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NASB | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God (Elohim) created [by forming from nothing] the heavens and the earth. [Heb 11:3] |
Bible Question: Can a Christian believe in the theory of evolution? To recast the question, is it possible to believe in evolution and the Bible at the same time? Does not one patently contradict the other? Please clothe your comments and answers in scriptural references. |
Bible Answer: Yes - sort of. First let me say that arguments about HOW God created the universe distract us from the wonder of the fact THAT God created the universe. "in the beginning, God" may be the four most important words in the Bible because everything else hangs on their truth. The Bible is not a scientific textbook, it is a spriritual textbook ("... from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" - 2 Tim 3:15-17). I have no trouble with thinking of the first few chapters of Geneseis as a parable. Such thinking does not impair the Bible's chief purpose of pointing the reader toward Jesus. Knowing him - and our need for him - has nothing to do with how or when God created the universe. For us old-Earth Christians, evolution is nothing more than one way God could have created the diverse life on this planet. Note that the agent is God, not the mechanism that Darwin erroneously proposed (random mutation plus natural selection). It makes perfectly good sense to me that God could have directed evolution, with his ultimate creature, man, in mind all the time. IMHO, God-directed evolution explains the evidence for both evolution and intelligent design and is consistent with the spiritual truth of Genesis. So, yes, I do think that a form of evolution provides a better explanation of the physical evidence than a literal reading of Genesis 1-2. And yes, I am a Christian who accepts without reservation my sinful condition, my inability to save myself, the person and work of Jesus, the grace of God extended through Jesus, and the promise of salvation through faith in Jesus. |