Op-Ed: Creation, evolution and myth.

Creation, evolution and myth

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/religion/columns/070825b.shtml

When I first learned of the Creation Museum, my initial reaction was
to wince painfully. ?Wonderful,? I thought. ?This gives unbelievers
more ammunition with which to mock the faithful.?

A museum with a natural history derived from creationism would
certainly earn the derisive laughter of those who reject creationism
in favor of evolution.

Many creationist Christians probably would not let the mocking
laughter of unbelievers bother them that much. But due to a number of
factors, half my mind lives in a world influenced by the Enlightenment
and the other half in a world shaped by the Christian faith.

Because of that I find myself unable to completely reject evolution
even as I recognize that any objective reading of the first chapter of
Genesis allows no room for evolution or the big bang or a universe
that is billions of years old.

Listening to some people, one would think the theory of evolution was
every bit a threat to Christianity as the ideas of the ancient
arch-heretics Marcion and Arius. Marcion rejected the Old Testament
and viewed Christ as a spiritual being only, while Arius rejected the
doctrine of father and son as equal and eternal.

But whereas their ideas directly challenged Christian orthodoxy,
evolution does not seem to pose much of a threat in comparison. All
evolution does is try to understand how life came to be by using
reason to comprehend evidence from the natural world.

Rational mind, natural world

Both the rational mind and the natural world derive from God.
Therefore, when a rational interpretation of evidence from the natural
world as to how life developed seems to contradict a literal reading
of Genesis, there is no reason to reject the interpretation out of
hand. Nor is there any reason to torturously interpret evidence so
that it will conform to a literal reading of the Bible?s account of
creation. What the evidence most strongly implies can be accepted as
it is.

But that still leaves the problem of reconciling biblical revelation
and the evidence from the natural world when the two seem to
contradict each other. One way to do so is to read the Bible?s account
of creation as myth. Myth seeks to explain why things are the way they
are through story; exact details are often not as important if they do
not contribute to the main point the myth is trying to make. Reading
the early chapters of Genesis as myth would allow one to retain all
the benefits of a literal reading without having to discount or
distort what can be learned about the natural world through scientific
inquiry.

Admittedly there are problems with such an approach, such as how does
one draw the line between what can be regarded as myth and what should
be considered literal history. But it does offer the chance to
reconcile seeming contradictions between what is revealed in God?s
Word and God?s creation.

Jamie Wilson of Decatur, a recent graduate of Beeson Divinity School
at Samford University in Birmingham, is one of several local ministers
writing religion columns for The Daily.

--
Bob.

.

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