The Great Debate between Young Earth Creationists and Theistic Evolutionists

Chris Heard reviews J. Barton Payne’s take on theistic evolution, now available online thanks to Rob Bradshaw. What I especially like about Chris’s approach is that he doesn’t write off those who hold to the “literal historicity” of Genesis 1-2. Instead, with more patience than Job, he engages their arguments one by one.

Heard’s post finishes very strongly:

“Theistic evolution” (embedded in a larger understanding, such as Howard van Till’s vision of God creating a “fully gifted universe”) satisfies the theological demands of biblical creation faith without requiring adherents to believe, in effect, that the universe lies to us about its own origins.

It is annoying when people try to end the conversation with statements like the one by Payne which Chris quotes:

A final word then remains to be said, on the attitude that lies incumbent upon evangelicals to assume toward theistic evolution. Since Scripture opposes it, the committed Christian cannot be open-minded toward it.

In the evangelical circles I frequent the most, that of InterVarsity in particular, that is not the attitude I find modeled around me. For a non-belligerent approach to the debate between creationists who hold to the “literal historicity” of Genesis 1-2 and creationists who treat the big bang and evolution as acceptable working hypotheses in explanation of the mechanics of how the physical and biological universe reached its present configuration, I recommend the Journal of the Ameriican Scientific Affiliation. Many of the articles are written by card-carrying evangelicals.

Comments

[Sue]

Hey, John, I remember the ASA Journal well - I had an inherited subscription at one time. That is, someone passed them on to me on a regular basis. We all loved geology in our family and especially books by Stephen Jay Gould. Brings back good memories of Intervarsity too.

[JohnFH]

Stephen Jay Gould is such a fine writer. He modeled for me as a youth, better than many believers, the attitude of wonder and humility in the presence of life expressed in Psalm 8.

Nowadays, there is a treasurehouse of authors who write well on the subject matter at hand: people like John Polkinghorne, and Keith Miller.

[Frank Creed]

You know, the Church said the Earth was flat and that our little planet is the center of the universe. Whether God used evolution in His creation or not, Christianity will still stand. I think the Christian subculture is afraid of science because they think it could prove the Bible wrong. Christians need to look at creation as God's other book.

Mankind apprehending creation with the scientific process (which requires observation), is flawed. You can't "prove" I didn't create the universe in it's present form just thirty seconds ago.

We waste so much time debating this when the five arguments for the existence of God are such powerful evangelism tools.

Faith,
frankcreed.com --novelist, Freelance writer, and founder of the Lost Genre Guild