Theistic Evolution

When we read some of the letters from the anti-evolutionists here and elsewhere we see them use words like Darwinian Evolution. So here is a quote from Darwin’s concluding chapter in Origin of the Species.

Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.

To be clear evolutionary theory is not the same as what Darwin posited. To be even clearer Theistic evolution is not the same as atheistic evolution. But when the anti-evolution people talk they rarely address the ideas of Theistic evolution. Theistic evolution holds that there is indeed a Creator. So all that stuff about not believing in creation is not true, the idea is that God did create, the question is how does it appear that God created? The anti-evolutionists ignore the Theistic component so they often talk about the second law of thermodynamics or how can mutations ever be beneficial. (though that second one is poorly informed just ask modern medical people about drug resistant bacteria.)

So with our 6 day literalist creationists Theistic Evolutionists believe that there is a God, the Creator, the uncaused first cause. Which we acknowledge is a position taken on faith a presupposition which is not testable and unexplainable as to how God came about to be God. Granted it is just as much faith based as the atheist evolutionists singularity which caused the Big Bang. When we go back far enough we all seem to arrive at an unexplainable beginning. As Christian evolutionists we see theistic evolution as the best option to explain what we see. Like the 6 day literal creationists we acknowledge that life in the form of a cell is made up of two critical things as my old Bioenergetics class said; “energy and information”. Neither of which spontaneously happen. So our differences are not about the Creator but about how creation occurred. They are not differences about thermodynamics or even mutations. I would assume that even 6 day literal creationists acknowledge that mutations must have occurred to arrive at the blood sucking insects or carnivore teeth.

Darwin certainly documented that special creation could not explain the animals he saw on the Galapagos Islands as well as providing convincing evidence of natural selection. Natural selection is Darwinian evolution and it stands on very firm ground, as the Wikipedia article linked above states it is the cornerstone of modern biology. I would be amazed if it was not taught in Adventist schools from High School to College. To think that we have people in our church today saying not to teach it is astounding. To think anyone is listening to them is frightening.

This leaves two areas still to be examined. One is the biological and geological evidence found in the world around us. The same science that gives us radiometric dating and Oil production is the same science that gives us cell phones, television nuclear power and space travel. To say that the dating is wrong after as much success as science has had is difficult to accept. The second area is Biblical interpretation. We have traditionally believed in the literal 6 day creation because our knowledge of the natural world was so limited; just as our ancestors limited knowledge of our solar system allowed for the geocentric universe that Galileo (defending Copernicus’ discovery) disproved. As knowledge increases some traditions have to fall, some Bible interpretations have to fall as well. We have found that the Bible contains human ideas, poetry and mythology and not everything appears to be meant to be taken as literal. The Bible had to impact people from thousands of years ago to today. Of necessity the interpretations will change with the knowledge of people. Something that Adventists should be particularly aware of since they feel that they were called out to be special representatives giving new and different Biblical interpretations. We have a special term for this progressive understanding called “Present Truth”. What we see today is the pendulum swinging away from progressive knowledge to traditional knowledge. Summed up by some as this is what our church believes so love it or leave it. But our church also teaches progressive revelation, it teaches a growth toward present truth. We even have leaders such as Jan Paulsen who acknowledge diversity in the SDA church and even encourage critical thinking as well as acceptance of the fact that we don’t know everything. As this quote from Adventist Today notes:

Some might ask: Where is God in all of this? I can do no better to answer this than to quote a comment make by Dr. Jan Paulsen, the president of the General Conference at the Denver conference: "Knowing and understanding may not always be comfortable on this walk, but this is faith's world; it is a world of mysteries, it is the world of God's moving and doing".

With the 6 day creationists we agree that God is moving and doing but we may not fully understand the how He is moving and doing. Some of us think we can accept science and God. Science can certainly not insert God into their investigations, they can only study the natural world and that leaves some presuppositions up in the air, but it does not mean that only one possible presupposition is possible.