Here’s my proof-text from the Bible: NIV Version
James 1:18
That statement implies progression over time. Creation started much as a seed planted in the ground, growing through time, getting stronger and maturing, reaching a point in time where it could bear fruit. That fruit was a self-aware being having free will, capable of transcending instinct, of knowing the difference between good and evil and making a choice, capable of having or rejecting a relationship with the Creator.
I attend a church in the American Bible belt – one that considers itself conservative and grounded in scripture. One night, the pastor said something absolutely revolutionary – “I have no problem with the science behind the theory of evolution…” Twelve words in the middle of a larger point he was trying to make. The larger point was the amoral and therefore dangerous consequence of the idea that reality created itself mechanistically, that love is a chemical interaction between brain and ovary or gonad, that there is no truth beyond human perception or determination etc. etc. But think of the knife-edge this pastor was walking – dropping the idea in front of a theologically and politically conservative audience that the science of evolution is not the problem!
If you made an animated video of the several billion years covered by the scientific description of the birth and evolution of the earth, and then sped it up, it would have a rough equivalency to Moses’ description of Creation. Granted, Moses got some things out of sequence, but damn – considering he was listening to a still, quiet voice, or even a physically manifesting spirit, he didn’t do a bad job of taking dictation.
James 1:18
“He chose to give us birth through the word of truth so that we might be a kind of first-fruits of all he created.”
That statement implies progression over time. Creation started much as a seed planted in the ground, growing through time, getting stronger and maturing, reaching a point in time where it could bear fruit. That fruit was a self-aware being having free will, capable of transcending instinct, of knowing the difference between good and evil and making a choice, capable of having or rejecting a relationship with the Creator.
I attend a church in the American Bible belt – one that considers itself conservative and grounded in scripture. One night, the pastor said something absolutely revolutionary – “I have no problem with the science behind the theory of evolution…” Twelve words in the middle of a larger point he was trying to make. The larger point was the amoral and therefore dangerous consequence of the idea that reality created itself mechanistically, that love is a chemical interaction between brain and ovary or gonad, that there is no truth beyond human perception or determination etc. etc. But think of the knife-edge this pastor was walking – dropping the idea in front of a theologically and politically conservative audience that the science of evolution is not the problem!
If you made an animated video of the several billion years covered by the scientific description of the birth and evolution of the earth, and then sped it up, it would have a rough equivalency to Moses’ description of Creation. Granted, Moses got some things out of sequence, but damn – considering he was listening to a still, quiet voice, or even a physically manifesting spirit, he didn’t do a bad job of taking dictation.