history. On this basis they may conclude that if evolution is true, then the belief in an all-powerful, perfectly good God must be false!

The trouble with both of these views is that they tend to invoke a completely abstract, philosophical god, not the living God of the Bible—the God who became a human being, experienced unimaginable suffering, and died in a grotesque and humiliating public display. The death of Jesus completely defied the expectations (and common sense) of his followers, as well as the expectations of any “rational” understanding of the way the Creator of the universe should act in the world. On the cross, in the person of Jesus, God took upon himself far more suffering than any creature has ever experienced.

If God himself is willing to die, particularly in such a gruesome way, then perhaps we should at least consider the possibility of God allowing the death of other creatures, too. But would this really be compatible with what we know of God through Scripture? In this essay, we will explore this quandary through a “theology of the cross”, a concept articulated by pastor George Murphy in his book Cosmos in the Light of the Cross.¹

Theology of the cross

Before we jump into the theological problems associated with evolution, let’s take a look at how we understand Christian theology itself. For the reformer Martin Luther, any theology (or science) that tries to reach knowledge of God apart from the cross is bad theology.² Instead, Luther pointed to a theologia crucis, in which the true God is seen first and foremost “through suffering and the cross”. To make his point even clearer, Luther insisted that “the CROSS alone is our theology”.³ It is the lens through which we view everything.

Of course Martin Luther, having lived in the 16th century, was not aware of the vast history of life on our planet (or any other aspect of modern science, for that matter), but George Murphy draws from Luther’s teachings the foundation that all human knowledge begins with the Word made flesh and crucified.⁴ With the cross of Christ as the ultimate framework through which we view reality, we are bound to view the processes of nature quite differently. As Murphy explains it,

A theology of the cross is an explication of belief in a God who becomes a participant in the history of the universe and thereby shares in the suffering, loss, and death that are part of worldly experience.⁵

God does not sit idly by and watch unaffected as his creatures suffer, but neither does he swoop in and make everything completely effortless and easy. Instead he chose another way, the crucifixion of Jesus—certainly not the approach that we would have preferred! The apostle Peter went so far as to try to talk Jesus out of it, but he was met with a stern rebuke (Matthew 16:21-23).

Why is evolution so disconcerting to Christians?

The problem of suffering throughout all of human history is troubling enough for us to reconcile with a loving, personal God. But in addition to that, the discovery of vast numbers of fossils reveals that death has taken place on a far greater scale than we had ever imagined. Both the wide variety of extinct creatures and their sheer numbers is quite staggering, and it raises questions about our Creator:

The picture of a God who is immune from suffering and death but who forces organisms through millions of generations and extinction is disturbing to those who believe in a God of love.⁷

The mass extinction of life on earth was already well established by the early 19th century—decades before Darwin’s research—and extinction can be empirically verified independent of any theory of evolution.⁸ The fact that the earth’s crust is a veritable graveyard of long-lost creatures is deeply troubling, and as late as the 1790’s, distinguished intellectuals such as Thomas Jefferson denied the very possibility of extinction.⁹

But in addition to the reality of species extinction, the theory of evolution by natural selection proposes that new species also arise in an environment containing widespread pain and death. Both the creatures that are now living and those that are gone are tainted by an “acrid smell of death”.¹⁰ It makes us wonder, if our Creator is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Mk. 12:27), where is God’s presence in the evolutionary picture?

In all honesty, creation through evolution is not what we would expect from God, but Scripture is full of examples in which God acts in unexpected ways. After all, God’s choosing to undergo an agonizing death on a cross is not what we would expect from the all-powerful Creator of the universe, either. In both cases, new life comes about through pain, suffering, and death. As George Murphy puts it,

A priori ideas about God have to be overcome, and God's character has to be learned from God's self-revelation.¹¹

God’s fullest self-expression is in Jesus Christ himself, one who is intimately familiar with and personally endured creaturely pain and death. The theology of the cross reveals that God's self-revelation takes place in situations of suffering, loss, and apparent hopelessness, much like situations that occur through natural selection.¹²

The crucifixion is disconcerting too

Not only is creation through evolution an unexpected and unsettling process, but so is the crucifixion of Jesus! Killing someone by hanging them on a cross is an unbearably painful, prolonged, humiliating form of death. It was such a horrific type of public execution that it wasn't until after the Roman Empire stopped the practice of crucifixion—and people no longer witnessed it personally—did the cross become a visual object of devotion.¹³ Our culture is sufficiently removed from crucifixion that we are desensitized to its original significance, but to connect it to our current context, imagine the reaction you would get by wearing jewelry designed to look like an electric chair.¹⁴

Once we are more attuned to the brutality of crucifixion, it seems all the more striking that the cross is the sign of God’s work, what George Murphy calls “the trademark of God”.¹⁵ The suffering and death of Jesus is featured prominently in the Gospels, but the crucifixion-resurrection pattern is strongly resonant within the Old Testament, too. Israel suffered and toiled as slaves in Egypt for centuries before they were rescued in the Exodus, bringing life to a people who were spiritually dead. Centuries later, the nation of Israel would experience death again when the Babylonians destroyed the Davidic monarchy, burned their Temple, killed their people, and sent many into exile.¹⁶ Neither Israel (God’s chosen people) nor Jesus (God’s own son) were spared from death and suffering; rather, suffering seems to have been the way in which God re-forms and renews humanity to fully bear His own image.

Redemption extends to all of creation

Fortunately, God’s story does not end with death. God gives new life after his creatures have been subjected to terrible circumstances. Redemption was promised to Israel itself—Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones describes how God would renew His chosen people (Ezek 37:1-14). Later, the astonishing resurrection of Jesus made salvation possible not only for Jews, but for all people in Christ (Gal 3:26-29). Ultimately, the New Testament makes it clear that God’s renewal will encompass the entire Creation:

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Ephesians 1:8-10)

Christians are accustomed to thinking of the death of Christ in regard to humans, but our culture rarely acknowledges God plan for the redemption of His entire creation. This is partly attributable to the fact that discussions of creation and origins are often separated from the topic of salvation.¹⁷ In doing so we tend to marginalize Jesus as we argue about Genesis. Rather than fall into this trap, if we view nature through a theology of the cross, we will see Christ as both the alpha and the omega point in discussions of life’s history and life’s future. With this perspective, we are more apt to sense our solidarity with the rest of creation as we wait in eager anticipation of a glorious future:

The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:19-21)

Conclusion

As part of the Church’s conversation about the problem of natural evil, this essay is meant to be a brief introduction to a “theology of the cross”. One can explore this concept in greater detail in Murphy’s book The Cosmos in the Light of the Cross. While there is a lot more to be said, let me conclude with the following observation: though evolution may not be compatible with some interpretations of Christianity, evolutionary creation is certainly compatible with the crucified Christ and the theology of the cross. In the person of Jesus, God suffers with the world and ultimately redeems it. As George Murphy puts in, “The world's pains are God's stigmata.”¹⁸

Explore this Topic Further

• Miller, Keith. “And God saw that it was good”: Death and Pain in the Created Order. BioLogos series
• Murphy, George L. The Cosmos in the Light of the Cross. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 2003.
• Murphy, George L. “Cross, Evolution, and Theodicy: Telling It Like It Is”. In The Evolution of Evil. Edited by G. Bennett, M.J. Hewlett, T. Peters, and R.J. Russell. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008.
• Southgate, Christopher. The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil. Louisville, KY: Westminister John Knox Press, 2008.

Notes

1. Murphy, George L. The Cosmos in the Light of the Cross. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 2003.
2. Murphy, p34
3. “CRUX Sola Est Nostra Theologia,” in D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesammtausgabe (Weimar: Hermann Boehlau, 1892), 5:172. The captitalization is in the original. Cited in Murphy, p26.
4. Murphy, p108
5. Murphy, p4
6. Murphy, p43
7. Murphy, p3
8. Some Christians ascribe animal death to some combination of Adam’s fall and Noah’s flood, but this does not resolve the problem that the animals are still suffering and dying through no fault of their own. See Keith Miller’s BioLogos series Death and Pain in the Created Order for the limitations inherent in a fall-based theodicy.
9. Rudwick, Martin. The meaning of fossils: Episodes in the history of paleontology. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1985.
10. See Jeff Schloss’ BioLogos essay Evolution, Creation, and the Sting of Death
11. Murphy, p63
12. Murphy, p122
13. Murphy, p27
14. This example is drawn from an evangelical outreach event held by a Christian student group in Innsbruck, Austria. On campus one day, they started conversations with their classmates by asking the question, “Would you wear an electric chair on your neck?”
15. Murphy, George L. The Trademark of God: A Christian Course in Creation, Evolution, and Salvation. Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse-Barlow, 1986.
16. Murphy, Cosmos in the Light of the Cross, p 31-32.
17. Murphy, p35
18. Murphy, p87

Throughout my various conversations with fellow believers, the most-mentioned anxiety over accepting an evolutionary creationist paradigm is the fear of losing the Bible as one’s spiritual anchor and source of authority—the texts that give the global Christian community its doctrinal and philosophical distinctiveness. Growing up in the Baptist tradition and later becoming a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, the inerrancy of “God-breathed”¹ Scripture and its identity as the fount of all truth was paramount in defining my life as a Christian believer. Of course, while some would debate the veracity of such a doctrine as it pertains to this discussion, I believe that neither inerrancy nor authority is at issue when it comes to Genesis’ opening chapter. The real issue is hermeneutics—how we read the authoritative texts.

John Wesley (1703-1791), the eighteenth-century Anglican cleric and theologian who founded the Methodist movement in partnership with his brother Charles, held to a “literal” method of interpretation:

The general rule of interpreting Scripture is this: the literal sense of every text is to be taken, if it be not contrary to some other texts. But in that case, the obscure text is to be interpreted by those which speak more plainly.²

A modern adaptation of Wesley’s hermeneutic states, “If the literal sense makes good sense, seek no other sense lest you come up with nonsense.” But though this is a commonly-used interpretative method in evangelical Christian churches today, I have found that it unnecessarily lends itself to the fear of losing biblical authority. This tendency toward fear is especially acute when the individual doing the interpreting does not have at his or her fingertips the full scope of knowledge required to allow the biblical text to speak for itself—or rather, to allow God to speak through ancient genres with which the interpreter isn’t naturally familiar.

I readily admit that the “literal sense” of Genesis 1—as dictated by our own culture that focuses on material origins and unwittingly holds Genesis 1 hostage to the scientific method—does in fact rule out cosmological and biological evolution as God’s creative methods. But I would also ask the question of whether a “literary sense” of Genesis 1 allows for evolution. To read evolution into Scripture (eisegesis) or out of Scripture (exegesis) would be dishonest, especially considering that the author (or final redactor) of Genesis was not privy to modern scientific discoveries. I would also argue that a “literal” reading of Genesis 1, framed by our own modern paradigm, is unfaithful to the original intent of the author, and that we should take special care to read Genesis 1 “literarily” through the eyes of the ancient Hebrews, understanding what was (and wasn’t) important to them. Dr. Conrad Hyers writes:

This is the interpretive issue, and it cannot be settled by dogmatic assertions, threats about creeping secularism, or attempts to associate views with skepticism . . . . Nor can the issue be settled by marshaling scientific evidence for or against either evolution or six-day creation, since it would first need to be demonstrated that the Genesis accounts intended to offer scientific and historical statements. Otherwise the whole discussion is based on the wrong premises. As such it is scientific creationism itself which compromises the religious meaning of Genesis and is an accommodation to scientific language and method.³

Since Genesis was written in the Hebrew language and most of us can’t read Hebrew, we take for granted the necessity of translating from an ancient language into another in which we are fluent. Yet, we often forget that, because we are separated by at least 2,500 years from the culture that produced Genesis, we also need the culture “translated” for us as well.⁴

Returning to the text

Adopting Wesley’s hermeneutic strongly lends itself to ruling out both old-earth creationism and theistic evolution, but as a firm believer that “all truth is God’s truth,” I felt that I was missing something. Because I believed (and still do) that the six days of creation were six, successive, 24-hour periods (“there was evening and there was morning—the n^th day”), I struggled mightily to understand Genesis 1 in light of what I had been learning about the vast age of the cosmos as determined by the best scientific minds, both secular and Christian.⁵ If the age of the cosmos truly was as old as the scientific establishment has led us to believe, I thought that digging deeper into the culture of the ancient Near East could help me reconcile the two opposing forces of scientific observation and biblical testimony.

It was at this time that I discovered the works of John Walton, Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. His commentary on Genesis⁶ and his book on the conceptual world of the Hebrew Scriptures⁷ propelled me toward a realization that the focus of Genesis 1 was much less on the material origin of the cosmos and much more on the cosmos’ purpose as a functional and purposeful dwelling place for God—a cosmic temple, if you will. Furthermore, his reading actually accentuated mankind’s role as representative “image-bearers” of God, as wielders of his authority on Earth. I learned that the symbolism and literary structure of Genesis 1, including the 7-day structure of the creation week, had its roots in an ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cognitive environment that held the concepts of function and purpose to be more important than (but not entirely exclusive of) material origins, the latter of which currently guides our modern, scientific way of thinking. It even reconciled the seemingly contradictory accounts of a weeklong series of creative acts and a 14.6-billion-year-old universe.

With these interpretive tools in hand, I was able to successfully assuage my fear of losing biblical authority insofar as Genesis 1 was concerned, and my openness to evolutionary theory came quite naturally. If the preponderance of scientific evidence adequately explained the existence of all biological organisms, past and present, by evolutionary means, I could accept mainstream evolutionary theory⁸ while maintaining the theological authority of the Bible’s opening chapter. As long as I took pains to bridge the vast cultural gap when attempting to determine the theological message of the text—which God accommodated for the Hebrew culture and chose to express in a culturally bound literary form—I wouldn’t need to fear abandoning the Bible as a source of theological truth and spiritual authority. As long as I aimed to let the Bible to speak for itself, using the best biblical scholarship available to determine who wrote the various books of the Bible, to whom they were written, and when they were written, I could have confidence that the end result would be a more faithful pronouncement of what the Bible is actually telling us, millennia later, through ancient voices.

Of course, things are never that easy when it comes to biblical authority. The functional ontology and temple imagery of Genesis 1, as well as its parallels with other ANE creation myths and temple dedication texts, carry over into the next two chapters of Genesis, which feature the creation of Adam and Eve and the entrance of sin and death into the world of mankind. What was I to do with the historicity of Adam and Eve?

If the Hebrew Scriptures stood alone as a source of spiritual authority in my life as a Christian, it wouldn’t be much of an issue. I could accept a mythological Adam and Eve within the framework of an etiological account⁹ of human origins, but there is this second corpus of literature held sacred by Christians commonly known as the New Testament. As a Christian, I now had an issue with Paul and his clear treatment of Adam as a real person rooted in human history. If that wasn’t enough, I was also confronted by the salvific role of Jesus himself. How could an historical, literal Jesus solve the very real problem of sin that resulted from the rebellious act of a mythical, literary Adam? I’ll address those issues next time, when we look at the second fear many evangelical Christians have about considering evolutionary creation: the fear of losing our Savior.

Notes

1. The literal meaning of the Greek word θεόπνευστος (theopneustos).
2. John Wesley, The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley (London: Epworth Press, 1931), vol. III, 129.
3. Conrad Hyers, The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1984), 26; emphasis in the original.
4. John H. Walton, interview. From the Dust: Conversations in Creation. Blu-Ray Disc. Directed by Ryan Petty. Mountain View, CA: Highway Media and The BioLogos Foundation, 2012.
5. For a secular treatment, see G. Brent Dalrymple, The Age of the Earth (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994); for evangelical Christian treatments, see Davis A. Young and Ralph F. Stearley, The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth (Grand Rapids: IVP Academic, 2008); Howard J. Van Till, The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens Are Telling Us about the Creation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986); Howard J. Van Till, ed., Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives on the World’s Formation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990).
6. John H. Walton, The NIV Application Commentary: Genesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001).
7. John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006). See also John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009); John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011); Gordon J. Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 1-15 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987); Gordon J. Glover, Beyond the Firmament: Understanding Science and the Theology of Creation (Chesapeake, VA: Watertree Press, LLC, 2007).
8. See Daniel J. Fairbanks, Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007) and Keith B. Miller, ed., Perspectives on an Evolving Creation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003).
9. “Etiology,” Wikipedia, accessed October 08, 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiology.

However, with so much content on the site, older posts—even the best ones—often became lost in the shuffle. So we asked ourselves two questions: How do we give our visitors access to our vast archive of resources, and how do we make sure they are finding the resources that address their most pressing questions?

The answer is our new Resource Finder.

The Resource Finder rests on a foundation of 41 topic tags, covering everything from Genesis to genetics to worship. By selecting any topic, users can find the posts addressing the issues that interest them. Looking for more detail? Users can also narrow their results by choosing an intended audience and format, or by adding more topics to the search.

Here’s an example: Say you’re looking for resources about creation and origins. Just click the “Creation & Origins” tag, and the matching results appear below almost instantly.

You can refine the results by adding a second tag to the search. Let’s add “Genesis”. The results will list all the entries that match both tags first, followed by posts that match either. You can change the list to include only results that match all selected tags by choosing “All” rather than “Any” at the top of the tag list.

Lastly, let’s pick a format and intended audience. How about videos for pastors?

And there you have it! From over 1,300 resources, we’ve found five specific videos, geared towards pastors, that address both Genesis and origins. Want to share the results? Just copy and paste the link from your browser! Even better, by click the orange RSS button in the top left corner of the page, you can create a custom feed for Google Reader (or any other RSS reader) that will let you know whenever a new resource matching those categories goes live on our website!

We’re excited to see what the BioLogos community thinks about the Resource Finder, and even more excited to see how it will impact the ongoing dialogue about science and Christian faith. So have a look and share your thoughts in the comment section below!

La visione di BioLogos asserisce che sia le Sacre Scritture, sia la scienza moderna rivelano la Verità, e che queste due verità non sono in contraddizione l’una con l’altra. Mentre da un lato ci sono differenti visioni all’interno della comunità di BioLogos su come riconciliare le verità della scienza con le verità delle Sacre Scritture per quanto riguarda alcuni argomenti specifici (ad esempio in relazione alla storicità della figura di Adamo¹), crediamo concordemente che la Bibbia sia la Parola di Dio, autorevole e divinamente inspirata. BioLogos accetta il moderno consenso scientifico sull’età della Terra e la teoria del progenitore comune, incluso il progenitore comune degli esseri umani.

Evoluzionismo

Mentre da un lato BioLogos accetta l’evoluzione, dall’altro rifiuta totalmente l’Evoluzionismo, ovvero la visione atea del mondo che così spesso accompagna l’accettazione dell’evoluzione biologica nei discorsi pubblici. Coloro che propongono l’Evoluzionismo credono che ogni aspetto della vita sarà un giorno spiegato tramite la teoria dell’evoluzione. In questo modo L’Evoluzionismo è un sottocaso dello scientismo, una più ampia visione secondo la quale l’unica reale verità è quella che può essere scoperta dalla scienza. Sono queste le posizioni tenute comunemente dai materialisti (anche chiamati naturalisti filosofici) che negano l’esistenza del sovrannaturale.

La visione di BioLogos celebra Dio come il Creatore. Qualche volta viene chiamata Evoluzione Teistica o Creazione Evolutiva. Il Teismo è il credere in un Dio a cui sta a cuore il creato e che interagisce con esso. Il Teismo è diverso dal deismo, che indica la convinzione dell’esistenza di un creatore distante e non direttamente coinvolto con l’universo, che spesso è poco più della somma totale delle leggi della fisica. L’Evoluzione Teistica, perciò, è la convinzione che l’evoluzione sia il mezzo con cui Dio ha creato la vita.

Poiché il termine evoluzione è talvolta associato all’ateismo, un termine che meglio descrive il credere in un Dio che ha scelto di creare il mondo per mezzo dell’evoluzione è BioLogos. BioLogos deriva dalle parole greche bios (vita) e logos (parola), riferendosi a Giovanni 1:1: “Nel principio c’era la Parola, e la Parola era presso Dio, e la Parola era Dio”.

Disegno Intelligente

Al contrario di alcune interpretazioni, il Disegno Intelligente (o ID, dall’inglese Intelligent Design) non fa nessuna specifica affermazione teologica. Al contrario, coloro che propongono l’ID argomentano che “determinate caratteristiche dell’universo e degli esseri viventi sono meglio spiegate da una causa intelligente, piuttosto che da un processo indiretto come la selezione naturale”², e che l’esistenza di questa causa intelligente è una ipotesi scientificamente testabile. Inoltre, i teorici del Disegno Intelligente tentano di dimostrare che una causa intelligente è la migliore spiegazione di certi fenomeni come i sistemi irriducibilmente complessi (ad esempio i “flagelli” batterici) le specifiche e complesse informazioni contenute nel DNA.

Anche coloro che supportano la visione di BioLogos credono in una causa intelligente. L’universo e tutto ciò che contiene è stato creato ed è sostenuto e governato da Dio:

…in [Cristo] tutte le cose del Cielo e della Terra sono state create, visibili e invisibili …tutte le cose sono state create tramite Lui e da Lui. Egli stesso è prima di tutte le cose e in Lui tutte le cose sono tenute insieme. (Col 1:16,17 NRSV).

BioLogos si differenzia dal movimento del Disegno Intelligente nel senso che noi non abbiamo problemi nel riconoscere la scienza moderna tradizionale. La selezione naturale come descritta da Charles Darwin non è contraria al teismo. Similmente, siamo più che soddisfatti di come la biologia evoluzionista ci informa riguardo al meccanismo di creazione, con la piena consapevolezza che tutto ciò che succede ed è successo capita ed è capitato attraverso l’azione di Dio. Celebriamo la creazione come completamente generata da Dio. Ci meravigliamo della sua bellezza e siamo grati di avere il privilegio di sperimentare la creazione stessa.

BioLogos celebra la realtà dei miracoli, inclusi i miracoli delle Sacre Scritture, ma anche quelli che sperimentiamo nel mondo dei giorni nostri attraverso le preghiere a cui Dio dà ascolto e attraverso l’azione dello Spirito Santo nelle nostre vite. D’altra parte, la dimostrazione di tali azioni sovrannaturali nella storia del mondo è, noi pensiamo, improbabile da provare scientificamente. Ricapitolando, BioLogos differisce dal movimento del Disegno Intelligente in tre aspetti:

1. Siamo scettici riguardo alla possibilità della scienza biologica di provare l’esistenza di un “Disegnatore” intelligente (che noi riteniamo essere il Dio della Bibbia), mentre i sostenitori dell’ID ne sono confidenti
2. Troviamo non convincenti quei tentativi dei teorici del Disegno Intelligente di dimostrare scientificamente le azioni sovrannaturali operate da Dio nella storia naturale, mentre i sostenitori dell’ID credono di averlo già sufficientemente dimostrato
3. Non troviamo nessun motivo biblico per vedere i processi naturali (inclusa la selezione naturale) come qualcosa che ha rimosso Dio dal processo della creazione. E’ tutta una Sua opera ed è tutta stata intelligentemente predefinita. Coloro che credono nel movimento ID per la maggior parte rigettano tutte o alcune delle più importanti conclusioni della teoria dell’evoluzione.

Creazionismo

BioLogos afferma che la Terra e l’universo sono stati creati.

Il Creazionismo, generalmente, si riferisce al credere che la vita sulla Terra è il risultato di un intervento sovrannaturale diretto, concordemente con una interpretazione altamente letterale della Genesi 1-3. Ci sono due correnti principali di Creazionisti, coloro che credono che la Terra sia giovane e coloro che credono che sia antica.

I Creazionisti della Terra Giovane (anche denominati YECs, dall’inglese Young Earth Creationists) ritengono che la Terra abbia dai 6.000 ai 10.000 anni, un quadro derivato dalle genealogie presenti nella Bibbia. Gli YECs credono che il modo più fedele di leggere le Sacre Scritture sia sotto la prospettiva di una creazione durata letteralmente 6 giorni, come descritta nel primo capitolo della Genesi, e inoltre credono letteralmente che una alluvione mondiale, come descritta nella Genesi 6-9, sia stata responsabile dell’aspetto geologico della Terra e della presenza di testimonianze fossili. I sostenitori del Creazionismo della Terra Giovane respingono inoltre l’esistenza di un progenitore comune di tutte le specie e credono che la vita sia stata creata, come essa appare ora, da una azione sovrannaturale. Considerano la “macro-evoluzione” (distinta dalla “micro-evoluzione” intraspecifica) come incompatibile con le Sacre Scritture e alcuni addirittura argomentano che si tratta di una minaccia diretta alla Cristianità.

BioLogos non è d’accordo con il punto di vista dei Creazionisti della Terra Giovane. Questa visione infatti rifiuta le scoperte di quasi tutte le discipline della scienza moderna per arrivare alle sue conclusioni e trascura la rivelazione del magnifico lavoro di creazione da parte di Dio, rivelazione che ci viene donata dalla scienza. Noi riteniamo inoltre che il punto di vista degli YECs nasce da una particolare interpretazione della Genesi, che non tiene conto del complesso contesto culturale e teologico nel quale è stata scritta.

I Creazionisti della Terra Vecchia (anche denominati OECs, dall’inglese Old Earth Creationists) accettano che la Terra e l’universo abbiano miliardi di anni di vita, ma ritengono che questa scoperta sia concorde con una interpretazione alla lettera del primo capitolo della Genesi (spesso interpretando i giorni di creazione come lunghi periodi di tempo oppure immaginando lunghi momenti di pausa tra un giorno della creazione e l’altro). Gli OECs ritengono che la scienza moderna corrisponda strettamente alla narrazione biblica e difendono l’idea che Dio abbia incluso le moderne idee scientifiche nella Bibbia, talvolta attraverso un linguaggio segreto che sarebbe andato perso a causa della audience delle origini. I sostenitori del Creazionismo della Terra Vecchia non accettano la macro-evoluzione ed un comune progenitore per tutte le forme viventi.

BioLogos è in disaccordo con il punto di vista dei Creazionisti della Terra Vecchia. Mentre tale visione da un lato accetta il consenso scientifico riguardo all’idea di una Terra molto antica, dall’altro rigetta i ritrovamenti della genetica moderna, della paleontologia, della biologia dello sviluppo, della biologia dell’evoluzione e di molte altre sotto-discipline biologiche che hanno poco senso se considerate in modo separato dalla macro-evoluzione e dalla teoria del progenitore comune. Inoltre noi crediamo che Dio ha scelto di rivelare se stesso nel contesto della visione del mondo, della cultura e del linguaggio degli autori della Bibbia.

In che cosa i Cristiani sono d’accordo

Nonostante queste differenze, tutti i Cristiani sono d’accordo che il Dio della Bibbia è il Creatore del cielo e della Terra. Siamo d’accordo nell’autorità della Bibbia, anche se siamo in disaccordo su quale sia la migliore interpretazione di alcuni passaggi particolari. Siamo d’accordo nel credere che Dio sia continuamente attivo nel suo sovrano governo dell’universo, anche se siamo in disaccordo su quanto Dio agisca attraverso le leggi naturali piuttosto che tramite miracoli. Siamo uniti nel rifiutare l’Evoluzionismo, anche se abbiamo diverse argomentazioni alla base di tale rifiuto (alcuni rigettano la scienza dell’evoluzione, mentre BioLogos rifiuta il velo di ateismo posto sulla scienza). Siamo concordi sui fondamenti della nostra fede: che tutte le persone hanno peccato e che la salvezza viene solo attraverso la morte e resurrezione di Gesù Cristo. Siamo d’accordo nel ritenere che il Dio della nostra salvezza sia lo stesso Dio che vediamo nelle meraviglie della sua creazione. Quando contempliamo la complessità insita nel DNA, la bellezza di un delfino o la vastità della Via Lattea, possiamo unire i nostri cuori in una accorata lode per il divino Artista che tutto ha creato.

Growing up, David believed that Young Earth Creationism was the Christian position on origins and how God created. As he endeavored to learn more, he was intrigued by Francis Collins book The Language of God because Francis did not present evolution as a rival theory to Christian faith, but as something that described God's method of creation. David studied biblical interpretation and found John Walton's scholarship to be tremendously helpful in understanding the original purpose and intent of the Genesis narrative.

Reflecting on his personal journey, David thinks that it is important that we don't oversimplify questions related to science and faith, but that we explore them deeply in order to understand science in a robust, Christian way.

In Part 2 of this series, we concluded by noting that, as Christian geologists willing to consider the possibility, we find no compelling evidence that the earth’s geological features can be explained by a global Flood. Here we consider three lines of evidence: global salt deposits, the order of deposition of sediment layers in the Grand Canyon, and the sequence of fossils in geological strata.

Salt Deposits

There are many places around the earth with layers of salt, some thousands of feet in thickness. Just off the southern coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico, thick salt deposits sit beneath thousands of feet of sediment (Fig. 1). These deposits lie within the layers that are said to have been deposited by the Flood.

We understand how salt beds form. At locations such as the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah, or at the Dead Sea at the border of Israel and Jordan, salt is actively forming. Salt beds form when water is evaporated. During evaporation, the concentration of dissolved ions increases until the water cannot hold the salt in solution anymore and mineral salt begins to form. If a presently unknown or poorly understood process could produce salt without evaporation, as argued by young-earth advocates¹, it would quickly dissolve as soon as it came into contact with flood water, just as the salt from your saltshaker rapidly dissolves when added to water or moist food.

One might argue that the waters from the Flood could have evaporated to leave behind the salt deposits we see today, but there is a serious problem. The thousands of feet of sediment on top of the salt is also said to be from the Flood, meaning the flood waters cannot have evaporated to produce the salt and still be present and violent enough to transport thousands of feet of sediment to the same location. In other words, a single flood cannot be called upon to explain both the salt and the overlying sediment. For those who wish to argue that natural processes could have been vastly different during the Flood, there are at least two replies. First, under such a scenario, there is no point in Flood Geology studies any more than in normal studies, for nothing could be gained by the study of unknowable processes. A more important question, however, would be to ask why God would alter natural processes just to make Flood sediments look like they are not flood sediments. What would the purpose be? (We will revisit this thought later.)

Grand Canyon: Order of Deposition

The Grand Canyon is made up of a sequence of layers that defies any reasonable attempt to explain by a single flood. The alternating layers of limestone, sandstone and shale each form in unique environments. If these deposits were formed at different times under various sea-level stages, it is quite simple to explain the different grain sizes and rock types as a function of depth and distance from the shore line. If explained with a single catastrophic flood that abided by God’s natural laws of physics and chemistry, logic must be stretched beyond the breaking point.

As a very simple observation, consider instructions given in virtually every gardening book. A good soil will have a mix of sand, silt and clay. To determine the quality of your soil, you take a handful or two, put it in a clear container, add water and shake it up. When you stop shaking, the coarse grained material will settle out first resulting in a sequence of layers: sand on the bottom, then silt, then clay. You can readily see how much of each you have by the thickness of each layer.

This is informative of what we see in flood deposits. As moving flood waters slow down, finer and finer grained sediment settles out resulting in a “fining upward” sequence. If most of the Grand Canyon layers were laid down by the Flood, then we should see the same thing – a “fining upward” sequence. Instead, we see a series of alternating layers of fine and coarse grained material, with smaller-scale alternating layers within the larger ones (Fig. 2). Increasing the violence of a flood does nothing to negate the standard order of deposition. Repeated surging of flood waters across the surface likewise offers little explanatory power; in this case we might expect successive layers, each with their own “fining upward” sequence, but such is not what is observed. Further, the Grand Canyon includes multiple layers of limestone, which are never found in flood deposits of any magnitude. Even in floods as massive as one thought to have catastrophically deluged the once dry Mediterranean Sea basin with thousands of feet of water – limestone beds are conspicuously absent.

Fossil Sequence

If a massive flood were responsible for the fossil record, what would we expect to see? If the Flood was violent enough to rip chunks of rock up from the earth and move entire continents (standard Young Earth claims)², then it should be obvious that life forms from every imaginable niche would be tumbled and mixed together (Fig. 3a). We should find numerous examples of mammoths mixed with triceratops, and pterodactyls mixed with sparrows. Ferns and meadow flowers should be found in the same deposits, along with trilobites and whales. Further, we should find all major life forms still living today, for Genesis 7:8-9 is clear in stating that all terrestrial animals were preserved on the ark.

What we actually observe is far different (Fig. 3b). There is an orderly sequence where trilobites only occur in very old rocks, dinosaurs in later beds, and mammoths in still later layers. Organisms like flowers and ferns are present together in more recent deposits, but only ferns with no flowers are found in older deposits. Some readers will recognize this as an example from the “geologic column” and be tempted to discount it as a fabrication. For those thinking this way, consider what Henry Morris had to say in both editions of Scientific Creationism:

“Creationists do not question the general validity of the geologic column, however, at least as an indicator of the usual order of deposition of the fossils…”⁵

If we revisit the Grand Canyon for a moment, is it not striking that there is not a single dinosaur, mammoth or bird in the entire exposed sequence? Not one. To find these, you have to go to younger sediments found in deposits outside the canyon that have not been fully eroded away yet. How could such a lack of mixing be possible if the Flood was violent enough to move continents?

“The subtitle of From the Dust is “conversations in creation” and this subtitle reflects the primary purpose of the film. The aim is to start a conversation and to open minds to the issues involved in the questions of evolution and creation, but to do so in a fair fashion. I don’t mean that the film takes no position on the issue – the film clearly intends to make a case for evolutionary creation as consistent with the Christian faith, and in fact as the preferred option. But it does so without misrepresenting or vilifying those holding alternative views. […]

I think the film will work best when followed by open discussion over several sessions, preferably led by Christians with expertise in science and theology. This is something I hope to be able to do as opportunities present themselves, but there are many scholars and teachers around the country capable of leading the discussion.”

From Test of Faith:

“This beautifully produced documentary navigates the difficult ground of the creation-evolution debate graciously, honestly and with rigour. […]

The message of From the Dust is that it is possible to be a sincere Bible-believing Christian and accept what we know through science, particularly evolutionary biology. The approach used is to show both sides of the argument, interviewing representatives of different points of view, before coming down firmly on the part of theologians and scientists who see no clash between faith and evolution. In this feature-length documentary, Pettey and his collaborators have combined authoritative interviews with scholars, pastors and teachers with creative visuals and music to produce something that is eminently watchable and should promote helpful discussion among many, both in and outside of the church.”

From the Dust is available now from Highway Media. DVD copies are $20 and Blu Ray copies are $25. Beginning in October, From the Dust will also be a free gift for tax-deductible donations of $50 or more to The BioLogos Foundation.

What are the best ways to spark productive conversations about science and faith? Certainly there are books, articles, blogs (like this one), and podcasts. Or we can host major events with a prominent speaker or panel. These are all good things, to be sure. But there are particular advantages to using film. Unlike books, articles, blogs, or podcasts, videos engage with both sight and sound. A single DVD is much less expensive than a dozen copies of a book for a group to read through together. A film is portable, flexible, quick, and easy to use. Participants don't need to prepare between sessions, nor do they require internet access. And you don't need to find a big-name speaker or organize a large-scale event.

Test of Faith

Unlike years ago, there are now high-quality and stimulating science-faith documentaries that are well-suited for engaging groups and stimulating conversations. The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, based in Cambridge, UK, has put together an award-winning documentary, Test of Faith: Does Science Threaten Belief in God? This 2009 film is divided into three distinct 30-minute sessions, which can be further divided if desired. A wide range of topics are considered, including the age and origin of the universe, the possibility of other universes, evolution, care for the environment, the brain, free will, and bioethics. The trailer can be seen above. This film is a good choice if you are not looking to focus primarily on issues around biological evolution. It is also particularly well-suited for groups that include both skeptics and Christians, as one could imagine it being shown on a public television station such as PBS or BBC. Faraday now has quite a range of supporting materials around the film, including bonus footage, a rich website, a leader’s guide, a study guide for participants, and a book with autobiographical contributions from scientist-believers, Test of Faith: Spiritual Journeys with Scientists. Contributors to the film and book include Francis Collins, Alister McGrath, Ard Louis, Jennifer Wiseman, Bill Newsome, John Polkinghorne, Alasdair Coles, Rosalind Picard, and John Bryant.

From the Dust

Just this year, BioLogos partnered with Highway Media to produce a new documentary, From the Dust: Conversations in Creation. This film is just over an hour long, and is divided into four sections of similar length: “Faith and Science,” “Divinely Inspired,” “The Conversation,” and “Truly Human.” Some early clips from the film (prior to the final round of editing) and additional footage can be found in the multimedia resources section of the BioLogos website, and the trailer is above. From the Dust has a firm focus on Genesis, creation, and evolution, probably the area of the most significant tension in our society today related to science and faith. Unlike Test of Faith, there is no narrative voice in From the Dust, and contrasting views are held in tension. It also focuses on theology more than science, so From the Dust may be a better choice than Test of Faith for some groups of Christians. While the Test of Faith film has a very modern and logical structure to it, From the Dust has more of a personal and emotional feel, and you feel that the people in the film are talking with you more than just talking to you. You see the cost that divisive positions on creation and evolution can have on Christians, even in the college classroom. While the film has a strong leaning towards evolutionary creationism and features N. T. Wright, John Walton, John Polkinghorne, Alister McGrath, Peter Enns, Jeff Schloss and Rick Colling, there are also significant contrasting voices from Answers in Genesis and Canopy Ministries. In my opinion, From the Dust is a good choice for many churches, small group Bible studies, or Christian student groups (e.g., InterVarsity, Navigators) to use. There are fewer supporting materials around From the Dust, due both to its new release and also its more inductive approach than that of the Faraday project. In addition to bonus footage, there is a website, a list of sample discussion questions, and a group study guide that I developed.

Next Steps

As you decide which film to use for starting conversations and how to use it, there are several things to consider. Will you show the whole film at once, or will you spread it out over several sessions? Will you provide additional structure or just have an open discussion after each viewing? How many days do you have available? How much time at each session? What are the worldviews of your audience? What is their level of biblical, theological, and scientific knowledge? How big is the group, and what is their age? What is their willingness to do homework and their level of interest in the topic? Is this a new group specifically convened to explore science and faith issues together, or is this a preexisting group that has been doing other things together and has varying levels of commitment to this new topic? What sort of expertise does the leader of the group have, or are there multiple leaders? All of these can affect the group dynamic and may influence the choices you make.

The groups I have worked with have been Christian students from secular colleges, Christian faculty and staff from secular colleges, a small group Bible study, and a general audience. I have found that Test of Faith worked well over three weeks with my Bible study group and with the faculty and staff group, though in these exclusively Christian groups I needed to add a bit of scripture, song or prayer in those settings (as is also recommended in the Faraday materials). The film was particularly good for a 30-minute screening at the general audience event, which also featured a panel for Q&A afterwards. It could likely be used in a college classroom, too, even at a secular institution. I had been considering strategies for using Test of Faith at my church as well, until I found From the Dust.

As I began thinking about ways to use From the Dust while it was still in the final editing stages, I screened it in two parts to three of the four audiences mentioned above (not the general audience). I asked several dozen undergraduates from local InterVarsity groups to give me their responses to the film and to tell me what questions it makes them want to explore more. I did the same with the Christian faculty and staff, and with my home Bible study group. Then I assembled a six-week curriculum (plus an opening session on setting expectations and sharing my vision), primarily aimed at Christian undergraduates. My students this summer loved it so much that we followed it with three-weeks on Test of Faith! Now I keep getting asked when I’ll do it next. But I am hoping that others, even my own students, will want to lead discussion groups like this. You don’t have to be an expert to start a conversation, and sometimes being a leader is the best way to learn.

“Theistic evolution” has been discussed by that name since at least 1877, and one of the first to do so was the great Canadian geologist John W. Dawson, in his book, The Origin of the World, According to Revelation and Science (1877). In the midst of a lengthy discussion of the animals created on the fifth day of creation, he says:

The long time employed in the introduction of the lower animals, the use of the terms “make,” and “form,” instead of “create,” and the expression “let the waters bring forth,” may well be understood as countenancing some form of mediate creation, or of “creation by law,” or “theistic evolution,” as it has been termed; but they give no countenance to the idea either of the spontaneous evolution of living beings under the influence of merely physical causes and without creative intervention, or of the transmutation [evolution] of one kind of animal into another. (p. 225)

As the final part of this sentence implies, Dawson was (ironically) a staunch opponent of both human evolution and the common ancestry of other animals; in short, by no reasonable definition was he a theistic evolutionist, even though he thought that a great deal of change had taken place naturally, “within certain limits” that he associated with the created “kinds” spoken of in Genesis. Indeed, references to “theistic evolution” are probably no less common among opponents of the view (including William Jennings Bryan in the 1920s) than among proponents, but I won’t attempt to enumerate further examples.

In recent years, however, some proponents of TE have endorsed alternative labels for their position(s). The most prominent example is Francis Collins, the geneticist who started BioLogos. Collins uses the term “BioLogos” itself as the label for his overall position, which fits well within my TE category. The evangelical theologian Denis Lamoureux, one of the most qualified of all writers on this topic (he has earned doctorates in both theology and biology), strongly prefers the term, “Evolutionary Creation” (EC), precisely because he thinks the noun “creation” ought to have more emphasis than the adjective “evolutionary,” something that the term “theistic evolution” does not accomplish. I recommend his book of that title to anyone who wants an authoritative analysis of both biblical and scientific aspects of the origins controversy. The main ideas are clearly presented in his web lectures. Another highly qualified proponent of TE, George Murphy, also has reservations about the term, but he recognizes its wide recognition and agrees with the idea itself, that “Evolution is God’s way of creating”. I will have more to say about Murphy, a very important voice, in a subsequent post.

Despite these quite reasonable objections to the term, I continue to use the “TE” term, partly because it has historical continuity and I’m an historian, and partly because it’s easily recognized. If anyone wants to object, however, they won’t get objections from me, unless their own reasons aren’t reasonable. My only request: define your terms as clearly as I’ve defined mine.

Because the term is broad and a bit hazy, more should be said about it. When we talk about “Intelligent Design” next month, I’ll tell you that it’s a “big tent” (something proponents of that view also say), insofar as it glosses over the biblical and theological issues that have usually separated Christians into various “camps” (such as the various positions we are now studying) when it comes to origins. TE is also a “big tent,” in that adherents differ strongly amongst themselves on theological and biblical issues. Unlike ID, however, theology is openly discussed—and competing theologies of God, nature, and humanity are openly advocated, not left implicit. We’ll say more about this next time. This column presents one type of TE, a type favored by many evangelical scientists and scholars. For example, the people I will discuss all accept (as far as I can tell) the Incarnation and Resurrection—that is, they are Trinitarian Christians who believe that Jesus was fully divine (and fully human) and that the disciples went to the right tomb, only to find it empty, before encountering the risen Christ in diverse places. They also believe in creation ex nihilo, the classical view (illustrated at the start of this column) that God brought the universe into existence out of nothing. There are other types of TE, some of which are not (in my opinion) sufficiently biblical, or even sufficiently Christian, to be part of this series. Please keep that in mind as we proceed: don’t tar all TEs with the same brush—something that happens all too often elsewhere. Let knowledge, not ignorance, be our guide.

Core Tenets or Assumptions of Theistic Evolution

(1) The Bible is NOT a reliable source of scientific knowledge about the origin of the earth and the universe, including living things—because it was never intended to teach us about science.

This reflects not only modern scientific knowledge, but also (more importantly) modern biblical scholarship. Peter Enns and some other evangelical scholars have recently stressed this point, initiating a firestorm in the evangelical academic community that, so far, has confirmed my view that evangelicals in general are just not ready to deal with this, even though it is consistent with the classical notion of accommodation. My own comments about the magnitude of the problem, written before the firestorm started, can be found here.

(2) The Bible IS a reliable source of knowledge about God and spiritual things.

Remember the quip that Galileo attributed to Cesare, Cardinal Baronio, “The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.” (We discussed this earlier in the series). Evolution was not an issue in Galileo’s day, but this platitude is frequently quoted by advocates of TE—and often without proper attribution to Baronio. Commonality obviously lies in the attitude, not the topic. Many critics of TE are willing to adopt Galileo’s approach when it comes to the Solar System, but not when it comes to evolution: they are anxious to keep Galileo out of the garden of Eden.

Portrait of Cesare, Cardinal Baronio,
attributed to Caravaggio (1602-3) (Source)

(3) Scientific evidence is irrelevant to the Bible—it is simply not a science book.

See above. This needs to be stated separately, since some believers look to science for “proof” of the Bible, just as some unbelievers look to science for “disproof.” Proponents of TE stress that science and the Bible aren’t like apples and oranges; rather, they are more like apples and rocks: you can hold one in each hand without tension, but they have very little in common. We wouldn’t look for God in the phone book, or in an automobile repair manual. Don’t look for science in the Bible. In principle, scientific theories neither support nor threaten the Bible.

(4) The creation story in Genesis 1 is a confession of faith in the true creator, intended to refute pantheism and polytheism, not to tell us how God actually created the world.

This is meant to echo what we said about the Framework View. It is not necessarily true that all TEs accept the Framework View or something like it, but many do. Most would probably say that the Bible is not contradicted by any specific scientific theory of biological diversity—unless that theory oversteps its philosophical boundaries and functions as a kind of religion, what Conrad Hyers called “dinosaur religion.”

(5) The Bible tells us THAT God created, not how God created

Again, this sounds like the Framework View—or, at least, it should. Belief in God the creator is consistent with science, and even supported by some aspects of science; but, it is not a substitute for scientific explanations.

An Assignment: It’s Your Turn to Read and Write

Astronomer Owen Gingerich has written an eloquent little TE book, God’s Universe. A number of quotations have been compiled here. My review for First Things identifies some of the key theological and philosophical issues related to TE. Please follow these links, study what you find, and offer comments below. If anyone has actually read the book itself, your views would be particularly valuable to include.

Looking Ahead

In our next column in two weeks, we continue our discussion of Theistic Evolution, focusing on some crucial theological aspects of TE. In the meantime, please do the “assignment” and get back to us.

In his thoughtful, gracious, and fair-minded essay, Professor John Laing focuses on what many believers and non-believers alike recognize as perhaps the most significant challenge to faith in an all-good, -knowing, and -powerful Creator God: the problem of natural evil, and in particular, the acrid sting of death. While the issue is an ancient one, Laing—and many other contemporary commentators who range from sympathetic to antagonistic toward biblical theism—view evolution as exacerbating the problem to the point that one must choose between the good God of scripture and the truth of evolution. Although the general issue of “evolution and evil” is manifold and beyond the scope of a single essay, John (if I may), zeros in on two ways in which evolution seems to aggravate the particular theological challenge of death. First, in the view of scripture, death is “an invader, disturber of the peace, and a force of evil”; therefore its primordial (as opposed to post hoc) place in the world described by evolution seems incommensurate with an originally good creation. Second, it is not just the primordial place but also the functional role of death that appears to constitute a problem: evolution by natural selection is widely viewed as being driven by death, and more generally by fierce competition, in a way that seems hard to reconcile as a mode of creation that a wise and good God would employ.

I agree with John that these are serious issues. Little is accomplished either by glibly dismissing their prima facie legitimacy or by responding with theological concessions that relinquish core claims of the gospel. In his words: “a fundamental aspect of the good news in the Gospel is the defeat of death – this negative, destroying force – in the resurrection of Christ.” Amen! In what follows I hope to engage sequentially both issues he raises in a way that takes them seriously while avoiding compromised hope.

The Primordial Place of Death

I need to start by acknowledging that these are not just arid intellectual issues but also profoundly personal ones. I have just returned from keeping vigil at the deathbed of my father, and the sting of death is especially acute. The fact that every son sees his father die (or worse, that a parent may see a child die) –that in some sense, universal human death is part of the current “natural order” we all experience – offers no solace for the tearful remonstration of what an awful violation it is. It is a violation not just of our deepest desires, but also of what we construe to be God’s purposes, for the God of scripture is not a mere field of energy or prime mover or initial organizing principle, but is wondrously and clearly portrayed as “the living God” whose explicit purpose is that we “have life, and have it in abundance.” Indeed, in the most extensive section of his essay John cites over 40 scripture passages that affirm life as God’s intention for humanity and death as an intrusive, subverting consequence of sin. I could not be in stronger concord.

Although all Christians have traditionally affirmed resurrection (for both the redeemed and unredeemed), there have been longstanding debates about whether the life that is redemptively restored in Christ and the death that is brought about by sin is “spiritual” (involving the vitality or disruption of communion with God) or “physical” (involving the viability or dissolution of biotic function). Of course these are not mutually exclusive, and perhaps they are not even ultimately distinguishable. But however one understands death to be an incursion upon human telos, it does not answer or even clearly bear upon the evolution-related question of whether other living beings beyond and before humans were created to be immortal. “Violence” in western thought has often been understood as a disruption of natural ends: but do we assume that all creatures share the same “natural end”? For instance, is the nature or telos of worms immortality? Is death a violation of all creaturely natures that was therefore absent from earth prior to initial human intimacy with and subsequent estrangement from God? Significantly, not a single one of the scriptures John cites explicitly refers or even vaguely alludes to the general place of death in the natural order: virtually every one emphatically focuses on death as a consequence of sin for uniquely human moral agents, and—correspondingly—on eternal life as God’s special purpose for supernaturally redeemed humanity.¹ Indeed, I am at a loss to find in the entire Bible a scripture that clearly teaches death across the entire biotic realm postdates and is a consequence of human sin.² Neither is this point affirmed or even mentioned in the most prominent historic creeds of Christian orthodoxy.

Davis Young & Ralph Stearley’s The Bible, Rocks, and Time (2008, Inter Varsity Press) provides an expansive historical survey.

Yet none of this means that there is not an issue here. The view that death in all creation is not endemic but followed from a recent human fall was—with the exception of Aquinas and a few others—the dominant perspective of the church fathers, key reformers, and most Christians through the 17th Century (see sidebar). However, by the same token, so was geocentrism and so was the doctrine of human exceptionalism. Virtually all Christians have relinquished geocentrism in light of utterly compelling scientific evidence along with the recognition—in part motivated but not dictated by findings of science—that no clear and persistent scriptural teaching or core theological doctrine is compromised by this view.³ On the other hand, the claim of exceptionalism continues to be affirmed by many Christians – including myself – in light of important theological commitments and ongoing scientific discussion.

So is the primordial nature of death more like geocentrism, or more like human exceptionalism? Scientifically, there is little question that it is more akin to geocentrism. Over the last three centuries the empirical evidence for and the explanatory fruitfulness of the view that earth’s biota and death’s existence vastly predate the origin of humans have increased explosively—arguably to an extent beyond any other finding of science. Amongst tens of thousands of natural scientists, there is virtually unanimous agreement on this point.⁴ I should be clear that this is not an ad hominem argument: to say the evidential and demographic situation is similar to geocentrism is not in itself to claim that the “recent death” position is wrong. Nor is it an ad populum argument: neither John nor I have space to assess scientific evidence for this claim, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of Christian and non-Christian scientists have for several centuries shared the “primordial death” view does not make it true. But it does mean that if that view is to be rejected for the kinds of theological reasons that John raises, it seems there should be unambiguous scriptural warrant for that rejection. Failing that, then there needs to be a compelling theological rationale and a decided lack of plausible alternatives posited by fellow orthodox Christians.

I have already agreed with John that the Bible persistently presents death as an enemy of God’s purposes for humanity. But I have suggested (perhaps altogether wrongly!) that he does not provide clear scriptural evidence for death being a comparable enemy to and intrusion upon God’s purposes for all creatures. A faithful reading of the Bible does not seem to be incompatible with seeing death as part of the magisterial history of life as depicted by evolution and other natural sciences.

With these considerations of the biblical text as background, tomorrow I’ll describe why I do not believe that John or those with kindred perspectives provide a compelling theological mandate for this view of death, either.

Notes

1. There are a few scriptures not cited by John, which deal with the absence of carnivory (though not death itself) in images of idyllic creation. Genesis 1:30 portrays a world in which every creature with the breath of life had plants for food. And the images of the new earth in Isaiah 11 and 65 paint a renewal of this order in redeemed creation. Interestingly however, they do not portray an elimination of death for animals, or even for humanity. According to Is 65, the passage which presents the beautiful image of the lion and lamb: “ ‘Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people… The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,’ says the LORD.” This and other eschatological passages in scripture have a history of widely varying interpretations, but taken most literally, it describes a world with prolonged life in which there is still death (he who dies a centenarian will be like a child, and most people will live as long as trees), and in which death, however, is not inflicted by one creature upon another.
2. Although commentators differ over whether the Pauline description of death in Romans 5 refers to spiritual and/or physical death, the passage clearly focuses on humans. It identifies humanity as the subject of infection, instigated and promulgated by initial and ongoing human sin: “in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
3. Not all Christians have relinquished geocentrism. For example, a well-known public advocate is Dr. Gerardus Bouw, who has a Ph.D. in astronomy and until recently taught at Baldwin-Wallace Christian College. He founded the Association for Biblical Astronomy and authored an apologetic monograph for a stationary earth: Geocentricity (1992, Association for Biblical Astronomy). A crucial commitment of Dr. Bouw is that he “assumes that whenever the two [the Bible and astronomy] are at variance, it is always astronomy—that is, our ‘reading’ of the ‘Book of Nature,’ not our reading of the Holy Bible—that is wrong.” (http://www.geocentricity.com/ accessed 8/1/2012). Note that this epistemic framework asserts not just that the Bible is a more perfect witness to theological truth than nature, but that human understanding – “our reading” – of the Bible is somehow more immune to error than our reading of nature. The Bible itself does not clearly teach that humans, in our frailty, are less vulnerable to misunderstanding special than general revelation. The difference between faith in the scriptures and faith in our understanding of the scriptures is important though not always recognized, and underlies much tension in faith-science issues.
4. To his credit, even the most prominent critic of primordial death cited by John acknowledges this evidential and demographic claim. In a moving autobiographical essay, Kurt Wise acknowledges “I accepted the Word of God and rejected all that would ever counter it, including evolution. With that, in great sorrow, I tossed into the fire all my dreams and hopes in science.” Although he believes in the viability of searching for a scientific rationale, he affirms “I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turned against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate.” [Kurt Wise, in John F. Ashton (ed)., In Just Six Days. 2001. Master Books. Page 355.]

For more, be sure to read our FAQs How are the ages of the Earth and universe calculated? and What scientific evidence do we have about the first humans?, as well as our recent infographic How Do We Know the Earth is Old?.

Author's Note from Joy Walters

As I mentioned in my first post, I grew up skeptical of the whole idea of evolution. One contributor to my disbelief was the lengthy timescale for the “tree of life” that was presented with the theory. I would hear, for example, that dinosaurs lived hundreds of millions of years ago, but there was no explanation of why this was true; it was just given as a fact. No one explained the methods of dating, and so I thought biologists simply estimated the ages of species to fit their preconceived notions of how long it would take for one species to emerge from another. It also seemed like the ages were periodically revised and extended farther back in time, and I figured scientists needed to manipulate numbers to make evolution plausible. This, in my mind, made the theory both unbelievable and dismissible.

Once I learned about the techniques used to date fossils, I realized that my first impressions were wrong; the ancient ages of species are scientific determinations rather than scholarly conjectures. However, I have found in recent conversations that Christians remain skeptical of old ages and the evolutionary time scale. For this reason, I wanted the videocast to address the process of fossil dating (what the methods are and why they are accurate) while focusing on cases where hominid fossils were discovered and dated using these very methods. My hope is that Believers would be informed about the evidence for human evolution and its scientific grounding.