Was Creation One Big Temptation?

From the Covalence Archives

Only an evil God could have created this universe in six days. That is the conclusion I have reached after a long, and sometimes difficult journey, into the Science/Religion dimension.

I attended a two-room Missouri Synod Lutheran grade school just down the road from our family’s dairy farm. By the time I started high school I accepted the literal Biblical account of Creation in six days. However our 4-8th grade teacher had also taught us the value of critical thinking about everything including science, religion and politics.

High school biology turned me toward evolution as a viable alternative theory to “six-day” Creation. College courses taught me that a “scientific theory” has a different meaning than the word “theory” has in the general population. A scientific theory is the summation of a great deal of observation and experimentation that can be replicated. I began to believe that Creationists, with their “six-day” story, either didn’t understand that evolution was a recognized truth by scientists or they wanted to exploit the common understanding of the word “theory.” The appropriate term for them to use would have been “hypothesis” and it was clear to me by now that evolution was much more than a hypothesis.

In college I was steeped in science. I earned four degrees: Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Sociology and Environmental Management. By this time I didn’t think much about the issue of evolution or the broader issue of the interface of science and religion. I was a True Believer in Science – period. I was sure that science would eventually make religion irrelevant.

The recent challenges to the concept of evolution have raised questions about “The Beginning” in my mind again. Age probably also played a part as mortality became more evident. I started reading explorations of the Science/ Religion dimension. I joined a regionally based Science and Religion Task Force of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I attended several conferences. I thought about the subject frequently. The distillation of those thoughts is presented in the balance of this essay.

In my conceptual framework there are three belief systems regarding the beginning of the universe. Some people believe that God created the universe in six 24-hour days and that the earth is about 6000 years old. This belief is based on a literal interpretation of the Old Testament.

Others believe that our earth and the universe evolved over a very long time and are still evolving under the general direction of a Supreme Being. That belief is based on acceptance of science and on a spiritual sense of humility.

Still others reject all notions of a Supreme Being and believe that the universe exploded (Big Bang Theory) and is still expanding from initial matter of incredible density.

Belief systems are not subject to proof. Much of the Bible has been proven historically accurate but ultimately Christianity (and other religions) is accepted on faith. Science has proven many of the physical processes that have and are influencing our universe, but the ultimate question is: Where did the initial matter come from? Atheists believe that science will someday prove how something could come from nothing. For now, they take it on faith: Science is their religion.

Science clearly demonstrates how the universe has changed and is changing. Some changes are even visible to the non-scientist. The process of mountain building is clear every time a volcano erupts. The processes of river erosion and delta formation are obvious to anyone who has looked out the window of an airplane. Ancient layered sediment in an ocean is later visible from highway road cuts. Physical structures and DNA show the relationships and distinctions among species.

If God created the universe in six days, he would have had to put all of this in place at the beginning. God would have had to create volcanoes that looked very old. God would have had to put dinosaur bones deep in rock sediments and make them show up as very old when tested. God would have had to layer the rocks and cover them with more soil than could be developed by natural breakdown of rock in six thousand years. God would have had to mix rocks from Canada into the soils of Wisconsin to make it look like a glacier had moved them. And all the relationships among extinct and existing species would have had to been designed to look like species evolved over long periods of time.

A few scientists and many believers in a six-day Creation have argued that the Great Flood caused animals and plants to be rapidly buried in sediment to form fossils deep in rock formations. They also claim that coal and oil were formed by immediate compressing of the plant and animal life, respectively, during the Great Flood. However, they can not explain where all the sediment, necessary to bury all the fossils at one time, came from. And they can not do the math to allow them to show that the amount of biomass present on the planet at one point in time (The Great Flood) could have produced all the coal and oil ever present on the planet.

Only an evil God would have designed a universe full of the temptations to not believe in God – a universe full of evidence that supports a different conclusion. Only an evil God would have given humans the mental capacity to conceptualize, experiment and understand so that they would reach the wrong conclusion. Only an evil God would have tried to trick his most intelligent species into not believing in the reality of God. Only an evil God would get increasing pleasure as science answered more and more HOW questions and belief in God became increasingly difficult. Only an evil God would have designed such a universe to deliberately mislead us.

I don’t believe God is evil. Therefore, I cannot accept the six-day version of creation. Science by itself is equally hollow. HOW questions are important and interesting but ultimately not sufficient. Eventually, most of us want to have a sense of WHY. Religion/spirituality provides that sense of WHY. It gives us a purpose for this life. It creates a spiritual community where our needs for emotional security are met. It provides an ethical framework regarding the treatment of God’s creation (human and non-human, organic and inorganic). It defines boundaries for science.

Religion must also apply morality to itself, which it often has not. Christians have killed for Christ. Muslims have killed for Muhammad. Missionaries have often prepared the way for cultural destruction and political domination of the “poor heathen” they were sent to convert to Christianity. Religious fundamentalism often deteriorates into simple intolerance of any other group or their ideas. Such intolerance causes Christians to kill Christians in Northern Ireland (Protestants vs. Catholics) and Muslims to kill Muslims in Iraq (Sunnis vs. Shiites). Such historical and current events have made it easier for atheists to reject any notion of the existence of a God of love.

The arrogance of many scientists has also made it easier for some people of faith to reject science and specifically to reject the “Theory of Evolution.” The reality of evolution does not disprove the existence of God or the lack of a grand design. In fact the more science reveals the intricacies of the universe, the easier it is to think about a grand design—a grand design that resulted from a Supreme Being patiently letting evolution (and all the other natural processes) proceed by the physical principles that science has been discovering.

Through the years I heard the echo of Mr. (now Dr.) Mueller’s advice in grade school: “Think critically about everything.” I thought critically about religion. When I lived in Tennessee, I attended Quaker services because I could not tolerate the intolerance of the other denominations. Most of my Lutheran pastors in Wisconsin, before and after my Quaker experience, discouraged critical thinking about religion. It was not until my current pastors, Revs. Dwight and Gretchen Anderson, accepted and encouraged critical thinking about religion that, after 40 years, I again found religion salient to my life.

During those forty years I did what scientists do. I thought, taught, and wrote critically about scientific issues. I was often a heretic in my professional work because I came to that work from the perspective of training in four different scientific disciplines. However, I did not think critically about Science itself. When I finally did, I found that Science by itself was incomplete – a necessary part of my life but not sufficient in itself. Religion by itself would also be incomplete. I need more than the Bible to understand and responsibly participate in this life as a person of faith, a citizen, a spouse, a parent and a professional. I need both Science and Religion. We all do. Religion and Science are complementary parts of our existence! To claim otherwise is to unwittingly proclaim that God is evil.