Can evolution and Christianity coexist?

Question

Can people that believe in evolution acknowledge that there may be a higher power that had some input into the creation of the earth?

Can fundamentalists acknowledge that parts of the Bible may not be intended to be interpretted literally and maybe other things transpired that created our world.

I, personally believe that, we as Christians often "put God in a box" and in our minds, limit what he may or may not have done entirely on the Bible.

The Bible is not an exhaustive narrative of the complete life of Jesus Christ...there are things that he said and did in his 30+ years that obviously did not make it into the Bible.

God transcends us and our knowledge...and, I believe, God transcends the Bible.

I acknowledge that maybe we did evolve...or even possibly, two rocks collided together...

But, for my finite mind to comprehend, I also believe that something much greater than us had to create those rocks or species...something that is the alpha and the omega.

Answer 1

I for one have never understood the problem between evolution and creationism. You can read Genesis as a description of the evolutionary process - first Light (ie energy, exactly as science tells us, energy being the primal state of everything), then water (as we know the earth, once it had cooled and solidified was water, the primal ooze), then land out of the water etc, then animals and creatures an then Man. The Jews always saw Genesis this way. The Kaballists had some fifty stages of evolution from primal chaos to Man and believed that further evolutions would follow - and these were ideas around pre the existence of Christ! The Jew never saw the word "Day" as meaning twenty-four hours in God's terms but saw it as meaning an age.

As you say, the Bible is not literal truth but spiritual metaphor evoking a higher truth. Creationists have a simplistic view that God designed everything and it sprang into being. Scientists split into two - mechanistic scientists who regard the Universe as accidental machinery and quantum scientists who see everything in the Universe as Consciousness.

So look at it this way, if God is Consciousness and the Universe is Consciousness, then perhaps here is where science and spirituality can meet. The Universe therefore created itself, concealing itself just as the mystics and the scientists tell us.

There is a time for connections to be made.

Answer 2

Some Christians do believe a mixture of Evolution and Creation. How ever the EN-TIER bible speaks agents the foundations of Evolution. It says the earth and space was created in six literal days, by his voice and breath. There is no gap between His words. What God says is true. We live in a very young earth. Nothing Evolved into another. Everything thing was made after its' kind. Science itself proves it. God said how he made the earth. No one was there but God. If He says He made the earth and all things in it within six days, that is good enough for me. And to me that is true History.
Does this mean I put God in a box? Absolutely not. On the contrary, this only shows that my view of God isn't small but great and more powerful. Could God have created the world and universe with a big bang and had us evolve from another species. Sure!! But He didn't. He said what he said. We were made from the dust of the earth. He made me from something that's worth nothing. Yet I became one of his most important creations. To take care of his world and be accountable for my fellow man.

Answer 3

There are millions of Christians who are not fundamentalists and accept evolution. The Catholic Church and the Pope accept evolution, as do most Episcopalians, and most Lutherans. It is only fundamentalists who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible who don't accept evolution and the age of the earth. In the US that makes a significant portion of Christians, but if you go to Europe, it is hard to find Christians who don't accept evolution. They look on the story of Genesis as a quaint metaphor for the power of God written by people over 2000 years ago. When science and the Bible disagree, science wins. It really did not take long for even the 15th century church to accept that the earth was round or to accept that the earth moved round the sun.

Answer 4

Of course it's possible for them both to be believed as truth in a believer, though evolution allegedly has no need of a God. But plenty of churches out there are accepting evolution as gospel.

The question, though, is: does it generally jive with what the Bible has to say? How the authors meant it to be interpretted?

Since we know through the Hebrew whether a story is poetry, allegory, or historical account, we can at least see whether or not Biblical interpretation in such a way allows for it.

Some have come to the conclusion that it doesn't; others have.

But then we get into questioning the science used behind evolution and whether it's worth it to trade in Biblical concepts for the theory, and that's a whole new game..

Answer 5

I can acknowledge that there is a possibility of a supreme being or beings.But I can not acknowledge any specific religious ideas of who or what this being or beings are.As such, I remain Atheistic and think in terms of science and logic with regards to the natural beginnings of life on Earth.

I do not believe it is impossible to believe in a creator and believe in the evolution of creation.But that is up to who ever wants to believe in both.As you said, the Bible is open to interpretation and literal translations are dangerous at best since literal translations don't leave much room for anything that has proof of contradicting that translation.

Answer 6

No.

No matter what your "finite mind" can comprehend, the fact is that god does not exist. For the simple reason that as difficult as it may seem to accept evolution and the "big bang", it is several orders of magnitude more difficult to accept the idea that "god" created everything.

Answer 7

I went to Catholic school, so did my husband...this has never been an issue. We were taught science as science. Catholics aren't Bible thumpers. Evolution and creation seems to co exist just fine in the Catholic faith, well at least it does in Southern California

Answer 8

Jesus was very adimate about the whole law. That would include Genesis as well, where it clearly states that God created, not God made a rock and then he let natural process take its toll.

Answer 9

They can't.
If you discredit what is clearly stated in the bible, then how can the god described in the bible be the correct god? It is possible, logically, to believe in both evolution and some god, but not the CHRISTIAN god.

Answer 10

No, they can not coexist.
You either believe God Almighty's word as absolute truth or you believe the theory of a mortal, fallible man.