Evangelical, bible-loving Christians, dismiss evolution out of hand despite any evidence, because "we believe the bible." In other words, the bible trumps "so called" science. And, if they were to accept evolution as true, it would put a major crimp in their ability to trust the bible in other areas.
HOWEVER... a few hundred years ago, a similar phenomenon happened. Science began to discover that the earth was round and not flat. It also discovered that we revolved around the sun, not vice versa. In the day, this caused as much stir and controversy in the church as evolution does today. The scientists who heralded the new truth were figuratively burned at the stake as infidels. This was serious business. A lot was at stake for the church.
So... what's my point? Well, science won. And somehow the church was able to reinterpret all the scripture passages to fit with this new worldview, and life went on.
I speculate about whether the church will be able to do the same thing with evolution. IF it gathers increasing scientific support to the point where it's as undeniable/irrefutable as the Copernican revolution, while the church adjust? Will it successfully reinterpret all the relevant passages in a satisfactory way, and move on? Or will this be a death nail in the coffin of bible-based Christianity? How elastic is evangelicalism? How much of the veracity of the bible can be chipped away at and still retain its aura of inspiration/infallibility/inerrancy?
These are good questions. Important questions.
In my opinion, the Darwinian revolution is more significant than the Copernican one. Why? Well, it's not too difficult to understand that when the biblical authors described the world, heavens, etc., they used metaphors that they could understand. For example, they might say "the four corners of the earth" to mean the whole earth. It's easy to understand what they were getting at. It does not seem to strike at the core of any important doctrine.
However, if there was no literal adam and eve, there was no literal fall, there was no serpent, there was no cain and abel, etc. etc. The whole foundation of what the rest of the bible addresses starts to disentegrate.
I think that will be a much bigger challenge for the church to adjust to than the Copernican one.
How do you think it will turn out?
I join the chorus of Christians calling other believers to accept the claims of biological evolution. And I, along with you, think one of the major obstacles with Christianity at large coming around on this issue is the question of Adam and Eve, original sin, the fall, etc. I don't see this, however, as a disintegration of the whole foundation of what the Bible addresses. When read properly, even alongside the claims of evolution, I think it raises wonderful questions and issues for Christians to explore. And I think, in the end, the basic shape of the biblical narrative will still remain intact. But you're right: it will be a much bigger challenge for the church to adjust to than the Copernican one, which is why I think it's taking so long.
ReplyDeleteI don't know history well enough to know how long the Copernican adjustment took, but it would be interesting to compare the timeline of that with this event.
ReplyDeleteMy hunch is that this revolution may be speeded along by our hyper-connected world. In the old days, how did new information get acquired, spread, debated? SLOWLY!! lol