Am I a Monkey?: Six Big Questions about Evolution

6 Can One Believe in Evolution and God?

Can One Believe in Evolution and God? Iam convinced that evolution and religious beliefs need not be in contradiction. Indeed, if science and religion are properly understood, they cannot be in contradiction because they concern different matters. Science and religion are like two different windows for looking at the world. The two windows look at the same world, but they show different aspects of that world. Science concerns the processes that account for the natural world: how planets move, the composition of matter and the atmosphere, the origin and adaptations of organisms . Religion concerns the meaning and purpose of the world and of human life, the proper relation of people to the Creator and to each other, the moral values that inspire and govern people’s lives. Apparent contradictions only emerge when either science or belief, or often both, cross over their boundaries and wrongfully encroach upon one another’s subject matter. Science is a way of knowing, but it is not the only way. Knowledge also derives from other sources. Common experience , imaginative literature, art, and history provide valid knowledge about the world, and so do revelation and religion for people of faith. The significance of the world and human 74 AB Am I a Monkey? life, as well as matters concerning moral or religious values, transcend science. Yet these matters are important; for most of us, they are at least as important as scientific knowledge per se. The proper relationship between science and religion can be, for people of faith, mutually motivating and inspiring. Science may inspire religious beliefs and religious behavior, as we respond with awe to the immensity of the universe, the glorious diversity and wondrous adaptations of organisms, and the marvels of the human brain and the human mind. Religion promotes reverence for the creation, for humankind as well as for the world of life and the environment. For scientists and others, religion is often a motivating force and source of inspiration for investigating the marvelous world of the creation and solving the puzzles with which it confronts us. To some Christians, the theory of evolution seems incompatible with their religious beliefs because it is inconsistent with the Bible’s narrative of creation. The first chapters of the biblical book of Genesis describe God’s creation of the world, plants, animals, and human beings. A literal interpretation of Genesis seems incompatible with the gradual evolution of humans and other organisms by natural processes. Even in the nineteenth century, shortly after Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species, some Christian theologians saw a solution to the apparent contradiction between evolution and creation in the argument that God operates through intermediate causes. The origin and motion of the planets could be explained by the law of gravity and other natural processes without denying God’s creation and providence. Simi- Can One Believe in Evolution and God? AB 75 larly, evolution could be seen as the natural process through which God brought living beings into the existence and developed them according to his plan. A. H. Strong, the president of Rochester Theological Seminary in New York State, wrote in his 1885 Systematic Theology: “We grant the principle of evolution, but we regard it as only the method of divine intelligence .” He explains that the brutish ancestry of human beings is not incompatible with their exalted status as creatures in the image of God. Gradually, well into the twentieth century, evolution came to be accepted by a majority of Christian writers. Pope Pius XII in his 1950 encyclical Human Generis (On the Human Race) asserted that biological evolution was compatible with the Christian faith. Pope John Paul II, in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1996, said: “New scientific knowledge has led us to realize that the theory of evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields ofknowledge.Theconvergence,neithersoughtnorfabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.” The compatibility of evolution with the Christian faith has been asserted by other mainstream Christian denominations. The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in 1982 adopted a resolution stating that “Biblical scholars and theological schools . . . find that the scientific theory of evolution does not conflict with their interpretation of the...