Creationism and Darwinism Aren't Mutually Exclusive

Science has taught us the Earth is billions of years old and we’ve learned that over the course of this time many changes happened to the planet’s surface, atmosphere, oceans and land.  The slow but constant change is what we know to be evolution.  Earth saw mass extinctions, collisions with space debris, changes in climate, formations of continents and bodies of water, and a balance of the right gasses, all of which give us a habitable planet.  

I am a religious girl – Roman Catholic, but I also cannot refute science so they have been balanced in my life.  I accept the truths of science and I accept the truth of my religion, without bias, without conflict.  So the debate between Darwinism and Creationism has always perplexed me.  If God created everything then it stands to reason that he created evolution, too.  Why did these two concepts have to be mutually exclusive?  

A few years ago I was reading the Book of Genesis.  These are the first pages of the Bible and I’m sure you recognize the opening line: “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and Earth”.  The passage then proceeds to list all of God’s other creations.  At this moment, I had an epiphany.  I realized the first chapter of the Bible actually describes the process of evolution.

Cool, huh? 

I know; there are discrepancies.  Firstly, the order of God’s creation isn’t completely in line with the actual order of evolution.  This has provoked the dinosaur argument among my acquaintances: “Why aren’t dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible?  The absence of them alone tells us the Bible is wrong.”  [*Sigh*]  The Bible is not an encyclopedia; it is a manual for spiritual living written for a specific culture in a manner that allowed that culture to understand the message. The people of Biblical times did not have the capacity to understand the world around them as we understand it today.  So dinosaurs (and amoebas and black holes for that matter) are absent from the Bible because knowledge of their existence was absent.

Also, the Bible, though inspired by God, is written by man.  Of course we’d fluff it up with those bits about having dominion over all creatures and being made in God’s image.  We are egotistical beings, and we have an awareness of our existence.  Making claims that we’re dominant and god-like serves to justify our greedy and selfish actions (which are very ungodly, indeed).  

In the Bible, creationism is cut and dry.  God created, it was good, on to the next action item.  Evolution, however, does not occur on a straight line but rather branches out and grows in tandem with other instances of evolution.  Nonetheless, the parallels between creationism and Darwinism exist. To illustrate my point, I condensed the first chapter of the Book of Genesis and explained how it supports the theory of evolution.

Have I still got your attention?  Good. 

The Book of Genesis [1:1 – 1:31] – Condensed and Paralleled with Darwinism

God created the heavens and the earth

This is the Big Bang. Easy.

God created light

This is actually intended to be different from sunlight as it has a more spiritual nature.  The Bible states the Earth was a formless void until God intervened so let’s look at this parallel little differently. Imagine God manipulated the Earth, as a potter manipulates the clay on his wheel.  He works it, reshapes it and at times, dissatisfied, recreates a new piece using the same mass of clay.  This is what’s happening with the Earth.  It heats to a fiery ball and cools to total ice.  It is being worked and reworked to perfection.

God created day and night

Our planet spins.  If it didn’t, one half would be desert and the other would be snow and ice.  Life would be difficult even impossible in such extremes.

God created the sky

Our atmosphere formed and all of the gasses in it balanced to the breathable air we have today.

God created the dry land of the earth and the seas

Water started condensing in liquid form, great continents and mountains formed.

God created the sun and moon

The moon is not as old as the sun and Earth.  It coalesced from fragments of Earth and other space debris when Earth and a planetoid collided.  So although not in accurate order, the Bible does state that the moon was created after Earth, which is accurate.

God created fish, amphibians, and birds

God created mammals and all other land species, such as insects and reptiles

The first life on Earth occurred in oceans and clearly this concept existed in Biblical times since the Bible states the first life as fish.  Science teaches us that animals evolved thusly: single-celled organisms, multi-celled organisms, invertebrates, fish, amphibian, reptile, bird then mammal. When we look at the order of life the Bible’s order is a little off, as both land and sea animals evolved simultaneously on Earth, but it’s pretty darn close considering the concept of evolution was several millenniums away.

God created humans

As with evolution, humans were the last creature to appear on Earth. 

God creates a cycle so the Earth and all its creatures are self-sustaining

Spore formation began and sexual reproduction was born!  Yea, sex!  This allows all living things to go forth and multiply.  Changes in environment and available food sources caused species to alter characteristics in order to adapt to the world around them.

I hope you can see the parallels.  In the Bible we see Earth’s creation developed from a careful, methodic strategy to not only establish but ensure the planet was well-balanced and teeming with life.  Kind of sounds like evolution, right?  It’s important to remember God is omnipotent.  He would know all life on Earth needed to happen gradually and so he allowed for a slow and methodical change - evolution.  The Bible even states this, it says so in scripture.  God said:

"Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear."

"Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it." 

"Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky." 

The keyword I want you to focus on is “let”, which is starkly different from “God created”.  “Let” is one simple word that tells us God didn’t wave a magic wand and - poof - things appeared. Rather, “let” tells us that God asked the world to create the remaining elements and biology on its own.  When God commands, nothing refuses.  Hence, God created evolution.

Lastly, let’s remember that God blessed everything.  Religious or not, we are blessed, lucky, fortunate (what have you) to be given such a beautiful world.  Let’s not squabble so much as to how it got here because regardless of our origin, we are an intricate design of this planet, and we need to foster harmony within it.

Neil deGradde Tyson, American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator, beautifully articulates the same point with a scientific language.  I leave you with it.