Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Charles Darwin has massively influenced the modern world. 200 years after his birth, his struggles leading up to publishing On the Origin of Species are explored in a new film, Creation, starring Paul Bettany as Darwin. The title is surprising but apt, since the film is partly about the creation of his book and partly about his doubts that God directly created every distinct species. But above all, it is the story of Darwin’s struggles over one particular aspect of creation: suffering. Creation doesn’t tell the story in chronological order, indicating Darwin’s inner turmoil. His disquiet is partly intellectual. His meticulous explorations in the natural world have led him to conclusions that don’t mesh easily with the predominant views of his day.[...] [...]
Five weeks today sees the release in UK cinemas of Creation, a film about the life of Charles Darwin directed by Jon Amiel (The Core, Entrapment). The screenplay is by Jon Collee (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World), based on the book Annie’s Box by Randall Keynes (Charles Darwin’s great-great-grandson). It stars real-life husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as Charles and Emma Darwin, and is an emotional journey into the grief that shaped one of the great scientific minds of the last 200 years. [...]
Further reading on the Creation-Evolution debate [...]
Part two of a two-part article first published in Christianity magazine in 2005. [...]
Writing anything on creation and evolution within these pages feels akin to sticking a sign on my back reading, ‘Kick me!’ I’m exposing myself to attack from one side or another – or maybe from every side! What drives me to stick my head above the parapet is a couple of strong convictions. First, I am absolutely convinced that Christians who disagree should be discussing the issues in a loving, gentle, humble way rather than attacking each other. It seems to me that attacking each other is becoming more common as the debate becomes more polarised. My second conviction is that by focusing on controversy, we are missing significant opportunities to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ in a world which desperately needs to hear it. So here are ten things you need to know about the creation/evolution debate. Wherever you’re coming from on this issue, I would encourage you not to instantly write off things you disagree with, but give them some more thought. If we’re ever going to sort this issue out it seems to me that we have to approach the questions more open-mindedly than perhaps we’ve ever done before. [...]
What does Genesis 1 say to us today? The writer of Genesis would have been very aware of various creation stories believed by the surrounding pagan nations in the Ancient Near East. Those of the superpowers – Babylon, Assyria and Egypt – would have been very influential on the whole region. It was vital that Israel had a right understanding of God and his creation. Genesis 1:1 – 2:3 knocks many of these pagan myths on the head. [...]
What is the purpose of Genesis 1? I said in the previous article that we are mistaken to go to Genesis 1 with a scientific agenda – to ask scientific questions about the age of the earth and so on – because that’s not what Genesis 1 is for. It’s purpose is theological not scientific. It is interested in meanings and relationships not mechanisms. So we should be expecting to see Genesis addressing questions that would have been asked by people in the Ancient Near East back when it was written. The same questions are, in fact, still being asked by people today – although in very different terms. But before we can get to those big answers to big questions, we must get to grips with Genesis 1 and find out more about it. This is a basic principle of all good Bible study. When we come to any passage of Scripture, the question burning in our minds is, ‘How is this relevant to me in my world?’ But before we can answer that question we must ask a more fundamental one – ‘What was God’s original intention in this passage?’ Or, if you like, ‘How was this relevant to the people who first heard or read this in their world?’ The first thing we must do is to see Genesis 1 in context – both its context within Genesis (and the whole Bible) and its historical context. This is called the literary-cultural approach to biblical interpretation. So, how can we answer that fundamental question, ‘What was God’s original intention in this passage?’ [...]
How do we understand Genesis 1? So far in this series we have seen two reasons for the apparent conflict between science and faith. First, science and the Bible have different agendas (‘how?’ versus ‘why?’). Second, the issues are not as clear-cut as people on both sides like to think. As a result, the debate tends to be viewed in very polarised terms. Either God created everything in six twenty-four hour days, or the universe and life came into existence by chance and have steadily evolved. Polarisation is a mistake There are at least three reasons why this polarisation is a mistake. [...]
What really matters in the science-Christianity debate? Planet Earth may have had its 6000th birthday in the last few years. In 1650, Archbishop James Ussher calculated its age by adding up the ages of people and reigns of kings in the Old Testament. He concluded (conveniently) that Creation had happened 4000 years before Jesus’s birth. This gave a date of 4004 BC – a scholar named Joseph Scaliger had already noticed that Herod had died by 1 AD,1 so Jesus must have actually been born in 4 BC at the latest. Ussher even somehow narrowed it down to 9 am on 23 October, although, he said, the action must have started around 6 pm on the previous evening. On 20 October 1996, The Observer carried an article ridiculing Ussher’s calculation, by Mark Ridley, an Oxford zoologist. And rightly so. Ussher counted in such a way as to get 4000 years between the creation and incarnation because of a Jewish tradition that the earth would last 6000 years made up of three 2000-year phases. The Messiah’s coming must usher in the third and final 2000 year period, so the world would end on 23 October 1996 – or perhaps at 6pm the evening before. [...]
Can we be so sure of what we think we know? In the previous article we looked at one reason for the apparent conflict between science and faith: they have different approaches. Science is concerned to understand the space-time world of matter and energy. It wants to know how things work. Christian faith is concerned to understand more than that. The Bible shows us that there is far more to this world than simply what’s physical: there is a supernatural, spiritual dimension to life. There is a Creator who brought the universe into being and who wants a relationship with the creatures he’s made. There are real angels and a real devil. There really is spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6). [...]
Do science and Christianity conflict? Most people don’t think about science and faith. If they do, the first thing that comes to their minds is conflict. To most people they are irreconcilable enemies – and science is the undisputed victor. The ‘science has disproved the Bible’ kind of response is common when discussing Christian things with people. In the student world, the problem is worse among arts students. Interestingly, science and engineering students far outnumber arts students in many Christian Unions. But, in those bastions of objectivity, the science faculties, there are plenty who feel the same – even if they don’t put it it quite so bluntly. They think science is intellectually superior and that religion is a load of unsubstantiated, subjective claptrap. There are many Christians, too, who see Christianity and science as being at war. For them, if there is conflict, it’s the science that is wrong. [...]
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