Evolution and Creationism

(The following was published in the March 22nd edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times.)

Evolution versus Intelligent Design continues to be another either/or issue. But the problem is that people are arguing about two different things. Science focuses on how we got to where we are as human beings. The Spiritual focuses on why we are here at all. Science focuses on the mechanics of how we look like we do and how our motor parts enable us to function. The Spiritual focuses on why human beings were created in the first place, assuming that some “One” intended for it to happen in a purposeful way for an intended outcome (e.g. everlasting life in heaven). Science is consumed with that which is visible, thereby “provable and knowable”; the Spiritual assumes a greater force that invisible to the eye, thereby “improvable yet knowable.”

I do not know how one can sit on a beach and watch the waves continually roll in from as far out as one can see, or sit on a mountain and watch a brilliantly colorful sunset, without knowing that this is all well beyond man’s capabilities. I do not know how a scientist, peering through the highest powered lens at cellular images, cannot but be continually amazed at the intricate design conceived in order to make our incredibly sophisticated life form work.

Creationism is about the Design of earthly existence. Evolution is about the Mechanics for how the Design is fulfilled. New buildings are constructed using everything we have learned about physical laws, materials composition and the art of color and angles. Modern day computers can solve problems, create images and transmit information over thousands of miles in a near-instant using logic, mathematics, and electrical principles. An automobile can move us in style, safety and comfort based upon principles of combustion, inertia and mechanics. Behind each of these was an architect, a computer programmer, or an engineer with a Visionary Design and Great Idea who knew what needed to come together to make it happen.

The birth of a human being is a spectacular convergence of component parts and intangible thoughts. To look at mind, thought and body and their interactions at the detail level of their complexity is as spectacular as that overwhelming view from the mountaintop. But the human being also first needed a Design, followed by the Mechanics necessary to carry out that design.

It is very clear that part of the Mechanic is for human beings to evolve into their form. Gradual, step-by-step growth to becoming fully formed is the rule in all life forms. A human being does not emanate from the womb as a whole and completed adult. An infant began at a cellular level in a union of sperm and egg. That simple cell evolved over time in shape, color, substance and volume to ultimately become the baby we see. We then evolve over the course of our lifetime, gradually changing, almost imperceptibly, from birth to adulthood to old age, one moment and one day at a time. Given what we see in our own individual lives, is it not safe to assume that the whole of humanity would have evolved in some manner over the full history of our ancestors? Evolution serving as the tool by which Intelligent Design is made to happen?

How do we reconcile the poetry of creation stories with the science? Easy. For example, I could describe on multiple levels the fried chicken dinner my Mother used to make. I could describe how she took pieces of chicken and fried them within a detailed recipe of flour coating; boiled potatoes, mashed them with added milk, covered them with gravy; opened a can of peas and heated them on the stove. Or I could describe the entire “farm-to-plate” production chain that brings the chicken’s egg to its ultimate place on my plate. Finally, I could detail how the molecular structure of a chicken changes in hot oil in a skillet. Each version of my dinner’s creation story is correct and compatible, yet told from different vantage points.

We may argue over who truly knows the Great Designer that created the human plan. We may argue over how much science remains to be discovered before really knowing how our human thing works. We can never fully know that which we call God. Science will always have one more level to discover. In the end, both God and Science are needed to create all that we see. And both remain unknowable mysteries in our human lifetime.