Science and the Knowledge of Creation

The Christian perspective on nature is deeply rooted in profoundly evocative creation narratives (Gn 1-2; Ps 8; Jn 1; Co 1; et. al.). The inter-textual approach between the Prologue of the Gospel of John as a commentary on Genesis is most instructive. The focus is not upon the seven days of creation but upon God and the divine Logos as the sole agency of all created existence. It is conspicuous however that two verses from the great creation story of Genesis 1 have the Creator fashioning the earth and its seas to “bring forth life” (vss. 20, 24) as a secondary agency in creation. Since Augustine (4^th – 5^th centuries) there is a sense that the seven days of creation are taxonomic in some way and not to be regarded as literal 24 hour days. Ultimate causation belongs to the Creator and nothing in the nuts and bolts of modern science actually contradicts this. Side-taking, either / or judgments against science is not only unnecessary but unwise.

The Evangelical legacy in America with regard to science is perhaps the distinctive cultural issue in American public life. The Scopes Trial (1925) was an odd kind of high water mark for evangelicals that quickly receded with the disastrous “defense” offered by William Jennings Bryan, the evangelical lawyer and three time candidate for the presidency. Out of this internationally followed trial, among Protestants became permanent: anti-science or anti-creation was the mutual caricaturing of both sides.  “Creation research” emerged and continues to hold sway over vast numbers of evangelicals. For many evangelicals there seems to be little change in creationist belief: young age of the earth, everything is a product of special creation, alternative pedagogy and legal initiatives for public schools. Unfortunately, the projects of creation science of often pseudo-science exhibited in the Creationism museums, foremost in Petersburg, KY, but world-wide. All propound some version of the geological record as containing fossils that were generated virtually entirely during the Noahic flood and the co-existence of dinosaurs with Adam and Eve; features which are not included in any biblical narrative of the creation.

The point of contact between the sciences of nature and of God, are epistemologies and practices of knowledge (scientia).  Science and religion have been combined almost since the beginning of human culture – likely, part of the emergence of monotheism itself. The modern successes of science have affected everything from philosophy to the nature of the human being as well as to the consideration or dismissal of evolution as part of God’s creative design.  Historically, although evangelical theologians would propound theistic evolution, by the mid-1920’s it had become questionable in the minds of many fundamentalist believers.  For many people particularly as a completely atheistic version overshadowed the public version. Ethically, it seemed very dangerous to conclude that nothing distinguished human beings from the rest of the animate world.

Natural science and technology became central to what can be called “scientific culture”, with its own narrative regarding the cosmos as a whole. Although the scientific method of empirical observation and the successful repetition of experimental results were already outlined in Francis Bacons’ Novum Organum (1620), by the mid-20^th century, science had so diversified and specialized that there appeared many non-overlapping features of scientific knowledge. But as the cultural milieu of scientific modernism emerged “the belief in science” went over the top with absolutist claims and a kind of religion called loosely: scientism. One of the benefits of postmodernism has been the destruction of of such master narratives as scientism.

There are various ways to organize knowledge.as well as to debate that which is known or knowable. Classic Christian theology knowledge by revelation is a certain kind of claim that defined the known otherwise unknown. Everything was done to mesh to knowable and the knowable by revelation through various analogies, that of the “Two Books” – nature and scripture. From this notion of the cosmic library, the two are said never to truly contradict one another.

This has largely faded from contemporary evangelical discourse because of the overwhelming pressure to take sides. The book of nature is still there but now in a counter-science of creationism – no less ideologically driven than scientism. As with scientism ignoring every possible inference and burden of proof with respect to God’s existence, creationism ignores every possible inference and burden of proof with respect to at least the vast age of the earth let alone complexifying physical processes that were created to generate life.

Perhaps the greatest damage done to evangelical theology is a kind of certainty seeking account of rationality. Here is where the commitments of faith lead are derived from the experiences of faith. Faithful reasoning, based upon the gradual acquisition of scriptural reasoning cannot be reduced to scientific rationality. Many of the metaphors of theology already made this error early on, e.g., a “trinity” of light, of numbers, of elemental forms (liquid, solid, vapor), of physical structures, all of which could not convey even core truths implied by the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christianity’s trinitarian monotheism is indeed encumbered by the logic of three-in-oneness but the mathematical analogies must go no further. God is in every way utterly unique and other – this is what his holiness is all about.

A great deal has changed. First, the rules of evidence have become much stricter and as a result, there is far less that can be claimed on a macro level of the universe or the human being itself that rules God out or in. Indeed, the book of nature was intended to be read through the book of divine revelation – not the other way around. Revelation, as Barth used to emphasize, is uni-directional and irreversible. God is not disclosed because of human intention but always because of his will to disclose himself – both in terms of scripture and nature.

I would like to take another tack here in order to comment about the massive commitments to creationism amongst evangelicals. Creationism represents a certain kind of separated life, body and soul – in the world, but not of the world. This which historically would be one of the Christian ways of holiness or sanctification, means nothing less than the defining of everything in one’s world according to certain readings of scripture on the way toward a “biblical world-view”. Creationism, which originally meant the unique creation of each human soul rather than generated through the branching off of a new baby from its parents (i.e., traducianism), belongs to this alternate narrative of God, the world, and humanity.

What are the consequences of creationism? In the long term not much politically or in terms of public education. It has been enough in recent years just to attempt to give “intelligent design theorists” (better: “theologians”) to the public schools. The only problem is that even intelligent design theory will not stand up to the legal test of religious neutrality. Some endeavors have been made with a bit of “success” through voting referenda but this defeats the purpose of securing free exercise for publically valid religious perspectives. Contemporary creationism, even “creation science”, belongs to the alternative way of life that evangelicals may wish to live. For evangelicals, a good comparison would be with a halakhic way of life in Judaism or a canonical way of life in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. The construction of a biblical world-view will exclude evolution and the massively extensive age of the earth for profoundly spiritual and moral reasons. In terms of the natural sciences, creation science does not seem to have deterred the general consensus about evolution. There is a necessary humility in science. It may not be the measure of humility required of devoted followers of Jesus but there is some respectful meeting ground if they will be patient with the creationists.

From a public perspective, separated Christians on balance are a far greater good than otherwise. Evangelicals that have not embraced these forms of creationism should find a way to see the belief system as beneficial. Evangelicals are consistent – with the proviso that material relations can be “self-caused” if God created them to function this way.

 Probably the most important feature of the science / religion interface is just the concept of creation itself. Although human intuitions, both religious and scientific are oriented to think of the universe as having an origin, a beginning, that may or may not be evident from any fact of nature. Inference is the weakest form of “evidence” and certainly the key features of creation as revealed from scripture, that all things have an absolute beginning from God who is without beginning and their ultimate source. As this doctrine is maintained, there is huge room to support the advancement of science and all of its humanitarian and ecological promise.