I was humbled recently by a comment made to a blog I wrote several months ago. You may recall back in September I reviewed a book I read titled Saving Darwin; my sarcasm throughout the blog was so thick it could be cut with a knife, and even now when I go back to read it I think, “man oh man, was that comment necessary”.
None the less, my sarcasm served a purpose, it was to release my frustration over (what I perceived to be) the authors failure to deliver on the sub-title of his book, namely, the “how” in How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution. And so my criticism was not so much what the author did say (he said many good things apart from this) but rather, what he did not say, namely, he did not answer the question which the sub-title promised. I did add in my blog however that “if the title of his book was something to the effect of: Saving Darwin: A 20th Century Historical Analysis of the debate between Creationism and Evolution, I would give this book two thumbs way up”.
My humbling comes into play when recently I received a comment from Professor Karl Giberson himself, who evidently read my blog; he begins:
“Hi. Solid review with many relevant comments”
Re-reading my blog, there were many relevant points, but the emotion with which I wrote birthed many unnecessary comments as well, yet Pro. Giberson showed brotherly love and respect by choosing to focus on the positive which he could glean from my review – for this I am humbled and grateful, and reminded of the necessity to do the same!
Then he continues on to briefly clarify a crucial point:
“The subtitle of the book was chosen, over my objections, by the marketing dept at Harper”.
This explains a lot! Like, no wonder he never seeks to develop a “how” of the subtitle, for he even objected to it. This fact does not render my criticism useless, rather it simply redirects it – while I think marketers obviously must be strategic (for example I may have been less prone to pick up the book had the subtitle been something else), I still believe they have a responsibility to be honest, and evidently, the title chosen does not reflect well the purpose of the book which Giberson clarifies as;
“…to ‘explain in an accessible way why evolution remains so unsettling’”.
Some time ago I sent an email to radio personality Bob Dukto asking him if he had read Giberson’s book and commenting that an interview would be interesting. A few weeks later I turned on my car radio on my way to work and sure enough Bob Dukto was interviewing Karl Giberson. What struck me most about the interview was the grace and love which Giberson and Dutko exchanged; there was no doubt in my mind of Giberson’s seasoned faith!
I wish to thank Karl for his grace and I want to exhort anyone who is interested in the history of the debate of Creation and Evolution in the American public system to pick up Giberson’s book, Saving Darwin. Read it critically of course (as we should all things), but there are many good and useful things said, so glean.
United we stand in Christ,
Derek
P.S. to see Karl’s original comment to my blog click here and follow it to the end
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Personally, my position is that whether God created the world over 4.6 billion years using evolution, six days by supernatural means, or somewhere in between is irrelevant. God did not intend for us to read Genesis with a literal, scientific understanding. The point of God’s words is what matters. Although personally, I do tend to slide toward theistic evolution.
ReplyDeleteYou are right to note that the early chapters of Genesis should be seen as a poem with deep significance and meaning. If we believe God inspired the humans who transmitted His Word into writing, we must consider what the scripture meant for those who wrote it, in the time and culture in which they did so. Scripture had very real significance and meaning for those at the time, far beyond a literal interpretation in a 21st century, North American culture.
Again I would direct you to the writings of Covenant Theologian Dr. Scott Hahn — particularly his book “A Father Who Keeps His Promises”. This work methodically goes through the Bible highlighting every major covenant that God made with his people, and elaborating on the larger role each Covenant bond played in Salvation History until the final, new and everlasting Covenant of Christ. In the first chapters Hahn shows that the six day creation account did have a very real significance for the ancient Hebrew. He notes that in ancient Hebrew the term “To swear an oath covenant” had a double meaning; it was synonymous with “to seven oneself” (literally, may I be torn into seven pieces, a complete number of pieces, if I break this oath covenant). Although creation has not been traditionally understood as a covenant, Hahn argues that Genesis at least holds very serious overtones, for the ancient Hebrew, that God was swearing an oath Covenant with his creation. He was making a home in which he and his family could dwell. The six days can be broken down into God creating different realms, dividing the realms into several spheres, and then filling each sphere with life — culminating with man. The rest of the seventh day was intended to hit home the point that the Hebrew should be like God and have a day of rest and not be a slave. God did not require rest, he is omnipotent.
So how can one save Darwin? If God used evolution to bring about his creation (from a scientific perspective), then man only truly became man once apes evolved to have all of the traits necessary to exist in the image and likeness of God: the ability to love, sufficient ability to reason, to know oneself, to share a sense of spiritual kinship with the almighty creator, and a kinship with fellow man. At some point God imbued homo-sapiens with these traits. Notice how animals still remain in relative harmony with the world and God (although they are not made in the image of God, nor do they have an eternal soul), yet man is the species that seems to perpetually grow, spread and consume (like a virus, like sin). So original, pure, evolved humans would have remained in more of a balance with God and creation before the fall. They might not have had a dogmatized, formalized religion, or conversed with God in person in the garden (as a Sunday school depiction of Adam and Eve), but they would have felt in union with the one, eternal force — God. They would have instinctively lived out the natural, moral law. When they decided to give into pride in some form (turning from unity with the supreme being), sin entered the world and grew exponentially. The formal elements of religion as we know them would have developed along with a more and more sophisticated civilization. I do not believe this perspective dogmatically, but it is a viable possibility to me which does not necessarily conflict with the faith.
Jim Gomes