One needs a break from Philosophy every once in a while. Ceaseless thinking in isolation is not only devastating to the sanity of one's mind, but it is a tragic combination for those concerned with socializing, as my peculiar situation requires of me. In any event, my one year break is inexcusable, but I haven't remained in complete idleness this whole time. I have spent some time reading about the supposed compatibility or incompatibility of modern science with faith. Given my rather primitive background, more tragically so in the field of science, my knowledge of it is rather abstract and extremely basic. You can't expect of me, after all, a scientific treatise of why faith is compatible with science. But I feel capable of dealing with the mere basics and arguing from there for its compatibility. It is my purpose, therefore, to focus on the issue of Evolution in regards to the creation story found in Genesis.
I will not lay out the Theory of Evolution in painful detail, but will rather give a vulgarized definition of it. So much in fact that I dare not call this definition basic, but my definition should suffice for the purposes of this argument. I define Evolution as the process in which life came to be, slowly over billions of years, from single celled organisms to the incredible complexity that all living organisms now share. Creation, it seems, was a proccess that took billions of years to reach its current form. The Bible, however, seems to claim that creation was a process that lasted a mere 7 days. This brings a clear incompatibility in Genesis with current scientific findings on how life came to be. For if God used Evolution as the method of creation, then why does His word tells us that He did so spontaneously in a short period of time? To deal with this apparent issue, many Christians choose to deny completely the Theory of Evolution. Some even claim that the earth is only 6,000 years old! I heard some maddening theories of the devil implanting millions years old fossils of dinosaurs in the earth for the specific purpose of deceiving humanity in disbelieving God's word. I will not take the Creationist route, not even argue for the more plausible theory of Intelligent design.I will not even argue for the validity of Theistic Evolution. I will merely argue that the supposed incompatibility between the theory of Evolution and Genesis comes from a literal misreading of the events described in Genesis.
In the world of Philosophy, God (or the Absolute if you prefer), is outside of time and space. Being eternal, the concept of time and space does not apply to God. He is not bound, like we are, by the restrictions of time. He simply "IS", as evidenced by His name "I AM" (Exodus 3: 14). For God, there is no time, but an eternal "present"; an eternal reality. When God acts, He is not necessarily restricted by a schedule. God has no use for calendars or appointments. I'm not making the absurd claim that God is hopelessly ignorant of these concepts, as He has acted and intervened through time, as it is the case with the birth of Jesus. What I'm claiming is that God does not necessarily work through time. As He is outside of time and space, and creation being an act of God, this act cannot be constrained by the limitations of time and space. And while it is true that this act was made manifest through time and space, the workings of His creations are not necessarily manifested, in a strict sense, through time and space. I will give an example to illustrate this point. Christians believe that Christ's death on the cross brought about the forgiveness of sins for humanity. But this event occurred more than 2,000 years ago. This does not mean, however, that His sacrifice is not longer valid, only because the sacrifice was manifested through time and space more than 2,000 years ago. God's salvation is eternal. His saving presence is eternal. His act of salvation is eternal, and not simply bound by the limitations of time and space. Jesus' sacrifice was enough to cover the sins of those that lived in the past, and those who will come to live in the future. This is only possible because God's "acts" or workings, while manifested through time and space, are not limited by time and space.
Having established that Acts of God can be outside of time and space, we can now move to the second premise of the argument. If God's Acts are not limited by time and space, then it is logical to conclude that one of God's greatest acts, creation itself, is not limited by time and space. By saying that God created the world and everything in it in 7 days, we are saying that God did not act outside of time and space. In saying this, we limit God to the boundaries of His creation. But time and space are part of this act of creation. It is a logical necessity that the act of creation preceded the created. But if time and space are part of that creation, then how is it logically possible for God to use time and space for that creation? This absurdity is compatible with the idiotic suggestion from a fellow telling you that in order to plant a garden you need a perennial spade that is buried, and the only way to dig it out is using that perennial spade. In other words, God cannot use time and space for creation, if by necessity, time and space are part of that creation.
Which moves us to our conclusion, God acted outside of time and space in His act of creation. We have established this by following the first and second premises. Let us now put this argument in a syllogism:
1. If God is outside of time and space, then His acts can be made outside of time and space.
2. If time and space are part of God's creation, then He couldn't use time and space for His creation.
3. Therefore, God did not use time and space for His act of creation.
The justification for the first premise is quite obvious. If God is outside of time and space, it is perfectly reasonable for Him to be able to act outside of time and space. The justification for the second premise is simple: one cannot create something through that same something, because if we did, then that something would already exist, which completely nullifies the effort of creating it.
What we are left with is the issue of Genesis claiming that God created the world in 7 days. But what does the Bible tells us in this? We have the option of taking the first chapter of Genesis in a literal sense, meaning that God really created the world in 7 days. The problem with this view has already been covered in this post. The second option is to take these days as metaphorical. We can find evidence of a non-literal interpretation of creation days. In Genesis 2:4, the bible tells us right after asserting that God created the earth in 7 days: "This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens" (NKJV emphasis added). In this passage, the 7 days of creation were summarized in a single day. We can also find evidence of a non-literal interpretation of creation days in Hebrews 4, where it talks of God's "rest" (the seventh day) still being an actuality, and how we can participate in His rest. Then why does the Bible bothers in telling us that they were 7 days of creations, if we are to take those days in a mere metaphorical sense? Perhaps we need to look at it in a symbolic way. In the Bible, the number 7 represents "perfection" or "completeness". From this we can infer what the Bible is trying to tell us: God actively brought His creation to completeness (7 days) and is still doing so (the actuality of His rest, that is, the seventh day). This completion will come when we join God in His rest, then we will be made complete in the presence of God. And this is all I have for now. Here is hoping my next post won't take me a whole year to write.- ChristoPhilos.
by Jgrdaniel.
