Of Romans and Adam

John R. W. Stott (1921-2011) was a theologian, writer, Anglican Priest, and preacher. His thoughtful commentary on the book of Romans, The Message of Romans (The Bible Speaks Today series; IVP Academic, 1994), has been an important resource for my understanding of the theology of the Apostle Paul. Today, I would like to focus on Stott’s brilliant words regarding Paul’s theological understanding of Adam: the first man of creation.

Stott peers back through the primordial mist to the time of Adam and seeks to understand the nature Stott observes, in the ancient fossils of the day, and the words of the Bible in Genesis, Romans, and other parts of sacred scripture. He is well-aware that aspects of Genesis 1-3 can only be interpreted symbolically (p. 163) and explains how Paul uses his knowledge of creation and The Fall to build a theological argument for the righteousness bestowed by Jesus.

Stott then states that he believes “Scripture clearly intends us to accept their [Adam and Eve’s] historicity as the original human pair” (p. 163), and that Adam and Eve were Neolithic farmers in the New Stone Age which ran from 10,000 to 6,000 BC (p. 163). He is aware of, and comfortable with, the human fossil and skeletal records which show that modern homo sapiens can be traced back to 100,000 years ago and homo sapiens (archaic) to about 500,000 years ago. He also knows that the record shows that there are other species of hominids who lived before homo sapiens. Homo erectus dates back to 1.8 million years ago and homo habilis from 2.3 to 1.65 million years ago. Some of these species and sub-species (Neanderthal man is an example of a subspecies which could interbreed with homo sapiens) showed signs of the beginnings of culture such as painting, carving, care for the sick, and burial of the dead (p.164). Even as Stott knows all of this, he also emphasises that this does not contradict with the scriptural understanding of Adam and Eve (p. 163). 

Then Stott makes this interesting statement: “Adam, then, was a special creation of God, whether God formed him literally ‘from the dust of the ground’ and then ‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’, or whether this is the biblical way of saying that he was created out of an already existing hominid. The vital truth we cannot surrender is that, though our bodies are related to the primates, we ourselves in our fundamental identity are related to God” (p. 164). The first half of this interesting statement has to do with how, in Stott’s opinion, God may have gone about forming Adam. Stott is suggesting that God has been creating galaxies, planets, plants, animals, and pre-Adamic hominids, but now God pauses to stoop down in a special creative process to create Adam (and Eve). He envisions a time when many creatures have been walking about on a newly created earth and then God starts fresh with some dust of the ground to create his most precious creation. This is Stott’s first vision of the creation of Adam. But then he says, it might have been that God created Adam “out of an already existing hominid.” John Stott is being gracious toward the varying opinions of “how” Adam came to be (since we cannot see back through time to know precisely what God was doing then we must, to some degree, speculate on the process) but is resolute in the “vital truth we cannot surrender.” That truth, says Stott, is that “though our bodies are related to the primates, we ourselves in our fundamental identity are related to God” (p. 164).

Stott goes so far as to invent his own name for Adam’s species and calls him homo divinus (p. 164) before going on to quote Derek Kidner who suggests "that once it became clear that there was ‘no natural bridge from animal to man, God may have now conferred his image on Adam’s collaterals, to bring them into the same realm of being. Adam’s “federal” headship of humanity extended, if that was the case, outwards to his contemporaries as well as onwards to his offspring, and his disobedience disinherited both alike’"(p. 165). “Federal,” in this context refers to God’s act of entering into a covenant (or federation) with humanity through the first human, Adam. Kidner and Stott are saying that God entered into a covenant with humanity and then when the federal head of humanity disobeyed, the disobedience, consequences, and the curse of breaking the covenant, extended to Adam’s contemporaries and his offspring.

Having discussed Adam’s creation, “federal” headship, and disobedience, Stott next speaks of Adam’s death. Stott knows that death existed before Adam’s fall. He can see that there was death in both God’s plant and animal life-cycles. Stott sees plant death in the cycle of blossom, fruit, seed, and death as described in Genesis 1:11. He sees animal death in the fossil record of predators with prey in their stomach (p.165). It is interesting to note Stott’s logic and see that he comprehends that God speaks to him as a theologian through both scripture and nature (the two-book theory of God’s revelation[1]).

When it comes to Adam, Stott wants to suggest that it is possible that when God created homo divinus, he created beings with the potential for eternal life without earthly death. In Genesis 3:19, Stott sees God’s word as pointing to a physical death as part of the curse of The Fall. Many see spiritual death as a curse of The Fall, but Stott holds on to the idea of Adam being made of dust and returning to dust as part of the curse as well. This leads him to propose that perhaps God’s original intention was to make the image-bearers of God immortal, a rather shocking statement for a theologian of his stature. We must consider his theory. Stott states that “Perhaps he would have ‘translated’ them [here he means Adam, Eve, and the rest of unfallen humanity] like Enoch and Elijah, without the necessity of death. Perhaps he would have ‘changed’ them ‘in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye’, like those believers who will be alive when Jesus comes.”

It is an interesting proposal. Was God’s original plan one in which plants and animals lived and died but homo divinus lived on for a set time before being taken into the presence of God? The elves of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: Return of the King who live for thousands of years and then sail West to the immortal land of Valinor, readily come to my mind. It is speculative, but who can say that this might not have been God’s original plan? After all, God has made angels as his immortal messengers? It is conceivable that God could have made humans immortal like the elves of Valinor. However, personally, I don’t think we need to create this myth-like possibility to understand the distinctiveness of humanity. Stott has already recognized a good deal of symbolism in Genesis. Could not the words, “Dust you are, and to the dust you will return” be inclusive of both a physical and a spiritual death where the spiritual death is the new consequence of The Fall?

John R.W. Stott passed away in 2011, so I will not have an opportunity to ask him if he would still hold to all of these views. I suspect that he would recognise the speculative nature of some of his ideas and tell us that he was working through various scenarios to seek to understand creation better. A commentary on Romans is not primarily about the methodologies used by the creator, even though they do have a bearing on the discussion. I have not found all of the places Stott may have written about such theories of creation, but I am relatively confident that he never put them down in a succinct book or paper regarding creation. In this context, let us simply honour a great preacher and theologian who spoke and wrote with grace, leaving room for speculation about methods, and giving us definitive statements on God’s purposes. Let us continue to meditate upon and seek to practise the implications of the important fact that “though our bodies are related to the primates, we ourselves in our fundamental identity are related to God.”

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[1] “Two Books Theology means understanding how Christian theologians from the very beginnings of the Church have understood God’s self-revelation, as well as the relationship between Scripture and Creation.” “The Church Fathers and Two Books Theology” Biologos, Mark H. Mann, 2012.

Science and Faith in Pandemic Times

Dr. Francis Collins has been a hero of mine since my days in the Molecular Diagnostic Lab at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary. In those days he was the lead investigator on the Human Genome Project as everyone raced to be the first to map the approximately three billion base-pairs of the human genome. Since July of 2008 Dr. Collins has served as the director of the National Institutes of Health, a position to which he was appointed by President Barack Obama and selected again by President Donald Trump. It is a position he holds to this day. The NIH is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for biomedical and public health research in the United States and Dr. Collins’ role is to oversee all projects and funding from the US government.

On April 6, 2020, Biologos interviewed Francis Collins regarding the latest research into the novel corona virus that is causing the disease known as COVID-19. Christianity Today reporters were sitting in on the interview and will likely write about this conversation in the days and weeks to come. Dr. Francis Collins is a gracious and humble follower of Jesus who is overseeing all of the research into the virus, vaccines, antibodies against the virus, and many other projects in the US. The interview reveals that many Christians do indeed integrate faith and science. To quote Mark Noll, "There is hope for the evangelical mind" (The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, 1994). Don't miss the end of the interview where Dr. Collins reveals the things for which he is praying right now. Here is the link to the recorded conversation. 

BioLogos

For many years I have been a proponent of the BioLogos organization. They do a remarkable job of theological and scientific education. I encourage readers to take a tour of their site and read some of the many articles available. BioLogos represents an Evolutionary Creationism perspective on the origins of life. Here, in their own words is an explanation of what that means.

At BioLogos, we present the Evolutionary Creationism (EC) viewpoint on origins. Like all Christians, we fully affirm that God is the creator of all life—including human beings in his image. We fully affirm that the Bible is the inspired and authoritative word of God. We also accept the science of evolution as the best description for how God brought about the diversity of life on earth.

But while we accept the scientific evidence for evolution, BioLogos emphatically rejects Evolutionism, the atheistic worldview that so often accompanies the acceptance of biological evolution in public discussion. Evolutionism is a kind of scientism, which holds that all of reality can in principle be explained by science. In contrast, BioLogos believes that science is limited to explaining the natural world, and that supernatural events like miracles are part of reality too.

BioLogos offers an explanation of our universe that does justice to a theological understanding of a creator God, while also giving credence to the science of our day that explains much of how our world works. I know that this is a difficult area for many Christians to grasp and BioLogos has done an excellent job of walking people through the many arguments. I encourage my readers to spend time on their website and consider a viewpoint that may not be one that you hold today. There are many opinions among Christians about the nature of the origins of our universe. Let us not be afraid to consider each other’s perspective on these issues.

Beyond the BioLogos website, I would also recommend the following books:

Adam and the Genome, Dennis R. Venema and Scott McKnight, Brazos Press, 2017.

Evolution and the Fall, James K.A. Smith and William T. Cavanaugh (editors), Eerdmans, 2017.

Modern Technology and the Human Future

I recently finished reading Craig Gay’s book, Modern Technology and the Human Future and found it to be a very balanced approach to many of the questions we find ourselves asking about the good and bad of contemporary technology. We all know how valuable our hand-held devices can be and Gay speaks highly of the gains in productivity and efficiencies afforded by such devices before citing some telling statistics. “‘On average,’ one recent study found, ‘people in the United States across all age groups check their phones 46 times per day’, roughly once every fifteen minutes. For people between the ages of eighteen to twenty four, that number goes up to seventy four times per day, or once every twelve minutes.”[1] Many might say that we are enslaved to our phones, but if that word seems a little harsh, let’s just say we are obsessed with our phones. What are we checking for on our phones? Well it could be all kinds of good information in the virtual libraries of information available to us. We could be exploring art galleries in distant cities, getting the latest facts on nutritional information, or following NASA’s ever curious explorations of the galaxy. More likely than not, we are checking our social media accounts to see how many people have liked our recent post or seeing what posts others have made that we can like, hate, find funny, or thumb-up.

Gay is not a technophobe or luddite, his confessions in the chapter entitled “A Personal Conclusion” make this clear, but what he is saying is that we must consider every advancement in light of the good it will do and what we will give away as we embrace the technology. He points out that one of humans’ early advances was going from an oral culture to a written culture and to a culture of the printing press. Socrates expressed concerns that increasing literacy rates would have a debilitating impact on memory.[2] Of course he was right! Oral societies must commit all important information to memory, but as soon as one adapts to a written culture, much can be stored in lists, recipes, personal journals, and text-books. However, without literacy, one could well argue that we would never have the kind of understanding of who we are and what we can do.

Gay does lament that contemporary technology tends towards seeing all of nature as a machine.[3] Photosynthesis in the hands of a scientist can become nothing more than physics and chemistry. Similarly, the human body and mind can also be viewed as a complex machine that could, given enough time, be converted into a mechanical device to house our consciousness. He also calls us back to remembering who we are. “The church has long recognized that if the eternal Word of God ‘became flesh and made his dwelling among us,” as the apostle John declares (Jn 1:14), this confers staggering value upon ordinary fleshly existence.”[4] “While the Christian church always stands in need of remembering its theology, the need today is particularly acute, given how rapidly automatic machine technology is trending away from ordinary embodied human life.”[5]

In this book, Gay calls us to “repent of our hubris” and recognize that the “principle precept of Christian discipleship is that we are not our own” and that our “task, therefore, is primarily one of stewardship.”[6] He speaks of a proper place for technology where it “starts great conversation” and an improper place when it “prevents us from talking with and listening to one another.”[7] Proper uses of technology will lead to greater harmony of people, animals, plants, and rocks rather than dis-harmonies. Gay calls us back to our theology of being, incarnation, and eucharistic embodiment and prompts us that the eucharist or communion meal is to be a place where we reorient ourselves around what is important: God and his people embodied in flesh.

There is much more that could be said, but I leave it to the reader to take the time to purchase and read this book for yourself. It is readily available wherever books are sold.

Works Cited

Gay, C. M. (2018). Modern Technology and the Human Future: A Christian Appraisal. Downers Grove: IVP Academic.

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[1] 2015 data; (Gay, 2018, pp. 31, 32)

[2] (Gay, 2018, p. 25)

[3] (Gay, 2018, p. 101)

[4] (Gay, 2018, p. 133)

[5] (Gay, 2018, p. 165)

[6] (Gay, 2018, p. 169)

[7] (Gay, 2018, p. 177)

God Rested

Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!

And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.

So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.

Genesis 1:31-2:3 (NIV)

Take some time to read again the account of creation in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 of the Bible. Most of us think that we already know what it says, but I find that each reading reveals new insights. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 each give the account of creation in different ways. Each offers rich insights into what God wants us to know about his creation, his place in the universe, our place in the universe, and the responsibility of each person, animal, and object in the story.

At one time, I thought that God was communicating to us that we are presently living in the seventh day. Genesis 2:2 says, “On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work.” At one level, it sounds like God is finished once and for all and that he is now resting from the work of creation. That is not the case at all. 

Creation is most certainly continuing to happen. As I write these words, Kīlauea volcanoe on the island of Hawaii is spewing lava into the sea and adding to the size of the island. In 2013, a new island was formed in the Pacific Ocean just off of the coast of Japan. Currently, new stars and planets are being formed in the far reaches of space. Furthermore, new species of plants and animals are being discovered at a rapid pace. Some of these discoveries are in fact new species that have recently come into being.

So, what are we to make of the “rest of God?” What are these words communicating to us? Perhaps it is as simple as telling us that there is a time for work and that there is a time for rest. The Creator does not always spell out all of the implications of how we are to live, but he gives us grand principles and asks us to work out how we might live this out in our time. Humans have been working out the concept of sabbath rest ever since creation. In times when Jewish law was supreme, Sabbath was highly codified and legalized. Specific rules of what could and could not be done on the seventh day of the week were built into the society. Under the rule of the Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, and other cultures, it was necessary to adjust how Sabbath was lived out. In recent history, as Christianity has sought to codify Sabbath regulations, we saw Sunday shopping rules enshrined in law, encroached upon, struck down, and now meaningless. Christians today find themselves in a place in time and culture where we each must reinterpret how we will appropriately live out a life of work and rest. Yet, the grand principle still applies: God’s best plan for us is a day of rest and six days of work.

Creation goes on and God’s principles of what is best for his people also go on. May we rejoice in an ever-changing universe, ever-changing culture, and the constant principles which guide our lives.

Robots and Wisdom

It may well be that the time has come to make three fictional laws, actual laws in our world. Perhaps the United Nations could be given authority over Artificial Intelligence and could enforce Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics.” Two articles in the news today bring to mind the need for greater regulation in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and “outer space frontier development."[1] We now need the “laws of robotics.” You may not remember these famous literary laws from Asimov’s short-story, “Runaround.” Allow me to refresh our memories:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.[2]

These laws would prevent the kind of military drones now being contemplated by the Pentagon as they discuss policy with Google and other leading AI industrialists.[3] It would be very easy for drones and AI drones to take over conventional warfare. Such laws, if written into international law, would have the potential to demilitarize the AI and Space frontiers and prevent us from reverting to a “wild-west” mentality in these spheres of influence. The UN (including the little known United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs [UNOOSA]) would need to be given authority to oversee and gain cooperation from member nations - and therein lies the difficulty. The recent launch of a swarm of private artificial intelligence satellites, each about 10 centimetres across, demonstrates how difficult it is to enforce the laws. These recently launched satellites are so tiny that they cannot be tracked and could pose a navigational hazard for the International Space Station (ISS) and other satellites encircling the globe. Swarm Technologies was denied permission to launch these satellites from within the United States, so they found a carrier in India willing to send them aloft.

So, if we can’t enforce the rules, laws, and guidelines already in place, how could we enforce the three laws of robotics? Yet, it seems we must try. My recent Bible readings addressed the topic of “good judgement.” What does good judgement look like in some of these recent developments? I leave that for the reader to meditate upon as we read the following excerpt from the book of Proverbs.

Proverbs 4:4-9

⁴ My father taught me,
“Take my words to heart.
    Follow my commands, and you will live.
⁵ Get wisdom; develop good judgment.
    Don’t forget my words or turn away from them.
⁶ Don’t turn your back on wisdom, for she will protect you.
    Love her, and she will guard you.
⁷ Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do!
    And whatever else you do, develop good judgment.
⁸ If you prize wisdom, she will make you great.
    Embrace her, and she will honor you.
⁹ She will place a lovely wreath on your head;
    she will present you with a beautiful crown.”

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[1]See, “How we can prevent outer space from becoming the Wild West?”; Nicole Mortillaro, CBC News, Jun 17, 2018, http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/space-regulation-1.4687587

Also see, “Is Google's new set of principles enough to calm fears over militarized A.I.?”; Ramona Pringle, CBC News,  Jun 16, 2018, http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/google-militarized-ai-1.4707697

[2]Asimov, Isaac (1950). "Runaround". I, Robot (hardcover) (The Isaac Asimov Collection ed.). New York City: Doubleday. p. 40. ISBN 0-385-42304-7. This is an exact transcription of the laws. They also appear in the front of the book, and in both places there is no "to" in the 2nd law.
[3] See, “Is Google's new set of principles enough to calm fears over militarized A.I.?”; Ramona Pringle, CBC News,  Jun 16, 2018, http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/google-militarized-ai-1.4707697

Chromosome 2

Human Chromosome 2 is an interesting example of evidence that suggests God used evolution to create humanity. Darrel Falk has made a series of YouTube videos that explain why he believes that Chromosome 2 is evidence for God using evolutionary processes.[1] Here I will explain the basic concepts and leave it to the reader to investigate further.

To understand this evidence, we must first understand a little bit about genetics, chromosomes, and DNA. Chromosomes are the structures that keep our DNA organized. In every cell of our bodies there are strings of 3 billion base pairs of DNA. DNA is a string of adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T) molecules strung together in a variety of combinations that can be represented like this:

(Click on images to enlarge)

Notice that the strings of molecules can be put together in many permutations and allow for an amazing amount of information to be stored in this format. The image shown above is a representation of one side of the DNA ladder. DNA pairs in such a way that A pairs with T and C pairs with G, so the two sides of a DNA double helix can be represented in the following way:

Chromosomes organize and constrain this DNA into discreet packages that allow the DNA to be copied, moved around, and accurately passed from one cell division to another and from one generation to the next. The ends of the chromosomes have distinct DNA structures called telomeres. In humans, the sequence of these telomeres is a number of repeats of TTAGGG and these telomeres prevent DNA from unraveling, much like the tips on the end of shoelaces prevent our shoelaces from fraying. Chromosomes have centromeric structures near the centre of the chromosomes where proteins look for specific conformations or shapes of DNA on the chromosome to grab the chromosomes and pull them in a specific direction when cell division such as mitosis or meiosis occurs (two forms of cell division in which the appropriate amount of DNA must be segregated into each cell).

Most humans have 23 pairs or a total of 46 chromosomes that look something like this when painted with fluorescent dyes:

Telomeric structures would be at the ends of each chromosome and centromeric structures would be at the darkened and pinched-in point generally toward the middle of the chromosome.

Different species of animals have different numbers of chromosomes. Here is a list of some animals and their chromosome number. I will continue to speak of the number of pairs of chromosomes in the typical animal, rather than the total number of chromosomes.

Mice have 20 pairs of chromosomes;

horses, 32 pairs;

donkeys, 31;

cows, 30;

tigers, 19;

lions, 19;

orangutans, 24;

gorillas, 24;

chimpanzees, 24;

and bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees), 24 pairs.

These last four entries represent the great apes and are especially interesting to the rest of this article and we will pursue this topic more in the next few paragraphs. But before we get there, let me remind the reader that plants also have distinct numbers of chromosomes and we could list some of those as well. The coffee plant has 22 pairs of chromosomes whereas the pineapple has 25 pairs. The number of pairs of chromosomes is one mechanism that acts as a boundary between species and prevents the crossing of one species with another. There are a few rare exceptions such as horses and donkeys in which cross-breeding is possible despite different chromosomal numbers, but for the most part, such crossings fail. This is sufficient background regarding our DNA and its packaging into chromosomes to remind us that our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made and that there is still much to learn about how the mechanisms of genetics work.

Now we come to the interesting instance of human Chromosome 2. As noted above, humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes while the great apes have 24 pairs. If we look closely at and compare the chromosomes of humans and the great apes, a good deal of similarity is noted. G-banding patterns are a crude method of looking at the overall structure of chromosomes, but they are instructive in showing the similarities of chromosomes. Traditionally, this G-banding technique has been used to uniquely identify and arrange each of our 23 pairs of chromosomes.

Of particular note is the similarity between human chromosome 2 and ape chromosomes 12 and 13. The picture below shows the similarity in banding patterns of the human chromosome 2 compared to the banding patterns of two chimpanzee chromosomes.

What becomes immediately apparent at a crude structural level (and is further borne out in the actual DNA sequence of the chromosomes) is that human Chromosome 2 looks like a fusion of two chimp chromosomes. In fact, as we analyse the DNA sequence of human Chromosome 2, we find telomeric repetitive structures in the middle of Chromosome 2 (when they should only be at the ends of the chromosome) and a second, non-functional, centromeric structure where one would expect it would be if the chromosome resulted from a fusion event.

What this suggests is somewhere in the evolutionary development of humans, a fusion event occurred which resulted in the reduction of the number of chromosomes to 23 pairs for the humans and human-like species, while the great apes continue to have 24 pairs. The following diagram represents the phylogeny (or family-tree) with regard to this one feature (note, this diagram speaks of 46 and 48 chromosomes rather than 23 and 24 pairs). The question mark next to Neanderthals in the diagram represents the fact that, although the chromosomal number for humans and Denisovans has been experimentally confirmed, we do not presently have DNA of sufficient quality from Neanderthals to experimentally confirm that Neanderthals indeed had 23 pairs of chromosomes.[2]

[3]

Such evidence supports the idea that God used an evolutionary process to create species including the human species. It would indicate that we share a common ancestor with the great apes and that at a certain point in the evolutionary process our line diverged from the family tree of our ape cousins. It does not detract from God as creator and does offer insight into the mechanisms he used as he created.

A blog of this nature can only whet the reader’s appetite for further investigation into such topics. As previously stated, Darrel Falk’s YouTube videos may be the next place to turn for further understanding. The BioLogos website at biologos.org is always a great resource. Perhaps this blog might also open doors for respectful conversation, logical analysis, and a hunger and thirst for truth wherever it may be found. God is indeed the great creator and the mechanisms of biology are no surprise to him. We can continue to be confident that he is guiding the universe and guiding his revelation to those who seek him.

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[1] Darrel Falk series of YouTube videos regarding the human chromosome 2 fusion:

Part 1 - https://bit.ly/2JUIKeq

Part 2 - https://bit.ly/2HJbTEz

Part 3 - https://bit.ly/2HJsRCJ

[2] See “Denisovans, Humans and the Chromosome 2 Fusion” September 06, 2012, BioLogos Blog, Dennis Venema,  

https://biologos.org/blogs/dennis-venema-letters-to-the-duchess/denisovans-humans-and-the-chromosome-2-fusion

[3] The diagram is from “Denisovans, Humans and the Chromosome 2 Fusion” September 06, 2012, BioLogos Blog, Dennis Venema, https://biologos.org/blogs/dennis-venema-letters-to-the-duchess/denisovans-humans-and-the-chromosome-2-fusion

The Arc of Evolution

“The arc of evolution is long and bends toward human beings.”^[1] When I speak of evolution, and my conviction that God used evolution to create our universe, I am not speaking of a godless or deistic process. I am suggesting that “in the beginning” God created the heavens and the earth, and that he created all that we see and do not see. I am saying that God started this process over 13 billion years ago and continues to shape and mould the entire universe by processes that, from our perspective, seem slow, appear random, often resulting in dead-ends and extinctions, and may even look inefficient. Yet, God, the Master Creator, in his great wisdom, is behind it all and the three persons of the Godhead or Trinity were all there from the beginning in their creative work (Colossians 1:15, 16; Genesis 1:2, 26, 27). 

The arc of this process spans a vast time scale that is beyond our comprehension. We struggle to imagine what life on earth would have been like, 100, 500, 2000, or 4000 years ago. Our minds are much better suited for the comprehension of a few decades at a time. When we drive west on the Trans-Canada Highway from Winnipeg to Vancouver, we do not notice the curvature of the earth as we drive the ups and downs of rolling hills and mountain roads, but it is there none-the-less. The same could be said of our perception of the long arc of evolution. Many billions of years ago it started with what has been described as the Big Bang or Primordial Atom. Father Georges Lemaître (a faithful Catholic Priest) was the first to describe this dramatic start to the universe. According to this understanding, it took several billion years for the universe to develop to the point where our solar system and its planets would be recognizable and several billion more before life would develop on Earth. The earliest life would have been something like self-replicating membranes, bits of ribonucleic acid (RNA), and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). These would change over time and go on to form primitive viruses, single celled bacteria, multi-celled organisms, plants, animals, and humans. 

Through this entire process, and including developments going on in our present time, the trinitarian God of Genesis was there making sense of it all. God was there ensuring that the arc of evolution would continue to be bent toward the creation of the most advanced being in all of creation, humans. He had a plan toward which the arrow, which He had released billions of years ago, was gliding. He allowed the processes to reach their ultimate end of a creature created by Him, for communion with him.

As Douglas Wilson has said,

God knew that we were going to need to pick up dimes, and so He gave us fingernails. He knew that twilights displayed in blue, apricot, and battle gray would be entirely astonishing and beyond us, and so He gave us eyes that can see in color. He could have made all food quite nourishing, but which tasted like wadded up newspaper soaked in machine oil. Instead He gave us the tastes of watermelon, pecans, oatmeal stout, buttered corn, apples, fresh bread, grilled sirloin, and 25-year-old scotch. And He of course knew that we were going to need to thank Him and so He gave us hearts and minds.

Douglas Wilson, Is Christianity Good For the World: A Debate, Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson, 2008.

This is the God, and this is the kind of evolution, of which I am convinced. 

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[1]Here I have created a variation on a statement made by Martin Luther King Jr. He said,“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Martin Luther King Jr., Baccalaureate sermon, 1964, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. King, in turn had abbreviated the words of Theodore Parker, “Of Justice and the Conscience,” sermon, 1853, in which he said, "Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."

Imagination and Logic

Bethany Sollereder, Ph.D., is a fellow graduate of Regent College and a Christian who has spent much time exploring the relationships between Science and Faith. She has written a helpful paper entitled, “Evolution, Suffering and the Creative Love of God,” in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith.[1] It is a philosophical and theological paper that is technical enough that I will not try to analyze it here in this post. Her logic and conclusions speak for themselves and the paper is a valuable read for anyone who would like to explore these topics more deeply than is often done in this blog.

What I will note here in this space is the interaction between logic and imagination. Sollereder and I met once when I was at Regent working on the Comprehensive Exam for my Master of Arts degree. I was wrestling with the question of the historicity of Adam, and my supervisor, Ross Hastings, Ph.D. had suggested that I should interact with Bethany Sollereder on this topic. I found her to be an exceptionally brilliant and logical mind and knew that she would make significant contributions in the literature regarding Faith and Science, and Theodicy (a technical term for the theological study of why we have evil in a world created by a good God). In the paper to which I am referring today, Sollereder is not only extremely logical but also, at points, imaginative, creative, and poetic. One sentence in particular caused me to pause and think carefully: “In describing divine action, then, our compassionate imagination—rather than our logic—may be the more reliable guide.”

Here is an especially logical young mind arguing for the inclusion of a “compassionate imagination” in the technical fields of theology, philosophy, and theodicy. For a person like me who writes poetry, creative novels,[2] songs, science papers, and religious journal articles, this statement by Sollereder was an encouragement of the highest degree. It would seem to me that she is calling for an application of all aspects of the mind. For such interesting and difficult subjects as the relationships between science and faith, we must apply every aspect of our mental faculties. We do not simply use logic in one conversation and poetry in another. We use both to help us understand the intricacies of the universe in which we live. Indeed, the very consciousness with which we think, is capable of a variety of methods for coming at difficult topics. Sometimes, imagination and poetry are the only ways to adequately explain a concept and they may open other avenues of thought leading to a greater logical understanding. 

In her paper, “Evolution, Suffering and the Creative Love of God,” Sollereder uses creative thought experiments and metaphors of life to logically explain possible explanations for the workings of God and our universe. The logic is exemplary, but her logic would not stand as well if it were not for the helpful images that bolster the logic. Perhaps this makes even more sense when we read Sollereder’s bio which states that she “enjoys hiking, horseback riding, [and] reading novels (particularly those of “the Inklings”).” This paper encourages me to continue to use creativity, logic, poetry, and metaphor to explore the universe and the explanations which help us live in this amazing place in which we find ourselves. May the spirit of writers such as Lewis, Tolkien, and MacDonald (some of the writers known as The Inklings) live on in the works of Sollereder and others.

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[1]Sollereder, “Evolution, Suffering and the Creative Love of God,”Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith68, no. 2 (2016): 99-110, http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2016/PSCF6-16Sollereder.pdf

[2]See the novel, The Great Beyond for an example of how I have dealt with complex questions of life and death, punishment and reward in a metaphoric fiction. https://amzn.to/2HUGeF5 or, in the USA, https://amzn.to/2ro8Lb2.

Theology in Transition

Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.^[1] The Bible, although not always viewed this way, is a fixed canon that does not change.^[2] The Church endures through all the ages.^[3] Jesus Christ died once for all so that all might live.^[4] Therefore, it may sound like a bold statement to say that Christian theology changes; but it does. We could find several more examples, and I am only seeking to highlight some of the less controversial, but here are a few ways in which our theology has changed in the short 2000-year existence of the Church of Jesus Christ.

     1. The early Christians believed that the return of Christ would occur within their lifetime,
2.    Early Christians also thought that they should not eat meat that had not been drained of blood. I hardly think anyone has been thrown out of the church for eating blood sausage in the last several hundred years,
3.    Stipulations about hair length that were thought to be blatantly evident within “the very nature of things” are now disregarded. Christians are now comfortable with all fashions of hair on men and women,
4.    It was once thought that the sun travelled in the sky relative to the earth and this was verified by statements in the Bible such as that in Joshua 10 where “the sun stood still in the sky,”
5.    Those who got divorced were once barred from membership in the Church,
6.    Before the Reformation, people required a priest to mediate between them and God,
7.    And women were once required to wear head-coverings when they attended church or prayed.

The point is, the Bible doesn’t change, but our understanding, or theology, of the Bible does change.

We now live in a time when many of our cherished understandings of the Bible are being challenged by the science of the day. Luke J. Janssen, in an article in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith,^[5] says,

The scientific data now at hand pertaining to human evolution conflict with any theological worldview that is dependent upon the following:
(1)  a “young earth,” or a timeline of less than ten thousand years….
(2)  there being a primal pair.... [from whom all people have descended]
(3)  the human species receiving a discrete command regarding what God expects, and all humans having broken that command.
Instead, we should account for hard evidence, such as
(1)  Homo sapiens appearing a couple hundred thousand years ago;
(2)  Humans being nearly genetically identical to other hominids who can be tied together on an evolutionary tree of life extending back millions of years;
(3)  Interbreeding between humans and other species (Neanderthals and Denisovans);
(4)  The evolution of religious thinking and practices long predating the biblical texts; and
(5)  A gradual evolution of morality and awareness of God.

With all of this scientific evidence to deal with, is it not time that we set our theologians to the task of once again re-thinking how we understand our biblical texts? Some, such as Scott McKnight^[6] and N.T. Wright have indeed become friends of Biologos^[7] and have begun to seek to understand the Bible in light of the current scientific and genetic revolution. We need not fear such theological processes. If science is truth, and theology is truth, and indeed, if all truth is God’s truth, then such thoughtful processes can only lead to a greater understanding of that truth and greater understanding of our God. Those of us who love God and follow Jesus must not find ourselves in a battle with the science of the day. For the sake of our faith, we must embrace all of God’s truth.

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[1]Hebrews 13:8

[2]See, for example, “The Canon of the Old Testament,” at Catholic Faith and Reason, http://www.catholicfaithandreason.org/the-canon-of-the-old-testament.html

[3]Ephesians 3:21; Psalm 145:12-14

[4]2 Corinthians 5:14-16

[5]‘“Fallen” and “Broken” Reinterpreted in the Light of Evolutionary Theory,’ Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Volume 70, Number 1, March 2018, p. 44.

[6]See Adam and the Genome, by Venema and McKnight, Brazos Press, 2017.

[7]https://biologos.org/

Do Faith and Science Conflict?

Many are asking the question, "Do faith and science conflict?" and many would say they know the answer. In this message delivered at Bow Valley Christian Church on January 7, 2018, I offer the answer of one who has worked in and studied the sciences while also living and studying a life of faith. I pray that it might be a helpful voice in the midst of much confusion. To hear this message, select the links embedded in the text.

Long Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far, Away

Astronomers in Melbourne, Australia have detected a galaxy that is more ancient than any galaxy ever seen. They have named the galaxy A1689B11 and have determined that the light now reaching earth was emitted 11 billion years ago and has been travelling toward us ever since. That means that this light started travelling toward the earth just 2.6 billion years after the creation of the universe at the Big Bang, and 6.5 billion years before the earth was formed.

By viewing this galaxy, we are able to look further back in time than anyone has looked before. It is like viewing an ancient fossil of the universe frozen at a particular time. No one knows what this galaxy looks like at the present time. It has had 11 billion years to change and grow or shrink. Astronomers believe that this may be one of the very first spiral galaxies that came to be.

Looking at this from a theological perspective, we see that God is continually in the creative mode: 11 billion years ago, as well as today. I say today because even as you read these words lava is pouring out of a volcano in an ocean somewhere and is adding mass to an island. Somewhere in the dusty nebulae of the universe, giant orbs of rock and sand are slowly condensing into larger and larger masses until they suddenly explode into new stars. The immensity of creating a universe is unfathomable to our minds. Yet God has left enough clues to inspire awe in those who look for and trust in the Creator God.

Isaiah 40:12, 13, 22, 31 (NIV):

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
    or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
    or weighed the mountains on the scales
    and the hills in a balance?
Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord,
    or instruct the Lord as his counselor?

… God sits above the circle of the earth.
    The people below seem like grasshoppers to him!
He spreads out the heavens like a curtain
    and makes his tent from them.

… those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
    They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
    They will walk and not faint.

May we trust in the mighty Lord who creates galaxies and islands, stars and eagles.