by Stephen Harris

Created on: October 09, 2008

Throughout much of the modern media today, both the extremes of atheistic evolution and young earth creationism have found the spotlight. As our science has developed over the centuries, the piercing question of, "Is there really something out there?" has continued to plague us. Such developments include the publishing of the Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin in 1859 and the development of Gregor Mendel's Laws of Inheritance just a few years later finally began to shed some light on this question much to the dismay of the church.

In lieu to the more pertinent question at hand, "Can God and Darwinism coexist?" we must determine a few things if we are to have a successful "experiment in logic and science" at all. The questions that we have are, "What God are we talking about? The God of the Jews, and the Christians? Perhaps Allah of the Muslims?" We could even be referring to the Bhagavn of the Hindus. I think this question would be most objectively argued from the perspective of a "model deity" meaning the general sort of "God" concept that all faiths share in some fundamental way with whom they attribute the creation of the universe and the state of affairs and relationships between that deity and man. However, this particular inquiry is to some degree loaded to bring the God of the Jews and the Christians, Yahweh, into the spotlight. The next set of questions that we have must define what we mean when we say "Darwinism." Certainly we are not to place ourselves in nineteenth century Europe and debate about the issues plaguing both the Darwanists and the Theists of that day; no, we are indeed talking about whether or not the God of the Bible could possible coexist with the modern theories of evolution as recognized today.

To make sure that we cover all bases, I'm first going to discuss the two extremes that we often hear about in the media. The first of which being that of young earth creationism, the second being atheistic evolutionism.

Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'arets. This transliteration of Hebrew contained in Genesis 1:1 reads, "In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth." He went on to say, "Vayomer Elohim na'aseh adam betsalmenu kidemutenu veyirdu bidegat hayam uve'of hashamayim uvabehemah uvechol-ha'arets uvechol-haremes haromes al-ha'arets. Vayivra Elohim et-ha'adam betsalmo betselem Elohim bara oto zachar unekevah bara otam. Vayevarech otam Elohim vayomer lahem Elohim peru urevu umil'u et-ha'arets vechiveshuha uredu

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>