Three Views on Creation and Evolution (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) by Moreland J. P. & Reynolds John Mark

Author:Moreland, J. P. & Reynolds, John Mark [Moreland, J. P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780310873983
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2010-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

What would I call such a perspective? Oddly, that presents me with a minor problem. I wish to employ a name that does not carry all of the negative baggage that has come to be associated with some of the more familiar terminology of the creation-evolution debate. And since this book is directed primarily to a Christian audience, I wish also to employ a name that most clearly demonstrates the Christian foundation on which my perspective is built.

Views similar to mine are sometimes identified with the label theistic evolution. But that term has some very serious shortcomings. As I see it, it turns the order of importance of divine and creaturely action upside down. Because it appears as the noun, the term evolution—which focuses our attention on the natural action of creatures—appears to be the central idea. Meanwhile, by referring to God only in the adjective, theistic, the importance of divine creative action seems to be secondary. But that implication would be unacceptable to me.

As a means toward restoring the relative importance of divine and creaturely actions I have sometimes used the label evolving creation for my perspective. I think it’s a much better term than theistic evolution, but it still has the problem of having to deal with all of the negative attitudes that a majority of Christians have toward anything that even sounds like “evolution.” As I have already indicated, the scientific concept of evolution, properly defined, does not entail any idea that conflicts with the historic Christian doctrine of creation. The reality is, however, that many persons, both within and outside of the Christian community, and both within and outside of the scientific community, have been led by the rhetoric of the creation-evolution debate to associate the word “evolution” with the worldview of naturalism. That association is, I believe, the result of a serious misunderstanding of both “evolution” and “creation.” But even if the association of evolution with naturalism is entirely unfounded, as I believe it is, that association is deeply established in our culture and extremely difficult to correct.5

So, then, what label shall I choose for my concept of a creation that has been equipped by God with all of the capabilities that are necessary to make possible the evolutionary development now envisioned by the natural sciences? For the purposes of the discussion to be carried out in this book, I shall call it the fully gifted creation perspective—a vision that recognizes the entire universe as a creation that has, by God’s unbounded generosity and unfathomable creativity, been given all of the capabilities for self-organization and transformation necessary to make possible something as humanly incomprehensible as unbroken evolutionary development.

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