Creation or Evolution

Last Christmas twelve-month I was given (because I'd asked for it) a book entitled Creation or Evolution - Do we have to Choose? by Denis Alexander. It seemed a positive response to the problem Christians have about this subject. I blogged that I would let you know how I got on reading it. But I didn't! That was because I was disappointed. It answered questions I wasn't asking and didn't answer the questions I was asking!

Another book, Rescuing Darwin, subtitled God and evolution in Britain today, co-written by Denis Alexander and Nick Spencer was widely distributed - I received two free copies! But again, I was disappointed. For instance, they charicatured and then dismissed Intelligent Design, without really justifying their position.

Then, last year, another book came out, Should Christians Embrace Evolution? and subtitled, Biblical and scientific responses, edited by Norman C. Nevin. First of all, I don't think it's that well written. It consists of different people writing each chapter and I get the impression they scraped around a little to find people and articles to fill the book.

However, having said that, I found it much more satisfying than the earlier two books I mentioned. In fact, they hammer Denis Alexander's book from both scientific AND theological perspectives.

My favourite chapter is by RT Kendall, a study of the debate from the perspective of Hebrews 11:3, which says, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things that do appear." (NIV)

The answer Should Christians Embrace Evolution? gives to its title question is, 'No!' If you do, you compromise your theology and you put your 'faith' in a theory that has many unanswered questions to it. The book concludes, "No coherent, cohesive theology has yet been offered that would allow Christians to embrace evolution with integrity. Science has uncovered a great deal of empirical evidence that is challenging the Darwinian paradigm."

Put simply, if you don't want to accept evolution as the answer to the way we came to be here, then you are not necessarily putting yourself into an extreme fundamentalist camp which ignores or derides science. Rather, you are sitting alongside many scientists who are also Christians, and even some scientists who do not profess any faith!

Creating about creation

On Christmas Eve eve (i.e. Tuesday), there was an article in the paper reporting on a survey that said 73% of science teachers agreed creationism should be discussed alongside evolution in science classes. Of course we immediately got some arrogant blustering from dear old Richard Dawkins, who is reported to have said it is a "national disgrace" and that we are "failing to in our duty to children if we staff our schools with teachers who are this ignorant - or this stupid."

First of all it is shades of emperor's new clothes, in that anyone who disagrees with Prof. Dawkins is either ignorant or stupid. Secondly, it really does illustrate that people like him are running scared of those who actually believe in a God who created the universe. If this notion is so ridiculous, as he would have us believe, then let it fade away by itself,as surely it must.

But then again, maybe there is something in it. And that's why he's so against open discussion in schools - people might realise there is a reasonable alternative worldview to his.

I got for Christmas the book Creation or Evolution - Do we have to choose? by Denis Alexander, a senior scientist. I'll let you know what he says.

LHC again ...

Following on from my last blog, I've heard a number of people asking why the LHC particle accelerator was actually built, seeing it has cost so much, and will continue to cost so much. Well, according to the BBC, "the Large Hadron Collider will re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang in an attempt to answer fundamental questions of science and the universe itself. "

It reminds me of a quote from a book entitled God and the Astronomers by Robert Jastrow, founder of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The book was published in 1978 and Jastrow described himself as an agnostic. This is the quote:

The scientists' pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the words of the Bible: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth" ... For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

I like it!