The Genesis 1 Galaxy is Cool!
We started from a positive acceptance of the scientific data, or facts, on evolution, so we did not even consider a reading Genesis 1 with any fears for 'contradiction' with science. This approach is of course very different from making up our mind upfront, based on our (often primitive, and interpreted) understanding of the Biblical account. When our views need to change, it is not really science changing biblical views, but our own understanding of our environment that changes - and it changes all the time of course, because "times are changing" as the saying goes. In religion, some things never change - but that is particularly true for the high appreciation of the human being, less so for how we perceive the universe for instance.
On evolution, remember that while evolution theories are a way to making sense of the data, explaining the facts in a consistent way, the principle of evolution is simply the sum of scientific data about our ancestry. Even without theory, or with just very primitive theory (basic classification of what we observe), this data shows clear patterns or what obviously looks like a slow development of life towards a figure we recognize as us, mankind, the human being. A believer who has an open mind and eye for it will observe that the human being in Genesis 1 is a surprisingly modern human being. Calling the scientific documentation of the traces of our diverse past evolution is not contradictory with Genesis 1. In science, evolution is the only way to accurately name the process. In theory formation, one cannot look at traces of human ancestry, and then bring in Genesis 1 and say: "God created these traces as we see them". That would be like looking at a car and saying: "God created this car at once" - no building up of all the individual pieces was necessary. This is not how science works of course. And we must respect that. It follows that a creation account is something different than science - but not any less true for that reason.
With this in mind, let us now look at Genesis 1, knowing that we should not treat the Bible as a scientific document.
What kind of story is Genesis 1?
The reading of Genesis 1 may impose a problem if you learned to read it as a literal report on how the creation actually happened, in stead of reading this as a report on more important aspects not covered by science.
As we have seen in our former blog posts, the Genesis 1 account reads like an allegory of some kind. Saying allegory is taking a shortcut, as Genesis 1 has also often been described as elevated prose, or a theological manifesto, and other descriptions. It is important however, to realize that allegory does not indicate it has no basis in reality. An allegory is not a fiction. Allegories always have a historical basis. Santa Claus is not an allegory. Most of the parables, a narrative style often used by Jesus, clearly had a historical basis. This was the way stories were often handed down in ancient times, for educational purpose. Still, there is history writing behind it in almost all cases (e.g. the naming of genealogy trees: those names were not just invented of course). You cannot exclude historical truth from an account just because the style of an ancient document was different from what we are used to. Accuracy may not always have been the prime purpose - for instance in Jewish genealogy trees we find gaps. That does not make the account untrue - it just makes it inaccurate on certain points (e.g. exact timing) from a modern viewpoint. The modern viewpoint does not allow unqualified judgments about ancient writings of course: all things must be judged against the background of the time of occurrence. So one may have to make corrections to get the timing right - but historians know how to do this. There's nothing that compares with a fantasy story here.
Genesis 1 is written in a narrative form, the so-called wayyiqtol form, let's say the imperfect tense, to keep it simple (actually, it is an imperfect aspect. From a narrative point of view, imperfect tense indicates that the narrator increases the reader's involvement with the story - he's invited to see things through the eyes of the narrator. The narrative form is of course chronologically determined by its very nature, and the basic form of Genesis 1 is a narrative, something that happened in history - be it not necessarily in a strict chronological order. This is also confirmed by the fact that the author was clearly familiar with the Egyptian Egyptian creation motifs in the Genesis creation account. The Egyptian motifs do not have explicit characteristics of historical events. The Genesis author in turn does not simply borrow from Egyptian mythology, but, as so often happens in the Biblical accounts, concepts from the neighborhood are used (hence adding the signs of historical embedding in the scriptures - always a strong point with regard to Biblical historicity) yet demythologize these concepts (or gods, monsters etc.) to form a polemic against these concepts, gods etc. Therefore, in Genesis 1 the one true God does not need other gods to create. So it is a narrative of some sort, but it is also a polemic, not just a strictly successive account.
Hebrew is a complex and flexible language, in many ways not inferior to modern languages. The imperfect (wayyiqtol) form may be "the backbone or storyline tense of Biblical Hebrew narrative discourse" (R.E. Longacre, Discourse Perspective on the Hebrew Verb, in Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew, 1992) but text-syntactic research of the Hebrew language has sufficiently demonstrated that it can also freeze this form in order to give background information in non-wayyiqtol form. John A. Cook for instance argues that "wayyiqtol is best understood as marking the most salient events in narrative, whether in the primary string of events or in flashback narration". Examples like Genesis 29:23-25a, 28-30a, Num 1:48 (and other ones, typically often used by anti-religious opponents to demonstrate the 'absurdity' of some account) illustrate what we know from our current understanding of the Hebrew (and also Arabic) languages. Temporal succession may be the default characteristic of narration, it is not limited to that. An author will usually mark an event as "out of sequence" by switching to another tense, and that happens in Genesis 1 several times. For instance in Genesis 1:5: "And He God called [=wayyiqtol form] the light Day, and the darkness He called [quatal form] night". The tense transition is used when the author does not want to express succession. We find this 3 times in Genesis 1. Even while these markers are not strictly necessary, it is remarkable that Genesis 1 has them. They may act like early warning signs for the reader.
Actually, one can always come with objections. But without an extensive apparatus of notes in the margin, written by the original author, there is room for interpretation, although interpretation must always be reasonable. Someone's doubts cannot simply block all "other options. Without digging deep into the whole problem of human interpretation, it is clear that we will have to respect that a literal / sequential reading of Genesis 1 is not the only option we have.
Some examples
Now Genesis 1 does deliver us clear indications for an "out of sequence" reading being valid. For instance, sequential reading of Genesis 1 would entail the assumption that the sun and the moon were created when the earth already existed (Gen.1:15) - something no one would believe today. Now let us be careful: at this point, Christians often tend to jump into instant defense mode, saying things like "Do you really think an almighty God could not have created the earth before the sun and the moon?" But this is not the point at stake here. A different, reasonable way of reading a text is not a matter of "unbelief" or whatever, it is just another legal reading of the text. Not Gods almightiness is at stake then, but the quest for the best possible reading of the text. Even in His almightiness God does of course not ask his audience to believe every possible product of our poor insights.
Another example. The word 'day' is used hundreds of times throughout the Bible and it seems like it always means a literal day. People argue: why then would it suddenly not mean a literal day in Genesis 1? However, even in English, where we also use the word day mostly as a 24-hours period, we also use the word differently when we say something like: "the day that we will be released from these worries!". We don't mean a day of 24 hours here, rather do we refer to a moment in time, and actually what we mean is a new period, beginning from a particular moment. Of course: it is still related to the idea of a day. This is also the case with creation days not taken for literal 24-hour days: each day in Genesis 1 clearly is a period of activity - which is what a day is. Actually, this is exactly the interpretation we already do even while we don't realize it (no one actually reads Genesis 1 completely literally). The Genesis account speaks of days and nights - we automatically interpret a creation day as the period of daylight, but no one will really assume that God needed daylight in order to create the sun, the moon etc. It really is that simple: you interpret the text, reading it non-literally, and you don't even realize it. This should make us realize that much of the fuss is a bit over the top. We shouldn't be so worried about "not taking Gods word serious" just because of that. What we really should try is to read a text like grown-ups. Differences will not cease to exist, but it is reasonable to understand and accept all good readings of a text.
First Cause
The first part of Genesis 1 is about the creation of the universe. This blog is not a Bible study, we just try to make some basic sense of this beautiful story. There is something simple, straightforward and long-sighted about Genesis 1 - for those who want to see it. There is a simple and powerful beauty in the first phrase of the Bible:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"
The old Hebrews wrote a story meant to capture a vision of earth, universe, mankind's place in it, our human sense of eternity, purpose, hope, the restoration of the world. But Genesis 1 starts with a 'reconnection' with the origin of 'us', humans. Think about the word religion (religio), which goes probably back to re-ligare, meaning "to reconnect". Reconnect to what exactly? In a way, religion is always about reconnecting to the First Cause of things, the reason why whe are here. The word reason may sound odd here, as religion nowadays is so often ridiculed as if it would be in contrast with reason - but reason is more than logic. The word refers to a process of thinking, and to cause (the reason for something). There's not just logic behind that, but a worldview as well - such as Christianism, or atheism. People who claim reason to lead to atheism, claim that "for a reason" - and this is not a logical deduction from anything proven by science, it is a worldview.
In science, it is often said that there is no need for a fist cause. In discussions at a much more 'populistic' level (on user forums etc) this is often repeated lie a tantra, not realizing that we are talking about mathematical concepts, theoretical probabililties - not simply about 'facts'. There is this overall trend, maybe more among atheists than other people, to reduce the entire world and the people on it to the size of their own brain. Ignoring the God-idea is one thing, but when people start to take the concepts of mathematicians and (astro)physics, then extend that with a rather simplistic atheist mindset, attached to the concept as a thing having neither rhyme nor reason, it really is not about a solid reasoning, but more like a worldview defended with some bells and whistles borrowed from the scientific lexicon. We do not know about great and wonderful things happening witout a cause. Even our freedom we enjoy is not founded upon a mathematical model, it has been founded somewhere in history, with signatures under a physical document and courageous entrepreneurs of the 'New World' having done all the hard work for us. In theory, the entire universe seems to fit under the skull. of a scientist or even those who popularize their language - and don't get me wrong: I love science both ways. But I don't like the mix of science and worldviews. This world exists outside the small realm of someone's brains. I exist, not under the skull of a scientist but at the outside, as a free man (and let's hope it endures).
While evolution explains a lot about "how things may have happened", it does not eliminate causes. No one can look back into history to observe 'no cause'. Science is talking in concepts, and ultimately, those concepts end up in axiom's where the logic becomes invisible, untouchable. Evidence in science is defined within the given framework of the scientific method that brings about this evidence - this is a fact and there's no way around unless people would change the definitions of science. Which means: the observations of science are a heuristic at best - they aren't truth. Religion on the other hand, and also philosophy, will accept, almost as an axiom, the presupposition that not all true things are observable. Whether or not you agree with religious concepts, the difference between faith and fact, no matter how important in science, falls to pieces when we talk about life in a broader, common sense (where it makes commonsense, not science).
In cosmology, it took a long time before the concept of the Big Bang was accepted by the way - and not among Christians but among scientists in general, and atheists at the forefront. Because the Big Bang implicated that there must have been a first cause. The name Big Bang bears witness of the contempt that many scientists originally felt for the idea of a world having a beginning. The Big Bang is a theory based on several observations: Olber's Paradox, Nucleosynthesis, CMBR (Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation), Redshift and some spectacular observations by the Hubble space telescope (Deep Field Survey). Redshift is probably the easiest to understand because it has an equivalent that we all know from real life. Redshift is in essence comparable with the Doppler effect - e.g. what we hear when the source of a sound - such as an ambulance - passes by and then moves away from us quickly. The observation of redshift in light from distant galaxies is commonly accepted as resulting from the expansion of the universe.
Stephen Hawking wrote: "So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator? (Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time; Bantam, 1988; p.140-141). We know that Mr. Hawking still believed in a theory-of-everything at that time. Later on, he openly admitted he had given up that hope. It still remains true that "so long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator". And, to be honest, what would you have expected, really? Science being capable to prove the universe to be without a beginning? Whatever you may expect from our expanding universe, the 'evidence' of such no-beginning will inevitably have been exploded in one way or another, long ago.
There is still nothing absurd about acknowledging that many sides of life and cosmos remain unexplained. Attempts to explain things without a First Cause is feasible at the hypothetical level, but every hypothesis is as weak as it's weakest arguments. Many theories end at a point where they are still very weak - and in certain cases, this weakness may never be overcome.
Christians of course believe that God was at the origin of this creation of heaven and earth. Non-religious people can simply see this as a kind of a philosophical axiom, and of course you should not subscribe to it unless you want to. But monotheism starts there, and the pros and cons of the proposition can always be discussed. The Book can be discussed - at least there's a document to be consulted. Those hostile to religion usually limit their use of this Book to bring about what they see as contradictions and nonsense of all kinds, and this labeling business may probably help them to self-support their worldview, but in a serious discussion I have never met an argument against Judeo-Christian monotheism which is really as convincing as people hope it is. I believe in discussion - reasonable discussion. The 'axiom' of creation for instance does not prevent Christians (most of them) from looking at the scientific investigations at this point - what the data is actually saying. Having done that, Christians would still be in awe of how great God is. The facts of science would still be real and good just the same. The Bible tells us that we are made of dust. Science basically tells us that we are made of stardust. Why would that be in conflict? Because atheists have thought so for about 150 years?
Creation of the planets (Gen.1:3-10)
Back to Genesis 1: what does 46.5 billion light years mean to us? That is the estimated size of the universe as of now. Attempts to make sense of such 'grotesque' time span (like Tony Darnell's Hubble Deep Field video) still cannot really make those numbers turn into a vivid reality for us. This universe is still expanding. The continuous expansion of the universe is the reason why it can be 46.5 billion light years in size even while the estimated age of the universe is 'only' some 13.5 or 13.7 billion years old and nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Already from a simplistic viewpoint, expansion from a central point would deliver 2x 13.5 = 27 billion light years in size, but it is more complex than that. The entire universe is much bigger than the observable one, as explained in inflationary cosmology. Inflation theory, introduced in the 1980s, offered explanations to resolve a number of discrepancies in the classical theory of expanding universe, and the theory now includes lengthened distances due to cosmic expansion.
We won't really dig into this matter here. The point I want to make is a simple one: science has it's own way of describing the reality, and does that with some splendor, and while it is based on on mathematics to a large extent, it still has elegance to it. Moreover, the real pictures from this universe are stunning - like these ones, taken by the Hubble space telescope. But it would be over the top, maybe even inhumane, to ignore that the beauty of these things would NOT have been understood at all by people in ancient times. Do we really think telescope eyes turned us into people of value? Our forefathers did not have the means to uncover all the beauty yet, but that doesn't mean they were stupid. Today, there are many atheists saying, under influence of 'scientific theory' (but rather read: atheism) that "We Are (the real) Gods". However, the Jews were probably the first people who started with the rationalization of our world, or the disenchantment of this world as Max Weber already understood so clearly - and they did it by claiming exactly the opposite: nothing in creation can be called God. It is the magna charta of monotheism that nature nor humans can be God(s). Therefore, everything can be investigated without shame - which is ONE of (not the only one) the strong impulses behind science and why the Western World is what it is today - and why the Chinese and others did not get there sooner.
Many of the great founders of modern science, such as Newton, or Kepler, were motivated by their religious views. That does not mean religion is necessary - it just means religion is not by definition an impediment in any way. Robert Jastrow makes the remark:
"The historian of science must be well aware that it is often the branches of science which seem to have the greatest theological impact that are most rapidly developed (astronomy at all times, geology in the late nineteenth century, physics in the twentieth century). Pascal, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Darwin, Pasteur, Kelvin, Lyell, Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Eddington, and Jeans were all involved in theology as well as science." (Jastrow, 1992, 2nd Ed., God and the Astronomers, p.119)
People like Dawkins, Harris and Dennett have argued that the kind of thing that Jastrow suggested, was the wrong approach. But Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, Harris focuses on neuroscience, Dennett mostly on evolutionary biology as well. These guys were already fundamentally on the wavelength of the natural sciences when they started their career as the New Radicals on the Block. It is very unlikely, from a calculus of probability point of view, that they will ever produce during their lifetime anything that makes much good sense on the subject of religion.
Genesis 1:3-10 does not speak about the 'universe' in any scientific way. It does not describe a 'solar system' for instance - although it certainly describes our sun and moon, and the stars (or 'lights'). That is what mankind could observe. It is presented in a grand way. Genesis does not say that the earth was at the center of the circling planets of our solar system - but the earth was of course the central place from which we knew we were living - and, look around, what a surprise: scientists today still won't (and cannot) deny that the earth is the center of our everyday experiences, of our life - even while math sallow them to reason as if they stand on some remote planet in another galaxy (where they have never been, and will never go).
When Christians (and others!) read Genesis 1 with joy and praise not strictly related to the otherwise scientific beauty of the universe, it may be because of the joy they find in the Creator. That goes far beyond the perspective of science of course. But does it contrast with science? Not that I know. If a God Beyond the Galaxies fills the hearts of believers, increase their hopes, their joy, their visions for the future, their longing for a better world, it normally does not require the denial of scientific observation at all, nor is it the subject of science - although the scientific means of observation may of course extend our observations beyond what our eyes can see, and increase some of this joy. But how would scientific theory about the universe ever replace the particular interest that mankind has had in these things, from a religious (and philosophical) viewpoint? For religions, the human being has always been central. Not so in science.
The ancient Hebrews started their story with the idea of a creation account with the human being central to it - which is by all means a wonderful given. It represents the vision that humans have seen the universe as made for us - we were expected. (Let that be the exact words of an atheist like Stuart A. Kauffman by the way, in his book Reinventing The Sacred...) Philosophically, that makes perfect sense to me - although you can of course disagree and propose another vision. But certainly can science not offer a substitute which would be satisfying for a majority of the people on earth. That will never happen.
There is a lot more to tall about in Genesis 1, but I think this is enough for the purpose I had in mind here. Genesis 1 in fact even reflects two different life cycles: one derives from the sun, the other from the moon. The Jewish year, just like ours, related to the sun, while the month relates to the moon. The moon reflects in a more human, vulnerable way the continuous renewal of life, with the waxing and waning of the moon - which also reflects the female (or menstrual) cycle. Moon period and female period have always traditionally been connected, and it also appears that in ancient times, when people lived without artificial light, women menstruated at the time of the new moon (also mentioned by Wikipedia). Jewish tradition (the Talmud) has elaborated quite some thoughts about these matters. To put it in short: the Genesis 1 account is certainly more life-oriented than science-oriented, and that makes perfect sense of course.
The low entropy emitting hot-spot called Sun
Trust was an implicit factor in Genesis 1: The sun was set out by God - so we can trust it (unlike the Maya's, who offered their children so that the sun would not stop giving life - and that... was only a few centuries ago...) The ancient Hebrews did not give the sun a god-status - they got rid of the sun god. Why? They understood that a real creator-god would necessarily be bigger than all created things - and clearly they considered the sun a created thing.
The sun fulfills our immediate needs of every day, without which we would not long survive - and also encourages all of us to encounter every new day as a new challenge, a new chance, a new opportunity to discover what the light might disclose. What's wrong with the Hebrews understanding this point?
From a scientific viewpoint however, we understand that the sun does not sustain life directly through the energy offered by the Sun, but indirectly by providing this energy in a low-entropy form. (Entropy is the measure of a system's energy that is unavailable for work, or, simply put, the degree of disorder in a system). Here is how the physicist Roger Penrose explains it:
The light from the sun brings energy to the earth in a comparatively low-entropy form, namely in the photons of visible light. The earth, including its inhabitants, does not retain this energy, but (after some while) re-radiates it all back into space. However, the re-radiated energy is in a high-entropy form, namely what is called 'radiant heat' - which means infra-red photons. Contrary to a common impression, the earth does not gain [net] energy from the sun! What the earth does is to take energy in low-entropy form, and then spew it all back again into space, but in a high-entropy form. What the sun has done for us is to supply us with a huge source of low entropy. We (via the plant's cleverness), make use of this, ultimately extracting some tiny part of this low entropy and converting it into the remarkable and intricately organized structures that are ourselves.
(Roger Penrose, 1989, The Emperor's New Mind, page 318, 319)
But does this invalidate the perception of the sun as "the great light" in Genesis, or the perception of the sun as an example of how God cares for people? How could it? Even Penrose agrees that "all this is made possible by the fact that the sun is a hot-spot in the sky." Anyway, the language of science is another language and it is hardly thinkable that science would 'falsify' religious or any other kind of human perception of our world, our universe.
When did this creation of the sun, moon and stars happen? Was it some 6,000 to 10,000 years ago? Not according to scientific evidence. But not according to Genesis 1 either. Many Christians today still do not realize that the only thing that allows a date to be put on Genesis 1 is the genealogy from Adam/Eve, then Cain/Able, Seth and so on. The total period until today is somewhere between 6000 and 10000 years. For some Christians, thinking beyond 6000 years is already one leap too far - yet any theologian can tell them that this period could be longer because of some clear gaps in the genealogy - generations have been jumped over here and there. (This was not considered strange in ancient times). And when we get to the issue of the age of the earth itself, things get only worse: All of a sudden we also had to believe in specific dates about the earth itself - even while, strictly speaking, Genesis 1 or any other chapter of the Bible does not even say a single word about that kind of dates. "In the beginning" has no date. Period.
Theistic Evolution?
The Bible seems to declare that God created all things 'from nothing'. It is not very explicit, but the verb employed in Genesis 1 - beriah - meaning "give being to something new" points in that direction - whereas in other instances the word yetzirah is used, implying that the entity was created from a pre-existing property. The Latin credo Creatio ex Nihilio (dating from the 2nd century I believe) is not in conflict with evolution theory. Stephen Hawking supported the Creatio ex Nihilio idea, be it without a Creator of course. If it is really your desire as a Christian to 'align' Genesis 1 with the scientific data, I would propose to read Genesis 1:1 as Creatio ex Nihilio. There is plenty of room for a Big Kind Of Bang here - the scientific view on it - and Genesis 1:2 leaves room for the expansion. Admitted: this is much like the 'gap theory' we talked about in our posting #7 - but I'm not the one asking for this kind of comparisons. I just argue that IF it is your desire to align the scientific data with Genesis 1, this is one of your options.
The approach we advance here may inevitably look like we are talking theistic evolution: the act of creation happened through evolution. Is this the only possible way of seeing it, once you leave the path of literalism?
I am more inclined towards the idea that Genesis 1 is speaking about creation in the sense of 'arranging' the solar system so that they would serve mankind exactly the way they do. This may have happened a long time ago (starting before the creation of mankind). It also has little to do with the Big Bang theory. I'm not at all in the "aligning science with Genesis" kind of business and I don't think there will ever be a conflict between the two. Any theory built up conform to solid scientific rules is a possibility. I may care much about it, or not at all, depending on my interests and how useful I consider certain things (e.g. I consider the billions that fund a "search for life" in the universe as a waste of monay - and just like atheists don't like to pay for anyting where religion is involved, Christians do not like to pay for such typical 'atheist' kind of beliefs). Not everything about science is relevant to everyone of course. I would prefer most money to go to medical science.
Beside all such theoretical reflections, we can see - through the eyes of the Hebrews, or through the eyes of a believer - a God who, at a certain point in time, while the Milky Way was still expanding so to speak, decided to prepare our 'nifty little place' (today called solar system), tuning it for the sake of mankind - an activity leaving no traces that science could explore of course.
From there, one can understand a couple of things, or try to make a picture of what really happened - but the very limited records of the Bible tell us almost nothing about how this majestic work of creation really should be understood. Science tells us a lot more about it - but just the technical side of it. Our solar system is part of a galaxy, the Milky Way. Galaxies are places where the expansion of the universe has locally been halted by the mutual gravitation of matter - that could somewhere have been a 'point of Divine decision-making' if you want. Feel free to use your imagination, because all of it is just awesome, marvelous. God is greater than his creation, but if his creation already has that beauty to reveal, our awe can only increase.
'Explaining' creation this way however remains speculative, although it is irresistible for Christian scientists of course. If they would make a theory out of it, that would be rather theology, not science. Explaining' creation is not belittling God's work of creation. Science 'discovers' realities behind the creation account - what's wrong with that? Whatever movement happened in the universe, for Christians it always bears the imprint of God's power and wisdom. With respect to this, theistic evolution seems to fit quite well. Although I prefer, as I've just been suggesting, to separate these things more rigidly: our galaxy has slowly stabilized through mutual gravitation. This must not necessarily fit somewhere in Genesis 1 because, as I keep insisting, Genesis 1 is not about describing scientific data.
Of course, at a certain point, God was creating in the sense of Genesis 1. As already noted, this could involve millions of 'years' (what does time mean if it only exists when something is getting created?) and also millions of decisions, considerations, actions, in order to 'tune' it all for a great plan God had in mind. In all of this, there is plenty of room for creation in the most rich sense one can think of. At that point, science does not even care, scientist should of course mind their scientific business, and Christian scientists together with other Christians will, of course, want to praise God for it. During scientific activities, Christian scientists will not sing Praise songs - but in their heart, they will feel the awe for the 'given' environment just like non-religious scientists, and this for them may often translate in thinking about an awesome God. There is nothing in that which would harm scientific activity.
Intelligent Dasein
We cannot possibly know what exactly God did, or how He did it. I might even say that I do not know exactly who God is - because God is too big to fit in my mind. I can only 'search' for Him, long for the One I expect to be there, I expect to Be. It is not really about Intelligent Design, it's about Intelligent Dasein (the German term used by Heidegger, derived from da-sein, literally being-there). When I read Genesis 1 with an open mind - which to me is the main reason why I will never be an atheist (the ceiling cannot be closed) - then I start to realize how right on track the Jewish people were: Genesis 1 is all about the preparation for a fantastic being: the human being. No science here, although one could suggest human science to be invented here. What the Jewish people told us about God and His creation is a thing of great beauty, and it is recorded in a document I can believe in - including allegory, poems, history (most of it), prophecy (that is: declarations about what is to come, what is to be expected), and many other styles, many different personalities, including big sinners who nevertheless became great kings who understood Gods wrath as well as Gods mercy. Human beings having written in human time about their experience with God. In all of this, I may sense that I can trust God with this. The light and the warmth from the sun become witnesses of this goodness of God.
Any scientist, (moderate) atheists included, can be amazed by the universe. They may not see, nor want to see, the God Beyond the Galaxies, the Holy One. But in the end, no one knows what is really going on in other people. Probably most so-called atheists believe in 'something' after all. And... many Christians may believe in a very, very small God after all, isn't it? One Who fits in our pocket, knee-bending in admiration of our strong literalistic reading of Genesis 1, proof of how 'perseverant' we are in faith... But here is a real test: how much love do you have for those who see things a little different?
Still, in the end I would see the broader picture: blessed are those ancient thinkers, who in essence already understood something about the real beauty of the universe, long before scientists looked in Deep Space. What we see there, ultimately, is what we are, because until these days, the only beings who are looking at all the beauty are these very human beings as they have so majestically been presented in Genesis 1.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy hands,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast made;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
(Psalm 8:3,4)
Some resources:
On evolution, remember that while evolution theories are a way to making sense of the data, explaining the facts in a consistent way, the principle of evolution is simply the sum of scientific data about our ancestry. Even without theory, or with just very primitive theory (basic classification of what we observe), this data shows clear patterns or what obviously looks like a slow development of life towards a figure we recognize as us, mankind, the human being. A believer who has an open mind and eye for it will observe that the human being in Genesis 1 is a surprisingly modern human being. Calling the scientific documentation of the traces of our diverse past evolution is not contradictory with Genesis 1. In science, evolution is the only way to accurately name the process. In theory formation, one cannot look at traces of human ancestry, and then bring in Genesis 1 and say: "God created these traces as we see them". That would be like looking at a car and saying: "God created this car at once" - no building up of all the individual pieces was necessary. This is not how science works of course. And we must respect that. It follows that a creation account is something different than science - but not any less true for that reason.
With this in mind, let us now look at Genesis 1, knowing that we should not treat the Bible as a scientific document.
What kind of story is Genesis 1?
The reading of Genesis 1 may impose a problem if you learned to read it as a literal report on how the creation actually happened, in stead of reading this as a report on more important aspects not covered by science.
As we have seen in our former blog posts, the Genesis 1 account reads like an allegory of some kind. Saying allegory is taking a shortcut, as Genesis 1 has also often been described as elevated prose, or a theological manifesto, and other descriptions. It is important however, to realize that allegory does not indicate it has no basis in reality. An allegory is not a fiction. Allegories always have a historical basis. Santa Claus is not an allegory. Most of the parables, a narrative style often used by Jesus, clearly had a historical basis. This was the way stories were often handed down in ancient times, for educational purpose. Still, there is history writing behind it in almost all cases (e.g. the naming of genealogy trees: those names were not just invented of course). You cannot exclude historical truth from an account just because the style of an ancient document was different from what we are used to. Accuracy may not always have been the prime purpose - for instance in Jewish genealogy trees we find gaps. That does not make the account untrue - it just makes it inaccurate on certain points (e.g. exact timing) from a modern viewpoint. The modern viewpoint does not allow unqualified judgments about ancient writings of course: all things must be judged against the background of the time of occurrence. So one may have to make corrections to get the timing right - but historians know how to do this. There's nothing that compares with a fantasy story here.
Genesis 1 is written in a narrative form, the so-called wayyiqtol form, let's say the imperfect tense, to keep it simple (actually, it is an imperfect aspect. From a narrative point of view, imperfect tense indicates that the narrator increases the reader's involvement with the story - he's invited to see things through the eyes of the narrator. The narrative form is of course chronologically determined by its very nature, and the basic form of Genesis 1 is a narrative, something that happened in history - be it not necessarily in a strict chronological order. This is also confirmed by the fact that the author was clearly familiar with the Egyptian Egyptian creation motifs in the Genesis creation account. The Egyptian motifs do not have explicit characteristics of historical events. The Genesis author in turn does not simply borrow from Egyptian mythology, but, as so often happens in the Biblical accounts, concepts from the neighborhood are used (hence adding the signs of historical embedding in the scriptures - always a strong point with regard to Biblical historicity) yet demythologize these concepts (or gods, monsters etc.) to form a polemic against these concepts, gods etc. Therefore, in Genesis 1 the one true God does not need other gods to create. So it is a narrative of some sort, but it is also a polemic, not just a strictly successive account.
Hebrew is a complex and flexible language, in many ways not inferior to modern languages. The imperfect (wayyiqtol) form may be "the backbone or storyline tense of Biblical Hebrew narrative discourse" (R.E. Longacre, Discourse Perspective on the Hebrew Verb, in Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew, 1992) but text-syntactic research of the Hebrew language has sufficiently demonstrated that it can also freeze this form in order to give background information in non-wayyiqtol form. John A. Cook for instance argues that "wayyiqtol is best understood as marking the most salient events in narrative, whether in the primary string of events or in flashback narration". Examples like Genesis 29:23-25a, 28-30a, Num 1:48 (and other ones, typically often used by anti-religious opponents to demonstrate the 'absurdity' of some account) illustrate what we know from our current understanding of the Hebrew (and also Arabic) languages. Temporal succession may be the default characteristic of narration, it is not limited to that. An author will usually mark an event as "out of sequence" by switching to another tense, and that happens in Genesis 1 several times. For instance in Genesis 1:5: "And He God called [=wayyiqtol form] the light Day, and the darkness He called [quatal form] night". The tense transition is used when the author does not want to express succession. We find this 3 times in Genesis 1. Even while these markers are not strictly necessary, it is remarkable that Genesis 1 has them. They may act like early warning signs for the reader.
Actually, one can always come with objections. But without an extensive apparatus of notes in the margin, written by the original author, there is room for interpretation, although interpretation must always be reasonable. Someone's doubts cannot simply block all "other options. Without digging deep into the whole problem of human interpretation, it is clear that we will have to respect that a literal / sequential reading of Genesis 1 is not the only option we have.
Some examples
Now Genesis 1 does deliver us clear indications for an "out of sequence" reading being valid. For instance, sequential reading of Genesis 1 would entail the assumption that the sun and the moon were created when the earth already existed (Gen.1:15) - something no one would believe today. Now let us be careful: at this point, Christians often tend to jump into instant defense mode, saying things like "Do you really think an almighty God could not have created the earth before the sun and the moon?" But this is not the point at stake here. A different, reasonable way of reading a text is not a matter of "unbelief" or whatever, it is just another legal reading of the text. Not Gods almightiness is at stake then, but the quest for the best possible reading of the text. Even in His almightiness God does of course not ask his audience to believe every possible product of our poor insights.
Another example. The word 'day' is used hundreds of times throughout the Bible and it seems like it always means a literal day. People argue: why then would it suddenly not mean a literal day in Genesis 1? However, even in English, where we also use the word day mostly as a 24-hours period, we also use the word differently when we say something like: "the day that we will be released from these worries!". We don't mean a day of 24 hours here, rather do we refer to a moment in time, and actually what we mean is a new period, beginning from a particular moment. Of course: it is still related to the idea of a day. This is also the case with creation days not taken for literal 24-hour days: each day in Genesis 1 clearly is a period of activity - which is what a day is. Actually, this is exactly the interpretation we already do even while we don't realize it (no one actually reads Genesis 1 completely literally). The Genesis account speaks of days and nights - we automatically interpret a creation day as the period of daylight, but no one will really assume that God needed daylight in order to create the sun, the moon etc. It really is that simple: you interpret the text, reading it non-literally, and you don't even realize it. This should make us realize that much of the fuss is a bit over the top. We shouldn't be so worried about "not taking Gods word serious" just because of that. What we really should try is to read a text like grown-ups. Differences will not cease to exist, but it is reasonable to understand and accept all good readings of a text.
First Cause
The first part of Genesis 1 is about the creation of the universe. This blog is not a Bible study, we just try to make some basic sense of this beautiful story. There is something simple, straightforward and long-sighted about Genesis 1 - for those who want to see it. There is a simple and powerful beauty in the first phrase of the Bible:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"
The old Hebrews wrote a story meant to capture a vision of earth, universe, mankind's place in it, our human sense of eternity, purpose, hope, the restoration of the world. But Genesis 1 starts with a 'reconnection' with the origin of 'us', humans. Think about the word religion (religio), which goes probably back to re-ligare, meaning "to reconnect". Reconnect to what exactly? In a way, religion is always about reconnecting to the First Cause of things, the reason why whe are here. The word reason may sound odd here, as religion nowadays is so often ridiculed as if it would be in contrast with reason - but reason is more than logic. The word refers to a process of thinking, and to cause (the reason for something). There's not just logic behind that, but a worldview as well - such as Christianism, or atheism. People who claim reason to lead to atheism, claim that "for a reason" - and this is not a logical deduction from anything proven by science, it is a worldview.
In science, it is often said that there is no need for a fist cause. In discussions at a much more 'populistic' level (on user forums etc) this is often repeated lie a tantra, not realizing that we are talking about mathematical concepts, theoretical probabililties - not simply about 'facts'. There is this overall trend, maybe more among atheists than other people, to reduce the entire world and the people on it to the size of their own brain. Ignoring the God-idea is one thing, but when people start to take the concepts of mathematicians and (astro)physics, then extend that with a rather simplistic atheist mindset, attached to the concept as a thing having neither rhyme nor reason, it really is not about a solid reasoning, but more like a worldview defended with some bells and whistles borrowed from the scientific lexicon. We do not know about great and wonderful things happening witout a cause. Even our freedom we enjoy is not founded upon a mathematical model, it has been founded somewhere in history, with signatures under a physical document and courageous entrepreneurs of the 'New World' having done all the hard work for us. In theory, the entire universe seems to fit under the skull. of a scientist or even those who popularize their language - and don't get me wrong: I love science both ways. But I don't like the mix of science and worldviews. This world exists outside the small realm of someone's brains. I exist, not under the skull of a scientist but at the outside, as a free man (and let's hope it endures).
While evolution explains a lot about "how things may have happened", it does not eliminate causes. No one can look back into history to observe 'no cause'. Science is talking in concepts, and ultimately, those concepts end up in axiom's where the logic becomes invisible, untouchable. Evidence in science is defined within the given framework of the scientific method that brings about this evidence - this is a fact and there's no way around unless people would change the definitions of science. Which means: the observations of science are a heuristic at best - they aren't truth. Religion on the other hand, and also philosophy, will accept, almost as an axiom, the presupposition that not all true things are observable. Whether or not you agree with religious concepts, the difference between faith and fact, no matter how important in science, falls to pieces when we talk about life in a broader, common sense (where it makes commonsense, not science).
In cosmology, it took a long time before the concept of the Big Bang was accepted by the way - and not among Christians but among scientists in general, and atheists at the forefront. Because the Big Bang implicated that there must have been a first cause. The name Big Bang bears witness of the contempt that many scientists originally felt for the idea of a world having a beginning. The Big Bang is a theory based on several observations: Olber's Paradox, Nucleosynthesis, CMBR (Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation), Redshift and some spectacular observations by the Hubble space telescope (Deep Field Survey). Redshift is probably the easiest to understand because it has an equivalent that we all know from real life. Redshift is in essence comparable with the Doppler effect - e.g. what we hear when the source of a sound - such as an ambulance - passes by and then moves away from us quickly. The observation of redshift in light from distant galaxies is commonly accepted as resulting from the expansion of the universe.
Stephen Hawking wrote: "So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator? (Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time; Bantam, 1988; p.140-141). We know that Mr. Hawking still believed in a theory-of-everything at that time. Later on, he openly admitted he had given up that hope. It still remains true that "so long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator". And, to be honest, what would you have expected, really? Science being capable to prove the universe to be without a beginning? Whatever you may expect from our expanding universe, the 'evidence' of such no-beginning will inevitably have been exploded in one way or another, long ago.
There is still nothing absurd about acknowledging that many sides of life and cosmos remain unexplained. Attempts to explain things without a First Cause is feasible at the hypothetical level, but every hypothesis is as weak as it's weakest arguments. Many theories end at a point where they are still very weak - and in certain cases, this weakness may never be overcome.
Christians of course believe that God was at the origin of this creation of heaven and earth. Non-religious people can simply see this as a kind of a philosophical axiom, and of course you should not subscribe to it unless you want to. But monotheism starts there, and the pros and cons of the proposition can always be discussed. The Book can be discussed - at least there's a document to be consulted. Those hostile to religion usually limit their use of this Book to bring about what they see as contradictions and nonsense of all kinds, and this labeling business may probably help them to self-support their worldview, but in a serious discussion I have never met an argument against Judeo-Christian monotheism which is really as convincing as people hope it is. I believe in discussion - reasonable discussion. The 'axiom' of creation for instance does not prevent Christians (most of them) from looking at the scientific investigations at this point - what the data is actually saying. Having done that, Christians would still be in awe of how great God is. The facts of science would still be real and good just the same. The Bible tells us that we are made of dust. Science basically tells us that we are made of stardust. Why would that be in conflict? Because atheists have thought so for about 150 years?
Creation of the planets (Gen.1:3-10)
Back to Genesis 1: what does 46.5 billion light years mean to us? That is the estimated size of the universe as of now. Attempts to make sense of such 'grotesque' time span (like Tony Darnell's Hubble Deep Field video) still cannot really make those numbers turn into a vivid reality for us. This universe is still expanding. The continuous expansion of the universe is the reason why it can be 46.5 billion light years in size even while the estimated age of the universe is 'only' some 13.5 or 13.7 billion years old and nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Already from a simplistic viewpoint, expansion from a central point would deliver 2x 13.5 = 27 billion light years in size, but it is more complex than that. The entire universe is much bigger than the observable one, as explained in inflationary cosmology. Inflation theory, introduced in the 1980s, offered explanations to resolve a number of discrepancies in the classical theory of expanding universe, and the theory now includes lengthened distances due to cosmic expansion.
We won't really dig into this matter here. The point I want to make is a simple one: science has it's own way of describing the reality, and does that with some splendor, and while it is based on on mathematics to a large extent, it still has elegance to it. Moreover, the real pictures from this universe are stunning - like these ones, taken by the Hubble space telescope. But it would be over the top, maybe even inhumane, to ignore that the beauty of these things would NOT have been understood at all by people in ancient times. Do we really think telescope eyes turned us into people of value? Our forefathers did not have the means to uncover all the beauty yet, but that doesn't mean they were stupid. Today, there are many atheists saying, under influence of 'scientific theory' (but rather read: atheism) that "We Are (the real) Gods". However, the Jews were probably the first people who started with the rationalization of our world, or the disenchantment of this world as Max Weber already understood so clearly - and they did it by claiming exactly the opposite: nothing in creation can be called God. It is the magna charta of monotheism that nature nor humans can be God(s). Therefore, everything can be investigated without shame - which is ONE of (not the only one) the strong impulses behind science and why the Western World is what it is today - and why the Chinese and others did not get there sooner.
Many of the great founders of modern science, such as Newton, or Kepler, were motivated by their religious views. That does not mean religion is necessary - it just means religion is not by definition an impediment in any way. Robert Jastrow makes the remark:
"The historian of science must be well aware that it is often the branches of science which seem to have the greatest theological impact that are most rapidly developed (astronomy at all times, geology in the late nineteenth century, physics in the twentieth century). Pascal, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Darwin, Pasteur, Kelvin, Lyell, Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Eddington, and Jeans were all involved in theology as well as science." (Jastrow, 1992, 2nd Ed., God and the Astronomers, p.119)
People like Dawkins, Harris and Dennett have argued that the kind of thing that Jastrow suggested, was the wrong approach. But Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, Harris focuses on neuroscience, Dennett mostly on evolutionary biology as well. These guys were already fundamentally on the wavelength of the natural sciences when they started their career as the New Radicals on the Block. It is very unlikely, from a calculus of probability point of view, that they will ever produce during their lifetime anything that makes much good sense on the subject of religion.
Genesis 1:3-10 does not speak about the 'universe' in any scientific way. It does not describe a 'solar system' for instance - although it certainly describes our sun and moon, and the stars (or 'lights'). That is what mankind could observe. It is presented in a grand way. Genesis does not say that the earth was at the center of the circling planets of our solar system - but the earth was of course the central place from which we knew we were living - and, look around, what a surprise: scientists today still won't (and cannot) deny that the earth is the center of our everyday experiences, of our life - even while math sallow them to reason as if they stand on some remote planet in another galaxy (where they have never been, and will never go).
When Christians (and others!) read Genesis 1 with joy and praise not strictly related to the otherwise scientific beauty of the universe, it may be because of the joy they find in the Creator. That goes far beyond the perspective of science of course. But does it contrast with science? Not that I know. If a God Beyond the Galaxies fills the hearts of believers, increase their hopes, their joy, their visions for the future, their longing for a better world, it normally does not require the denial of scientific observation at all, nor is it the subject of science - although the scientific means of observation may of course extend our observations beyond what our eyes can see, and increase some of this joy. But how would scientific theory about the universe ever replace the particular interest that mankind has had in these things, from a religious (and philosophical) viewpoint? For religions, the human being has always been central. Not so in science.
The ancient Hebrews started their story with the idea of a creation account with the human being central to it - which is by all means a wonderful given. It represents the vision that humans have seen the universe as made for us - we were expected. (Let that be the exact words of an atheist like Stuart A. Kauffman by the way, in his book Reinventing The Sacred...) Philosophically, that makes perfect sense to me - although you can of course disagree and propose another vision. But certainly can science not offer a substitute which would be satisfying for a majority of the people on earth. That will never happen.
There is a lot more to tall about in Genesis 1, but I think this is enough for the purpose I had in mind here. Genesis 1 in fact even reflects two different life cycles: one derives from the sun, the other from the moon. The Jewish year, just like ours, related to the sun, while the month relates to the moon. The moon reflects in a more human, vulnerable way the continuous renewal of life, with the waxing and waning of the moon - which also reflects the female (or menstrual) cycle. Moon period and female period have always traditionally been connected, and it also appears that in ancient times, when people lived without artificial light, women menstruated at the time of the new moon (also mentioned by Wikipedia). Jewish tradition (the Talmud) has elaborated quite some thoughts about these matters. To put it in short: the Genesis 1 account is certainly more life-oriented than science-oriented, and that makes perfect sense of course.
The low entropy emitting hot-spot called Sun
Trust was an implicit factor in Genesis 1: The sun was set out by God - so we can trust it (unlike the Maya's, who offered their children so that the sun would not stop giving life - and that... was only a few centuries ago...) The ancient Hebrews did not give the sun a god-status - they got rid of the sun god. Why? They understood that a real creator-god would necessarily be bigger than all created things - and clearly they considered the sun a created thing.
The sun fulfills our immediate needs of every day, without which we would not long survive - and also encourages all of us to encounter every new day as a new challenge, a new chance, a new opportunity to discover what the light might disclose. What's wrong with the Hebrews understanding this point?
From a scientific viewpoint however, we understand that the sun does not sustain life directly through the energy offered by the Sun, but indirectly by providing this energy in a low-entropy form. (Entropy is the measure of a system's energy that is unavailable for work, or, simply put, the degree of disorder in a system). Here is how the physicist Roger Penrose explains it:
The light from the sun brings energy to the earth in a comparatively low-entropy form, namely in the photons of visible light. The earth, including its inhabitants, does not retain this energy, but (after some while) re-radiates it all back into space. However, the re-radiated energy is in a high-entropy form, namely what is called 'radiant heat' - which means infra-red photons. Contrary to a common impression, the earth does not gain [net] energy from the sun! What the earth does is to take energy in low-entropy form, and then spew it all back again into space, but in a high-entropy form. What the sun has done for us is to supply us with a huge source of low entropy. We (via the plant's cleverness), make use of this, ultimately extracting some tiny part of this low entropy and converting it into the remarkable and intricately organized structures that are ourselves.
(Roger Penrose, 1989, The Emperor's New Mind, page 318, 319)
But does this invalidate the perception of the sun as "the great light" in Genesis, or the perception of the sun as an example of how God cares for people? How could it? Even Penrose agrees that "all this is made possible by the fact that the sun is a hot-spot in the sky." Anyway, the language of science is another language and it is hardly thinkable that science would 'falsify' religious or any other kind of human perception of our world, our universe.
When did this creation of the sun, moon and stars happen? Was it some 6,000 to 10,000 years ago? Not according to scientific evidence. But not according to Genesis 1 either. Many Christians today still do not realize that the only thing that allows a date to be put on Genesis 1 is the genealogy from Adam/Eve, then Cain/Able, Seth and so on. The total period until today is somewhere between 6000 and 10000 years. For some Christians, thinking beyond 6000 years is already one leap too far - yet any theologian can tell them that this period could be longer because of some clear gaps in the genealogy - generations have been jumped over here and there. (This was not considered strange in ancient times). And when we get to the issue of the age of the earth itself, things get only worse: All of a sudden we also had to believe in specific dates about the earth itself - even while, strictly speaking, Genesis 1 or any other chapter of the Bible does not even say a single word about that kind of dates. "In the beginning" has no date. Period.
Theistic Evolution?
The Bible seems to declare that God created all things 'from nothing'. It is not very explicit, but the verb employed in Genesis 1 - beriah - meaning "give being to something new" points in that direction - whereas in other instances the word yetzirah is used, implying that the entity was created from a pre-existing property. The Latin credo Creatio ex Nihilio (dating from the 2nd century I believe) is not in conflict with evolution theory. Stephen Hawking supported the Creatio ex Nihilio idea, be it without a Creator of course. If it is really your desire as a Christian to 'align' Genesis 1 with the scientific data, I would propose to read Genesis 1:1 as Creatio ex Nihilio. There is plenty of room for a Big Kind Of Bang here - the scientific view on it - and Genesis 1:2 leaves room for the expansion. Admitted: this is much like the 'gap theory' we talked about in our posting #7 - but I'm not the one asking for this kind of comparisons. I just argue that IF it is your desire to align the scientific data with Genesis 1, this is one of your options.
The approach we advance here may inevitably look like we are talking theistic evolution: the act of creation happened through evolution. Is this the only possible way of seeing it, once you leave the path of literalism?
I am more inclined towards the idea that Genesis 1 is speaking about creation in the sense of 'arranging' the solar system so that they would serve mankind exactly the way they do. This may have happened a long time ago (starting before the creation of mankind). It also has little to do with the Big Bang theory. I'm not at all in the "aligning science with Genesis" kind of business and I don't think there will ever be a conflict between the two. Any theory built up conform to solid scientific rules is a possibility. I may care much about it, or not at all, depending on my interests and how useful I consider certain things (e.g. I consider the billions that fund a "search for life" in the universe as a waste of monay - and just like atheists don't like to pay for anyting where religion is involved, Christians do not like to pay for such typical 'atheist' kind of beliefs). Not everything about science is relevant to everyone of course. I would prefer most money to go to medical science.
Beside all such theoretical reflections, we can see - through the eyes of the Hebrews, or through the eyes of a believer - a God who, at a certain point in time, while the Milky Way was still expanding so to speak, decided to prepare our 'nifty little place' (today called solar system), tuning it for the sake of mankind - an activity leaving no traces that science could explore of course.
From there, one can understand a couple of things, or try to make a picture of what really happened - but the very limited records of the Bible tell us almost nothing about how this majestic work of creation really should be understood. Science tells us a lot more about it - but just the technical side of it. Our solar system is part of a galaxy, the Milky Way. Galaxies are places where the expansion of the universe has locally been halted by the mutual gravitation of matter - that could somewhere have been a 'point of Divine decision-making' if you want. Feel free to use your imagination, because all of it is just awesome, marvelous. God is greater than his creation, but if his creation already has that beauty to reveal, our awe can only increase.
'Explaining' creation this way however remains speculative, although it is irresistible for Christian scientists of course. If they would make a theory out of it, that would be rather theology, not science. Explaining' creation is not belittling God's work of creation. Science 'discovers' realities behind the creation account - what's wrong with that? Whatever movement happened in the universe, for Christians it always bears the imprint of God's power and wisdom. With respect to this, theistic evolution seems to fit quite well. Although I prefer, as I've just been suggesting, to separate these things more rigidly: our galaxy has slowly stabilized through mutual gravitation. This must not necessarily fit somewhere in Genesis 1 because, as I keep insisting, Genesis 1 is not about describing scientific data.
Of course, at a certain point, God was creating in the sense of Genesis 1. As already noted, this could involve millions of 'years' (what does time mean if it only exists when something is getting created?) and also millions of decisions, considerations, actions, in order to 'tune' it all for a great plan God had in mind. In all of this, there is plenty of room for creation in the most rich sense one can think of. At that point, science does not even care, scientist should of course mind their scientific business, and Christian scientists together with other Christians will, of course, want to praise God for it. During scientific activities, Christian scientists will not sing Praise songs - but in their heart, they will feel the awe for the 'given' environment just like non-religious scientists, and this for them may often translate in thinking about an awesome God. There is nothing in that which would harm scientific activity.
Intelligent Dasein
We cannot possibly know what exactly God did, or how He did it. I might even say that I do not know exactly who God is - because God is too big to fit in my mind. I can only 'search' for Him, long for the One I expect to be there, I expect to Be. It is not really about Intelligent Design, it's about Intelligent Dasein (the German term used by Heidegger, derived from da-sein, literally being-there). When I read Genesis 1 with an open mind - which to me is the main reason why I will never be an atheist (the ceiling cannot be closed) - then I start to realize how right on track the Jewish people were: Genesis 1 is all about the preparation for a fantastic being: the human being. No science here, although one could suggest human science to be invented here. What the Jewish people told us about God and His creation is a thing of great beauty, and it is recorded in a document I can believe in - including allegory, poems, history (most of it), prophecy (that is: declarations about what is to come, what is to be expected), and many other styles, many different personalities, including big sinners who nevertheless became great kings who understood Gods wrath as well as Gods mercy. Human beings having written in human time about their experience with God. In all of this, I may sense that I can trust God with this. The light and the warmth from the sun become witnesses of this goodness of God.
Any scientist, (moderate) atheists included, can be amazed by the universe. They may not see, nor want to see, the God Beyond the Galaxies, the Holy One. But in the end, no one knows what is really going on in other people. Probably most so-called atheists believe in 'something' after all. And... many Christians may believe in a very, very small God after all, isn't it? One Who fits in our pocket, knee-bending in admiration of our strong literalistic reading of Genesis 1, proof of how 'perseverant' we are in faith... But here is a real test: how much love do you have for those who see things a little different?
Still, in the end I would see the broader picture: blessed are those ancient thinkers, who in essence already understood something about the real beauty of the universe, long before scientists looked in Deep Space. What we see there, ultimately, is what we are, because until these days, the only beings who are looking at all the beauty are these very human beings as they have so majestically been presented in Genesis 1.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy hands,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast made;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
(Psalm 8:3,4)
Some resources:
- God vs. Science, 2006, F. Collins vs. R. Dawkins
- Conversation with a molecular Biologist, 2005
- Viva la evolution, 2008, Denis Alexander
- Book: Creation or Evolution - do we have to choose? by Denis Alexander
- Book: The Dawkins Delusion, by Alister McGrath
- Book: God and the Astronomers, by Robert Jastrow (died in 1982; astronomer, physicist, cosmologist. space pioneer and science legend, co-founded and headed NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies)
- Book: Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science, by John F. Haught
- Hubblesite gallery