Can one be a Christian, yet reject creationism?

Question

Why do some Christians reject creationism. Aren't they, by doing so, rejecting a major part of the Bible? Hence, rejecting the word of God?
It's like rejecting some parts and accepting others.
How can you follow a book, that is fallible? It's contradictory.
You either follow Christianity 100%, or not follow it at all.
You can't choose to follow 80% and reject 20%.

whoops, I used the word "reject" too much, in this paragraph.

Answer 1

Yes one can (raising his hand).

> "Aren't they, by doing so, rejecting a major part of the Bible?"

Only if you believe that the Bible has no truth value unless read *literally* ... the way a child reads a story and wonders if it is "true" or not.

It is *impossible* to read the Bible literally, because it sometimes self-contradictory. (E.g. in Gen. 1:25-26, God makes the animals before man, but then in Gen. 2:18-2:19, God makes man before the animals.)

And we already do accept some sections and reject others ... or else we would be obeying passages like Exodus 31:44, which decrees the death penalty for someone who works on the sabbath.

The Bible must be read as a guidebook for understanding deep mysteries ... not as a literal rulebook, or a big Lord of the Rings novel, or as a biology textbook.

To put it another way, the Bible was written for people who had the level of scientific understanding of the world of 5th-century B.C. farmers. How could God explain evolution to people who had no word or concept of "single-celled organism", much less "genetics" or "DNA"? To people who had no way of knowing that a cup of water could contain more life forms than all the animals you would see in your lifetime? Or that a single "start" in the night sky was actually a galaxy of 300 million stars a million light years away?

The story of creation in the Bible was written in a way they could understand. To hold that such a description would also be accepted *literally* given what we now know about the universe ... is to believe that all our scientific understanding gained with the brain God gave us, needs to be rejected ... and we need to return to the science, technology, and medicine of 5th Century B.C.

That said. One can reconcile the basic notions of Biblical creation with modern science, and still reject creationism (the fundamentalist view that Genesis must be accepted *literally*). Just as God created you using the natural process of reproduction and childbirth, God can create new species using the natural process of evolution and natural selection. I do not lay limits on God to *have* to work within a narrow framework. If God want's to take 4.6 billion years to work a miracle (as he appears to have done), then who am I to disagree?

Answer 2

We are all descended from one woman, a fact DNA studies have confirmed. But where did all the different races come from? If skin color and facial features had changed suddenly, this bizarre event would certainly have been recorded somewhere! Since no one mentioned a sudden change, we can assume skin color and facial features changed so gradually nobody realized this was occurring. That is all evolution is the gradual changing of a species into a slightly different form.

Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven to a mustard seed, which though the smallest of all seeds, grows up to become a tree so big that the birds of the Heavens can nest in its branches. The word evolution originally meant growth or unfolding as in the way a seedling emerges from its seed casing and grows to become an adult plant, so in a way Jesus Christ actually teaches that the Kingdom of Heaven evolves!

Matthew 13: to Matthew 13:9. A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop-- a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He, who has ears, let him hear.

This parable definitely teaches that out of an abundance of life forms, only a few manage to adept to their environment enough to survive to reproduce.

Another example. Matthew 7.13. To 7:14. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.

Again Jesus Christ teaches that out of an abundance of life forms only a few succeed in life.

This from a christian...

Answer 3

You can believe that God created everything without having to abandon logic. I think that the creation story in Genesis is symbolic and was written to the audience of the time. Obviously, early man wouldn't have been able to understand the complicated explanation of the methods that God used to bring all this into being.

The problem with the "everything or nothing" scenario when it comes to following The Bible is that so much is open to interpretation. And that's the point of Protestantism ... that scripture can be interpreted individually and that all interpretations are valid. So its never our place to judge how someone else views scripture.

Answer 4

There seem to be an astonishing amount of people who profess to be Christians and don't believe the bible. I think a person can believe in Jesus and not understand that the bible can be trusted as God's word. But I would hope these people would become better informed sooner, rather than later, about what the bible is, i.e., the inspired word of God.

Answer 5

The answer depends first of all upon what you mean by "creationism". Like does it mean that God instantly created all things about the year 4100 bc?

Secondly is that issue of whether whatever definition of creationism you come up with is necessarily the intended meaning of whatever passages in the Bible are used to justify such a concept.

Can really answer seeing as you haven't really clarified what you mean, nor what 20% of the bible you're talking about. What 20% of the Bible talks about "creationism"?

Answer 6

No, evolution can be the way of creation, God is eternal, he has the time. If he so chooses he could be the cause behind anything scientists tell me happened.

That said i don't care all that much now either way. You'll find that if you don't look at evolution as a fulfrontal assault on theism you won't care about it.

edit: When Jesus talked about the bread of the pharisees did he litterary mean the bread? No, he meant their teachings. That is one fully confirmed metaphor, do you think that to those days written in genesis really refer to the not yet created earth's turning cycle? Come on, strengthen your belief.

Answer 7

If to be a Christian you have to believe the word of God, then one must believe in creationism. It is in a good part of the old testament which describes the creation of Adam & Eve. Science has maintained that some types of early man no longer exist such as neandrothals, so there's clearly wiggle room for everything else.

Answer 8

One can get saved, and know that one is saved, but I don't consider believing the Adam and Eve account literally is necessary for this.

It does make some of the theology, e.g. Romans 5, easier to comprehend if one takes it literally.


Paul, Peter etc were preaching Christ not Adam and Eve. They may have mentioned Adam and Eve in passing, but only to show that mankind had fallen into sin. Roman culture at that time was very corrupt, so they could point at the behaviour of people in general to show men fell short of God's glory.

By saying that it is necessary one can make the christian faith look stupid to people who have investigated Earth and life sciences; so they don't take seriously the need to put faith in Christ to have their sins forgiven.

Things like fossils are very hard to explain away. Having God place them in situ to provide false evidence seems out of character.

Evolution as taught by atheists is probably very oversimplified though. They cannot actually prove that God did not manoevre the evolutionary process; its not possible to get scientifc proof. There are mysteries about life that remain unexplained - e.g. cells are *extremely* complicated.

Answer 9

Isn't Creationism the belief that God created the entire universe in six literal 24 hour days?

Many honest Christians do not believe that, but do believe in special creation by God.

Really, how or why would the one who established time itself be working on a 24 hour clock?

A 24 hour clock is of meaning only to those on the earth due to the rotation of the planet. Well they didn't get on the planet till the 6th day.

God's "day" is as long as He wanted it to be.

Answer 10

You can be a Christian and reject creationism you can believe in god and evolution if you choose to .If you find evolution to make more sense than creationism .that is like saying if you think evolution to be true (which in my opinion is the truth) than your and atheist that looking at thing in black and white and ignoring all the gray areas