I'm not arguing about Evolution, for or against. in fact I don't know that I am concerned either way. What concerns me is that religious folks, believers is what I would call myself, seem to catch a lot of grief for believing. Well, we all believe in something. All of our worlds are shaped by something, I think it's best just to admit that up front. Some folks take great leaps into science and evolution and accept things as they are told without really questioning anything. We tend to seek out the things that confirm what we already want to believe, the things we NEED to be true, even if they are not. The religious do it, and the irreligious as well. God gave us a great mind and an insatiable curiosity. Let us not stop short in exploring all we can. When I was 17 and questioning all things, my Dad said to me "Son, make sure you are really seeking the Truth, and it will find you." Those words clung to me as I rejected the Faith of my childhood and ventured out into the unknown. I rarely heeded them, constructing a world view that was ME centered and very comfortable...but eventually they caught up to me (15 years later).
I now feel secure enough in Christ to let my curiosity have some freedom. I think there are times when restraint and moderation are appropriate. We give the world to a child bit by bit, not all at once. As a new Christian I was not able to engage the world fully, wielding my shaky theology like a toddler with a sword*. (*Toddlers should not have swords) I am increasingly comfortable with my doubts about everything. I am increasingly secure in my insecurity. Faith it seems is not what I once thought it would be, a rigid fortress where ideas bashed themselves against the unforgiving and impenetrable wall. I thought a surrender to Jesus meant a surrender of my mind. It can be that for some, a place to hide. Faith, in practice though has meant an unshackling for my brain. A secure tether, not binding me in place, but allowing me to make great leaps, like a skilled climber attached to the mountain he is scaling. I hope that is true. I pray that it is wisdom I seek and not diversion. In any case, lately I have been seeking to understand evolution on evolutions terms.
Faith means that I can't help but see God's hand in all of creation. However, I can still understand and enter into a concept on it's scientific terms, in fact I must. In describing evolution, here is what I keep running into: as concepts are being explained, great leaps of knowledge and Faith are glossed over with the the recurring phrase "and over time". This phrase presents a real problem and I find it very unsatisfying. It's the "Yada, Yada, Yada" from Seinfeld. It ignores the important How and Why and yet pretends to resolve. I know that there were once dinosaurs. I know there are currently birds with feathers. "And over time" is not a significant explanation of how one became the other. A video here trying to explain feathers becomes "this dinosaur had coarse wiry feathers that eventually branched out and over time became feathers. And that animal may have been aided through accidental physics and over time we got flight and birds." This is a remarkable leap. We have a before and we have an after, but the in between is still unknown. Our beliefs, on both sides of belief itself shapes our desired outcome. When presented with the miraculous, the believer say "God", and the skeptic says "And over time".
The unseen forces of an almighty creator are hard to accept. It takes Faith to take what you have observed and experienced in the world and attribute it to him. The existence of God isn't unreasonable. I have found it to be perfectly reasonable, not easy, but certainly reasonable. It seems to me though that we accept concepts of "And over time" as scientific explanations instead of leaps of Faith. We know so very little, so very little. And I admit that in this post I haven't done more than make leaps myself. I have resolved nothing. But I do believe that the pursuit of knowledge comes from a desire to know God. Socrates (attributed) said that true wisdom comes from admitting that you know nothing. That seems like a good start. In Proverbs 9:10 we have an even better start: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Time after time, mankind has believed that they were on the verge of discovering all they needed to know to answer all their heart and head burning questions. Time after time, as discovery has peeled away layers we have not found a core of knowledge but more and more layers, more and more questions. It's quite lovely. The word Atom comes from the Greek, meaning indivisible. We once thought that the Atom was the smallest we could go. That of course is not true and each time we increase or ability to magnify, we find more and more sub-atomic worlds. The same thing happens when we look into our telescopes.
Admitting that there is Wisdom that is above you and your understanding is entirely sound and there is plenty of evidence to bare it.
Admitting that this universe and this Earth is a miracle is also very sound.
Short Video: Does Science argue for or against God?
Admitting that this miracle must have had a Creator is completely logical.
Admitting that this Creator desires to save you, admitting that you need a savior, well that is very hard indeed. This last step is not something to be resolved in the head, but through your eyes, into your ears and eyes and within the depths of your heart. Your knowledge can only take you so far, and that too is very hard to accept. For while Knowledge puffs up, it is Love that builds up.
1 Corinthians 8
We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But whoever loves God is known by God.[a]
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