I am sitting in the Brendan Center, listening to the current issue at hand: “How to think Christianly about Evolution”. Although the current dialogue is attempting to break new ground by approaching evolution with the idea that it doesn’t negate scripture, yet not being so-called Theistic Evolution, I find it the same discussion I’ve heard over again. I’ll note a few key points I liked from the dialogue (however, not necessarily that I believe or disbelieve these, I just think they are good points):
- Listening to this topic has made me notice the attempt by us (generation X and younger) to drop the problematic Biblical “passages” (chapters, books, verses, etc). We are just fine to accept a non-literal viewpoint of Genesis, without thinking of the implications of such. We do believe the focus should be on God and that the story’s design is to bring us to Him and get a better understanding of Him. However dropping the idea of it being factually true has implications such as what we do with Romans where Paul talks about Adam as being the first man from which sin came through and Jesus being the second man.
- You had to embody the story in an archtype (Adam) to display what happened, without the factual being of Adam.
- The editor is a very important, creative, larger scope to take into account whom crafted Genesis in a certain way. The question begs itself…. Why put these two stories together in a way in which would look like contradicting messages. By believing they are two seperate accounts, we are viewing the editor somewhat as an idiot.
- If the editorial process, not just the writing of the Bible, was God-breathed, then we need both the stories to get a full(er) picture of who God is and get what God intended from the writing of this text
- Part of the problem of evangelism of evolutionistic thought is our reliance on the text. We begin to worship the text rather than the God. We critique the text rather than the God. Instead of starting at the text (we’ll get there eventually, though), we could start at the fallen state of man, which is much easier to deal with (vis., prove(?)).
Conclusion:
I don’t really find a ton of insight or push to change my actions/view/theology within this particular discussion. Nor do I have answers to the questions being posed about evolution vs creationism. The one thing I do have a greater reverance for is the idea that the Holy Spirit indwelled not only the writers of the text, but the editor as well. Giving credit to God and the creativity of the editor is just as important as the writers.
