In order to absorb evolution theory into evangelical Christian theology, we need to explicate the Genesis creation account with more interpretive freedom than our current assumptions about Scripture allow. I have already stated that it is going to take several generations for evolution theory to be absorbed into the evangelical church. So we need to take a look into the future, if you will, and find out how that will take place.
Here in the future, we find there has been a complete reversal of the old evangelical view about evolution. Instead of being the nemesis on the other shore where science and humanism lay, evolution has been appropriated as the property of the church. How have we accomplished this? By claiming the process of evolution for the glory of the Creator God our Father. Now that we have appropriated evolution for God, we make our contribution to the theory.
That means we help people understand that evolution is a process with a purpose created by God, and which accomplishes His will in salvation history, as the Catholics call it, or the plan of salvation, as evangelical Christians call it.
We do not decry the scientist for doing his or her job. We don’t expect the scientist to prove the existence of God because God cannot become the subject of scientific investigation. God is not in the domain of science. It is our job in the evangelical church to provide a meaning for evolutionary theory by relating it to the sovereignty of God. We no longer refer to “creation vs evolution” but “creation and evolution.”
We assert that the theory of evolution does not discredit the Genesis creation account because we interpret that account in the light of evolution. We assert that the point of the story in terms of man’s creation is that God created man from the earth in a day; the process by which God created man was evolution and that “day” lasted a million years or whatever. We have released the Bible from that ill-placed shackle of “scientific accuracy.”
This is nothing new. As early as the second century, the Church father Origen said that the world could not have been created in six days as we know them because God did not create the sun–the means of measuring days–until the fourth day. Origen produced an allegorical interpretation of the Genesis creation account.
Here in the future we find that an allegorical interpretation of the Genesis creation account is perfectly consistent with evangelical theology. I will provide that interpretation later, but first I must explain the prescientific view of the world at the time that the Genesis creation account was recorded.
As I said earlier, the Bible teaches us about eternal truth concerning God and his relationship to humankind, and humankind’s relationship with his or her fellows. It is the eternal truths that are the unchanging truths of the Bible. It seems very reasonable to me that God would inspire the sacred author of the Genesis creation account to write in accordance with his own understanding.
The earth was believed to rest on giant pillars atop an abyss of waters. Above the abyss of waters the earth was surrounded by the seas. Underneath the earth there existed Shoel, a dark netherworld believed to be the abode of the dead. The sky was covered over by a giant dome. The sun, moon, and stars traveled along the ceiling of the dome from one horizon to the other. The dome structure had giant gates placed at intervals. There were waters above the dome and it rained whenever the gates opened. God’s abode was believed to be above the waters atop the dome. A reading of the first chapter of Genesis, especially from the New American Bible will reveal how this worldview fits into the creation account.
In the fourth and final segment of this series, I will provide an allegorical interpretation of the Genesis creation account that is consistent with evangelical Christian theology.
God bless.
