My Thoughts on Evolution

To be honest, the topic of evolution used to confuse and even scare me a little. I knew people who were radically on either end of the evolution discussion, some who insisted that it was a great falsity and others who scoffed at the idea of God having any part of it. The first thing that always came into my mind when evolution was brought up was apes and to be honest, living in a very liberal part of the country, most people found my beliefs to be silly, so I in turn tried to find their beliefs silly. “Adam is my oldest ancestor,” I would think, “not a monkey.” Some people tried to use evolution as proof against the existence of a God. I became wary of the topic.

But evolution is not proof against God. I have come to know that for myself. Just because people tried to use it as a weapon against me and my beliefs, doesn’t mean that it is a valid argument. God created our magnificent earth, he created the complex system of the biosphere and all the organisms living in it. I believe that Adam is truly my first ancestor. But I also believe that many organisms have slowly developed over time, changing and adapting to their environment, and I believe that evolution is a tool that God has used to allow organisms to survive.

As Doctor Booth wrote in his article, both science and religion are based on the pursuit of truth, and both are good and noble things to study and seek. The sad thing is that there are some people who have felt that studying evolution led them to atheism. But the beauty of the human mind, the longing for meaning and purpose, and the incredible power of love (as cliché as that sounds) are not things that I think could exist without a creator, without God. Evolution is a magnificent process that is part of God’s plan for his earth. Dr. Francis Collins, scientist and director of the human genome process, said quite simply: “as a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan” in a recent article on CNN. He goes on to assert that there is real evidence for the existence of God; that it is a reasonable postulation to think that there is a creator. But how could that idea hold up with out faith? The believer must trust in both knowledge and faith, both the data on the chart and the whisperings of the spirit. Being a religious scientist is possible as long as one trusts in God before man, and sees the Lord’s hand in all of his complex and incredible creations, including man. I once watched a TED talk by a neurologist of some sort, and man who studied the development of the brain. He spoke with awe and adulation of his discoveries of the magnificent workings of the human brain, and then testified that he could not deny the existence of a God who had created that brain. It was too beautiful, too magnificent to be just a big coincidence.

As Collins so eloquently concluded, “The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.” What a statement. Science allows us to understand God better, to appreciate his great creations and our deepest blessings. To understand and appreciate these things, and then to say in wonderment “how great thou art,” is to truly worship him.

(Link to the awesome article about Dr. Collins here)