In days gone by, simple village folk might have discussed the mysterious beings that lived beyond their own realm of experience. The edge of the forest was a dark and fearful place, where all sorts of monsters could be hiding. Today, however, we have a tool, which in theory at least, has mapped out not just the forest, or merely the great oceans, but the entire universe to the very edges of space-time. Science has shown that far from there being mysterious powers lurking around every dark corner, that there is an extraordinary uniformity to the way the whole universe behaves. There are regular laws of gravity and motion which describe both the fall of an apple and the movements of the stars. It was as if, in a moment of brilliance, Isaac Newton had switched on the lights in the universe.
Richard Dawkins is a world famous lecturer at Oxford University and a passionate defender of the theory of evolution. He's also a committed atheist and once wrote a letter to his ten-year-old daughter called, 'Good and Bad Reasons for Believing.' He explains to her, “Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that?' And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.”
In his book A Devil's Chaplain, Dawkins spends most of his time looking at three bad reasons for believing. These are; tradition, 'beliefs [that] have no connection with evidence', authority, 'you are told to believe it by somebody important', and revelation, 'a feeling [religious people get] inside themselves that something must be true.' Dawkins suggests that many people believe that belief in God and the claims of Christianity are true only on the basis of these three irrational beliefs [tradition, authority and revelation] rather than on any factual evidence.
The limits of science
The first point is that science, being concerned with mechanisms in the world [i.e. laws and measurable things], is very good at answering certain questions, but very bad at answering others. Science is, for instance, very good at describing the processes of ‘what?’ and ‘how?’ type questions.
Science can satisfactorily explain questions like:
- What are the properties of stone?
- How does wind-resistance affect how a bird flies?
- At what speed does the earth turn?
Scientific knowledge has richly benefited our society. We can now know more than ever before about our place in the universe; the materials, solutions and structures within it; and why it behaves as it does. It shows the amazing rich and intricate structure to the world we live in, and scientific discoveries have given many of the people who live on the earth a higher quality of life than ever before.
But science cannot answer the question that philosophers - or children – ask, which involves things that cannot be measured:
- Why are we here?
- What is the point of being alive?
- How ought we to behave?
Questions about meaning and purpose are philosophical or theological, but are definitely outside of the scope of empirical science. The principle problems of life throughout the ages, the questions of who we are and how we should live our lives cannot be addressed by science. And so, as an accumulated body of knowledge about the physical world, science is a magnificent tool, but as a description of the human condition it is clumsy and inadequate.
One of the greatest scientists of all time, Sir Isaac Newton, believed that science revealed the majesty of God’s created order.
… but what about Genesis?
If you are intrigued by what you have read so far, you might still have a nagging doubt about the creation narrative, as we read it in the Bible. Surely an intellectual who loves science can’t believe all of that stuff about the Garden of Eden and talking snakes …? And even more seems to be at stake when people such as Richard Dawkins recount how Darwinian evolution enables them to be an ‘intellectually fulfilled atheists.’ This only reinforces our fears that there must be something deeply anti-intellectual about the Bible’s creation account.
There are a number of issues at play here. The first is that the Bible makes huge claims for itself. It claims to be the ‘Word of God’ – God’s truth for humans in God’s world. However, the Bible is made up of a number of different genres of text – there are pieces of legal literature, poems, historical narratives, and so on. All of these need to be read in different ways – just as you wouldn’t read ‘The Times’ in the same way that you’d read a nursery rhyme. “The cow jumped over the moon” would certainly mean different things in these two contexts!
It is true that Christians vary on their exact understanding of the early chapters of Genesis, but many Christian scientists therefore see no intrinsic disagreement between the biblical creation narrative and evolution as a possible description of the process God used during creation. However, many doubt that evolution has the explanatory scope that is often claimed for it.
So is it possible to be a Christian, who treats the Bible as God’s Word, and still believe in evolution? Certainly, as long as ‘evolution’ refers not to some secular philosophy, but to the biological theory describing how God has created all living things. This explains why the vast majority of Christians who are active in biological research today have no problem with incorporating evolutionary theory within their belief in God as Creator. And whilst science can teach us about the way in which God works, it cannot answer the big ‘why?’ questions. These are precisely the questions that Genesis tackles head on.
Amazingly, even in these early chapters of Genesis, we also see the promise that one day God would send someone to make forgiveness and friendship with him possible again [Genesis 3:15]. This verse is applied to Jesus in the New Testament, who makes friendship with God possible through his death on the cross.
